Co-evolution of consciousness and operating systems (Коэволюция сознания и операционных систем)

Co-evolution of consciousness and operating systems

Yaroslav Vyacheslavovich Bogdanov

Abstract

The text delves into topics related to the evolution of forms of matter movement: physical, chemical, biological, and conscious. It introduces the concepts of the Pan-socium, Pan-encephalon, and Superintelligence. The author reflects on the formula of matter evolution, defines life, explores multicellularity and intelligence, and hypothesizes that love is a crucial organizing force of the mind. The interrelation of music and human consciousness, as well as the connection between mental disorders and consciousness, is examined. The author characterizes emotional activity as a specific reactivity inherent in the mind and thought as an organizing force regulating emotional activity. Schizophrenia is discussed as a disease of meaning reproduction, and parallels are drawn between cancer, as a disease of mitosis, and schizophrenia. The evolution from physical forms to intelligent ones is explored, along with metaverses, linguistic models, blockchain, and biotechnologies in the context of the Pan-socium and Pan-encephalon. The text contemplates the cosmic role of humans and superintelligence.

Preface

In the late 1980s, when I was a high school student, I became interested in the forms of matter movement and their evolution. At the time, I was aware of several primary forms of matter movement: physical, chemical, biological, and intelligent [1]. From my father, a professor of biology, I learned that these forms evolve over time. In my view, the simplest form was the physical, followed by the chemical, biological, and finally the intelligent form of matter movement. Back then, I believed that these forms differed from one another through qualitative leaps, somewhat akin to the process of aromorphosis in living organisms. It was clear to me that the mechanism behind such leaps must be the same for all forms of matter movement.

At that time, I was deeply fascinated by chemistry and biology. I viewed life as a continuation of chemistry. In physics, I was particularly drawn to the field of thermodynamics. Beyond the school curriculum, I remember reading Peter Atkins’ popular book «Order and disorder in nature» [16]. I was familiar with the concept of entropy and aware of the anti-entropic properties of life. I also studied Academician A. I. Oparin’s book on the origin of life from coacervate droplets [8]. Magazines such as «Science and life», «Technology for youth», and «Chemistry and life» were invaluable resources for me, as they often discussed the topic of the origin of life. My go-to book was «The Universe. Life. Mind» by I. S. Shklovsky, which devoted significant attention to life, intelligence, and their cosmic role [14]. I didn’t overlook the works of V. I. Vernadsky, reading some of his writings as well [3]. I was also captivated by Erwin Schrödinger’s book «What is Life? From a Physicist’s Viewpoint» [15]. Thus, my father’s idea that “life is a hierarchy of enzymatic systems” found fertile ground in my prepared mind.

Our biology lessons were taught by a wonderful young teacher, Dmitry Vadimovich Dubikovsky. The novelty of his teaching approach, the way he analyzed alternative theories of the evolutionary process and the origins of life, also stirred my imagination. One phrase of his stayed with me: “As a result of evolution, love multiplies in the world.”

All of this – what I now recall, and perhaps other things I’ve forgotten – gave rise to a personal definition of life. My own. These thoughts remain among the most important to me even today. I developed them slowly over the years in notes and writings, but never expressed them in a cohesive form for a broader audience. It took time for me to mature enough to do so. The ideas evolved and grew richer, but their essence remains the same. For me, a Soviet high school student, writing a serious philosophical work was an insurmountable task. The challenges I faced then were entirely practical: finishing school, entering university, obtaining a higher education, and becoming a doctor. Of course, these responsibilities distracted me from my schoolboy discoveries, but I never abandoned them.

I have long been studying topics far removed from evolutionary biology, theoretical medicine, and even cybernetics and its related fields. For many years, I have focused on forensic and general psychiatry. In this area, I dabbled in something resembling scientific research for a time, though I didn’t achieve much success. Yet, passion draws the amateur back to familiar paths! And I’m not particularly embarrassed by this, even though I can imagine the smiles of knowledgeable professionals who might decide to read my work. I understand that there are entire scientific schools dedicated to the theory of language, evolutionary biology, neuropsychology, and many other subjects. But knowing my own field, for example, I can say with near certainty that despite the pomp and rigor of the knowledge I rely on in daily practice, despite the brilliance and intellect of thought leaders, and despite the many international and local classifications, psychiatry will change beyond recognition in another fifty years (if not sooner!) – in its views, methods of treatment, and many other aspects that seemed immutable just yesterday.

