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Anonymous, a star glows in the void Ignored among the billions of its kin: Galactic trash, detritus on the fringe Of spiral arms, it slowly wheels about The distant core where cataclysmic blasts From violent collisions generate Raw pandemonium of radio And infrared and ultraviolet flares --- Dramatic entertainment for remote Observers' instruments that scan the skies. But what of that unnoticed, obscure star? It shines in peace, unchanging, stable, calm. Around it orbit scraps of the dark cloud From which it formed. Those negligible bits Have since condensed into some balls of gas, Too small to merit notice from afar. And lesser still, a few scant leftovers --- Poor remnants, near-invisible --- remain Like dust motes in an ocean, eddying About a bubble as it rides the waves. Upon one speck, a thousand million years Of nothing happens: random jostlings By atoms that link up and then dissolve Into the brew that percolates the crust. So meaningless millennia pass by. At last, alignment clicks: a pattern gels, Persists, and makes a template that now builds Self-replicating molecule machines. Wee engines harness energy to clone Themselves, and thereby propagate their form. This flurry of activity is yet Unseen at any distance from the globe: Mere rearrangements of the building blocks Without a ghost of purpose or intent; A thoughtless copy-cattish crystal growth. But over time, the simple pattern spreads. And as it does, it fails. Mistakes are made Resulting in flawed copies, most of which Are hopeless failures at the repro-game. They wither and then die, that never lived. But of the garbled versions, a few thrive: Machines that out-compete their ancestors. Efficient, accurate, precise, controlled, They manage resources with thrift and grace. Increasingly they spread, until they fall Themselves as victims to still lustier foes, Fortuitously optimized designs Which somehow find the trick of partnership, Alliances among the replicants, Whereby more complex structures then emerge. And after countless microscopic wars Across the surface of a puny world (Inconsequential flotsam circling A sun entirely forgettable, The suburbs of an average galaxy) A change occurs: configurations bloom That **//think,//** first crudely, then with greater power. These patterns can manipulate themselves, Communicate, discover, teach, and love. --- So mind appears to shake the universe.
(correlates: EmersonOnSelfImprovement, ForYourOwnGood, InfraStructure, ...)