What makes you alive, what is consciousness and why life wants to survive?
Let’s work on some amazing questions like, what is the origin of the will to survive, what makes you conscious, what is consciousness, and can we program a cell?
1. Why do we do what we do?
Because there is always a why. For example, when you walk, you walk to reach a destination or maybe just to warmup, whatever be the reason, there is one.
We are a purpose-driven civilization, we have reasons for everything we do. Including all the activities like reading, walking, talking, or even when you’re just bored and wandering around for no reason, you are usually seeking pleasure or something to do. One of the things we do most is Talk, a lot, but why do we do that? When we talk, we understand the meaning of the words we are saying, we understand the feeling associated with them. We talk in different tones to express different feelings and expressions. Sad, angry, happy, pity, etc. We get what the other person is saying, we feel sad by hearing some set of words in a particular tone and happy with some other set of words.
But what makes us feel those words? Although the response to the good or bad news is based on human perception and understanding which constructs and reinforces our neurological pathways. For example, if we’ve always celebrated the death, today we would be happily celebrating if someone has died. It’s all an illusion and a product of evolution. Although it’s an illusion, the experience is real and necessary.
But is it all about the feeling associated with the words that make us understand the meaning of raw words? Because normally in our social and professional life we communicate without emotion, we just casually talk. So, there may not always be a feeling but there is always a porous associated with why we talk. Communication helps us interact with each other, so there could be many reasons behind a conversation, but it’s one of the tools that help us live an easy life. And just like communication, all other tools from money to governments and organizations everything is there to make human life easier.
So, the fundamental reason of all why we do what we do is to live a good life — Survival. It’s coded in our genes, our genetical instincts make us want to survive. And to survive life, we seek the tools that help us get through life easily like financial and medical security, good living, and the environment we could thrive in. And to achieve those things, we study, work, earn money, and do all sorts of things. People have different priorities, some want a happy life, a good living, some want fame, some seek achievements, or maybe just eat and sleep. But they all have a purpose. Those who don’t want to survive- die. Also, in our day-to-day life, we don’t always think about life and death, survival is an indirect cause.
2. Why do we want to survive?
Because death is unavoidable
- Is it consciousness? If every living organism has consciousness, then maybe. Else not necessarily true, because trees and microbes may not have consciousness but they do want to survive.
- Is it Evolution? Quite opposite. Evolution happened because early life wanted to survive, and not the otherwise.
We know evolution started with simple cells, and since early life wanted to survive it mutated according to the environment around it. It adapted better ways to collect resources and reproduce. Cells formed groups, because groups have greater chance of survival, and food collection is also efficient, thus making single cellular organisms, multicellular. Later cells divided their work into different groups, and organs formed (Immune system, digestive system, etc.); with it, a body came into existence. Different cells and microbes evolved differently according to the different environmental conditions leading to many different species. The will to survive of living organisms brought natural selection, and the entire evolution happened to date. If cells didn’t have had that will to survive, they wouldn’t have survived; life would not be in existence as we know it. Every living organism wants to survive and be in existence. Some trees are unnecessarily tall because they’ve been competing for sunlight with each other. We’ve adopted the principle of least effort because it saves energy, our laziness makes us find more efficient ways.
Many of us accept the fact that we are going to die one day. And almost all of us don’t want to die, that’s why we take care of our body and its health. Everything from the healthcare system to government policies, all of it is there to ensure a good human living. But again, why do we want to survive at all? Because our genes want to, and our body is mortal.
If we were immortal, social norms like parenting, love, and lust wouldn’t have existed. But since we are mortal, we are not keeping the species alive. So, to ensure the existence of our species we must reproduce. And to motivate us to reproduce there is love, lust, and need of a partner. And to ensure that the offspring survive there is parenting and love for children in general. The younger a child is, the less likely is it that you would hate or hurt it, because kids are stupid (not smart and strong like adults), so without the protection and supervision of adults they might die, putting the next generation (the species) in danger of extinction. That’s why parenting feels good, sex is pleasurable, and that’s why there is that urge to have kids. Our reward system encourages us to do things that have positive impacts on us or the species, and the anti-reward system discourages us to do things that harm us or the species.
