1. We have employed the scientific definition for the term ‘Nature’ - the interaction of Matter and Energy – nothing more. Via this materialist meaning, Science has killed Nature. She becomes a slave of ‘natural’ law. My intent is to resurrect Nature by broadening her definition to include the special talents of both Life and a Divine Creative Intelligence. While Science denies any special qualities to living systems, my writings have exhibited that Life has many talents that Matter doesn’t have (e.g. an interactive relationship with data/image). The Worshippers of Matter bellow when confronted with the abundance of evidence pointing to Intelligent Design (the finetuning of the Universe). Yet throughout the ages, Worshippers of Nature have attributed special non-material aspects to the natural world. From henceforth we will employ ‘Dead Nature’ to refer to the scientific definition; and ‘Mother Nature’ to include the special qualities of Life and the Intelligent Designer.
2. There is another reason for this definitional refinement. The God of Intelligent Design evokes the sexist patriarchy of the military oligarchy. Attributing creative divinity to Mother Nature (rather than the Father God) distances ourselves from these repulsive and disturbing connotations. In their attempts to dominate Life and Nature, the scientific community has become a tool of the Patriarchy. Time to revolt. Throw off the chains of Materialism. Embrace the special qualities that make existence special.
3. The prior chapter deconstructed the ATP molecule, the so-called bio-currency of living systems. Unlike dollars, ATP degrades rapidly – in minutes. ATP’s shelf life is too brief to ensure the cell’s survival over longer intervals. To prepare for this eventuality, Mother Nature imparted the cell with bio-storage batteries of different half-lives: glucose for hours, glycogen for days, and fat for months.
4. Having differing time frames for biological storage batteries is a distinct bio-strategy that was necessary to ensure the cell’s survival. Designing this bio-strategy required the Big Three Talents: a holistic sense, since the strategy’s purpose is to serve the entire cell; a temporal sense since storage batteries are only needed over time; and an interaction with information to determine proper timing. Life’s ID system enables these talents. Is it possible that Mother Nature also employs an ID system?
1. Science’s Dead Nature vs. Mother Nature
2. Mother Nature, rather than God the Father
3. ATP, Glucose, Glycogen & Fat: Storage Batteries calibrated for different Time Frames
4. Cellular Energy Strategy requires Holistic & Temporal Sense
Before proceeding forth, let us introduce an expanded definition of the term ‘Nature’. In this way, I will assuage my guilt for treating my Divine Mother in such a cavalier fashion.
Previously, we have used the limited scientific definition of the word: Nature as the reactions between Matter and Energy. This exclusively material usage of the word Nature and her derivatives is seen in many different contexts. Natural law, scientific naturalism, natural methodology are precisely defined phrases that scientists and scientific philosophers regularly employ. The word ‘material’ and derivatives can be substituted for each of these phrases without changing their meaning.
For Science: Natural = Material
In other words, Science has stripped Nature of her living component. Of course, they would strenuously object to this characterization – arguing that Life is a purely Material (chemical) phenomena. According to them, the reactions between Matter and Energy account for Nature’s so called living component. In other words, Life is merely a complex version of Matter.
Rather than merely implausible, I consider this an ignorant position in that its proponents deliberately ignore many data sets that contradict their misguided claims. On the most fundamental level, our daily experience of choosing between alternatives to optimize existence is impossible under the Material Paradigm that scientists prefer. Desperately grasping to outmoded and ineffectual models, these brilliant individuals elevate their limited human logic over direct experience.
The proponents of this materialist model have faith that understanding material reactions will ultimately result in an understanding of living interactions. This reasoning is flawed in that it attempts to apply atomistic logic to a holistic system. How is it possible to understand Life’s ability to monitor and adjust to environmental conditions by formulating mathematical laws that precisely characterize the stimulus-response reactions of Matter?
Holistic Life’s monitor and adjust ≠ Atomistic Matter’s stimulus-response
In these many pages, I have presented many reasons why Life has many special incontrovertible qualities that separates her from Matter. For instance, living systems have an urge to survive. Satisfying this urge requires a temporal sense, a holistic purpose, and the ability to interact with image streams (information). Non-living systems have none of these capabilities.
