The origin of life beyond DNA: Quantum Vacuum, Water, Coherence Domains

Igor Jerman is a Professor of Theoretical Biology at the University of Ljubljana. He is the professional director of the Institute for Bioelectromagnetics and New Biology – the Bion Institute which is mainly oriented to basic and applied research in the field of bioelectromagnetics, including the studying of interactions between endogenous bioelectromagnetic field of organisms and environmental and molecular electromagnetic fields. Let’s explore his researches by reading an abstract of his talk at the 11th Conference on the Phyisics, Chemistry and Biology of the Water (organized by Gerald Pollack, professor of Bioengineering, University of Washington) and his article “The Origin of Life from Quantum Vacuum, Water and Polar Molecules”. The common theme is the role of water in the origin of life, on the basis of  the new interdisciplinary researches such as the precious works by Emilio Del Giudice, Luc Montagnier, Giuliano Preparata, Alberto Tedeschi, as well as Reich’s and DeMeo’s experiments. Jerman illustrates three fundamental phases of the origin of life:

In contemporary established biology life is almost exclusively treated as a molecular phenomenon. Therefore, the mystery of the origin of life is sought almost exclusively in molecular terms and processes. There is no universally accepted definition of life, but we may understand it as a highly organized, complex and dynamic process involving information-energy-matter (IEM) capable of autonomous continuation and potentially limitless evolution by means of differential reproduction of its basic units (organisms). Because of its complexity and a highly dynamic order, it is almost impossible to envisage, how life could originate from the inanimate nature on the basis of some self-organizing molecular process.

The alternative is that the high molecular organization stems form another highly complex organized process / state that functioned (and still does!) on a much vaster area than molecules. And contrary to the conviction of the mainstream biology, such processes have already been found in water systems, mostly in interfacial water – water that is bound to hydrophilic surfaces. These quite frequent and long range ordered water systems can have many features of living systems, like pumping of environmental energy, forming aggregates, having electrical potential based on charge separation, producing a directed flow of water, long range organization of colloidal systems, synchronization with catalytic reactions etc. On this basis we propose three partially permeating phases of the origin of life: 1) organized water phase involving interplay of hydrophilic surfaces, 2) the phase of quasi cellular structures and 3) the phase of molecular organization. Somewhere towards the end of the third phase we may speak of the origin of life as known and understood today.

But even the cellular formations of the second phase that today can be found in nanobes, Fox’s microspheres and Reich’s bions can represent a more universal form of life that is capable – if given a suitable molecular environment – to engender simple organisms not in terms of millions of years, but in much shorter terms. Following Reich’s and DeMeo’s experiments the transition from the first to the second phase may last only a few days, while the next transition up to the end of the third phase may last only a few weeks.

Our Italian translation is available here: L’origine della vita oltre il DNA: Vuoto Quantistico, Acqua, Domini di Coerenza

Click here to download the presentation (from Jerman’s personal page on Researchgate where you can also find other interesting material): Shift from DNA molecule to water ensemble: can it explain the origin of life? (presentation)

Here an excerpt from Jerman’s article “The Origin of Life from Quantum Vacuum, Water and Polar Molecules“, published by the American Journal of Modern Physics (Special Issue: Academic Research for Multidisciplinary. Vol. 5, No. 4-1, 2016, pp. 34-43).

Abstract: […]according to certain advanced researches and considerations, life has also other essential “ingredients”: active information and a special electrodynamic state of the liquid living matter characterized by coherent domains interspersed by the non-coherent ones. Coherent domains are the product of interaction of water molecules with the vacuum electromagnetic field; life has thus a special electromagnetic nature that is bound to the quantum vacuum field. This characteristic should also form the basis of the pre-biotic evolution, the phase of more or less organized liquid systems that leads from non-life to life. In this view water as an ensemble (not as an aggregate of molecules) replaces the famous DNA molecule in its importance and is seen as an active medium where the principle of active information can begin with its triumphant march from inanimate liquid systems up to contemporary highly organized organisms.