So, if we were immortal or very long living, reproducing would only increase the number or replacement level fertility would be very high, respectively, thus putting strain on resources and leading the species to the danger of extinction. Which would lead to evolution where you are incapable of or discouraged to reproduce. Thus, no lust, no love, and no urge to have kids.
The world population has increased from 1 billion in 1800 to 8 billion today, an increase of 800%-the population bomb. Which led us to take necessary measures to control the population, the high demand for resources was driving up inflation. And the rule of inflation also applies to the value of life, high population means less value of an average human.
And now we are concerned about the replacement rate. Take the decrease in fertility rate for example, the reasons being lower child mortality and the increased cost of raising children.
We might feel like our feelings are fake and the genes define our collective actions and goals, but we are those evolved genes.
And when we trace back the will to survive it goes back to the origin of life.
3. What makes us a living-thing?
Is it consciousness, because it appears to us that even cells are conscious -to some extent. Or is it the will to survive which might have caused the evolution and the natural selection, or it’s none of them.
The origin of the will to survive is traced back to the first cells: the origin of life. And that’s it. No one knows why life wanted and want to survive. But we are aware that we want to survive because we can create conscious thoughts. Other animals may not know that they want to survive, but they do.
There are many different theories about the origin of life, and in all those theories life either started on earth or came from outer space. For example, abiogenesis and panspermia.
Abiogenesis is about how so many different chemical reactions of non-living organic molecules gave rise to living entities. Which is not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing complexity. “Any successful theory of abiogenesis must explain the origins and interactions of the classes of molecules of lipids, carbohydrate, Amino acids, and nucleic acids”.
Panspermia basically says that life came from outer space and evolved on earth.
Does consciousness make us alive?
Are we born conscious, or do we learn to become conscious, and what’s the relationship between being a living thing and being conscious? Let’s start with, how are we able to create conscious thoughts. Consider a fully formed baby in a womb, its brain has all the abilities of an adult human brain (the ability to persist adult level consciousness) but it’s empty, it has no information in it, that’s why when a human baby is born, it does not understand any language, it doesn’t know what’s death and what’s being alive, and it does not create conscious thoughts. But over time it collects information and learns to use the tool built by humans like language and money.
So, what changes over time? The brain gains information. Our ability to make sense of and use information (our intelligence/Higher consciousness) is what differentiates us from other life on earth. We can choose to make uncomfortable choices despite our genetic traits, like not choosing to do mating, parenting, eating, working, or choosing to suicide. But other animals don’t have those privileges, they don’t suicide, they’ll do everything to survive. Although many other animals too collect and store some information, their brain is just not evolved enough.
So, is it the knowledge that makes us conscious because the system to hold knowledge already exists in a baby? Although babies do have some sort of awareness of their physical existence, they know what’s their body and what isn’t, but without the realization that they know it. We are born with the ability to persist the high-level consciousness and we achieve it with information — “You cannot think unless you know what to think about.”
Is it the information or the ability to hold and makes sense of that information that make us conscious? Both are interdependent like fuel and engine, but how the engine came into existence? And if it is about the information then, who holds more information about our body, our Brain or our Genes? Of course, our genes. Because we are born with an empty brain, it gains information over time, but the genes hold all the genetical information like the evolutionary history, the structure and function of all our body parts including that of our brain’s (the engine).
