20 - 009 We are just a complex set of chemicals.

Before we consider further being digital we must understand that we are in fact chemical. This is because we can be exactly defined in our chemical makeup we can then be exactly defined as being digital device. The essence of life is that we are just a chemically made up organism. You may be a reader that finds this difficult to accept believing that something living has some magical ingredient over and above something that is not living. There is nothing magical but there is complexity to a degree that can almost be unimaginable. Not only complexity but the components of this complexity are impossibly small for us to comprehend. Complexity combined with miniaturisation to microscopic levels makes understanding it all very difficult. Plus there are aspects that remain unresolved so those that are unresolved always leave the opportunity for people to imagine that there are dependencies on mysterious unknown forces. I don’t believe in any such forces and that life is nothing but an ongoing chemical process lasting until it ceases to work as a chemical process resulting in death. So to pursue what many of you may seem as a dark and bleak prognosis on life let us get down to some fundamental basics. We need to start using the knowledge that emanates from the physics discipline. Matter is made up from atoms being the smallest building blocks from which our world is constructed. Atoms are like miniature solar systems containing sub-atomic particles of protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons and neutrons are found in the nucleus of an atom. Electrons are found in different orbits or energy levels orbiting around the nucleus. In chemistry we are particularly interested in electrons since chemical reactions involve the rearrangement of electrons. Now an element is a substance made up of atoms with the same number of protons. Elements are the simplest substances known and they are listed in the Periodic Table. Elements exposed to a chemical reaction form compounds. So atoms are held together in compounds by chemical bonds. The compounds that make up living organisms fall into two types:- Inorganic Compounds. eg water (which exists as molecules) and salts (which contain ions such as potassium, calcium and chlorides) Organic Compounds. eg carbohydrates, lipids and proteins all of which exist as molecules. Within the organic compounds from a digital perspective the nucleotides and nucleic acids are the key chemicals that support DNA and RNA since they support genetic inheritance and genetic modification. So as we covered earlier DNA is made up from adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C). These are the compounds that create the patterns in DNA. Whilst RNA consists of adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) but instead of thymine (T) it has uracil (U). But what we are not attempting to do here is understand the detail of biological chemistry this would cover many books in its own right and be very complex and scientific. What we are looking to do here in this Digital Human book is establish in your thinking that complex things can be defined by establishing codification for each thing and record all the patterns of these things that exist at any one time. Then as events in the life of the organism unfold see how these codified patterns have changed. Importantly these days also look at the tools and techniques that can be applied to these patterns to change an organism’s life.

20 - 008 What is Digital Thinking ?

What is Digital Thinking? Unfortunately as you read this book you are going to encounter my way of thinking about things. To many of you as readers this may include the use of an unusual vocabulary and a strange way of viewing the world around us. As the author I accept everybody views the world differently based upon their knowledge, understanding, perceptions and all the various thoughts they have in their head both now and in the past. But what I am looking to do is change your future thinking to align it to the way I think. This is no attempt to brainwash my audience but purely to acknowledge that you will not be able to grasp the ideas I am looking to convey about the Digital Human without changing your future thinking patterns. What I do not want to do is at this stage is expand on the fact that my thinking is based upon the concept of consilience sometimes called the unity of knowledge. It will be best to move you down this Digital Human pathway some way before we move more into the subject of consilience. Just consider it as a bonus subject to be covered later. So what is Digital Thinking? Having developed my computer career in the days of paper tape, punch cards, core dumps, file design and a variety of programming languages I have experienced the foundations of the digital world first hand. Take a core dump where this could amount to a foot thick print out of the computer memory often triggered by a failure. It just consists of page after page of zeroes and ones. (0’s and 1’s). You searched through it looking for specific patterns of the 0’s and 1’s to locate a faulty pattern. It was the digital interpretation of something you wanted the computer to do in the real world. Often a program would have been running to create this memory content and an error in the program generated the faulty pattern. So get your mind to think of doing something like the steps to make a cup of tea where you forget the tea bags. Similar to the steps you take to make a new living cell. This is the start of Digital Thinking. Now think of a process taking place on a tiny cell in your body where it is required to make a new cell. The digital representation is of the chemical makeup of the molecules in the cell. The process may convert the chemical from one type to another by possibly the addition of new molecule. The digital cell created would have a new digital make up which could be examined as a new core dump. The process itself is digitally defined just like a digital program and it could error by missing the tea bag out of the step. So are you getting it? Biological processes are chemical processes. Chemical processes can be digitally defined. The outcome of these processes can be digitally viewed since they are just digital representations of these chemicals. All chemicals have a precise digital definition. The Chemical Human can just be viewed as a Digital Human. That is the essence of Digital Thinking.

