Abstract

The origin and evolution of life have their material basis upon the movement of an arbitrary material body that can serve as a signal, instead of as an inertial body. The movement of a signal is a communication that materializes only in locally asynchronous time, instead of in globally synchronous time, while the global synchronization of time established in the finished record dispenses with the intervening communication in locally asynchronous time. Occurrence of locally asynchronous time is due to that measurement internal to any material bodies is legitimately incompetent in distinguishing no signal received yet from no signal to be received. Time is self-organizing in having locally asynchronous time precipitate further asynchronous time while leaving globally synchronous time behind. The origin of life is a solution to the sturdy conflict between two modes of material dynamics; one is a communication dynamics and the other is a mechanics. Natural selection is self-organizing in having whatever biological signals precipitate further biological signals while leaving surviving organisms behind.

1 Introduction

Any serious investigation on the origin and evolution of life faces a difficult task of identifying what is the real issue in a manner that almost everybody concerned would agree. In this regard, the Samkhya school founded by Kapila around the 6th century BC may give us some clue (Majumdar, 1971). According to this school of Hindu or Indian philosophy, there are two basic metaphysical principles. One is purusha or soul, and the other is prakriti or materiality. Prakriti consists of three qualities, namely, light or goodness, activity or passion, and darkness or inertia. When these constituents are in equilibrium, prakriti is static. However, disturbance of the equilibrium initiates a process of evolution that ultimately produces both the material world and individual faculties of action, thought and sense. The purusha, on the other hand, appears to be bound to prakriti and its modification, and may become free only through the realization that it is distinct from prakriti.

An important lesson we can learn from the ancient Hindu philosophy is that evolution could be a material manifestation of an interplay between prakriti and purusha. Any disequilibrium between prakriti and purusha can induce further evolution of prakriti and purusha themselves and so on. Evolution of the purusha presumes a prototypic purusha bound to prakriti. In contemporary terms, evolution of individual faculties of sense or detection is due to the capacity of sensing and detecting, or awareness in short, inherent in any material bodies. This view is almost echoed in physicist John Archibald Wheeler's remark (Wheeler, 1983, p.184):

"No elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is a registered (observed) phenomenon."

Therefore (Wheeler, 1983, p.210),

"We have to move the imposing structure of science onto the foundation of elementary acts of observer-participancy."

What is common in both the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy in the 6th century BC and contemporary physics at the turn of the 21th century AD is to emphasize the primary significance of the capacity of seeing, detecting or measurement exclusively on material grounds.

This overly simplified review on the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy and contemporary physics, though separated by more than 2,600 years, suggests to us that the most fundamental agency for the origin and evolution of life could be the act of measurement internal to any material bodies. Although the present emphasis on internal measurement as the most basic agency common to any material body may look quite natural once agential capacity of matter is taken for granted, physics over the immediate past 300 years or so has followed quite a different path. What has been unique to the tradition of physics is total elimination of agential capacity from material bodies. The Cartesian split between subject and object underlying the Cartesian physics attempted in the 17th century allows the subject to monopolize the agential capacity. The monopoly lets the subject identify the object thoroughly from its outside. The notion of the state of an external object just happens to be the direct outcome of the Cartesian split.

The state description in terms of a phase-space point in classical mechanics or a wavefunction in quantum mechanics lets the occurrence of measurement be at most secondary next to the development of the state itself that is taken to be primary (Wigner, 1964). Needless to say, non-agential state dynamics has been proved to be extremely successful in many branches of material sciences. There is no argument about it. Nonetheless, the other side of the same coin is that non-agential state dynamics is methodologically incompetent when it faces the origin and evolution of agential capacity associated with material bodies. A deep irony with non-agential state dynamics is that even though it addresses an extremely wide range of material dynamics, it stops short of coming to terms with agential phenomena of material origin.

Non-agential state dynamics might come up with the capacity of material agency thanks to an intervention of immaterial agency, but imputing the origin and evolution of material agency to something immaterial could be a bad joke at the best. What we would require is the agential dynamics of material origin, and we have seen a potential significance of measurement internal to any material bodies, or internal measurement (Matsuno 1982a, 1989), as consulting both the Samkhya school around the 6th century BC and contemporary physics at the turn of the 21th century AD. Although measurement has been taken to be exclusively anthropomorphic in the sense that only the measurement apparatuses prepared by experimental scientists can do the task of measurement, this view would be too anthropocentric and too parochial in monopolizing the capacity of measurement by our humans alone. Unless such monopoly is sanctioned on a guaranteed ground, it would be much safer to consider that measurement is ubiquitous as material bodies are.

A concrete significance of internal measurement is found in the difference between state and measurement (Gunji, 1993, 1995). State dynamics asks for identification of the state without employing any agential capacity of identification, whereas internal measurement in the form of measurement dynamics places the material capacity of identification or measurement at the inner most core. State dynamics intended for describing material bodies in dynamic is immaterial in seeking the capacity of identification or awareness somewhere else, while internal measurement is legitimately materialistic in seeking the capacity of identification nowhere other than material bodies themselves. What is unique to any measurement is that there is no means to foretell what will be measured beforehand. Measurement is basically and legitimately incompetent in distinguishing no signal received yet and no signal to be received.

As a matter of fact, signal plays a very unique role in the material world. Any propagative displacement of a physical medium such as a water or an air or even a vacuum can serve as a signal. At the same time, the very same propagative displacement can be regarded simply as no more than a mechanical response of the medium exerted upon by others. Whether an arbitrary propagative displacement of a medium is a signal or a mere mechanical response caused by others does not rest upon the physical nature of the propagative displacement, but upon the nature of the medium being subject to the propagative displacement. If the medium being subject to a propagative displacement is prepared independently of the origination of the displacement (e.g., propagating ripples caused by a stone thrown into a pond), the propagative displacement can serve as a signal inducing a causative factor. Measurement cannot simply be responsive. It is also causative in actualizing only one possibility out of uncountable indefinite alternatives because the global specification of a measurement is unattainable before the actual measurement.

Causative capacity of a measurement is most visible in activating the measurement apparatus for the purpose. Prerequisite to any measurement, whether of natural or of artificial kind, is the availability of energy sources that could be dissipated during the very measurement process. Intrinsic irreversibility latent in any measurement that remains incompetent in foretelling what will be measured beforehand necessitates energy dissipation. Although the energetic activation of the man-made measurement apparatus of whatever kind is facilitated by an anthropomorphic intervention and the resulting energy dissipation is taken for granted, internal measurement of natural kind has to face in the first place how to facilitate energy sources to be dissipated in the end. Unless energy sources to be dissipated are available, internal measurement could not materialize itself. This is a most significant difference from external measurement of artificial kind prepared exclusively by human interventions.

Before anything else, measurement begs the question of how to prepare energy sources to be dissipated for the sake of its own materialization. In this regard, external measurement due to human interventions, though quite ubiquitous in the practice of the present-day experimental sciences, is simply inadequate. External measurement dismisses the presence of the very question on how to recruit energy sources by pretending their availability at no cost at least on the scene of experimentation without mentioning its actual cost. External measurement is methodologically incompetent in addressing one of the basic issues surrounding measurement of material origin. Only internal measurement, or measurement of material origin, can legitimately address a causative character latent in measurement.

A most significant form of internal measurement that could facilitate energy sources to be dissipated is found in forces in mechanics. Newton's three laws specify the fundamental relationship between mechanical force of whatever origin on the one hand and the movement of a material body acted upon on the other. In particular, in view of the third law stating that to every action there is opposed an equal reaction, the capacity of identification or measurement of the opposed equality between action and reaction is already latent in the notion of force. This is evident in the justification of the third law in Newton's own words (Newton, 1687):

"If a horse draws a stone tied to a rope, the horse (if I may so say) will be equally drawn back towards the stone".

The agency of identifying and measuring is sought nowhere other than in the local generation of force. The capacity of identifying "equally" in the specification "equally drawn back" is latent in the notion of force itself. As a consequence, however, there arises a serious conflict or inconsistency between the communication of the identification and the movement of material bodies upon the communication. How the material bodies move right in the middle of communicating the opposed equality between action and reaction in those bodies is persistently left unspecified (Elzinga, 1972; Leydesdorff, 1994). A recipe for circumventing the difficulty Newton (1687) conceived of was his absolute time as phrased:

"I do not define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common.

Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration; relative, apparent, and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year."

That is Newtonian absolute time asking global synchronization without referring to anything external. Association of the global synchronization with the attainment of the communication between any pair of action and reaction makes the communication also globally synchronous, that is, globally simultaneous. The complication between the communication and the movement of material bodies could totally be dissolved by letting the communication take no time in its completion. However, the present resolution begs more questions than it could answer. Global synchronization of time that makes global control and causation feasible dispenses with internal or local causation latent in internal measurement (Baker, 1993). At this point, we come to see a distinct difference in the role of time assumed in dynamics between the internal or measurement dynamics of local causation on the one hand and mechanics of global causation on the other. This is because any causation is to occur in time.

