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A Shaman Daughter

Sixteenth Thought

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

[nothing personal here, my transition………]

Chinese biophysics

“Current Development of Biophysics – the stage from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan”

by Changlin Zhang, Fritz-Albert Popp, Marco Bischof

Hangzhou University Press

1996

executive editor, Liu Yiqun

Chinese copyright conventions

ISBN 7-81035-903-7

First edition, September 1996

Duty editor in Hangzhou University Press, Mr. Wenhao Zhang

I called this title in through Bisbee’s library and it came in today from the library of congress itself.  It might be really hard to get permission to quote!
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“A deep study of coherence in the living system reveals an outline of the beautiful swan – the real biophysics, that is, the unique branch of physics instead of pure application of physics to biology.”  Zhang, p 5

“…in quantum physics, coherent state is a state with the lowest vacuum fluctuation and the best communication with the lowest cost of energy.  What is more, the uncertainty principle works in large macro scale inside coherent length and time instead of micro one, and the velocity of signal can be faster than light.  In biological system, coherent state means each unit keeps its independence and has all the possibility of cooperations with others at the same time.  It reveals very interesting harmony and holistic phenomena in living systems.”  Zhang, 5

Now, if I look at this metaphorically re attachment and “coherent life story”?

“Of course, there are still many problems open and waiting for further research.  For instance, what is the special structure of coherent state?  What is [sic] the special laws (or postulations) inside coherent state?  How to establish coherent state in living systems and how to destroy coherent state?  Or is there any conservation law for coherence?”  Zhang, 5

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This is cool…

“It is ridiculous that no biologists knows what life is though almost nobody denies its existence.

“For a long time, biologists made great endeavors to look for it through the way of reductionism, that is, from anatomy, histology, cytology to molecule biology, which is the bottom of reductionism.  However, nothing, which could be called as life, be found in this way, in spite of the great achievements in medicine and agriculture as side-products of the study of life.

“Perhaps, we worked in a completely wrong way to understand life.  For instance, today, not only scientists but ordinary people know the existence of energy.  Energy is well formulated in physics with the conservation law.  But on the other side, energy has no difference from life, spirit, even ghost, because nobody ever sees it except the conservation law.  Perhaps, there would be a conservation law of life.  It would be the central law of real biophysics if we could find it.”  Zhang 6

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“Of course, we are in the primitive stage of understanding of consciousness [sic], we do not even know the definition of consciousness.  However, only when we are brave enough to face the problem of consciousness and make serious research in it, would we have the possibility to understand life and to push biology, psychology and physics forward.”  Zhang, 7

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“…four basic interactions in physics.  The gravity interaction, electromagnetic interaction, strong interaction and weak interaction.”  Zhang 7

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article/chapter    p 10-21

“Some Remarks on the History of Biophysics and Its Future” by Marco Bischof

(Paper delivered at the 1^st Hombroich Symposium on Biophysics, October 3.6, 1995)

“…the holistic functions of organisms, such as selfregulation [sic] in growth and healing, morphogenesis etc.”  Bishof, 18

“…millions of electrons in the DNA double helix molecule….”  Bischof, p 18

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Chapter

“Coherence in Physics and Biology”

by Ke-Hsueh Li

pp 41-91

“The surprisingly essential feature of a biological process seems to be that, in spite of the vast numbers of molecules involved, it is ordered in time and space.  The molecules taking part in the process are cooperatively following lawful behavior of matter and collectively displaying new features which are missing from those of individual molecules.  This new collective ordering of the structure of living matter must avoid the decay into the disordered region of the equilibrium state.”  Li, pl 42

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here Li is quoting

E. Schrodinger, “What is Life?” Cambridge University Press, 1995

“According to the second law of thermodynamics “every process, event, happening call it what you will; in a word, everything that is going on in Nature means an increase of entropy of the part of the world where it is going on.  Thus a living organism continually increases its entropy – or, as you may say, produces positive entropy – and thus tends to approach the dangerous state of maximum entropy, which is death.  It can only keep aloof from it, i.e. alive, by continually drawing from its environment negative entropy”.” Does not give a page

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“…all fundamental and elementary processes in organisms proceed on microscopic, i.e. atomic and molecular levels….”  Li p53

also mentions “The average kinetic energy of each degree of freedom of a molecular motion is….[and gives numbers” li 53—note degree of freedom, also used in relation to choices a person can make psychologically, etc.]

