<div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">Dear FISers, </span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">hi! </span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">A possible novel discussion (if you like it, of course!): </span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><b>A SYMMETRY-BASED ACCOUNT OF LIFE AND EVOLUTION</b></span></font><br></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">After the Big Bang, a gradual increase in
thermodynamic entropy is occurring in our Universe (Ellwanger, 2012). Because of the relationships between entropy
and symmetries (</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">Roldán et al., 2014</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">), the
number of cosmic symmetries, the highest possible at the very start, is declining
as time passes. Here the evolution of
living beings comes into play. Life is a
space-limited increase of energy and complexity, and therefore of
symmetries. The evolution proceeds
towards more complex systems (Chaisson, 2010), until more advanced forms of
life able to artificially increase the symmetries of the world. Indeed, the human brains’ cognitive abilities
not just think objects and events more complex than the physical ones existing
in Nature, but build highly symmetric crafts too. For example, human beings can watch a rough
stone, imagine an amygdala and build it from the same stone. Humankind is able, through its ability to manipulate
tools and technology, to produce objects (and ideas, i.e., equations) with complexity
levels higher than the objects and systems encompassed in the pre-existing
physical world. Therefore, human beings
are naturally built by evolution in order to increase the number of environmental
symmetries. This is in touch with recent
claims, suggesting that the brain is equipped with a number of functional and anatomical
dimensions higher than the 3D environment (Peters et al., 2017). Intentionality, typical of the living beings
and in particular of the human mind, may be seen as a mechanism able to
increase symmetries. As Dante Alighieri
stated (<i>Hell,</i> <i>XXVI, 118-120</i>), “y<i>ou were not
made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge</i>”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">In touch with Spencer’s (1860) and Tyler’s (1881)
claims, it looks like evolutionary mechanisms tend to achieve increases in environmental
complexity, and therefore symmetries (Tozzi and Peters, 2017). Life is produced in our Universe in order to
restore the initial lost symmetries. At
the beginning of life, increases in symmetries are just local, e.g., they are
related to the environmental niches where the living beings are placed. However, in long timescales, they might be
extended to the whole Universe. For
example, Homo sapiens, in just 250.000 years, has been able to build the Large Hadron
Collider, where artificial physical processes make an effort to approximate the
initial symmetric state of the Universe.
Therefore, life is a sort of gauge field (Sengupta et al., 2016), e.g.,
a combination of forces and fields that try to counterbalance and restore, in
very long timescales, the original cosmic symmetries, lost after the Big Bang. Due to physical issues, the “homeostatic” cosmic
gauge field must be continuous, e.g., life must stand, proliferate and increase
in complexity over very long timescales.
This is the reason why every living being has an innate tendency towards
self-preservation and proliferation.
With the death, continuity is broken. This talks in favor of intelligent
life scattered everywhere in the Universe: if a few species get extinct, others
might continue to proliferate and evolve in remote planets, in order to pursue
the goal of the final symmetric restoration. In touch with long timescales’ requirements,
it must be kept into account that life has been set up after a long gestation:
a childbearing which encompasses the cosmic birth of fermions, then atoms, then
stars able to produce the more sophisticated matter (metals) required for
molecular life. </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ansi-language:
EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">A symmetry-based framework gives rise to two opposite
feelings, by our standpoint of human beings.
On one side, we achieve the final answer to long-standing questions: “<i>why are we here?</i>”, “<i>Why does the evolution act in such a way?</i>”, an answer that reliefs
our most important concerns and gives us a <i>sense</i>;
on the other side, however, this framework does not give us any hope: we are
just micro-systems programmed in order to contribute to restore a partially
“broken” macro-system. And, in case we
succeed in restoring, through our mathematical abstract thoughts and
craftsmanship, the initial symmetries, we are nevertheless doomed to die:
indeed, the environment equipped with the starting symmetries does not allow
the presence of life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpLast" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">REFERENCES<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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auto;text-align:justify;text-indent:-18.0pt;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ansi-language:
EN-US">1)<span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman";">
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normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">2)<span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman";">
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normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">3)<span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">Peters JF, Ramanna S, Tozzi A, Inan E. 2017.
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auto;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify;text-indent:-18.0pt;line-height:
normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">4)<span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
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doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002400.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">5)<span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
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1860. System of Synthetic
Philosophy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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EN-US">6)<span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="IT" style="font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Roldán E, Martínez IA, Parrondo JMR, Petrov
D. 2014. </span><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">Universal
features in the energetics of symmetry breaking. <i>Nat. Phys. 10</i>, 457–461.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">7)<span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">Tozzi A, Peters JF. 2017.
Towards Topological Mechanisms Underlying Experience Acquisition and
Transmission in the Human Brain. J.F.
Integr. psych. behav.
doi:10.1007/s12124-017-9380-z<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:-18.0pt;
line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">8)<span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US">Tyler EB. 1881.
Anthropology: an Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify;
line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><font face="courier new, monospace"><b>Arturo Tozzi</b></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify;
line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><font face="courier new, monospace">AA Professor Physics, University North Texas</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify;
line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><font face="courier new, monospace">Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify;
line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><font face="courier new, monospace">Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto;text-align:justify;
line-height:115%;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><font face="courier new, monospace"><a href="http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/" style="font-size: 14px; color: rgb(5, 68, 126); line-height: normal; text-align: start;">http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/</a><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"> </span></font><br></p></div><br>