From the beginning of life to human thought - an introductive synthesis.pdf

Copyright 2021 by Julius Sentores. Link: https://psicoantropogenetica-iniziovita.it/
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An Introductive Synthesis
From the beginning of life to Human thought
The emergence of the primordial choice
Under my hypothesis, life would have emerged 3.8 billion years ago through a
primordial choice that I called “causal”. This causal choice would go beyond the
threshold of Planck units, currently identified as the maximum limit of measurements.
On this basis, I have constructed the following concerning the beginning of life1,
initiating what is now termed epigenetics.
Reproduction in non-living cells
Primordial choice relies on the premise that self-replication2 in the non-living cell
was present before of life itself emerged, as shown in the structure of proto-RNA.
Unlike life, the structure of proto-DNA conforms to the rules of physical and
mathematical logic3. Life, therefore, doesn't coincide with, but rather follows the
existence of a system able to replicate itself.
Without mathematical models it would not have been possible to reconstruct the
structure of DNA4. From this we can deduce that also its origin, that is the proto-RNA
(or DNA?) were built according to the same logic. But not being the physics-
mathematics able to represent the complex phenomena of living, it follows that the
proto-RNA (or DNA?) already belonged to the non-living world and were,
consequently, already equipped with binary splitting and/or self-replication. So binary
splitting and self-replication cannot be identified with life. Life needed the emergence
of a new singularity that grafted in the proto-RNA or proto-DNA pre-cell. This implies
that this singularity could not be included in Planck's units. It is, therefore, a new
phenomenon able to have that complexity, proper of life, which was expressed through
choices that exceed 50% probability. Therefore, even if they remained probabilistic,
1
Keep in mind that the transition can occur between cell, organism and man within each
paragraph, as we refer to processes that accompany the whole evolutionary process.
2
By separation (first?) and self-replication to proto-RNA and/or proto-DNA later (?).
3
The bases within DNA needed a mathematical model for their breakdown.
4
Structure that was discovered by the researcher Rosalind Franklin and, only on the basis
that she posed, was elaborated and disclosed by Watson and Crick without referring to
Franklin.

6
they had the ability to select a nutrient that could be effective or harmful, making a
choice with more possible outlets and, therefore, a causal choice.

7
This choice is, therefore, typical only of life and only in life can overcome that 50%
probability becoming causal, because the presence of two or more options can not
represent the non-living. The causal choice is the beginning of that epi-phenomenon
that hooked to the proto-DNA or proto-RNA modifying differently the activations. With
the causal choice epigenetics began, which had to consist also in a spatiotemporal
sense able to allow proto-cells to move towards the new nutrient that, due to a sudden
change in the environment, could no longer be introjected in a random way as
happened in a long stable environment. Causality, in fact, is implicit in a choice that,
opting for one of the two possibilities, becomes the cause of the choice itself, whether
positive or negative. It becomes causal since only in life is there a difference between
effective and harmful, concerning the survival of the structure. This, I believe, is the
incontrovertible demonstration that life has emerged from the non-living (i.e. from
physical-mathematical logic) and therefore without any divine finalistic intervention.
More than 50%
Without that increase in probability that can go beyond 50%5, beneficial mutations
would be dominated by the sole case. This type of replication existed before life –
being, in my hypothesis, a mode of replication subject only to the physical-
mathematical logic. Living beings, on the contrary, express themselves through
choices that exceed 50% of effectiveness, thus entering from randomness into
causality. The genetic and phenotypic characteristics would not, therefore, have a
privileged function, as they are not the only characteristics to determine the fitness of
the organism, with which the choices of the cells of the organism also participate (with
the intervention of epigenetics, like is now understood). In fact, with the causal choice
comes responsibility for the benefits or damage it visits on the same structure. Between
efficacy and harm, which represent the effect of the nutrient and whose cause lies in
the choice itself: hence the term "causal choice".
Reversibleirreversible
The singularity resulting in the choice is, moreover, reversibleirreversible, merging
in itself the reversibility component, represented by the retroaction of the choice in the
memory, and the irreversibility component, represented by the action of the choice.
The two functions occur simultaneously in infinitesimal times and in opposite
directions: one retroacting in the past and the other directed to the future using the
5
Not currently knowing the participation of other factors, as Boncinelli points out.

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delayed choice of Wheeler that I assume already existed in the non-living. Retrograde
memory modification would occur via a small loan of energy, immediately returned.
Qualitativequantitative logic
Primordial choice, therefore, could not follow purely physical-mathematical logic,
because it presents values below the said Planck time. We can posit the emergence
of a spatiotemporal phenomenon in the proto-cell, which enables the proto-cell to
choose from the external environment the most suitable nutrient elements to help it
survive and reproduce its structure. Thus, this phenomenon would transform a non-
living proto-cell, already able to replicate itself, into a living proto-cell; through
primordial choice, such a cell could increase its chances of survival in a hostile and
changing environment by more than 50%. This environment, in fact, would no longer
be able to offer regular nutrient elements to allow that primitive, non-living cellular form
to reach the degree of complexity that, over time, built the conditions for self-
reproduction. The emergence of primordial choice helped the cell, equipped with a
primitive DNA6 made the shift from a physical-mathematical logic (i.e., quantitative
logic), to a bio-logical logic: a logic of the living (i.e., Qualitativequantitative) logic. In
fact, this Qualitativequantitative logic represents the ‘physical’ reality of the living
world: Perhaps a kind of proto-equilibrium was added to the change in environment,
similar to what Gould and Eldredge theorized to explain the sudden explosion of new
species, could have led to the conditions for the occurrence of this phenomenon.
Quantum Bio-gravity
Talking about quantum gravity referring to living systems is quite irrational. It would
be like saying that quanta, particles, atoms, molecules, organs and organisms are
governed by the same laws of the Non-Living, both micro and macro. It is instead
logical to assume that already at quantum level the interactions between quanta,
particles, atoms, molecules, etc. undergo modifications expressed by the singularity
that represents the emergence of the Life. Modifications that I define "quantum bio-
gravity".
Harmful or ineffective choices
At the beginning of life on Earth, 3.8 billion years ago, creative choices sometimes
resulted harmful or ineffective: i.e. choices that did not benefit the cell. Later on, parallel
choices did not always benefit the organism, or the species. Today, they do not always
6
Only 2% of DNA is responsible for building the more than 100,000 proteins in the human
body.

