9.2.7.
(ii) We have just seen that if one of our two kinds of force selects zero change, the resultant selection is that due to the other force. And earlier we also noted that if both forces make the same selection, then this is the resultant: so that where the two forces make the same selection, only one force - it matters not which - is effectively active. In other words, the resultant period N_R is the same in both cases. Hence, if one force makes no difference to the resultant whether it selects in zero change or a change equal to that of the other force, why should any value intermediate in magnitude between these two extremes make any difference? What this amounts to is that over the range where the two forces duplicate one another, only one force - it matters not which - is effectively active. Which means that when the two forces are acting in the same sense - that is, both selecting decreases or increases of period - the resultant is the numerically greater of the two. In short, what is shared is not summed. In tabular form, when p > m:

and when m > p:

And, for completeness, we may also state in tabular form that when m = p:

9.2.8.
(iii) This leaves only the two cases where N_p and N_m are in oppposite senses from N_x: one - it matters not which - a decrease, and the other an increase, in period. Here, there is no duplication - nothing is shared; so that this time the resultant is a straight algebraic summation:

Some Further Points Concerning Mnemic Causation
9.2.9.
(a) When physical and mnemic force are either zero, or operating in the same sense ((i) and (ii) above), we could have worked with frequencies (speeds, also, since v ∝ f) rather than periods and obtained identical results. But this is not the case in (iii), where mnemic and physical force are opposed. The results will then be different, ultimately because f₁-f₂ ≠ 1/(p₁–p₂). We then have to ask ourselves: Is the Cosmos summing changes in period or changes in frequency or changes in velocity? The answer can only be that since it is summing changes in sequences, these changes must be of period. The number of instant changes (N) in one period is one of the essential substantial attributes defining the sequence. The sequence’s frequency 1/Nt, on the other hand, is a number which exists only through the involvement of an arbitrary unit – the second in our system of measurements. As for velocity – this is not a property of an individual sequence as such, but only of the physical sequence as part of the physical world. Moreover, it has no relevance at all for the mnemically selected sequence. So that, while the velocity is indeed modified (in magnitude, though not in direction), it is not modified by another velocity, as in purely physical causation.

9.2.10.
(b) From general considerations of force, motion, and period, we should expect the great majority of changes of N (ΔN_x) to be in steps of ±1. For this majority the following table applies:

9.2.11.
(c) A small point of nomenclature: When both mnemic and physical causation are selectively acting on a sequence, there can be a number of results, whose nature determines the name we give the resultant. Thus, if both causal modes select the same sequence, then it is clearly, at most, a matter of convenience whether we term this sequence physical or mnemic. Generally, we shall call it mnemic, since, as our primary interest lies in the structure and functioning of the living organism, we shall tend to be viewing all relations between the organism and the physical world from the standpoint of the former. When mnemic and physical causation are acting in the same sense, then, as we have just seen, the greater change only is effectively active. Hence, when this greater change is physical, we call the resultant a physical sequence; and when it is mnemic, a mnemic sequence. Finally, when physical and mnemic causation are acting in opposite senses, the resultant is neither the physical nor the mnemic selection, but a consequence of both. We call this resultant a mnemophysical² sequence.

9.2.12.
(d) A comparatively simple physical entity such as an atom may be moving at any one of a whole range of speeds while remaining essentially the same atom. Yet the periods of all its constituent sequences change with absolute speed (v = c/N). Sympathic association is, of course, grounded on similarity: on some significant structural feature remaining constant throughout all changes. But this feature need not entail any particular period or periods. Far more common and important are relations between periods irrespective of what periods are involved. We may express this type of constancy schematically as a:b = m:n. That is, although a and b differ from m and n, b bears the same relation to a as n does to m. In short, what stays constant are internal relations between varying relata. And sympathic association operates on the ground of these unchanging internal relations. This is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of experience. An everyday example is our perception of a certain sequence of musical intervals as the same tune irrespective of the absolute pitches of its individual notes. We are hearing a sequence of intervals rather than a sequence of notes.

9.2.13.
The fact that sympathic association is a fundamental structural component of the universe implies that, to the degree that they are similar, experiences are experienced as one. How, then, does this affect mnemic causation? We saw above (9.1.4.) that every unified experience involves the constant qualification of its constituents by their predecessors. And a:b = m:n signifies that the qualification of b by a is similar to that of n by m, despite the differences between the elements involved. Consider then, a→b→c→d→e→f in the cosmic present and m→ n→o→p→q→r in the cosmic past, such that the above equality holds for all successive pairs of letters. Now, when, as before (9.2.2.), we consider period e in the primary present, it is obviously being selected in physically. But is it mnemically? One might, at first, think that it should be q in the ongoing present that would be sympathically associated with q in the past. But because it is the unchanging internal, qualificatory relations that constitute the real sympathically associated elements, it is those internal to m→n→o→p which, associating these periods with the similarly internally related a→b→c→d, sympathically select the next period in the ongoing present: which will therefore be, not q, but e. Hence, just as before, e is being doubly selected: which means that when, instead of e, the alien, k, is physically selected, the mnemic situation is also as before.

9.2.14.
In the above discussion of sympathic association grounded, not on relata, but relations, we have confined ourselves to the simplest type, in which the relata are periods of individual sequences. But the same principle holds throughout experience, no matter how complex the relata or relations. Thus, we owe to it the whole, enormously creative, analogical or symbolic dimension of the human psyche. Finally, any common structural feature, sympathically associating a number of individual experiences, we term a concrete universal - "concrete" to distance it from the artificially abstracted universal of academia. A symbol would thus be a major type of concrete universal.

