Physical insights & the natural history of everyday ideas and inventions

Earth-based histories of emergent phenomena (or "timelines of concept relevance") simplify when outlined in terms of two basic physical concepts: available work and correlation information. These themes repeatedly intertwine in a non-repeating drama that involves partnership between replicable codes (including the above two concepts), and what physicists might call steady state excitations busily converting available work from one form to another. Although inspired by the need for context in a "how things work" course for non-science majors, this history shows potential for providing a neutral perspective, grounded in established physical and logical principles, on numerous important and sometimes contentious issues. By providing context both for such issues and our reactions to them, it might catalyze constructive dialog. It also suggests elements of a natural history informed to interdisciplinary connections emergent in the last century, like a "zoomed out" and thus "coarse-grained" version of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs & Steel". The resulting picture covers a wider range of times using more primitive concepts.

This paper is more a synthesis than a presentation of new observations. It touches on many subjects, with the caveat that its interface to most of them will be dated at best. Journal of Theoretical Biology is (perhaps) appropriate because of its historical role in bridging the gap between complex biological systems and the physical sciences (numerous ancient Elsasser and possibly even a Bertalanffy article come to mind), and because the insights of ethologists have provided crucial pieces to the puzzle.

Snapshot

A timeline of relevance for ideas might begin with the elemental concepts of:

• dimension (1D, 2D, 3D, 3+1D, n+1D, etc.),
• metric (e.g. Pythagoras' space & Minkowski's space-time);

followed by the emergence in our universe of manifestations now represented by basic physical concepts like:

• motion, momentum-energy, mass & gravity
• other interactions like charge & electromagnetic force,
• particles, waves, atoms & their associated chemistry,
• heat, an early application of gambling with uncertainty,
• available work and correlation information.

Discoveries on earth then lead to the following inventions by one-celled organisms:

• steady-state thermal-to-work energy conversion,
• information partnering (trading work for recorded correlations) with highly replicable amino and nucleic acid codes;
• intracellular correlations like cell membranes & organelles (symbiotic) and viruses (parasitic),
• chemical and tactile messaging;
• tools like thermal gradients & solar photons (via photosynthesis) for energy, & contact forces for motility;

subsequent inventions by multi-celled plants of:

• intercellular correlations like eukaryotic cells, sexual reproduction & microbe-assisted digestion (symbiotic), or bacterial infections (parasitic),
• differentiated structures like circulatory systems, leaves, stalks, roots, flowers, & shells,
• other intra-organism correlations such as programmed death & annual/biennial reproductive cycles (symbiotic), or cancerous tissues (parasitic), and
• inter-organism correlations, like ritualized interspecies redirection of behavior by providing animals with fruit and nectar symbiotically, or fake sex parasitically, so as to distribute seeds & pollen,
• messaging via hormone (intra-organism) & exterior design;
• tools like gravity and wind as aids to reproduction;

the invention by animals of:

• information partnering with neural net patterns via sense-mediated action, of limited replicability perhaps greatest in ritualized songs, discovery dances, and warning vocalizations (especially for birds, bees, and mammals),
• intra-organism structures like vertebrae, muscles, brains, eyes with lenses, gills, lungs, hearts, legs & wings,
• intra-species aggression and it's ritualized redirections, including greeting ceremonies, pair bonds & laughter,
• "family systems" serving inward-looking perspectives with respect to intra-specific gene-pool boundaries, and related correlations like joint-parenting & constructive sibling interactions (e.g. play between kittens),
• "political systems" serving outward-looking perspectives with respect to intra-specific gene-pool boundaries, and associated correlations such as heirarchy in a wolf pack,
• inter-organism messaging via sound, body language, and interior design (bauer),
• tools like webs, levers, vines, tunnel, dam, wood, & stone;

and finally the invention in human communities of:

• information partnering with highly replicable spoken languages, print, and most recently digital codes,
• available work production & distribution in these forms: food/drink, ritual (monetary), fossil fuel & electrical,
• subsystem repair/augmentation networks like medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, auto repair, & physical therapy,
• redirective elicitors (symbiotic & parasitic) of innate behavior (like eating, procreation & militant enthusiasm) include sports, "mind" chemicals, non-reproductive sex, self-help, psychotherapy, plus artificial colors, flavors, smells & shapes (for food & individuals),
• prediction activities like meteorology, gambling, insurance, digital modeling, investing, polling & quality control,
• evolving pair, family, and heirarchy paradigms with roots in phylogenetic & memetic tradition, like votes, jury, public corporations, church/state separation, free press, merit/goal-based management, human rights, "political correctness",
• "belief systems" serving inward-looking perspectives with respect to meme-pool boundaries, and related correlations that include religions (symbiotic) & religious colonialism, plus ethnic, cultural, & artistic identities,
• "knowledge systems" serving outward-looking perspectives with respect to meme-pool boundaries, and related correlations that include professions, secular colonialism, peer review,
• inter-organism messaging via music, art, writing, printing, teletype, radio, phonograph, telephone, photography, cinema, fingerprint, television, xerography, magnetic tape, bar code, optical disk, pager, sky phone & internet,
• tools like clothes, fire, oven, wheel, ramp, plow, weapons, skyscraper, bike, road, steam/gasoline/electric motors, car, bridge, train, boat, aircraft, match, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, flush toilet, dishwasher, grinders, mirror, glass lens, camera, camcorder, hologram, clock, artificial light, metals, ceramics, concrete, canning, polymers, gear, cam, lock, spring, rope, pulley, block & tackle, zipper, scissors, nail, screw, irrigation, planting & harvesting equipment, wrench, portable drill/saw, end loader, running water, gas & electric heater & drier (for people, food, & clothes), elevator, crane, battery, volt-ohm meter, laser, compass, satellite, global positioning system, gyroscope, autopilot, smoke detector, fridge & air conditioner, X-ray & ultrasound & MRI imaging, tele & micro & endo scopes, spectrometers, semiconductors, transistors, integrated circuits, computers, fiber optics, robotics.

Statistical Inference and Non-equilibrium Systems

Correlation Information and Engines that Produce It

Partnerships between Codes and Excitations

Partnerships and Correlations involving Microbes and Plants

Partnerships and Correlations developed by Animals

Partnerships and Correlations developed in Human Communities

Conclusions