If we accept globally synchronous time such as Newtonian absolute time having no recourse to anything external for its global synchronization, the dynamics taking place there will be deemed to be globally caused in a coordinated manner without inducing any internal conflicts. The absence of internal conflicts under globally synchronous time will become most visible when we consider how two separate clocks could synchronize with each other. Although each clock is involved in the movement of making its own tick tock, the synchronization between the two could not derive from their own movements. This has been a serious problem which annoyed Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz more than 300 years ago. Leibniz perceived only the three alternatives for attaining the synchronization; through a material means, through an intervention of immaterial agency, or due to the precision of each clock. Although Leibniz was in favor of the third alternative, the Newtonian solution upon the immaterial agency without recourse to anything external is metaphysical at its best. Even a possible scheme of synchronization through a material means has to face a serious problem of how to accommodate the communication with the movement of the clocks involved. In particular, Newtonian absolute time combined with the third law of action and reaction necessarily makes the force an action-at-a-distance. Christiaan Huygens criticized the notion of an action-at-a-distance as being "absurd" (Huygens, 1690). Leibniz (1698) did not fail in observing the metaphysical implication underlying the notion of gravitation as an instance of action-at-a-distance:

"I have been amazed that Huygens and Newton assume the existence of empty space. However, this can be explained from the fact that they have persisted to discuss in geometrical terms. More astonishing is it still for me that Newton has assumed an attraction which does not work by mechanical means. When he states with respect to this issue that the bodies attract on another on terms of gravitation, then should this not be discarded - at least, with respect to the observable interactions among the large bodies in our world system - although it seems that Huygens also does not completely agree with him."

Global synchronization of time as embodied in Newtonian absolute time is metaphysical and hypothetical at its best, because there is no material means for accomplishing global synchronization on the scene where action is. The absence of material means for global synchronization makes time at most locally asynchronous, if ever possible. The contrast between global and local perspectives underlies the issue of time (Matsuno and Salthe, 1995). The difficulty with the global/local contrast of time is that although it lacks the material underpinning, the global synchronism of time has been an anthropic principle guaranteeing the global consistency of our perception of nature and the outside world (Einstein, 1905; Einstein and Infeld, 1938). This is the problem with how one can ground globally synchronous time upon the occurrence of locally asynchronous time.

2. Synchronous and Asynchronous Time

1. From Asynchronous to Synchronous Time

Newtonian absolute time has been proposed as a precondition for making it possible to eliminate a sturdy complication between the communication and the movement of any material bodies. An irony about this strategy for saving the physics of material bodies is to have recourse to a metaphysical principle. A partial justification of the strategy comes from Kantian notion of time as an a priori category of our perception of the outside world (Matsuno, 1986). Strangely enough, however, Newtonian absolute time perceived as a Kantian a priori category is relational to what we humans are (Weyl, 1949; Rosen, 1991). This observation points to a slight, but a significant difference between Newtonian and Kantian time. What Kantian time refers to for securing Newtonian time is about our perception of the outside world. Our perception presumes the activity of the sensory organs. Kantian time does not survive without recourse to our sensory organs. This observation limits the Kantian justification of Newtonian time only to the completed perception (Overton, 1994). Kantian time, that is a globally synchronous time in the completed perception, is the necessary principle to let our consistent perception of the outside world be possible. In contrast, Newtonian absolute time is claimed to be a globally synchronous time without relation to anything external. If globally synchronous time is more than just a metaphysical principle as it should be, what must be consulted as the empirical basis of globally synchronous time is Kantian time.

Globally synchronous time in the completed perception presumes the activity of perception. Underlying the activity of perception is the capacity of awareness. If one takes awareness to be a fundamental attribute of material agency, the activity has to be local both in space and in time because there is no material means for a simultaneous communication over a distance. Local awareness on the scene does not necessarily imply nor guarantee a global consistency to be observed in the effect. Rather, the global consistency to be perceived is possible only to the extent that local awareness could generate in the effect. Local awareness serves as a causative factor for a global consistency to be perceived, but is persistently more than that. Kantian time just points to the establishment of a global consistency of an object being subject to a global awareness. There would be no Kantian time unless local awareness yields a global consistency to be perceived. Kantian time is observed to be consequent upon local awareness only when the global consistency can be perceived. Appraisal of Kantian time is found in the likelihood that the local activities of awareness could yield a global consistency. That means a likelihood of the global synchronization out of locally asynchronous activities. Kantian time does suggest a possibility of precipitating globally synchronous time out of locally asynchronous time associated with the execution of local awareness.

Kantian time as a condition for reaching the global consistency of the perceived while starting from every local activity of awareness constantly sets the contrast between the global and the local, and the contrast is relational. The relational aspect of Kantian time can be seen in the negotiation between the proclaimed global consistency on the one hand and the local activity of tracing and confirming the consistency on the other. The local activity associated with the flowing of Kantian time comes to integrate both the aspects of the global synchronization and its perception as such. Both instant and duration of Kantian time are with our perception of the outside world. Kantian instant in the perceived as a mark of the global synchronization is a consequence of the local activity of perception in Kantian duration.

In comparison, Newtonian absolute time is primarily grounded upon the Cartesian split and taken to be a basic condition for the presence of the Cartesian object. Both instant and duration of Newtonian absolute time are with the framework that makes the object, that remains invariant without allowing any intervention from the Cartesian subject, feasible. The invariant character of the object is guaranteed in whichever aspect of time, whether in Newtonian instant or duration. Of course, if only the perceived object is concerned and no further activity of perception intervenes, Newtonian absolute time can be equated to Kantian time while assimilating the perceived with a Cartesian object. But, Kantian time is more than what Newtonian time is all about.

Kantian time ultimately ascribed to the local activity of perception or awareness is fundamentally asynchronous in its local genesis, since there is no a priori means for establishing the synchronization among the participating local activities. Although the global synchronization in Kantian instant is a necessary condition for observing a global consistency in the perceived object, it is a consequence of each local perception which proceeds in time that would not presume its global synchronization. At issue is how globally synchronous time could result from locally asynchronous time.

2.2 Ubiquity of Synchronous Time

A more concrete issue is whether the global synchronism could remain irreducible in itself. In order to examine this problem further, one cannot take a global perspective for granted any more. Global stance makes the Cartesian split between subject and object inevitable, and lets the descriptive object remain globally immutable. Such an immutability of the global object is, however, strictly of methodological origin thanks to the convention that the descriptive subject may be entitled to make an access to the descriptive object from its outside without disturbing it even to the slightest degree. Needless to say, unless global consistency of a descriptive object is guaranteed, no descriptive enterprise could be sanctioned (even including the present article). This observation comes to urge us to explore a possibility of grounding the global stance and the accompanying Cartesian split on a much deeper level, if any.

A likely candidate for facilitating a global consistency and description is the presence of a record of finished events as a time capsule (Matsuno, 1989, 1996; Saunders, 1993; Barbour, 1994). For instance, a fossilized rock to a paleontologist looks like a record of finished events frozen in a time capsule. The fossilized rock remains immutable as it is. What concerns the paleontologist is to figure out a consistent description of what those fossilized rocks combined together are all about. The split between the paleontologist and the fossilized rocks is guaranteed because the latter are there in their own right irrespective of whether the former is present on the scene. The split between an onlooker and a time capsule does not require the Cartesian split, though both may look similar. The similarity is, however, superficial. The time-capsule split from the onlooker is not methodological, but intrinsic to the notion of the time capsule itself in that nobody who found time capsules is allowed to fake them up. Although the Cartesian split forces the subject to separate itself from the object for the sake of its own sustenance whatever the object may be, the time-capsule split from the onlooker begs the time capsule to allow the onlooker to move around. The time-capsule split makes the presence of an object a principal cause for the participation of a descriptive subject, while the Cartesian split lets the subject be the sole cause for establishing the presence of an invariant object.

At this point, it should be emphasized that the time-capsule split from the onlooker does not necessarily imply that the onlooker could satisfactorily describe what the time capsule is all about. Only the competent paleontologist can do that. The descriptive burden within the time-capsule split is on the descriptive subject, in sharp contrast to the Cartesian case in which a complete immunization of the descriptive subject to whatever object is methodologically guaranteed. Even if the description completed in the scheme of the time-capsule split may look similar to that obtained in the descriptive scheme of the Cartesian split, the difference will be substantial. Those descriptive subjects who failed in coming up with a consistent description over a whole array of time capsules are not allowed to participate in the completed description. In contrast, no such failure is approved of by any of Cartesian subjects.

The situation is totally upside down. If one starts from the Cartesian split, the global descriptive consistency of the object will have to be respected at all cost (Quine, 1953). No one is allowed to question how such a global descriptive consistency could be guaranteed. Otherwise, the Cartesian split would fail. If how the global descriptive consistency could come into being becomes a matter of concern, on the other hand, the Cartesian split is methodologically incompetent for the task. An alternative can be the time-capsule split from the onlooker, because the presence of an object suggests only a possibility of attaining its globally consistent description. What is required is how to read out the available time capsules in a mutually consistent manner, and no more (Rössler, 1987). Extrapolation of the fossil record into the future is strictly prohibited. Nonetheless, one can cope with how the globally consistent description could come into being while admitting successive alternation of the participating descriptive stances and subjects. This viewpoint may provide us with a likelihood for reading out any relational aspect latent in globally synchronous time, because the latter is unquestionably embodied in any time capsules available at the present moment insofar as they can eventually be deciphered in a mutually consistent manner.

