The Not So Blind Watchmaker

When it comes to evolution and ecology, it is considered to be more theoretical and logical than the rest of biology, especially for non-biologists. I have few friends who are purely mathematics people. Those who hate biology. Yet they admire the topics of evolution and ecology.

Unlike other articles that I have written, this article will not be any explanation or answer to a question or phenomenon. Instead, this one is going to be a set of questions. The questions that sprung up to me in the conversation that I had with a friend, who happens to be a Math major.

What Is Life?

If locomotion is a feature of life, why is a rock moving downhill not classified as living? To a biologist, this would be a very trivial question. As trivial as axioms are to a mathematician. The simple answer to this question is that just locomotion is not enough, and there needs to be other characteristics of life present in an object to classify it as living. One of the most complex of those characteristics is metabolism. But metabolism, when extra-simplified, is just a set of chemical reactions. Even rock hosts a diverse set of chemical reactions.

But just metabolism and locomotion won’t be enough. What about other characteristics? Consciousness? Heredity? Growth and Development? Adaptation? Cellularity?

If we try, we can apply all this to a rock. Rocks can accumulate and grow into a mountain. They develop through the rock cycle. They can adapt to changing environments through the processes of weathering, erosion, biological activity, etc.

Three things seem tricky to apply: Consciousness, Heredity and Cellularity. Let’s tackle consciousness first. Consciousness is a very vague term. Many would argue that consciousness requires a nervous system. However, primitive and simple life forms do not have nervous systems. Does that mean that they are not conscious and, hence not living?

A better thing that qualifies more to the list of characteristics of life than consciousness is “the ability to respond to external stimuli”. Everything living responds to external stimuli. But so does the rock. If you push it, it will move. Although, just moving upon a push is not truly a response. It's just environmental factors (you) pushing it, and the rock is not moving by its own choice. But, the primitive life forms, just like rocks, hardly have a choice. Their responses are also controlled by environmental factors. Of course, the response they generate is far more complex than a rock moving. But still, in a way, it's the environment that decides the response. Just like in the case of rock, the environment (you) decides to move it.

But Is Rock Cellular?

There it is. The first characteristic of life that we can not apply to the rocks. However, we can not apply this characteristic to viruses. Hence, even viruses remain controversial. The tiny microscopic element, Coronavirus, that took millions of lives, does not have a life of its own. And then came one of the best questions that sprung to my friend and me in that conversation. Why did evolution choose to make life organic - made up of Carbon? (Well, a core evolutionary biologist might argue that evolution itself is not conscious, lacks decision-making abilities and hence can not choose a particular trait, but I’ll use the word ‘choose’ here to keep things simple).

Again, to a biologist, and especially to a biochemist, this question will be very trivial. The simple answer that you can expect from them is that carbon qualifies as the best building block of life. They will cite the chemical properties of carbon and its abundance in nature. But if I ask you to choose the best statement from the following two, which one will you choose?

1. Carbon is the most suitable element for making living organisms

2. Carbon is the most suitable element for making organic living organisms.

I am not answering the question. As mentioned earlier in this article, I am here just to ask questions. I am not qualified to answer any. And here comes another question:

In future, let's say eons later when the entire environment is different. Toxic and polluted. With sky pouring acid continuously. Acid that can burn skin and shells alike. Imagine an environment where nothing organic can survive. If evolution is capable of creating life forms that are livable in the environment that we have today, will it be possible for evolution to - if it had eons - develop a life form that can survive this drastic condition?

I’ll take an attempt at this question. You might call me a hypocrite. I promised only to ask, and here I am attempting to answer. But trust me, through an attempt to answer this question, I’m just setting the stage for yet another question. Here is my answer:

Let’s analyse the environment which we are talking about. An environment where nothing organic can survive. So, it is clear that if evolution, in any way, gives rise to a life form capable of surviving in our imaginary environment, it must be non-organic. That’s my answer. Evolution can give rise to a life form capable of surviving in such a harsh environment, but it will be an inorganic life form. And here comes the question that I said I am setting the stage for through my answer:

Is evolution limited to Carbon?

