e-mail: kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp

The origin and evolution of life on our Earth poses an intriguing question on how it could be described. If one relies exclusively upon quantitative descriptions as commonly practiced in physics and chemistry, a principal feature of the phenomenon called life such as material manifestation of intentionality would necessarily be lost. On the other hand, if only qualitative descriptions are attempted, demonstrated analytical precision of contemporary biological organizations in biology would also be sacrificed. Phenomenology of life in the face of analytical clarity of contemporary empirical sciences requires a descriptive device transforming a quantitatively analytical precision into a qualitatively categorical specification of emergent character. The descriptive scheme being competent for the phenomenon of life is external description of a variable universal, in contrast to external description of an invariable universal based upon the Cartesian split presuming an invariable object to be described out there. More specific description of a variable universal is attempted through constant update of its local descriptions available from the internalist perspective aiming at the global from the interfering local representations. Constant update of local representations manifesting descriptive capability of the internalist perspective focuses upon a material body experiencing mutually inconsistent representations of the neighboring local bodies, exercising an intensity from within to ameliorate the experienced inconsistencies and then transforming itself into an inconsistency-free representation to the others. Internal description upholding external description of a variable universal from within can address the phenomenon of life as an instance of constant turnover from inconsistencies to intensities and guarantee the operation of intentionality on material grounds.

INTRODUCTION

Despite that our persistent descriptive endeavor for addressing any aspect of the issue of life stands irresistible in whichever scientific discipline (Emmeche and Hoffmeyer, 1991), one deep problem of the extent to which we can describe and beyond which we cannot sturdily remains unsettled (Van de Vijver et al., 1998). The malaise surrounding this problem is more than just being philosophical. It becomes serious even in the empirical or experimental domain, since the competency of each scientific discipline is about its intrinsic capacity of description instead of being merely a matter of technical means available to and to aid the discipline. No observational equipment or experimental apparatus can help the discipline unless it has the capacity of allowing such technical means to intervene in the first place without destroying the whole descriptive enterprise. Astronomy cannot be helped much even if a highly sophisticated microscope is provided. This observation will urge us to examine the descriptive scheme each discipline takes for granted from a more encompassing perspective if the issue happens to become broad in its scope while covering many different disciplines as with the phenomenon of life.

One of the standard procedures for practicing any descriptive discipline is to accept the Cartesian split between external object to be described and subject to describe it. The present descriptive methodology yielding external description based upon the Cartesian split does indeed remain invincible because any descriptive author has to stand outside of what is to be described, otherwise no monologic discourse could be feasible (Matsuno, 1995). As a matter of fact, external description of a definite object out there imposes upon itself such a queer stipulation that the descriptive object has to be universal at the least in the sense that it can be described as remaining exactly the same and invariable object by any descriptive author whoever it may be.

The significance of external description of a universal character cannot be overemphasized. This is certainly the case if the descriptive object really remains universal. Nonetheless, the reversal does not necessarily hold (Matsuno, 1998b). Even if external description of whatever object is available, this alone would not guarantee the object to be universal as reminding that the descriptive universal might be no more than an artifact of descriptive origin. Once external description of a universal character is lost, the Cartesian methodology would come to meet almost an insurmountable obstacle especially when it faces the issue of change and evolution associated with the phenomenon of life.

If material evolution including the origin of life and the succeeding biological evolution proceeding on Earth is intended to be an object of external description, what could follow at its best would be external description of a variable universal instead of an invariable universal (Matsuno, 1996c). Although external description of an invariable universal can legitimately be tamed down under the standard Cartesian scheme guaranteeing the presence of an invariable object to be described out there, external description of a variable universal cannot be accomplished unless the descriptive framework also changes accordingly. Any description is an attempt to associate an object to descriptive fundamentals. If the object remains invariable out there, the corresponding descriptive fundamentals would also have to be irreducibly invariable. Likewise, if the object is variable as with the case of material evolution, the corresponding descriptive fundamentals would have to be irreducibly variable. Reducing a variable universal to invariable descriptive fundamentals or predicates is simply a contradiction in terms. At issue is how can we describe dynamic movements in the first place.