Globally synchronous time latent in a globally consistent description resides in the contrast between the presence of an invariant object to be described and the act of describing the object in terms of linear linguistic strings. The activity of forming, tracing, and processing a sequence of linear strings in globally synchronous time is destined to preserve the invariant nature of the object. Uniform progression of processing linear strings while maintaining the descriptive object invariant is certainly consistent with the linear progression of globally synchronous time whose global synchronism comes to guarantee the presence of the global object completely separated from the descriptive subject. However, those descriptive activities yielding a globally consistent description in the effect without presupposing any privileged global perspective in the beginning cannot proceed in globally synchronous time. When there is no privileged global perspective to begin with, the resulting description would be at most a consequence of the interplay among the participating local perspectives. Time associated with each local perspective is also local. Each local time is asynchronous, and there is no a priori mechanism for their synchronization. Only those local times that could succeed in synchronizing among themselves would come to survive in the consequent global description that is also accompanied with its a posteriori globally synchronous time. Unless it is forcibly taken to be irreducible in itself, globally synchronous time can be seen as a consequence of the interplay among locally asynchronous times that are equated with possible local perspectives of description internal to the object to be described globally only in the effect.

2.3 Uncovering Locally Asynchronous Time

Locally asynchronous time internal to each local perspective of description is both transitory and contingent, but still goes ahead of globally synchronous one. Internal descriptions unique to local perspectives precede external description of an invariant object in a global perspective. Each internal description provides the context which others of the similar nature would consult, and at the same time constantly keeps modifying its own context so as to be incorporated into a globally consistent description in the effect (Riva, 1994). Those internal descriptions that would eventually fail in participating in the finished global description are constantly wiped out. Locally asynchronous times are thus seen as relational components upholding globally synchronous time via intermediaries of internal description of a local character.

The relational characteristic latent in the globally synchronous time deciphered in terms of locally asynchronous ones is, however, more than just the matter of description. It is also dynamic in itself as an object of description. The activity of internal description unique to each local perspective manifests the capacity of awareness in that perspective. Awareness as a fundamental attribute of measurement suggests that measurement internal to material bodies of whatever kind may also be associated with their locally asynchronous times (Matsuno, 1989, 1996). That measurement internal to material bodies, or internal measurement in short, is rendered to be an object of description again makes both internal measurement and internal description indistinguishable. Locally asynchronous time is intrinsic to internal measurement as much as to any internal description in a local perspective. This is consonant at least methodologically with globally synchronous time in global dynamics, in which a globally consistent description of the dynamics yields time no other than that of being globally synchronized. The difference in the descriptive stance is, however, significant.

In particular, the local-to-global transformation in any dynamics described in globally synchronous time is just a matter of integration. Any local dynamic laws parameterized in globally synchronous time such as those expressed in differential equations of local field variables are taken to yield a global description through their integration. This likelihood of integration resides in the premise of taking a globally synchronous time for granted from the very beginning. The global consistency is guaranteed from the very outset. Time in the global dynamics is not dynamic, but simply a parameter in the dynamics. In contrast, the local-to-global transformation in locally asynchronous time is dynamic in letting time itself be involved in the dynamic motion for generating a globally synchronous time. Time in internal measurement is dynamic in locally moving and being moved by others. Such capacity is primary to locally asynchronous time, whereas no agency in globally synchronous time.

Unless the underlying locally asynchronous time is uncovered, globally synchronous time would give a queer perspective towards the functioning of causality. Mechanistic causes in globally synchronous time are constantly carried with the progression of time, because the time is taken to move on its own there. It is the time that moves mechanistic causes. There could be no distinction between the causes and the effects, since both are no more than just the names of the same object carried with the flow of globally synchronous time. Furthermore, globally synchronous time prohibits itself from being moved by others. Although Aristotelian final causality could be considered as a factor to move the flow of time, globally synchronous time legitimately dismisses the case. The rationale resides in the fact that globally synchronous time is taken to move by itself once it is conceived. There would be no chance for final causality in the framework of the global synchronism (Faber, Manstetten and Proops, 1995). The real issue is whether globally synchronous time could remain as an irreducible fundamental. As a matter of fact, if the underlying locally asynchronous time is uncovered, it would turn out that each local time can serve as a factor for moving one another. This is because the persistent inconsistency between the communication and the mechanical movement of any material bodies induces further communication in a local time for its removal, while letting the mechanical movement be constantly responsive to the communication. In essence, the movement of a material body is classified into two types. One is the movement of a material body as a signal, that is a communication. The other is the movement of a material body as an inertial one, that is mechanical.

Uncovering locally asynchronous time underlying globally synchronous one is due principally to the adoption of a local perspective, that comes to pay a legitimate attention to the process of communication proceeding on material grounds. Any communication is local in lacking the global perspective that could make the distinction between no signal received yet and no signal to be received possible. That is an appraisal of measurement or awareness internal to any material bodies. The local-to-global transformation in locally asynchronous time is not simply a matter of integration, but a process of constantly generating and passing forward the inconsistency between the communication, that is local, and the mechanical movement, that is global, without leaving any of it behind in the record. Material dynamics of whatever kind cannot dismiss the intrusion of a communication of a local character by a simple declaration, though both classical and quantum mechanics have historically been developed under the global perspective that could dispense with such a communication. In fact, quantum mechanics in the relativistic regime has taken the issue of the communication of a local character seriously.

2.4 Synchronization in Relativistic Time

Relativized time in special relativity is certainly a form of globally synchronous time thanks to the Lorentz transformation. However, it is not obvious whether quantum electrodynamics (QED) could take the occurrence of globally synchronous time for granted, because the interaction between an electron and the radiation field is a form of communication between the two parties. In fact, the electromagnetic interaction between an electron and a photon makes the electron both the generator and the detector of the photon field An electron serving as an endogenous measuring apparatus is involved in the communication of a local character. Once the local character of the communication is focused, the time acting in QED could have been locally asynchronous although the historical development of QED followed a different path preserving the global synchronism. A recipe for circumventing locally asynchronous time has been a scheme of renormalization. For instance, a vacuum polarization due to the creation and annihilation of an electron-positron pair is a form of the correlation between the two electrons, one is moving in the forward in time and the other in the backward. Time associated with each electron is necessarily local, but is synchronized between the two at both points of the pair creation and annihilation. QED and its renormalization are the scheme guaranteeing the global synchronism even if locally asynchronous time is allowed to intervene (Stöltzner, 1995). Establishment of the global synchronism is, however, a matter of theoretical imposition, because the correlations that could result in the global synchronism are only those theoretically conceived.

A similar line of argument also applies to the global synchronism articulated in general relativity. The presence of closed timelike curves in the realm of general relativity discovered by Gödel (1949) suggests that unless globally synchronous time is constrained internally, the forward causation along a closed timelike curve would come to destroy the causation itself when it returned to the younger stage while rounding the closed curve in the forward direction. That is the grandfather paradox, referring to the scenario that, for instance, a boy travels into the past and shoots his grandfather at a time before he became father, ending up with no such boy traveling into the past in the first place (Earman, 1995). Although this paradox upon the bilking argument may look almost nothing but a science fiction, it is quite pedagogical in pointing out the possibility that globally synchronous time conceived in general relativity as a self-contained theoretical framework could not remain internally consistent in itself. General relativity may require some additional constraints in order to remain consistent even in its theory alone (Friedman et al, 1990). Globally synchronous time in general relativity can survive only to the extent the underlying local times are equipped with those correlations that could yield their synchronization in the end.

The theoretical schemes for the global synchronism attempted in both special and general relativity, although legitimate in their own light, are a consequence of imposing certain correlations as theoretical artifacts. The theoretical global synchronism is not the consequence of the underlying dynamics, but an outcome of an applied theoretical articulation at its best. If how could the global synchronism come to be established, if ever possible, is a matter of concern, the introduction of theoretical artifacts should be minimized. For this purpose, even non-relativistic dynamics may serve.

2.5 Synchronization in Classical Time

A possible occurrence of locally asynchronous time is already evident in the statement of the third law of mechanics alone. The establishment of the counterbalance between any pair of action and reaction presumes the communication between the pair. Unless Newtonian absolute time is forcibly imposed, the question of how the communication would proceed comes to deserve due attention. Although Newtonian absolute time is consistent with the notion of an action-at-a-distance, the force appearing in the third law is not limited to that allowing an instantaneous communication over a distance (Zak, 1992; Hutchinson, 1995). Interestingly enough, in this regard, a Newton's horse pulling a stone introduced by himself for justifying the third law refers to the force that can be generated in a biological body and is intrinsically communicative in activating the force in the first place. The mechanical force exerted by the horse is conditioned on how the horse detects and measures the load directly connected to the stone. The horse example is quite pictorial in suggesting the communicative capacity latent in the notion of force itself, though the example is too complex and too complicate to specify the details of the communicative nature. A more simple system of biological origin may be appropriate for further examination of the communicative nature of action and reaction.

