© 2020 Marjorie Ray
© 2020 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
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Marjorie Ray
Scientific Symposium November 2019
URANTIA FOUNDATION
Marjorie Ray encountered the Urantia Book 45 years ago and has been a student ever since. She was most fortunate that very early on she was mentored by Jim and Eunice Mills. She has participated in, hosted and fostered study groups from the beginning.
Marjorie was trained as a biochemist and spent her entire career in academic science; retiring after more than 35 years as a researcher. Her particular areas of interest were protein/lipid interactions, lipoproteins and integral membrane proteins. Her career afforded many wonderful opportunities for academic publications, national and international collaborations/travel, and work experiences in dynamic environments.
In retirement, she has returned to a long standing interest in philosophy, especially the area of ethics. She currently lives outside Birmingham, Alabama, USA but is anticipating relocation to the Pacific Northwest USA very soon.
The entire science of mathematics, the entire field of philosophy, the most advanced physics and chemistry could neither predict nor know that the union of two gaseous atoms of hydrogen with one gaseous atom of oxygen would produce a new and qualitatively superadded substance: liquid water. The observation of this physicochemical phenomenon alone should have prevented the development of materialist philosophy and mechanical cosmology. (UB 12:9.3)
This quote is intriguing in that it highlights the weakness of our human-derived epistemological systems to understand a substance that is the basis of life on this planet. Perhaps examining the adjectives used and the phenomenon mentioned will help to understand what the authors were trying to convey.
Qualitatively, the adverb is derived from the quality of the noun which is defined as: 1) a particular and essential character; an inherent characteristic or 2) a degree of excellence; superiority in kind. Both sets of definitions could be applied, each imparting a different nuance. Quality is often defined by contrasting it with quantity. Quality (qualitative) is subjective while quantity (quantitative) is definitive. (1)
Superadditive is a mathematical term (lemma) that was put forward by mathematician Michael Fekete in 1925. Simply put:
A sequence , is called superadditive if it satisfies the inequality
for all m and n. (2)
In the case of water, this would imply that the addition of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom equals more (greater) than expected of the mixture of two gases. Thus, it was perhaps the closest English word in terms of meaning that could exist.
Interestingly, the descriptive term “qualitatively superadditive” combines a subjective adverb (Qualitatively: Def: based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions) that modifies a definite mathematical adjective (e.g. conclusive) to describe liquid water.
Physiochemistry refers to physiological chemistry, which is in the field of science that is currently called biological chemistry or biochemistry. A simple definition is the study of chemical processes within and related to living organisms. (3.4)
¶ Physiology — a brief history
The term physiology was first used by Jean Fernel (1497-1558) who first described the spinal canal. He was primarily concerned with what science now considers rudimentary anatomy. Nearly a century later, William Harvey explained the circulatory system (1628) and physiology began to evolve from structural (anatomical) descriptions to descriptions of macroscopic processes such as circulation, digestion and respiration. But it was almost 200 years before the cell theory of Schleiden and Schwann (1838) brought physiology into the “modern era” by postulating the first two principles of the theory. These first two principles are: 1) all living organisms are composed of one or more cells and 2) the cell is the most elementary unit of life. Then in 1855, Rudolf Virchow added the third principle: all cells arise only from pre-existing cells. This theory is today the foundation of physiology. The first principle has been challenged in that viruses are not cellular but are sometimes considered life forms. (5.6,7,8)
¶ Water — a brief history
Although Lavoisier named oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783) as the components of water, it was Cavendish (1731-1810) who determined its chemical composition (1783). Lavoisier and Cavendish were contemporaries. It is notable that James Watt was the first to publish the composition of water, although Cavendish actually did the first experiments, but he published them after, a controversy over priority ensued. (9)
The purpose of this brief epistemological study is an attempt to locate in time at what time science knew both the chemistry of water and enough physiology for the term physiochemistry to have meaning. With the addition of the third principle of physiology (1855), this characteristic seems to have been respected in that the idea of spontaneous generation and other similar theories were refuted.
