[Fis] Fwd: Contingency biological signals: Sex and Being

Sat Dec 6 03:42:15 CET 2025

Dear omnipotent FIS colleagues, I have a question to learn from you:
If the Big Bang Theory is correct (or if it has to be correct since we do
have an alternative),
1- When did gravity emerge? (and how)
2- When did water emerge? (in the cosmos, and in our solar system, and on
our earth)?
3- We roughly know when in our planet's life emerges, but when did
consciousness emerge?
4- Did "information" emerge before or after consciousness? (I assume after,
correct me IIAW.)
I would like to see if any of our FIS colleagues here has answers before
consulting GGC (Grok/Gemini/ChatGPT).
Many thanks! - Jason

On Thu, Dec 4, 2025 at 11:51 AM Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>
> Except some over-generalizations, I basically agree with John's. Gravity
> is not just a force out there, it is the fundamental fabric of the cosmos
> we live in. In our planet, all realms of life feel it and "live" it.
> Bacteria, zooplankton, phytoplankton, invertebrates, vertebrates, plants...
> It is another "water" of life-- remember "Water is life's matter and
> matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water" by Albert
> Szent-Gyorgyi, the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist. So, gravity is not
> only within the adaptive physiology of vertebrates so well described by
> John, it is in an infinity of details in every realm of nature.
> Emphasizing the impact of this crucial field on life is really needed given
> its general neglect. Incidentally, the ongoing discussion on 31/ATLAS by
> our former FIS colleague Sungchul Ji about the radiation of this amazing
> interstellar object (a hydrogen basic frequency emitted in Fibonacci
> sequences), is a good reminder of the all-permeating cosmic fabric of
> gravity. See:
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://sayerji.substack.com/p/when-the-cosmos-speaks-in-fibonacci__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UR_em8oySYuEnjIwRZ4vl9qQ26uAQAhpAvLjaMdgAppDdsuMCFbAuVhnNCEANcn-BKcC32GcO-kuxJEiXTELgDEYTWUt$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://sayerji.substack.com/p/when-the-cosmos-speaks-in-fibonacci__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UN5Qkr4MMHvVFgjxrE8GKOUT__SCPVApKzSiss-NOjGyuklM4kUiq2rVFM3p-XKxI27KcpMhBaLbJuUWfT2Ftv37jbkQ$>
>
> About more mundane matters, what Eric writes on the CONTROLNOME, rather
> imaginative but a little bit outreached (perhaps one could share it
> partially), would send all the people working on paleogenomics and related
> disciplines to retirement. It is a pity because the ongoing results are
> throwing fascinating new aspects on our own evolution (self-domestication,
> sexual intercourse, language, etc.) Again I invite fis parties to that
> BioSystems issue ready to appear. Taking that view in its face value, an
> armchair experiment: if we take a vertebrate genome and substitute ALL of
> its genes, each by one, by genes of a completely different species--eg,
> human ovum changed to mouse genes and stimulate its development --  what
> would happen? There are too many details to consider, but nothing viable as
> an outcome, even the first division, I bet.
>
> I think we are not trying to "reduce" living complexity to this or to
> that, as Eric says, but emphasizing aspects not well covered in mainstream
> science, particularly on information matters. I was tempted to insist in
> the centrality of the life cycle regarding the information flow, but it
> would be too much.
>
> Regards,
> --Pedro
>
> El 03/12/2025 a las 14:54, JOHN TORDAY escribió:
>
>
> Dear Eric and 'All', it appears to be a 'fool's task' to debate the merits
> of the role of the force of gravity in the evolution of vertebrates, given
> that I have not only provided empiric evidence for it, as have others, but
> have described the process in an earlier email.....John
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 3:38 AM Dr. Eric Werner <evwerner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Pedro, John and FIS Collegues,
>>
>> Fascinating points you make, Pedro.
>>
>> The paper by Zhizhou Zhang https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.20935/AcadMolBioGen8001__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UR_em8oySYuEnjIwRZ4vl9qQ26uAQAhpAvLjaMdgAppDdsuMCFbAuVhnNCEANcn-BKcC32GcO-kuxJEiXTELgCTZhdox$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.20935/AcadMolBioGen8001__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UusxFDTBk3ZUgkvJ1A6efTRkbVH1ghY7Hqm_3tckntBOt0NwXJpwRR3yOZ0vQsEj9vRbkhxP9L0TnovknBDPEK5Ao7cg$> is
>> provocative indeed.  The gene centric focus of the paper is foundational
>> for its provocative hypothesis that we humans are mentally closer to fish
>> than chimps.  While it may be genetically valid, it ignores the other 95%
>> of the genome that is not genetic, and instead noncoding the so called dark
>> matter of the genome.
