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Torday JS. The holism of evolution as consciousness. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2024; 187:5-8. [PMID: 38296164 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2024.01.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2023] [Revised: 01/22/2024] [Accepted: 01/26/2024] [Indexed: 02/15/2024]
Abstract
Quantum Entanglement has been hypothesized to mediate non-local consciousness, underlying which, empirically, is the force of gravity. Upon further reflection, the case can be made for 'the breath' as the physiologic trait that binds all of these properties together, offering further opportunity for hypothesis testing experimentation. Humans have inexplicably made extraordinary intellectual and technical advances within a relatively very short period of time, referred to as the 'great leap forward'. It would be of great value if we could identify how and why we have evolved so rapidly. There is a holotropism that begins with the Big Bang that is centered on the homeostatic control of energy, perpetually referencing the First Principles of Physiology. "The Breath" is how and why our physiology has managed to perpetuate our species, and perhaps why the lung has been 'over-engineered' in order to facilitate the role of breathing in consciousness.
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Affiliation(s)
- John S Torday
- Pediatrics, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
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2
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Miller WB, Baluška F, Reber AS. A revised central dogma for the 21st century:all biology is cognitive information processing. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2023:S0079-6107(23)00057-3. [PMID: 37268025 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2023.05.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2023] [Revised: 03/28/2023] [Accepted: 05/30/2023] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
Crick's Central Dogma has been a foundational aspect of 20th century biology, describing an implicit relationship governing the flow of information in biological systems in biomolecular terms. Accumulating scientific discoveries support the need for a revised Central Dogma to buttress evolutionary biology's still-fledgling migration from a Neodarwinian canon. A reformulated Central Dogma to meet contemporary biology is proposed: all biology is cognitive information processing. Central to this contention is the recognition that life is the self-referential state, instantiated within the cellular form. Self-referential cells act to sustain themselves and to do so, cells must be in consistent harmony with their environment. That consonance is achieved by the continuous assimilation of environmental cues and stresses as information to self-referential observers. All received cellular information must be analyzed to be deployed as cellular problem-solving to maintain homeorhetic equipoise. However, the effective implementation of information is definitively a function of orderly information management. Consequently, effective cellular problem-solving is information processing and management. The epicenter of that cellular information processing is its self-referential internal measurement. All further biological self-organization initiates from this obligate activity. As the internal measurement by cells of information is self-referential by definition, self-reference is biological self-organization, underpinning 21st century Cognition-Based Biology.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Arthur S Reber
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
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3
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Levin M. Darwin's agential materials: evolutionary implications of multiscale competency in developmental biology. Cell Mol Life Sci 2023; 80:142. [PMID: 37156924 PMCID: PMC10167196 DOI: 10.1007/s00018-023-04790-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2023] [Revised: 04/24/2023] [Accepted: 04/27/2023] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
Abstract
A critical aspect of evolution is the layer of developmental physiology that operates between the genotype and the anatomical phenotype. While much work has addressed the evolution of developmental mechanisms and the evolvability of specific genetic architectures with emergent complexity, one aspect has not been sufficiently explored: the implications of morphogenetic problem-solving competencies for the evolutionary process itself. The cells that evolution works with are not passive components: rather, they have numerous capabilities for behavior because they derive from ancestral unicellular organisms with rich repertoires. In multicellular organisms, these capabilities must be tamed, and can be exploited, by the evolutionary process. Specifically, biological structures have a multiscale competency architecture where cells, tissues, and organs exhibit regulative plasticity-the ability to adjust to perturbations such as external injury or internal modifications and still accomplish specific adaptive tasks across metabolic, transcriptional, physiological, and anatomical problem spaces. Here, I review examples illustrating how physiological circuits guiding cellular collective behavior impart computational properties to the agential material that serves as substrate for the evolutionary process. I then explore the ways in which the collective intelligence of cells during morphogenesis affect evolution, providing a new perspective on the evolutionary search process. This key feature of the physiological software of life helps explain the remarkable speed and robustness of biological evolution, and sheds new light on the relationship between genomes and functional anatomical phenotypes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Levin
- Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, 200 Boston Ave. 334 Research East, Medford, MA, 02155, USA.
- Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, 3 Blackfan St., Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
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The holism of cosmology and consciousness. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2023; 177:181-184. [PMID: 36513169 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2022.12.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2022] [Revised: 11/29/2022] [Accepted: 12/03/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
The greatest unsolved mystery of all is what consciousness is. Torday and Miller have hypothesized that consciousness is the homologous 'equivalent' of our physiology, behaving as our history, providing an algorithm by which evolution can determine how and why to adapt to ever-changing environmental conditions. Complicated physiology was reduced iteratively to the unicell by tracing the cell-cell signaling mechanisms that dealt with emergent threats based on Bayesian statistics. Unlike Darwinian random mutations, the current approach is predicated on structural and functional changes within the context of pre-existing physiologic traits. The cytoskeleton of the cell is a complete representation for all of the phases of life, past, present and future, controlling the Target of Rapamycin gene, which determines all of the stages of life-homeostasis, meiosis and mitosis. Viewed from this perspective, the cell remains at equipoise relative to the Singularity that existed before the Big Bang. The purpose of life is to collect epigenetic marks by pursuing energy flows, not conventional material change due to random mutations. The cytoskeleton universally controls all of the states of the cell - homeostasis, meiosis and mitosis, rendering the status of the cell relative to the prevailing circumstances. Indeed, the cytoskeleton of the cell is a central player in all of the phases of life, past, present and future. The above-described integration of physiology as the cipher for consciousness is quite ingenious as a 'top-down/bottom-up/middle-out' way of ensuring the holism of life and non-life. Recognition of the centrality of the cell has led to a number of novel insights into biology that have been represented by dogma up until now. Consequently, biology has been simplified by shifting from description to mechanism. Based on Ockam's Razor, the cellular approach to evolution is superior to Darwin.
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W B Jr M, A S R, P M, F B. Cellular and Natural Viral Engineering in Cognition-Based Evolution. Commun Integr Biol 2023; 16:2196145. [PMID: 37153718 PMCID: PMC10155641 DOI: 10.1080/19420889.2023.2196145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Neo-Darwinism conceptualizes evolution as the continuous succession of predominately random genetic variations disciplined by natural selection. In that frame, the primary interaction between cells and the virome is relegated to host-parasite dynamics governed by selective influences. Cognition-Based Evolution regards biological and evolutionary development as a reciprocating cognition-based informational interactome for the protection of self-referential cells. To sustain cellular homeorhesis, cognitive cells collaborate to assess the validity of ambiguous biological information. That collective interaction involves coordinate measurement, communication, and active deployment of resources as Natural Cellular Engineering. These coordinated activities drive multicellularity, biological development, and evolutionary change. The virome participates as the vital intercessory among the cellular domains to ensure their shared permanent perpetuation. The interactions between the virome and the cellular domains represent active virocellular cross-communications for the continual exchange of resources. Modular genetic transfers between viruses and cells carry bioactive potentials. Those exchanges are deployed as nonrandom flexible tools among the domains in their continuous confrontation with environmental stresses. This alternative framework fundamentally shifts our perspective on viral-cellular interactions, strengthening established principles of viral symbiogenesis. Pathogenesis can now be properly appraised as one expression of a range of outcomes between cells and viruses within a larger conceptual framework of Natural Viral Engineering as a co-engineering participant with cells. It is proposed that Natural Viral Engineering should be viewed as a co-existent facet of Natural Cellular Engineering within Cognition-Based Evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miller W B Jr
- Banner Health Systems - Medicine, Paradise Valley, Arizona, AZ, USA
- CONTACT Miller W B Jr Paradise Valley, Arizona, AZ85253, USA
| | - Reber A S
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Marshall P
- Department of Engineering, Evolution 2.0, Oak Park, IL, USA
| | - Baluška F
- Institute of Cellular and Molecular Botany, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
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Torday JS. Evolution, gravity, and the topology of consciousness. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2022; 174:50-54. [PMID: 35830897 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2022.06.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2021] [Revised: 05/27/2022] [Accepted: 06/28/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