So why is this date relevant to the discussion? The authors claim that “an understanding of the physiochemical phenomenon, liquid water, should have prevented the development of materialist philosophy and mechanistic cosmology.” Prevention is not possible without the discoveries of the chemical composition of water and its participation in the life process. So, from 1855 to the 1930s, what was not understood?
Materialist philosophy or materialism is “as old as philosophy,” said Frederick Lange in 1865. Lange produced three volumes to detail the history of materialism and a critique of its importance at the time he was writing. One of Lange’s notable statements was “to think clearly about materialism is to refute it.” (10) The most fundamental statement of philosophical materialism “is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance of nature and that all things are material interactions.” Monism attributes unity or uniqueness to a concept, in this case matter. Classically, matter is anything that has mass and takes up space. But with the evolution of quantum theories and relativity, advances in biochemistry and neuroscience, matter has been expanded to include the 16 elementary particles in the Standard Model of particle physics, mental states, and consciousness. (11.12,13)
Mechanistic cosmology has been evident since the Babylonians (3000 BC). The adjective mechanistic is defined as: relating to a mechanism. The doctrine of mechanism did not appear in the English language until 1884 according to Merriam-Webster. The doctrine of mechanism is a philosophical term that, in its ancient incarnation (acceptance), was called universal mechanism. Universal mechanism held that the universe is reducible to a completely mechanical principle, namely motion and matter. But after the scientific revolution beginning with Copernicus in 1543 and ending with Newton in 1687, a new cosmology emerged. All phenomena could finally be explained in terms of “mechanical” laws, natural laws, which would govern everything and, as a result, all phenomena, past, present or future, could be completely determined. Cosmology is concerned with the Universe as a whole. Mechanistic cosmology can therefore be described as both reductionist and determinist. (1.14,15,16,17)
Let’s review some of the basic science on liquid water and some of the more recent discoveries to perhaps deepen our understanding and appreciation of why water should have such an impact on how we think about life and the universe we inhabit.
Water! The most scientifically studied substance on the planet. There is no life on this planet that does not require water. Water is considered the most anomalous substance known to science. In other words, it does not follow the “rules”, an unexpected fact that should never be taken for granted. Martin Chaplin BSc PhD CChem FRSC is Emeritus Professor of Applied Science at London South Bank University and runs the website: Water Structure and Science. As of 16 September 2019, the site lists 4350 published references and papers and approximately 400 references to external websites. If you want to learn about water, this is the best place to start. The following is the basic chemistry of the water molecule explained in the previous article on snowflakes in order to give a basis for discussing some of the wonders of water. (18)
Water is one of the most stable molecules known. The stability is due to what each element, oxygen and hydrogen, contributes to the molecule. Electron orbital theory describes how electron pairs orbit the nucleus of an atom. The first orbit can hold a maximum of two electrons, a pair. Having two electrons in the first orbit gives stability but hydrogen only has one. Oxygen has eight electrons: two in its first orbit and six in its second. But the second orbit can hold eight electrons for maximum stability. So when an oxygen and two hydrogen atoms come together, or bond, each hydrogen now has two electrons in its first orbit by sharing an electron pair with the oxygen. Oxygen now has a total of eight electrons in the second orbit because of this sharing with the two hydrogen atoms. This sharing of electron pairs is called a covalent chemical bond.
In , only two of the six electrons in the outer orbital shell of oxygen are used for this sharing, leaving four unshared electrons, which are arranged in two nonbonding pairs.