This is exactly something that my friend asked. And here I ask something similar:

If evolution can - in future - build non-organic life forms, has it not done the same already? Isn’t the rock - capable of responding to environmental stimuli and having characteristic features of growth, development, and adaptation but not cellularity - a non-cellular inorganic form of life?

Let’s Forget The Rock

We didn’t apply one characteristic of Life to Rock. That is the characteristic of Heredity. The properties of rock might be heritable to the sand it is weathered into. The sand might, after centuries, give rise to a new rock with similar properties. So, does rock have the property of heredity?

Let us leave the rock. Instead, let me ask another question:

Is evolution already moving life in the direction of inorganic life forms?

The most famous evolutionary biologist that mankind currently has - Richard Dawkins, along with a major proportion of evolutionary biologists, has a very gene-centric view. They consider the body to be just a survival machine built to safeguard genes. These genes use survival machines and the process of heredity to ferry from one generation to another and keep existing in time.

What is a gene? This question is not as trivial as what life is or why life is made up of carbon. The molecular biologists and biochemists are still debating this topic. However, for an evolutionary biologist, one who does not bother much about the mechanistic aspect, this question would be more trivial than the rest of the biological community. For them, genes are simply information. Heredity is the process of transferring this information from one generation to another. Heredity is required to preserve the information. Otherwise, it will be lost. And here comes another question.

Why will the information be lost if not transmitted to the next generation?

What an absurd - not just trivial - question I asked. Information will be lost because the organic body can not survive indefinitely to protect the information. Even if it does survive, the other organic body, which is more powerful, will kill the previous one. I am trying to point to the predator and prey thing.

Isn’t it that the biggest flaw is that the body is organic? The organic body needs resources to grow and survive. The resources in the environment are limited. On the other hand, the information (or the gene) is not one but indefinite. Hence, there is not one type of organic body but different types carrying different sets of information. By these different types of organic bodies, I want to refer to different types of species. These species compete for the resources that are limited. The goal is to survive this competition enough to pass the information. Make a new - more competitive organic body - that can better compete and protect the information. Before this new organic body gets old and weak, it procreates - again, another new organic body to better compete and hence better protect the information, and the cycle goes on and on. Note that I might be wrong. These all are my interpretation. I deliberately started this paragraph with a question. Remember, I am here to ask. Not to answer.

So, if I am right, this entire conundrum is about passing the information. And everyone is very selfish about it. All species - from bacteria to elephants - want to pass their own information. Or the information is making all the species want to pass the information from one generation to the other and ensure that the information exists in time. It is not destroyed. However, this selfishness does not operate at the level of species. It operates at the level of the individual.

While studying behavioural ecology, the course that I am taking this semester, we came across the phenomenon of infanticide. When a new adult lion takes over the pride, it most often kills the cub, which is not related to him. Ecologists say that the lion does so because he does not want to waste energy on the cub that carries the gene (information) that is not his. Also, the females will not be fertile while nursing the cubs. Hence, killing the cub makes the female fertile, and the lion can mate and pass on his own information. Molecular biologists, the ones who look for mechanistic causes, have pointed out the anti-parental circuits in the brain as the reason behind this infanticide.

Basically, the lion is not smart enough to know that it needs to transfer the information. It performs infanticide because there is some circuit in the brain making him do that. The circuit was built due to a set of instructions present in the future-brain region of the embryo. This set of instructions was actually information that was transferred from Lion's parents. And this is the information that the lion will transfer to its cub.

And don’t you think that humans are in any way different from others? The only thing that I want to ask over here is that we humans are conscious. Any person with a black suit, sitting in an office, ordering to pound bombs in a distant land, invade a foreign country, slaughter the infants of their own species - is conscious of their actions. How does consciousness play a role in this? Did consciousness, the super intellect that we possess, in any way make us different from other species out there?

If not, why am I writing this article? The ultimate goal is to survive, protect, and transmit the information to the new generation. So, why am I wasting time writing this article? Why are you wasting time reading this article? Why is anybody wasting any time doing anything they are doing rather than procreating?

