My Theory of Life
To understand the origin of life, it is necessary to know what life is. After all, how can you possibly find something, if you don't know what you're looking for in the first place! While life itself has proven to be a notoriously difficult problem to solve, I have spent the past 20 years developing a promising new theory of life, called the Non-Physical Communication Architecture or NPCA.
What is the NPCA?
To understand life, it is necessary to "think outside the box". As its name suggests, the central concept of the NPCA is communication. Though not in the usual context of material objects in space and time. The NPCA describes communication outside of space, time and matter. Needless to say, I did not discover the NPCA by experiment, rather I derived it using pure logic.
Biological
What has the NPCA got to do with biology? Good question. The short answer is: a lot. At the heart of every living cell is a fundamental communication system which communicates genetic information using the famous genetic code. It consists of three types of molecules: DNA, RNA and protein. But there's more to DNA, RNA and protein than meets the molecular eye: they have exactly the same communication architecture as the NPCA.
My Papers
As of April 2026, I have written two papers (preprints) on the NPCA. The first paper proposes the NPCA as a universal theory of life. The second shows how the NPCA explains the Central Dogma of molecular biology and why there is no reverse translation. I intend to submit both papers to well-established journals very soon. These papers are just the beginning of my research programme exploring the NPCA.
AI Audio/Video
Don't have the time to read and digest my papers, but still want a deeper understanding of the NPCA? No worries. I have produced a variety of highly engaging audios and videos with the help of AI. All you need to do is sit back, relax and listen.
Generated from my preprint Towards a universal theory of life: The Non-Physical Communication Architecture
What Next?
It's a bold to claim to make, but I'm going to make it anyway: I know how to solve the origin of life. I just need the answer to one question. But it is a BIG QUESTION. If life really is the physical embodiment of the NPCA - as my theory predicts - it necessarily follows that the origin of life must be the event whereby matter comes to embody the NPCA. Put another way, there is another mechanism which can cause - and indeed did cause - the NPCA to become an integral part of the material realm. What is this mechanism? I want to know. If you have any clues, get in touch. Let's collaborate!
About Me
I am Philip Rushton, an independent scientist from Liverpool. I have a PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics and a degree in philosophy. I have devoted the past 20 years of my life to developing a new theory of life called the NPCA. Over the coming years, I plan to extend this theory to the origin of life.