>>
>> The noncoding genome is what I have argued contains the CONTROLNOME of
>> the genome that actually controls and development of the morphology, the
>> form and functional architecture of the multicellular species in question.
>>   The complexity of form of the organism cannot be in the genes because the
>> genes are shared by organisms that have overt highly complex different
>> forms.  (And gravity cannot account for the difference, John, because it is
>> obviously shared by all life forms on our dear planet.)
>>
>> The difference between the gene-coding genome and the controlnome, has
>> parallels between the difference between semantics and pragmatics, between
>> sentences that are true or false and those that are neither, like questions
>> and commands. This parallel relationship between genome semantics and
>> pragmatics and human language as well as other animal communications system
>> semantics and pragmatics is no artificial construct but results from
>> fundamental principles of how information works in living systems.
>>
>> The attempts to reduce the complexity of multicellular development to
>> point mutations in shared genes, or to gravity, or to cell signaling or
>> other physiological feedback mechanisms all fail the Complexity
>> Conservation Principle (see my Ants paper and How central is the genome
>> paper).  And then there is meta-sex complexity of meta-genome interactions
>> (see my gynandromorphs paper).
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On Dec 2, 2025, at 8:19 PM, Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>> Dear John and FIS Colleagues,
>>
>> Thanks for the well crafted, dense bio paragraphs. Although I agree with
>> most of the comments --not with all-- the main problem I see that it is a
>> really too condensed a summary. It reminds me the great little book by
>> French biologist  Max Pavans de Ceccatty "La vie: de la cellule à l'homme"
>> (1962), put in just half page. Given the brevity needed, I will just point
>> to three extra themes that for my taste are relevant: signaling and the
>> life cycle, role of the "virome" in eukaryotic complexity and multicellular
>> life, and the tangled threads of Anthropogenesis.
>>
>> The former one, signaling and the life cycle, represents "the path not
>> taken" about the deep meaning of cellular signaling. From the beginning it
>> was conceived within the input-processing-output paradigm of
>> techno-computer and artificial systems. It did not help the concept of
>> signaling as "structural coupling" with the milieu, from the thought of
>> Maturana and Varela. In any event, the information flow (signaling)
>> necessary interrelationship with the energy flow (metabolism) has not been
>> properly integrated with the great sink and source for both flows: the life
>> cycle.  Perhaps making the cycle "modular", and susceptible to be
>> maintained conveniently "frozen" along its different phases, represented
>> the basis of cell differentiation & specialized tissues via signaling
>> codes... Further, any complex form of life has had to maintain the same
>> openness to the info flows of its niche in order to propel the advancement
>> of its own life cycle. And let me stop here.
>>
>> About the virome, following Villareal, Witzany, and many others, the
>> motto "Ex virus omnia" means that a new, forgotten realm of life has to be
>> added to Margulis’ endosymbiotic theory (Margulis, 1981, 1970), so
>> incorporating viruses’ essential evolutionary role within the present
>> discussions around the renewal or replacement of evolutionary theory
>> (Noble, 2016). In fact, one the most important genome modifications of
>> eukaryotes has come from the systematic activity of components of viral
>> provenance: mobile elements, transposons, retrotransposons, repetitive
>> elements and so on. Seemingly (Shapiro) our species has counted with around
>> 4 million mobile insertion events. As a result, ancestral viral proteins
>> can be found in signaling pathways of all kind, and all across the
>> mammalian and human proteomes.
>>
>> And finally about Anthropogenesis, let me copy from a recent study: "By
>> employing 471 whole-genome sequence samples, including archaic humans
>> (Neanderthals, Denisovans and more), modern humans, other vertebrates
>> (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, rodents, mammals) plus four coelacanth
>> and three lungfish samples, together with 18 human cognition-related genes
>> and their total of 223 SNVs (Single-Nucleotide Variations),comparative
>> analyses revealed that the CGPPs (cognition gene polymorphism patterns) of
>> both coelacanths and lungfish are evolutionarily closer to those of archaic
>> humans than those of most other animal groups. The CGPP appears to occupy
>> an evolutionary inflection point, bridging diverse animal lineages to
>> archaic hominoids. Our observational results suggest a hypothesis (to be
>> validated in the future) that *the genetic architecture underlying human
>> cognition seems to have been established during the evolutionary stage of
>> fish, predating the emergence of tetrapods*..." Amazing!! (From Zhizhou
>> Zhang et al., 2025, https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.20935/AcadMolBioGen8001__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UR_em8oySYuEnjIwRZ4vl9qQ26uAQAhpAvLjaMdgAppDdsuMCFbAuVhnNCEANcn-BKcC32GcO-kuxJEiXTELgCTZhdox$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.20935/AcadMolBioGen8001__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UusxFDTBk3ZUgkvJ1A6efTRkbVH1ghY7Hqm_3tckntBOt0NwXJpwRR3yOZ0vQsEj9vRbkhxP9L0TnovknBDPEK5Ao7cg$>).