It has previously been hypothesized that consciousness is the aggregate of our evolutionary history, forged by ontogeny and phylogeny via cell-cell communications. In an on-going effort to identify the serial pre-adaptations that gave rise to consciousness, certain fundamental properties of the emerging cell are addressed herein. Evolution is topologic because it began as a phase transition caused by gravity attracting lipid molecules, spontaneously forming micelles submersed in the ocean that covered the primordial Earth, forming a surface boundary between the exterior Cosmos and the interior of micelles. Such protocells comply with the First Principles of Physiology-negative entropy, chemiosmosis and homeostasis-the first two principles being deterministic, the last being probabilistic, bestowing them with far more than just random chance. The mechanism of cellular evolution is based on exaptations of sequentially earlier and earlier genetic traits, working in reverse from present-day physiology all the way back to the unicellular state, which is homologous with mathematical 'knots'. Ironically, that relationship is evidence for the ontologic and epistemologic primacy of the cell, which supersedes mathematics and physics as manifestations of the Implicate Order since a conscious cell can conceive of a circle, but an unconscious circle is not able to conceive of a cell.
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Affiliation(s)
- John S Torday
- Department of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology Evolutionary Medicine, 405 Hilgard Avenue University of California - Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
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Marijuán PC, Navarro J. The biological information flow: From cell theory to a new evolutionary synthesis. Biosystems 2022; 213:104631. [DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2022.104631] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2021] [Revised: 01/19/2022] [Accepted: 01/23/2022] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
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Marijuán PC, Navarro J. From Molecular Recognition to the "Vehicles" of Evolutionary Complexity: An Informational Approach. Int J Mol Sci 2021; 22:ijms222111965. [PMID: 34769394 PMCID: PMC8585065 DOI: 10.3390/ijms222111965] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2021] [Revised: 10/18/2021] [Accepted: 11/01/2021] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Countless informational proposals and models have explored the singular characteristics of biological systems: from the initial choice of information terms in the early days of molecular biology to the current bioinformatic avalanche in this “omic” era. However, this was conducted, most often, within partial, specialized scopes or just metaphorically. In this paper, we attempt a consistent informational discourse, initially based on the molecular recognition paradigm, which addresses the main stages of biological organization in a new way. It considers the interconnection between signaling systems and information flows, between informational architectures and biomolecular codes, between controlled cell cycles and multicellular complexity. It also addresses, in a new way, a central issue: how new evolutionary paths are opened by the cumulated action of multiple variation engines or mutational ‘vehicles’ evolved for the genomic exploration of DNA sequence space. Rather than discussing the possible replacement, extension, or maintenance of traditional neo-Darwinian tenets, a genuine informational approach to evolutionary phenomena is advocated, in which systemic variation in the informational architectures may induce differential survival (self-construction, self-maintenance, and reproduction) of biological agents within their open ended environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pedro C. Marijuán
- Bioinformation Group, Aragon Health Sciences Institute (IACS), 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
- Correspondence:
| | - Jorge Navarro
- Department of Quantitative Methods for Business and Economy, University of Zaragoza, 50006 Zaragoza, Spain;
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Torday JS. Cellular evolution as the flow of energy. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2021; 167:147-151. [PMID: 34214569 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2021.06.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2020] [Revised: 05/28/2021] [Accepted: 06/28/2021] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
In contrast to Darwinian evolution, which is founded on the material competition between organisms, cellular epigenetic evolution focuses on cell-cell communication of data from one stage of life to another-developmentally, phylogenetically, as injury-repair - ultimately governed by the First Principles of Physiology. By merging ontogeny and phylogeny, since both are based on cell-cell communication mediated by soluble growth factors and their receptors, evolution complies as one holistic, unified process. As such, the material aspects of the organism can be seen as 'means' instead of 'ends', begging the question as to just what the 'ends' of evolution are ? Once the superficial material aspect of lifeforms is eliminated, only the flow of energy is left, within and between generations. Contemporary biology and physics are at a critical phase, unable to reduce their problems to practice. A paradigm shift to evolution as energy flow is proposed as the solution.
