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| Atoms, The 'eggs' of Behavior? |
I. About
About a hundred years ago, eugenicist journals reviewed books concerning the notion of how eugenicists should contemplate atoms, in whole or in part, when the subject of consciousness was being related to atoms:
"At this point the theories of philosophical physics are brought into the hypothesis. Matter is composed of electrons and protons, forming atoms and molecules which are themselves separated by the ether and through which, though widely spaced apart, they act upon one another. Protons and electrons are only modifications of the other. Thus matter being itself etherial can act upon the ether; and the cortical nerve endings, being material, set up etheric vibrations which are sent out radially through the ether, without the necessity of any definite paths."
...
"Provided there be a psychic organ capable of picking up these vibrations and responding to them, capable also of emitting etheric vibrations to which the material brain will respond, we have an explanation of the possibility of Interaction. But what is to be the nature of the psychic organ thus postulated? Like the material brain, formed of protons and electrons, the psychic brain will also be formed of derivatives of ether, 'of etherial units of a finer order which may be called psychons. The structured protoplasmatic brain will have its counterpart in a psychoplasmic structure. Moreover, since protons and electrons which constitute protoplasmic structure are widely spaced apart there is no difficulty in the way of a conception of an interpenetrating psychoplasmic structure."
...
"Tomorrow you will scarcely find a man who is up to the greatness of the
new tasks, and I venture to say that the very best of our own time have not discharged themselves any too well of the difficulties they have encountered.
The mass of knowledge which is now required exceeds our capacity for understanding. The time is no longer when everything was explained by the immobile and indivisible atom, by the cell and karyokinesis, transformism, gravity and Euclidian geometry. Science now is bordering on the infinite and the most powerful brain feels feeble in front of the tasks which are
glimpsed."
...
"Darwin's speculative gemmules of the nineteenth century have become the experimentally demonstrated genes of the twentieth century, and the reality of their existence in the cell is now as certain as that of the electrons in the atom. The fundamental importance of the gene in biology is certainly as great as that of the electron in physics and the atom in chemistry."
...
"... the mechanistic view of life - that is the view that what we call life is merely the result of the spatial arrangement of certain atoms and molecules. Here he has the mechanists at his mercy, for as a professor of physics he is pitilessly severe on the bad physics and worse chemistry of the mechanistic biologists. In America the mechanistic view is rampant, in England and Europe generally it is being silently abandoned by the more thoughtful biologists."
...
"The principle is not limited in this treatise to the organic world, but begins with our present theories of matter and force; and Smuts shows clearly how the combination and interaction of a group of electrons forms an atom which, as an entity, has wholly new and wholly different characters from the individual components. Thus the
integration or combination of units gives something new. This is 'Holism.' The theory is carried through a series of inorganic forms to the organic, and reaches finally the evolution of man, and the evolution of society and societies. To the evolution student it provides a most helpful conception, and one would think that to most men this is one which should easily dispel all those confusions of thought which lead to our present-day controversies on the possible reconciliation of evolution beliefs with theistic and spiritual ideas about the universe."
(The Eugenics Review, emphasis added; cf. PDF). So, "wholly new" and "wholly different" electrons and protons were interested in making atoms and then contemplating how they could then change them via an atomic natural selection perhaps?
That is so yesterday?
II. Still About
That is, for some reason, still the case about one hundred years later for some scientists who are not even eugenicists:
"... Roger Penrose and I have developed a theory of consciousness ... It basically proposes quantum computation in brain neuron microtubules inside neurons. So rather than neuron-to-neuron communication, we're looking at a deeper level inside neurons to give a global sense of consciousness through quantum mechanics, which results in real-time causality and free will ... it gives consciousness real-time control and a potential connection to fundamental space-time geometry, quantum space-time geometry, through Roger's objective reduction. This is consistent with Eastern spiritual traditions. Although Roger doesn't like to talk about it, I've taken the liberty of observing the implications of what he said and what we've said for consciousness, for Eastern philosophy and other spiritual traditions ... if quantum consciousness is correct, for example, if Penrose's idea
is correct, we are literally ripples in the fine structure of space-time geometry, which can resonate - levels of consciousness can
resonate from the Planck scale, the bottom level of the Universe, multiple hierarchical levels to the brain. This is consistent with
Eastern philosophy and also indicates that afterlife, reincarnation, and out-of-body experiences that we've heard about are plausible. The quantum soul."
(Small Brains Considered - 7). Thus, biologists are not alone in the struggle behind the hypotheses requiring quanta to be a part of the equation of consciousness and cognition.
The cosmologists have also had a rough time with it:
One of those physicists along with other physicists once had a different view concerning the fundamental underpinnings of a cosmology and physics that courted mysticism:
"...we have a kind of metaphysical belief that there are laws of nature that are outside time and those laws of nature are causing the outcome of the experiment to be what it is. And laws of nature don't change in time. They're outside of time. They act on the system now, they acted on the system in the same way
in the past, they will act the same way in a year or a million or a billion years, and so they'll give the same outcome. So nature will repeat itself and experiments will be repeatable because there are timeless laws of nature.
But that's a really weird idea [for scientists] if you think about it because it involves the kind of mystical and metaphysical notion of something that is not physical, something that is not part of the state of the world, something that is not changeable, acting from outside the system to cause things to happen. And, when I think about it, that is kind of a remnant of religion. It is a remnant of the idea that God is outside the system acting on it."
(If Cosmology Is "Off," How Can Biology Be "On?", 2013, quoting of Dr. Lee Smolin at The Perimeter Institute). But, as we will see further along in this post, this cognitive incursion into modern physics even changed the shape of Einstein's cognition.