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benefit the human communities, nor all the other surviving species. We are now aware,
in fact, that since it is not possible to know the future, evolution proceeds through trials,
and that inevitably some trials prove to be errors.
Wheeler's delayed choice
In Wheeler's experiment7 the photon wave-particle dualism is resolved by the same
photon in the moment in which it is observed: the photon has already before a defined
shape, but once introduced in the experimental system "decides" to take the form of
wave or particle depending on the experimental conditions - demonstrating sensitivity
to human observation. The important aspect is that this choice should backward the
particle by "a few billionth of a second", violating the arrow of time.
The phenomenon of ‘delayed choice’, in the case of life, demonstrates that matter
can modify its ‘past’ (the memory of the structure) coherently with the value (positive
or negative) of the choice made. The choice between nutrient elements to the
advantage of the cell could modify its past structure, making the cell more able to
recognise the element and repeat that choice in the future.
The retroactive particle drive
With my hypothesis on the emergence of life, the nature of the mind would no longer
be a mystery; with causal choice, a new type of ‘substance’
qualitativequantitative/reversibleirreversible was created. This substance was no
longer subject to quantitative laws of matter. Moreover, through the delayed choice,
we have a form of ‘drive to the past’ that retroactively modifies the memory of a proto-
cell. The more biological structures grow in complexity, the more that drive to the past
amplifies itself. Today, after 3.8 billion years, this drive has reached a new degree – a
degree that, in humans, allows every individual to express free will by means of
decisions capable of retroactively affecting neuronal activity. It would appear, then,
that this drive was activated before the human will, like in the famous experiment made
by Libet.
Cause and effect
But why, given the infinite number of delayed choices that occurred throughout the
evolution of life, would this ‘drive to the past’ tend to increase over the last 3.8 billion
years? The answer is selective advantage. The drive to the past would grow differently
in each species, extinct or extant. In the human kind, that drive has increased beyond
7
Realized first mentally and then practically.

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Planck time to more perceptible intervals. This would explain why, in the Libet
Experiment, neuronal activity appears to occur a half second before the subject is
conscious of having made a choice, giving the illusion that neurons are the cause, and
the choice is the effect of neural correlates. Effects seem to precede causes.
The substance of the causal choice
The ‘substance’ that would form the primordial choice doesn't have only the
quantitative nature: rather, it would be a very subtle type of substance that becomes
more complex as life differentiates. Eventually, embodied in our species, the substance
of primordial choice has emerged as human logic and creativity, which help us to
understand both the living and the non-living worlds.
The changeing environment as a contributing factor to the emergence of life?
The evolution of non-living cells required a regular, stable environment, which would
allow structure's memories to maintain their effectiveness with the help of delayed
choice. Therefore, non-living cells were already able to modify their environment,
transforming the nutrient elements to survive. But their survival was not due to a
‘choice’: survival was merely a by-product of random activity, due to the fact that these
structures were still part of a quantitative logic, subject to the laws of statistics that do
not exceed 50% probability, and in which the regular function of the cell (in the event
of a rapid change in the environment) would not allow an adequate change in the
acquisition of the external elements (i.e. nutrients) necessary for replication.
Replication that was gradually implemented by slow construction of RNA and DNA
precursors, perhaps after an initial phase in which pre-cells separated by halving.
Rapid environmental alteration, together with favorable internal conditions of a
primitive non-living pre-cellular structure, would have stimulated the emergence of
proportionally flexible change. Precisely in order not to remain hooked to an
environmental regularity, which had become dysfunctional, it would have emerged in
this way, even if imperfectly and slowly, a phenomenon whose sensitivity was
qualitativequantitative/reversibleirreversible. A new phenomenon that, not falling into
the physical-mathematical logic, would allow the adaptation of the structure to change
through a proto-epigenetics.
So, when the environment began to change, rapidly decreasing the elements that
previously constituted it, there would no longer be the conditions capable of
maintaining reproduction in non-living pre-cells, with the danger of a disintegration of
proto-RNA and / or proto-DNA. This aspect can not be in line with the instability in the
vicinity of the bifurcation points hypothesized by Prigogine, because this hypothesis,
not going beyond the quantum indeterminacy of the probabilistic model, while
remaining within the physical-mathematical logic, produced life. While the causal

