Part I: The Rock-Water Circuit: The Engine Before Life
A planetary circuit linking rock, water, and life, and the mineral engine that powers it all.
The Rock-Water Circuit Theory - by Pierre Kory and Matt Bakos
ACT I: The Rock–Water Circuit - An Overview
As I described in my last post, the foundation for The Blueprint of Life grew out of From Volcanoes to Vitality (FVTV) as a result of my colleague Matt Bakos connecting several of our deeper insights into minerals from FVTV to texts from antiquity. What followed was an improbable series of events that led me to explore topics such as the Philosophy of Science, Theology, and Alchemy, which I never thought I would be exploring in my writing.
This chapter introduces the theoretical scientific framework that converged around everything that came before it. The resulting theory is a cosmological one, arrived at iteratively through an interplay of insights between MB and me as we explored mineralogy, soil science, and modern biochemistry, guided by depictions in alchemical and scriptural texts and by our understanding of Shimanishi’s experimental work.
Before I go ahead, I need to acknowledge authorship. As with the Geohydrologic Collapse Theory in FVTV, MB is again a co-author and again the senior author. This chapter carries his voice and his insights as much as mine.
Next, I must cite the work of the geochemists, biologists, physicists, and earth system scientists whose work informed ours, in particular Vernadsky, Cairns-Smith, Hazen, Russell, Lane, and Kappler, among others. Without them, our ability to make the connections below would have been impossible.
There are distinct contributing factors that set this theory apart from others. It did not emerge from a single discipline or even a single line of inquiry, and thus could only have been achieved with a tool such as AI. More uniquely, it was also heavily influenced by a number of texts deciphered from antiquity, the contents of which, when integrated with those discovered using modern AI tools, form a coherent system with both bodies of work informing and extending the other.
Multidisciplinary synthesis alone has long been difficult in modern research, as geology, biology, biochemistry, and soil science tend to operate in relative isolation, with limited crosstalk between domains.
A parallel challenge involved bridging the interpretive distance between modern scientific language and ancient technical descriptions. That work required months of careful translation and cross-referencing, ultimately allowing a complete cosmological cycle to come into view.
Orientation for the Reader
Now, to readers who may not come from a scientific background or feel naturally drawn to scientific material, I ask for both patience and attention. Know that this is the only chapter that leans heavily on scientific concepts, but rest assured, what follows does not require technical mastery. It is long, so I have split the chapter into three parts to be posted over three days. I will not bury you with a merciless 10,000+-word post like A Midwestern Doctor (said in both jest and awe of my close colleague).
The science asks only for conceptual engagement. You do not need to retain granular details of how each component operates. What matters is that you grasp the overall sequence and recognize the boundary between modern cosmology, the universe as it is currently framed, and the point at which we believe this work extends that frame.
This chapter has been written and rewritten with unusual care to communicate complex ideas in a way that rewards attention without requiring technical mastery. I trust the reader will find that care reflected in its clarity.
The Closed Mineral Cycle
We did not set out to uncover a unifying theory of Earth's life cycle. Instead, because of our ever-increasing fascination with the unique mineral extract that first drew MB into 20 years of study, with me arriving later but synthesizing rapidly, our collaboration began exploring multiple domains independently, following each observation as it arose.
The coherence we discovered emerged months later, once the texts from antiquity were deciphered and juxtaposed. What our efforts exposed was a closed system: a geochemistry that governs mineral formation and activation, gives rise to biological function, and then returns, intact in its logic, to the rock from which it came. After which the cycle begins anew.
A core concept is that the discrete mineral chemistry that science has identified as present in biotite rock, and has argued to be the origin of life on Earth, also constitutes its first energy system. That same mineral chemistry is then mobilized by water and transferred into living organisms, where it is reorganized to perform work: moving electrons and protons, sustaining gradients, powering metabolism, and enabling structure. At the end of life, that same chemistry then shifts roles. Water is again the agent, but now its main role is to dissolve, transport, and redistribute the same minerals and carbon back into the ground, where the cycle restarts, unchanged in principle only in form.
This is a “recursive process,” a term that bears defining here: “a process that uses its own output as part of its next input.”