DESCRIPTIVE DYNAMICS

First of all, any dynamic movement is in the process in progress (Köhler, 1993; Matsuno, 1998c; Matsuno and Paton, 1999). Our attempt for describing such a dynamic movement is to address the present progressive tense in the present tense (Gendlin, 1995; Matsuno, 1996a; Rosen, 1997). This remark was already explicit in Aristotle’s writing.

What has been cleared in this attempt by Aristotle is that addressing the present progressive tense in the present tense is through the present perfect tense, because the present progressive is naturally transferred into the present perfect tense with its progression. Crucial at this point is how could the present progressive be related to the present perfect tense and how could such a relationship be addressed in the present tense (Matsuno, 1999). Aristotle suggested a further clue in this regard.

One decisive point focused in this observation is that there can be a process equating the present progressive to the present perfect tense as evidenced in Aristotelian actuality, though which failed in finding much followers since then. If equating the present progressive to the present perfect tense in the present tense is actually validated, such an equation can certainly serve as a universal in the description no matter what its content may be. The equation can function even as a candidate for a variable universal. Despite this perspective in mind, Aristotle legitimately recognized that the dichotomy such that “a thing is moving and has moved, or is building and has built” does not fulfill the condition for the equality to be established because of the intervention of what he called the end or the final cause. Aristotelian actuality was also unsatisfactory in reality because it couldn’t incorporate into itself concrete particulars specifying both the present progressive and the present perfect tenses. Equating the present progressive to the present perfect tense in the present tense is an attempt for accommodating concrete particulars in a variable universal at the least, since both the progressive and the perfect tenses are about particular deeds or activities.

Surprisingly enough, however, the problem that Aristotle had originally formulated took a completely inverted twist during the last several centuries. The inverted attempt for equating the present perfect tense to the present progressive tense has emerged under the banner of Galilean-Newtonian-Kantian mechanics. A superficial advantage of employing such a mechanistic doctrine is that the equation of the present perfect to the present progressive tense can remain as an invariable universal while relegating concrete particulars exclusively over to the initial conditions. Even Darwinian evolution in the biological realm followed the suit by viewing natural selection as an invariable universal while letting mutations be concrete particulars (Salthe, 1993; Depew and Weber, 1995). Once the inverted equation of the present perfect to the present progressive tense is sanctioned, the equation can completely be represented descriptively as following the scheme of external description of an invariable universal. So far, so good, though this is not what we have been looking for. Imperative to descriptive dynamics that concerns us is how to relate the present progressive to the present perfect tense in the present tense rather than the other way around as Aristotle perceived though in vain.

What is unique to the equation of the present perfect to the present progressive tense is that the equation itself can be described as an invariable representation because it is no more than an invariable universal embodied in the framework of external description. Representation of a body in dynamic movement, once available, serves as a means of relating the present progressive to the present perfect tense since the representation remains inert in process even if it may allow in itself an identical transformation. Representation yields such an equation

as referring to the inert representation itself. Because of this equality, though the situation is ironic enough, the mechanistic doctrine equating the present perfect to the present progressive tense can again acquire a means for equating the present progressive to the present perfect tense through its representation. This observation of course cannot proceed without raising a serious question on the nature of representation available to the description of dynamics (Pattee, 1977).

Representation of a dynamic body, whatever it may be, is a consequence of descriptive endeavor on the part of a descriptive subject and consists of coexisting manifold phenomena. Coexistence of the manifold phenomena in one and the same time is thus based upon the relation of influence or the relation of community or reciprocity, that is, interaction in short (Matsuno, 1998c). The present insistence on coexistence is, however, undoubtedly subjective, though it is intended to be grounded upon an objective basis. In this regard, the remark Kant made in his Critique of Pure Reason is suggestive.