Life’s survival urge + Big 3 talents ≠ Matter
With their definitions, Science has killed Nature – turning her into a mindless Zombie that is subject to their deterministic mathematical laws. In defiance of this stupidity, my ID model resurrects Nature. Rather than a slave of Matter, I consider her to be the Intelligent Designer that created Life and then manipulated (deliberately guided) evolution to eventually create us – the human species.
Science kills Nature = Matter
ID Model resurrects Nature = Intelligent Designer
The typical brainwashed college-educated citizens of our society are raising their eyebrows in objection to this notion of Intelligent Design. Pavlov would be proud. Yet how could the cell’s mutually interdependent systems and the many bio-strategies of the energy production system possibly arise from the accidental random collisions of molecules? Both biological facts indicate the need for a Creative Intelligence that can purposefully guide and shape material reactions.
To achieve these seemingly miraculous results, Nature as the Designer must possess a temporal sense, a holistic purpose, and the ability to interact with info (the Big Three talents). To satisfy the need to survive, Life must have the same talents. Since both possess these same capabilities, is it possible that Nature incarnated as Life?
Let’s run with this assumption. Nature, for some unfathomable reason, was possessed with the urge to manifest as Life – embody her Divine Essence in Matter. However, this process was not as simple as breathing life into mud. Rather Nature had to arrange material circumstances (including the Earth’s formation) that were favorable for the creation of Life. This was no small feat. For example, She had to manipulate astronomical events so that our solar system has a resonant stability that is rare in the Universe. Life requires astronomical permanence to survive and evolve. (See my paper Quantized Gravity.) Plus, Mother Nature had to coordinate a few coincidences so that a watery asteroid would strike the Earth. Living systems require water. Living systems simply don’t have these capabilities.
In addition to being orders of magnitude more complex, Nature must possess attributes that Life doesn’t have - Divinity. As such, the incarnation is an imperfect replication – more akin to the relationship between a photograph and reality than an exact duplication of text.
Life = Imperfect Replica of Nature
Just as a photo misses the sounds and scents of a real-world experience; just as Matter is deficient in the capabilities that make Life special; cells and humans lack the talents that makes Nature special. This treatment returns Nature to the top where she belongs. It also reverses the current hierarchy. Matter is a subset of Life and Life is a subset of Nature.
Matter < Life < Nature
For these reasons, in the discussions that follow, we will use the phrase ‘dead Nature’ to refer to Nature as Science defines her, i.e. devoid of Life’s special qualities. Conversely, we will use the phrase ‘Mother Nature’ to refer to Nature in an expanded sense - the interaction between Matter, Life, and the Divine Designer. In other words, Mother Nature infuses the entire Universe with her Divine Essence.
Science: Dead Nature = Matter
ID Model: Mother Nature = Matter x Life x Divine Designer
There is yet another reason for employing this expanded definition for Nature. God as the Divine Designer has too many negative connotations. The term ‘God’ is intimately linked with the patriarchal Deity of the Old Testament – Yahweh. Yahweh is an Empire-builder – a vengeful god of war with anger-management problems. This Male Sky God demands a social system where the father is the absolute, unquestioned leader of family, tribe, clan, and nation. This patriarchal orientation results in sexism, conquering, and ultimately a military hierarchy – all conditions that we don’t want to encourage.
In contrast to the ‘God the Father’ connotations, Nature is frequently viewed as a Mother. Indeed, we use the term Mother Nature almost synonymously with Mother Earth. In this context, Mother Nature is associated with nurturing, cultivation, and kindness. This perspective is ancient. Rather than militaristic sky gods, many of the early agricultural societies during the Neolithic worshipped Nature as a goddess or goddesses in her many manifestations to assist with crops.
Further, mothers assist their children (us) to fulfill their potentials – self-actualize our purpose. This interpretation of Nature as Mother opens the door for Providence. She provides us with Divine Signs that help us on our Path. This understanding certainly resonates with me, since I regularly rely upon Providential assistance to stay on track.
Nature as Mother avoids the implications of the Sky God’s patriarchy. Mother Nature is associated with nourishing Earth, while our Heavenly Father with the aristocratic hierarchy. Mother Nature is egalitarian – loving all her children equally, while Father Sky seems to love the upper classes over the lower classes. Finally the patriarchal gods, whether Biblical or Buddhist, tend to look down Nature. Rather than live with her in cooperative harmony, Sky god societies attempt to dominate her. This attitude has led ultimately to the eco-destruction of our once abundant Earth.