Keywords: Origin Of Life, Pre-biotic Evolution, Coherent Modes, Coherent Domains, Fröhlich’s Theory, Quantum Electrodynamics Of Water, Active Information, Quantum Vacuum

[…] Contemporary biology is imbued with the language of information. Organisms are increasingly seen as exceedingly complex information processing systems. Basically we have two types of information: passive, storing organism’s complexity (genetic information, seen as residing mostly in genes) and active, manipulative information, understood as mostly working through proteins. Of course, since even the simplest organisms are hierarchical systems information processing can work on many levels: biochemical (like already mentioned proteins), physiological (intercellular that may comprise many organ systems), behavioral or psychological (bound mostly to a complex nervous system in animals and humans). If the genetic information is mostly centralized, the manipulative, dynamic information is widely dispersed, included in a bafflingly complex arrangement of loops. From a certain standpoint this organized information that has also capacity for self propagation can be regarded as the gist of life. According to this recent consideration the starting point for the emergence of life means establishing causal powers from the side of biological information over matter, where the former is encrypted in a disperse way. In other words, the causal power of life is trans-material, but this is not about vis vitalis or mysticism, but about the dynamically organized information. Only partially this dispersed and organized information “resides” in the DNA. The organisms are seen here as the so called non-trivial duplicators, systems that can a) multiply their organization (complex organized information) in a complex and widely dispersed way and b) simultaneously actively process information and express a high degree of flexibility (variability). According to this illuminative view, the origin of life means an establishment of non-trivial duplicators, capable of further potentially limitless enrichment of information and its dynamic organization. With the origin of life the information as an active principle of nature gains the ability of causation from the top to bottom (from the whole to its parts). It should be worth considering that here we are faced with a relatively new notion of information, standing far from the Shannon’s information theory. As regards life, it is no more passive, just data, knowledge, records … On the contrary, in its specially organized, dynamic and vastly complex form it arises as a powerful active natural principle. It works in mater, yet is casually “above” it. Life, therefore, has its special principle that surpasses ordinary (inanimate) physical and chemical world. This principle resides in the inanimate matter as a potential – and emerges when the suitable conditions arise. In the following I shall try to disclose an already assumed and researched organization of energy-matter in living systems that can represent the ontological basis of the above discussed active information. It is true that it may be organized through material (molecular) processes, but here it can work only in a very limited fashion, namely via short range contacts, where it is limited in its distribution and is also quite fragmented. In case of working via specially organized electromagnetic fields, it can function in a highly integrated manner, as would be expected knowing a highly integrated character of organisms or the living process. […]

Among countless substances involved in life it is not the DNA that merits a primary attention (as it holds for the contemporary established biology) but water as a highly interacting system of molecules, water as an irreducible ensemble (therefore not water as an aggregate of more or less independently flickering molecules [39]. The reason for this is disclosed in Chapter 3) and rests on findings from many researchers that water is not a passive solvent of organic molecules (as understood and treated by contemporary biology) but an active, dynamic medium of living processes [28, 40]. Only every 1/100 molecule in the human body is not a water molecule and similar proportions characterize all life. With such strong outweighing of other molecules intraorganism water should be the most responsible for the spreading and organization of the endogenous coherent electromagnetic field that can organize countless molecular reactions within cells, as already described in Chapter 3. In other words, it seems that water is most responsible for the emergence and functioning of the active information underlying life. On this basis we could say that as far as the Earth’s life goes water was a cradle of first living beings. Taking into consideration all possibilities of water self-ordering – is it possible to say that water itself can manifest the potential of active information? […]

Click here to download the full work.
Our Italian translation of the abstract is available here: L’origine della vita oltre il DNA: Vuoto Quantistico, Acqua, Domini di Coerenza

About Coherence Domains and Del Giudice’s, Preparata’s and Tedeschi’s works in particular, see also:

Water Dynamics at the Root of Metamorphosis in Living Organisms

In Italian:

ACQUA E CONOSCENZA nelle ricerche del Prof. Emilio Del Giudice

Da Tesla a Bohm, oltre il “mondo delle ombre”