Human Development X: Explanation of Macroevolution — Top-Down Evolution Materializes Consciousness. The Origin of Metamorphosis

In this paper, we first give a short discussion of the macroevolution viewing life as information-directed, complex, dynamic systems. On this basis, we give our explanation of the origin of life and discuss the top-down evolution of molecules, proteins, and macroevolution. We discuss these subjects according to our new holistic biological paradigm. In view of this, we discuss the macroevolution of the organism, the species, the biosphere, and human society. After this, we discuss the shift in evolution from natural selection to a new proposed process of nature called the metamorphous top-down evolution. We discuss the capability of the evolutionary shift to govern some of the processes that lead to the formation of new species. We discuss the mechanisms we think are behind this proposed shift in evolution and conclude that this event is able to explain the huge biological diversity of nature in combination with evolutionary natural selection. We also discuss this event of nature as an isolated, but integrated, part of the universe. We propose the most important genetic and biochemical process that we think is behind the evolutionary shift as a complicated symbiosis of mechanisms leading to metamorphosis in all biological individuals, from bacteria to humans. The energetic superorbital that manifests the consciousness governs all these processes through quantum chemical activity. This is the key to evolutionary shift through the consciousness, and we propose to call this process adult human metamorphosis

Human Development VI: Supracellular Morphogenesis. The Origin of Biological and Cellular Order

Uninterrupted morphogenesis shows the informational potentials of biological organisms. Experimentally disturbed morphogenesis shows the compensational dynamics of the biological informational system, which is the rich informational redundancy. In this paper, we use these data to describe morphogenesis in terms of the development of supracellular levels of the organism, and we define complex epigenesis and supracellular differentiation. We review the phenomena of regeneration and induction of Hydra and amphibians, and the higher animals informational needs for developing their complex nervous systems. We argue, also building on the NO-GO theorem for ontogenesis as chemistry, that the traditional chemical explanations of high-level informational events in ontogenesis, such as transmutation, regeneration, and induction, are insufficient. We analyze the informational dynamics of three embryonic compensatory reactions to different types of disturbances: (1) transmutations of the imaginal discs of insects, (2) regeneration after removal of embryonic tissue, and (3) embryonic induction, where two tissues that normally are separated experimentally are made to influence each other. We describe morphogenesis as a complex bifurcation, and the resulting morphological levels of the organism as organized in a fractal manner and supported by positional information. We suggest that some kind of real nonchemical phenomenon must be taking form in living organisms as an information-carrying dynamic fractal field, causing morhogenesis and supporting the organisms morphology through time. We argue that only such a phenomenon that provides information-directed self-organization to the organism is able to explain the observed dynamic distribution of biological information through morphogenesis and the organism's ability to rejuvenate and heal

Reproductive biology and genetic structure in fragmented populations of the temperate mangrove Avicennia marina

Land clearance and conversion have resulted in habitat loss and anthropogenic fragmentation (including reduction of stand size and increased isolation), which are some of the greatest threats to plant populations today. It is of immense importance that we uncover the mechanisms behind these threats (i.e. impact on pollen and seed vectors and ecological consequences of this, leading to higher levels of inbreeding and reduced production and quality of fruits), because ignoring them would expose many anthropogenically disturbed plant populations to the risk of extinction. I investigated the impacts of stand size on temperate anthropogenically fragmented populations of the mangrove Avicennia marina in three Sydney and Minnamurra estuaries on the coast of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia, near the southern limits of mangroves, where mangrove populations have suffered from anthropogenic fragmentation, dividing them into stands of varying size, from large stands of 10000 trees or more down to single isolated trees. My study investigated the impacts of stand size (in the present study comparisons were done between large stands of 1500-10000 trees, medium stands of 300-500 frees and small stands of up to ca. 100 trees) on pollination biology, mating systems and reproductive output. It also combined highly replicated surveys of pollinator activity and diversity and reproductive success, experimental tests of pollinator activity and the use of neutral DNA markers to estimate the effects of stand size on genetic diversity and mating systems. Today it is thought that a range of generalized pollinators pollinate mangroves. To test this hypothesis in temperate populations of A. marina flower visiting insects were captured during multiple surveys of flower visitation and it was investigated which species touched the stigma during foraging and which species carried pollen on body parts touching the stigma. Species that did were tested for pollen removal and deposition to establish their identity as pollinators

Human Development XI: The Structure of the Cerebral Cortex. Are There Really Modules in the Brain?