A simple model system that may simulate the generation of mechanical force in a biological organism is an actomyosin complex in the presence of ATP, adenosine triphosphate (Kishino and Yanagida, 1988; Finer, Simmons and Spudich, 1994). Actomyosin complex is a functional unit of muscle contraction that is ubiquitous in biology. Experimental observation reveals that an actin filament placed on a glass plate coated with myosin molecules exhibits a sliding movement on it when ATP is supplied (Harada et al, 1990; Uyeda et al, 1991). Mechanical force being responsible for sliding the filament is energetically activated when ATP is hydrolyzed into ADP and inorganic phosphate with the aid of actin-enhanced ATPase activity of myosin molecules. When the ATP concentration is not very high, say, below 10mM (micro molar), the energy released from ATP molecules is converted mainly into the transversal fluctuations of the filament (Hatori et al, 1996a). What has been observed in this experiment is that the ATP-activated transversal fluctuations are communicated unidirectionally along the actin filament at velocity less than 1mm/s (Hatori et al, 1996b). Confirmation of the communication has been done by identifying that the occurrence of ATP-activated transversal fluctuations in the downstream along the filament responding to the similar one in the upstream is delayed while maintaining a certain correlation with the former.

Communicative interaction of ATP-activated transversal fluctuations of an actin filament points to that the generation of force propagates in a communicative manner in a material body. When it is consulted with the third law of action and reaction, the communicative propagation of force generation comes to face up the third law through the generation of force (Matsuno, 1989; Imai et al, 1992). This implies that force is constantly generated in a communicative manner just for the sake of fulfilling the third law itself. The generation of force as a delayed response to the force generated previously, no matter how small the delay may be, does require time for its completion. Furthermore, the fact that the communicative propagation of force generation continues to hold indicates that the activity for fulfilling the third law lasts indefinitely. Time involved in the generation of local force for the sake of the third law is at most locally asynchronous, because globally synchronous time equated with the established counterbalance between any pair of action and reaction is not available on the scene where the activity for the counterbalance is in progress. Of course, the counterbalance has to be established in the finished record, otherwise the third law would get into trouble. But the activity for the counterbalance is more than just the finished counterbalance. It also incorporates into itself the capacity for constantly generating further causes for fulfilling the third law while it is certainly involved in the direct activity of fulfilling the third law. The present convoluted nature rests upon the persistent inconsistency between the communication and the movement of the participating material bodies.

That the generation of force is communicated in a correlative manner makes the force to be a signal for inducing further force also in a propagative manner. Force serving as a signal inducing further force is, however, necessarily undercomplete in that the action attributed to the signal for inducing further force is not concurrent with, but is at most subsequently followed by its reaction identified as the force generated as responding to the preceding signal. Force as the signal necessarily of a local character is seen to move time, though locally, so as to meet its counterpart fulfilling the third law. The counterbalancing between any pair of action and reaction invites the reaction responding to the preceding signal to occur in time. That is the genesis of locally asynchronous time, since the activity for establishing the counterbalance between action and reaction requires for its execution a local linear dimension that is relational to the sequence of receiving and then responding to the signal. The activity of receiving and then responding to the signal underlies the movement of locally asynchronous time. What is unique to locally asynchronous time is that time is moved by something else. But, this must be distinguished from the now defunct final causality in terms of globally synchronous time, in the latter of which nothing moves globally synchronous time except by itself. The relational aspect of locally asynchronous time being constantly moved by others resides in that the force generated as a reaction responding to the preceding signal again serves as a signal for inducing further force. Constant transference from receiving to generating, through responding to, the signal comes to underlie the occurrence of locally asynchronous time.

The difference between globally synchronous time and locally asynchronous one is significant. In contrast to globally synchronous time that is able to move of itself, locally asynchronous time is relational in being moved. The mover resides in the global consistency in the finished record. In particular, the third law of action and reaction does not directly refer to time except that both action and reaction are counterbalanced with each other. The global consistency equated to establishing the counterbalance between action and reaction is skewed in locally asynchronous time in relating the force as a preceding signal to its succeeding response, while the globally synchronous time surviving in the record is simultaneous in identifying the counterbalanced action and reaction. Although the finished record is deprived of the capacity of communicating in locally asynchronous time, it is the communication that is responsible for bringing about the counterbalance between action and reaction. Interventions of the communication makes the global synchronization skewed in locally asynchronous time, while the synchronism in the finished record is simultaneous and vertical to the flow of a globally synchronous time because of the complete absence of the intervening communication.

The skewedness of locally asynchronous time resulting in the global synchronism on the record is, however, more than just the resulting synchronism itself. It constantly passes forward further causes to move locally asynchronous time in a skewed manner. That is the signal for inducing further force generation. The global synchronism as a condition for the presence of a globally consistent object being independent of the beholder is at most a theoretical abstraction from the concrete operation of locally asynchronous time. What is forcibly abstracted out is the factor for moving locally asynchronous time. In this sense, locally asynchronous time is unidirectional in the movement of the time in leaving the global consistency behind while constantly passing forward the factor for moving the time. Time is not moving, but moved in the eye of the local beholder.

2.6 Synchronous Time and Unirectionality

The unidirectionality of locally asynchronous time exhibits a marked contrast to the similar unidirectionality of empirical time. Above all, the second law of thermodynamics assigns an irreversible character to the empirical time that is global (Davies, 1974). This observation raises a fundamental question on how the global time referred to in the second law could be related to the underlying locally asynchronous time and how the theoretical infra-structure of thermodynamics could be saved (Kreuzer, 1981). In particular, the thermodynamic global time shared everywhere in an arbitrary thermodynamic system in a synchronous manner is a form of globally synchronous time surviving only in the record because of its empirical character. The thermodynamic global time as a globally synchronous time in the finished record is, however, not dynamic of itself, but a consequence of the action of locally asynchronous time. If the dynamic origin of irreversibility inherent in the second law is concerned, locally asynchronous time would have to be attended. Entropy increase in the thermodynamic global time is no more than an instance of the underlying dynamics of time. Entropy as a thermodynamic state function in the thermodynamic global time is actually skewed in locally asynchronous time just for the sake of maintaining the global consistency, and the local skewedness serves as a principal factor of moving the locally asynchronous time unidirectionally.

That the global synchronization comes to terms with irreversibility is a principal characteristic of the skewed dynamics of locally asynchronous time. The skewed dynamics connecting local events to a globally consistent state is not a state dynamics either in a microscopic or macroscopic time. State dynamics is intrinsically incompetent in addressing how the global consistency of the state could come into being. Thermodynamics is no exception in being open to the dynamics connecting local events to a global state. The second law is in fact a positive expression of the aspect that the state description of thermodynamics is open to actual dynamics. Although state dynamics is conceived of in time, the actual dynamics is of time or in skewed time. The contrast of dynamics between in time and in skewed time will become more evident in quantum mechanics.

Measurement in quantum mechanics addresses the contrast between the measuring activity proceeding in locally asynchronous time and the presence of a quantum state in globally synchronous time. What distinguishes quantum mechanics from thermodynamics is the likelihood of the occurrence of measurement. Although thermodynamics constantly refers to the underlying dynamics in locally asynchronous time resulting in the second law, quantum mechanics is intrinsically open to when and how measurement would intervene (Toyozawa, 1989; Igamberdiev, 1993). Of course, any experiment in quantum mechanics is an instance of measurement in one form or another at least in the sense that the preparation of an experimental setup of any sort presumes local activities on the part of experimenters(Bohm, Antoniou, and Kielanowski, 1995: Sklar, 1995). The final reading of the experimental results is also a measurement. But, quantum mechanics is not specific enough in identifying how measurement intervenes between the initial preparation and the final reading of the quantum events. What is unique to quantum mechanics is that it can specify the extent to which local activities in locally asynchronous time would not intervene. Experimental observations of the occurrence of macroscopic quantum coherence certainly demonstrate that one could construct material systems in macroscopic dimensions both in space and in time without allowing any intervening measurements in their inside. Unless intervened by measurement internal to material bodies, the quantum mechanical development is unitary as keeping its time reversal symmetry intact.

That a quantum mechanical system, externally prepared, does not exhibit measurement internally is however exceptional in restricting the actual mode of interaction into a certain limited range. It is not the exception, but rather the rule that any pair of interacting bodies influence each other energetically. That means that measurement interaction is necessarily dissipative in recruiting and utilizing energy resources available. The energy-time uncertainty relationship specifies the actual magnitude of energy required for the execution of measurement taking a designated time interval (Matsuno, 1993, 1995a). If no energy exchange in time is available between an arbitrary pair of material bodies, neither one of the parties can participate in measuring the other. In fact, absolute zero in temperature, a potential well of an infinite depth and the like could provide such a methodological immunization to the possible occurrence of measurement proceeding internally or internal measurement. Otherwise, internal measurement in the realm of quantum mechanics is dissipative in utilizing energy and accordingly irreversible.

The quantum state as a global notion, of course, provides a global consistency in time, that is globally synchronized, because of the forced elimination of measurement proceeding internally (Baumgartner, 1995). The globally synchronous time with the quantum state, however, does not rest upon the finished record. It is real in the sense that the presence of the state runs over time. The global synchronism refers to the global consistency of the quantum state that is vertical to the flow of time. Vertical synchronism in time is about globally synchronous time, whereas skewed synchronism is about locally asynchronous time. This contrast distinguishes quantum mechanics from thermodynamics. Quantum mechanics attains its unidirectionality in time only when the global synchronism becomes skewed through the intervention of measurement taking place internally.