20 - 007 What is Epigenetics ?

Epigenetics is a new branch in biology which has and is in the progress of resolving many of the problems that were never resolved by just considering DNA on its own as the basis for understanding the meaning and progression of life. Sometimes referred to as the study of the heritable aspects of the meaning of life. It covers the features that are “on top of ” or “in addition “ the so called traditional genetic basis of inheritance based solely on DNA. The term epigenetics was used by British embryologist C.H. Waddington in 1942 with the focus upon embryonic development where cells divide and grow along different cell pathways forming the stem cells. Epigenetics has recently found a particularly strong following in the understanding of the development of the human brain in support of the “nature verse nurture” theory of understanding of how human behaviours develop. Epigenetics addresses the fact that a feedback loop exists that can exist as a life is being lived to effect the way that life itself evolves. This can include childhood development, environmental chemicals, diet, pharmaceutical intake and aging itself. So these things can be taken in during life by the living organism and significantly cause additions to the DNA master plan for that life such that a new sub plan is used by the life as it continues its living processes. Now I like to consider the DNA as being the overall script whist the RNA, that epigenetics is focussed upon, contains the detailed recipes for making the actual living cells themselves. Genetics thinking and research has always focussed upon the genes being passed down through in the case of sex in mammals joining together the chromosomes from male and female to create the new life. This depended upon the egg and the sperm stored in those lives from their birth coming together to reproduce a new life. So under this way of thinking the DNA is sort of locked unable to change during the life of the organism in which it has been stored. Now epigenetics looks at this more flexible RNA where things can be changed in the plans on how to build cells within the living organism whilst it is alive. So is the process only possible in one direction of travel. That is DNA script triggering the RNA recipe to make the living cell. So there are digital plans in the DNA script amended by the digital plans in the RNA recipe before the chemicals are mixed together to make the living cell. So we know the RNA recipe is updated by the life lead by the living cells within the organism and this will effect subsequent cells being made to this RNA recipe. But does any of these changes ever get back into the DNA? To affect future generations it would have to be in the DNA in the chromosomes to allow for the reproduction process. Now consider life in say viruses these are not complicated by a mammalian reproduction processes so RNA back to DNA is a more likely scenario. From a digital perspective the epigenetics aspects of cell creation lend themselves to a more detailed analysis of the sub-routines that support this process. These epigenetic processes are more complex than those existing around DNA, so really acknowledging that epigenetics is more complex than genetics. So genetics are a bit “carved in stone” whilst epigenetics is like having millions of “bouncing balls”.

20 - 006 History of Genetics.

