Thermodynamic life

   The best definition of life is probably that it must meet two conditions; it must be capable of self-replication and it must be capable of controlling energy.  This is the thermodynamic definition of life.  It means that any orgaism, no matter how complex, exists solely to keep its mitochondria, energy sources, warm.
   The initial form of life would have been proto-mitochondria.  This has to be true because it is the only thing that makes sense.  The initial self-replicating forms produce energy in the form of heat which raises the local temperature and increases the stability and efficiency of reproduction of the forms.  As they multiply, they produces more heat which locally heats up the water they are in and this raise in temperature stabilizes the chemical process of their synthesis.  There is no other form or proto-form for which this is true, so the  mitochondria win,  they are the only tissue type which aids its own reproduction by altering the local conditions to be more favorable for that reproduction.
   Eventually they form a loose, porous covering that probably looked roughly like soda straws tied and formed into a ball.  That covering allowed water, food and oxidant to enter for contact with the mitochondria while slowing that flow enough to allow for a local heat rise by slowing convective cooling. Eventually that covering formed a cell wall to further keep the inside warm.
   At the same time, some forms began to cluster for mutual warmth, forming biofilms and globules.  Bu those clusters had to remain porous enough to allow food and oxidant to reach the central cell while allowing waste products to flow out.
   When the cell forms use food to produce energy, they do no necessarily remain stable, often, they will flex during the process.  That flexing can produce some movement, even if spasmodically directed.  By moving, they do not risk depleting the local food source but move, instead to a fresh area of food.
   The energy causes it to flex and bend, but that means just adding energy, as in sunlight, will also cause that flexing and some movement.  If the flexing causes movement towards the light, the cells will move upward in the water column to warmer water heated by the sun.  But this extra warmth will again help the chemical processes of reproduction,  so cells that move to the light will be preferred in reproduction.  That process is the basis for both eyes and photosynthesis.
   With the preferred movement, occasionally the mitochondria or an off-shoot of them form  chemical product, perhaps as part of the flexing.  Those products formed from available chemicals and sunlight become available as additional food for the cell.  With greater elaboration this process turns into photosynthesis.
   Eyes come from accumulations of cells trying to stay warm.  Moving to the surface again warms them, so they need to find the surface by moving to the light.  If they have formed into something of a worm shape, having designated cells at a front end would make their movement more efficient, as opposed to having all the cells record the light and an erratic, sideways, snake sliding along the ground movement would result.  Preferred cells at one end allows for a more efficient, eel-like swim.
   But all the cells in the worm would need ot be told to produce a swimming motion, so, the brain grows back from the eyes as booster for the signal from the eyes.  The brain's original only function was to be an amplifier.  There was also a need to transmit the signal.  Passing it from cell to cell was slow and inefficient, causing a central core of signal transmitting cells, an early spinal cord, to form to allow for clearer signal transmission.
   The process was; eyes to brain, brain through spinal cord, then final signal to cells causing them to use energy and move.  But an interesting thing happens, when the cells are pressed they produce a back signal to  the spinal cord that returns to the brain.
   The movement to the light was to stay warmer and find food once photosynthesis was begun.  But the back signals in some individuals produced brain reactions causing additional signals to be sent to the cells causing additional movement.  The movement was random and erratic, it was the primitive panic response.   It came in useful if the worm was caught  on a rock by a wave or tide, remaining exposed would mean death by the sun drying the worm; random, erratic wiggling would mean the chance of the worm falling back into the water and living.  Panic, with random, erratic brain signals,  is the basis for schizophrenia.   If you ever see a worm wriggling and twisting to try to fall off a rock, you are seeing the basis for schizophrenia.  The panic and random signalling was carried forward at all levels of neural development and produced the basis for both thought and schizophrenia.  The random signals were the basis for derailed thinking.
   As the worms grew and diversified, they developed into different varieties and sizes.  The bigger ones discovered that the best source of concentrated food, the best source of calories, were the smaller worms.
to avoid being eaten the smaller worms began feeling for water movement, their bodies picked up vibrations and developed a generalized sense of touch.  Further development from that sense of touch and vibration developed int o specific hearing.  Smells are actually heard.  The sense of smell is analyzing the vibrations of the smell molecules, if two molecules vibrate similarly, they will smell similarly, that is actually hearing.  The sense of smell developed from hearing.  Finally, the sense of taste might have developed directly from the sense of touch, its purpose would have been to screen out poisons by their harsh feel to certain cells.
