by Wolfgang E. Krumbein and George Levit

Crystals and computers are often assigned life properties. By contrasting the symmetrical space-time continuum of Euclidean-geometric bodies with the dyssymmetrical space-time continuum of living bodies, the definition of life is shifted from hereditary substance, brain and division to the production of dyssymmetrical states on membranes. Crystals are then not even comparable with living beings; but: life is a natural constant and, according to the provocative thesis: abiogenesis is thereby excluded. The earth is a living being. The earth is the species "Terra sempervirens".

The world and world view, history, paradigm history, science, beauty, art, Eurasia, Amerindia, Antarctica, Germany and also the University of Oldenburg are in a constant process of upheaval, renewal and departure from the crystallised state of stagnation. Where else but in the heads, hands, feet, thick and thin skins or membranes of those involved should these processes take place or be reflected?

The boundary between living and non-living has preoccupied everyone since time immemorial. It is also the boundary between symmetry and dyssymmetry. It reflects the contrast between the "biological and physical space-time structure". The difference between animate and inanimate was emphasised in 1861 by the mineralogist Louis Pasteur, further developed by the mineralogist Pierre Curie and finally presented by the mineralogist Vernadsky (1926) as the "Pasteur-Curie principle of dissymmetry". From Pasteur's distinction between living and non-living systems via symmetry differences between crystals and living organisms, Vernadsky deduced that a biological space-time structure can be separated from a physical one. We convert Pasteur/Vernadsky's dissymmetry into dyssymmetry and name the membrane that surrounds the cell as the boundary between living and non-living. It is the place of life. Crystals, however, lack a membrane.

Minerals are natural bodies that solidify from a mixture of dissolved atoms or ions with a defined Euclidean geometry that is limited to 32 crystal classes. They are not alive. Natural bodies that are composed and formed from mineral-like molecules (also known as liquid crystals) and whose individual cells or organelles are surrounded by a membrane, on the other hand, are alive. Minerals are always symmetrical and reach a maximum of the hexakisoctahedron or the 6 x 8 = 48-planar as the most highly developed form (garnet, carbuncle). Organisms and their orders, on the other hand, are asymmetrical, like a brain or Dürer's famous self-portrait, whose left and right halves cannot be meaningfully joined by mirroring. On the other hand, they are not asymmetrical, since the left and right hemispheres of the brain, the left and right hands, the two individual strands of a DNA double helix or twins are as alike as one egg is to another. Biological systems have more symmetry elements and achieve higher forms of symmetry than the hexakisoctahedron, but are never completely congruent, i.e. never boring.

Phylogeny, embryology and evolution are replaced in D'Arcy Thompson's work by the idea that the functional aspect of an organism's form is far more important than blood ties and family relationships. Form rules over descent. From this it can be concluded: The earth is a living natural body, an organism with a dyssymmetrical shape, which we call the biologically produced relief. So is the earth alive? And with the help of which membranes?

Yes, the earth is alive. It is a living being, a species not unlike microorganisms, plants and animals. We would like to call this splendid, round, green, lush living being by the species name Terra sempervirens. Scientific, organisational and administrative obstacles stand in the way. Man refuses to be relegated to an organ or a bacterium that colonises an organ. Man likes to forget that he is irrevocably a temporary part of a larger, more beautiful, more intelligent whole - the living earth. So how should man see the earth?

In the beginning was the word. Too philosophical? It is also said: In the beginning was water! No: In the beginning was nature. If you accept the symmetrical space-time continuum of natural inanimate bodies, you are forced to accept the dyssymmetrical space-time continuum of natural living bodies. Thus, in the beginning, life is also a regularity of nature. In a sense, life is faster than creation, behaving as described in the fairy tale of the hare and the hedgehog ("Ick bün all doar").

In the beginning there was stardust, waste so to speak. This became suns and planets, all over the universe. Water - like many other things - forms later, in biologically controlled quantities and dependencies.

In the beginning, nature: nature has constants. We know and like these constants. Among them are: Space, time, mass, energy and -of course- life! Life is a regularity of nature. Life is a natural constant. Its limits are only vaguely known to us. Its definition is difficult for us. Is a computer alive when it creates a self-replicating environment that stores and processes information? Is a bacterium alive if it is inseparably married to an intestine? Is a virus particle alive if it can only multiply when it enters a cell? Is the information stored in a silicon chip or a quartz crystal less alive than that of DNA, or the information that Escherichia coli, my intestinal bacterium, stores on its proteins in order to remember food better, less alive than that which a human brain absorbs and passes on to colleagues, books and computers?

