OVERVIEW

The following is an earlier “abbreviated” Machine Theory paper I wrote as the result of my career designing machines. I learned in college that life was about chemistry, and the Miller-Urey experiment plus Darwin explained life’s origin and evolution.

So we flash forward to Steve Meyer’s “Signature in the Cell” book launch party that Steve’s parents took my wife and I to.  In it Steve played a video that showed machines at work, I didn’t see any chemistry. Being a deceived engineer that has designed hundreds of machines, I had to figure out their secret sauce. It took a couple of years, because I was focused on mechanism, but I finally realized the distinction wasn’t the mechanisms, it was the process they run that make them work, with is the basis of Machine Theory.

Then much later, I learned that James Maxwell, in his paper, Theory of Heat, described a “molecular being,” later called “Maxwell’s Demon,” that when running the Machine Theory process, could violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics by cause heat to flow from cold to hot. So it is not a stretch to say that Maxwell is the father of machine theory.

Here is the paper:.

Abstract

This paper posits a theory of machines that identifies the machine process that is uniquely capable of performing specified work where the specification comes from a source outside the realm of physics.

The work performed by natural processes uses the system’s stochastic, unguided, naturally existing energy to perform work directed only by the laws of physics, i.e., natural determinism. By comparison, machine work, as defined herein, including the man-created and machines in life, are assemblages of unnatural mechanisms added to a system running an unnatural, separate, specified process that performs specified work powered by specified extrinsically raised free energy.¹ The machine process adds specified matter, energy, time,² and processed, specified information to the system to achieve unnatural deterministic results.

Therefore, machines are the physical manifestation of devices that produce deterministic results based upon specified information instead of the laws of physics alone. Taken together, we can identify natural causes plus machine causes as the two causal mechanisms that account for all creations we observe, including life,³ and life’s creations.

This posited machine theory is intuitive and easy to understand using simple examples. However, the mechanisms that implement these functions can be highly complex at the individual machine and system levels using many-layered, embedded, and shared machines powered by various unnatural energy sources. Not surprisingly, James Clerk Maxwell’s demon⁴ is the only previous description of the machine process an exhaustive literature search has uncovered, which is surprising considering the concepts’ simplicity and observability. His genius envisioned an entity that could overcome the 2nd law of thermodynamics by performing the process steps he described. This paper posits the machine theory detailed herein that defines the demon’s actions.⁵

In addition, this paper shows that creating a machine, setting its initial conditions, and starting the machine’s specified process requires the work of a machine. These facts reveal numerous causal circularities.

The laws of physics (the 2^nd law of thermodynamics), observation of man-made and life machines, and the logic of creating specified work validate the machine theory presented here.

Natural vs. Intelligent (Specified) causes

The first is intrinsically natural, whereby all state changes in a system are due to random energy that, at some point in space and time in the system, overcomes the activation energy level becoming free energy, causing a state change.⁶ The second is a mechanistic process utilizing extrinsically raised free energy, controlled by processed information, creating a specified state change.

The ability to process information is a characteristic and definition of intelligence,⁷ making these two operations profoundly different. The comparisons between the two are distinct, easily recognizable, and have tremendous worldview implications. Chance (probability) is not included because it is not a causal mechanism.⁸

Natural Causes

We know from physics that random energy cause state changes in a thermodynamic “downhill” direction,⁹ meaning more stable equilibrium, higher entropy, and (or) lower energy;¹⁰ see Figure 1. This physical law is why water flows downhill and heat moves from hot to cold. The laws of physics and initial conditions of the system’s matter and energy control the work outcome.

Figure 1, shows the mechanism that causes the performance of work in a natural system (no intelligence involved); is random Energy, which becomes Gibbs free energy at the instant the state change occurs.

All state changes occur because random energy at some point in the system exceeds the activation energy¹¹ that will change the system’s state. This action happens immediately when the condition occurs. This physics model explains all material entities in the universe, including galaxies, suns, solar systems, planets, black holes, etc. But it does not explain life and life’s creations,¹² unnatural causes.  Enter machines.

Specified Causes

Machines are the difference between natural causes and specified causes and are necessary for all life and the creations of life. Therefore, natural causes, as depicted in Figure 1, and life, including human-created machines, account for all the entities we can identify in the universe.

The work performed by a machine is very different as it adds an intermediating process that injects functional processed information¹³ plus the laws of physics to determine state changes, causing the machine’s work to become specified.