The structure of human consciousness is thought to be closely connected to the structure of cerebral cortex. One of the most appreciated concepts in this regard is the Szanthagothei model of a modular building of neo-cortex. The modules are believed to organize brain activity pretty much like a computer. We looked at examples in the literature and argue that there is no significant evidence that supports Szanthagothei's model. We discuss the use of the limited genetic information, the corticocortical afferents termination and the columns in primary sensory cortex as arguments for the existence of the cortex-module. Further, we discuss the results of experiments with Luminization Microscopy (LM) colouration of myalinized fibres, in which vertical bundles of afferent/efferent fibres that could support the cortex module are identified. We conclude that sensory maps seem not to be an expression for simple specific connectivity, but rather to be functional defined. We also conclude that evidence for the existence of the postulated module or column does not exist in the discussed material. This opens up for an important discussion of the brain as functionally directed by biological information (information-directed self-organisation), and for consciousness being closely linked to the structure of the universe at large. Consciousness is thus not a local phenomena limited to the brain, but a much more global phenomena connected to the wholeness of the world

Human Development XIII: The Connection Between the Structure of the Overtone System and the Tone Language of Music. Some Implications for Our Understanding of the Human Brain

The functioning brain behaves like one highly-structured, coherent, informational field. It can be popularly described as a “coherent ball of energy”, making the idea of a local highly-structured quantum field that carries the consciousness very appealing. If that is so, the structure of the experience of music might be a quite unique window into a hidden quantum reality of the brain, and even of life itself. The structure of music is then a mirror of a much more complex, but similar, structure of the energetic field of the working brain. This paper discusses how the perception of music is organized in the human brain with respect to the known tone scales of major and minor. The patterns used by the brain seem to be similar to the overtones of vibrating matter, giving a positive experience of harmonies in major. However, we also like the minor scale, which can explain brain patterns as fractal-like, giving a symmetric “downward reflection” of the major scale into the minor scale. We analyze the implication of beautiful and ugly tones and harmonies for the model. We conclude that when it comes to simple perception of harmonies, the most simple is the most beautiful and the most complex is the most ugly, but in music, even the most disharmonic harmony can be beautiful, if experienced as a part of a dynamic release of musical tension. This can be taken as a general metaphor of painful, yet meaningful, and developing experiences in human life

Human Development XII: A Theory for the Structure and Function of the Human Brain