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choice, untied from such logic, would have given to the cell that epigenetic advantage
that allowed to continue, adapting it, the self-replication or reproduction for survival in
an environment not sufficiently stable.
The spatiotemporal sense
The spatiotemporal sense would fill the space between the living proto-cell and the
most advantageous nutrients. Without such selective activity, the cell could not survive
in a rapidly changing environment. Primordial choice, linked to the spatiotemporal
sense, would thus help the cell to survive, giving rise to life as we now know it and to
time in all its forms8. That is, primordial choice would grasp the movement of a world
8
Space and time are categories that cannot be separated, but time in its various forms,
precisely because it has developed with the development of the logical function, or rather, as
its greatest expression, is much more important for the understanding of human phenomena.
The sense of time (which clearly implies also that of space) is more closely linked to the
expression of verbal communication (and, in them, to the language of concepts). The concept
of time, in fact, is the last of the human dimensions to develop with evolution.
Temporal forms:
Sense of time: this expands and contracts according to the emotion and
its intensity.
Continuative time: by continuative time I mean the uninterrupted
passage of that particular time, e.g. of that half-hour.
Quantity of time: by quantity of time I mean the “sum” of the quantity of
time of a way-of-being. Obviously it is an approximate, comparative quantity, because such a
quantity of time is not measurable, but only intuitively deductible from the knowledge and the
observation of one’s self and the other. Anyone who is in a conflictual state, is so because,
among other things, he/she spends too much or too little time “centred” on co > pl or on co <
pl, which is like saying that beyond a certain quantity of time, which is relative to one of the
two ways-of-being (or attitudes), cortical or plexal, one creates a state of internal conflictuality
that I call basic conflictuality, since it is the expression of a distorted polarity of the nervous
system (which consequently affects the endocrine and immune system), a state of conflictuality
favoring any other conflict within the individual or of the individual with the environment. It is,
therefore, important that the individual spend less time or more time in a way-of-being (or
attitudes), that balances the prevalent way-of-being (or attitudes). Consequently, “to establish
the individual’s basic conflictuality one poses the elementary question: “Do you spend too
much time centred on the cortical-plexal system or too much time centred on the plexal-cortical
system?”. Wishing to “delve deeper” into this speculation, I can affirm that the quantitative
measure of the time of a way-of-being would not contribute anything either to the individual or
to the solution of the problem implied by the hypothetical phenomenon of the basic
conflictuality. If the quantification in the inanimate world be essential for its understanding (in
the encounter between the animate and the inanimate world, quantification which does not
contradict the phenomena of the world is useful, cf. demography, etc.), a similar type of
quantification (if it were possible to obtain it) in order to understand the animate world would

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without space and time and, by this, empower itself beyond the non-living logic: a
movement that man, through space-time, would use physical-mathematical logic to
represent in order to understand more and more deeply the non-living world. A
movement that man, with the introduction of the space-time of the physical-
mathematical logic, would have always more deeply understood in its dynamics.
Darwinian passivity
Instead of this Darwinian passivity, with the beginning of life the ability to predict, to
remember and, therefore, to learn ‘in function’ of the next choice, would have emerge,
even if to an infinitesimal degree. It follows that, in addition to the favorable mutations,
the causal choices would have been essential to increase the probability of survival in
addition to the variations among individuals, which, on the contrary, for Darwin were
due to the selective pressure of the environment without the participation of the
organisms.
Production of choices
In a living being, (whether a cell or a differentiated organism,) everything is
organized not only with a view to reproduction, but especially with a view to production:
the production of creative choices would primarily contribute to their survival, while also
giving the organism additional advantages through progeny with an even higher
probability of survival.
The evolutionary process would therefore have involved the creative choices of
individuals (cells or organisms) particularly gifted in perceiving the changes in the
environment. In fact, diversity and novelty are always best captured by the most
sensitive/intelligent individuals, who were most capable in transmitting new behaviours
to others. The genetic-phenotypic composition, then, together with a favourable
mutation, would not be the only advantageous elements in the face of a changing
environment.
be misleading with regard to the individual’s problems. The short times of the animate world
compared to the “eternal” times of the inanimate world lead us to two crudely different concepts
of science: concepts which meet the “subtle” matter level.
To expect a type of quantification valid for the inanimate world to be valid also for interior
conditions would be like trying to create a science of the outside world on intuitions of a
psychological kind, rather as Aristotle did with his physics.
Arc of time: a reasonable length of time (a year, for example) in which to identify
a phenomenon.
Sequences: order in which the actions occurred.

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The cross genetic recombination, epigenetics (as currently understood), and food
may be necessary for the survival of the organism, but cannot be sufficient. Only with
the anticipatory presence of effective choices would an individual cell or organism
acquire the capacity for competition and cooperation, to ensure the success of their
offspring. Nevertheless, cells and organisms pursue no ends other than survival, even
in the most advanced expressions of human creativity: be they artistic, musical,
architectural, scientific, economic, etc. – given the pleasure that creativity causes for
the inner balance.
The best recipe
We can see the emergence of the delayed choice as a good recipe found by the
non-living cell to allow it to continue on its reproductive path, helping her to change. Of
course, compared to changes in the environment, the result of the choices can be
advantageous, useless, or even harmful: this is an extremely flexible and probabilistic
process, both in positive and negative ways.
Even the simplest beings, relative to others, were still complex in that they were
capable of movement, finding and absorbing nutrients, reproduction, and integration
through its very structure: the nutrient substance, often chosen in the external
environment to great effect. If the best nutrient is the one with the lowest entropy, as
Rovelli seems to say, it would be taken only from the spatio-temporal sense according
to the needs of the living structure. In this case, the living cell, in order to increase its
survival, will select from the surrounding environment the nutrient with the lowest level
of entropy. This kind of selection would have been impossible for a non-living proto-
cell; it may also be that the random ‘choice’ of the non-living cell casually found an
element with such low entropy as to facilitate the emergence of life9.
Lower entropy nutrients?
The causal choice would in fact promote a new emergence, in which quantity is
added to quality – a synthesis that would go beyond Planck's measures. This
phenomenon, as I said, would have occurred in the living proto-cell, about 3.8 billion
years ago. These proto-cells, by the means of primordial choice, would have been able
to grasp the most suitable nutrients (and, probably, also the lowest entropy) for the
maintenance of their structure, for reproduction and production of new creative
9
Or it may be that the random "choice" of the non-living cell stumbled upon an element of
such low entropy that it facilitated the internal conditions (genetic to epigenetic) for the
emergence of life.