I understand how much psychiatry relies on authority, how much conventionalism there is, and how much remains unclear and speculative – knowledge that persists (often imprecisely) simply because no alternative has yet emerged. Tomorrow, it all might collapse like a house of cards, but only when a worthy replacement appears. New knowledge, a suitable tool – after all, knowledge is primarily an adaptive mechanism for humanity. When one becomes obsolete, another takes its place. And that’s as it should be. When it comes to understanding the psyche, its nature, and the paths of its evolution, especially in connection with the evolution of society, we are merely skimming the surface. Much of what is presented today by authoritative figures as part of scientific knowledge is little more than a blend of speculation and conventionalism – and often this is not even concealed. People express their opinions, which vary in quality, of course. Opinions are not all the same. And so, I decided to share what I have pondered for many years. Compiling individual notes, thoughts, and phrases into a unified whole was quite challenging, but it brought me immense satisfaction! I hope that reading this work will be beneficial to you as well, dear readers.

For those interested in the terminology I use, a glossary of key terms and their definitions is provided at the end of the book, just before the references section.

What is life? Certain patterns in the evolution of forms of matter movement

As far as I’ve heard, defining life is considered bad form among biologists -something along the lines of, "Don’t act like a know-it-all." But I was about seventeen, my father was a biologist, and I had spent half my childhood in the biology department. Moreover, I was going through a phase in life that sometimes ends in "philosophical intoxication," which, thankfully, didn’t happen to me. “The old catamnesis,” as they say, revealed that I simply remained a curious person striving to form a more or less coherent understanding of the world around me.

"Life is a system of chemical reactions ordered in time and space."So, as a high school student, I came up with the following definition of life: "Life is a system of ordered chemical reactions." Later, I refined it slightly:

This clarified not only the directionality of chemical processes in the biological environment but also encompassed all those organelles, membranes, compartments, mitoses, meioses, and so on, which are sustained by this orderliness. In my view, this meant that the system is open, and its orderliness leads to the system’s self-maintenance. I understood "orderliness" in the spirit of thermodynamic systems' concepts of order [16].

Why specifically chemical reactions? Because, in my view, life originated through chemical reactions.

It very accurately reflects the essence of the life we know on planet Earth and, of course, incorporates the idea of the orderliness of chemical reactions. Enzymatic systems are systems of biochemical catalysis, and the term "hierarchy" directly points to orderliness.I also liked another definition of life, given by Professor V.R. Bogdanov: "Life is a hierarchy of enzymatic systems."

My definition is more general; it implies the possibility of other forms of life we do not yet know about – life built on different biochemical principles, not based on nucleic acids or proteins, whose primary quality is the orderliness of chemical reactions.

The formula of orderliness in chemical processes led me to think about what each subsequent form of matter movement represents in relation to the previous one. It is the ordering of a new quality of substance that has emerged. Chemical reactions made the existence of molecules possible, vastly increased the combinations of elementary particles and atoms, and reduced the energy costs of these processes. While the number of chemical elements generated by the physical form of matter movement is measured in dozens, the number of chemical compounds, even in inert matter, is measured in hundreds and thousands – not to mention organic, biological, and man-made chemistry.

This aromorphosis – the process where not the entire atom but its electron clouds enter into reactions – produced chemical reactions under suitable conditions at an appropriate stage in the expansion of the universe, leading to the ordering of physical processes in time and space.

Just as carbon chemistry is the key process for life, the emergence of atoms with electron clouds was the key process for chemistry. This represents the new order of physical interactions that gave rise to chemical reactions. Out of a vast number of elementary particles and their combinations, atoms became the "carbon" for chemistry – they ignited the fire of chemical reactions.

I previously identified weaknesses in my definitions, but I liked them nonetheless because they personally helped me understand the evolution of matter – from physical forms to biological ones, and eventually to intelligent and superintelligent forms. Later, I delved into specifics. I reflected on physical reactions and viruses – whether they are alive or not. I concluded that their life is facultative; they are dualistic in nature and cannot be considered independently of cells, as, outside of cells, life does not exist. For practical reasons, we often consider viruses to be alive. However, in reality, viruses do not live outside of cells. One could say they are genomes outside of cells that, under suitable conditions, modify the genomes of bacterial or multicellular organisms and compete with them for cellular organization. The goal of this competition is to win the vertical race for the transmission of genetic information.

A virus is a parasitic genome. It is not alive, just as any genome outside of a cell is not alive. As a result of evolution, some genomes learned to persist outside of cells. This is a degenerative pathway of life and likely the first degeneration to occur in the living world. Viruses did not produce the diversity we later saw in multicellular organisms, but they are still alive to this day! They are more alive than the living and often outcompete living organisms, as evidenced by the recent coronavirus pandemic. These companions of life are not outsiders; their strategies are highly successful, and they are indestructible as long as life exists.

It is clear that for life – for this chemical factory – a compartment is necessary, whether it be a coacervate droplet, a bacterium, a cyanobacterium, or some other simple organism. The orderliness of this factory is such that the chemical processes within it sustain themselves, and entropy is minimal or approaches zero. For example, the orderliness of chemical transformations at a pharmaceutical factory is also significant, but that does not make the factory alive – the chemical processes there cannot sustain themselves. Without the participation of technologies created by intelligence, the factory cannot live or reproduce. The moment the technological process halts, everything reverts to an inert, chaotic process with increasing entropy.