The human brain is probably the most complicated single structure in the biological universe. The cerebral cortex that is traditionally connected with consciousness is extremely complex. The brain contains approximately 1,000,000 km of nerve fibers, indicating its enormous complexity and which makes it difficult for scientists to reveal the function of the brain. In this paper, we propose a new model for brain functions, i.e., information-guided self-organization of neural patterns, where information is provided from the abstract wholeness of the biophysical system of an organism (often called the true self, or the "soul"). We present a number of arguments in favor of this model that provide self-conscious control over the thought process or cognition. Our arguments arise from analyzing experimental data from different research fields: histology, anatomy, electroencephalography (EEG), cerebral blood flow, neuropsychology, evolutionary studies, and mathematics. We criticize the popular network theories as the consequence of a simplistic, mechanical interpretation of reality (philosophical materialism) applied to the brain. We demonstrate how viewing brain functions as information-guided self-organization of neural patterns can explain the structure of conscious mentation; we seem to have a dual hierarchical representation in the cerebral cortex: one for sensation-perception and one for will-action. The model explains many of our unique mental abilities to think, memorize, associate, discriminate, and make abstractions. The presented model of the conscious brain also seems to be able to explain the function of the simpler brains, such as those of insects and hydra. KEYWORDS: holistic biology, theoretical biology, clinical holistic medicine, public health, neurobiology, brain, consciousness, mind, soul, true self, perception, will, human development Ventegodt et al.: Human Development 12 TheScientificWorldJOURNAL (2008) 8, 621-642 622 INTRODUCTION In our previous publications The present work is neurophilosophical, not traditional neuroscientific. It is based on many different sources of contemporary thoughts and is, thus, highly interdisciplinary. Our core ideas or axioms are: 1. Everything has a solid particle and an energetic wave aspect, according to the laws of quantum physics. 2. Everything is, thus, an aspect of energy. We live in a quantum world where everything, when it comes down to it, is made up of interfering, nonlocal energy fields of a quantum nature [8]. These fields are structured and can carry information that can be used by the living organisms This paper is our first presentation with interpretations based on these fundamental axioms of the current knowledge of the human brain; thus, we are taking an absolutely opposite viewpoint than normally done in neuroscience, where the nerve cell is seen as the mechanical unit of the brain, under control of genes, hormones, neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, and functional stimuli. Our hope is to be able to understand the nature and structure of consciousness and, especially, the functional relationship between consciousness, mind, and the physical (or cellular) body. Our hope is that such a model may allow us to understand emotions and psychosomatics, and, in the end, existential healing [23,24,26] and salutogenesis (defined by Aaron Antonovsky as healing of physical and mental illnesses through the rehabilitation of "the sense of coherence" The idea that the cell is conscious might seem strange to many people, but that was a conclusion reached by Sir Roger Penrose and other researchers at the SOL meeting at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen 1996[82]. Since this meeting, this has been our understanding of living organisms, i.e., that they always carry consciousness. This means that every cell in our body, to some modest extent, has an independent consciousness and subjectivity. It is this phenomenon that allows cells to develop into cancer cells and cells to be cultivated in the laboratory, also after the death of the multicellular organism. We know that this position will be hard to accept in modern neuroscience; that every nerve cell thinks for itself and makes its own independent decisions, which makes it so much more than just a small "mechanical computer". Sir Roger Penrose published a similar hypothesis in his book Shadows of the Mind DOES A ZYGOTE HAVE A SENSE OF SELF? This leaves us to the natural question, Does a zygote have a sense of self and consciousness? Based on empirical research with people who re-experience their conception, the answer definitely seems to be affirmative, but the objectivity of such studies has been disputed 624 Many scientists believe that the human brain is a kind of independent computer, able to understand almost everything in this universe. However, at the same time, it seems clear that we human beings will never be able to comprehend fully consciousness and the brain itself. This paradox may be a consequence of a narrow, rationalistic, and materialistic interpretation of reality If the interpretation of reality gets more complex and less naïve, this might give us a chance to develop a more transcendent and deeper understanding of the brain and consciousness. The description of life as a complex, dynamic, and information-directed self-organizing system [4] is an example of this point of view, and it can settle the above-mentioned paradox. From this perspective, consciousness is seen as a characteristic of all living things. Because of the relative high degree of outer separateness, selfconsciousness is especially prevalent in the human brain, which has a large degree of autonomy; the abilities of the human mental self (Ego) are complex and advanced. The body is the next fairly independent biological entity, carrying, as Freud noticed correctly, the consciousness of the Id (and the body-mind). Finally, the human wholeness also carries its representation of us called our "spiritual self", "true self", or "soul". This gives man three dominant representations of self: the wholeness-related self (below called the Soul), the brain-related self (below called the Ego), and the body-related self (below called the Id). Then we have the "I", the integrative self, that emerges from an organic synthesis of body, mind, and spirit. This "I" is often in spiritual literature and poetry called the "heart" (compare the lyrics of Madonna: "When your heart is open"). In Freud's work, the superego is synonymous with the soul; Freud often said that everything good in man comes from the superego The interesting question, "Doesn't the self operate through the brain?", leads us to an immediate "of course" and a secondary remorse on deeper reflection that, in the end, brings the realization that our thoughts and behavior might be controlled by our self, but feelings, sexuality, and spirituality are as well controlled by our self, so are we really living in the brain? This is most definitely not our experience, if we must be honest. Emotions are felt in the body and our sexual feelings are definitely felt primarily in our