The four electron pairs surrounding the oxygen tend to arrange themselves as far apart as possible in order to minimize the repulsions between these clouds of negative charge. This would normally result in a tetrahedral geometry in which the angle between the electron pairs (and therefore the H-O-H bond angle) is 109.5º. However, because the two non-bonding pairs remain closer to the oxygen atom (because they do not “share”), they exert a stronger repulsion against the two covalent bonding pairs, effectively bringing the two hydrogen atoms closer together. The result is a distorted tetrahedral arrangement in which the angle is 104.5 - 106.0º. (18)
“The opposite charges on the oxygen and hydrogen atoms cause different water molecules to attract each other. This attraction is particularly strong when the bond in one water molecule points directly toward a nearby oxygen atom in another water molecule, that is, when the three O atoms are in a straight line. This is called ‘hydrogen bonding’ because the hydrogen atoms appear to cling to the two O atoms. This attraction between neighboring water molecules, combined with the high density of molecules due to their small size, produces a large cohesive effect in liquid water, responsible for the liquid nature of water at room temperature.” (18)
Hydrogen bonding is about as strong as covalent bonding ( vs / mol). Hydrogen bonds form, last for ps (picoseconds), break, and then reform. “In liquid water, water molecules are connected in an extensive dynamic hydrogen-bonded network, with individual hydrogen bonds varying from shorter, straighter and stronger to longer, bent and weaker. They can even be broken for very short periods of time () [N.D.T. fs second].” (1)
But one could easily argue that this rather weak, flexible, dynamic bond is how life even exists. In the diagram below, very small changes in bond strength have huge ramifications for the physical properties of liquid water. Look at the red line, which represents viscosity. The change in bond strength represents less than 1 kJ of energy (0.24 k calories) which would make water at body temperature close to the viscosity of acetone (nail polish remover). The change in bond strength would change the viscosity of water to that of mercury. (22)
On the abscissa: \% change in the hydrogen bond strength of water
On the ordinate: \% change in physical properties.
Compressibility = compressibility
Velocity of sound = Speed of sound propagation
Viscosity = viscosity
Density = density
Thermal conductivity = thermal conductivity
Surface Tension = surface tension
Dielectric constant = dielectric constant
Physiologically, DNA would not become helical, proteins would not fold, ions could not flow, and oxygen exchange across the plasma membranes of the alveoli of the lungs could not occur. These can all occur because “hydrogen bonding in water is neither too weak nor too strong; it is sometimes considered to be ‘ideally adjusted.’” (18)
“Since liquid water is so common in our daily lives that it is often considered a ‘typical’ liquid. In reality, water is more atypical in liquid form, behaving like a very different material at low temperatures than when hot, with a splitting temperature of about . It has often been said that life depends on these anomalous properties of water. The anomalous macroscopic properties of water are derived from its microscopic structure and reflect the balance between low-density and high-density structures.” (18)
Martin Chaplin lists seventy-four anomalous properties of water, divided into five subgroups: phase, density, material, thermodynamic, and physical. The seventy-four properties are accompanied by explanations, and a great deal is known about the “strange” properties of water. Research continues, and new data continues to show just how unusual water really is. (18)
One of the physicochemical “facts” of water is that it makes up about 50-60% of the human body. In an adult male weighing 72 kg (165 lb), there are about 40 liters of fluid, of which 100% are intracellular (in the cells). In 2008, Philip Ball asked a number of questions about the enduring mystery of water, one of which, very intriguingly, was: “Is most of the water in cells structurally similar to pure liquid?” (23)
The answer to this question is most likely no. The water in your bottle looks like this:
Here’s how water interacts with DNA:
This is water interacting with a protein helping other proteins fold.
[Translator's note: The GroEL protein belongs to the chaperonin family of chaperone molecules, and is found in a large number of bacteria. A chaperone protein is a protein whose function is to assist other proteins in their maturation, by preventing the formation of aggregates via the hydrophobic domains present on their surface during their three-dimensional folding.]
In 2016, experiments demonstrated that water could undergo quantum tunneling. Quantum tunneling is the phenomenon in quantum mechanics where a particle passes through a potential barrier. In classical mechanics, if the particle does not have enough energy to overcome the energy barrier, it is either reflected or absorbed. When particles are treated as having wave characteristics, it is likely that some of the wave will pass through the barrier and appear on the other side.
“Tunneling” is the “quantum superpower” that allows particles to pass through microscopic barriers with a single bond. A study of water trapped in an emerald crystal reveals tunneling of water molecules between multiple orientations, so that each molecule is essentially in six configurations at once. The researchers showed through neutron scattering experiments that tunneling causes the hydrogen atoms in water to scatter into ring-shaped distributions. This new form of water is a more symmetrical structure that should have a zero electric dipole moment—the property that normally allows water to form hydrogen bonds and work well as a solvent.” (27)
“The existence of the tunneling state of water shown in ”this“ study should help scientists better describe the thermodynamic properties and behavior of water in very confined environments such as the diffusion and transport of water in channels of cell membranes,…” (29) The water molecule has now been shown, under confined conditions, to display the probabilistic wave phenomena of quantum mechanics.