Skewed synchronism is, however, more than just the matter of quantum mechanics or thermodynamics, since it is already inclusive of agential capacity for establishing the synchronization from the inside in a skewed manner in time. The activity of identifying and acting for the synchronization, that is totally missing in vertical synchronism, is about the global context to be identified and constructed by internal agents. That is information.

2.7 Information in Asynchronous Time

For instance, the asymmetry of time associated with expanding radiation and no contraction in the realm of classical physics is not about the wave equation as a law of motion, but depends upon how the boundary condition of the radiation could be prepared in the first place. Preparing the boundary condition assumes an agential activity that proceeds in time. Although the boundary condition completed is a form of global synchronism in the sense that it remains as a globally consistent object, the synchronism is incontrovertibly skewed in time in its making. Information latent in the expanding radiation thus resides in the skewed synchronism in locally asynchronous time. Information as the representation of an object is about a global synchronism, but information is also about an activity for maintaining the synchronism skewed in time. The local-to-global activity of information can be crystallized in the globally synchronized product in a global time, while the global-to-local activity remains persistently in making the synchronization constantly skewed in locally asynchronous time.

Information is intrinsically a conceptual device connecting the local to the global. This stipulation imposes upon information a queer descriptive burden. If the global description of information is attempted and completed in the fullest sense, the local activity latent in information would inevitably be lost because description is an endeavor requiring a global perspective towards a definitive object out there. Local-to-global activity, however, cannot be dismissed simply because it lacks pre-determined endorsement towards constructing the global consistency. That is semantic activity latent in information. How local activities could be accommodated into the global context underlies the semantics. Describing the semantics is thus associated with the description of information, that remains necessarily undercomplete. Prior local commitment to the global can be described only to the extent that it has succeeded in the global accommodation, though the local activity is constantly more than what it has brought about.

If descriptive specification is required of too much, the described information would lose its agential capacity. An instance of this malaise can be seen in the scheme of describing information in terms of conditional probabilities on the part of a local agent. Asking a probability of making a local commitment on condition that the agent has successfully participated in constructing the consistent global context necessarily comes to presuppose that the very same local agent can survive even in the subsequent stage. Although conditional probabilities are not only syntactic but also semantic in relation to the local agent to whom these probabilities are associated, they are not semantic enough to allow the creation and annihilation of local agents. If vicissitudes of local agents are the case, information in terms of conditional probabilities will not suffice as a means for describing the thread connecting the local to the global. At issue is again skewed synchronism in locally asynchronous time. This problem will become most acute when the origin and evolution of the phenomena of life are focused.

3. Origins of Life in Asynchronous Time

Skewed synchronism in locally asynchronous time provides agency for moving time. This agency exhibits a marked contrast to another agency associated with the phenomena of life, in the latter of which the agents having the capacity of taking in necessary energy resources are ubiquitous (Matsuno, 1995b). Relating the origin of life to skewed synchronism in locally asynchronous time requires specification of the underlying material processes. What should be focused upon is the energy condition for skewed synchronism (Matsuno, 1994).

Measurement internal to any material bodies, that is moving locally asynchronous time, is energy process in two respects. One is energy dissipation for locally actualizing the act of making distinctions that is irreversible. Once a distinction is done, it cannot be undone. The other is energy conservation on the global scale even if energy dissipation is locally inevitable for the embodiment of internal measurement. Both energy dissipation and energy conservation, though on different scales in space and in time (Prigogine, 1969), are involved in actualizing internal measurement of a local character (Matsuno, 1985, 1989). Energy dissipation takes place in locally asynchronous time, while energy conservation in globally synchronous time. Conversely, these two specifications of energy, dissipation and conservation, let energy have the capacity of doing measurement on its own at least on the conceptual ground because both require their own identification. Unless driven and specified by others as with mechanistic causation, quantification of energy is due to its own capacity. Energy has measuring capacity as much as force in the third law of action and reaction does. What is intriguing about energy is that energy is both the measuring agent and the measured object internally.

That energy is utilized for measuring energy suggests internal separation between the energy to be utilized and the energy to be measured. The energy to be utilized can be expressed as energy flow because the energy utilization for the measurement occurs in time. Energy measurement by means of energy flow in turn renders the energy to be measured also in the form of energy flow because of the conservation of energy. Internal measurement of an energy flow with the use of another energy flow within the constraint of the conservation of energy provides the internal separation between the measuring and the measured with a specific functional characteristic. There arises a cohesion between the two types of energy flow, the measuring and the measured, in the light of the conservation of energy (Paton, 1992). In particular, the energy-time uncertainty relation in quantum mechanics specifies the magnitude of the energy flow involved in the measurement. As the time interval of internal measurement decreases, the magnitude of the accompanied energy uncertainty over that period increases and accordingly the associated energy flow also increases. Since the roles of the measuring and the measured are interchangeable, each of the energy flows for the measuring and the measured would have to be greater than the minimum flow specified by the uncertainty principle. The cohesion between the measuring and the measured energy flows thus turns out to be a principal characteristic of energy dissipation and conservation.

The cohesion between dissipation and conservation, however, has in itself a persistent inconsistency. Dissipation is in locally asynchronous time, while conservation in globally synchronous one. In this regard, quantum mechanics provides a unique theoretical device for ameliorating the difficulty by conceiving a hypothetical scheme of synchronizing dissipation to conservation. Take, for instance, a hydrogen atom. Theoretical stipulation of letting internal energy flows utilized for internal measurement between the hydrogen nucleus and the orbiting electron be synchronized to the conservation of energy in the atom makes the act of measurement completely internalized with no spilling over of its effect towards the outside. The structural stability of a hydrogen atom rests upon the presence of a minimum energy flow involved in the internal measurement there. No further measurement can intervene unless the accompanying energy flow is equal to or greater than the minimum level. Dissipation synchronized to conservation could survive only when possible energy flows intervening from the outside are maintained below the minimum flow specified by the local encapsulation of measuring energy flows.

Nonetheless, dissipation synchronized to conservation is at most a theoretical artifact. It could become vulnerable to an energy flow of whatever origin that is greater than the minimum flow for the synchronization. A hydrogen atom can be ionized if an energy flow greater than the minimum one necessary for its internal integration between the nucleus and the orbiting electron is applied externally. Energy dissipation underlying the disintegration or ionization of a hydrogen atom is not synchronized to the conservation of energy, because the latter requires an external energy source to facilitate the external energy flow. Preparation of such energy source certainly precedes the actual dissipation. Energy dissipation asynchronous with energy conservation on the global scale can thus extend its cohesion towards the outside because energy conservation is eventually observed in globally synchronous time. Then, the likelihood would arise that dissipation asynchronous with conservation could generate and enhance material organizations due to its cohesive capacity connecting between locally asynchronous activities in the making and a global synchronization in the products (Marijuan, 1996). Although electrostatic interactions exhibit cohesive capacity between particles with opposite electric charges, dissipation asynchronous with conservation could become possible only when an exogenous energy flow big enough to disturb the frozen internalization of both the measuring and the measured energy flows.

Material self-organization leading to the origin or emergence of life on the planet earth could have been an instance of enhancing the cohesion of material components available during the primitive period (Miller and Orgel, 1974; Fox and Dose, 1977). In view of that dissipation synchronous with conservation would have preceded the emergence of life (Schildowski, 1988; Moorbath, 1994), a most significant moment would be when dissipation asynchronous with conservation took over the preceding synchronous dissipation. Representative of dissipation synchronous with conservation are electrostatic interactions as a hydrogen atom demonstrates. But, it is not limited to electrostatic interactions. Even more significant is gravitational interaction (Penrose, 1989; Conrad, 1991, 1993), because gravity is ubiquitous on the planet earth. Gravitational interaction between a hydrogen atom and the earth is undoubtedly a case of dissipation synchronous with conservation in the sense that both are involved in measuring and pulling each other with use of the intervening gravitational force. Only when the gravitational dissipation synchronous with conservation is alternated with electrostatic and magnetic dissipation asynchronous with conservation, enhancement of the cohesion leading to material self-organization could be expected. The condition for the alternation may be to lessen the interval of updating internal measurement less than that specified for the gravitational interaction, since internal measurement most frequently updated would become most dominant among alternatives for completing the internal identification.

Dissipation asynchronous with conservation is unique in exhibiting the capacity of dissipating energy for the sake of fulfilling the conservation of energy. Emergence of an energy consumer is a consequence of dissipation asynchronous with conservation, since the capacity of identifying and then taking in necessary energy resources is common to any energy consumer. Identifying and taking in energy resources on the part of the energy consumer are sequential and asynchronous. Identifying refers to the capacity required to any act of communication that is locally asynchronous, while taking-in is about the mechanistic activity following the flow of time that is globally synchronous. The apparent conflict latent in the complex of communication and mechanics resides in that both proceed in time, while either one of the two is supposedly completely separated from and independent of the other. It is intrinsically impossible to answer the question of how material bodies move mechanistically while they are involved in communicating with each other. Passive and determinate motion in mechanics is simply incompatible with contingent motion in communication. Dissipation asynchronous with conservation is just one mode of circumventing the sturdy conflict between communication and mechanics. What is more, dissipation asynchronous with conservation is informational in the sense that it connects a contingent activity in the making to the definite product in the record that cannot be otherwise. Information is thus on a very queer quality intended for the seemingly unattainable synthesis between the mutually incommensurable pair of communication and mechanics. A most significant material manifestation of information covering the incommensurability could be the origin of life.