9.2.15.
(e) A final point concerns spatial direction. The only kind of cosmic change that mnemic causation can directly bring about is to increase or decrease the period of a cosmic sequence, and hence, correspondingly, to decrease or increase its absolute speed. The directional changes which will generally occur as a result of such changes of speed are brought about entirely by the action of physical forces. This limitation of mnemic force is by no means as restrictive as one might, at first acquaintance, be led to expect. We must never forget that mnemic causation always originates in past physical causation. Now, the magnitude of the forces, and hence the accelerations between sequences are determined by their distances apart; but the individual distances apart of four or more sequences fixes their relative directions. (Thus, elementary geometry demonstrates that if the lengths of the sides of a triangle are given, then so, by implication, are its angles). And in the kind of recurring physical situation in living organisms where mnemic causation is most implicated, an immensely greater number than four sequences will be present. In any case, as one would expect, living organisms take only those forms that are capable of constructively accommodating the directional consequences of mnemically induced changes of periodicity. To take a simple example: if, in the laboratory, the axon of a detached neuron is electrically stimulated at any point, the nervous impulse travels in both directions. But in the living organism such impulses are almost invariably initiated on the cell body, and so, in general, travel along the axon in one direction only.

Mnemic Causation and the Principle of the Conservation of Energy

9.2.16.
It is a settled dogma of orthodoxy that the principle of the conservation of energy necessarily precludes the existence of non-physical forces, among which, by orthodox conceptions, mnemic causation must rank. But this dogma can find no firm support on either rational or empirical grounds. It is no more than "a hypothesis of impotence" long overdue for refutation. It is not, of course, rationally entailed in the fundamental nature of things, but is a mere analytical consequence of Newton's Laws of Motion. On the assumption that these alone are operative in nature, the principle logically follows. But we are rejecting this assumption: as we have been contending throughout, from the very nature of our physical fundamentals a force from the past is also active in the physical present. Hence, in our conception, the principle of the conservation of energy, as ordinarily understood, does not hold good.

9.2.17.
Empirically, the principle rests on no more substantial grounds. Mnemic causation acts chiefly on chemical bonds. But mechanistic dogma takes for granted that the magnitudes of bond dissociation energies are precisely what they would be were only conventional physical forces at work. But this is no more than a blatant assumption for which there is no evidence whatever. To justify this assumption, the bond dissociation energies empirically obtained would have to equal those calculated from physical first principles - in the current state of physics, by the Schrödinger Equation. But even in calculating the ionisation energies of atoms, some form of approximation has to be employed, because of the cross-terms arising from forces between the ambient negatrons. When we come to even simple inorganic molecules, the vibrations of the nuclei, etc., render the complete wave equation far too complex to solve. Radical simplifications (e.g. the Born-Oppenheimer approximation) have to be introduced - with one eye, it might be added, on the empirically determined value. As for macromolecules, with molecular weights of hundreds of thousands, the very notion of calculating bond dissociation energies from first principles is ludicrous. In most cases these energies cannot even be obtained empirically with any degree of accuracy since they have to be determined in free solution, and it is universally conceded that the values so found must frequently differ significantly from the true values: those obtaining within the complexly structured environment of the living cell. We know, of course, that energy output from an organism is broadly equal to energy intake; but the energies involved in the processes we are considering fall well within the margin of experimental error. A fair analogy would be the energies expended by a driver on pedals and steering wheel compared with those obtained from petrol consumption. In Chapter 10 (p.232) of "The Human Mystery" (The Gifford Lectures, 1977-8; pb. Routledge & Kegan Paul 1984) Sir John Eccles states, "Presumably the self-conscious mind does not act on the cortical modules with some bash operation, but rather with a slight deviation. A very gentle deviation up or down is all that is required. ... It [the self-conscious mind] is simply a deviator, and modifies the modular activity by its very slight influences that poetically we may call cognitive caresses!"

9.2.18.
There are two basic reasons why the energy contribution from mnemic causation should be minute in comparison with the physical energy with which it is associated. Firstly, because it works with, not against, the grain of physical force. Obviously - since mnemic causation is, ultimately, nothing but past physical force operating, via sympathic association, in the present. The constructive processes that produce living organisms are preponderantly endergonic (energy requiring). Energy for these is not provided by mnemic causation, but by coupled exergonic (energy yielding) processes. The role of mnemic causation is not the initiation of processes effectively running counter to physical force, but rather one of subtle guidance of physical force, in favourable situations, towards the realisation of organic order. Secondly, this subtle, regulative role of mnemic causation requires that it sometimes accelerate moving particles and sometimes retard them. Which means that its total energy contribution, as based on the overall algebraic sum of these activities may well be highly misleading as to the real magnitude of its separate positive and negative contributions. It is broadly true to say that, in general, mnemic force, in its role of activating chemical processes at key junctions (9.4.15.), adds energy to the system, because this function tends to be accelerative rather than retardative. But that in its second main role of smoothing out irregularities and keeping all processes as streamlined as possible (9.4.14.), it is retardative rather than accelerative, and so tends to extract energy from the system.

PARAPHYSICAL SEQUENCES

9.3.1.
Our theory of substance has four great ontological consequences which, taken together, utterly distance our conception of the universe from that of materialistic orthodoxy. The first, from which the others follow, is that the universal substance/process is cumulative, so that all past experience is preserved. The second is sympathic association between present experience and past. The third and fourth are both modes of psychical causation arising from sympathic association. The third, with which we have just dealt, we term mnemic causation: the selective modification of the physical present by sympathically associated past experience. The fourth we term paraphysical causation, as giving rise to the emergence of paraphysical sequences. And it is to this last we now turn.

