3. Philosophy of creature

3.1The essence of life

The mystery of life is a difficult problem that has troubled mankind for a long time. In fact, this problem is very easy. Living things are alive and have all sorts of magical functions because of their complex and orderly structure, and nothing else. All that soul stuff, all that living element, it's nonsense.

Many of the most important concepts we talk about are essentially refer to structures. For example, the nature of information is structure, the nature of time is structure, and the so-called "order" also refers to structure. By "ordered" we mean a structure that has some special function.

If we have the ability to change the structure of non-living things at will, including the position of every molecule and atom, then non-living things can live as long as they are properly designed. On the contrary, change the structure of the creature, and it may die immediately.

The reason why we can't bring non-living things to life now is because we don't have the ability to make very complex structures, the structures of living things are too complex. How complicated is it? Even the most advanced science and technology can't make a leaf of a tree. Complex structure will inevitably produce all kinds of magical functions.

The structure of living things is on the one hand very complex, on the other hand very ordered. Whether the structure is ordered depends on the function, if a system adds a new function due to the structure change, then it means that its degree of order has increased. The ordered structure comes from variation and natural selection. It might need 10,000 variations for an orderly structure to emerge.

The magical function of living things is due to its complex and orderly structure, and there is no other reason. The only mystery is how such a complex structure came into being and how it survived billions of years.

Complex things are fragile, a mosquito, put in the hand a pinch will die. What do you mean dead? Death is the destruction of a complex and orderly structure. First, it becomes a disordered structure, then it rots and deteriorates, and finally it turns into simple substances like water and carbon dioxide. A mountain fire, a radius of tens of kilometers of living things are burned to death. So why after billions of years of wind and rain baptism, countless catastrophes and disasters, living things can survive and not become extinct?

The reason is simple, because of self-replication or self-reproduction. Self-replication is a positive feedback, why is it a positive feedback? Because the larger the base, the more products are copied, and the more products are copied, the larger the base of the next round of replication, this is a positive feedback. Positive feedback inevitably leads to sudden mutation, which means that the number of living things increases exponentially. It's like swarms of locusts, cockroaches and rats. Because there are so many of them, they can survive and not go extinct.

While variation and natural selection are essential, they are not scarce resources. There is variation and natural selection in non-living things, just as there is in living things.