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choices, despite the errors of useless or harmful choices that could or could not erode
the products of more effective ones.
Six hundred million years ago and the birth of the choice-mind-neural system10, first
expression of complex epigenetics
Historically, over a period of about 2 billion years, in the most difficult moments,
related cells would gather temporarily to better deal with the difficulties inherent in the
environment. Only later, about 600 million years ago, did cells merge into a single
organism: a ‘supercell’ that, for reasons we do not know11, found itself with the capacity
to organize individual cells, and thus acquired for itself in a new synthesis -- the result
of the choices of individual cells to become ‘submissive’. This is how the first choice-
mind-neural system was born. From the first pluricellular life forms emerged
encephalization and sexuality, with the division into two distinct groups dependent on
reproductive purposes. More complex reproductive process would not be sufficient to
ensure the necessary degree of variation, because the survival of a species also
requires effective choices made by the most intelligent beings.
Mindneural system: original and derived
The first organism was born with the formation of the choice-mindneural system.
This is what I describe as the ‘choice-plexal system’ (i.e., original) and from which
the ‘choice-cortical’ system was later or derived.
Transfer of choice
With the increase in the number of neurons, as a consequence of the choices of the
original system (or choice-plexal-system), and the enlargement of the multicellular
organism, some neurons began to move to the front part of the organism (cephalization
process) until they prevailed on the choices of the original system (choice-plexal-
system) remaining connected to each other in an intense synergy while performing
other vital functions. Once the choices of the new derived system (or choice-cortical-
system) began to increase the number of neurons overlapping the previous layers
10
The definitions of choice-mind-plexal system / choice-mind-cortical system served
more correctly to emphasize, with the term "choices", placed before the term "system", the
origin of these systems. In order to make the reading more fluent, I opted to eliminate the term
"choices", which remains essential in order not to fall into the old concept of Nervous System.
This same simplification has been maintained throughout the essays. Moreover, here the
Nervous System has not been examined when conditionings prevail, transforming the choice-
mindneural system into a neuromental system resulting from the embodiment of choices.
11
Perhaps a particular abundance of microtubules of much greater than average length.

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(which became sub-cortical), even the intense interaction with the original system (or
choice-plexal-system) became more and more complex.
Birth of the plexus-cortex interaction
The plexus-cortex interaction emerged, therefore, with the beginning of the
cephalization process, and continued in the evolutionary processes of species,
whatever the differentiation between the cortical and plexal systems (or celiac
plexus).
The prefrontal system
In the choice-cortical system, I have included the cortical structures that are
dependent on the prefrontal cortical region that primarily participates in the choices,
and where the subtle and flexible physicality of consciousness and choices has been
embodied. This concept is valid regardless of the degree of differentiation of the
nervous system. In fact, for the first organisms endowed with a differentiated brain, the
choice-cortical system continues to be the most evolved part. Also the cortex reflects
a type and level of consciousness proper to the species.
The construction of the subcortical system (using the current terminology)
The various choices that have followed one another along our evolutionary line,
acquiring new functions and gradually overlapping with those lower functions that have
become increasingly archaic, represent the subcortical parts of the brain.
Plexal-cortical vs. cortical-plexal
There is a ‘corporal’ or plexal-cortical activity, when the choice-plexal system
prevails over the choice-cortical system, and a ‘mental’ or cortical-plexal activity,
when the choice-cortical system prevails over the choice-plexal system. Both these
activities, which are based on intuition (positive or negative, continuous or occasional),
can be both creative and destructive12, along a spectrum between high and low
emotional intensity. Such interactions, which are valid for the full variety of individuals
and collectivities, have also been generalized over the course of the theory through
dynamic schemas.
New parts of the body
12
Valid for both the individual and the collectivity.

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During the evolution process in the cortical system, all the parts of the body have
come to gradually emerge, changing or adding to the body through the various phases
of evolutionary transition of species.
Every organism has its own ‘vision’ in relation to environmental reality. This vision
derives from the structure of the organism, whether it is only cellular or equipped with
a more complex cortical system. This is to emphasize that, beyond the unicellular
structure, this "vision" will always reflect the interaction with the plexal system.
The consciousness-environment
Consciousness is that inner environment of subtle physical nature, which has been
formed over 3.8 billion years through the infinite choices made by our ancestors. Each
choice has gradually expanded the environment-consciousness that today we call
consciousness – a consciousness that ‘shrinks’ as a result of negative choices. These
choices are, however, an unsuccessful attempt to adapt to the environment, and to
adapt the environment to itself.
Consciousness is, therefore, that environment flexibly embodied in the brain and the
body where information is received from different parts of the mind-neural system of
the body and brain. Information also come in the form of feedback resulting from the
choices made by the individual, from the most ordinary choices of everyday life to the
most complex of theoretical research. In my hypothesis, it is this subtle physical
environment that favours the transfer of the effect of choices to the organism.
The pit of the stomach
We can locate intuiting/feeling at the level of the pit of the stomach. This fact
suggests that what is called the solar plexus must have been analogous to a ‘brain’ as
coordinator of the functioning of the cells connected prior to cephalization. Once the
process of cephalization had begun, the solar plexus participated in every initiative:
either ‘continuously’ (albeit alternately) during the body activities, or through the
intuition of the moment preceding choice. This connection applies to all surviving or
extinct species.
Extending consciousness to the level of ‘stomach’
Moreover, the flexibility of the environment-consciousness is such that we can
extend it, consciously or unconsciously, to the solar plexus (at the level of the pit of the
stomach) in order to better perceive both how to guide our body movement and what
happens in another organism.
Facilitator consciousness