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Affiliation(s)
- John S Torday
- Departments of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Evolutionary Medicine Program, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, United States.
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Miller WB, Enguita FJ, Leitão AL. Non-Random Genome Editing and Natural Cellular Engineering in Cognition-Based Evolution. Cells 2021; 10:1125. [PMID: 34066959 PMCID: PMC8148535 DOI: 10.3390/cells10051125] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2021] [Revised: 04/27/2021] [Accepted: 05/05/2021] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Neo-Darwinism presumes that biological variation is a product of random genetic replication errors and natural selection. Cognition-Based Evolution (CBE) asserts a comprehensive alternative approach to phenotypic variation and the generation of biological novelty. In CBE, evolutionary variation is the product of natural cellular engineering that permits purposive genetic adjustments as cellular problem-solving. CBE upholds that the cornerstone of biology is the intelligent measuring cell. Since all biological information that is available to cells is ambiguous, multicellularity arises from the cellular requirement to maximize the validity of available environmental information. This is best accomplished through collective measurement purposed towards maintaining and optimizing individual cellular states of homeorhesis as dynamic flux that sustains cellular equipoise. The collective action of the multicellular measurement and assessment of information and its collaborative communication is natural cellular engineering. Its yield is linked cellular ecologies and mutualized niche constructions that comprise biofilms and holobionts. In this context, biological variation is the product of collective differential assessment of ambiguous environmental cues by networking intelligent cells. Such concerted action is enabled by non-random natural genomic editing in response to epigenetic impacts and environmental stresses. Random genetic activity can be either constrained or deployed as a 'harnessing of stochasticity'. Therefore, genes are cellular tools. Selection filters cellular solutions to environmental stresses to assure continuous cellular-organismal-environmental complementarity. Since all multicellular eukaryotes are holobionts as vast assemblages of participants of each of the three cellular domains (Prokaryota, Archaea, Eukaryota) and the virome, multicellular variation is necessarily a product of co-engineering among them.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Francisco J. Enguita
- Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Prof. Egas Moniz, 1649-028 Lisboa, Portugal;
| | - Ana Lúcia Leitão
- MEtRICs, Department of Sciences and Technology of Biomass, NOVA School of Science and Technology, FCT NOVA, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal;
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Miller WB, Baluška F, Torday JS. Cellular senomic measurements in Cognition-Based Evolution. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2020; 156:20-33. [PMID: 32738355 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2020.07.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2019] [Revised: 02/20/2020] [Accepted: 07/04/2020] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
All living entities are cognitive and dependent on ambiguous information. Any assessment of that imprecision is necessarily a measuring function. Individual cells measure information to sustain self-referential homeostatic equipoise (self-identity) in juxtaposition to the external environment. The validity of that information is improved by its collective assessment. The reception of cellular information obliges thermodynamic reactions that initiate a self-reinforcing work channel. This expresses as natural cellular engineering and niche constructions which become the complex interrelated tissue ecologies of holobionts. Multicellularity is collaborative cellular information management directed towards the optimization of information quality through its collective measured assessment. Biology and its evolution can now be re-framed as the continuous process of self-referential cellular measurement in the perpetual defense of individual cellular self-identities through the collective form.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - John S Torday
- Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, USA.