Genetics is a branch of biology focussed upon the study of genes, genetic variation and heredity in organisms. Although becoming very scientific particularly with the use of computer technology to use advanced artificial intelligence (AI) techniques it has been a practice undertaken without a name since prehistoric times. It stems from the observation that living things inherit traits from their parents whereby this fact can be used to improve plant crops and animals through selective breeding. But the modern science of genetics, seeking to understand the hereditary process, began with the work of the an Hungarian Noble called Imre Festetics where he described several rules of genetic inheritance in a work called The Genetic Law of Nature (1819). This was followed by the more comprehensive work of an Augustinian Friar called Gregor Mendel in the 1850’s. The work of Charles Darwin in the book “On the Origin of Species” (1859) supported an idea of blended inheritance with the idea that individuals inherit a smooth blend of traits from their parents. But it was Mendel’s work that focussed upon the traits being linked to the combinations of distinct genes which has proved itself to be more scientifically correct. There was a discounted theory around associated with Jean Baptiste Lamark that individuals inherited the direct traits of their parents. Although the field of epigenetics has revived some aspects of Lamarck’s theory. In 1928 Federick Griffith discovered the phenomenon of the transformation of generic material followed in 1944 with the Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment which identified DNA as the molecule responsible for transformation. The Hershey – Chase experiment in 1952 confirmed DNA rather than a protein as the molecule responsible for inheritance. James Watson and Francis Crick determined the structure of DNA in 1953 using the X-ray crystallography work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins that indicated DNA has a helical structure. Genetics now adopted a more chemical engineering approach with it termed molecular genetics. This resulted in an explosion of research activities including the work of Frederick Sanger in 1977 allowing scientists to read the nucleotide sequence of a DNA module. In 1983 Kary Banks Mullis developed the polymerase chain reaction providing a quick way to isolate and amplify a specific section of DNA from a mixture. Whist the Human Genome Project led to the sequencing of the human genome in 2003. Richard Dawkins the ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author since his 1976 book called “The Selfish Gene” has provided a very readable narrative on the world of genetics. This has been followed with many books exploring all aspects of genetics. The approach taken is less deeply mathematical and scientific but more conceptual which has always suited my personal way of acquiring knowledge. Although I also like the works of scientists who can dip down to my level in terms of a communication style. This increasingly these days are those who are the new digital thinkers applying the powers of digitisation to the older scientific disciplines.

20 - 005 What is RNA ?

So if DNA is the master plan for life what is RNA? Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a molecule, like DNA is a molecule, formed as a stepping stone between the DNA script and the real cell that gets created from the DNA script. So the DNA script code is converted into an RNA code which if you like is the real recipe for making a real living cell. So in the making of a real living cell it is not DNA script directly to living cell but more like DNA script to RNA recipe to living cell. This is really significant because although the DNA script is very locked down with few changes allowed back through from living cells to change it the RNA recipe seems to be more flexible and more easily subject to change. With the possibility of some of these changes once established in the RNA recipe able to make it back to the DNA script. In fact the RNA recipe seems to be more susceptible to receiving feedback from living cells and the things they are experiencing in the outside world of living within a living organism. If that makes sense. I have deliberately called it a DNA script to indicate it is like a set of working instructions not containing all the detail on making the living cell in a chemical way. But it does give the detail on how to link to the particular RNA recipe required to make the living cell. But stepping through the DNA script it is able to call on a particular RNA recipe which as the term recipe implies has the detail on exactly which chemicals need to be mixed together to make the actual living cell. So the appears to be some hierarchy between DNA script and RNA recipe. Remember we are trying to envisage a digital representation of a chain of chemical processes making us a Digital Human. Now this difference between what I term digital thinking and chemical thinking is difficult to comprehend. But if you are a consilience thinker, which is about getting down to simple concepts that you believe underlies everything in this world, then in fact chemical and digital are exactly the same. Chemical changes go through stages so all the chemical elements can be defined exactly at each stage and it is their relationships at each of these stages that can be represented as a digital pattern. The periodic table of elements has been defined exactly linking to the atoms that support each element. All life is made up of these elements and nothing else. I am not a chemist but my favourite quote in 1924 was by Charles Mayo , the head of the American Medical Association, who published a tongue in cheek calculation that if you split the human body into piles of its constituent elements the total value would be around eighty four cents. So for me we are just assembled from these elements and the way we are assembled will be based upon set chemical patterns and these can be digitally represented. But there is one other important dimension relating to these digital patterns and that is time. In my human body these chemical structures and their representation as digital patterns are changing all the time. With RNA changing more dynamically than DNA.

20 - 004 What is DNA ?