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Consciousness is of course a facilitating phenomenon for the occurrence of choices,
both positive and negative, since the subject has the faculty to choose between several
alternatives. These choices are, therefore, addressed by what is perceived at the level
of the pit of the stomach.
Damasio and the choice
Damasio defines choice as a peculiar type of feeling, or something similar, referring
to a sensory mode aimed at the outside world. He’s not aware that he’s talking about
that subtle substance that gave rise to life and that I have here defined: primordial
choice. Damasio’s ‘particular feeling’ is rightly not identifiable with other sensory
modes.
Damasio and consciousness
Consciousness is an environment that increases along with creative choice, but it
doesn’t represent an auxiliary aspect of our biological endowment, as Damasio
argues. He mistakes the cause for the effect. In fact, the choices (creative or harmful)
that affect the level of consciousness make it possible for the effect to participate in the
modalities of gene activation.
Damasio, the somatic marker, and ‘as if’
If somatic markers are automatic tools that alone evaluate environmental stimuli, as
I believe Damasio affirms, it would not explain how, faced with overwhelming danger,
some subjects are driven to react with truly automatic (that is, lacking in choice at the
level of the individual organism) behavioural modalities. These modalities arise from
the most archaic subcortical areas, the only ones able to save them from those
situations in which they have never faced. It is, in fact, from these areas that the signals
are sent to the body. The ‘as if’ loop of the somato-sensorial regions cannot replicate
the immediacy and strength of archaic signals of the subcortical areas13.
Edelman and consciousness without choice
13
In 1982 I filed with Copyright USA with Italian handwriting the interactions between the
solar plexus and the prefrontal cortex, highlighting how the cognitive function of man and his
behaviour, but also their pathologies, always involved this interaction. In fact, already at the
age of 33, nine years before, in 1973, I had focused on the relationship between plexus and
cortex. (Symbols and dynamic schemes deposited in Copyright USA 1983- 1988). Damasio's
book Descartes’ Error, which I particularly appreciated, dates from 1994.

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Edelman aimed to define consciousness through a model of ‘re-entrant signalling’
and ‘action’14, as the most complex and differentiated expressions of the nervous
system. He doesn’t discuss, however, choice as fundamental to the action
itself: Edelman wanted to return to a mechanical functional model of the nervous
system; choice, in contrast would imply the phenomenon of ‘mind’. In theory, however,
biologists with an interest in ‘mind’ could address the phylogeny of the nervous system,
perhaps through a deep reflection on the dynamics of Edelman’s Neural Darwinism, to
conjecture about the ways in which the nervous system would emerge through choice.
After all, along our evolutionary path, choice is the most differentiated level of
consciousness, emerging gradually until they reach human levels of consciousness.
Biologists and physical-mathematical
Today, many biologists turn to physics-mathematics as a discipline they can use to
further or represent their research, and this as if biology were a quantitative science.
The hypothesis of causal choice, instead, implies an innovative way to look at the living
world, a heuristic process that indicates a path that should be explored in depth,
because it provides a new phenomenon: the birth of thought, in its most
undifferentiated form, emerging alongside life about 3.8 billion years ago.
Too Early?
As Jacob says, ‘when a scientific attitude manifests itself too early in the day, it is
not taken into account’. This, I think, is exactly what will happen to the hypothesis of
the physical-mathematical structure of proto-RNA and/or proto-DNA. A hypothesis
unable to explain, alone, the emergence of life as it lacks qualitativequantitative logic.
The same will happen to the hypothesis of the causal delayed choice. If primordial
choice were sooner or later to be taken into consideration, it would be possible to
consider living phenomena in a different way, highlighting new relations on previously
ignored aspects. This could favour the birth of a new paradigm that would allow us to
enter more deeply into the study of living beings, considering even to the choices that
take place not just at the level of a given organism, but in the organism’s very cells.
This would allow us to a new class of problems, potentially leading to an entirely new
body of knowledge.
Phylogenetic Time
14
As a more complex and differentiated expression of the nervous system.

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Behind the actual genetic structures there is phylogenetic time. Inscribed in the
genetic program are all the revolutions of the past, even evolutionary dead ends, in the
form of traces of genes that have been expelled or made silent. Darwin wisely said
that the hereditary substance of previous generations is present in the current
generation, diminishing in proportion to their temporal distance.
States of danger and archaic emotions
If there is no tendency in the evolution of a species to return to previous
morphologies (beyond the rare production of retrograde ‘monsters’), this is due to the
silencing of the morphological expression of individual genes. But this silencing
process does not occur in the instincts connected to those morphologies (not too far
distant in time?) if particular conditions prove to be favourable to the survival of the
new species. In this case, archaic emotions are reactivated, especially in moments of
extreme danger, both internal and external.
Reactivation of archaic instincts and emotions
During evolutionary transitions involving morphological and functional
transformations resulting from interactions between the genotype and the environment,
the genes representing previous species cannot therefore be reactivated. But as
previously stated, archaic emotions and instincts can be reactivated when necessary
without involving the production of proteins and, therefore, without invoking the
morphologies of individuals that preceded the present species15.
Darwin and other geniuses
Darwin accepted statistics, ‘submitting’ himself to the physical-mathematical logic
for which he was not genetically suited. But evolution, being not purely random, cannot
be studied with statistical methods alone, as such methods can be at most merely
indicative. In fact, no statistical model could have predicted the impacts on society of
the birth of a Newton, a Darwin, an Einstein, a Freud; nor can such an approach
foresee the social impact of the theories of future, creative individuals, like Edelman
and Damasio.
Unpredictable combinations
15
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a short tale in which the author describes
characters with the instincts of previous evolutionary phases (apparently from Australopithecus
onwards), and also the reactivation of archaic morphologies have been represented in the
description of the characters created by the Author.