Isn’t it because we all are an organic form of life? This organic body that we possess needs food and water to survive. Other species need to forage these resources. And we are also just foraging these resources. The only thing is that our foraging system is too complex - involving money and power, career and degree, etc. Again, deliberately started the paragraph with a question. I am too novice to answer. And here comes another paragraph starting with a question.

Now that we humans are intellectual enough to understand that this entire system of society, struggles, civilisation, endless pursuit of money and even happiness is just a bogus scam to make us procreate and transfer the information, why do we still do this?

Is it that the information/gene has possessed us? Is it that evolution bestowed us with consciousness and, hence, probably a better ability to survive (fitter) but, at the same time, to not let our consciousness find a way to escape this endless loop - evolution created emotions, desires, hunger, and all that it could, to trap us in this endless loop.

All of this might be discarded and certified absurd by giving just one argument: Evolution does not think. It just does. There is no choice involved and no goal set by evolution. It is just that the variations are being produced, and the best variations are being selected.

Before certifying the questions absurd, do remember that I mentioned at the start that I am assuming that evolution is making a choice to keep things simple in this article. You can still apply the same questions considering the fact that evolution does not think, and you’ll still find the questions valid (Or absurd if either the reader or the writer is stupid). I’ll leave this to the readers to find out if I am talking absurdly or not (If I am, I apologise for wasting your time. But do read the next section to find how much more absurd I can be).

The Not So Blind Watchmaker

Let’s get back to the environment that we imagined. The ruthless environment in which no organic life form can survive. Perhaps we are headed to an environment like that. Will evolution be able to catch up?

An environment like that, as I mentioned (or as per the constraint set by our imagination), requires the life forms to be inorganic. But from the first cell to the one that just took birth in your body, all are organic. How will the tree of life, composed of only organic life forms, give rise to a completely inorganic form of life?

Perhaps the organic form of life was the only thing capable of securing the information (genes) in the environment that has persisted on the planet till now.  But if the upcoming environment is unsuitable for an organic life form, how will the evolution transition the life to an inorganic form?

Many free thinkers - who are not much bound by scientific constraints or possibilities - happen to imagine AI taking over mankind. There are numerous examples of movies and novels on humanoid robots that are far more intelligent and who gradually take over human society. In our imaginary ruthless environment, these imaginary rigid robots with super intellect can only survive. But we are the ones who’ll create them if we do.

Probably, I have reached an extreme level of absurdity at this point. But bare with me for a few more paragraphs, and you might find out that….there is still some absurdity left in me.

If the entire thing is about securing and transmitting information, any computer can do it better than us. Make a metallic robot and bestow it with artificial intelligence. This metallic crap with AI will be able to survive our imaginary environment. But, will it be able to procreate?

To answer the last question, I’ll tell you about Stuxnet - the cyberweapon that the US created with the help of Israel to damage the Iranian Nuclear Program. Stuxnet, like gene, is just a piece of information (literally). It's just a few lines of code - instructions - that tells a system what to do. It was planted by the US in Iran and it gradually spread in the entire country. Through some flash drives, it somehow made its way to the nuclear facility. After getting into one of the systems, it mass-replicated itself and got self-installed into various computers in the system, gradually reaching the systems controlling centrifuges. Through minor perturbations, Stuxnet reportedly destroyed about one-fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. Remember, Stuxnet can procreate itself.

Flash Drives - Survival Machine? Stuxnet Codes - Genes?

William Paley argued in 1802 that since the design of a watch is very complex, it must not have sprung out spontaneously and there must have been some watchmaker - hence, the complex life on the planet should also have a divine creator. Dawkins replied back in 1986 that the watchmaker is not divine but blind - it is natural selection. But, if AI like Stuxnet are the future life forms - there watchmakers (us) are not blind. Or are we their watchmakers? Are we just puppets in the hands of natural selection and evolution that are making us create these life forms?

Just to ask questions. Absurd questions. Won’t answer any.