The DNA master plan for life has now been transcribed into a computer digital file. It can be read and it can be copied and it can be changed. It can now be represented as computer file. No different from a computer text file or picture file. The work undertaken by Francis Crick and James Watson back in 1953 took the molecule deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as a chemical analysing it deeper down to the smaller chemical components of adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C). But significantly they then spotted a pattern whereby A fitted neatly with T and G fitted neatly with C forming two pairs with the molecule consisting of two chains linked together by A-T and G-C pairs. This pattern was the way hereditary information was stored in each DNA molecule with each of these DNA molecules existing within each living cell. Now these DNA patterns can be divided up into bits of similar looking smaller patterns which got repeated a lot and these got referred to as genes the study of which was called genetics. So it became possible to isolate different types of gene. These genes could be linked to the finished life cells in living organisms each having their own particular purpose. So whilst you can go right down to an individual gene all these could be put together to form the complete plan to make a specific life. So when you have got the complete plan for a life it is called a genome. So the genome for a flower or rabbit or fish or human. The human genome has obviously been one of greatest interest to us as intelligent humans. So what does the plan look like to make a human being. But at the same time we have been very interested in life forms that want to kill us. So the bacteria genome and virus genome have become of particular interest particularly with the threat of a killer virus that can cause a pandemic. Something that could destroy the whole human race. What it is important to appreciate is that DNA is only the master plan. It is only like the plan that you would have for building a new house. You use the plan as guidance to building the new house. To make a life the DNA genome has to be read and converted into real chemical cells. In making a new life all this information is derived from the chromosomes which if you like have everything packaged up to plan for the steps necessary to build this life. The seed from which life begins. So this conversion process from the DNA plan to the real chemicals that make our cells goes through a number of stages. The final living cells are made up from molecules called amino acids with twenty standard amino acids like cell building blocks. So the four bases in DNA (A,T,G,C) are used in different combinations to define an intermediary ribonucleic acid (RNA) which is a simpler than DNA having only one backbone. It is more like a step by step recipe of what needs to be mixed together to make the final living cell. This step between DNA and RNA and the creation of the final living chemical cell has been called epigenetics which we will look at later in the book. What is important for now is you have appreciated that DNA is just the plan for defining the components of life (genes) in a defined pattern format (digital file). The DNA genome is the total pattern format plan (digital file) for a whole life of something like a rabbit or human being.

20 - 003 Life is just complicated chemistry.

It is life itself that is so exciting a subject. From the cell replication from fertilisation into a new life to sadly the cancerous nightmare of faulty cell reproduction resulting in death. To all the faults that can be present from life’s conception to those triggered by the living of the life itself. From the preventive measures both ecological, personal and medicinal that can keep a good life on track to those that can be used to restore and prolong life when things go wrong. Much of this leads to a very unusual way of thinking about life and the universe itself. This is a recurring theme for me that everything boils down to just a set of simple rules. Sometimes called the unity of knowledge it has been given many different names by many different gurus, researchers, thinkers and academics. For some reason I like Edward O. Wilson’s name for it – Consilience. This is possibly because I had never heard of the word so it offers an air of mystery. For me significantly he was a biologist who thought like a digital technologist. This will be at the deep end of thought for many but so many minds have eluded to it that it has to be a worthy objective because it creates such a small target at which to aim your thoughts. Like a digital computer life is built up from very simple components built up in very complex ways. Just like a digital computer can be pulverised down to tiny particles which can be at an atomic level defined as chemical elements so can the human body when dead and cremated be similarly defined in terms of chemical elements. So just like the digital computer we are made up from chemical matter. No more or less. Just some chemicals. So the these chemical elements in one case build up say a smartphone whilst in another case they are used to build up a human being. So at a chemical level there is not much of a difference between them. Life is simply a matter of chemistry. The difference is in the construction of these chemical elements where the complexity of the build has gone further in the case of the human being than that of the smartphone. In the case of the human being the plans on how it should be built are defined by the DNA based human genome. Although based upon combinations of pairings, similar to the two (On and Off) used to support digital computers, it is further complicated by a double helix structure linking these pairings. But importantly the human genome can be digitised into a data structure which can be processed by a computer program. Whilst in the case of the smartphone it was never properly designed as such but it has been thrown together from a random set of components, concepts and ideas. The smartphone has a very crude and poor DNA genome equivalent. But the smartphone and the human still share a lot of common ground even if they are built differently. But the significant difference is this essence of a life generator. I think of it as the life battery that generates life itself. So it is all these aspects we are looking to explore including some very esoteric subjects discounted by the scientific community like radiesthesia and telepathy which have always held a fascination for me.