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chapter

“Recognition from dense body to electromagnetic body – the nearest future of biology and medicine”

by Changlin Zhang pp 92 –101

“We are acquainted with the solid and dense body, which consists of solid bones, muscles, several organs linked together by blood vessels, nervous fibers, and so on, which in turn is composed of cells, which are made of proteins, DNA, RNA, enzymes, co-enzymes, and numerous small molecules and ions.”  Zhang, P 92

I skip a paragraph, then

“However, apart from the dense body there is at least an electromagnetic body which plays the same important role as, or even a more important role than the dense one.  It is a big unknown kingdom in our bodies, and it has, moreover, now moved within the reach of modern science from the realm of mystical experience, scientific fiction or pure speculation.  The electromagnetic body is much more complicated than the dense one.  Suppose we had the ability to see the electromagnetic body, we would see a completely different (p 92) picture.  We would see the seven bright “chakras” (energy vortices according to the teachings of Yoga) and many small charkas with different colors in it.  We would see dozens of acupuncture meridians, hundreds of acupuncture points, and numerous micro-acupuncture meridians and points which weave into not only an intricate network but also a continuous interference pattern with the characteristics of holography.  Around the body there is an “aura”, in whose existence people have been believing in many religions and fairy tales and which is now in the detectable range of modern technology and has become a new area of serious scientific research.”  93

“The electromagnetic body is not only very complicated but also extremely dynamic.  Unlike the dense body in which the bones, organs, vessels, and fibers have fixed positions, definite volumes and distinct boundaries, the “organs” such as charkas, and the “vessels” such as acupuncture meridians, of the electromagnetic body have only some kind of relatively stable position without distinct boundaries and definite volumes.  They are in permanent change.  They are permanently flashing with continuous change of colors, like the ocean under a fierce storm.  If we had more ability to see the electromagnetic field, we would see a tremendously complicated communication process performed at an extremely fast speed by means of electromagnetic waves and photons inside the cell, between cells and between bodies, apart from the better known communication through nerve biers, hormones and other molecules.  Like wireless communication and the television system, the communication by electromagnetic fields carries much more information and has much wider channels than that through insulated nerve bivers and through the slow interaction between the surfaces of molecules.  The communication within the electromagnetic body, therefore, has a more profound and subtle influence on our bodies and health.”  Zhang, 93

“The electromagnetic body is not only permanently flashing, with color (frequency) changes, but also with the change of shape, even with the change of location, in different pathological, physiological and psychological states.  Therefore, the picture and concept of electromagnetic body is completely different from that of dense body….”  Zhang, 95

“The more we cut a body or a cell into pieces, the more we damage the electromagnetic body.  When we approach the bottom of the so-called molecular level of biology by the conventional way of research, we may have completely destroyed the refined structure of the electromagnetic body.”  Zhang 95

“….electromagnetic waves travel so fast, a million times faster than the movement of molecules and nervous pulses.  In such a case, the so-called “ergodic phenomenon” occurs.  (95)  Because electromagnetic waves travel so fast that they can cross the body numerous times and collect all information from all parts of the body, no event in the organism, practically, can be isolated from the rest of the body when we study the electromagnetic body.  Therefore, it is almost impossible to study it in the analytic way which was once so successful and has played such an important role in the history of development of science.  However, because of the inertia of our thinking, it is not only hard to enter a new field, but also painful to give up the conventional way of separation, isolation, even analysis, in order to look for a completely new framework and related methods to study the new area of science and medicine.”  Zhang, 96