9.3.2.
So far, we have talked of rhythmic unities such as atoms and small molecules emerging within the physical world, and have merely mentioned in passing (9.1.5.) that it is from complexes of these that living organisms arise. In the next chapter we shall attempt to explain how the modification of physical forces by mnemic causation brings this about. But in this chapter we shall confine ourselves principally to some general definitions and observations regarding mnemic causation. And since it is overwhelmingly within the context of living organisms that we shall be considering the effects of mnemic causation, it will be more convenient to define various basic aspects of mnemic causation in organismic terms. Deferring, then, to Chapter 10, all investigation of the effects of mnemic causation within the so-called inanimate world, and how, as a consequence of these effects, the animate world gradually emerges, we proceed without more comment to these basic organismic considerations.

9.3.3.
Mnemic causation is a modification of physical force arising from past experience. That part of past experience which, through sympathic association, can enter into the present experience of the living organism, we call the organism’s psyche; so that all organisms are psychophysical organisms. The experiences that compose the psychic contents fall into three great classes, depending on their source. Firstly, experiences arising directly from past physical stimulation of the organism. Secondly, experiences of physically defunct similar organisms. Thirdly, the experiences of similar living organisms. By the very nature of sympathic association, the great majority of past experiences contributing to any mnemic selection will derive from all three sources. It is clear from this that psyches are far from being mutually exclusive: that individuation is partial rather than total. As we shall see in later chapters, greater individuation arises as an inevitable consequence of greater experiential complexity.

9.3.4.
Since the source of mnemic causation is always some part of the psyche, it follows that all mnemic causation is also psychical causation. But the converse does not hold true, because the psyche can affect the psychophysical organism’s present otherwise than through mnemic causation. It can give rise to sequences that are very much part of the organism’s present experience, but which, though associated with sequences – physical, mnemic, and mnemophysical – that are part of the physical world, are not themselves part of it. These are the paraphysical sequences. They are thus the psyche’s non-physical contribution to the psychophysical organism’s ongoing present. Although the unity of the psychophysical organism is fundamentally physical in that it holds together as a system of physical forces, this is only made possible by the modification of many of the component electrons by mnemic causation issuing from the psyche, and it is as a consequence of mnemic causation that paraphysical sequences arise.

9.3.5.
On every qualification sequence in the psychophysical organism directly involved in neural transmission, two forces are acting:a physical force, and a modifying mnemic force, issuing from the psyche. There are thus two sources of selection, but, as we saw earlier (9.2.4.) only one sequence (the resultant) is selected as part of the physical world. In the case when both sources select the same sequence, no sequence is rejected. But in all other cases, one - or both in the mnemophysical case - of the selections is rejected. What is the fate of these rejected sequences? As individual sequences, they, of course, exist no less than if they were accepted. But the vital question is: do they exist as part of any other association. And if so, what is the ground of their acceptance? In the case of a rejected physical sequence it might be thought that it still forms part of a purely physically selected system. But, in reality, there is no such system, since, by the very nature of the universe, the physical system, naturally and inevitably becomes part of that greater mnemo-physical system to which it has given rise. And since it is a basic attribute of the physical world that at every instant on every physical sequence there is only one physical continuation, a rejected physical sequence plays no further part whatsoever in the physical world. Such a sequence is just a single sequence belonging to nothing other than the universe. But the case of a rejected psychically selected continuation is very different. Such a sequence does not, by definition, belong to the physical world. But this does not alter the fact that it is part of the psyche’s manifestation in the present. Unlike the sequences of the physical world, those of the psychophysical organism qua organism, may bifurcate. The point in question is whether such a non-physical psychically selected sequence is in any way part of the present state of that system we are calling a psychophysical organism. We can see the psychophysical organism's experience as tripartite: a purely physical component, a purely psychical component, and a mnemic (including mnemophysical) component, in which selection both the physical part and the psychical part of the organism are involved. This third class acts as a link or bridge connecting the purely physical and the purely psychical components indirectly. Through its mediation both purely physical and purely psychical belong to the same psychophysical organism.

9.3.6.
Some parts of this psychophysical unity are being physically selected and some rejected, so that the rejected sequences, though no part of the physical present, still exist in some state of unity with the physically accepted. And it is because of this unification with the physically accepted sequences – in effect the mnemic sequences – that some ground of unification between the physically accepted and the physically rejected psychical sequences exists. In general, the greater the proportion of that past unified state, constituted by the psychically selected sequences, that is accepted (that is, are mnemic sequences), the stronger the ground of unification with the present state of the organism possessed by the physically rejected portion of the psychical selection. These psychical sequences which are not subject to physical law are the paraphysical sequences; and this mode of selection into the organism’s present, paraphysical causation. We sum up the relationship between physical, psychical, mnemophysical, mnemic, and paraphysical causation in the accompanying diagram:

 

Paraphysical Sequences and the Evolution of Experience

9.3.7.
It is, then, the mnemic sequences that are the structural core of the psychophysical organism, because it is through them that the organism’s paraphysical sequences are associated with the physical world. It follows that the evolution of experience – in effect, an ever more complexly ordered manifestation of the psyche in the present – is centred on the evolution of a correspondingly more numerous and more elaborately organised core of mnemic sequences; not only because these constitute, in themselves, a fuller manifestation of the psyche in the physical present, but also because they greatly enrich that presence by associatively sustaining an ever greater and more complexly organised number of paraphysical sequences. This dual evolution of experience will form our principal theme in the five following chapters. In the remainder of this chapter we shall content ourselves with considering one or two further points respecting its most general structure.

9.3.8.
Because experience is anatomically and physiologically grounded on the nervous system, the two evolve hand in hand. It is primarily in and through the expansion and elaboration of a mnemically dominated nervous system that experience evolves. But all experiential evolution is forced to conform to a certain stringent criterion; which is that it must further – or, at the very least, not impair – the organism’s survival vis-à-vis its environment. And it is because great biological advantage can and does accrue from the complexification of experience, that a mnemically dominated, paraphysically sustaining, nervous system evolves in the way it does. This development occurs preeminently, as one would expect, in the cerebral region, situated, as this is, between the nervous system’s sensory input and its motor output. This expansion of the brain region serves many functions, all of which we hope to touch on in the next five chapters; but common to them all is the facilitation of experiential evolution. Here, we are concerned only with its elevation of paraphysical sequences to an ever more dominant role in the functioning of the psychosphysical organism.