>> By the way, there is a special issue on Anthropogenesis to appear soon in
>> BioSystems, where brain evolution, sexual selection, social niche,
>> emergence of language, cognition, etc. are updated and discussed (editors
>> Marijuan, Igamberdiev, Iurato, 2025)--great job by Andrei. We will send
>> soon the link.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> --Pedro
>>
>>
>>
>> El 23/11/2025 a las 18:20, JOHN TORDAY escribió:
>>
>> Dear Eric, I am afraid you have misunderstood my allusion to the role
>> gravity plays in evolution, in my opinion, based totally on experimental
>> evidence. It becomes most apparent and relevant in the vertebrate
>> transition from water to land, when fish adapted to land (a known fact).
>> During that transition there were three hormone receptors that duplicated-
>> the Parathyroid Hormone Receptor (PTHrP), the Glucocorticoid Receptor (GR)
>> and the beta-adrenergic receptor (beta-AR). Which came first is the
>> question I have pondered for many years, only recently coming to the
>> realization that it must have been the PTHrP receptor that duplicated
>> first, given that it determines bone 'stiffness', and the skeleton would
>> have been under stress due to the effective force of gravity on land versus
>> in water. Those members of the species that were able to 'up-regulate'
>> their PTHrP receptor most readily for bone would have done so successively
>> in the swim bladder to drive its evolution in becoming the lung, as
>> evidenced by the fact that in the absence of PTHrP the lung does not
>> alveolarize (Rubin et al, 2004), followed by the role of PTHrP in forming
>> kidney glomeruli from the fish kidney glomus, and the augmentation of the
>> stress signal from pituitary to adrenal cortex to produce adrenaline and
>> cortisol. We know that there must have been such a scenario since fish
>> attempted to breech land on at least 5 separate occasions (see Clack, J.A.,
>> Gaining Ground, 2012). The relevance of these physiologic adaptations can
>> be seen in astronauts who experience osteoporosis due to PTHrP deficiency
>> (see Torday, 2003 for evidence of such) as well as kidney complications due
>> to down-regulation of PTHrP control of salt and water balance. So in the
>> aggregate, in reply to your comment that "gravity would not directly
>> control the growth of a bilateral gynandromorph that is half female and
>> half male down the middle", I would beg to differ based on the hormonal
>> adaptations for land life, which are fundamental to land vertebrate
>> physiologic adaptations for skeletal integrity, breathing, salt and water
>> balance, if you get my point. And all of these physiologic traits are
>> essential for the bipedalism that freed our forelimbs for tool-making,
>> including speaking, and locomotion, all of which are under the control of
>> the FoxP2 gene and are 'housed' within the Area of Broca (see Torday JS.
>> A central theory of biology. Med Hypotheses. 2015 Jul;85(1):49-57). It
>> is this transition from crawling on all fours to standing on two legs due
>> to the advent of endothermy that marks the evolution of our over-seized
>> central nervous system....and as a consequence, at some point in human
>> evolution our heads became too large to fit in the birth canal so we are
>> born prematurely, with only 25% of brain capacity, requiring decades of
>> nurturing by family and society in order to effectively mature as a
>> species, if ever (I note my current President).
>>
>> As for your glib comment about "The issue is more understanding the
>> information that makes a difference (Oh dear I have slipped into Spencer
>> Brown"......In this regard, I think you misunderstand Spencer-Brown too in
>> that what he was telling us is that we are fractals of a 'holism' as the
>> unmarked space.
>>
>> And as for your flippant comment about "gravity does not make the
>> difference between a whale and a dog" I again beg your pardon, but gravity
>> is exactly what makes the difference between a whale and a dog, referring
>> again to gravity's effects on the physiologic traits of each on land (dog)
>> and in water (whale) given that seals are thought to have evolved back to
>> water from dogs......