20
In the genetic recombination, unpredictable combinations may prove to be
extremely favourable for a single individual. This partially contradicts phenotypic
passivity, that is, the morphological and functional characteristics of the Darwinian
individual, subjected to environmental selection. This is because the individuality of
highly creative choices can utterly change the predictions of statistical models.
According to Darwin, the laws of evolution operate mainly on large populations. So,
if on one hand Darwin ‘abandons’ the individual in favour of the population, on the other
he unknowingly misses the value of individual choice of the individual for the survival
of the species, relegating variability between organisms exclusively as the product of
the environment on the basis of their practical benefits – a usefulness that alone would
have facilitated the adaptation of the individual. In fact, the only active choice Darwin
considered was the choice of the sexual partner, especially by the females16.
Too mechanistic
The theory of evolution cannot be based solely on the law of large numbers. Darwin,
using the results of statistical analyses, absorbed a conception of populations derived
from Malthus. This assumption represents a limit to his theory, making it too
mechanistic. Common sense tells us that statistical models have considerable limits in
explicating a single, individual case, since an outlying individual (such as Darwin
himself) has the potential for laying the foundations for changing the entire world
population, and thus every generation that follows17.
The revealing function of theories
The encounter between a male and a female gives the newborn child a degree of
creativity and freedom. This can be clearly seen in many gifted personalities. Darwin
himself is an example of an individual who modifies scientific research with the theory
of ‘natural selection’, regardless of the resistance of ideological-religious communities
to Darwin’s theory and generations of work that has been derived from it. In today's
collectivities, in fact, man is a function of the economy since the economy is the most
accessible form of power over others.
16
What Darwin and Wallace achieved in the evolutionary field, with travel, on-site
observations and experiments, was achieved by Freud in his study, investigating the deeper
motivations of the stories and emotions of patients. In a second period he dialogued, on the
basis of the notes he had taken and the conclusions he had reached, with his wife's sister to
better evaluate his hypotheses. And sometimes he went so far as to erroneously invalidate
them, as he did in the case of the effects of child abuses.
17
Therefore, the cross between a male and a female can give rise to a particularly gifted
individual that dispels both Darwinian gradualism and statistical predictions.

21
Fitness as effective choices
If fitness were seen also in terms of the vitality of choices, this perception would
ultimately affect both conceptions of Darwinian fitness, which refers to the number of
descendants that survived to the individual carrier of that adaptive trait, and
epigenetics, which is understood as modifications in the regulation of gene expression
as a consequence of interactions between individuals, and between an individual and
his environment. It is these choices (conditioning is irrelevant) that determine the
emotions of pleasure or suffering during such interactions. In turn, these emotions can
activate or deactivate individual genes giving rise to what is called epigenetics:
changes that can be transmitted to the next generation18.
Choices and struggle for existence
The struggle for existence is, therefore, a struggle for the most effective choices.
Survival is endangered by lack of resources, catastrophic events, etc., and cannot be
linked only to favourable mutations that, implicitly through the individual who acquires
them, ‘expands’ itself disproportionally within a population. In fact, with the degree of
control over nature man has achieved, without the presence of effective choices, the
ability to exponentially multiply in this fashion can become one of the main sources of
self-extinction.
Therefore, advantageous mutations, crossings between the sexes, creative
choices, genetics and epigenetics have all been the basis of evolutionary processes
through competition and cooperation, or through parasitism, both within one's own
species and in the confrontations between different species, even if in the course of
evolution most species have become extinct.
Cleverness and gene transmission
The competition between males for the opportunity to reproduce with females and
thus transmit their genes has not been decided only by strength (in the most
differentiated species), but often by cleverness19. Cleverness by definition indicates
choice: solving a problem, perhaps through a ‘trick’ that restores an internal balance
at the expense of the arrogance of the strongest, who, therefore, are proven to be not
always the most fit. This phenomenon can be clearly seen by studying the sexual
18
Darwin himself does not represent the "survival of the fittest" which in his text, The Origin
of Species, has a collective value.
19
Excluding monogamic species.

22
behaviour of lower ranked male chimpanzees, who successfully reproduce despite
their relative physical weakness.
Disasters and over-conditioning of sedentarism
Disasters have certainly affected the living world by changing not only individual
organisms (should they survive), but also their distribution across the Earth's surface.
Even with effective choices, sometimes tens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of
individuals of a species may die, if they are too sedentary, and show too much
resistance to accepting new initiatives. In certain cases, the survival of the more
‘ingenious’ organisms through relocating to a new habitat could be sufficient for a new
species to emerge.
Qualitative disciplines and technology
Medicine, biophysics, biology, genetics, epigenetics, history, economics, politics,
art, and so on, are not quantitative disciplines, but rather qualitativequantitative
disciplines20. Therefore, they cannot be fully explained with physical-mathematical
logic. This does not exclude the practical usefulness of physical-mathematical
technologies for the living phenomena that these disciplines represent. But the
application of such technology, especially with consideration for the enormous power
it has been given, leads to a characteristic deformation in the interpretation of
phenomena when applied to fields related to life.
Information in the living and non-living world
Information-equivalent-to-life is a dogma. In fact, only information-equivalent-to-
living-information represents the living world: it is the transformation of non-living-
information into living-information. Therefore, it is not enough to talk about matter,
energy and information to represent the living world. This erroneous concept is still
inherent in much of biology. We need a new, much more complex view of information.
My opinion is that this kind of qualitative information emerged with the first choice,
3.8 billion years ago, corresponding to the birth of thought with the sense, however
undifferentiated, of the past, the present and the future, born in the ability to grasp the
movement in a world without space nor time.
20
I do not attribute a derogatory sense to physical-mathematical artifices. On the contrary,
I consider it a way to highlight that, since there is no space or time in the Non-Living, individuals
of genius and others of acute ability have found creative ways to penetrate it and make it
understandable to the world. This has all my admiration.