9.3.9.
As we shall see, the major role played by the paraphysical sequences in the evolution of experience is most intimately concerned with exteroception. But the streams of afferent impulses originating in the environmental stimulation of the exteroceptors are not only the most widely and rapidly varying region of the nervous system: they are also the least directly affected by mnemic causation, since it is obviously in the best interests of the organism that it receives as objective an account of the events in its environment as its nervous system permits. The peculiar biological advantage that paraphysical sequences confer is centred on the sympathic association of past exteroceptions with present exteroceptions very different from them. And this, as I have already suggested, can only be achieved by both being parts of much vaster associations constituting the whole nervous system, the bulk of which at both times is very similar. Hence, in the service of the paraphysical sequences, among other benefits, much of the more central mass of the nervous system is devoted to the maintenance of very steady, repetitive activities. It constitutes as it were a common unchanging core to which all the more changing peripheral activities are attached, and via which they are sympathically linked.

9.3.10.
The reader will doubtless have realised by now that the paraphysical sequences are the core constituents of that part of our experience we know as ideation or, on a more complex level, imagination. And we experience the simultaneous experiencing of very different past and present perceptions as the perpetual conflict between perception and imagination. This awkward and uneasy relationship between major parts of our experiential syntheses would never have evolved were it not for the immense biological advantages it confers upon its possessor. The faintness of images as compared with perceptions does not, of course, arise from any difference in intrinsic constitution, but only as the experiential manifestation of this comparative lack of unity between the two. Since the organism’s present is defined fundamentally by the state of the nervous system of which the perception is part, and since the image is only in the present by virtue of the sympathic association of a past state of the nervous system with this present state, it is the image, not the perception, which is experienced faintly in the present. As we shall describe in some detail in Chapter 14, specialised neural structures later evolve which, while they cannot eliminate this inevitable conflict between percept and image, are at least able to tone it down.

9.3.11.
We end this section with three diverse points. Firstly, more simple organisms, which do not, really by definition, possess a large, stable, coordinating central nervous system, cannot experience faint images of past perceptual situations, since they lack the necessary common centre which only a complex nervous system can provide. They possess mere motor memory arising from sympathic association with innumerable past members of their species. Secondly, we should point out that paraphysical sequences are self-reinforcing, in that by adding, through their very existence, to the similarity – and hence, sympathic association - between past and present states of an organism, they create more propitious conditions for the participation in the present of further paraphysical sequences. Thirdly and finally, although we are deferring to Chapter 11 the whole question of how paraphysical sequences bestow upon their possessor a decisive biological advantage, we make one basic point here. We live in a law-governed universe, which implies a universe where repetition is the rule rather than the exception. In such a world, hindsight is effectively foresight, and it is essentially in this that the biological significance of paraphysical sequences lies.

 

ORGANISMIC FUNDAMENTALS

9.4.1.
So far, then, we have both defined psychical causation and related it precisely to physical. It remains for us to show how, in conjunction with physical causation, it brings about the experiential evolution - vital, mental, and spiritual - referred to above. And in Chapters 10 – 14, in so far as its manifestation on this planet may be taken as representative, we attempt this in some detail. This psychically directed emergence of experience takes the form of an evolution of increasingly complex psychophysical organisms. And something of a more general nature, concerning the basic functional attributes of psychophysical organisms as such, is first called for. When the organism, qua living organism, has been correctly conceived, experiential evolution - given adequate physical conditions - is seen to be no more than an inevitable drift towards greater complexity. It is, then, to a discussion of organismic fundamentals that we devote the remainder of this chapter. We have shown (2.2.4.) that the actual substance of the universe must consist of (i) human experience and (ii) what is in any way connected with it. And, by virtue of this connection, we define the second as experience; so that the universe consists solely of experience as so defined. A number of qualification sequences naturally together are something more than just a number of sequences. They are also that which confers upon them their togetherness: some mode of unity which they collectively embody. This fundamentally holistic attribute of being is the creative ground of the universe. It implies that the constituents of a unity are collectively somethng more than a number of mutually isolated entities. They are those entities in their natural state of relationship – a relationship arising ultimately, of course, from the fact that they are all parts of the process of self-realisation of a single absolute One. Since all being is experience, the constituents of every unity are experienced other than they would be did no such unifying factor exist. Each experience is an instance of unity in diversity. So that even when experienced as a plurality, it is also, on account of the unity of its constituents, experienced as one.

9.4.2.
Now, sympathic association occurs between experiences. These, as we have just noted are unities – wholes which are something over and above the sum of their parts. But mnemic causation is the selective effect in the present of past sympathically associated experiences. And since these are unities, it follows that the general effect of mnemic causation must be to preserve the unity of the organism in which it acts. This is the fundamental reason why living organisms can attain a unity in diversity immeasurably in excess of anything possible to physical forces acting alone. It is worth noting that the unifying effect of mnemic causation is not confined solely to the mnemic sequences. Simply because these sequences are now moving at different speeds, their effects on surrounding physical sequences will now be different.. Hence they exert an indirect effect on the organism. Since survival considerations will determine that this influence tends towards the orderly rather than the disorderly, it follows that the unifying effect of mnemic causation will operate beyond the sequences upon which it acts directly. But the very fact that these purely physical sequences are now part of unified experience means that they too will become directly subject to mnemic causation. So that there is an innate tendency in mnemic causation, subject, of course to physical conditions for its realisation, to expand its field of direct influence within an organism.