Interaction as a dynamic community of reciprocal influences underlies the reciprocal sequence of perceptions that could in turn yield the perception of coexistence of objects and their representation by whomever or whatever. Interaction sets the conditions of things that are coexistent prior to how they are perceived. Before any phenomenon is perceived and experienced as such, the notion of interaction takes it for granted that all phenomena are simultaneously connected in the dynamic community of reciprocal action to each other (Matsuno, 1997a). Newtonian action at a distance as a specific example of Kantian interaction certainly guarantees such a simultaneous global coordination of an invariable universal.

Despite its far-reaching significance, however, Kantian interaction as a mentor for rendering the representation of an invariable universal available does lack its empirical underpinning. Nothing can propagate faster than light. Once we pay due attention to this empirical constraint, it turns out that there is no means for any subject as a dweller in this empirical world to perceive interaction as an a priori guarantee for the likelihood of the presence of an invariable universal (Matsuno, 1996b, 1997a). Interaction available in the empirical domain cannot serves as a guarantee for precipitating the representation of an invariable universal. To the contrary, it is required to face the issue of how interaction could be described and represented in the first place. Before we ask for an invariable universal as the community of coexisting objects by means of global interaction on a metaphysical basis, the nature of interaction in the empirical domain has to descriptively be clarified (Riva, 1994; Matsuno and Salthe, 1995). At issue is whether such a descriptive endeavor could be possible at all.

One possible clue for this endeavor is in the observation that any material bodies in the empirical world are involved in detecting or experiencing each other through mutual interaction. That is to say, internal measurement (Matsuno, 1985, 1989; Rössler, 1987). Any material bodies, whether big or small, are sentient in their capacity of measuring each other internally. Focusing on internal measurement may suggest a likelihood of describing what empirical interaction is all about. We shall examine a possibility of internal description of internal measurement. Internal description, as we shall see, is a descriptive attempt without recourse to external description of an invariable universal.

INTERNAL DESCRIPTION

For the sake of argument, let us consider an extremely simple case such that two bodies A and B are interacting with each other while legitimately reminding that there is no a priori guarantee for simultaneous coordination between A’s action upon B and B’s action upon A (Leydesdorff, 1994; Matsuno, 1996b, 1997a, 1998a). Internal measurement on the part of A implies that A experiencing what has been presented by B is subsequently followed by transforming the experienced of itself with the consequence of representing the transformed to B, the latter of which then is going to experience the represented from A. A similar line of processes is also occurring on the part of B. Since there is no third party guaranteeing an a priori coordination between the two bodies, the mutual interaction referred to as internal measurement proceeds indefinitely as repeating the cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing. Extension of the present scheme of internal measurement into the case including more than two bodies will be straightforward.

One thus comes to notice that there is some room for representation even in the scheme of internal measurement. Although what is experiencing differs from what has experienced and similarly what is transforming does from what has transformed as Aristotle aptly observed, what is representing is identical to what has represented at least locally as referring to the available local representation because of its inertness. Of course, this local representation is temporary because it may constantly be updated by repeating the cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing on the part of any member of the participating material bodies (Hoffmeyer, 1996; Taborsky, 1997).

The significance of the occurrence of local representation, however, cannot be overemphasized. As referring to each local representation, can one envision a likelihood of local or internal description in view of the fact that any description has to be anchored at something stationary or inert. Otherwise, descriptive stability would be lost and no reliable description in sight. Compared to external description of an invariable universal upon interaction as a global coordinator, internal description grounds itself upon empirical interaction of a local character though its constant update remains inevitable. Rather, constant update of the resulting local representations in turn provides a means for describing a variable object.