sexual organs, and maybe this is not merely a joke, but a human biological reality that must be respected, as Freud insisted. We know that there seems to be an interpretation of our feelings in the limbic system and without this happening, we could not be mentally aware that we have been emotionally hurt or sexually excited. However, to insist that feelings and being is merely a brain thing is to insist on something that obviously conflicts with our common sense (senses communis). As therapists, we are emotionally oriented people and we really like to place the "I" in our hearts much more than in our brains. This gives a much more human contact and a much richer emotional life. On the other hand, we must agree that mental consciousness obviously is focused in the middle of the brain (in what the Indians have called the "3rd eye" for 7,000 years). We like to use our experience as a basis for understanding, not vice versa, and this is the true reason for making this paper: We need to stop thinking so much, and start to sense and explore our inner self in order to really understand what is going on. We suspect that many neuroscientists often miss the obvious truth because they do not sincerely feel what is happening inside and reflect on it. Basically, this is a question of using subjectivity in research and putting sufficient emphasis on the qualitative aspect of science. In this paper, we want to analyze the implications of this for our understanding of the brain. CONSCIOUSNESS All the cells of the organism carry consciousness. Human consciousness is basically embedded in a quantum field that arises from the combination of all individual cells' consciousnesses [4,5,6,7,8,9, The "I" or "heart" can see the brain from a perspective "outside" the brain, but inside the organism, and the body can see the brain and the brain can see the body -energetically, or if you prefer, by direct transference of information from one "wholeness" to the other. Is the wholeness of the body different from the wholeness of the brain? Does an organism have one wholeness? Does an organism behave as one entity? The unreflected answer is that the organism carries the wholeness and its organs do not. However, after deeper reflection and meditation on ants and corals, and after that on human societies and the way consciousness is manipulated in a society collectively, i.e., by the media, we must admit that the organisms are not that free to think, feel, and act as we would like them to be. After thorough studies on sexuality and human unconsciousness (unintegrated traits of brain-mind and body-mind), we must admit that our organs are pretty powerful actors in their own right. So the picture is much more complicated and, in the end, every level of us has some degree of dependence and freedom. The "I" can use the body's emotional intelligence -the faculty of intelligence connected to the bodycells' collective consciousness field (and, of course, the wisdom of a mature brain's corticolimbic system) -to get a clear picture of the mental processes and the basic machinery that creates its own mind. This is the typical perspective of the Tibetan Buddhists Yogis, reached in deep meditation, but only little acknowledged in the West until recently In a well-integrated organism, the self rules ("I" am in power); from its placement at the top level of the organism, it can strongly impact what is going on at all the lower levels, including in the brain. The model we are going to develop further was originally made by the psychoanalysts to allow us to understand how I-born consciousness (as in "living by heart") can be causal in our life UNDERSTANDING THE COMPLEX PATTERNS OF BRAIN ACTIVITY To understand the various functions of the brain, we need an integrative theory for brain function that accounts for the control of the mental functions on the highest level of the brain. The multidimensional connectivity that follows the extreme con-and divergence in the architecture of the human neocortex, the Ventegodt et al.: Human Development 12 TheScientificWorldJOURNAL (2008) 8, 621-642 626 results of countless EEG measurements, and the measurements of the high and almost constant brain energy usage, indicates that the cortex cerebri is a machine that almost continuously delivers a huge selection of patterns that float into each other It may be assumed that sensory inputs to the brain temporarily can stabilize its chaotic, neural, selforganizing patterns, creating a sensory perception of simple information-directed self-organization. However, this does not explain much -thinking, understanding, perceiving, etc. Therefore, another much more efficient and innate organizing system may exist that makes the brain function as it does. Morphological and evolutionary data One can ask, At what stage of embryological development of an organism, like a bacterium or a human being, is there a communication between the brain and self? We know little about how bacteria process information, but they obviously do, and the close distance between the genes and their global level tells us that there must be an intense inner representation of the bacteria's wholeness. Do we have a self when we are at the single-cell level of development viz. the zygote? Yes, we seemingly do. Do we have self even before conception? No, at least not in our philosophy. Then again, it is wise to remember that half the population of the planet would disagree here. In neuroscience, it is normally believed that a lot of the cortical-subcortical activity is spontaneous, involuntary, automatic, and subconscious. This is often presented as a fact in many standard textbooks of neurobiology, neuroscience, and neurophysiology, but it is worthwhile to remember that we never have seen a brain keeping these "automatic" functions on its own (in vitro), and if we count the consciousness of the self and the body, this might not be the case at all. The interesting thought-experiment to do here is to imagine a person's brain isolated and fed in a jar: Will this brain still be able to think and feel like the person it came from? Will it still function at all? We know, of course, that in vitro-developing neurons still fire, but will this activity be able to create any collective meaning without the informational guidance from the self and the body? The consequence of our thinking is that this is not possible. Unfortunately, we do not know of any experiments that can decide this for us. Contrarily, we know of many experiments that indicate that the functional order of the brain is highly fluent and rapidly reorganized. The cortical representation of all sensory and motor functions in neural maps and their well-known and quite mysterious, momentary reorganization[88] seems to confirm that brain function is controlled from "a level above" because the representations are not fixed in the physical brain -the maps are not hard wired. Studies of blood flow and lesions show a hierarchically ordered structure of representations in cortical networks 627 In Appendix 1, we give a short evaluation of the value of central experimental data for our understanding