9.4.3.
A type of order that a living organism must possess, since its possession is necessary to survival, is what Errol Harris calls 'auturgic':

" I shall call an organization of chemical processes auturgic the interrelations of which are regulated according to an overriding principle of order in such a way as to maintain the system in being as an integral whole despite variations in external conditions".³

But a type of order so phenomenally conceived leaves open the question of the relationship between auturgic unity and the noumenal - which is to say, experiential - unity of the organism. Interdependence of processes does not, in itself, confer experiential unity. Thus, there is no reason to believe that a symbiotic relationship between two organisms makes them a single experiential system. The fundamental tie-up between interdependent processes and experiential unity is, of course, provided by coordinated motion, implying, as this does, coordinated sequential periods. Not only is coordinated - which is to say, regular - motion the ground of all experiential unity, but in the maintenance of auturgic order, it plays the chief part. This distinction between auturgic and experiential unity should not be lost sight of; more particularly because mnemic causation, the unifying ground of psychophysical organisms, is active only among the components of experiential unities.

9.4.4.
The experience of psychophysical organisms is, of course, really grounded upon coordination of sequential periods. But because absolute sequence speed equals c/N, where c is 'the speed of light', and N the number of instant simples in one period, it follows that coordination of period implies coordination of absolute speed. Mnemic causation, in changing period, is therefore changing speed, but not velocity, because It has no directional effect. By this I do not mean that mnemic causation introduces an arbitrary element into the situation, but only that it has no direct effect upon changing the direction of the sequence. It merely speeds up or slows down the sequence in the direction in which it is already moving. Such precise changes of speed in definite directions will change the physical forces between them - and hence their speeds and directions - in precise ways. So that while mnemic causation exerts no direct change in direction, its ability to change the individual speeds of a group of sequences means that it is capable of indirectly exerting – via physical force - precise directional changes in all the members of a system of sequences subject to its control, and upon which physical forces from outside the group have no significant effect. So that while, in theory, coordination of speed is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for coordination of motion, in favourable conditions it is effectively both. In short, in living organisms, coordination of speed implies coordination of velocity.

9.4.5.
Although coordinated motion is not one of the unifying attributes of the physical world as such, it is, of course, rooted in them. As we saw in the previous chapter (8.5.1-15;6.1-2.), the constancies and regularities of the so-called quantum realm - broadly, that of sub-atomic particles, atoms, and small molecules - result from the establishment of a dynamic equilibrium between the alternating attractions and repulsions brought about by close range forces. Since this results in stable - or, at least, semi-stable - unities based on coordinated velocities, mnemic causation must be active here. With its strict adherence to regular motion, it must act as an additional stabilising factor. But the kinds of unified experience embodied in this quantum realm are not those which essentially define living organisms: though they do, by forming a quasi-continuum of largely repetitive activity, provide the sole foundation for them. It is in the form of series of ordered disruptions of this underlying comparatively monotonous activity that the basic unities of living organisms essentially consist. All atoms consist of a closely knit nucleus of negatrons and positrons surrounded by spaced-out, oscillating ambient negatrons. And molecules are compounds of these atoms, held together by covalent and other, less powerful, bonds formed principally between their outermost negatrons. And when two bonding atoms are themselves constituents of two different molecules, such bonds are also intermolecular. The disruptions referred to consist of the making and breaking, or, subsidiarily, the stretching, compressing, reorienting, rotating or otherwise deforming of these interatomic and intermolecuar bonds. They are what we call chemical changes. So that the processes among cosmic sequences which essentially define living organisms are recurring, regular, interlinked series of chemical changes - more especially those occurring on the great molecular chains we know as macromolecules.

9.4.6.
In principle, at least, this kind of series of orderly changes would seem to possess limitless potentiality for complexification. Underlying it are nearly a hundred types of atom, differing basically only in the magnitude of the positive charge on their nucleus and the number of ambient negatrons necessary to neutralise this charge, with the great majority of individual atoms belonging to one of the simpler types. In general, atoms evince a marked tendency to bond covalently, thereby forming those innumerable types of compound we call small molecules. And, given favourable physical conditions, a number of these types, compounded principally of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen atoms, evince the further tendency to bond covalently, in virtually limitless sequential arrangements, to form those long chains we term macromolecules. Given, then, sub-atomic particles, atoms, small molecules, and macromolecules as the basic units of change, and given also that their changes - overwhelmingly, interchanges - take the basic form of the making or breaking of sub-atomic, atomic, or molecular bonds, then the patterns of change are, in principle, infinite. Thus, they can be linear or cyclic, and by converging and diverging, combine to form ordered networks of virtually limitless variety and hierarchical complexity. Of course, in actuality, all such networks of chemical processes – preeminently, the metabolic or reaction pathways of the single cell, and the neuronal impulses of a nervous system (See 9.4.20. and 9.4.21.) - will be part of some living organism which will itself have originated and function within environmental conditions imposing certain radical constraints on its particular structures functions and activities; that is, any such organism has, first and foremost, to be an auturgic success. But, as organic evolution on Earth bears lavish witness, the potentiality for variety and complexity of organismic order is still immense.

9.4.7.
Complexification of process - and hence enrichment of experience - obviously implies increasing duration. And we find such increase univerally exemplified in living organisms. Thus, Ludwig von Bertalanffy states that:

"What are called structures are slow processes of long duration, functions are quick processes of short duration. If we say that a function such as the contraction of a muscle is performed by a structure, it means that a quick and short process wave is superimposed on a long-lasting and slow running wave."⁴

And, on the following page, he goes on to quote the anatomist A. Benninghof, who says, in respect of living organisms, that:

" ... travelling down through the various levels, the forms are resolved one after another into processes whose speed increases with decreasing size of system".