The random energy in the system is not (directly)¹⁴. used to perform the designed work of the machine. Instead, a machine runs a process that acquires and processes information according to a specified algorithm.¹⁵ The

Figure 2, adds a machine to the system, showing functionalities (blue boxes), energy (red) and the signaling required (grey arrows) to achieve intelligent, directed, specified work.

outcome is the intelligent, specified, or directed work, as shown in Figure 2.⁶ Such directed work using the specified (raised free) energy can make water flow uphill or heat flow from cold to hot. This diagram applies to all machines, both life, and human-designed machines, even though there are differences explained later. The machine’s information gathering, processing, and actuation add time and energy compared to natural state changes. It directs the outcome of the “work” contingent upon the laws of science, the initial conditions of matter and energy, and the specified information gained by the processing algorithm.

Figure 2 Is not a block diagram but rather a flow diagram that shows the movement and processing of information and energy. By contrast, a block diagram would include the details of the mechanisms that implement the functions.

These functionalities are intuitive and easy to understand using simple examples. However, the mechanisms that implement them can be highly complex both at the individual machine level and at the system level using multi-layered, embedded, and shared machines. Therefore, most machines’ mechanism block diagrams look different from their energy and information functionality flow diagrams.

This theory identifies the requirement for operational intelligence to create “specified work,” making it theoretically impossible for natural causes to create a machine; it would require a different paradigm, such as scientists discovering an information or intelligence quantum field. In addition, specified work is required to set initial conditions and start another machine’s running process.

The requirements necessary to achieve the purposefully designed machine function have not been described anywhere, written or otherwise, which is surprising considering the simplicity of the concepts. A literature review has not found any mechanism capable of performing “specified work” that does not have the basic machine functionalities shown in Figure 2. The necessity for deliberately designed mechanisms includes living machines. Therefore, I posit machines are the only link known to humanity between the realms of science and purposeful, intelligent design.

What is a Machine?

Webster’s machine definition (1.f) is “… a device for performing a task.” ⁷ Other dictionaries’ definitions involve “particular,” “some kind,” or “with unique purpose” for this task or work. These descriptors refer to a specified purpose. This specification invokes a higher-order thought process to design and execute a machine. Therefore, I would posit an unambiguous engineering definition of a machine as: “a designed device capable of performing specified work.” ⁸

Simple Machine Example: Mousetrap

This simple device performs “specified work” utilizing the functionalities shown in Figure 3. The bait serves as the sensor (acquisition of specified information, blue dashed pointer 1). The mouse moves the bait, signaling the mouse’s presence by directly transferring the mouse’s “eat the bait” force to the treadle. The treadle processes the signal by releasing the catch and the hold-down bar (blue dashed pointer 30. The actuator is the hold-down bar and spring combination (dashed pointer 6). When the hold-down bar is released, the specified energy stored in the spring allows the hammer to rotate, slamming the mouse with fatal force (red dashed pointer 5).

Figure 3, Mousetrap, parts labeled and correlated to the machine functions with the blue dotted lines, except for the signaling

There are two sources of specified energy shown for the mousetrap (Figure 3) compared to the generalized machine functionality diagram (Figure 2) because the mouse’s touch powers the information acquisition, signaling, and information processing functions. Then, the spring provides the actuation mechanism that strikes the mouse and moves the hold-down bar out of the way. The difference between these forces also illustrates a characteristic often needed in machines, what engineers call “gain.” Gain is the ratio of output to input energy, a measure of the ability of a small energy source to control a large energy output. In this case, the gain would equal the strike force of the hammer divided by the mouse’s touch force.

The two energy sources also highlight that machine work is required to generate specified, raised energy. In this case, the mouse (a living entity) provides some of this energy. And a human winds the spring in two stages, during manufacture and the trap setting. Some machines’ sole purpose is to generate specified energy,e.g., an engine. Batteries’ sole purpose is to provide specified energy, but they are not machines. However, specified work [1]had to produce them. The fact that machines require specified energy and only specified work involving machines can create it is a causal circularity.

The mousetrap example illustrates other characteristics of machines as well. For example, machines require intelligent work to set initial conditions, represented in Figure 3, by baiting and setting the trap. In addition, machines have components held “away from equilibrium,” exemplified by the wound-up spring, held in place by the tenuous treadle hold-down bar configuration, plus the additional spring wind supplied during manufacture to provide hammer force on the mouse once struck. As a result of the tenuous stability, the information acquisition, signaling, and information processing function usually provided by the touch of the mouse can be short-circuited by a “stomp

on the floor” vibration that will likely exceed the activation energy level necessary to activate the mousetrap. Such tenuous stability in machines tends to decay over time, making them impossible to evolve naturally.

Personal Computer Example of a Machine

Unlike the mousetrap machine example, a personal computer uses separate mechanisms to perform all machines’ functionality. By contrast, most machines combine functions within their mechanisms, thus blurring the distinction between the function and the mechanism, making a computer an excellent illustrative example of aligning mechanisms and functions. In addition, many people use computers and have some sense of what is inside them.

The dashed lines in Figure 4 show the relationship of the computer parts to the machine function they perform.

