Jellyfish and Math

Preamble

Over a period of billions of years, the first life-forms on earth began to form in extremely low-oxygen containing watery environments.

As the earth's seas became more and more oxygenated (in certain locales too acidic), I propose that proto lifeforms developed in these primordial waters of seas, inland seas or large ponds that contained quite a variety of minerals and salts. 

Proto lifeforms happened to develop in those briny waters - a brine high in magnesium chloride, sodium chloride, calcium chloride, iron sulfates and phosphates. (These five salts by the way, are just five of the twelve tissue-salts found in our body's cell plasma, e.g., a.o. our neurons.)

The proto lifeforms acquired the calcium salts 'around' their systems to eventually develop skeletal features, and together with the iron sulfates, phosphates, magnesium salts and more, they also developed proteins, lipids (fat), nerves, blood and muscle.

Millions of years later many lifeforms developed articulated skeletons, glandular tissues, etc. 

The calcium based skeletons could either be exo- or endo-skeletons: crabs and such in the former case, fish in the latter... and later land animals... That's just fauna, not to speak of flora.

'Imagine if the intelligence in our world resided not with humankind but rather with a singular, isolated jellyfish, floating deep in the Pacific Ocean...'
~ Scientific American  

I'll quote:

"German mathematician Leopold Kronecker famously declared, “God created the natural numbers, all else is the work of man.” But imagine if the intelligence in our world resided not with humankind but rather with a singular, isolated jellyfish, floating deep in the Pacific Ocean. Everything in its experience would be continuous, from the flow of the surrounding water to its fluctuating temperature and pressure. In such an environment, lacking individual objects or indeed anything discrete, would the concept of number arise? If there were nothing to count, would numbers exist?"

From this Scientific American article - especially page two:

"...would such an intelligent jellyfish eventually develop numbers and mathematics?"

Alright, here is an idea that at first may seem totally out of this world, and at first sight may have nothing to do with mathematics, but bear with me...

Imagine a 'human body' dressed and well... But then imagine that you are going to peel off layer after layer of that body. Of course you start off with the clothes, then you proceed with the skin layer, then the next tissue layer (flesh), and then more tissue and so on, until you eventually have stripped away all bony matter as well. 

So, imaginatively you have been peeling off layer after layer until you couldn't peel anything off anymore.

You were probably surprised that you didn't end up with nothing.., you were left with something... something quite wet, in the shape of a...

 

A jelly f... 

 

Just a minute...

...what you are left with is in fact CSF...

Cerebro-Spinal Fluid,
the stuff that has the form of and is inside... 

   

1. ...the meninges around your brain. (For now keep the shape of those meninges in mind - it is like a deflated collapsed and dimpled  plastic ball),
2. Your cranial ventricles. (Also keep their shape in mind),
3. A long tube inside your central spinal canal. (Keep that in mind as well.)
4. Your nerves  - some of that CFS (Cerebro-Spinal-Fluid) actually seeps out into your nerves and thus has the shape of long thin cell-plasma strands. (So you are keeping those long strands also in mind.)

The above illustration is taken from Science Daily:

 

Now, seeing all that together, what does it look like?

It very much looks like a... jelly fish, albeit that the jelly is more liquid.

Now imagine that you jump back into the past, way past...: 

The beginning of life on earth in some proto-ocean!

What if some very early form (between 700 and  580 million years ago) of jellyfish developed there, not only one of the earliest free moving living creatures * but also one that figured out a way of existing forever - being immortal?!

In fact, there are still species of jellyfish like that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula
(See picture at the end of this article) 
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090130-immortal-jellyfish-swarm.htm
 

(The following contains quotes from the Preamble, but adjusted to make it pertain to this Jellyfish.)

What if over billions of years, a very special kind of jellyfish propagated itself in such a way that its survival became secured by eventually surviving (and multiplying) through the human species as... Cerebro-Spinal Fluid, and that this specific jellyfish species through the human species (and likely other animal species as well) is still around inside of us and eventually - being us - came to invent mathematics?

I got this idea (not the math part).in 1998  and proposed it (as a "this will knock your socks off" idea) in a talk I gave in Avon (Connecticut USA). It somehow so stuck in my head, that it does not want to let go of itself... :)

Of course the question is now: how and why did that jellyfish do it? No, again, not the math, but becoming a species with vertebrae and all.

It has to do with the fact that the first life-forms on earth thrived (they really had no choice) in extremely low-oxygen containing watery environments. As the earth's seas became more and more oxygenated (in certain locales too acidic), I propose that this proto-human jellyfish needed and found a way to survive.

It so happened that in those days the primordial waters of the seas, inland seas or large ponds) contained quite a variety of minerals and salts, and because this proto-human jellyfish happened to navigate those briny waters - a brine high in magnesium chloride, sodium chloride, calcium chloride, iron sulfates and phosphates, it gladly made do with what was around (again, there really was no choice)...
  
Left: from

 "Jellyfish Nervous Systems"

Millions of years later this jellyfish may have evolved in such a way that it acquired an articulated skeleton and all kinds of tissues.
These calcium based skeletons could either be exo- or endo-skeletons: crabs and such in the former case, and fish in the latter
As we know,  certain fish (Ichthyostega) crawled out of the sea 370 million years ago and evolved into mammals... and on and on it went.... that special proto-human jellyfish still surviving!

The First Known Immortal Animal:

"Scientists have discovered the world’s first known immortal animal. A jellyfish species named Turritopsis Nutricula. This jellyfish can reenter an earlier polyp stage, restarting its lifecycle after it mates. The jellyfish can repeat this process indefinitely, meaning that it will never die from aging, ever. Researchers hope that studying the Turritopsis will lead to breakthroughs in reversing the human aging process. The jellyfish are originally from the Caribbean but have spread all over the world." 

~ "Science & Technology" facebook page, via  Sasha Under Midnattssol

Note

* 580 million years ago Cnidaria were the first animals that could move freely due to the evolution of nerve and muscle like structures, they also developed simple eyes.