And the time available to organismic processes is amply sufficient to accommodate a hierarchy of activities of many orders of durational magnitude. Thus, since the Earth's absolute velocity is around c/1000, even at Absolute Zero, when all relative motion between earthly atoms ceases, the period of all qualification sequences on Earth will be about 1000 instants - something of the order of 10²⁰ periods s^-1. To form some conception of the magnitude of this number, let us remind ourselves that the 4·55 billion years of the Earth's existence amounts to about 1·44 x 10¹⁷ seconds. In other words, there are nearly 740 times more of the above periods in one second than there are seconds in the age of the Earth! This conveys some idea of the possibilities for structural complexification available to living organisms. This is vividly demonstrated by the extreme functional complexity of ‘the unit of life’, the single cell, which packs a vast range of complexly coordinated activities into a volume of at most 10^-6cm³.

9.4.8.
We said above that organisms (at least, in their physical manifestation) can be thought of as networks of chemical processes: the making, breaking, or otherwise changing of the bonds between their constituent atoms, molecules, and macromolecules. And although these constituents and their spatial relations form a necessary ground for the chemical processes, it is these latter which really create the defining character of the physical organism. And, for at least three reasons, these superimposed activities are constantly changing. Firstly, as the organism is in constant contact with an ever-changing environment, its immediate responses must inevitably be different for different stimuli if they are to be auturgically valid. Secondly, all organisms go through a life cycle of birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death, when their basic metabolism as well as their auturgic responses to their environment may be quite different. Thirdly, as organisms evolve experientially, they need increasingly, even at the same stage of their life cycle, to respond in different ways to the same environment. So that the organism's existence is necessarily one of continually passing from one to another of a wide variety of states; and it is mnemic causation, in its action upon physical force, which maintains this ever changing experiential and auturgic system in the face of a potentially destructive environment.

9.4.9.
To sum up, mnemic causation is the basic action of the sympathically associated past - the psyche - upon the physical present. I say basic, since the other manifestation of the past in the present - the paraphysical sequences – requires a firm mnemic foundation. Organismic synthesis is psychophysical synthesis: fundamentally, a synthesis of the present with the past. It is this significant bringing to bear of the past upon the present, achieved by mnemic causation that constitutes the essence of living organisms. The response made by the organism to environmental impact is basically that of mnemically regulating the physical present, so as to subserve its own wellbeing, in the light of past experience. How, in general terms, does it achieve this?

9.4.10.
As we noted above (9.4.2.), the particular mnemically directed change of period on any sequence is determined by the nature of the unified group of sequences to which that sequence belongs. Without such experiential unity there would be no compresence (6.3.3.) of succeeding periods with preceding, with the result that no mnemic force would act. Now, we are postulating that the unities experientially composing living organisms are, at bottom, particular successions of predominantly macromolecular chemical changes. Further, that, at the very least, the key steps in such successions are effectively contributed by mnemic causation. Now, in a network of processes, the key steps will be those which occur at the nodes or junctions, where the chemical changes might proceed along one or more of a number of divergent pathways. And, as we saw above, a unity required to respond auturgically to the dictates of a varied and changeable environment will need to be able rapidly to select one process rather than another. And the attribute of mnemic causation which makes it quintessentially systemic is that it acts only within unities comprising coordinated motions, which, at this ontological level, are chains of chemical changes. But, at any time, only a fraction of these chains will be effectively active - just as, in general, only some of the instruments of an orchestra will be playing simultaneously. Now, the converging and diverging network of processes comprising a living organism will inevitably contain numerous instances of segments common to a number of activity pathways. And which path (or paths) is taken by the activity at locations where chemical pathways sharing such segments once more diverge will depend upon the nature of the mnemic causation at that location: and this will depend upon which particular chemical pathway (or pathways) is currently active. Such pathways will generally be multibranched, so that the direction taken at a fork along one branch will, through the mnemic causation attaching to experiential unities, be precisely coordinated with the direction taken at another fork along some other. Figures 1, 2 and 3 should help to clarify all this. Figure 2 is merely a representation of a practical instance of essentially the same process depicted abstractly in Figure 1.

 

F_A= foot on accelerator
F_B = foot on brake
B = brain

 

FIGURE 2

If J₀→J₁→ J₂ then J₀→J₁'→ J₂'→ ; but if J₀→ J₁→J₃ then J₀→ J₁'→J₃': given that the instant at which the activity proceeds from J₁ is simultaneous with, or immediately prior to, the instant at which the activity proceeds from J₁'.

 

9.4.11.
The mnemic response of macromolecules at specific locations within the organism will therefore be governed by the nature of the unified activities of which, at that time, they are part. And in a healthy organism these unified activities are coordinated to form an auturgically directed synthesis: a collective response to an environmental stimulus in the light of past responses.

9.4.12.
A helpful analogy is to conceive the sequences (particles) of the organism in their mutual spatial relations as comprising a road system, and the superimposed chains of chemical activity as the traffic passing at any time along these roads. Certain kinds of traffic will tend to be confined to certain routes, the road taken by a vehicle at any of the numerous junctions being determined by the particular route, and not at all, under normal conditions, by any constraints imposed by the junction. Traffic bound for different destinations will often share roads for part of their journey; and the volume of traffic in the road system at any time will vary according as individual vehicles are stimulated to set out on or to terminate their journey.

9.4.13.
But how does such perfect adjustment of mnemic causation to the needs of the organism come about? To answer this question adequately we must first return to the basic relations holding between mnemic and physical causation. All mnemic causation arises ultimately from past physical causation. Any purely physical process consisting of regular coordinated motion unifies its constituent sequences. As a unity it will certainly exert mnemic force on its future, sympathically associated, instances: but if the regularity of the process is maintained by physical causation, this mnemic force, since it is doing no more than duplicate physical force, will have no effect. Clearly, then, if mnemic causation is to play a significant cosmic role, it must somehow part company with present physical force. On the other hand, if, in the present instance, physical force diverges widely from past instances, there will be no sympathic association, and hence no mnemic causation. No less clearly, then, divergence of present physical force from past - and hence from mnemic causation - must proceed in the short term by small steps, and in the longer, by gentle stages.

