The fourth phase of The Nexus Theory (TNT) is “instinct,” where a macro reaction is triggered by multiple internal micro-reactions.
Within TNT, instinct introduces the idea of “emergent properties;” in particular, the point where life is conventionally thought to originate from non-life. This “abiogenesis” is not a clear black and white boundary, but rather a fuzzy threshold of complexity where many different nexuses begin to simultaneously exhibit various emergent behavioral patterns based on their underlying composition.
There is nothing special or mystical about emergent behaviors arising from non-living matter. Technically, there’s not actually a physical difference between life and non-life, as those boundaries are entirely arbitrary, which is why we’ve struggled to universally define life throughout history. The machinery that makes life life is the same machinery that makes up everything else in the Universe. We can’t ever forget that.
Evidence
In the previous phase, we discussed the idea of “connection” and how various nexuses can form even more complex combinations due to things like a carbon atom’s tetravalency. To understand how life evolved from this point, we’ll merely take the next logical steps down that evolutionary path.
First, it’s important to understand the concept of massive iteration: If any event has a non-zero probability of occuring, it will occur given sufficient time (like monkeys accidentally typing the entire works of Shakespeare given infinite time). This sounds like a simple concept to grasp, but can actually be quite counter-intuitive in practice. For example, can you comprehend a billion? Lots of people think they have a good idea of what that number means, but when confronted with the reality of its scale via various thought experiments they are often surprised.
On ancient proto-Earth, billions (emphasis) of years ago, organic molecules (the word “organic” does not necessarily mean something is alive, mind you – it’s simply a reference to carbon) formed due to various factors such as the presence of liquid water as a substrate, the sun heating the oceans and atmosphere, geologic activity, and even lightning strikes. From these substrates, organic molecules (carbon compounds) had what they needed to gradually iterate into the new configurations we know as primordial life. What made them ”life” specifically is their ability to express instinct, most notably the instinct of self-preservation.
For example, all forms of life resist pattern dissolution.
From this primordial soup of life’s precursor organic compounds we saw the emergence of “macromolecules” (nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates). These macromolecules then reacted with other macromolecules to form connected patterns such as the polymeric chain of nucleotides known as RNA (ribonucleic acid), which in turn act as chemical blueprints for other macromolecules.
RNA is essentially instinct “software” written in the programming language of the elements, nothing more. DNA is simply more stable macromolecule “software” than RNA, but fills the same basic function – storing an instinct via elemental programming.
Through massive iteration over incomprehensible scales, macromolecules eventually settled into configurations that were more resistant to pattern dissolution and thus more likely to persist – self-organizing and self-replicating RNA and DNA, for example. This process wasn’t anything conscious or mystical, and certainly doesn’t require outside influence to occur; it’s the same idea as a hailstone forming in a thunderstorm. The hailstone begins as a tiny, fragile particle, but ends up as a much more resilient ball of ice. It takes many layers of new surface ice to form over time to achieve the end result. The same happened with macromolecules – there were many iterations that happened over unimaginable expanses of time leading up to the configurations we recognize today (proteins, RNA, DNA, etc.). The exact mapping of how this evolutionary sequence occurred (to the point where we can reproduce it) is still an active area of scientific research.
Ultimately, instinct is when a Nexus is able to express emergent behaviors. We can consider “life” the point where a nexus is actively resisting pattern dissolution via some arbitrary minimally complex process, causing it to more probably exert itself, intact, forward through time and “survive.” Thus, all instincts have roots that lead back to survival.