In fact, an impetus for initiating each cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing at every material body is an inconsistency to be experienced as facing those local representations presented from the neighboring bodies, with the consequence of representing the transformed carrying no inconsistency of its own any more to the others. Unless there is a prior coordination to eliminate inconsistencies from the whole aggregate of local representations, it is each material body which can constantly transform the experienced inconsistencies into the inconsistency-free local representation, despite that it would subsequently come to meet inconsistencies with others of similar nature. Material bodies surviving in the empirical domain are only those that can constantly transform the experienced inconsistencies into the inconsistency-free representations even temporarily.

Observing these surviving material bodies now suggest to us a new possibility of external description. That is, external description of a variable universal. If there is available the global record of the surviving material bodies that have been subject to internal description, it is possible to externalize the record as a universal. The record is globally consistent, otherwise no such record. The content of the record can be variable with the progression of internal description as the generator of the record, while it is approachable externally. Internal description thus yields external description of a variable universal as exhibiting a remarkable contrast to external description of an invariable universal. The phenomenon of life can become describable only when the descriptive means for coping with variable objects are at hand. Internal description grounded upon the material process of internal measurement just fulfills such a requirement.

TAILORING INCONSISTENCIES

Local representation to be met in internal description remains stationary at least in between its adjacent updates. One of the descriptive means to refer to such a local representation is a metric (Conrad, 1993; Gunji, 1995), since it does not have the capacity to initiate changes on its own. Once a certain numerical figure is read out of an apparatus measuring whatever object, it will remain unchanged until its reading is further updated. An interesting example of this sort we can encounter in the empirical, or more specifically, in the biological realm is the cell processing material resource flow whether in a unicellular or multicellular organism (Pattee, 1982).

Material flow through the cell is a local representation of the cell. It is also subject to material flow continuity because no biological organisms can create material resources out of nothing. This condition of material flow continuity now can give rise to a serious inconsistency among the intervening local representations. Suppose that one cell happens to increase the intake of material resource flow just for the sake of fulfilling the condition of material flow continuity there by diverting a portion of the similar flow to the adjacent cell. This diversion would then cause violation of material flow continuity on the part of the adjacent cell if left unattended. Since no violation of material flow continuity is allowed for the local representations, the adjacent cell is forced to update its local representation so as to recover the condition of material flow continuity there (Matsuno, 1989). Inconsistencies among the local representations are inevitable in the scheme of internal description, while no inconsistencies are allowed to survive in the globally consistent record approachable to external description. It is not the local representation but the cell itself which can tame these inconsistencies.

The biological cell as a material body comes to experience inconsistencies with the neighboring local representations in the form of violation of material flow continuity. It then transforms by itself the inconsistency-experiencing body into an inconsistency-free body, otherwise the body fails in surviving. The inconsistency-free body manifests itself as a representation being in accord with the condition of material flow continuity. What is unique to the cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing is that both experiencing and transforming cannot be represented as such. Although one cannot represent what do the two operations look like in descriptive terms, they are certainly operative. The cell can experience violation of material flow continuity, which external description cannot address as a matter of principle. The cell is even intentional in activating its own intensity for transforming the experienced inconsistencies into the inconsistency-free representation.

Both experiencing inconsistencies among descriptive representations and exerting intensities in the form of exercising an intentionality are unique exclusively to internal description. On the other hand, once external description is adopted that has been common in the practice of empirical sciences especially in physics, there are no such things as experiencing inconsistencies residing within the established description or exerting an intensity from within. Everything has to be globally consistent with each other from the start just for the sake of the descriptive stipulation. This stipulation of external description is incontestable as an established methodology and remains perfectly legitimate. At the same time, internal description allowing for both inconsistent local representations and intensities to ameliorate them from within also remains legitimate insofar as its descriptive characteristic is faithfully observed. Of course, the relationship between external and internal description is not antagonistic with each other. Internal description is more encompassing. External description can legitimately be precipitated from internal description if the latter is further constrained by the stipulation asking no inconsistent representations and no intensities from within. In other words, inconsistent local representations and intensities to ameliorate them from within are prior in our empirical world. The phenomenon of life has taken advantage of the circumstances perceived and permitted by internal description.