9.4.14.
In fact, divergence of mnemic causation from physical is systemically utilised in two basic ways: one, simple and short term, the other, complex and long term. The first is easily dealt with. Under ideal conditions - that is, where no extraneous influences are present - physical forces alone are able to achieve the ordered chain of chemical processes. But conditions are seldom ideal. In which case, when, under the influence of extraneous forces, the process begins to deviate from its ideal, purely intrinsic, path, the mnemic force present at every step of such a path will immediately act - with varying degree of success - to bring the process back on track. Although obviously essential, since, without it, all systems would quickly break up under the cumulative effect of incessant small disturbances, mnemic causation in this form is serving only to preserve systemic order rather than create it.

9.4.15.
It is in its second mode of divergence from physical causation that mnemic causation (aided, of course, by the constant action of the first), creates systemic order. We saw earlier (9.2.5-8.) that, when physical and mnemic force diverge, the greater acceleration, whether of increase or decrease of speed, overrides the lesser. One would expect, therefore, that it is when physical force diminishes with respect to past instances that circumstances most favourable to the domination of mnemic force arise. Let us now imagine that at some step in an orderly chemical process, physical force diminishes to the extent that, if it alone were acting, the process would come to a halt. In reality, this will not happen because mnemic causation is present to supply the requisite force. Three consequences follow from this. Firstly, no matter how many times this situation recurs, mnemic causation will continue to supply the same force. Secondly, this will also be the case no matter how much the physically induced acceleration – positive or negative - at this location further declines towards zero. Thirdly, in theory this can occur at any number of steps in a chemical chain. In reality, a minority of steps is the norm; since it is usually only in the initiatory and terminal stages of the chemical process that present physical conditions tend to diverge significantly from past.

9.4.16.
This substitution of mnemic force for physical, more especially at the junctions - points of convergence and divergence - of a process network, exerts an immense systemic effect, since, as we have already discussed, mnemic causation at any location will be active or inactive according as the processive step it takes belongs or does not belong to the present system of activity (As depicted in Tables1-5, sections 9.2.6-8.). It is, then, via diminution of physical force within organisms, particularly at process junctions, that mnemic force acquires systemic domination. One would expect physical forces, in general, to diminish within the sheltered environment afforded by the organism's macromolecular framework. Moreover, any novelty appearing within an organism will enter into reciprocal causal relations with the existing state of affairs. Such relations will prove either favourable or unfavourable. If the latter, the organism will perish; but the former implies that the existing, mnemically dominated, system has subdued the intrusion to its own purposes - that the novelty has been systemically accommodated.

9.4.17.
To sum up at this point, the four fundamental attributes respecting mnemic causation to bear in mind are: firstly, that it is present at every step of every organismic activity; secondly, that a necessary, though not sufficient condition for it to be effective, is that it must differ from the physical force acting during any such step; thirdly, its nature is essentially one of past (ultimately physical) activity overriding present physical activity in the organism's best auturgic interests; fourthly, that its present action at any particular organismic location, depends on the whole system of activity defining the organism's present state.

9.4.18.
We have talked above of "systemic novelty". But what constitutes novelty here? The sole principle that governs sympathic association - and hence mnemic causation - is similarity. And whether this similarity occurs between states of the same organism or between states of different organisms is irrelevant. Once organismic life on a new planet reaches the stage of reproduction via genetic replication, similarity between different organisms attains to near-identity. Organisms inhabit the same environment as their genetic forebears, go through the same life cycle, and closely resemble them both physiologically and anatomically. Hence, at all stages of their lives, organisms are mnemically directed by the experience of past similar organisms - in effect, members of the same species.

9.4.19.
But even before the evolutionary stage of replicative reproduction is attained, mnemic causation arising from the past experience of other organisms - or perhaps we should say proto-organisms - is still highly influential. To assert that the simpler the organism the greater the degree of similarity between it and other organisms of the same level of complexity, is little more than a truism. So that, although not arising from direct descendants in the genetic sense, there will still be innumerable instances of mnemic causation born of sympathic association with similar states of past organisms. As for the initial stages of biological evolution on a newly formed planet - those involving 'pre-biotic' organic molecules, proto-macromolecules etc. - mnemic causation may still be operative via sympathic association with similar stages under similar conditions on older planets. Of course, this does not mean that life is dependent for its very existence upon such interplanetary sympathy; any more than it is not impossible to blaze another trail through the jungle – it is just easier and less time-consuming to follow in others' footsteps.

9.4.20.
Our central theme in the chapters that follow is the evolution of experience. And this means that, in so synoptic a work as this, the type of organismic system to which we need, almost exclusively, to devote our attention is the nervous system. It is, of course, true that in multicellular organisms nervous signals are not the only means of systemic integration; a vital part is played by the release of hormones. But the action of these is much slower, far less precisely structured, and far less specific in its effects than nervous action; and in any case, it is normally the latter that initiates hormonal release.

9.4.21.
Apart from nervous systems we need concentrate only on the single cell. Whereas, in the former, the chains of chemical events are predominantly nervous impulses; in the latter, they are reaction pathways. But since, ultimately, all multicellular organisms have originated as symbiotic colonies of single cells, one would naturally expect there to be features common to both types of organisation. Doubly so in view of the fact that the operational units of nervous systems - the neurons - are only single cells which have become, in the course of evolution, specially modified in the interests of rapid, plastic, varied, and precise intercommunication. So that, as one might expect, all their special features are to some degree present in a typical cell. The cellular features which neurons especially exploit are: firstly, the difference in electrical potential between the intracellular and the extracellular fluid; secondly, the regulated passage of ions across the cell membrane; thirdly, changes in membrane structure due to the impingement of extracellular molecules; fourthly, shape - in the form of elongation and arborisation.