Later, I became intrigued by questions such as: How did eukaryotes evolve from bacteria and cyanobacteria? Is the eukaryotic cell essentially the simplest two-celled organism with two distinct genomes – the first chimera? Was it the first parasite turned symbiont, and why did such cells gain the potential to eventually give rise to multicellular organisms? And what are multicellular organisms, really? Where do we begin? With flagellated Volvox? With sponges? With the freshwater polyp Hydra? With worms? Clearly, there were intermediate forms, some of which are still known to us today. However, it’s not a fact that these currently existing intermediate forms represent the transitional stages on the path of aromorphosis. Perhaps these are newly emerged cellular associations that appeared in the more recent past.

To me, one thing was clear: multicellularity begins with the differentiation of cells. It is precisely at this point that the simplest multicellular organism emerges. From there, integration intensifies, leading to the development of tissues, organs, and functional systems of organs and tissues. Unlike I.S. Shklovsky (or rather his later views), I believed that the emergence of intelligent life was as inevitable as the emergence of chemical reactions and biological life.

But what is intelligence in relation to life? In my view, the key moment was the emergence of intelligence within a multicellular organism. The reproduction of chemical compartments was the first property that life acquired beyond chemical transformations. The second property was the differentiation of compartments, followed by their integration into tissues, organs, and organisms, with biochemical processes now permeating all of these biological systems. Vernadsky proposed the idea of the "ubiquity" of life: living matter is capable of spreading across the surface of the planet. It rapidly occupies all unclaimed areas of the biosphere, creating pressure on non-living nature.

Life, as an ordered system of chemical reactions, gave rise to self-replication, differentiation, and integration of biochemical systems that could no longer be reduced solely to chemical processes, even though all these properties of life remained inseparable from ordered chemical reactions. The diversity of material forms that emerged through systems of ordered chemical reactions is immense, and the number of new organic chemical compounds has grown exponentially. Over its existence, these systems have transformed the atmosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere, influenced continental drift, and much more [5], providing rich material for scientists to develop fields like paleontology, paleogenetics, evolutionary biochemistry, biogeochemistry, evolutionary theory, and many other disciplines. It should be noted that without the physics of electrons in the atoms of chemical elements, chemical reactions would not be possible. However, molecules and supramolecular structures cannot be reduced solely to the energy states of electrons in atoms.

The next property of life, which emerged specifically in multicellular organisms, was intercellular interactions – humoral and electrical, functioning as signals. The development of specialized areas sensitive to these signals – receptors, channels, and later synapses – marked a significant step. Nervous tissue, which in many higher organisms divides very little or not at all, devotes its entire resource to intercellular interactions – both electrical and chemical. Where mitosis is absent, electrogenesistakes precedence.

Much later, together with Professor A.M. Seledtsov, I co-authored an article for a student collection titled "Calcium Ions, cerebral paroxysms, epileptogenesis, mitosis, and apoptosis"[13]. At the time, we hypothesized that the calcium-calmodulin complex and nitric oxide are among the most ancient intracellular messengers. One of the most critical functions of calcium ion regulation in the nervous system is its role in apoptosis. Some effects of calcium ions on nervous tissue are temporally organized in a paroxysmal manner, primarily concerning pathological phenomena (epileptic paroxysms, the activation of pathological cravings for alcohol). Despite existing cellular calcium defenses, vertebrates – with their calcium-based skeletons – are prone to numerous pathological processes where hypercalcicity (an elevated concentration of calcium ions within the cell) plays a key role. These processes are temporally organized either paroxysmally (e.g., epileptic seizures, activation of alcohol cravings, certain cardiac arrhythmias) or non-paroxysmally (e.g., affective disorders, arterial hypertension).

We hypothesized that paroxysms in cases of hypercalcicity represent a process by which a cell (neuron) eliminates excitotoxicity, which would otherwise lead to apoptosis. This is most clearly observed in motor epileptic seizures. In such cases, the chemical energy of excitotoxicity is transformed into mechanical energy. The ease of this transformation is explained by the shared ontogenetic and phylogenetic origins of the nervous and locomotor systems. Specifically, in neurons, the calcium-calmodulin complex acts as a transformer of chemical energy into electrical energy, while in skeletal muscles, the calcium-troponin complex converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. In both cases, calcium ions and structurally similar proteins – calmodulin and troponin play a leading role in energy transformation. Sometimes, the epileptic mechanism only partially prevents apoptosis, and some neurons die. Clinically, this can manifest as Todd’s paralysis, a well-known phenomenon.