Compared to external description of an invariable universal that is necessarily complementary to dynamics, internal description being capable of precipitating external description of a variable universal comes to furnish our languages with the capacity of enclosing dynamics.

Physics has traditionally worked hard to eliminate intensive variables pointing to intensities of whatever sort as much as possible. Take, for instance, an electron. Any electron is sentient and susceptive to an electromagnetic field. The sentient capacity is fully appreciated in the established electromagnetic theory of an electron. What electromagnetism of an electron has accomplished so far is to reduce the intensive capacity of sentience on the part of an electron into the extensive quantities called the spatio-temporal displacements of the electron that can be induced as being subject to the electromagnetic field. Once the transformation from the intensive capacity of sentience into the extensive quantification of the displacements to be displayed by the sentient being is completed, there would be no need to explicitly refer to the sentient capacity any further insofar as we are concerned only with its spatio-temporal displacements. If there is no satisfactory scheme of extensive quantification of the intensive capacity yet in sight, on the other hand, we would have to face the sentient capacity of a material body of whatever sort directly (Ulanowicz, 1997). Although contemporary physics has been quite successful in coming up with the extensive quantification of the intensive capacity carried by an electron, the issue of whether the carbon chemistry constituting biological organizations could completely be reduced to an extensive quantification in one form or another in the practice of physics unquestionably remains to be seen. Until such a complete scheme of extensive quantification appears if ever possible, we would have to directly face material capacity of sentience as avoiding any easy shortcut to quantification.

Another example of relating an intensity to an extensive variable is temperature. Of course, temperature is about an intensity distinguishing hotness from coldness or vice versa and cannot be reduced to an extensive variable. Nonetheless, temperature can be related to a mean kinetic energy of a gas molecule if one employs the kinetic theory of ideal gas legitimized in the discipline of statistical mechanics. The kinetic energy of a gas molecule is certainly about an extensive quantity called energy. At this point, the reason that temperature thus derived cannot be an extensive quantity is found in the particular aspect that there must be provided an intensive environment under which the mean kinetic energy of a gas molecule is defined and measured. It is required for the gas to establish a thermodynamic equilibrium with the surrounding environment. This requirement is literally intensive in what it actually implies. The environment guaranteeing the equilibrium condition is uniquely individual and cannot be dissected into additive components. It is undoubtedly one thing to ask for the condition of thermodynamic equilibrium in order to secure the notion of temperature. But, it is quite another to examine the condition under which temperature could be defined and legitimized at all. Temperature presumes, above all, the sentient capacity on the part of anything that can experience hotness or coldness as such. Unless one intends to contrive an overly articulated artifact to which the participating material bodies may be forced to relegate their capacity of experiencing temperature, the sentience capacity for temperature should be ubiquitous in the empirical domain. A similar line of argument also applies to pressure and even to mechanical force among others.

A principal motivation lying behind the practice in physics of letting intensities or intensive variables be simply as derivatives of other extensive quantities has exclusively been methodological in its origin. If intensities of whatever kinds are taken primary, there should be the dichotomy between an intensity already experienced by one material body and an intensity yet to be experienced by another while originating and propagating from the same sources. There is no distinction between no intensity to be propagated at all and an intensity yet to be experienced on the part of the material body which has not yet experienced such a propagating intensity. This indefiniteness cannot be tolerated in the scheme of external description of a definite universal. Once such a descriptive artifact asking for a definite and invariable universal present out there only for the sake of external description is lifted, material bodies in the empirical domain can legitimately resume the capacity of maneuvering their intentional intensities.