23
Quantum physics is not the basis of life
Today, for many scientists living information is subject to the laws of quantum
physics. For them, man is a suitable apparatus for collecting information from the
outside world, transforming his own functioning from the quantum level. In contrast, my
hypothesis argues that this transformation begins with the new phenomenon of causal
choice, which is not subject to the laws of quantum physics, as Khalili and McFadden
believe. Primordial choice identifies the roots of the phenomenon of life with the tunnel
effect and the correlation effect. My hypothesis, if true, would give validity to the
concept that the ability to associate with and to generate increasingly complex
structures already existed in the same constituent elements of inanimate matter, and
reached its maximum complexity in reproduction as a phenomenon proper to life alone.
Intellectual pathology
Intellectual pathology can be expressed as the state in which a certain type of
capacity is projected onto phenomena that require capacity of a different nature. For
example, the ability to grasp the phenomena of the non-living world through physical-
mathematical logic can be projected onto the phenomena of the living world. Khalili
(and others) erroneously considered this to be the basis of the functioning of
consciousness. We cannot hypothesize a solution to the problem of consciousness by
referring to quantum phenomena that would occur at the level of the microtubules of
the human nervous system, such as the non-computational, mind-neural system
developed by Penrose and Hameroff21. Nor is consciousness a product of neural
synapses, which, according to Coppola's hypothesis, indicates that even pure
consciousness (typical of Maharischi's transcendental meditation) would be part of the
unified field studied by modern physics.
The importance of Everett’s absurd hypothesis
The collapse of the wave function ends with the measurement by the observer and,
in the case of life, would be identified with a single choice made ‘randomly’ by the cells.
Everett, with his substitutive ‘many worlds’ hypothesis, would have highlighted, albeit
unintentionally, the extreme absurdity of such a solution when applied to life. In support
of my observation, try to imagine the immeasurable number of choices that are in fact
causal measurements carried out in every miniscule fraction of a second throughout
the evolution of each cell in every organism over the course of 3.8 billion years22. This
21
While keeping in mind that there are prokaryotes with the presence of primitive
microtubules.
22
Beyond a certain time extinct, or surviving for 3.8 billion years.

24
proliferation would clearly violate Occam's razor. However, we must be grateful to
Everett. Thanks to his inadmissible hypothesis (although unexceptionable from a
mathematical point of view) we can strengthen the idea that life can never be
represented by physical-mathematical logic. Everett’s hypothesis is very important, as
it highlights how absurd it is to apply the logic of physicists and mathematicians to the
living world.
Choice is proper only to the Living
Sub-atomic particles, particles, atoms, and molecules in the non-living world are not
chosen, just as planets and galaxies are not chosen and don’t choose each other: their
dynamics are part of quantitative relationships that can only be interpreted by physical-
mathematical logic. The qualitativequantitative primordial choice has been able to
modify the functioning of sub-particles, particles, atoms and molecules, building over
3.8 billion years increasingly complex living structures that, balanced between
extinction and survival, have led to the current species, including man.
Conditioning, projecting and projecting oneself
Conditioning is always negative and dysfunctional, since it constitutes a memory,
an emotion, a concept that imposes itself on the logical capacity of the individual or the
organism or even the cell, negatively conditioning choices that will be ineffective or
harmful.
Projection is the pathological phenomenon in which an individual projects its
conditioning through the relative memories, emotions and concepts, making them
appear as if their content were a coherent response to external stimuli coming from
other beings or from a phenomenon. This pathology can be expressed on a spectrum
from a minimum of incidence based on the situation in which we are living, to reach a
maximum of incidence: for example, from a simple rationalization that diverts the
subject from the real motivation of his own or others' behaviour, to a psychotic state in
which the perceived external reality is merely the projection of an inner state, and in
which the external reality is completely cancelled.
The opposite of projection is the projection of oneself into the other or into a
phenomenon, as a way of trying to understand it. This implies empathy for ‘the other’
and for the focus phenomenon.
Creativity or meditation?
In my opinion, the phenomenon of meditation, by castrating potential creativity
through the suppression of the slightest excitement of the nervous system, cannot
obtain either a deep knowledge of reality, nor the highest state of consciousness.
These achievements can derive only from the deep excitement that the creative

25
individual feels in intellectually penetrating, through trial and error, unknown
phenomena that will lead him to the formation of theories consistent enough to lay the
foundations for further development. Theories, hypotheses and conjectures, even
when they can be criticized, have the function of focusing attention on unknown
phenomena and thus of stimulating new progressive concepts23.
Tantrism
The Tantric technique is based on trust in order to serve each other the One of the
Other, without betrayal but promoting sexual activity prolonging it as much as possible
without reaching orgasm to get, over time, to push more and more, to the frontal cortex,
the energy of sexual pleasure. There will be a time when the relationship with the
partner will no longer be necessary because the deep pleasure of meditation can be
obtained directly by focusing on the prefrontal cortex (third eye).
Evolutionary Turning-Points
The genetic program encapsulates the results of all the changes in the past, through
the accumulation of successes achieved through (for example) genetic mutations and
recombinations. During this process, some expressions of DNA have been silenced,
others excluded, to make way for new phenotypic characteristics that, according to the
theory of natural selection, are the product of selection created by environmental
pressures alone. But advantages beneficial to the species, as I have said, are not only
the result of favourable genetic errors, but also the choices that resulted from them.
This shapes the functioning of epigenetics in a broader sense than is currently
understood. In addition to epigenetics, which does not highlight the priority of choices,
we must add to reproduction the advantage of effective choices made by those who
survived.
23
The meditation of the ‘enlightened’ has never produced anything theoretical that would
favour the evolution of society except a transitory state of well-being and belonging for a limited
number of individuals. Although it is an extremely intriguing phenomenon, it has the limit of a
complex experimentation entirely directed at itself which, not needing to overcome the forces
of quantum gravity proper to conditioning, does not lead to the maturation of the individual
organism as a social person, but leads only to the power of the ‘enlightened’ over his followers.
Meditation is a sort of selfish infantilism brought to extremes that, in general, does not harm
and whose purpose is not to improve interactions with others but to escape: from sex,
aggression, and anxiety, through a progressive detachment that facilitates – through the
teaching of ‘the way’ – a process of internalization and a presumed (but understandable)
feeling of fusion with the universe. This sensation is reached with the maximum passivity of
one's own thought, and corresponds to a state of deep and widespread pleasure, while the
eye of the mind merely observes the flow of what is happening within itself.

