The Front And The Back

Here is something that I cannot see has ever been pointed out.

Suppose that there was a way to illustrate how living things fit into the universe around using simple everyday words. There actually is, the words are "front" and "back".

Humans have a front and a back. Animals have fronts and backs. But plants, such as trees, do not have a definable front and back. Plants have a top and bottom but not a front and back.

Nothing in the inanimate universe around us actually has a front and back. This includes stars, planets, galaxies, atoms, clouds, rocks, etc.

Like plants, things in the inanimate universe can have a top or a bottom. The rotational axis of a planet can be said to give it a one-dimensional definition of what could be a top or bottom. A spiral galaxy can likewise be said to have a one-dimensional rotational axis that can be defined as a top and bottom, although it is a matter of perspective which direction is the top and which is the bottom.

The reason that something like the rotational axes of planets and galaxies cannot have one end of the axis definitely defined as a top or bottom is that this would require another dimension of information.

Here is what I find to be so interesting. Only living things with free will, such as humans and animals, have a front and a back. Unlike plants and collections of inanimate matter, we have a two-dimensional definition. We have not only a top and a bottom but also a front and a back.

This reflects what we saw in the theory on this blog, "How Biology And Human Life Fits Into Cosmology", June 2016. There are two dimensions of information whereas inanimate matter has only one.

Remember that in my information theory, we are at a higher level of complexity than our inanimate surroundings. This is why we have free will. Free will doesn't make sense unless we are more complex than our surroundings. The reason that we can be wrong about things, which is a result of having free will, is that there is not enough complexity in our inanimate surroundings for everything that we can conceive of to exist.

In my information theory, plants are no more complex than the inanimate surroundings. That is why plants have a top and bottom but not a front and back. But plants are far more intricate than the surrounding inanimate environment, which means more complexity per mass. This also explains why we rely on plants for food but no one plant can provide a balanced diet. We require several plants because they are not as complex as we are.

The fact that plants are of far greater intricacy than, although no more complex than, the inanimate surroundings is shown in how objects of a similar size to the plants, such as rocks, do not have meaningful tops and bottoms. But the entire planet, with it's axial rotation, does have a top-bottom axis, although it cannot be any more than a matter of perspective which is the top and which is the bottom.

When we make things out of inanimate matter we are imposing our complexity on it. That is why many of the things that we make, such as houses, cars, appliances, signs, documents and, photographs do have fronts and backs.

So if inanimate matter has only this one-dimensional, top-bottom definition, then where could the definition of the other dimension, the front-back, have come from? It must have come from outside the universe. We must have been created by God. Plants show evidence of God's creation too, because of their far higher intricacy than their inanimate surroundings.