A Primer on “Self-Assembling Structures”

Comparing manufacturing and construction with farming

Man-made conventional structures differ from self-assembling Autosophy structures rather as construction or manufacturing differs from farming. In conventional construction, buildings are constructed according to drawings prepared by an architect, and assembled from building materials by human or machine labor. Every step is pre-defined by human beings where the entire process is always under human control. A self-growing biological tree, in contrast, starts from a tiny seed to grow into a very large tree, all without human design or labor. Self-assembling structures are vastly more complex than man-made structures. An apple, for example, bought in a market, is vastly more complex than the space shuttle, and the complexity of a man-made metropolis, such as New York, is trivial compared to the complexity of a living rain forest.

Autosophy research is not concerned with specific structures or materials but rather with the underlying mathematical principles and processes. It requires new mathematics and principles, which may conflict with the conventional entropy theory. According to entropy a house, for example, build by humans, will eventually decay into random dust. But a random dust cloud has never been observed to assemble itself spontaneously into a house. However, living self-assembling structures, such as crystals, living trees, or societies, obviously exist everywhere in our world. The randomizing principles of entropy are counteracted by the principles of Autosophy to constantly replenish the life and order in our universe.

Conventional construction and manufacturing techniques

Conventional houses are built according to human design, from building materials, using tools and labor. Every step is pre-planned and the entire process is under human control. No matter how many houses are built the architecture will not by itself grow or adapt. Any change or improvements requires human design and engineering.

In a manufacturing plant, likewise, selected input materials are manipulated by tools and labor, under the control of engineering procedures, to finally emerge as useful output products. No matter how much material is being processed the factory will not by itself grow or adapt. The output products from the plant may be used as input materials by other plants. The elements, or random materials in the environment, are therefore combined and assembled by a multiple level progression of factories to finally produce very complex structures such as skyscraper or cruise ships.

Farming using self-assembling structures

Farming, in contrast, is basically a matter of planting seeds into the soil and waiting for the results. Each seed will select and absorb materials from a random environment to assemble itself into a very complex structure. The process requires no human design or supervision. 

A living tree, for example, starts from a tiny seed, which selects specific input materials (water, minerals, energy) from a random environment, to assemble itself into a very large and complex tree. The branching pattern is determined by genes in the DNA, contained in the seed. The individual arrangement of twigs and branches, however, is determined by the environmental conditions during the growing process. The tree in effect records the environmental conditions in its branching pattern to generate an imaginary knowledge structure.

Information Entities

Autosophy research is advancing far beyond conventional mathematical physics to include imaginary “Information Entities”, which are contained in all physical self-assembling structures. A physical book, for example, consists of physical paper and ink. It also contains a non-physical “story” contained in the arrangement of symbols in the book. The story does not have mass or weight, does not generate or consume energy, is located both everywhere and nowhere in the book, and yet is the real reason for the existence of the book. While reading a book the imaginary story (Information Entity) will copy itself into the human brain to become a part of all the already existing information entities. This will eventually result in consciousness. Reading a book may alter human behavior towards a religious belief, a political ideology, or computer expertise. While the body and brain will eventually decay the story will propagate by re-telling or re-teaching to evolve into other stories. All physical self-assembling structures contain such imaginary Information Entities, which are the true object of evolution. The human body, for example, is only a temporary vessel for holding and testing the genetic code.

The objective of Autosophy research is to eventually grow such Information Entities in electronic devices to build self-aware conscious machines. An example is the DNA helix in our genes, which follows the rules of Autosophy, to propagate and evolve. Imaginary Information Entities may be encoded by the sequence of molecules in the DNA helix. The Autosophy Information Theory will allow us to read and understand, for the first time, the real messages in the DNA code, not merely listing the sequences of the molecules. However, the DNA helix only involves living creatures. There are other self-assembling structures, such as chemical crystals, or human societies, which are not defined by the DNA code. Chemical crystals, for example, build themselves in a chemical solution by selecting matching molecules from a random environment to organize themselves into very organized and peculiar shaped crystals. Human societies, likewise, are formed by a founder, which is attracting similar interested persons, to finally grow into companies, cities, and nations. There are many methods of “assembly” and many different particles of many sizes and composition, which usually form a progression in which smaller particles assemble into larger and larger particles, forming a multi- level progression, in which the method of assembly is often identical for many levels of the progression.

The Autosophy theory provides a method of mathematically defining such self-assembling structures like locations or points in a mathematical hyperspace.

Conclusions

Self-assembling structures grow from smaller particles forming larger particles in a mathematical progression in which the assembly method is often similar in each layer of the progression. Each particle, regardless of size or complexity, can be defined mathematically as a point in Omni Dimensional Hyperspace. The Autosophy theory provides simple principles and algorithms to explain this process.

Physical self-assembling structures like crystals, living trees, or societies, contain imaginary knowledge structures, which are the true subject of evolution. Physical structures only serve as temporary vessels for the evolution of higher and higher level “Information Entities”.

Imaginary “Information Entities” may grow in electronic memory devices, like data crystals or data trees, to provide true mathematical “learning”. This may transform all forms of electronic communication and eventually replace the programmed data processing computer with brain-like self-learning conscious “Autosopher”. The intelligence of these self-learning machines is not limited by the intelligence of human programmers. The machines may have novel learning modes that are not possible in the human brain.

Both the theoretical knowledge and the required hardware are now becoming available for a next generation in communication and computing. This may provide enormous commercial opportunities for pioneering companies. Reference: Autosophy Information Theory provides lossless data and video compression based on the data content.