Information in the context of the origin of life assumes that information is generative. The generative characteristic of information rests upon its locality both in space and time. No global synchronization applies to information, because the globality of an invariant character would dismiss generative information altogether. When the absence of global synchronization is duly attended, information is seen to develop through the transaction among the material participants communicating with each other. Information associated with the origin of life is no exception in observing the communication between action and reaction to be updated locally in an asynchronous manner (Matsuno, 1984, 1994). Any globality of imposed character is foreign to the communication dynamics, because in the latter every participant in the dynamics comes to be detected by others solely through the very dynamics internally. The environment is also an object to be detected, experienced and even acted upon internally within the framework of the communication dynamics. The present internalization of the environment latent in the dynamics now provides any experimental effort for the origin of life a specific implication. The reflexivity of reaction inducing the subsequent action has to be maintained in any experimental endeavor for the origin of life, otherwise the communication dynamics would be pushed out.

When the component molecules for molecular replication are available in the laboratory setting (Miller, 1953; Oro, 1961), the likelihood for the actual replication would require an indefinite sustenance of reflexive forces upholding the communication dynamics. For generative information operating in any material process of action and reaction resides nowhere other than in the on-going communication between the two to be updated locally in an asynchronous manner. The reflexivity of reaction inducing the further action could survive only when the environment surrounding the component molecules can be acted upon and when the force acting upon the environment could alter the force exerted from the very environment accordingly.

This reciprocity of reflexive operation between action and reaction, however, comes to interfere with the standard methodology of asking experimental controllability which states that any experiment to be counted on has to specify its boundary conditions. Reflexive reactions operating in the communication dynamics are thus accompanied by a genuine methodological difficulty in identifying themselves on the experimental basis externally. The laboratory effort for the onset of molecular replication derivable from the smaller component molecules alone is sandwiched between two methodological difficulties (Bachmann et al, 1992; Reggia et al, 1993; Sievers and Kiedrowski, 1994). One is approval of reflexive reactions that cannot directly be registered in the record, and the other is dismissal of complete controllability over the intended experiments. The seriousness of the two difficulties cannot be overemphasized. What could be possible instead would be only to look for a practical loophole for easing off the stated difficulties, if ever possible (Orgel, 1992; Böhler et al, 1995; Zhang and Egli, 1995).

At issue would be how to maintain the reflexivity between acting and reacting in those component molecules and their environment. One possibility for coping with the present methodological impasse would be to let the experimental environment to vary arbitrarily to the extent that the laboratory experiment could permit and to see whether there could be any resonating phenomena between the synthetic chemical reactions taking place there and a choice of varying environmental conditions. A rationale of this strategy is in the observation that the reflexivity of reactions originating in the environment could artificially be simulated by varying the environmental conditions arbitrarily (Matsuno, 1994). Steady environmental conditions, on the other hand, whatever they may be, cannot uphold the reflexivity of reactions because of their steadiness immune to being influenced by others. If one can engineer such a varying environmental condition that could resonate with an enhancement of synthetic chemical reactions therein, the reflexivity of reactions operating between the component molecules and their environment would survive to the extent that the resonance between the components and the environment is kept. A possible onset of molecular replication would only be a consequence of the sustaining reflexivity between acting and reacting there.

To prepare the proposed resonating conditions between the component molecules and their environment may be an extremely rare event in the laboratory. On the other hand, however, the evolutionary onset of replicating molecules on the primitive earth manifests that occurrence of the resonance between the components molecules and their environment could have been the case. One of the factors varying the environmental conditions at that time was the diurnal cycle. Only those molecular organizations that could resonate with the varying environmental conditions available at that time could have survived. Moreover, unless it is forcibly eliminated by imposing or conceiving steady environmental conditions, the reflexivity of reactions can exhibit the capacity of acting towards the environment and varying it, no matter how limited the extent may be. In fact, the capacity of acting towards the outside with the consequence of maintaining the very capacity demonstrates itself, for instance, in heterotrophic activity of pulling material resources onto the inside (Matsuno, 1995b). This observation comes to suggest that the resonance between the component molecules and their environment would already be latent with the capacity for embodying heterotrophic activity. Once the resonance got started, the positive feedback characteristic could have enhanced the resonating conditions further unless the environment would forcibly apply adverse conditions.

The laboratory effort for the origin of life has been met with attempt for either making replicating molecules or preparing metabolic activities, among others (Deamer, 1986; Morowitz, 1992). Nonetheless, if this effort is attempted under the prevailing framework of experimental controllability, the likelihood for keeping the reflexivity between actions and reactions intact would face extremely adverse odds (Eigen, 1992). What we may require for our further endeavor for the laboratory onset of replicating molecules possibly supplemented with their metabolisms might be a shift in the methodological perspective. That may be to let experimental conditions be less controllable so as to leave both the component molecules and their environment enough room for facilitating mutual enhancements.

4 Evolution in Asynchronous Time

Evolutionary processes following the origin of life could be another significant material manifestation of the reflexivity between actions and reactions, though the emphasis is slightly shifted compared to the case of the origin of life. How the reflexivity develops, instead of its presence or absence, may be more emphasized (Depew and Weber, 1994). More specifically, the contrast between evolution in time and evolving time should be focused because the relational activity of locally asynchronous time yielding globally synchronous one in the record addresses that time could also evolve in evolutionary processes. The aspect that time is moved instead of moving others now provides evolutionary processes with a unique characteristic. Those global notions such as fitness and its landscape specified in globally synchronous time (Dawkins, 1978) should be taken to be derivatives from local dynamics proceeding in locally asynchronous time. Even natural selection would be no exception in referring to globally synchronous time when it is understood as a quality conferred upon a global context (Sober, 1984). At issue is how time can be moved.

What is significant to locally asynchronous time is the constant generation of a signal inducing the subsequent action while reacting to the preceding signal. Successive alternation between action and reaction through constantly generating the signal for action is in fact autocatalytic in the respect of generating the signals of a similar kind (Ulanowicz, 1996). Autocatalysis is actually a material embodiment of the transference of locally asynchronous time into globally synchronous one in that the skewed synchronism in the finished products constantly provides further signals for making the products of a similar kind (Matsuno, 1982b; Kauffman, 1993). Material capacity of rendering preceding products to be a signal for subsequent production underlies autocatalysis. The present conglomeration of material production and signaling makes autocatalysis to be informational. Although contingent generation and communication of a signal and the determinate material production thereupon are simply incommensurable each other, it is information that serves as a mediator connecting contingency to determinacy. On the other hand, however, any signal for autocatalysis has made itself embodied in a material form. The material aspect of a signal now raises a question on how some material products could serve as a signal, but others do not (Salthe, 1993). The underlying theme is the material context in which signals could be generated.

Occurrence of a signal is antithetical to mechanistic dynamics in which every degree of freedom in motion can be specified and determinate at any moment. Insofar as the number of the total degrees of freedom in motion remains fixed, the mechanistic stipulation could prevail simply by declaring identification of the relevant boundary conditions. There would be no room for a signal resulting in a contingent action to intervene. In contrast, if degrees of freedom in motion remain indefinite through, for instance, their degeneracy, a production yielding either association or dissociation of degrees of freedom among those identified in the record could generate a signal. There is no mechanistic stipulation prescribing how and when degrees of freedom in motion could further be associated or dissociated. Although the global synchronism in the record specifies each degree of freedom involved in the finished movement because the degrees of freedom are defined as those objects whose every detail can be identified in a globally consistent manner, locally asynchronous time on the scene does not have such a global identifiability. Even if the notion of degrees of freedom is useful and valuable in other respects, communication dynamics connecting contingency in the making to determinacy in the record is set free from observing the constancy of degrees of freedom. Signal of material origin just refers to the material capacity of either associating or dissociating degrees of freedom in locally asynchronous time.

Autocatalysis is a material pattern and form of associating degrees of freedom more closely than being dissociated thanks to enhancing material accumulation having a similar functional characteristic (Matsuno, 1978). Rather, autocatalysis is one specific mode of enhancing material association grounded upon the capacity of taking in material resources. It is in fact a manifestation of two fundamental attributes of matter, inertia and signal, in the manner that both could be visible at the same time. Compared to mechanics addressing inertial bodies, autocatalysis is a mode of communication dynamics acting on the signal producing a signal of a similar production characteristic successively. This is of course an instance of dissipation asynchronous with conservation in locally asynchronous time. Evolutionary processes found themselves upon the communication dynamics of constantly generating signals inducing subsequent actions. Evolution thus perceived is internally caused in letting an indigenously generated signal be a causative factor for action in the participating material bodies. Internal causation in evolution is unquestionably materialistic and physical in locally asynchronous time. Nonetheless, such internal cause cannot externally be identified because the causation proceeds in locally asynchronous time. Internal communication does not survive in the finished record. What can be identified in the record is necessarily manifested in globally synchronous time that preserves the global consistency among those identified.