(Small Brains Considered - 7). That is probably not well known, even after all of these years.
III. The Movie Featuring
Protons And Electrons
Acting On Atoms
The script from the 1927 book being reviewed in the journal cited above mentioned that since protons and electrons "acted upon" the 'atom' (presumably they meant the nucleus of the atom the protons and electrons were hanging around with), as follows:
"Matter is composed of electrons and protons, forming atoms and molecules which are themselves separated by the ether and through which, though widely spaced apart, they act upon one another. Protons and electrons are only modifications of the other. Thus matter being itself etherial can act upon the ether; and the cortical nerve endings, being material, set up etheric vibrations which are sent out radially through the ether, without the necessity of any definite paths."
(ibid., emphasis added). According to another section quoted above, a professor/physicist of that time had his way with those 'etherial' mechanists/biologists/geneticists/eugenicists:
"Here he has the mechanists at his mercy, for as a professor of physics he is pitilessly severe on the bad physics and worse chemistry of the mechanistic biologists. In America the mechanistic view is rampant, in England and Europe generally it is being silently abandoned by the more thoughtful biologists."
(ibid.). That professor of physics was no doubt aware of the acceleration of gravity that a group of stuff (protons, electrons, atoms) would have on each other.
For example, the effect that gravity and the acceleration it could have on "the ether" would cause a 'getting them together' (that is what the 'mechanists' thought).
But, even if those atoms were extremely close to each other in space, the following table shows that the acceleration of gravity would not change mean old Mr. Time, who was cosmically lazy:
Formulas, Constants, & Variables Used
Formula: g = G * (H atoms mass / r2) (gravitational acceleration)
Constants:
secs_day = (60.0 * 60.0) * 24.0
secs_year = secs_day * 365.25
G = 6.67e-11 (gravitational constant)
Variables:
r = distance (between center) of atoms (m)
| Group A | Group B | Dist (m) | mass per group (kg) | atoms per group | years to contact |
| atoms-1A | atoms-1B | 1e-09 | 1.67e-21 | 1e+06 | 71,124 |
| atoms-2A | atoms-2B | 2e-09 | 3.34e-21 | 2e+06 | 142,245 |
| atoms-3A | atoms-3B | 3e-09 | 5.01e-21 | 3e+06 | 213,365 |
| atoms-4A | atoms-4B | 4e-09 | 6.68e-21 | 4e+06 | 284,486 |
| atoms-5A | atoms-5B | 5e-09 | 8.35e-21 | 5e+06 | 355,606 |
| atoms-6A | atoms-6B | 6e-09 | 1.002e-20 | 6e+06 | 426,726 |
| atoms-7A | atoms-7B | 7e-09 | 1.169e-20 | 7e+06 | 497,847 |
| atoms-8A | atoms-8B | 8e-09 | 1.336e-20 | 8e+06 | 568,967 |
Adding a bunch of them together to make dust doesn't really solve the Mr. Time problem:
| Cloud A | Cloud B | Dist (m) | mass (kg) | years to contact |
| DC-1A | DC-1B | 1 | 1 | 121 |
| DC-2A | DC-2B | 10 | 10 | 1,191 |
| DC-3A | DC-3B | 100 | 100 | 11,881 |
| DC-4A | DC-4B | 1000 | 1000 | 118,775 |
| DC-5A | DC-5B | 10,000 | 10,000 | 1,187,714 |
| DC-6A | DC-6B | 100,000 | 100,000 | 11,877,100 |
| DC-7A | DC-7B | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 118,770,950 |
| DC-8A | DC-8B | 10,000,000 | 10,000,000 | 1,187,709,445 |
When acceleration of gravity is considered when contemplating the concept of the protons, electrons, neutrons becoming builders of atoms, and then atoms becoming builders of molecules, and non-living molecules then becoming the builders of life, a particular episode in that 'movie' has to take place in which a decision must be made.
IV. Closing Comments
During that scene is when scientists come to different conclusions, in whole or in part; i.e. when some of the science being considered is seemingly way more difficult than those during those earlier times.
For example, a scientist considers a difficult issue:
"Trees are "social creatures" that communicate with each other in cooperative ways that hold lessons for humans, too, ecologist Suzanne Simard says.
Simard grew up in Canadian forests as a descendant of loggers before becoming a forestry ecologist. She's now a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia.
Trees are linked to neighboring trees by an underground network of fungi that resembles the neural networks in the brain, she explains. In one study, Simard watched as a Douglas fir that had been injured by insects appeared to send chemical warning signals to a ponderosa pine growing nearby. The pine tree then produced defense enzymes to protect against the insect."
(Trees Talk To Each Other). A critic of her work goes on to say:
"Anthropomorphism is taboo in science because it deceives us more often than it helps. Trees are not people and forests are not human families or even republics. Suggesting that they are can only lead us to imaginary conclusions.
In interviews, Simard has said that she purposely uses anthropomorphism and culturally weighted words like “mother”—even though the trees in question are male as well as female—so that people can relate to trees better, because “if we can relate to it, then we’re going to care about it more.”
Do trees need to have human values and emotions for us to let them live? The science supporting conservation is compelling enough. New discoveries about the underground world are thrilling enough. The public deserves to hear the true story, without the confusion of personification and stretched metaphor."
(The Idea That Trees Talk to Cooperate Is Misleading). Different scientists say that is a step or two too far, disagreeing in some degree with Prof. Simard.
In the final episode concerning "the atoms of consciousness", the question being asked is: "is it better to make up the script (Quantum Biology - 9) or on the other hand, is it better to emulate Dr. Falkowski in the video below?"
In other words, is it better sometimes to just say "we don't know"?
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
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