26
Psychoanthropology
The common ancestor probably shared by the crossing between bonobos and
chimps gave birth to the species that later led to Australopithecus, and the final descent
of primates from the trees. This permanently inserted our hominin ancestors into a
most stimulating environment: the African savannah. Here, Austalopithecus would
have assumed the rigid hierarchical structure of baboons, a structure that, despite 6
million years of evolutionary steps, still accompanies us and that has been continually
necessary for survival in environments so highly challenging, both in inter- and intra-
species terms. This structure is still today at the basis of ferocious struggles:
concretized religious and ideological conflicts, and tensions between competition and
cooperation, as we struggle to control resources and lands that have been challenged
throughout history and remain so today. The acquisition of power, and the application
of many aspects of logic and empathy, have brought us here. And from this ferocity
have certainly not been exempt individual relationships or other interpersonal
behaviours, as history has shown and is still evident in the psychological and physical
crimes that occur in everyday life.
Phylogenetic emotions
Phylogenetic emotions are the most powerful emotions. They have supported (and
continue to support) tribalistic expressions of religions and ideologies, embedded in
various hierarchical structures. Tribalism has no limit. It can identify small communities
or communities formed by billions of people, all united by dogma and old paradigms
(economic, political, cultural, scientific, philosophical, psychological, etc.). In such
conditions, reasoning function cannot prevail over the more irrational aspects of
culture, and cannot lead to the development and propagation of a true democracy
grounded in the capacity for both logic and empathy.
Future policy: there is no con-science without science
My hypothesis is that we are in an extremely dangerous transitional phase due to
conflicts that will become increasingly intense between fading cultural-species,
anchored to the religious and ideological hierarchies that (from about 10.000 years)
form the basis of omnipresent economic power, and sparse incoming cultural-species
with a logical-empathic frequency that prevails over the gravitational force of
conditioning: conditioning that, inevitably formed during childhood, predisposes the
subject to interpret the behaviour and culture of others through acquired stereotypes,
that as adults give rise to arguments rooted in association and not in logical

27
coherence24. Modalities that do not solve problems, but (in the case of political activity)
do have the function of involving the masses.
In a hypothetical world government
It is to be hoped that in time, a majority of the world's population will be able to
develop an approach to daily life similar to that of scientific researchers, for whom the
process of resolving of problems teaches and requires them to overcome differences
in origins and cultures, through linking logical and empathic aspects. It is likely that
such a widespread conditioning would allow, a selective choice by on the population
level of political representatives with logical and empathic decision-making capacities,
able (in a hypothetical world government or through agreements between
governments) to deal pragmatically with those ecological and demographic problems
that, if left unsolved, present the risk of self-extinction.
Milgram and Zimbardo
Milgram and Zimbardo, through their essential empirical work, make us reflect on a
real danger: pathological individuals may come to power democratically, that is, with
the support of the majority of a population. Both of these extremely important
experiments were done in the United States in order to be able to define the ability of
the individual to maintain, or abandon, his or her responsibility to act under the
pressure of an authority. In Milgram's experiment, a student, under instruction from an
authority figure at the university, had to progressively lower a lever toward higher and
higher values of electrical discharge. The student was made to believe that the lever
was connected with electrodes placed on the body of another student whom he could
24
The Faculty of Psychology seems to be built for a reverse selection, that is to say, built
for those who have an excellent memory so that they can administer thousands of useless
notions on voluminous texts just as useless instead of short and essential texts and this without
ever touching the deep conditioning that can afflict members. Conditionings that, once started
the "profession", they will unload on the clients putting on the "coat" of psychologist or
psychotherapist who can judge without judging themselves. The disqualifying and insulting
admission test to which those who choose this professional orientation are subjected gives a
sense of the vacuous structure of this Faculty. A serious Faculty of Psychology should be the
most difficult and selective faculty in the world, since it deals with the most delicate human
activity, that of entering empathically into the interiority of a person. A Faculty that should oblige
students to spend half of their undergraduate and postgraduate years in encounter groups and
individual sessions conducted by psychotherapists of proven ability. Thus able to bring out the
“removed” from the students. This modality should produce a "ruthless" selection for access to
the title of psychologist or psychotherapist. A title suitable only for the few able to support and
manage through self-criticism and self-knowledge their deepest conditioning.

28
see, through a reflective glass, without being seen. The student who would receive the
electrical discharge was in a soundproof room to make it believable that his moans
could not be heard. Only a small percentage of students who participated in the
experiment objected when they were forcefully ordered to take the discharge to lethal
levels.
The second experiment, carried out by Zimbardo at Stanford University, was much
more complex, both in terms of the number of people involved and the environment
and duration. After having been informed of the purpose of the experiment and having
chosen to participate, a certain number of students, both male and female, were
divided into 'dominant' and 'dominated' and distinguished by a colored band that
indicated their rank and that they had to wear at all times. To the dominants were given
all the powers that followed their rank, while to the dominants were taken away those
powers that hindered their submission. These were the "laws" to which the participants
had to adhere during the period of coexistence. Within 15 days, a situation of real
overpowering was created by the dominants with episodes of mental and sometimes
physical cruelty, so that the experiment was interrupted.
Without a sufficiently sophisticated technology
It is not yet possible to verify or invalidate the hypothesis and conjectures that I
introduced here. However, it remains the reprehensible fact that in the field of living
beings we suffer from the total lack of a sufficiently sophisticated technology able to
identify the "subtle" substance, in order to make experiments and grasp the different
manifestations in cells and organisms. The presence of this technology would allow to
separate for the first time what is scientific from what is in the hands of fraudsters and
charlatans. But it is a technology for which, probably, we will have to wait many years.

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