>>
>> But you may take exception to what I am saying, so have at it. I am of
>> the opinion that the way I have traced evolution from cell to our 'selves'
>> accounts for the evolution of consciousness from the former to the latter
>> as I have expressed in numerous peer-reviewed articles, and 14 monographs.
>>
>> Best, John
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 23, 2025 at 11:11 AM OARF <eric.werner at oarf.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear john,
>>> There is a difference between necessary conditions that are just that
>>> and offer no information that controls the growth of detailed structure in
>>> multicellular organisms that differentiates one from another and conditions
>>> like gravity that apply to all such developmental processes. Thus, for
>>> example, gravity would not directly control the growth of a bilateral
>>> gynandromorph that is half female and half male down the middle. See:
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5439__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UR_em8oySYuEnjIwRZ4vl9qQ26uAQAhpAvLjaMdgAppDdsuMCFbAuVhnNCEANcn-BKcC32GcO-kuxJEiXTELgLeC9efw$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5439__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UusxFDTBk3ZUgkvJ1A6efTRkbVH1ghY7Hqm_3tckntBOt0NwXJpwRR3yOZ0vQsEj9vRbkhxP9L0TnovknBDPEDwcoYq4$> for
>>> more details.
>>>
>>> But I  agree that gravity and oxygen certainly have their effects on
>>> development.
>>>
>>> The issue is more understanding the information that makes a difference
>>> (Oh dear I have slipped into Spencer Brown ;-) ).
>>> and gravity does not make the difference between a whale and a dog.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Eric
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>> On Nov 23, 2025, at 3:05 PM, JOHN TORDAY <jtorday at ucla.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> 
>>> To Eric, Gordana, Howard, regarding the role of sex in evolution, I
>>> would like to point out that the role of gravity in evolution also entails
>>> sex in the following way. In the study of the effect of microgravity on
>>> yeast, the simplest eukaryote, they cannot 'bud' as form of asexual
>>> reproduction in microgravitational conditions (Purevdorj-Gage B,
>>> Sheehan KB, Hyman LE. Effects of low-shear modeled microgravity on cell
>>> function, gene expression, and phenotype in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Appl
>>> Environ Microbiol. 2006 Jul;72(7):4569-75). I am of the opinion that it is
>>> only in addressing the evolutionary ontology as it corresponds with the
>>> epistemology that an adaptive trait can be understood, as in the case of
>>> sex as a means of adapting to an ever-changing environment. In the case of
>>> yeast, budding is a means of epigenetic inheritance of environmental
>>> factors relevant to its adaptation, and the force of gravity affects that
>>> process. These authors also observed that the yeast could not conduct a
>>> calcium flux under microgravity, rendering them unconscious 'zombies'. I
>>> share this information with you in an attempt to find a final common
>>> pathway for the process of evolution, ultimately referring to the elements
>>> in the Cosmos as the latter's 'logic', as I expressed it in an accompanying
>>> email earlier today....Best, John
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Nov 23, 2025 at 8:13 AM OARF <eric.werner at oarf.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Gordana,
>>>>
>>>> I was just responding to Howard’s more general point beyond bacteria.
>>>> Eukaryotes have sex an inherently social process.  Sexuality is
>>>> fundamentally a cooperative process, at many levels of organization. Even
>>>> social at the level of the genome:  See my theory of meta-genome
>>>> interactions between the sexes.  It is particularly clear in the case
>>>> physically mixed sex organisms (this can be neurological as well).  See the
>>>> theory applied to mixed sex organisms or gynandropmorphs:
>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5439__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UR_em8oySYuEnjIwRZ4vl9qQ26uAQAhpAvLjaMdgAppDdsuMCFbAuVhnNCEANcn-BKcC32GcO-kuxJEiXTELgLeC9efw$ 
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5439__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XLF-Q-SqJ-AuvQ-dic9ptw82Ooe57dI4UX6ePa7CTWADakJMPTruAnfSd0yTCHhsfb-S3Rv04mCA4h3ClsatzQ4$>
>>>>
>>>> So the sexuality of being is inherently social.
>>>>
>>>> -Eric
>>>>
>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ericwerner.com/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UR_em8oySYuEnjIwRZ4vl9qQ26uAQAhpAvLjaMdgAppDdsuMCFbAuVhnNCEANcn-BKcC32GcO-kuxJEiXTELgP18mc6Y$ 
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ericwerner.com/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XLF-Q-SqJ-AuvQ-dic9ptw82Ooe57dI4UX6ePa7CTWADakJMPTruAnfSd0yTCHhsfb-S3Rv04mCA4h3CaUt82MM$>
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>
>>>>
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