EXAMPLES

Inconsistencies that any surviving material body experiences as facing the local representations imputed to the neighboring material bodies come to be mitigated and eliminated by its own intensity from within, otherwise no such a body in the first place. What is unique to the functioning of intensities from within is that any intensity to ameliorate those inconsistencies at the slower rate loses the opportunity of actualizing itself compared to the alternatives with the faster rate, since there should remain no leftover of inconsistencies to be eliminated to the latecomers. The cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing allows only for the intensity eliminating inconsistencies at the fastest rate among alternatives (Swenson, 1998; Matsuno and Swenson, 1999). Fastest elimination of local inconsistencies thus turns out to be the rule to the cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing on the part of any surviving material body.

Actual intensity subject to the stipulation of fastest elimination of local inconsistencies thus conceived, if legitimate as stated, should have an empirical counterpart to support it since the underlying material bodies are taken to be the dwellers surviving in the empirical world. This perspective would become most acute when the issue of the origin of life on our Earth is focused. Above all, it would become imperative to substantiate the occurrence of the fastest elimination of local inconsistencies that could have facilitated the origin of life (Matsuno, 1997c). Even if living things already have the capacity of eliminating local inconsistencies at the possible fastest rate, the transition from nonliving to living things would have had to be assisted by the pre-existing scheme embodying the fastest elimination of local inconsistencies. One of the candidates must have been the sea-floor near submarine hydrothermal vents in the Archaean ocean (Matsuno, 1997b)

Submarine hydrothermal vents are constantly ejecting hot springs into the cold surrounding seawater. A small water droplet from the hot springs come to decrease its temperature rapidly soon after it is ejected into the cold surrounding. Temperature of the water droplet is an intensive variable about the intensity which the droplet experiences and exerts upon itself. The cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing on the part of the water droplet is now under the influence of the intensity to eliminate local inconsistencies in terms of temperature at the possible fastest rate. That is the fastest temperature drop at the hot water droplet. Actualization of the fastest temperature drop is intrinsically selective in allowing only for the kind of droplet that can decrease its temperature at the fastest rate, which also implies that only those material bodies decreasing their temperature fastest could be realized inside the droplet among alternatives.

We have in fact constructed a flow reactor simulating a submarine hydrothermal system in the laboratory and examined how the generative and selective behavior upon the fastest temperature drop would develop in the hot water droplet ejected from a simulated hydrothermal vent (Imai et al., 1997, 1999). We have then confirmed the synthesis of oligopeptides from monomeric amino acids in the environment simulating submarine hydrothermal vents. Abiotic synthesis of oligopeptides must have been a necessary precursor to the origin of life on our Earth. This experimental demonstration certainly manifests a significance of the occurrence of the intensity to ameliorate local inconsistencies at the possible fastest rate for the onset of the precursors to the phenomenon of life.

One more example to demonstrate the characteristic cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing on the part of surviving material aggregates is an indefinite sustenance of local inconsistencies through their constant update. Any material body subject to local representations from the neighboring material bodies first comes to experience local inconsistencies among themselves. The sequence of yielding the inconsistency-free representation out of the preceding experience of inconsistencies and experiencing subsequent inconsistencies among those from the nearby representations of similar nature repeatedly holds at any of surviving material bodies. Translation of the notion of inconsistency among the local representations in mechanical terms would give friction or mechanical distortion. At issue is whether there could be observed such an indefinite sustenance of frictions on the part of the surviving material bodies.

A case in point is muscle contraction occurring in any animal body. Muscle contraction is due to the sliding movement of an actin filament upon myosin molecules while hydrolyzing ATP (adenosine-triphosphate) molecules. There are many myosin molecules contacting an actin filament. Although each myosin molecule contacting the filament generates sliding force as converting the chemical bond energy stored in ATP into mechanical energy, there certainly occurs friction between the adjacent force generators along the filament because of the lack of the prior means to coordinate the force generations along the entire filament. Fluctuations in the displacement of the filament are associated with the frictions to be eliminated. However, what is actually specific to the sliding movement of an actin filament upon myosin molecules while hydrolyzing ATP molecules is that those fluctuations associated with the frictions constantly survive without eliminating them altogether (Hatori et al., 1996a, b, 1998). There has been an experimental demonstration pointing to the indefinite sustenance of frictions constantly pumped up by successive ATP hydrolyses.