Thus, we viewed epileptogenesisand apoptosis as alternative processes for neurons subjected to calcium excitotoxicity. This parallels the relationship between mitosis and apoptosis, where mitosis is also seen as an alternative to apoptosis. Neurons in an epileptic focus (like all other neurons) are incapable of mitotic division. Therefore, when exposed to calcium or other forms of excitotoxicity (e.g., glutamate-induced), they counteract it by imposing abnormal electrical activity on the entire brain tissue. In this sense, neurons in an epileptic focus behave similarly to cancerous cells, which impose themselves on the organism through abnormal cell division.

An epileptogenic focus, like a tumor, possesses a certain degree of autonomy. The cells in both cases are abnormal – in tumors, this manifests as tissue and cellular atypia, while in an epileptic focus, neuronal microdystopias are often observed. Therefore, their energy organization shares many similarities. This organizational resemblance may explain the phenomenon of mirror foci in epilepsy – a type of "energy metastasis.

In our view, as expressed in the mentioned article, cells in a multicellular organism face three almost mutually exclusive fates: mitosis, electrogenesis, or contraction. As a result, most myocytes are incapable of division, and the same applies to neurons. Dividing cells are incapable of muscle contraction or electrogenesis to the extent that is characteristic of cardiomyocytes, neurons, and multinucleated cells of striated muscle. In contrast, the cells of exocrine and endocrine glands divide intensively. This may be because they constantly expend plastic material, rather than energy material (as in the cases of electrogenesis and muscle contraction). Thus, secretion is not an alternative to mitosis—in fact, it likely promotes it. It appears that only processes consuming energy material (electrogenesis and muscle contraction) are alternatives to mitosis. We further explored the pathogenesis-based therapy of epileptic seizures, pathological cravings for alcohol and substances, and the pharmacological agents that could support successful treatment.

The most important aspect of these considerations is that the emergence of electrical currents in the brain, made possible by the presence of "chemical batteries," occurs because neurons lose a critical property of living compartments: the ability to reproduce. This loss enables neurons to dedicate all their resources to the complex intercellular interactions involving synapses, dendrites, axons, neurotransmitters, and electrical currents – all of which these structures exist to support.

And so, intelligence emerges- a psychic organism. Or perhaps a psychic organ. External to the body, external to the brain, yet inseparable from and irreducible to it. The psyche, in the words of Professor of Biology V.R. Bogdanov, is an extracorporeal organ relative to the body [2].

Mind, psychic organism, and consciousness

Some thoughts

Let me clarify from the outset that I will use the terms "mind," "psychic organism," and "consciousness" almost as synonyms, occasionally emphasizing specific nuances in their meanings. I understand consciousnessprimarily as a philosophical category – a form of reflection – rather than as a utilitarian term used in neurology and psychiatry to denote the level of wakefulness. However, it is not just a philosophical category but also what makes us ourselves: our individuality, what makes us rational individuals, aware of our rationality – individuals with reflection, empathy, and personality.

The mind is the technical component of consciousness – its anatomy, its appearance, its physiology, and even its pathological physiology, because, unfortunately, describing life and consciousness without considering diseases and pathologies is inconceivable.

The psychic organismencompasses both these aspects. It is a living entity from the realm of thought, capable of self-maintenance within certain boundaries, as long as the biological substrate in which it exists remains intact.

In his work Spirit, Soul, and Body, Professor V.F. Voyno-Yasenetsky [11] cites a statement by I.P. Pavlov, where Pavlov defines consciousness as follows:

"Consciousness appears to me as the nervous activity of a specific area of the cerebral cortex, at a given moment, under given conditions, possessing optimal (probably an average) excitability. At the same time, the rest of the cerebral cortex is in a state of more or less reduced excitability."

Voyno-Yasenetsky further comments:

"The area with optimal activity is, of course, not a fixed area; on the contrary, it constantly moves throughout the cortex, depending on the connections between centers and under the influence of stimuli—accordingly, the territory with reduced excitability also changes."

This description reminds me of the functioning of a computer's operating system. It operates according to our commands but also follows its own rules, opening and closing various programs and files stored on hard drives or removable media. It utilizes operational memory, video and audio cards, and the motherboard. We can hear its activity through the sounds of the CD drive, the hard disk, or the floppy disk drive.

Moreover, we can visually monitor the operation of a computer's operating system using special programs that tell us which program is active at a given moment and what part of the hard drive is being accessed. The workings of our brain, of course, are not so transparent. However, the idea is that consciousness, like an operating system, uses the brain (without delving into specifics for now) as the material substrate for its activity.

Just as Windows requires the material foundation of a computer – a specific physical substrate – for its operation, so does consciousness. Outside the computer, Windows, as a dynamic system, can only exist as a static "installation package." Once installed, it is embodied and brings the hardware to life. Similarly, human consciousness – or at least a significant portion of it (including most of self-awareness) – requires a specific material substrate: the brain.