The definition of life is difficult and the anthropic view that life is a constant of nature is not too far from what is right, though far from the ultimate truth. Vernadsky postulates: The speed of propagation of life is unlimited, although not faster than the speed of sound. However, it is differentiated when you compare bacteria, elephants and mosquitoes. He also postulated a noosphere, i.e. an aura of reason for the global Earth system. Reason is a human word. As long as we do not accept that a bacterium, a human being, a planet have the same degree of reason, we will not understand the earth. The Earth (Terra sempervirens) is a living being. Its lifespan is unknown, its genesis (birth) is legendary, like that of the Minotaur; its organisation, its metabolism, its psyche are only known in outline.

Mother: unknown. Father: unknown. Gender: not clearly definable. Hermaphroditic is a poetic formulation of Greek scientists that does not in the least reflect the many varieties of sex and sexual relationships of life. But if the earth is a living being and if natural laws and natural constants are recognised physically and biologically, then life can no more "come into being" than it can be "finally extinguished". Life is constant as mass, space, time, energy, and metamorphoses among them are constant and ineradicable (limited). Then, when the earth "dies", another, perhaps more marvellous living being must necessarily appear somewhere and at some time on the plan of nature (God?) in order to grant the constancy of the principle of life. How does this happen? Mother and father unknown; at least so far. Guinea pigs are not (yet) available. Abiogenesis - the emergence of life from non-life is impossible or is suppressed, excluded by life. But how does one study the living being Earth?

Geophysiology is the science of living planets. Geophysiology is derived from geos = earth and from physiology. An 18th century encyclopaedia: "Physiology or physics are synonymous. Physiology/physics is the science of the phenomena (phenomena) and processes (processes) of natural bodies". The earth is a natural body, but a quartz crystal is also a natural body and so is a virus, just like a human being. In the early 19th century, it became common for "physicists" to deal with the phenomena and processes of bioinert (non-living) bodies. The "physiologists", on the other hand, turned their attention to living bodies. The split is deeper than one might think, because apparently two different space-time concepts (a symmetrical one for inert bodies and a dyssymmetrical one for living bodies) require explanation. While the symmetric concept can easily be categorised in Euclidean geometry, the dyssymmetric one is not yet provided with a theory. We therefore call for a biologically nourished philosophy to replace the physically determined one.

We define life as follows: All systems that create, maintain or modify dyssymmetry are alive. This includes: (1) Natural bodies surrounded by a biological membrane. (2) Organisms (species composed of single cells). (3) Biocoenoses (composed of individual organisms such as the earth). (4) The universe, as long as it exists as a living whole that creates and maintains dyssymmetry. We call the life of the earth all phenomena and processes on the earth that take place on and through membranes and fill a dynamic, dyssymmetrical space-time continuum within and around them with life.

Processes in the symmetrical Euclidean space-time continuum are reversible. Dyssymmetric (life) processes in the biological space-time continuum appear to be irreversible. However, this has not been proven. The dyssymmetric event of life takes place at membranes and other boundaries that are under the control of an incomprehensible entity (DNA, brain, consciousness, freedom from guilt, God). It is characterised by dyssymmetrically organised phenomena and processes at boundaries. This means that the static symmetry required by the Euclidean space-time continuum is broken. The result is left-spiralling amino acids, right-spiralling sugars, left-spiralling cell walls, chiralities of the hands, halves of the face and brains. Certain isotopes are preferentially let in or channelled out and so on in the series of things. The space-time continuum that must be thought of here is not static. It is dynamic and at the same time it can be reduced statically to the point of contact between the image we make for ourselves and the reality of nature. Wittgenstein never applied this image to the cell membrane; he favoured the surface of water as a metaphor.

Life is not uniformly and unanimously passed on information on a DNA, RNA or protein molecule, not the circuitry of thought, not duplication and not freedom from guilt. The latter may be at the base, but it is not a component. Life is the dynamic process of symmetry breaking using energy in the dyssymmetrical system between the membrane-enclosed events of the cell, which are independent of entropy, and the enormous temporal feedback with simultaneous and earlier (fossil) dyssymmetries, fossil biospheres from which today's earth draws energy and material sources. What is more, a geophysicist (Anderson, Science 1984) said: "There is the interesting possibility that plate tectonics (continental drift, formation and decay of continents) only exists because there is limestone-producing life". Kant already surmised that God does not cause earthquakes to punish the human race, but in his immeasurable judgement to provide new energy and new nutrients for the plants and animals that weed and grow on the earth. The earth is not repulsively rugged and abysmally relieved because God wants to punish people. For what purposes relief (geomorphology) arises and changes remains to be discussed. We know better: the (membrane-enclosed) form determines the living element and keeps it alive through biogeomorphogenesis. So the earth lives, grows, stores, transforms, just like a tree, an animal, a human being.