Figure 4. Shown is a simplified block diagram of a personal computer, and relating the functions of these blocks to the machine function diagram. The dashed blue lines connect the corresponding elements of the two diagrams.

For example, the keyboard, usually a machine, provides information originating outside the computer machine. It then conveys the keystrokes to the computer, usually by a proprietary wired or wireless USB (Universal Serial Bus), Bluetooth, or equivalent wireless data bus.

Once the keyboard information is inside the computer, the Interface block converts the USB serial data stream to parallel data. A device called a UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter) accomplishes this task. This “signaling” provides the data coherence between the keyboard and the computer, as illustrated by a dotted blue line in Figure 4.

The processor, typically an integrated semiconductor circuit, processes the information using instructions stored in memory, data in memory, and keystroke information. According to software instructions, the processor holds the results in memory and communicates the specified information to the display. The processor is a machine as it performs all the functions driven by the specified energy of the computer’s power supply.

Another UART Interface is needed to convert the computer’s parallel display information to serial, providing the signaling coherence required. The display content is the specified work of the computer/machine. The processor may also store specified information for future use in memory. The monitor, also a machine, converts the specified information from the computer to selected images on a screen.

The AC grid power enters the computer AC to DC Converter block(s) and converts the AC to the specified energy needed by each functional block. These energies may differ, hence the term “Energies” instead of “Energy” in the Specified Energy function block of all the machine function diagrams. The AC to DC converter typically is a machine that uses feedback control to provide the precise voltages and currents required by the mechanisms in the computer. Such power is foreign to natural systems; all specified energy originates from specified work.

The computer analogy is also instructive regarding the necessity to start and stop intelligent processes in a specified manner to prevent the process from crashing. A computer is no exception.

A multipurpose computer uses several layers of software to achieve the desired flexibility. The process involves loading levels of software upon power-up (set initial conditions) and unloading it when powering down to return to a specified state. As a result, the computer’s AC to DC converter must maintain power long enough to shut down safely even when power is lost. Otherwise, one will experience the dreaded “blue screen of death.”

Machines and Processes

Machines runs a step-by-step process: obtain information, then pass the information to the next step, processing. Then the machine processes the information. Then tha machine sends the processed information to the actuator, and then the actuator controls the specified energy source to perform the specified work on the system.

The work a particular machine performs may be a process step of a higher level process, and once performed, triggers the next process step of the higher level machine. Process steps in machines or life may either be another machine or a natural step. If it is another machine, then the previous machine must either signal the next machine, or the next machine must sense the state change the previous machine made. If the next step is a natural state change, then the previous machine’s work either provided the activation energy to trigger a natural state change, and/or modified the system in a manner that the available free energy triggered the next process step.

Let us use a gasoline engine as an example. The mechanism that creates the spark, which provides the activation energy to cause the fuel in the cylinder to explode, is a machine. This mechanism, acquires the crankshaft angle, processes this information by comparing the angle to the set-point, and when reached, creates a “ignite now” message that is sent to the mechanism that crates the spark. There a number of designs that implement this sequence, with the functions combined differently. This explosion is a natural process step. And the explosion causes the piston to move, causing the crankshaft to rotate whose angle is sensed. This sensed information is used to control the valves and the ignition firing. The engine is an example of a “repeating cycle” type machine that repeats states because of the synchronized actions driven by the rotating crankshaft.

Compared to life machines, human-designed machines and processes use natural process steps. The life process in the cell is a combination of machine steps and natural chemistry reactions made possible by the structures, life mechanisms and machines.

How Does One Spot a Machine?

Asking the questions suggested by the machine functionality diagram, Figure 2, is the easiest method to identify the functionality mechanisms:

1. What is the purpose of the machine?
2. What state changes (work) does the machine perform to achieve the purpose?
3. What information is needed to implement the action?
4. What mechanism(s) acquire this information? How is this mechanism powered?
5. How is the information conveyed to the signal processing mechanism? How is it powered?
6. What is the signal processing algorithm? What is the mechanism that implements this algorithm? How is it powered?
7. What actuation mechanism controls the specified energy applied to the system? How is the processed information conveyed? How does the actuation mechanism work?
8. What is the source of all the raised, specified energy?

One does not need answers to all the questions above to determine if a machine is involved. If one understands the function achieved, the source of raised energy and knows specified information is involved, a machine must be doing the work, according to this theory.

Life

Living entities are responsible for all machines we know of. Each life entity has vast numbers of biological machines according to the posited definition of a machine. There are 10 million to 3 billion ATP synthase machines per cell alone!¹⁰ However, life’s processes are much more intricate as they execute metabolism, development, adaptation, and propagation[1] well beyond the scope of human-designed machines. Even for a non-biologist, it is easy to recognize the biological machine’s functions in action at all levels of life – the body, organs, and systems (e.g., respiratory, digestive, pulmonary, etc.) – extending well into the sub-cellular domains.

