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The Cambrian Contingency
Science Fantasy
"New Discovery Rocks Science"
600 million years ago
Land masses were contiguous, forming one vast Continent; ice covered the entire planet (Snowball Earth); and beneath the frozen sea, all life was dying off.
At this time, a mysterious object appeared. The effects of this intrusion reached far beyond the limits of earth-space. A wave of immeasurable power spread across the universe, causing life to reinvent itself, to exploit hitherto unavailable pathways and, given new tools, to evolve rapidly.
It was indeed a providential contingency.
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In this novel, Adrian Dorn, the author, creates a unique and separate reality surrounding the singular cause and wider consequences of the most significant paleontological event in Earth's history: the Cambrian Explosion.
Sometime between 550 and 600 million years ago, during a remarkable 5 to 10 million year period, all of the current animal body plans -- phyla -- came online as life fashioned a whole new set of tools and abruptly shifted gears, surpassing and eliminating what had gone before. Whole orders of animals with hard parts -- a breakthrough modification called biomineralisation -- hitherto non-existent, populated the world's oceans simultaneously.
To this date, many conjectures have been put forth as to the essential trigger for what is considered the Big Bang of Biology. But in spite of the coincidence of a confluence of several significant factors -- necessary contingencies -- none of which alone is considered responsible, there is no general consensus or conclusive explanation for this sudden eruption of multicellular life. In all likelihood, these factors may themselves be effects expressing some more pervasive underlying event.
The Cambrian Contingency not only addresses this enigma, but also puts in context the scope of what is known as the Cambrian Explosion.
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Notebook
A Compilation of Some Writings
"The Superposed Self: Entanglement <---> Emergence"
"The Superposed Self" draws on ideas and concepts from various mathematical fields, such as: Algebraic [or Combinatorial] Topology [Group Theory applied to the topology of polyhedra]; Linear Algebra [Transformations, represented by matrices, defining orientations on Vector Spaces]; and, acting as the overall frame, Modern Algebra [the study of Groups and other algebraic structures (ultimately the study of symmetry)].
The basic paradigm has to do with the recognition of a hierarchy of essential identities as being the result of a factoring process -- whether of the physical realm or of the psychic -- in the act of self-identity. Each factor up the scale of this hierarchy stamps a unique pattern -- a kernel of identity -- onto its immediate parent structure, an identity-pattern that resonates through to the surface where it interfaces and interacts with its surroundings. However, its expression is ultimately limited by what is possible.
Furthermore, as each identity is the maximal sub-symmetry contained within the pattern of the parent, an inheritance of form is transferred. Each kernel -- identity element of the factor group -- reorchestrates the overall design in its own image, establishing new initial conditions for the next phase transition.
[Dissertation begun in the mid-80's,
finally rewritten and completed 2004.]
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BLACKBOARD
SCRAPBOOK
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