INTERNALIST STANCE: REVISITED

Conflicting and inconsistent representations in terms of metrics are foreign to external description of a definite and invariable universal as practiced in empirical sciences in general and in physics in particular. However, this strict prohibition of inconsistent representations could somewhat be relaxed if one employs external description of a variable universal. Relevant to this issue is Hegel’s definition of mass or matter as referring to the resistivity in spacetime. Spacetime nebula requires at least its representation if it can be reduced to space and time at all as it should be (Baker, 1993; Matsuno, 1998c). It is mass which occupies a specific location in spacetime as exhibiting a resisitivity to those trying to occupy the same location. Mass must be universal in the sense that it is the fundamental and ubiquitous stuff constituting this empirical world. Despite that, mass as a resistivity is indefinite in its implication because the resistivity alone is a negative notion. This is taken to be as something negative to the influence coming from its outside. The situation is quite different from mass as an inertia, that can certainly be definite and can be represented as a definite object by referring to its metric. This aspect guarantees mechanics founded upon the notion of mass or point-mass to be a supreme prototype of external description of a definite and invariable universal. Exactly on this account, mass as a resistivity can potentially exhibit the capacity of becoming a variable universal.

Some positive implication latent in mass as a resistivity will be more closely focused if one considers a collision of two material bodies. This is just an instance of indicating a resistivity acting upon another resistivity (Matsuno, 1997a). Resistivity to a resistivity is in fact negation of a negation. Only when there could appear something positive through the indefinite sequence of negation of a negation, can one expect to acquire a representation of what such a mass is all about. Here, we have already committed ourselves to the view that the representation of a mass, if ever possible, should be local because the scheme of collision assuming the local participants is taken for granted. Furthermore, such a local or internalist perspective has to be consistent with the outcome, otherwise the whole scheme would be broken down. At this point comes to enter the cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing. If a mass as negation of a negation establishes a stationary inertness even temporarily, it can certainly serve as a local representation. An indispensable characteristic to such a local representation is about its local space and time structure. Although mass has originally been taken to be a resistivity in spacetime, its representation was left unspecified. It is the likelihood of local representation which makes possible to assign the local space and time property to a mass as a resistivity.

Mass as a resistivity resumes its inertia only through and in between the adjacent updates of the local representation, which is about the temporarily invariable indefiniteness specific to the negative notion of resistivity. The indefiniteness is however constantly subject to its variable update. Mass as an inertia is merely a local representation of mass as a resistivity. This perspective can be gained only through the internalist stance that permits us no other than internal description admitting inevitable inconsistencies among the available local representations. Mass as an inertia viewed from the internalist perspective is definitely of descriptive origin, while mass as an inertia viewed from the external description of an invariable universal as practiced in physics is taken to be directly about the nature of a physical object out there. Mass as a resistivity is strictly the internalist notion, while mass as an inertia is merely its representation destined to constantly be updated.

At the same time, internal description of mass as a resistivity is also active in transforming the experienced inconsistent representations into an inconsistency-free representation. This is exactly where an intentionality of material origin enters. It is descriptively approachable only indirectly from the internalist perspective. Intentionality as an attribute of mass as a resistivity, though not directly represented desriptively, is the factor responsible for precipitating its describable representation as mass as an inertia. Intentionality is a material factor relating mass as a resistivity to mass as an inertia.

Mass as a resistivity is of course an extremely general and naïve form of matter available in the empirical domain. Even upon such a weak and general constraint, however, can one envisage the occurrence of intentionality on material grounds. In particular, in view of the fact that the resistivity to a resistivity is nothing but the sentient capacity of a material body being able to experience others, intentionality of material origin is found to underlie the occurrence of sentient beings. The phenomenon of life is seen to take most advantage of intentionality of material origin, that is descriptively approachable only through internal description or the internalist perspective.

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