Internal causation in evolution is in the transference from locally asynchronous to globally synchronous time. Autocatalysis as a prototypic evolutionary dynamics can yield evolutionary variations in the difference between the signals successively generated. Mutations certainly exhibit a consequence of such internal causation. In particular, the presence of molecular clocks manifesting the stochastic regularity in generating point mutations indicates that the transference from locally asynchronous to globally synchronous time has a regular stochastic pattern on an evolutionary time scale. An evolutionary sequence of autocatalytic signals being capable of generating their derivatives of a similar characteristic could establish a similarity even in making evolutionary variations. The rate of mutations as a stochastic parameter characterizing the generator of evolutionary variations is an example of exhibiting a sustaining similarity over the sequence of autocatalytic signaling. Availability of molecular clocks witnesses the likelihood of a sustaining similarity in making evolutionary variations. What is more, constancy in the rate of mutations could also serve as a cause for establishing a hierarchy of the rates themselves, because the hierarchy provides a homeostatic stability in the rates even if perturbations that could disturb them may intervene.

Evolutionary constancy as exemplified in the presence of molecular clocks is in fact a characteristic of the globally synchronous time resulting from locally asynchronous time in action. Such constancy in globally synchronous time exhibits a distinct contrast to natural selection as a global characteristic of evolutionary variations. Although the contrast between constancy and variations in globally synchronous time has historically been referred to as a dichotomy between genotype and phenotype, it may invite a serious conceptual conflict if both are taken to proceed in the same globally synchronous time. The difficulty could have been most serious at the point of establishing the effective separation between genotype and phenotype, since the underlying dynamics has been one and the same in time that is global. The separation between evolutionary constancy and variations, that is between genotype and phenotype, could be at most epistemological in the sense of being dependent upon the perspective. What one concerns at this point is whether such a separation of epistemological origin could survive in time. At issue is again the role of time.

That globally synchronous time remains legitimate only in the finished record reminds us that it is an artifact at the best. But, the global synchronism of an object in globally synchronous time, that is vertical in time there, is instrumental in securing a constant and invariant character of the object. In contrast, the global synchronism of the participants in locally asynchronous time, that is skewed in time there, is necessarily undercomplete in constantly supplying a signal anticipating the succeeding actions. Natural selection ascribed to the skewed synchronism in locally asynchronous time, while being global, is generative compared to evolutionary constancy in the rates of mutation perceived in globally synchronous time. Recognition of locally asynchronous time underlying evolutionary dynamics clarifies that natural selection upholds the evolutionary emergence of constancy and a hierarchy of the rates of mutation. Consequence of the operation of natural selection is a self-organization in that the skewed synchronism in locally asynchronous time constantly generates signals anticipating the succeeding actions internally. In contrast to the self-organization in globally synchronous time (Kauffman, 1993), natural selection is about self-organization in locally asynchronous time.

Natural selection perceived as a skewed synchronism in locally asynchronous time is also a factor for moving time itself. When it is conceived solely in globally synchronous time, natural selection could be mechanistic as being moved with the flow of time. In fact, whether natural selection could be mechanistic or self-organizing for the sake of the self depends upon how time is moved. If time is taken to be globally synchronous without allowing any intervening intermediaries, whatever operates in time comes to be moved by time. Natural selection could be no exception. Globally synchronous time cannot be moved by others because there is nothing more global that could subordinate the former. Final causality is legitimately dismissed in globally synchronous time. Only mechanistic counterpart survives there. On the other hand, however, once it is duly recognized that locally asynchronous time is moved by a material signal for the sake of fulfilling the global synchronism, natural selection can be more than what mechanistic stipulation could prescribe. Natural selection as a principle bringing about a unity of experiences is locally final in fulfilling the global synchronism in a skewed manner.

5 Conclusions

Appraisal of asynchronous time opens a new perspective towards how causality could be envisioned in evolutionary processes. If causes are asked to be qualities that can be identified externally, the global consistency of the externalized objects would require globally synchronous time in the first place. There would be no room of a final cause as a factor moving time forward. Locally asynchronous time underlying globally synchronous one makes it feasible for an externally unidentifiable cause to locally intervene. This is due to a peculiar stipulation latent in our linguistic vehicles. Any evolutionary discourse asking its legitimacy requires its global consistency, otherwise such enterprise could not survive. The required legitimacy has already presumed a successful transference from locally asynchronous to globally synchronous time without being concerned with how it could be accomplished. It is not legitimate to say that nothing is there simply because we cannot talk about it. Final causality in locally asynchronous time is just the case. What can survive and be identified in the global consistency in the effect is a correlation between the local and the global. Correlation is a descriptive means for explicating the relationship to the internal causation that cannot be objectified in globally synchronous time.

Internalist stance upon locally asynchronous time raises a serious issue of the nature of the descriptive self. Although externalist stance ascertaining the global consistency of the object guarantees the invincible self, it holds only in globally synchronous time. Locally asynchronous time, on the other hand, internalizes the descriptive self simply because the self is no more than a self anticipating a global consistency of the intended descriptive object independently of the likelihood of the outcome. Internalist perspective lets the intervening descriptive self be internal and constantly cope with lawful indeterminacy. The identity of the self is not and cannot be guaranteed due to the fact that what is most fundamental in the operation of locally asynchronous time is to generate whatever selves anticipating or preparing to subsequent reactions to themselves. The internal self is at most contingent and tentative (Salthe and Matsuno, 1995). Alternation of the contingent self would become inevitable insofar as locally asynchronous time survives. Evolutionary processes are in fact about how the internal self could evolve and be alternated in time.

Time met in evolutionary processes, however, is ambivalent in distinguishing between time in evolution and evolving time. The ambivalence needs to be clarified. Unless this issue is squarely faced, conceptual muddlings would be unavoidable. What matters is how to circumvent a metaphysical connotation. If one starts with a globally synchronous time, its foundation remains metaphysical at the best because there is no material or physical means allowed to uphold the factor for moving the time. By the same token, locally asynchronous time remains indefinite in specifying the factor moving the time. Nonetheless, the invisibility of the factor does not imply that it could also be metaphysical. It is due to the competence and the limitation of our linguistic vehicles. Any signal anticipating its reaction is to move time exactly in the respect that the reaction has to be convened at any rate. Appraisal of signal as a descriptive term while admitting the consistency of the resulting description is just equivalent to accepting that the relevant linguistic vehicle is competent enough to yield the counterbalancing reaction. Locally asynchronous time constantly precipitating a signal to be communicated gives evolving time its physical, instead of metaphysical, justification eventually in the same sense that occurrence of a signal is physical in the material world.

