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

[Steve Watson]

Dear Jason, Krassimir, and colleagues,

Thank you for the questions and for the clear scientific outlines already offered. I would like to add a brief reflection from an autopoietic–ecological point of view. My aim is not to challenge the physical or biological timelines themselves, but to clarify the kinds of distinctions we rely on when we ask “when” something emerged.

The usual Big Bang chronology—gravity differentiating at the earliest stages, oxygen formed in stars, water appearing in interstellar chemistry, nervous systems evolving toward consciousness—is well established within physics and biology. AE accepts these scientific accounts. What AE examines is how any such temporal ordering depends on the observer who organizes phenomena into a sequence. This is not meant as a turn toward radical constructivism. Material processes are fundamental in AE; they shape and constrain the possibilities for observers and their distinctions. At the same time, AE avoids assuming an independent pre-observational ontology that fixes the meaning of those processes in advance. Material dynamics and meaningful distinctions co-depend. Neither can be treated as “primary” or as preceding the other in any absolute sense.

>From an AE perspective, this co-dependence is captured by the ideas of operational closure and co-regulation. Systems are operationally closed in that they produce and sustain the distinctions through which their own world becomes coherent. But closure is not isolation. Systems maintain coherence only via ongoing co-regulation with their relational and material environment. In this framework, the observer’s categories are shaped by the world they must cope with, while the world becomes intelligible only through the distinctions the system can sustain. Thus, the question “what existed before observers?” cannot be answered without smuggling in a vantage point that AE regards as incompatible with its ecological stance.

In this sense, the cosmos exhibits relational patterns—curvatures, accelerations, mass–energy dependencies—that make possible the scientific distinction we call “gravity.” But “gravity” does not precede the observers and scientific practices that later stabilize this distinction. Likewise, H₂O becomes possible once oxygen exists, but “water” as something sensed, used, or conceptualized emerges only within biological, ecological, and cognitive domains. Consciousness develops gradually with nervous systems, yet its emergence is inseparable from the ecological and material recursions that support reflective behaviour. These distinctions—gravity, water, consciousness—are not free-standing essences. They are stable ways that observers engage with the material dynamics through which their own existence is sustained.

AE also offers a way of interrogating the usual distinctions between essential and non-essential, and between universal and non-universal. Instead of treating these categories as fixed, AE examines how they arise within particular observational frameworks and how certain patterns become stable enough to appear universal. A striking illustration comes from contemporary black hole theory. In classical general relativity, black holes appear to possess universal, essential features—event horizons, the no-hair property, fixed thermodynamic behaviour. Yet modern developments in quantum gravity challenge these supposed universals. In holographic duality (AdS/CFT), a black hole in one description corresponds to a strongly coupled quantum system in another, blurring what looked like essential features. Approaches to the information paradox—complementarity, soft hair, firewalls, quantum extremal surfaces—show that what counts as “universal” depends on the theoretical and observational closure one adopts. AE does not deny the underlying material regularities; it simply notes that the “essence” and “universality” attributed to black holes emerge through the recurrent coupling of theory, modelling practices, and the constraints of the phenomena. This is exactly what AE expects: robustness without transcendence, regularity without reified essence.

A similar point applies to information. Information does not predate life as a free-floating property, nor does it wait for consciousness to appear. It comes into being whenever a system—whether a cell, a nervous system, or a community—constitutes meaningful differences relative to its own organization. Material processes and interpretive activity are not alternatives; they are two sides of the same ecological dynamic. Neither can be shown to precede the other.

So the scientific answers stand. AE’s contribution is to make visible how our distinctions—gravity, water, consciousness, information—arise in the interplay between the physical world and the observers who must make that world coherent in order to act within it. This interplay is neither purely constructed nor purely given. AE approaches it as an ongoing ecological relation rather than a division between what exists “before” observers and what is made “by” them.