of the brain, with special attention on the function of the cortex cerebri. We will now discuss how the brain functions according to our holistic understanding. The fundamental structure of the neocortex [11] and will not be repeated here. A THEORY FOR BRAIN FUNCTION What does the brain do? Basically, the brain connects Ego, I, Soul, and Id to the outer world. It carries the organism's rational interpretation of the world and allows it to realize the intentions of self and Id through plans carried out in time and space. The brain creates mental perception, rational understanding, and visual, auditory, somatosensory interpretation of the inner and outer world, and proper rational actions and inner adjustments from the Ego's, Soul's, Id's, and I's intent. One could ask if I, Soul, Ego, and Id are generated from a well-functioning brain, and this could very well be so. The different inner personalities that we label all these names could easily rise from a lessthan-perfect integrity of the brain. So, one cannot judge just by thinking, if there is any rationale behind the more complex model of human reality that we propose; we do it because we respect our "common sense", our direct experience of life; it is this sense that allows us to help our patients in holistic therapy, and provides us with the power of healing. So, we cannot just give it up, and when we take our experience to meet neuroscience, things do not fit. What we feel and experience is simply not compatible with the mechanical interpretation of reality we find in contemporary neurophysiology books; even profound books, like Principles of Neural Science Throughout life, a more and more detailed model of reality is built up, using the fundamental dimensions of space and time. The brain and mind harvest experiences through the presence of sensory qualitative units called "qualia" -like the color red -that is solely produced by the nervous system and the organism itself; a nervous signal cannot, in principle, be read (unless you accept that it can carry a more subtle and finer level of information, i.e., quantum level information). Qualia are combined through time and space into elements that can be perceived and manipulated, giving birth to the phenomenological world. The intensity of qualia is established, and its location in time and space is noticed, and all these neural measurements are integrated into a dynamic perception. Mental elements can be static or dynamic, corresponding to nouns and verbs in language (see Chomsky's famous concept of "deep structures" of language, and Piaget's model of development of human consciousness The mind is, thus, basically nothing but a highly dynamic model of reality constructed in this way, just by combining the elements on higher and higher, more and more abstract levels through experience and memory, and the mental faculty of abstraction and concretization. The model is organized through association and dissociation. Logic and sets are used for giving rational structure. The brain is constantly preparing behavioral and perceptual strategies to meet the intentions of the whole organism (the "I" motivated by "Soul, Id, and Ego" according to psychodynamic theory). The brain interprets all experiences and sensory inputs from the outer world in agreement with the organism's intentions, accumulating concrete strategies for action and for perceptual and intellectual analysis. These Ventegodt et al.: Human Development 12 TheScientificWorldJOURNAL (2008) 8, 621-642 628 strategies are gradually revised as new goals emerge through a changing life. When the resistance is too big -when realizing one's dreams and intentions is too difficult and painful -the goals are replaced, in resignation, with smaller, more obtainable goals. Such events result in the degeneration of intent (life mission [12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,50,51,54, The only interpretation of the brain that is in accordance with all the collected data from all the sources mentioned above is that the brain is a pattern machine that continuously produces concrete and abstract patterns combining into "sensory motor pictures". It seems that this process is guided by the organism's abstract high-level perceptual faculty of finding meaning in chaos and a similarly abstract faculty of intent. It seems that it is the self (the organism's wholeness) that guides the brain in its ability to make plans for achievement and realization of the abstract and concrete goals of the human being. The reality is interpreted in agreement with the intention and is represented for the conscious wholeness, where it is evaluated and processed. This seems to be in accordance with Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), a German philosopher who believed that the will to live is the fundamental reality. INFORMATION-GUIDED SELF-ORGANIZATION OF THE NEURAL PATTERNS We have analyzed the process of morphogenesis and found that it happens through information-directed self-organization of cells and tissue; all cell movements and differentiations are initiated and directed through information-directed self-organization of molecules and organelles [4]. It seems reasonable to suggest that the brain functions in a completely similar way through information-directed selforganization of complex, dynamic, hierarchically organized, neural patterns. The neural connectivity patterns are specified through information-transferring interactions on many levels of the living organism. This means that both the patterns of connectivity and the functional neural patterns of the working brain interact with the information-bearing, complex, dynamic processes of the biological system; please recall that we found this to be a real phenomenon existing in the organism at a quantum level [8]. The functional neural patterns are different from the structural, but when structures and functions are developed in parallel through evolution, it must be that the functional patterns also interact with the informational level of the organism. A fine example of this is the Hydra; in the Hydra, the neural network is constantly updated by the organism. If the body of hydra is reshaped by cutting, the neural information reconstructs it with no hesitation. We can look and make sense of even the most complicated of patterns, such as turbulent water flowing, growing plants and ecosystems, or computer-produced fractals. From this it is clear that our brain has the capability to form extremely complex patterns for perceptual use -much more complex and complicated than those structures that are before our eyes. The brain formats extremely complex patterns. This neural "modeling medium" (or matrix) can be organized either by sensory input or by the consciousness and intention of the organism. Since our senses are always flooded by information, it is obvious that a considerable and continuous selection of the incoming data is happening at all times. The intent of the self determines what is interesting for the being from an existential perspective and, therefore, defines the contents of its perception. Therefore, it is corr