    The panic followed by random movement is an effective hunting, or food locating strategy.  A bee will go over an entire bush of flowers looking for pollen and nectar, if the bush does not have any, the bee does a panic response and does not fly to the next nearest bush but will fly twenty yards to half a mile before trying another bush.  The reason that makes sense, is that there are micro-climates, locally specific conditions for plant growth.  The next bush over probably is exposed to the same micro-climate, so any conditions that limit nectar and pollen in one; too much water, too little water, not enough sun, too much wind exposure, would effect both bushes, travelling a longer distance increases the chance that a different set of growing conditions would exist, giving a better chance for success.  The process is derailed, it is schizophrenic, but it is useful.
     Sharks hunt in a similar manner, they intensively search an area for prey and, if they do not find any , they swim a long distance in a random direction before slowing and slowly, and intensively, searching a a smaller area again.
   Both sharks and bees, when locally hunting use a randomly erratic path of short distances and abrupt turns into different directions.   In addition, prey animals also use randomly erratic behavior for protection, film of a bobcat chasing a rabbit in snow shows the rabbit turning, changing speeds and shifting directions.  If the rabbit is healthy those random erratic movements give it a good chance of escape .
     The derailed thinking and hunting processes is evident in many animals.   I was once on Riverside Drive in Manhattan,  I was on the sidewalk along Riverside Park.  There is a sidewalk and then a three foot high stone wall forming the boundary of Riverside Park, on the park side, there is a ten foot drop off and then a slope running down hill.  Fifteen feet from the wall thee was a tree growing on the slope.  On a branch of that tree, ten feet above the sidewalk, a Red-tailed Hawk was perched.  Three hundred feet down the sidewalk a group of pigeons was feeding.  The hawk saw the pigeons.  It flew off the branch on the outer side of the wall before coming within fifty feet of the pigeons, when it flew over the wall and attacked. I think it got one but it was too far away to see clearly.
   Consider the spatial reasoning that requires.  It did not fly directly over the wall at the pigeons, which they would have seen and had time to fly off, but used the wall as a blind to approach within striking distance.  That is derailed thinking.  Railed thinking would be to fly straight at them.  Realizing the wall was a hide takes a lot of peculiar thinking from a bird with a brain the size of an almond.
   Some people talk of the competitiveness of race horses.  Actually, they are psychotic.
   I was walking on upper Broadway in Manhattan once.  I walked passed an older man.  As soon as I did, he walked faster in a shambling gate until he was thirty feet ahead of me, but my walking pace was faster thqan his and in a block I had passed him again.  Once more he shambled thirty feet ahead and once more, in another block , I passed him again.  This time he broke into a sort of stumbling run and ran across the next street before turning to stare at me with a wild-eyed psychotic gaze.
   It was a back formation.  The forward formation is that I am panicked, therefore I run.  The back formation is, I am running therefore I must be panicked and anything that comes near is a threat.
   This happened one more time on Broadway on the upper west side.  I walked past a woman carrying two bags and she immediately walked faster.  This time I wanted to know if I was right about what I was seeing. I had to hurry up to catch up with her, it was not my natural walking pace.  But when I walked past her the second time, she fairly exploded.  She almost ran and ran directly into the path of another woman.  They both had to stop, the other woman had the classic, what are you doing look on her face   If I was an actual experimenter that would probably an unethical experiment. I did not come within six feet of her, I did not look at her but , still, deliberately making someone panic is fairly stupid.
   But this is what happens with race horses, they are panicked, one step short of a stroke.  They have no idea of winning they just view threats for other horses, they are bred to be paranoid schizophrenics.  This is also true of dogs bred to be aggressive.  Doberman, of pinscher fame, allegedly had dogs so unruly they could not be handled , they had to be bred down in aggressiveness.  Aggressive dogs have the same unfocused eyes as psychotic people, and for the same reason, the brain has a disrupted feedback loop so it cannot focus the eyes properly.  That lack of feedback is paranoid schizophrenia in both cases.  Normally the brain guesses a focus, sees if it produces the desired acuity, then readjusts as necessary until the focus is correct.  If the brain is skipping around at random it cannot perform that fine control and the eyes drift in miss-focus.