As of 2019, the scientific evidence base for liquid water has grown several-fold since the 1930s, but materialist philosophy and mechanistic cosmology still persistently develop and, in many cases, strongly influence the scientific effort. (28)
Materialist philosophy, materialism, is often called physicalism today to separate the philosophical discipline from the social/economic connotation of avarice/greed. The old statement “matter is the fundamental substance of nature” has given way to “all things, including mental states and consciousness, are the result of material interactions.” (13) Materialism/physicalism remains reductionist and perhaps even more deterministic. This can be imagined by explaining thought, behavior, consciousness, emotions, experience, memory, etc. as manifestations of neurochemical processes in certain regions of brain tissue, which are made up of highly evolved cells. Reduction arguments can be made at the molecular level of enzymes, neurotransmitters, hormones, etc., then at the atomic/quantum level of hydrogen bonding, proton donors/acceptors, energy transport, etc. Becoming more deterministic when invoking causality (cause and effect) in fields like physics, chemistry, genetics, and evolution. Such as: “this mutation causes this disease”; “this chemical reaction leads to this product”; “this environmental pressure caused this adaptation.”
There is a rather “radical” form of philosophical materialism adopted by Canadian philosophers Paul and Patricia Churchland, called eliminative materialism.
“Just as we have come to understand that there are no demons (because nothing resembling demons appears in modern accounts of strange behavior), so eliminative materialists argue that various folk psychological concepts—such as our concept of belief—will eventually be recognized as empty behaviors that do not correspond to anything that actually exists. Since there is nothing that possesses the causal and semantic properties that we attribute to beliefs (and many other mental states), it will turn out that no such things exist.” (30)
Mechanistic cosmology, pursued to a logical (albeit arguably hypothetical) conclusion, would produce the elusive TOE… Theory of Everything or a Grand Unified Theory. All physical aspects of the universe would be explained and linked into a comprehensive and coherent framework. This is considered one of the major, if not the major, problems in physics.
In 1913, Lawrence Joseph Henderson published The Fitness of the Environment. (31) “Henderson discusses the importance of water and the environment as it relates to living things, emphasizing that life depends entirely on very specific environmental conditions on Earth, particularly with respect to the prevalence and properties of water.” (32) This was the first statement of the proposition that the universe is “tuned” to allow life. The proposition waited until 1961, when physicists began to note how very small changes in certain physical forces in the universe (the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime, the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to the force of gravity for a pair of protons, the strength of the strong nuclear force, the third lowest energy state of carbon-12, etc.) would prevent the existence of life.
In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking wrote: “The laws of science, as we now know them, contain many fundamental numbers, such as the size of the electric charge on the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron… The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely tuned to allow life to develop.” (33) This proposition continues to engage scientists, philosophers, theologians, and religious scholars to further their investigations.
Between 1855 and 1930, what was keeping liquid water from being understood? Henderson was perhaps the overlooked torchbearer. He noticed the connection between the small, anomalous, ubiquitous molecule, liquid water, and life.
As students of The Urantia Book, we have all become familiar with the triads found in the papers. Although a very teleological assessment, this author proposes the addition of another triad to the list.
| Truth | Beauty | Goodness |
|---|---|---|
| Fact | Meaning | Value |
| Mental | Matter | Spirit |
| Philosophy | Cosmology | Divinity |
| Water | Life | Survival |
The Truth of Water: All the Material Facts That Have Been Discovered. The Beauty of Water: Water is essential to life on Earth.
The goodness of water: This life gives the opportunity for eternal adventure, survival.
Thanks to Jeff Wattles and Phil Rolnick for their philosophical advice and encouragement. Thanks to Patricia Clem and DD Nicolau for their enduring friendship and support of this project.
Translation: G. Michelson-Dupont
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