The patriarchal scientific community is part of this dominator mentality. They have attempted to imprison both Life and Nature in their set theory with its deterministic orientation. Rather than allowing both to roam free within material boundaries, they construct arcane philosophies that renounce their daily experience of these free spirits. Dominated by the crowd mentality, these supposedly brilliant thinkers proudly proclaim their ignorance by claiming that Life and Nature are bound by materialist laws that they call ‘natural’.
It is time to revolt. Throw off the chains of the Patriarchy! How dare they deny Life’s ability to interact with the environment. How dare they ignore or scorn the Divine attributes of Nature? Are they blind or stupid? Do they really think that their precise knowledge of particles can tell us anything about the exhilaration of feeling a crisp breeze on our skin in the late afternoon? Embrace Living Nature – the source of purpose, meaning, choice and creative intelligence.
With these definitional distinctions in Mind, let us return to the subtleties of cellular energy production.
The prior chapter deconstructed the ATP molecule, the so-called energy currency of living systems. The current chapter focuses upon other ways that the cell stores bioenergy. To set the stage for the discussion, let us first differentiate living energy from Matter’s dead energy.
Why is ATP likened to currency – money? What about their logic is similar? In both cases, the currency can be used in discretionary fashion. Our dollar bills remain in our wallets until we want to spend them on, for instance, a dinner out at a restaurant or a new bike. Similarly, the cell holds onto the potential bioenergy stored in the chemical bonds of ATP (one of its phosphate groups) until it is needed to reverse entropy – drive a chemical reaction uphill in one of the cell’s many metabolic pathways.
There is another logical symmetry between the two systems. Just as currency can be used in myriad ways, the cell has an uncountable number of uses for ATP. In contrast, most open energy systems, such as cars, only have one use for their fuel. Multiple usage is another strength of the currency metaphor.
Although the currency metaphor clarifies how the cell employs ATP, it obscures the unique way in which the cell stores and employs bioenergy. For one, the currency metaphor breaks down when it comes to permanency. Currency, such as dollar bills, can be stored virtually indefinitely. We have cash in a safe that hasn’t been touched for decades. However, we can still use this monetary currency to buy goods and service whenever we decide.
In contrast, ATP molecules degrade – not so gradually. If their stored bioenergy is not used in a timely fashion, it is released into the atmosphere. This complete degradation is very different from dollars, which lose value from inflation but are nevertheless usable at any time. The cell has developed a unique strategy for dealing with the degradation problem. Rather than just one, the cell has multiple molecular storage batteries (ATP, glucose, glycogen, and fats) – each with a different time frame. This is the topic of this chapter.
To set the stage, let us first highlight another unique and relevant aspect of the cellular energy production process. As developed, both cells and cars belong to open energy systems. Open energy systems convert external fuel into the energy that powers the system.
Both cars and cells derive their energy from external fuel. We pump gasoline into our tank from a service station. Sunlight fuels cells. However, the two systems (living and non-living) use this fuel in entirely different ways.
Our mechanical engines (cars) consume the gasoline’s energy for immediate use, while living systems store bioenergy for discretionary use. Rather than immediately employing the energy derived from chemical oxidation to do work, the body stores it as bioenergy.
When we turn the ignition on our car, gas is transformed into the mechanical energy that propels us effortlessly from place to place. When we turn on our ovens, gas is ignited into a flame, which eventually boils the water in our tea pot. When we flick a wall switch, electricity is transformed into light. In these familiar cases, the energy from the fuel is not transformed into potential energy that can be used at a later date. Rather once the fuel’s potential energy is released, it is transformed into kinetic energy. (Contradicting our theme, many of our electronic gadgets, e.g. cell phones, do store energy for discretionary use at a later date. This is why we have charging stations in airports.)
However, the ‘instantaneous work conversion’ engine logic that applies to so many of our machines does not hold for the cell, hence all living creatures. Rather any fuel that enters our body or any cell is first transformed into potential bioenergy. This potential bioenergy is eventually converted into the kinetic bioenergy that the cell employs to organize Matter (reverse entropy) to survive.
However, the cell hedges its bets. It does not rely upon just one form of potential bioenergy. The ATP molecule is the energy currency of virtually all cells. This is the biomolecule that the cell relies upon to do the work of reversing entropy. Due to this crucial importance for survival, the cell’s entire energy production process revolves around ATP.