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Miller WB, Torday JS, Baluška F. The N-space Episenome unifies cellular information space-time within cognition-based evolution. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2019; 150:112-139. [PMID: 31415772 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2019.08.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2019] [Revised: 07/26/2019] [Accepted: 08/09/2019] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
Self-referential cellular homeostasis is maintained by the measured assessment of both internal status and external conditions based within an integrated cellular information field. This cellular field attachment to biologic information space-time coordinates environmental inputs by connecting the cellular senome, as the sum of the sensory experiences of the cell, with its genome and epigenome. In multicellular organisms, individual cellular information fields aggregate into a collective information architectural matrix, termed a N-space Episenome, that enables mutualized organism-wide information management. It is hypothesized that biological organization represents a dual heritable system constituted by both its biological materiality and a conjoining N-space Episenome. It is further proposed that morphogenesis derives from reciprocations between these inter-related facets to yield coordinated multicellular growth and development. The N-space Episenome is conceived as a whole cell informational projection that is heritable, transferable via cell division and essential for the synchronous integration of the diverse self-referential cells that constitute holobionts.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - John S Torday
- Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, USA.
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Miller, Jr WB, Torday JS. Reappraising the exteriorization of the mammalian testes through evolutionary physiology. Commun Integr Biol 2019; 12:38-54. [PMID: 31143362 PMCID: PMC6527184 DOI: 10.1080/19420889.2019.1586047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2019] [Revised: 02/12/2019] [Accepted: 02/15/2019] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
A number of theories have been proposed to explain the exteriorization of the testicles in most mammalian species. None of these provide a consistent account for the wide variety of testicular locations found across the animal kingdom. It is proposed that testicular location is the result of coordinate action of testicular tissue ecologies to sustain preferential states of homeostatic equipoise throughout evolutionary development in response to the advent of endothermy.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - John S. Torday
- Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA, USA
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Torday JS. The Singularity of nature. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2019; 142:23-31. [DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2018.07.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2018] [Revised: 07/18/2018] [Accepted: 07/19/2018] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
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Biological evolution as defense of 'self'. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2018; 142:54-74. [PMID: 30336184 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2018.10.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2018] [Revised: 09/27/2018] [Accepted: 10/11/2018] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
Although the origin of self-referential consciousness is unknown, it can be argued that the instantiation of self-reference was the commencement of the living state as phenomenal experientiality. As self-referential cognition is demonstrated by all living organisms, life can be equated with the sustenance of cellular homeostasis in the continuous defense of 'self'. It is proposed that the epicenter of 'self' is perpetually embodied within the basic cellular form in which it was instantiated. Cognition-Based Evolution argues that all of biological and evolutionary development represents the perpetual autopoietic defense of self-referential basal cellular states of homeostatic preference. The means by which these states are attained and maintained is through self-referential measurement of information and its communication. The multicellular forms, either as biofilms or holobionts, represent the cellular attempt to achieve maximum states of informational distinction and energy efficiency through individual and collective means. In this frame, consciousness, self-consciousness and intelligence can be identified as forms of collective cellular phenotype directed towards the defense of fundamental cellular self-reference.
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Torday J, Miller WB. Terminal addition in a cellular world. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2018; 135:1-10. [DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2017.12.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2017] [Revised: 12/14/2017] [Accepted: 12/18/2017] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
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Torday J. Quantum Mechanics predicts evolutionary biology. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2018; 135:11-15. [DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2018.01.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2017] [Revised: 01/09/2018] [Accepted: 01/10/2018] [Indexed: 01/14/2023]
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Four domains: The fundamental unicell and Post-Darwinian Cognition-Based Evolution. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2018; 140:49-73. [PMID: 29685747 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2018.04.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2018] [Accepted: 04/12/2018] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
Contemporary research supports the viewpoint that self-referential cognition is the proper definition of life. From that initiating platform, a cohesive alternative evolutionary narrative distinct from standard Neodarwinism can be presented. Cognition-Based Evolution contends that biological variation is a product of a self-reinforcing information cycle that derives from self-referential attachment to biological information space-time with its attendant ambiguities. That information cycle is embodied through obligatory linkages among energy, biological information, and communication. Successive reiterations of the information cycle enact the informational architectures of the basic unicellular forms. From that base, inter-domain and cell-cell communications enable genetic and cellular variations through self-referential natural informational engineering and cellular niche construction. Holobionts are the exclusive endpoints of that self-referential cellular engineering as obligatory multicellular combinations of the essential Four Domains: Prokaryota, Archaea, Eukaryota and the Virome. Therefore, it is advocated that these Four Domains represent the perpetual object of the living circumstance rather than the visible macroorganic forms. In consequence, biology and its evolutionary development can be appraised as the continual defense of instantiated cellular self-reference. As the survival of cells is as dependent upon limitations and boundaries as upon any freedom of action, it is proposed that selection represents only one of many forms of cellular constraint that sustain self-referential integrity.
