Evolution and Self-Consciousness: Biological Complexity and Pythagorean Mathematics

Starting freely from modern evolutionary theories, it appears evident how the goal of biological evolution is to obtain an organism capable of embodying in a stable way and for as long as possible a form of self-consciousness. If, in fact, the evolutionary goal were longevity, we would have that naturally the evolutionary chain would have oriented itself towards increasingly simpler organisms. For example, the case of Bacillus 293 is known, nicknamed the oldest organism in the world for having survived intact trapped in a salt crystal for more than 250 million years. The attractive center of evolution would therefore be towards something simpler and therefore more easily attackable and certainly closer to the mineral kingdom than to the animal one. Similarly, if the primary goal of natural biological evolution had been the capacity for adaptation, organisms would have benefited more from organizing themselves into simpler, modular and interchangeable structures, which are far more adaptable, rather than enclosing themselves in increasingly complex and integrated structures.

In short, if we analyze broadly the direction of biological evolution as we know it, we notice that it is directed at organizing increasingly complex, organic structures but with an increasingly individual character. The search for complexity seems to be correlated with the structuring of consciousness and the search for autonomy and physical integration seems to be associated with the concept of self-consciousness.

In the panpsychic conception we have adopted, every form of energy is associated with a form of consciousness. However, we can converge on the fact that achieving a sufficiently complex structure is necessary to be able to manifest an advanced form of consciousness. This fact is so well known by contemporary science that the idea that consciousness itself is born magically, as an epiphenomenon, from complexity is considered the dominant paradigm. However, that this is not the right path is evident from the fact that it is in clear contrast with the unity of consciousness that we experience every day. Every day of our life, although with great alterations, we always feel ourselves, that is, the same consciousness. This perception clashes profoundly with the intrinsic chaotic nature of complexity.

Even supposing the existence of a stable configuration of neurons such as to obtain a unitary consciousness, supposing that this is the epiphenomenon of a process that is chaotic by its nature would lead to concluding that even small alterations of the brain structure should radically modify our consciousness breaking its unity. Conversely, this effect is not found in the brain of an individual who evolves radically in the first years of life without ever affecting the perception of a unitary consciousness. Not only that, many cases have been collected in favor of the opposite phenomenon, that is, of individuals and brains capable of adapting after strong traumas and removals of large parts of the brain, maintaining the unity of consciousness and continuing to perceive themselves as themselves.

Whatever the relationship between complexity and consciousness, we can agree that complex systems allow a greater and more structured manifestation of consciousness. If, therefore, the goal of biological evolution were the manifestation of consciousness, we would indeed notice the aggregation into organic and living systems that are increasingly complex. Nothing would prevent evolution from developing according to increasingly complex aggregates without however ever seeking the organic and individual independence that is instead observed.

In light of the facts, what seems to be the goal of biological evolution is the achievement not only of consciousness, but also of self-consciousness. If by consciousness in this context we mean the experience of events and sensations, by self-consciousness instead we mean being conscious of one's own state of consciousness or the constitution of a nucleus of consciousness that can affirm itself as an "I", distinguish itself from the rest of the world and deliberate volitional acts.

The Spiral of Theodore, Irrational Numbers and Pi (Solis)

As long-time cultivators of the Pythagorean Tradition, we were struck by an article in the previous issue of Tabit on the value of $\pi$ as a product of the square of natural numbers (editor's note: pi and the product of all natural numbers, Tabit, Mathesis vol. 2). In the regularization he cited, the product of the square of each natural number results in the value of the length of a unit circumference:

$$1^2 \cdot 2^2 \cdot 3^2 \cdot 4^2 \cdot 5^2 \cdots = 2\pi \quad (2)$$

Classical Mathematics did not know this important result and would undoubtedly have been fascinated by it. The implications have yet to settle in us to be properly digested. Nevertheless, Classical Mathematics can still reserve many surprises for us and indicate constructions qualitatively similar to those described by Tabit. We want to present here a Pythagorean jewel that, almost certainly, he does not know and whose first description - even if under the veil of...