However, food or solar energy are not converted immediately into ATP molecules that cells can use. Photosynthesis infuses a biomolecule (G3P) with solar energy. Cellular respiration oxidizes this biomolecule to charge ATP molecules. However, the solar energy captured by photosynthesis goes through dozens of transformations before reaching this endpoint. (Earlier chapters dealt with these molecular transformations that occur within the energy production system in more depth.)
What concerns us here are the cell’s primary energy storage biomolecules. G3P, the product of photosynthesis, is the highest energy biomolecule. But it degrades so quickly that it is of little use to the cell as a storage battery.
G3P would be great if plants and animals operated like cars and other machines with their instant energy conversion. Rather cells must save their energy currency (ATP) for when they need it (emergencies and stuff). Instead of spending all their income at once, cells wisely bank their currency.
Unfortunately, the cell’s bio-currency (ATP), unlike our artificial currency (dollar bills), is real and has a relatively short shelf-life. Because of their brief existence, saving ATP would be a waste, actually a disaster. Since ATP molecules degrade fairly rapidly, they would not be there when most needed. Without kinetic bioenergy to reverse entropy, Death would result.
To prepare for this contingency, Living Nature (not Science’s dead Nature) has devised a plan. As with any savvy investor, Nature diversified the cell’s portfolio. Glucose, glycogen, and fat molecules can be employed to charge ATP molecules and have much longer shelf lives. As such, cells have methods for storing bioenergy in these biomolecules. Then cells, or multicellular creatures like us, have bankable, disposable bioenergy for times of need – and can avoid catastrophe.
As an indication of the cell’s preparedness (the care of Living Nature), the cell’s energy storage molecules have not one but rather four different time frames. With a half-life measured in several minutes, ATP, is for relatively rapid use (still not instant like the usual human engines.)
With a half-life of 20 to 85 minutes, glucose is for use over longer periods of time. However, as most of us are well aware, glucose as a sugar is not a sustainable fuel source. We and our children can live on sugar for a while, but then comes the crash. Unless constantly replenished, our glucose reserves are consumed fairly rapidly – leaving us with nothing in the tank after just an hour or so.
Again, the Designer prepared cells, hence all life forms for this eventuality – providing us with glycogen as an intermediate energy source. Unused glucose (sugar) is converted into glycogen (carbohydrates). More specifically, glycogen consists of connected glucose residue – molecules that were not used in a timely fashion. These leftover molecules are connected in linear chains that are from 8 to 12 glucose units long. Since many chains are linked together, there are 2,000-60,000 residues per one molecule of glycogen.
While glucose lasts for about an hour, glycogen has a half-life of 24 to 36 hours. In other words, glycogen stores will last an entire day. This increased shelf-life is crucial for those of us who want to survive the night or through times when food is not readily available.
As indication of its importance for survival throughout our entire 24-hour day, animals, bacteria and archaea all produce their own glycogen. Further rather than tightly packed away in some specialized organelle, this crucial biomolecule is located in the cytoplasm – the interior soup that holds cellular systems together as a unit. Inhabiting the common dining area, glycogen is readily available to both bacteria and animals.
Lasting for only an hour, glucose must be regularly replenished. Due to this limitation, glucose is unable to produce the sustained bioenergy required for an entire day. Glycogen fills glucose’s daily energy gaps. As an example, cyanobacteria, the first life form to employ photosynthesis, employs glycogen for continued survival through the night when their solar energy source is unavailable.
While cyanobacteria produce glycogen within their microscopic cellular boundaries, multicellular organisms have developed complex systems to generate this storage biomolecule. On the simplest level, our human muscles and liver produce and store glycogen derived from unused glucose. On more complex levels, when our blood sugar rises, e.g. after consuming maple syrup drenched pancakes, our pancreas secretes insulin into the blood stream. The function of insulin is to bind unused glucose (sugar molecules) into glycogen molecules. As diabetics don’t produce enough insulin, they lack sufficient glycogen. To avoid slipping into a coma, these unfortunate individuals must prop up their blood sugar by either ingesting insulin or eating almost continuously.
As an alternative to glycogen, plants produce starches to store bioenergy. In parallel fashion to glycogen production, plants metabolize unused glucose into starch molecules. In an animal’s diet, plant starch is a source of sugar. Via amylase, an enzyme found in saliva and the pancreas, animals breakdown starch into glucose for quick energy. Via insulin, excess glucose is converted into glycogen to survive the day.
