The Physics of Life. Part II: The Neural Network as an Active Condensed Matter Body

Nonequilibrium “active agents” establish and break bonds with each other and create an evolving condensed state known as the active matter. Here, the active agents are neurons and the evolving condensed matter is the brain. This paper describes autonomous reconstructions of this active matter. It explains how the neural network creates the mind. The author notices that the active condensed matter made of neurons is similar to that of the molecular bodies of folding proteins and molecular machines, and conjectures that they generate autonomous motions by the same rules. The paper describes voluntary motions of the simple molecular condensed bodies and discusses their interactions with an external environment. In addition to generating motions, the active bodies register external signals and correspondingly adapt their behavior. The active condensed matter bodies can memorize their own active motions and then reproduce those motions. It is shown that deliberate manipulations can transform initially inactive, equilibrated, condensed matter into active matter. Based on this, the author suggests manufacturing artificial animate beings from inanimate matter. These prospective animate forms would be much simpler than real biological organisms. However, they could serve a useful purpose as “generators of autonomous behavior.” They would make decisions and solve problems by the same rules as actual neural networks. Therefore, synthetic active condensed matter could produce a basic artificial mind.