“Relatively, it is much simpler to work in a reductionism way in order to go into more and more detail of a stable structure than to work in a holistic way to handle a dynamic structure.”  Zhang, 97

“It is, of course, very painful to change from a familiar research area of solid objects with a visible and reliable picture into an unknown area of untouchable objects with an invisible and doubtful picture which is unperceivable and created only in our imagination.  We are already used to the image-created picture of atoms and subatoms, even the horrible black hole in physics, for a long time, however, we are still not used to imaging the invisible part of our bodies.”  Zhang, 97

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

“…the structure of acupuncture does not exist in the dense body.  But in view of the existence of an electromagnetic body, we ma quite simply suppose that the acupuncture system is the main part of an interference pattern formed by superposition of invisible electromagnetic standing waves.  In this point of view, many puzzle [sic] problems like the shape, size and stability of acupuncture points and meridians, the relationship between organs and acupoints, the relationship between anatomic structure and distribution of meridians and acupoints, the effect of needling without remedy, the transmission of signal along meridian and its speed, the phenomena of bioholgraph and statistical self-similarity of values of conductivity measurement and so on, would be much easy [sic] to understand.”  Zhang, 98

“In traditional Chinese medicine, emotion is regarded as the main cause of a majority of diseases; whereas, in classical western school-medicine, the human body has been considered as a complicated machine and the medical doctor has been regarded as a sophisticated expert to repair it if it is out of order.  There is obviously no (98) emotion in this picture….The problem is that the dense body has only a very limited and indirect connection to psychological states.  However, the state of the electromagnetic body, in particular the communication through the electromagnetic field, has quite a close connection to psychological states and emotion.  The electromagnetic body is much more sensitive to emotion and environmental influence than is the dense body, so that it would change long before any substantial pathological change of the dense body would take place.  Therefore, the evaluation of the state of the electromagnetic body is very important in health care and medical insurance, in order to keep people away from hospital [sic], instead of repairing it in hospital after some change has already happened in the dense body.”  Zhang, 99

“Now, we have to venture into the new world of the electromagnetic body and regulation medicine in order to help people improve “life quality” and prevent people from so called “modern diseases” by means of self-regulation methods such as physical exercise, meditation and many others.”  Zhang, 99

“Of course, we discriminate here between the electromagnetic body and the dense body only for the sake of giving a simple and clear picture for description.  As a matter of fact, there is no separation between the two bodies at all.  They are interconnected and in- (99) teract [sic] permanently.”  Zhang, 100

“At this point, it would be interesting to recall the theory of the seven levels of body in Indian philosophy.  The physical body or dense body, which has been well studied by anatomy, cytology and molecular biology, may be only the first one of seven bodies.  The electromagnetic body, which has been so far neglected by biological science and allopathic medicine and may well be the main thrust of biological science and regulation medicine in future [sic], may only constitute the second level in such a range of seven bodies.  Of course, it is, at this moment, too difficult to say definitely whether there are any other bodies or not beyond the dense body and the electromagnetic body before we have clear scientific evidence.  However, compared to the long history of human being [sic], the 300-year-old science is only a baby.  We have grown up from the understanding of the world of dense matter to the world of fields.  We are now going to grow up from the understanding of the dense body and of allopathic medicine to that of the electromagnetic body and regulation medicine, which is the task of our generation.  Will we grow up further beyond this?  We are sure we will.”  Zhang, 100

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chapter

“Ultraweak luminescence as a source of information on biological systems”

by Barbara W. Chwirot

pp 112-125

“It is now commonly accepted that all living organisms do emit a very week luminescence in a wide spectral range.”  Chwirot, 112

“…in spite of a large body of new results and observations the research on the ultraweak luminescence is still (112) a subject of controversies regarding the biological significance of the phenomenon as such and the significance of the experimental data.”  Chwirot, 113

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Electromagnetic standing waves as background of acupuncture system:

Changlin Zhang

Pp 188-202

“We may use ordinary language to describe the three kinds of states of a system.  A chaotic state is a state like a group f children in kindergarten, each child acting independently from one another without co-operation or a commander, whereas a [sic] ordered state is a co-operation like a team of soldiers who are marching in step, all soldiers acting together like one person under an order from a commander.  However, the coherent state is neither so ordered as these soldiers, nor so disordered as these children, but a state like a group of actors and actresses in a ballet.  In a ballet, each actor or actress acts in a different and independent way, but there is some co-operation between them resulting in a unified, dynamic, diverse and har- (199) monic picture.  The organs and all physiological functions are working in just such a way as long as a person is healthy enough.  The lung, the stomach, the liver, the intestine etc. [sic] are working in completely different ways with diverse frequencies.  However, there must be some co-operation, co-ordination and communication [like choreography!] between them.  Obviously, an ideal physiological state is a state allowing at the same time all possibilities of independence, as well as co-operation and co-ordination.”  Zhang, 200

“This is a development of concepts of “order” and “disorder” which were widely discussed in the last two decades.  A living system is neither in a “chaotic state”, or in an “ordered state”, but in a “coherent state”.  This is why very life [sic] looks like a beautiful ballet.”  Zhang, 200

“Of course, there must be some communication system for such a co-operation and co-ordination.  It is well known that there are three kinds of communication systems in a body.  The first is based on the interaction between molecules; a definite molecule acting on a definite receptor is like a postal communication system working on definite addresses.  The second one is through nerve fibres like telephone communication through insulated cables.  The third is working by means of elctro-magnetic waves like wireless communication which is becoming more and more popular nowadays.  However, our knowledge about biocommunication is mainly limited to the first and the second systems, which have been well studied in the last four decades.  The wireless communication in our bodies is almost unknown to us, and is a new area of research in biology and medicine.  Obviously, there is still a long way to go before we know the details of the content in biocommunication through electromagnetic waves and the way of coding in this communication system.”  Zhang, 200

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“Application of the theory of biological field by A. Gurwitsch to the problem of consciousness.”

Michael Lipkind

Unit of Molecular Virology, Kimron Veterinary Institute, Beit Dagan, Israel

pp 223-251

“…the primary question is ”What is Life?” and the question “What is Consciousness?” becomes the secondary one.”  Lipkind, 227

Embryogenesis of Consciousness

“The statement of this problem is based on the following considerations.  There is an immanent (continuous) connection between the psychic and somatic spheres and the former develops in parallel to the embryonic development of the soma.  This thesis sounds quite “innocent” unless it is sharpened just by its simple logical extension which now takes a form of an audacious postulate:  psychic elements are present at any stage of the embryo development.  However, an important reservation is made about what kind of the “elements” is meant.  It is clear that the “psychic elements” of the developing embryo are thought to be rather rudimentary and evolve (or develop by jumps?) along with the embryo development.  If, in general, the psychic sphere is a totality of current transient feelings, continuously changing, mixed and motley in their content and only partly depending on the environments, all these fleeting feelings originate and proceed on a certain background (also slowly developing) which can be designated as our “I”.  Gurwitsch’s postulate about somato-psychic immanent connection concerns only this background.  Accordingly, Gurwitsch considers as inscrutable the idea that this “background” originates at a certain stage of the embryogenesis “out of nothing” having no equivalent or rudimentary source.  Then, the way of the analysis is to form a concept about this source by going reverse and imagining a gradual involution of the psychic (243) sphere up to any conceivable rudimentary state.  However, such an idea in itself could seem rather utopian since the notion of the “rudimentary” means preservation of the main analogies between the “feeling” as a fully developed psychic phenomenon of adult organism and its embryonic “rudiment”.  In order to preserve the analogies between the feeling per se and its rudiment during this involution (to escape any “jumps” or “gaps”), one must resort to comparison made by means of estimations such as “more – less” and “simple – more complicated”.  Then, the main task is to find such kinds of feelings as psychic phenomena which permit such estimations.  Lipkind, 244