20 - 002 Digital Human Author Rational

So why do I feel able to tackle this task of defining the Digital Human? Well firstly I am a 71 year old retiree with the time to spend thinking out this subject. Also I am at the wrong end of this life and I would like a few answers before my final exit. By profession I have not been a physicist or biologist or chemist but have spent my life as a digital technologist which is a fancy description for a computer professional. Over time it has become increasingly obvious that life is based upon some instructions and data that have many aspects that correlate well with the digital world of computers. So life is sort of digitally defined. The “sort of” qualifier is because it probably will not be digital in the way we currently think of digital. It will be something like digital but as they say it will not digital as we currently know it. So in terms of the trying to understand it the current best analogy comes from how our current digital world works. This is what gives this book its underlying theme or direction of travel. It takes my digital knowledge and experience applying them to the understanding of life. Just to add to the confusion for the reader the plan is to just blog all my thoughts and ideas here with the intention that one day the content can be structured into a book format. This is likely to be both a Paperback and an eBook possibly called the Digital Human. So whilst you are reading this in a blog my writing will refer to it being part of a book that has yet to be created and published. By writing it in a blog with no set plan I can say in all honesty I currently have no idea where I am going with the content. But what the blog will record is the random thoughts that I choose to record in a chronological way. Importantly there is no intention to feed an audience on a daily basis. The Digital Human is only one of many thought streams I am trying to digitally record since I have other blog ideas. It is about exploring and attempting to digitally record part of the contents of my study and attic which I have built up over my life in a modus operandi of “that could be useful one day”. Well the day has come where the books, notebooks and folders, containing vast amounts of cuttings and jottings are going to be digitised. Many have been stored away over many years and they are about to see the light of day. The blog subjects will be based upon what I uncover since I have not got a clue where I am headed. Some folders are over 50 years old. So if you are looking for structured thought I apologise. It’s a blog !!! Maybe if I ever get to the Paperback or eBook stage I can give you some structure but then it will cost you.

20 - 001 Introduction to The Digital Human

The objective is to explain the meaning of our life as a human being using digital principles. So I am choosing to define us as Digital Humans. This will not be a simple task but it should prove most enlightening and create a whole new perspective on your life. At the end we may not have solved the complete meaning of life but we should have equipped you with many thoughts, ideas and feelings that will modify all your future thinking on this subject. You will become a digital life thinker with everyday taken up with visualising yourself as being a digital human. Not just a human being but a digital human being. So to establish what is the meaning of life you have to understand what life is in the first place. The difference between something having a life verse being life less. The butterfly verse the rock. But before we start our journey of discovery what has caused the writing of this book. The simple answer is the reading of over one hundred books, numerous academic papers and many articles in the areas of technology, physics, biology, chemistry and philosophy has painted for me this huge “paint by numbers” type of picture where many of the parts can be painted in whilst others are still a work in progress. Essentially it is a scientific approach although the unknown areas require some philosophical thinking or human guesswork to try and envisage what is life itself. Unusually I will adopt a different approach since I want you the reader to evolve the thought paths I have developed and in my case these have been formulated from reading, thinking, reading, storing, thinking, reading, storing, reading then possibly and rarely writing. Books and articles from very old to the very latest. I will qualify that since it cannot ever be the very latest since publications are being added daily or even hourly these days. So my bibliography is not at the end of the book but integrated into the book itself. I certainly do not intend copying content out of these books into this book. I have always been disgusted by plagiarism since it is as much as I can do to get now own ideas written down let alone steal others. But what I have read has formulated my ideas so it is important you read the same original contents to see how your ideas formulate from them. Importantly it will introduce you to a whole variety of authors who have spent often their whole lives thinking about life and what it all means. They have inspired me and hopefully they will inspire you.