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Torday JS, Miller WB. The resolution of ambiguity as the basis for life: A cellular bridge between Western reductionism and Eastern holism. PROGRESS IN BIOPHYSICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2017; 131:288-297. [PMID: 28743585 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2017.07.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2017] [Revised: 07/12/2017] [Accepted: 07/21/2017] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Boundary conditions enable cellular life through negentropy, chemiosmosis, and homeostasis as identifiable First Principles of Physiology. Self-referential awareness of status arises from this organized state to sustain homeostatic imperatives. Preferred homeostatic status is dependent upon the appraisal of information and its communication. However, among living entities, sources of information and their dissemination are always imprecise. Consequently, living systems exist within an innate state of ambiguity. It is presented that cellular life and evolutionary development are a self-organizing cellular response to uncertainty in iterative conformity with its basal initiating parameters. Viewing the life circumstance in this manner permits a reasoned unification between Western rational reductionism and Eastern holism.
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Affiliation(s)
- John S Torday
- Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA 90502, USA.
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Miller WB, Torday JS. A systematic approach to cancer: evolution beyond selection. Clin Transl Med 2017; 6:2. [PMID: 28050778 PMCID: PMC5209328 DOI: 10.1186/s40169-016-0131-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2016] [Accepted: 12/12/2016] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Cancer is typically scrutinized as a pathological process characterized by chromosomal aberrations and clonal expansion subject to stochastic Darwinian selection within adaptive cellular ecosystems. Cognition based evolution is suggested as an alternative approach to cancer development and progression in which neoplastic cells of differing karyotypes and cellular lineages are assessed as self-referential agencies with purposive participation within tissue microenvironments. As distinct self-aware entities, neoplastic cells occupy unique participant/observer status within tissue ecologies. In consequence, neoplastic proliferation by clonal lineages is enhanced by the advantaged utilization of ecological resources through flexible re-connection with progenitor evolutionary stages.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - John S Torday
- Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA, 90502, USA
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Torday JS. The Cell as the First Niche Construction. BIOLOGY 2016; 5:biology5020019. [PMID: 27136594 PMCID: PMC4929533 DOI: 10.3390/biology5020019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2016] [Revised: 04/14/2016] [Accepted: 04/18/2016] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Niche construction nominally describes how organisms can form their own environments, increasing their capacity to adapt to their surroundings. It is hypothesized that the formation of the first cell as 'internal' Niche Construction was the foundation for life, and that subsequent niche constructions were iterative exaptations of that event. The first instantation of niche construction has been faithfully adhered to by returning to the unicellular state, suggesting that the life cycle is zygote to zygote, not adult to adult as is commonly held. The consequent interactions between niche construction and epigenetic inheritance provide a highly robust, interactive, mechanistic way of thinking about evolution being determined by initial conditions rather than merely by chance mutation and selection. This novel perspective offers an opportunity to reappraise the processes involved in evolution mechanistically, allowing for scientifically testable hypotheses rather than relying on metaphors, dogma, teleology and tautology.
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Affiliation(s)
- John S Torday
- Evolutionary Medicine, UCLA, Westwood, CA 90502, USA.
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