References

1. Bachmann, P. A., Luisi, P. L., and Lang, L., 1992. Autocatalytic self-replicating micelles as models of prebiotic structure. Nature 357, 57-59.
2. Baker, P. L., 1993. Space, time, space-time and society. Sociol. Inq.63, 406-426.
3. Barbour, J.B., 1994. The timelessness of quantum gravity:II. the appearance of dynamics in static configurations. Class. Quantum Grav. 11, 2875-2897.
4. Baumgartner, B., 1995. Foundations of time evolution in quantum mechanics. Int. J. Theor. Phys. 34, 1217-1220.
5. Böhler, C., Nielsen, P. E., and Orgel, L.E., 1995. Template switching between PNA and RNA oligonucleotides. Nature 376, 578-581.
6. Bohm, A., Antoniou, I., and Kielanowski, P., A quantum mechanical arrow of time and the semigroup time evolution of Gamow vectors. J. Math. Phys. 36, 2593-2604.
7. Conrad, M., 1991. Transient excitations of the Diarc vacuum as a mechanism of virtual article exchange. Phys. Lett. A 152, 245-250.
8. Conrad, M., 1993. The fluctuon model of force, life, and computation: a constructive analysis. Appl. Math. Comp. 56, 203-259.
9. Davies, P. C. W., The Physics of Time Asymmetry, Univ. California Press, Berkeley California.
10. Dawkins, R., 1978. The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK.
11. Deamer, D. W., 1986. Role of amphiphilic compounds in the evolution of membrane structure on the early Earth. Origins Life 17, 3-25.
12. Depew, D. J., and Weber, B. H., 1994. Darwinisn Evolving, Bradford/MIT Press, Cambridge Mass.
13. Earman, J., 1995. Recent work on time travel. In: S. F. Savitt (ed.), Time's Arrows Today: Recent Physical and Philosophical Work on the Direction of Time, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, pp. 268-324.
14. Eigen, M. 1992. Steps Towards Life: A Perspective on Evolution, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK.
15. Einstein, A., 1905. Zur Electrodynamik bewegter Körper. Annalen der Physik 17, 891-921.
16. Einstein, A., and Infeld, L., 1938. The Evolution of Physics, Simon and Schuster, New York.
17. Elzinga, A., 1972. On a Research Program in Early Modern Physics, Akademiförlaget, Gothenburg.
18. Faber, M., Manstetten, R., and Proops, J. L. R., 1995. On the conceptual foundation of ecological economics: a teleological approach. Ecol. Econ. 12, 41-54.
19. Finer, J. T., Simmons, R. M., and Spudich, J. A., 1994. Single myosin molecule mechanics: piconewton forces and nanometer steps. Nature 368, 113-119.
20. Friedman, J. L., Morris, M. S., Novikov, I. D., Echeverria, F., Klinkhammer, Q., Thorne, K. S., and Yurtsever, U., 1990. Cauchy problems in spacetimes with closed timelike curves. Phys. Rev. D 42, 1915-1930.
21. Fox, S. W., and Dose, K., 1977. Molecular Evolution and the Origin of Life, 2nd Edition, Marcel Dekker, New York.
22. Gödel, K., 1949. An example of a new type of cosmological solution to Einstein's field equations of gravitation. Rev. Mod. Phys. 21, 447-450.
23. Gunji, Y.-P., 1993. Form of life: unprogrammability constitutes the outside of a system and its autonomy. Appl. Math. Comp. 57, 19-76.
24. Gunji. Y.-P., 1995. Global logic resulting from disequilibration process. BioSystems 35, 33-62.
25. Harada, Y., Sakurada, K., Aoki, T., Thomas, D. D., and Yanagida, T., 1990. Mechano-chemical coupling in actomyosin energy transduction studies by in vitro movement assay. J. Mol. Biol. 216, 49-68.
26. Hatori, K., Honda, H., and Matsuno, K., 1996a. ATP-dependent fluctuations of single actin filaments in vitro. Biophys. Chem. 58, 267-272.
27. Hatori, K., Honda, H., and Matsuno, K., 1996b. Communicative interaction of myosins along an actin filament in the presence of ATP. Biophys. Chem. (in press).
28. Hutchinson, K., 1995. Differing criteria for temporal symmetry. Brit. J. Philos. Sci. 46, 341-347.
29. Huygens, C., 1888-1950. Oeuvers Completes, Publ. Soc. Holl. des Sciences, 22 vols., Nijhoff, The Hague, Vol. 9, p. 538. Letter to Leibniz of November 18, 1690.
30. Igamberdiev, A. U., 1993. Quantum mechanical properties of biosystems: a framework for complexity, structural stability and transformation. BioSystems 31, 65-73.
31. Imai, E., Watanabe, A., Honda, H., and Matsuno, K., 1992. Propagation of force and the induced bending displacement along the flagellar axoneme. BioSystems 26, 223-230.
32. Kauffman, S. A. (1993) The Origin of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, Oxford University Press, New York.
33. Kishino, A., and Yanagida, T., 1988. Force measurements by micromanipulation of a single actin filament by glass needles. Nature 334, 74-76.
34. Kreuzer, H. J., 1981. Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics and its Statistical Foundations, Clarendon Press, Oxford UK.
35. Leibniz, G. W., 1966. In: E. Cassirer (ed.) Hauptschriften zur Grundlegung Philosophie, Meiner, Hamburg, p. 371. Letter to Bernouilli, 1698.
36. Leydesdorff, L. 1994. Uncertainty and the communication of time. Syst. Res. 11, 31-51.
37. Majumdar. R. C., 1971. Medicine - Ayurveda: origin and antiquity. In: D. M. Bose, S. N. Sen, and B. V. Subbarayappa (eds.) A Consice History of Science in India, Indian Nat'l Acad. Sci., New Delhi, pp. 213-273.
38. Marijuan, P. C., 1996. "Gloom in the society of enzymes": on the nature of biological information. BioSystems 38, 163-171.
39. Matsuno, K., 1978. Evolution of dissipative system: a theoretical basis of Margalef's principle on ecosystem. J. Theor. Biol. 70, 23-31.
40. Matsuno, K., 1982a. A theoretical construction of protobiological synthesis: from amino acids to functional protocells. Int. J. Quant. Chem. QBS-9, 181-193.
41. Matsuno, K., 1982b. Natural self-organization of polynucleotides and polypeptides in protobiogenesis: appearance of a protohypercycle. BioSystems 15, 1-11.
42. Matsuno, K., 1984. Open systems and the origin of proto-reproductive units, In: M.W. Ho, and P. T. Saunders (eds.) Beyond Neo-Darwinism, Academic Press, London, pp. 61-88.
43. Matsuno, K., 1985. How can quantum mechanics of material evolution be possible?: symmetry and symmetry-breaking in protobiological evolution. BioSystems 17, 179-192.
44. Matsuno, K., 1986. From physics to biology and back 1: conservation and equilibration. Riv. Biol. (Biol. Forum) 79, 269-286.
45. Matsuno, K., 1989. Protobiology: Physical Basis of Biology, CRC Press, Boca Raton Florida.
46. Matsuno, K., 1993. Being free from ceteris paribus: a vehicle for founding physics upon biology rather than the other way around, Appl. Math. Comp. 56, 261-279.
47. Matsuno, K., 1994. Physics underlying the formation of protocells. J. Biol. Phys.20, 117-121.
48. Matsuno, K., 1995a. Quantum and biological computation, BioSystems 35, 209-212.
49. Matsuno, K., 1995b. Consumer power as the major evolutionary force. J. Theor. Biol. 173, 137-145.
50. Matsuno, K., 1996. Internalist stance and the physics of information. BioSystems 38, 111-118.
51. Matsuno, K., and Salthe, S. N., 1995. Global idealism/local materialism, Biol. Philos. 10, 309-337.
52. Miller, S. L., 1953. A production of amino acids under possible primitive Earth conditions. Science 117, 528-529.
53. Miller, S. L., and Orgel, L. E., 1974. The Origin of Life on the Earth, Prentice-Hall, Engelwood Cliffs New Jersey.
54. Moorbath, S., 1994. Age of the oldest rocks with biogenic components. J. Biol. Phys. 20, 85-94.
55. Morowitz, H. J., 1992. Beginnings of Cellular Life, Yale University Press, New Haven Connecticut.
56. Newton, I., 1687-1727. Principia Mathematica. English translation: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (translated by A. Motte and revised by F. Cajori, 1934), University of California Press, Berkeley California.
57. Orgel, L. E., 1992. Molecular replication. Nature 358, 203-209.
58. Oro, J., 1961. Mechanism of synthesis of adenine from HCN under possible primitive earth conditions. Nature 191, 1193-1194.
59. Overton, W. F., 1994. The arrow of time and the cycle of time: concepts of change, cognition, and embodiment. Psychol. Inq. 5, 215-237.
60. Paton, R. C., 1992. Towards a metaphorical biology. Biol. Philos. 7, 279-294.
61. Penrose, R., 1989. The Emperor's New Mind - Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics, Oxford University Press, New York.
62. Prigogine, I., 1969. Introduction to Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes, Interscience, New York.
63. Reggia, J. A., Armentrout, S. L., Chou, H.-H., and Peng, Y., 1993. Simple systems that exhibit self-directed replication. Science 259, 1282-1287.
64. Riva, M., 1994. Local/global: literary postmodernism and the scientific rediscovery of time. Soc. Sci. Info. 4, 649-661.
65. Rosen, R.,1991. Life Itself, Columbia University Press, New York.
66. Rössler, O. E., 1987. Endophysics, In: Casti, J. L., and Karlquist, A. (eds.) Real Brains, Artificial Minds, New York: North Holland, pp. 25-46.
67. Quine, W. V. O., 1953. Mr.Strawson on logical theory. Mind 62, 1-19.
68. Salthe, S. N., 1993. Development and Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology, Bradford/MIT Press, Cambridge Mass.
69. Salthe, S. N., and Matsuno, K., 1995. Self-organization in hierarchical systems. J. Soc. Evol. Syst. 18, 327-338.
70. Saunders, S., 1993. Decoherence, relative states, and evolutionary adaptation. Found. Phys. 23, 1553-1585.
71. Schildowski, M., 1988. A 3800-million year isotopic record of life from carbon in sedimentary rocks. Nature 333, 313-318.
72. Sievers, D. and von Kiedrowski, G., 1994. Self-replication of complementary nucleotide-based oligomers. Nature 369, 221-224.
73. Sklar, L., 1995. The elusive object of desire: in pursuit of the kinetic equations and the second law. In: S.F. Savitt, (ed.) Time's Arrows Today: Recent Physical and Philosophical Work on the Direction of Time, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, pp. 191-216.
74. Sober, E., 1984. The Nature of Selection - Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Illinois.
75. Stöltzner, M., 1995. Levels of physical theories. In: F. Stadler (ed.), Vienna Circle Yearbook 3, Kluwer, Dordrecht.
76. Toyozawa, Y., 1989. The irreversibility inherent in quantum mechanics. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 58, 2215-2218.
77. Ulanowicz, R. E., 1996. Ecosystem development: symmetry arising? Symmetry: Sci. & Cult. 7, 321-334.
78. Uyeda, T. Q. P., Warrick, H. M., Kron, S. J., and Spudich, J. A., 1991. Quantized velocities at low myosin densities in an in vitro motility assay. Nature 352, 307-311.
79. Weyl, H., 1949. Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science. Atheneum, New York.
80. Wheeler, J. A., 1983. Law without law. In: J. A. Wheeler, and W. H. Zurek (eds.) Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey, pp. 182-213.
81. Wigner, E. P. (1964) Events, laws of nature, and invariance principles, Science 145, 995-999.
82. Zak, M., 1992. The problem of irreversibility in Newtonian dynamics. Int. J. Theor. Phys. 31, 333-342.
83. Zhang, S., and Egli, M., 1994. A hypothesis: reciprocal information transfer between oligoribonucleotides and oligopeptides in prebiotic molecular evolution. Origins Life Evol. Biosphere 24, 495-505.