“Gurwitsch assumes that a positive answer to this question is possible if such a psychic phenomenon as “knowledge” is concerned.  Indeed, knowledge is that basis of the psychic sphere which develops, grows on and gets complicated.  However, it would be logical and consequent to continue such conceivable analysis of psychic involution further including intrauterine life.  Moreover, strictly speaking, it is impossible at all to stop this mental operation, i.e. to indicate any final point of the retrospective analysis which would be the “point of the origin of the psyche”.  Lipkind, 244”

“Gurwitsch uses the concept of “knowledge” in a limited sense identifying it, essentially, with the notion of “feeling” and avoiding the usage of the notion of “consciousness” as more equivocal and uncertain.  However, the notion of knowledge can be considered as an important (perhaps, the most general or basic) attribute of the notion of consciousness.  Then, according to such a concept of “knowledge”, the latter means knowledge about one’s mind momentary state and its changes and this notion of knowledge is very close to the state of perception and feeling.  In fact, the above consideration of CONSCIOUSNESS as KNOWLEDGE is very close to the notion of consciousness introduced for the first time by John Locke (1690) and defined as “the perception of what passes in man’s own mind” which essentially can be paraphrized [sic] as “getting current knowledge of what passes in man’s own mind”.”  Lipkind, 244

“…definition of the rudimentary psychics at any stage of the embryogenesis:  The rudimentary psychical feeling of an embryo is limited to the knowledge of the momentary state of his integral actual field.”  Lipkind, 245

“…Gurwitsch suggests the following definition of the “action”:  If a certain observed (amongst others) manifestation is possible to appear as the last event of different chains of events this manifestation is a result of “action”.  Thus, the essence of the problem is associated with the “act of choice” of one of the possible ways (chains of events) among a number of them, i.e. the other ways are also possible.  Such a definition of the notion of “action” Gurwitsch applies to the processes of embryogenesis emphasizing that it is not evident a priori that the embryogenetic processes can be designated as “actions.”  Lipkind, 245

“…it would be unnatural to think that embryos display “actions” only when they undergo gross experimental interference:  if the actions of the embryos are manifested under extraordinary circumstances it must be concluded that in “normal” conditions they also react by actions to all the current inevitable fluctuations of all the parameters of the development.”  Lipkind, 245

“In accordance with this, the final concept of the embryonic (245) rudimentary psychics is defined as follows: [caps are author’s]  THE EMBRYO “KNOWS” THE “STATE” AND THE “CHANGES” OF HIS INTEGRAL, ACTUAL FIELD AND “ACTS” IN ORDER TO SMOOTH THE TENSION ARISING FROM THE “CHANGES”.”  Lipkind, 246

“…the problem of the embryonal psychics is just a mental creation aiming to relate the facts of the embyonal regulations to the sphere of psychical phenomena.”  Lipkind, 246

“…insofar as the embryonic “acts”…originate as a result of the embro “choice”, it must be a certain “factor of choice” which, essentially, is that designated by Gurwitsch as related to “feelings”.”  Lipkind, 246

“The Gurwitsch’s field theory gives an adequate description of the “break of continuity” between somatic and psychic spheres, which inevitably appears in conventional (neuronal network theory) consideration.  More correctly, there is no break of continuity in the Gurwitschian field description of the somato-psychic process starting in receptor area and ending in subjective experience.  Logically, the continuity between the two spheres can be preserved if at least one parameter is common to both spheres.  The concept of integral actual field is such common parameter (Rosette Stone) “bridging” both the spheres.  That is unpredendental [sic] practical attempt to overcome brainmind dualism.”  Lipkind, 249

Lipkind is writing about Furwitsch’s field theory which includes memory

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“Evolution as the expansion of coherent states”

by F.A. Popp

pp 252-264

“…as the RNA-dependent protein synthesis became significant, a new kind of dynamic interaction between the molecules came into play.  This induced “hypercycles”, e.g. the development of self-organized associates.  In a certain way the role of chance is now partially taken over by natural laws, based on the binding forces between atomic and molecular units.”  Popp, 253

