Biological Clockwork Makes the Universe Act Like a Brain

Image credits belong to: Malvestida (@malvestida) | Unsplash Photo Community

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27

This article is about circadian rhythms and time-keepers among microorganisms that are widespread on the Earth, and how that relates to cognition, consciousness, and God, which is the framework I will use against the claim that our universe is unconscious, godless, and indifferent to human affairs. 

Most of what I know about time-keeping and decision-making for my article today comes from an April 2022 article titled Time-keeping and Decision-making in Living Cells from The Royal Society. 

The following quote from Richard Dawkins reflects the naturalistic, reductionist worldview that I am opposing, today: 

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."  ~ Richard Dawkins 

Such a naturalistic, reductionist worldview must assume that cells have no purposeful design throughout their intricate communication. There is no cosmic plan behind homeostasis, which is the process of maintaining internal stability. All adaptations to change occur without direction. Purposelessness is the base beneath all reproductive activity accomplished by the conversion of nutrients into energy, removal of waste products, the transcription of RNA from DNA, the translation of  proteins from RNA, and the expansion and maturation of cells that are specialized with specific functions. We are expected to see blind and mindless watchmakers in the interconnected series of on-off switches and rhythmic behaviors, enabling genes and proteins to interact.

It is assumed that the time-keeping accomplished by biological oscillators and synchronizers is done with pitiless indifference to the accomplishment of the task, even though we regularly see life stubbornly striving to survive. Random chance is believed to characterize these complex networks of molecular interactions that can haphazardly fuse together cooperative and contradictory signals/cues, but still somehow magically hit their target every time. 

Well…not every time. But just enough to contribute to a world that appears stable enough for you and I to walk and swim around, in spite of all the reported dangers. 

The struggles of life, that make it feel so fragile and tragic, can make us overlook life's fortitude that seems so miraculous. 

Gene expression, metabolism, and cell growth cannot continue without the autonomous pathways that transmit signals from the cell’s exterior to its interior. The intensity and timespan of the signals has an analog nature (continuous and graded) which is fine-tuning the signaling, with a sophistication different from the binary on-off discrete steps of digital signaling. Many different signaling pathways can have a cross-talk and parallel processing that allow the integration of information from various sources, all of which contribute to the complexity of cellular behavior.  That holistic perspective shines a light on the interdependence of the parts within the larger system, which allows us to see God’s handiwork, as opposed to the naturalistic reductionism that wants to define the parts only in the context of isolation.

When I was an atheist committed to naturalistic reductionism, I probably would have argued against God or a Designer by mentioning the stochastic (random) fluctuations happening within a finite number of molecules that have chance collisions and outcomes that are devoid of certainty, further introducing noise in the cellular processes. The limited number of molecules can lead to significant variations and sensitivity to fluctuations.  

Should this probabilistic picture serve as evidence against the predetermined order of a Creator, or is stochasticity and randomness just a tool used by the Creator to bring order, diversity, and complexity out of chaos? Which came first: the chicken or the egg? 

Perhaps if we embrace stochasticity and randomness as a foundation, we then cannot remain logically consistent in using biological determinism to argue against free-will. 

But I digress…

Anyway…

Perhaps the stochastic fluctuations among the scarcity of molecules in such tiny proportions of space subtracts from the seamless magic of the autonomous, analog nature of the cellular information processing systems (IPSs). Even in spite of that, the IPSs’ responses still gain noteworthy success in survival, growth, repair, and reproduction of cells. After all, you are still here, reading this article, even in spite of whatever physical catastrophes you may be facing. 

If I were an atheist, perhaps I would try to make it seem that God's design is poor and stupid by drawing attention to abnormalities such as DNA damage, un-replicated DNA, or changes in the mitochondrial outer membrane permeability (i.e., passage of substances into and out of the mitochondria). But then I would have to ignore the cellular sensors and cell cycle checkpoints involved in DNA repair, the chaperone proteins guaranteeing structural soundness for mitochondria, and the apoptosis (i.e., programmed cell death) that occurs when the cell is unfixable.  

In other words, God can fix errors in His design, even as it has evolved over millions and millions of years.

Based on The Royal Society’s 2022 article that I mentioned earlier, I want to highlight circadian rhythms, which appears to me as a strange feature of our universe, in light of how our world's finest spokespeople for science want to continue alleging that the evolution of our universe is unconscious, mindless, un-designed, purposeless, and ultimately godless. Even if the time-keeping of these biological clocks is a metaphor, it seems quite inconsistent with the naturalistic reductionism that wants to exclude any form of anthropomorphism and Designer from the story of evolution.  