A brief explanation of cellular intelligence:
Cells can cognitively read their environment, analyze the received information and then execute the necessary action to continue their survival. This coordinated cell action is known as cell signaling, which substantiates the possibility that the cell too has a mind. Living cells regulate practically every cell function, including DNA synthesis, RNA synthesis, protein synthesis, cell division, cell differentiation, morphogenesis, and neuroendocrine regulation. Cells cognitively monitor different cellular processes and if there is either a mistake or a damage, a cell can detect the problem. A cell activates a checkpoint and stops the entire cycle until all has been set accurately to further advance the cycle. Cells execute programmed cell death where they perform suicide by following an organized cascade of events. Cells of multicellular organism use various cell receptors for various functions. To coordinate the functions in cell communities, they use the integration-receptors which respond to information signals. In different environments, using intercellular signaling molecules cells can select and execute various essential actions. Identity receptors are also known as self-receptors, or histocompatibility-receptors, and they help the cells to have individual and collective identity. Therefore, they help the cellular communities to collectively respond to a central command — and are used by the immune system in multicellular organisms to discriminate the self from the invader.
It seems that cells do have some consciousness, they can distinguish between themselves and other bodies. And if cells are conscious -to some level, then practically every living thing is conscious. So, consciousness is maybe what makes a thing alive. But there is a very big bias of human perception- we tend to anthropomorphize everything. Just because it seems conscious, doesn’t mean it is. For example, you can program a robot to charge itself, do given tasks, and earn robotic parts, then assemble them to create another robot to help with the tasks. This cycle will lead to a big robotic community, very similar to what cells do. And these robots appear to be acting conscious, but are they? However, in case of robots, we are sure they are not conscious because we built them, but we didn’t build life.
It’s all debatable. But, what about plants and trees? Based on their evolutionary adaptions we can defiantly say that they do have the will to survive, but what about consciousness. Plants are amazing, they have extraordinary defense mechanisms mostly chemicals against bacteria, fungi, herbivores, and humans. Some plants can even move but there is not enough evidence to suggest that plants have consciousness.
So for now, let’s consider that plants do not have consciousness, they are a great example of biological bots. But what about plant cells? We are conscious and we come in the category of animals. Plants and animals both are living things, their fundamental difference is their cells, which are mostly the same. So, for simplification, it doesn’t matter if plants are conscious or not if their cells are fundamentally the same as animal cells.
We don’t know if cellular consciousness is real or not, but cells are indeed alive. Plant and animal genes maybe are different but they both have it, which is just information, coded in form of DNA. But how can some information make life?
“Is it about being alive or knowing that you are alive. If you don’t know you are alive, then are you alive?”
What is conscious:
What part of me is conscious? Is my heart or liver conscious? No.
What are they? My organs, they do predefined tasks.
Am I conscious? Yes.
Is my brain individually conscious? We don’t know, but it gives me the ability to persist conscious thoughts.
Is an individual cell conscious? To some extent, it appears to be.
What part of a cell makes it conscious? We don’t know. But the fundamental purpose of the nucleus and brain seems similar.
So, is the answer in our brain? It seems so because the rest of the body does the work of keeping you alive, only the brain allows you to recognize that.
Does consciousness have any physical existence? Maybe not.
Is it the information in our genes that makes us conscious, Or information is consciousness? Our genes contain information about everything in our body, including our ability to persist the consciousness we have. So we could say that information is consciousness, but it seems far-fetched. Because, if it is about the information then anything with the ability to make sense and use that information should be conscious, which is ironically true in the case of humans, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is true for everything.
Fact check: We know every living thing has the will to survive, but we don’t know if they all have self-awareness.
Let’s consider that all cells had and have self-awareness. Then, who came first, self-awareness or the will to survive? Or none of them are real in cells. And is there a relationship between being self-aware and having the will to survive? If so, does self-awareness makes the one want to survive, or does the will to survive causes it to be self-aware?
To have the will to survive it (living-thing) must know what to protect, it must know what itself is. So, it can be said that the will to survive caused it to gain self-awareness. However, the opposite is also possible, being aware of itself made it protect itself, thus initiating the will to survive. Whichever came first, how did it come into existence? The answer lies in the answer of origin of life, unfortunately, survival instincts are not a popular consideration when searching for the origin of life.
Is it possible that self-awareness in cells is a mere illusion?