Biologic and human-designed machines are different; scale is the most fundamental difference. Human-designed machine mechanisms range from macro-to micro size. Biological cell machines continue into the nanometer size range, with an average human cell diameter of 100 microns. Multicellular organisms range from 0.1 millimeters to macro sizes, containing an assembly of cells,[2] mainly used to create macro machines in the body. In other words, human machines are structures of large homogeneous designed parts, while life machines are heterogeneous assemblages of molecules and designed nano structures.[3]

Also, human-designed (when operating) and living, biologic machines run processes, but “thermodynamic downhill” chemistry accounts for many of life’s biological process steps. By contrast, human-designed machines typically have few “downhill” process steps. The difference in the scale of the individual biological machine makes identifying a machine more difficult in life and makes it easy to assume all life’s processes are “just chemistry.” However, a machine must be involved whenever one finds specified energy (ATP or proton flow) in biological systems, information signaling, or processing.

Another difference between life and human-designed machines is the energy involved. The movement of information-transfer molecules by lossless Brownian movement is an example already mentioned. Another posited example may be a mechanism that provides raised energy to some, if not all, enzymes. This concept comes from observations from looking at simulated conformal shape changes of enzyme molecules resulting from Brownian bombardment. When one examines the location of the electrostatic bonds that create the shape of the folded enzyme molecule, one sees long stretches of structure that are not bonded. These stretches will have resonances similar to a bell, and will vibrate at the resonant frequencies due to Brownian bombardment. This vibration represents raised energy that is added to and subtracted from the enzyme. If this movement is somehow the mechanism that lowers the activation energy of the captured reactant, then it explains how enzymes use “borrowed” Brownian energy to achieve their work, and it means that enzymes are machines. The signaling is the conformal and electrical charge “match” between the reaction molecule and the enzyme. The information processing and part of the actuation is the relative movement of the captured reactants which simultaneously bring them together and whose relative momentum add to the thermal activation energy. And the assumption is that this conformal motion also provides the ejection mechanism. If this theory is true, it is a marvel of engineering.

The biggest difference between life’s machines and human-designed machines is their purpose. The purpose of life is to live, meaning that it must perform metabolism, development, adaptation, and propagation. To achieve these things, it must also perform work on the system, but this is a secondary function needed to accomplish the other four. The main function of human-designed machines is to perform work on the system, and any work within the machine is simply to make the machine work. For this reason, the posited definition for machine excludes life entities, but not the machines within, and add to the definition of life “perform work on the system it resides.”

Life is orders of magnitude more complex than human machines because it is autonomous in that each life form has to make its way. It has to propagate, acquire energy, adapt to the environment, repair itself, etc. These challenges manifest themselves in several ways.

First, human-designed machines have fixed mechanisms. Engineers create drawings to document the details. Life creates many of its machines when needed, then breaks them down for “parts” after finishing their task. There is no fixed configuration. Biologists document life with process (machine) drawings coupled with logic diagrams detailing the processes’ associated algorithms. But these diagrams do not define the configuration of the life form at any point in time.

Second, life’s machinery must store the fixed information needed to create the “hardware” and to control the machinery’s building processes when needed. Human-designed machines are all “pre-made” and therefore do not need to store design information.

Third, life must detect problems and make repairs as needed. The half-lives of proteins, the building blocks of life’s machines, cause problems to the life process that require repairs and modification of the process as needed by the disruption. Humans repair failures in human-designed machines for the most part.

Forth, cells divide; human-designed machines do not. Cell division is a massive undertaking that undoubtedly creates many challenges not shared with human-designed machines.

Fifth, human machines are macro entities. Life’s cells are composed of large molecules whose whole is on the edge of the micro-macro realm. “Hand-work” at the molecular scale is impossible for humans.

What is Life?

Based on the previous discussion, I posit a definition for life: “Life is a continuous process conducted by machines that enables metabolism, development, adaptation, propagation and performance of specified work on its environment.”

Compared to human-designed machines, the intelligent work of living biological entities makes them indefinitely self-sustaining. This ability goes far beyond the capability of human creative power, or any human-created machine. Life is unique beyond comprehension.

Life Machine – Flagellum

[1] Biology textbooks use the term “reproduction” for what I call “propagation” because all life propagation occurs by cell division necessitated by the need to eliminate the intelligent work required to start a life process of a “reproduced” cell or multi-cell organism.

[2] A human has about 50 trillion cells, a blue whale has about 2000 times more.

[3] Life-created machines are assembled “bottom-up” by shaping homogeneous materials, then assembling them. Life’s internal machines are created “bottom-up” by building, then assembling custom-designed molecules.