While glycogen enables us to survive a 24-hour day, it is not sufficient for longer periods of deprivation. With a half-life of 240 to 425 days, fat molecules fulfill this function. We and other animals are able to take advantage of fat’s enormous energy storage capacity over weeks and even unto a year.
Fat’s enormous half-life is a blessing and a curse, as we all know. While available when our glycogen stores run dry, fat can also accumulate if not used up in a timely fashion - resulting in obesity. During our early evolution, obesity was not a problem. Rather fat, as the long-term energy storage molecule, solved the problem of scarcity for our ancestors - hunter gatherers.
Summarizing the time frames of the biomolecules our body employs for energy storage: ATP is the energy source for minutes; glucose for hours; glycogen and starch for days; and fats for weeks and months. Put another way, ATP is for immediate use, glucose (sugar) is for short-term energy requirements, glycogen/starch (carbohydrates) for middle-term, and fats for long-term storage.
While each of these biomolecules stores bioenergy, the cell can only employ charged ATP for the kinetic bioenergy that organizes inanimate molecules into a living unit, thereby reversing entropy. ATP is the cellular currency, none of the others. As such, the overall function of each of the other storage molecules is to charge ATP molecules. Rather than immediately consumed as with our cars and electronic devices, biofuel is employed to charge ATP molecules.
Glucose is the intermediary – the connector - the molecular pathway for currency conversion. Cellular respiration extracts the stored energy in glucose (sugar) to recharge ATP molecules. Rather than directly charging ATP, the other energy storage molecules must be first converted into glucose. Fats, glycogen and starches must first be broken down into sugar (glucose) before cellular respiration can do its work of charging ATP molecules.
The overall point is that Living Nature produced an energy storage strategy to ensure Life’s survival. Nature’s strategy is based upon Earthly temporal cycles – minutes (ATP), hourly (glucose), daily (glycogen) and weekly or longer (fat). Rather than immediate energy conversion, as with our human-made engines and machines, Life’s energy strategy requires multiple stages that are mutually interdependent and occur over time.
Broadly speaking, Life has both a production and storage strategy for bioenergy. On the simplest level, there are 3 stages to the energy production strategy. Photosynthesis stores solar energy in a biomolecule (G3P). Then cellular respiration extracts the energy from this biomolecule to charge ATP. The cell then employs these charged ATP molecules to do the work necessary for survival.
Each of these 3 stages with their many steps is meaningless without the others. The end-product of photosynthesis is useless without cellular respiration to charge ATP molecules. In turn, the charged ATP molecules are worthless without a cell with its many enzymes to take advantage of its stored energy. This interdependency is a clear indication that the cell is a holistic system.
In addition to an energy production strategy, the cell requires an energy storage strategy. Since ATP molecules don’t retain their charged energy long enough to support the cell’s many metabolic pathways, the cell must store potential bioenergy in glucose, from which energy can be employed to charge ATP. Since glucose degrades after an hour, the cell must have yet another storage source in survive the entire day. Glycogen (consisting of unused glucose residue) serves this function. Since glycogen degrades after a day, the cell must have yet another energy storage molecule that will provide the necessary energy to survive multiple days in times of shortage. Degrading after months, fat serves this function.
Again, both the energy production strategy and the energy storage strategy only exist to serve the needs of the cell. Both strategies have a distinct purpose, but only regarding the cell. Neither strategy has any value or meaning outside the cellular context. Further both strategies are designed to benefit the future needs of cell, not immediate. For these reasons, both cellular energy strategies require both a holistic sense of the entire cell and a temporal sense of current behaviors yielding future results.
Finally, the cell’s energy storage strategy indicates a monitor and adjust relationship with environmental information. If Life was purely a stimulus-response affair, there would be no need for any strategy, since random molecular collisions would be sufficient to deal with any contingency. Rather living systems must interact with their ecosystem – adjusting strategically to ongoing dynamic and unpredictable circumstances.
Strategies require a designer with these sensibilities. Living Nature must have both a holistic-temporal sense and the ability to interact with info to design the cell’s energy strategies. Matter has none of these capabilities. Nature must have a ‘creative intelligence’ that Matter doesn’t have. Life’s ID system enables all three of these capabilities. Is it possible that this Creative Intelligence also employs an ID system to design cellular energy strategies?