Warm regards,
Steve

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From: Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Krassimir Markov <itheaiss at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2025 8:21:03 AM
To: fis <fis at listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fwd: Contingency biological signals: Sex and Being


Dear Jason,

You asked: 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 our planet's life emerges, but when did consciousness emerge? 4- Did "information" emerge before or after consciousness?

Of course, I am not genius to know everything. Now we have AI to support us.

The answers to the first three questions are from AI. The last, about information, is mine.

1. When and How Did Gravity Emerge?

This depends on what you mean by "emerge":

As a fundamental force: Gravity likely existed from the very beginning—at the Planck time (10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang). In the earliest moments, all four fundamental forces may have been unified, then gravity separated first as the universe cooled.

As a distinct phenomenon: During the inflationary epoch (10^-36 to 10^-32 seconds), gravity became distinguishable from other forces. The gravitational constant and spacetime geometry as we know them were established.

As structure-forming: Gravity became cosmologically significant around 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when matter and radiation decoupled. Gravity could then pull matter together to form the first structures—stars, galaxies, etc.

2. When Did Water Emerge?

In the cosmos: Water molecules (H₂O) first formed roughly 1 billion years after the Big Bang, once the first stars had created oxygen through nucleosynthesis and dispersed it via supernovae. Hydrogen was abundant from the Big Bang itself.

In our solar system: Water was present in the protoplanetary disk about 4.6 billion years ago, incorporated into asteroids, comets, and planets as they formed.

On Earth: Earth formed ~4.54 billion years ago. Water likely arrived through a combination of:

  *   Water trapped in minerals during Earth's formation
  *   Cometary/asteroid impacts delivering water (particularly 3.8-4.1 billion years ago during the Late Heavy Bombardment)
  *   Oceans were probably established by ~4.4 billion years ago

3. When Did Consciousness Emerge?

This is profoundly difficult because we lack consensus on what consciousness is:

Simple awareness/sentience: May have emerged gradually with the first nervous systems—perhaps 600-700 million years ago in early animals. Some argue even simpler organisms show proto-conscious responses.

Self-awareness: Likely much more recent. Evidence suggests some mammals, birds (corvids, parrots), cephalopods, and great apes show self-recognition. This might have emerged multiple times independently over the last 100-200 million years.

Human-like consciousness: Modern human consciousness (with language, abstract thought, self-reflection) emerged sometime in the last 200,000-300,000 years with Homo sapiens, though the exact timing is debated.

The hard problem is that consciousness leaves no fossils. We can only infer it from behavior and neural complexity.

4. Information Emerged With/After Consciousness
The Proper Hierarchy is:

Before consciousness/sensors:

  *   Only physical interactions between entities (particles, fields, forces)
  *   These interactions cause changes, transformations, i.e. reflections
  *   But  reflections are no "data"—just causality, just physics happening

With sensors (biological or otherwise):

  *   Sensors transform physical  reflections into data
  *   A photon hits a retina → becomes neural signal (data)
  *   A molecule binds to a receptor → becomes chemical data
  *   Data is the reflection captured/registered by a sensor

With consciousness:

  *   Consciousness recognizes/interprets data as information
  *   Information = recognized data = data + meaning

The Complete Sequence:

  1.  Physical interactions/reflections (always existed since the Big Bang)
  2.  Sensors (emerged with early life, ~3.5-4 billion years ago—even simple cells have chemical sensors)
  3.  Data (emerged when sensors began registering reflections)
  4.  Consciousness (emerged 600+ million years ago with nervous systems)
  5.  Information (emerged when consciousness could recognize and assign meaning to data)

The DNA

DNA base pairs are not data—they're just molecular structures interacting physically. They only become data when:

  *   Cellular machinery (sensors/readers) registers their patterns
  *   Transcription/translation machinery "reads" them

Even this might be generous—it's mechanical registration, not true data in the conscious sense.

So: interactions → reflections → sensors → data → consciousness → information

With respect,

Krassimir
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