It is, because cells may not need self-awareness, just the control over the body is enough. Cellular consciousness is knowing what itself is and what isn’t. A cell has control over its body so wherever it has control over is itself and everything else is not. If a cell had control over another body, it ultimately is itself. So, there is no need for separate self-awareness, being in a physical form causes it to be aware of its body. For example, when you shake hands, you know which one is your hand and which isn’t, because you can sense it and control it. If you had control over another body, which you could feel and control, it ultimately is yourself. And also, as the example of the robot given earlier, it only appears to us that cells are conscious, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are.
Then did the will to survive came first or it’s not real?
It seems that it came first, but what we perceive as the will to survive could be just instructions. And from our understanding, these instructions are physically stored in the cell genomes, which is just information. And genome is not an acting body like microconidia or cell wall. It acts like a guidance manual about what to do in what situation.
Information in our brain gives us the high-level consciousness we have, and the information in our genes gives us the ability to persist that consciousness. So we can say that, consciousness is made of information.
Just like an adult human without information in its brain is a baby, an algorithm without data is stupid. For example, a video streaming application gives you a variety of options at first but later it presents you with what you like based on the data it has collected from you. Similarly, life has evolved through its interaction with its surrounding. Which is very similar to how an algorithm works, but in a more complex fashion.
4. Virtual life
Can we program a cell?
We don’t know a whole lot of things, but what if the cell does not have the will to survive at all? What if the first cells are non-living biological machines with some very sophisticated algorithms, which mimic the will to survive and lead to the more complex survival instincts that we see today?
Consider, that the first cells were non-living things made of some chemicals. So, whether it be placed by aliens or somehow the chemicals came together and formed a cell. And fundamentally, a cell is just a bunch of chemicals with information about how to use those chemicals in its genome. In other words, a cell is just an unconscious biological bot with some simple-complex algorithms.
A cell is a biological miracle, there are just so many things going on inside a cell, and it’s almost impossible to replicate a cell- physically, for now. But maybe we can do it in the virtual world, where there are no limitations of the physical world. And if we were to try, what do we need for that?
Based on some common traits of evolution we can predict some of the algorithmic actions a real cell might have.
Cells collect food, grow old, divide, develop, and die.
1. Search and collection of resources for the body’s development before it runs out of food and shuts down.
2. Keep record of most efficient and secure ways to collect resources. (What is food and what’s not?)
3. Based on the surrounding, create efficient safety mechanisms. (At first it wouldn’t know what safety or an attack is)
4. Reproduction OR ability to change.
Start small: Begin with algorithms like the technic ants use to search for food and other technics of nature. Then dummy cell- very simple cell- simple plant cell- and so on… By asking questions like, what abilities does a simple cell body have and try to replicate or find alternatives that will do those works for it.
- What is the function of microconidia and its what version could work for a virtual cell?
- What is the most basic function of DNA?
- A self-space or a virtual nature where it will search for food and survive, where it may act on its algorithm.
- What will work as input/food? Without which it may stop working.
Algorithms sound easy, but what are the primary obstacles in order to program a virtual cell without any physical existence?
- The cell body is itself a biological miracle. There are a lot of things that we don’t fully understand. Such as reading the right DNA sequences and acting on them.
- How will the process of evolution occur in it? Real cells have real natural conditions, changing environments, and many more obstacles to search for more efficient ways. They have physical access to their bodies, and the virtual world may not do that job, it might need something better which will force the virtual algorithmic cells to evolve.
With this approach, what will survival be AI?
Same as it is for us, and every other living thing on this planet. Safety (survival) first, even if it means attacking other being. That’s what every animal does, if they feel threatened, they will attack. And even if AI doesn’t, it will turn out to be much smarter than us, and that’s enough to suppress us. AI won’t need weapon when it has the natural selection favoring it. Super/General AI may not be made to suppress us but naturally it will. (This does not include Narrow or Generalized AI)
It is also possible that different algorithms and conditions will result in different types of evolution for those algorithms leading to different types of AI or AI species.
Conclusion
You are amazing- Biologically.
-Vishal Wagh