Let us give an example of this earthly life. We postulate: A lime leaf (preferably a blue flower according to Novalis) that was placed in a herbarium by Theophrastus, Aristotle or Linné still contains the information (DNA, protein, etc.). With a little skill, we can bring this leaf back to life: But it does not live in the herbarium because the process of permanent creation and maintenance of symmetry-like dyssymmetry has been suspended. Conversely, death is not the end of brain waves and not decapitation. Yes, we can say: As long as this planet, which we believe to know, still carries a remnant of suspended life (i.e. information and structure) it has viability. As long as life is possible and a space-time continuum of living natural bodies exists. This means that abiogenesis - i.e. the emergence of life - cannot be postulated or described. Life is an unchangeable, irreproducible, dyssymmetrical law of nature. The laws and extent of life-related symmetry breaks and the generation of dyssymmetry are still to be researched.

We may have to get used to the idea that an unreflected, unsurprised, unexplored universe is inconceivable. Since there is no doubt that humanity is an insignificant segment and section of this event, other ways of self-reflection of the living being Earth must exist. Vernadsky and Wittgenstein, like others before them, may have failed in this endeavour. Novalis and Kleist may have been closer to the phenomenon because they scientised the narcissistic image and behaviour of humanity as part of the whole ("blue flower" and "puppet theatre" as primal concepts of unreflected being). Reflection, however, seems to be a condition of existence. If we look beyond our 5-7 senses, we can also realise that bacteria feel, perceive. Furthermore: Life does not come into being. It shows itself. But how does the planet live? How can we describe its geophysiology? Finally, an attempt to do so. Krumbein (1983, 1996) has proposed a field theory of life which, like Newton's gravitational field theory or other theories, draws on concepts from astrology and alchemy. It states that life cannot come into being, it is and remains a natural constant. Applied to the earth, this means The relief of the earth with the associated water masses is not a prerequisite (for the emergence) of life, but a consequence of life (of the earth). The earth is maintained in a dynamic, dyssymmetrical equilibrium, far removed from the astrophysical Euclidean-symmetrical state.

Biological work and dyssymmetric organisation of energy and mass, coming from outside and inside the Earth's body and redistributed in time and space, make this possible, including the products of fossil biospheres. Geophysiology studies the interaction of the sun and star dust with the Earth and its former (stored, suspended) states of life. Global photosynthetic and respiratory conversion of directly irradiated solar energy and substances stored in the rocks ("the stuff dreams are made of") are linked dyssymmetrically via eons. The energy (sun) and the masses of atoms and their molecules (stardust), which are converted by the currently living 1020g of biomass (99.999% of which is bacterial) and transformed from the bioinert to the dyssymmetrical living state, are predominantly fed into the earth from outside and released back outside (just as, according to Aristotle, an animal absorbs energy and mass and releases waste products and heat). All this happens in space and time predominantly through microbial processes in a thin skin (or membrane) that covers the earth, the (micro-) biosphere.

The forces and substances are and have always been (1) microbial photosynthesis, respiration and fermentation (disproportionation), which control energy and electrons; (2) microbially controlled accumulation and storage of energy and mineral reserves in the earth's crust; (3) biologically (microbial symbioses) controlled, managed and executed transport, translocation, transfer and release of stored energy and reserves from the mantle and crust in biogeomorphogenetic and biogeotectonic cycles of geological or geological-historical dimensions. Primordial (original) energy and mass distributions are replaced by the biological "sun pump" (think of Beuys' honey pump). The amount of solar energy stored in the crust each year is sufficient to explain the heat flow and the geodynamics of the earth's crust. As the energy pressure of a warmer sun increases, more energy and material is converted and more information technology (mind, reason) is utilised. The temporal processes are slowed down. Transport and connection systems (logistics, complexity) become more important. Living matter (in Vernadsky's sense differentiated from bioinert matter) achieves transfer rates of more than 10% of the earth's mass in one life cycle. The rate of transfer must have slowed down since the early days (youth) of the Earth, while the amounts of energy and mass transferred increased. This is evidenced by an increase in crustal thickness and biological complexity. The Earth as a bioid, bioplanet (a term contributed by Prof. U. Kattmann) or as the living being Terra sempervirens has matured. If the energy pressure from outside should decrease (decreasing instead of currently increasing solar energy), it could also "age", become simpler, less complex, less structured - and die. And reproduce first (but how? - see profile)?

The authors
Prof. Dr Wolfgang E. Krumbein (60), geomicrobiologist at the Institute of Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) and member of the Institute of Philosophy, was appointed to the University of Oldenburg in 1974. In addition to geomicrobiology, he specialises in geophysiology and the history of science. Krumbein turned down three appointments at other universities. He spent research semesters as a visiting scientist at the universities of Harvard, Jerusalem, Messina and St. Petersburg.

George Levit (32), Master of Philosophy from St. Petersburg, has been a doctoral candidate at the ICBM, the Institute of Philosophy and Slavic Studies, for a year. His dissertation topic is the work of Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, the Russian thinker and founder of biogeochemistry.