Panspermia and Consciousness  Daniel Beal (Psychiatry, Palo Alto VAHCS, Scotts Valley, CA )   C16

Panspermia, "seeds everywhere" the theory that microbes in space transmit life to habitable bodies, is needed for consciousness to arise on earth since its formation 4.5 billion years ago. The conservative materialistic paradigm requires the evolution of an adequately sophisticated nervous system to house an emergent consciousness. Commonly earth was not suitable for the abiogenesis, the development of life from inorganic matter until 3.5 billion years ago. There are three independent but associated arguments that require panspermia for the emergence of consciousness: 1) 4.5 billion years is not enough time develop the complex biology required for consciousness. Fundamental development of biological structures must have been in process before the earth existed 2) There are multiple lines of evidence indicating biological materials are present in outer space and have been seeding the earth. 3) Directed panspermia is a theory that intelligent entities have directed the distribution of biological material, this theory requires consciousness to distribute biological material through the cosmos to support life on other worlds which then develops a nervous system capable of supporting consciousness. Consideration of the combinatorics of organic molecular assemblage indicates that even 4.5 billion years is inadequate for abiogenesis. If Neo-Darwinism is correct and genetic change is random, then our proteome of 19,000 proteins with average or 375 amino acids each, have only one chance in 10^1.418E+51214 (an exponent with over 51000 zeros) to have their current form. To arrive at these biologically active proteins by chance would require a universe of unimaginable age with universal panspermia. Similarly immense combinatorics apply to other organic systems like DNA/RNA systems, and the internal three-dimensional cell structure. Panspermia is deemed impossible citing the cold and radiation of outer space. However unique organic molecules can be harvested from high altitude balloons and from the outside of the international space station. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe found that the extinction of visible starlight correlates with the refractive index 1.15 and a emission frequency 10 uM compatible with a signature of polysaccharides which also aggregate to form bacterial cell walls. Punctuated equilibrium, the hypothesis that evolutionary development is marked by isolated episodes of rapid speciation between long periods of little or no change, can be caused by influx of biological material from cosmic sources. Such cosmic sources are a plausible etiology of rare or rapidly spreading infectious disease like the 1918 influenza pandemic , or widely separated bubonic plague epidemics. Francis Crick in his 1973 paper, "Directed Panspermia" discussed the possibility of life being seeded by the deliberate distribution of organic matter by other civilizations. He cited the mixed complexity and uniformity of biological structures as well as proteins and enzymes structure dependent on metals rarely found on earth. Deliberate seeding of life requires consciousness and is the trivial antecedent case of panspermia being required for consciousness.