“…any kind of interaction can be divided into a repulsive and an attractive one.  The first one may be assigned to “competition” and the second one to “cooperation”.”  Popp 253

“The term “Selforganization”, [sic] modern, but not new in evolutionary science, implies that evolution originates from free, unpredictable (253) decisions of the “self”, and also from the organizing power of natural laws, in terms of the “Yin-Yang” – principle of the elementary “deterministic chaos” of the world.”  Popp, 254

“…our consciousness is subject to evolutionary development….”  Popp, 254

“In other words, by avoiding the question or an aim of evolution, we cut off the development of our own mind, spirit, phantasy and last, but not least, of our intellectual power.”  Popp 254

“The deterministic part of the f = constant-rule describes the development of the basis of information-platform, and the “free” part its contents.  This theory essentially claims that the guide-line of evolution is the expansion of coherent states with increasing spatio-temporal extension, while the “modulations” of this special kind of expansion remain unpredictable.  Providing that we can assign an aim to this process, it would be the one which retains the capacity for asking the question about the aim of evolution.  In scientific terms, it means that the balance of actual and potential information (254) is the only guide-line of evolution.  This balance determines the direction of time.”  Popp, 255

“As an open system always relates to an environment, the most important influence on evolutionary development at a molecular level is the temperature gradient between sun and earth.  The sun’s rays provide the elementary food for living systems, as is evident from photosynthesis.”  Popp, 256

“The development state of a system is defined by the longest (260) wavelengths which are incorporated into the communication basis.  At the same time they are a measure of the spatio-temporal extension of its informational level.”  Popp, 261

“We have to conclude that Darwin’s interpretation together with all its modifications cannot truthfully describe the evolutionary development, because even after the best fit of the models a teleology is still disputed.  In contrast to that, we hypothesize an optimization principle that cannot be traced back to a “survival of the fittest”.  The actual origin of it is the expansion of a spatio-temporal basis of communication with well-defined optimum properties.”  Popp, 262

“Living systems are then neither mere subjects, nor objects, but subjects and objects at the same time.”  Popp, 262

“In contrast to the neo-Darwinistic point of view, their capacity of evolutionary development does not originally depend on their rivalry and power in the fight for existence.  Rather, it depends mainly on their capacity of communication.  They can be looked upon as expanding antennae systems, as, for instance, has been postulated by P.S. Callahan for many years.”  Popp, 262

[P.S. Callahan

Nonlinear infrared coherent radiation as an energy coupling mechanism in living systems, in Molecular and biological physics of living systems, ed. R.K. Mishra (Kluwer Academic Pulishers, Dordrecht, 1990) pp. 239-273]

“The entity of all living systems (which can be considered as a more or less fully interlinked unity), rather that [sic] the individuals, is always developing.”  Popp. 262

“One may ask about the advantages of such a process.  From the point of view of natural sciences the satisfaction of elementary curiosity can be discovered.  It displays the property of insatiability.  Of course, the more questions are answered, the more new questions can be asked.  By conquering the world of “actual information” the other world of potential information – that is, the world of possibilities – is expanded.  This is a permanently progressing process, which at the same time autocatalytically [sic] amplifies the capacity to look forward to the future as well as to remember the past by increasing the power of memory.”  Popp, 262

“By this process one becomes more aware of the present, simple [sic] by squeezing it in between future and past.  According to the uncertainty relation, such a process is unlimited.  This uncertainty is the essence of individuality, “freedom” and consciousness.  We cannot exclude that the Planck constant itself is a subjective quantity, pos- (262) sibly based on the limited structure of ore [sic] DNA.  However, in that case again we had reason to reconsider the subjectivity of our view of the world.” Popp, 263

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*Age 57 – Dec. 2007 – July 2008 – (A Shaman Daughter Pages)

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