Human development II: We Need an Integrated Theory for Matter, Life and Consciousness to Understand Life and Healing

For almost a decade, we have experimented with supporting the philosophical development of severely ill patients to induce recovery and spontaneous healing. Recently, we have observed a new pattern of extremely rapid, spontaneous healing that apparently can facilitate even the spontaneous remission of cancer and the spontaneous recovery of mental diseases like schizophrenia and borderline schizophrenia. Our working hypothesis is that the accelerated healing is a function of the patients brain-mind and body-mind coming closer together due to the development of what we call “deep” cosmology. To understand and describe what happens at a biological level, we have suggested naming the process adult human metamorphosis, a possibility that is opened by the human genome showing full generic equipment for metamorphosis. To understand the mechanistic details in the complicated interaction between consciousness and biology, we need an adequate theory for biological information. In a series of papers, we propose what we call “holistic biology for holistic medicine”. We suggest that a relatively simple model based on interacting wholenesses instead of isolated parts can shed a new light on a number of difficult issues that we need to explain and understand in biology and medicine in order to understand and use metamorphosis in the holistic medical clinic. We aim to give a holistic theoretical interpretation of biological phenomena at large, morphogenesis, evolution, immune system regulation (self-nonself discrimination), brain function, consciousness, and health in particular. We start at the most fundamental problem: what is biological information at the subcellular, cellular, and supracellular levels if we presume that it is the same phenomenon on all levels (using Occam's razor), and how can this be described scientifically? The problems we address are all connected to the information flow in the functioning, living organism: function of the brain and consciousness, the regulations of the immune system and cell growth, the dynamics of health and disease. We suggest that life utilizes an unseen fine structure of the physical energy of the universe at a subparticular or quantum level to give information-directed self-organization; we give a first sketch of a possible fractal structure of the energy able to both contain and communicate biological information and carry individual and collective consciousness. Finally, thorough our analysis, we put up a model for adult human metamorphosis