Quanta Magazine published an article covering some awesome discoveries made in 2023. One of them was: “how life keeps time.” Of course, the author is not trying to say that life is literally using a metronome nor counting seconds and minutes, but is “akin to calendars to keep their developmental processes on track.” 

Long before modern time-keeping via technology, various organisms evolved to have circadian rhythms as survival adaptations for synchronizing sleep-wake routines and metabolic processes with day-night cycles.

The author Hannah Waters seems to express ideas that are compatible with The Royal Society’s article I cited earlier. 

The pace is set by biochemical reactions and gene expression underlying the metabolic processes that are also "organized fundamentally by the mitochondria, which may very well serve dual roles as the complex cell’s timekeeper and power source." Painstaking lab work has zeroed in on the organizer, that being the energy-producing, oxygenating powerhouse of the cell, called the mitochondria. And stem cell technologies have stumbled upon the “developmental tempo.” Perhaps I would be less inclined to find God’s design in this feature of nature if it were exclusive to only humans. But the painstaking lab work has been “focusing on different species and systems.” 

Apparently, the ubiquity of circadian rhythms has already been known, as the National Institute of General Medical Sciences states:  

“Most living things have circadian rhythms, including animals, plants, and microorganisms. In humans, nearly every tissue and organ has its own circadian rhythm, and collectively they are tuned to the daily cycle of day and night.” 

These various organisms (e.g. bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, and viruses) must be mind-bogglingly populous in every ecosystem, amounting to a presence on Earth that seems to parallel a kind of omnipresence. To be more precise, the principal clock genes (e.g., Per1, Per2, Cry1, Cry2, Clock, Bmal1, Rev-erbA and RorA) have been found everywhere from cyanobacteria to mammals. These same principal clock genes that are involved in your sleep, metabolism, and immune functions are also regulating the expression of genes in other non-human microorganisms via a complex network of feedback loops. A significant difference between them and you is that your master clock is in your brain. This master clock is called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is a structure shaped like wings in the hypothalamus, found at the base of the brain. Cry1, Per2, and Rev-erbA is a three-part input-output loop identified as a key source of oscillations in the suprachiasmatic nucleus. 

Circadian rhythms allow species to adapt to the Earth’s rotation. That requires plenty of order and not random chaos, if you ask me. Nervous systems are responsible for organisms’ preservation of circadian rhythms. The circadian rhythms influence functions associated with goal-oriented behavior tied to abilities for suppressing impulsive responses, resisting distractions, holding and manipulating information for cognitive tasks, efficiently switching between tasks, and the sustaining of attention and vigilance over time, particularly involving motor responses.  

It is as if the circadian rhythms have something like a brain. And simply stating that “circadian rhythms are considered a masterstroke of natural selection” will not do much to support the impression that it is a mindless process of blind chance and indifference.

So, if circadian rhythms involve time-keeping, then the circadian rhythms that are ubiquitous on Earth amount to our Earth functioning like a gigantic brain. And why would that brain not be conscious? 

Time-keeping is the ability to perceive, measure, and organize time through the use of memory, attention, and estimation of temporal intervals. Since such a thing is considered to be a human ability, it is nearly impossible to assign it to non-human entities without personifying nature. So, whether it is or is not literally "time-keeping", this anthropomorphic term, that is used in replacement of a better alternative, tells me that nature has a parallel with a human ability that is a cognitive function linked to consciousness. This exemplifies how consciousness might be widespread throughout our Earth, implying a further parallel with the premise that there is a universal mind, Creator, or purposeful design. 

Humans have brains. Circadian rhythms are nearly omnipresent throughout the Earth and behave as if they have something like a brain. This is a parallel between us and nature, and perhaps some would like to see this as consistent with pantheism, which tries to allege that divinity is identical with the universe. Why not see this as consistent with Genesis 1:27, stating that God made men and women in His image? 

Though some may want to say I am making a speculative interpretation, I think science can support my philosophical or metaphysical argument about biological time-keeping, consciousness, and God. I am aware that the link between circadian rhythms and consciousness in simpler organisms remains a topic of discussion among scientists.

And I would like for all of us to continue the discussion.

The author of this blog post is Matthew Sabatine, who was born in the United States and raised as a Christian but left the faith in his early twenties. He returned to the faith midway through 2022. Matthew has some experience in the mental health field as a direct support professional, caring for people with intellectual and development disabilities and people who were in long-term residency/rehabilitation programs. Though Matthew has no formal undergraduate or graduate degree, he has experience co-facilitating therapy groups under the supervision of licensed counselors. Matthew currently works in sales/marketing by day and blogs on his free time at night.

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