9.4.22.
But there is an even more profound structural feature common to the two systems: a feature in which all the above are ultimately rooted. I refer to the nature of the macromolecules whose changes virtually compose both sets of processes. Just as all the steps in the reaction pathways of cells are effected by proteins (those we call enzymes), so too are the neural impulses initiated, steered, and terminated through changes in proteins: those we call membrane proteins, which control, both directly and indirectly (via release of neurotransmitters), the flow of ions across the neuronal membrane.

9.4.23.
It would not be too much to claim that all the processes of living organisms centrally involve proteins. The cell's genetic material (DNA) codes only for proteins; so that the phenotype as unfolded genotype is effectively determined solely by the places and times at which particular proteins arise by genetic translation. Moreover, in the very processes of genetic replication and protein translation, the nucleic acids play a comparatively passive role, the more active role being taken by proteins. As for other kinds of macromolecule (carbohydrates, lipids, fats, etc.): these are all synthesised by proteins out of the small molecules ingested by the cell – with ingestion itself a process regulated by the proteins of the cellular membrane.

9.4.24.
What, then, are the attributes of proteins which make them the ideal substantial basis for living processes? The short answer is threefold: they lend themselves perfectly to replicative reproduction, they are inexhaustibly adaptable, and they are immensely amenable to mnemic causation.

9.4.25.
All proteins are chains composed of hundreds or thousands of links, where each link is one of some twenty amino acid residues. (Here we should perhaps interpolate that a) there are many more amino acids than are used in proteins; b) shorter chains of amino acids, known as oligopeptides, are also formed in large numbers). And it this being built-up out of only a few types of simple basic unit that ultimately allows of great numbers of proteins being preserved through the generations in simply encoded form. Every protein consists of a carbon and nitrogen backbone to which side chains - one for each residue - are attached. Apart from the rigid peptide bond by which the amino acid residues are joined - the backbone's every third bond - every other bond in the backbone, as well as many in the side chains, is able, at least, to rotate. In addition, any number of bonds can form between the various side chains. When we also take into account that the number of theoretically possible proteins is virtually limitless (20⁵⁰⁰ ≅ 10⁶⁵⁰, for a chain of 500 residues), it is clear that proteins are capable of assuming a limitless variety both of bonding patterns, and of what such patterns determine - shapes. Hence their great adaptability.

9.4.26.
But what, basically, makes them so amenable to mnemic causation, and hence to systemic exploitation, is their extreme conformational flexibility. Depending on situation and function, many proteins can not only take any of a variety of shapes, but may convert from shape to shape by more than one chemical route. So that, given the basis of twenty amino acids able to form chains by means of peptide bonding, this limitless variety of form and function is due both to the variety of bonds within and between the residues, and to the even greater variety of dynamic patterns created by the making, breaking, and otherwise alteration of these bonds.

9.4.27.
In the cell, reaction intermediates are passed from enzyme to enzyme, each of which performs a single synthetic or degradatory step. These enzymes are very precisely positioned relatively to one another. As one would expect, mnemic causation is more than usually active at the commencement of the activity of the next enzyme in line, since it is principally at such junctures that alternative metabolic pathways present themselves. And somewhat similarly in the nervous system. Thus, as one might infer, in the nervous impulses's passage down the axon, mnemic causation performs little more than its routine role of ironing out minor deviations from regularity. It is at the key locations of convergence and divergence of paths - at the pre-synaptic membranes of axon terminals, and the post-synaptic membranes of the dendrites and cell body (above all, its trigger zone) - that neuronal structures have evolved specifically to give full play to the expression of the psyche via mnemic causation.

9.4.28.
On all sections of the neuronal membrane - axon, dendrites, cell body - the key determiners as to whether or not a nervous signal is generated are the channel proteins. The depolarisation of the neuronal membrane (the action potential) consists essentially of a flow of charged particles - sodium, potassium, calcium, or chloride ions being the most usual - across the cell membrane via membrane channels. But the opening and closing of these channels to the flow of ions, and hence the occurrence or non-occurrence of a nervous impulse, are controlled ultimately by the changes of state of the proteins forming them. It is these which determine to what degree the channels are open or closed. These changes in the channel protein may be either purely conformational, or else may also require the attachment (or detachment) - by, of course, an enzyme - of some small molecular complex.

9.4.29.
Along the axons the membrane channels are voltage gated: they are opened simply by differences in electrical potential between inside and outside. But at the key locations of pre-synaptic membranes of the axon terminals, and the post-synaptic membranes of the dendrites and soma (cell body), the membrane channels are chemically gated, their resident proteins part of a much more elaborate chain of chemical activities. Initially, a nervous impulse passing down the axon of a neuron stimulates the channel proteins of the terminal membrane to open the channels to the inflow of calcium ions. These trigger the flow of numerous vesicles, each containing around 10000 small molecules of neurotransmitter, to the pre-synaptic membrane. These vesicles, in turn, stimulate other channel proteins to open membrane channels, via which they discharge their contents into the synaptic space. The particles of neurotransmitter thus released diffuse rapidly across this space to be individually captured by receptor proteins on the post-synaptic membrane. Each of these either doubles for a channel protein, or else is directly or indirectly (via a further protein) - connected with one. The induced changes in the receptor protein cause this channel protein to change conformationally, so allowing the passage of ions across the post-synaptic membrane. These may have either a depolarising (excitatory) effect, or a hyperpolarising (inhibitory) effect. On the typical post-synaptic neuron, this can happen at any number of tens of thousands of locations in the soma and dendrites, which, all told, can receive neurotransmitter from thousands of pre-synaptic neurons. Whether the neuron finally fires depends on the effect of both the spatial and temporal summation of all this excitatory and inhibitory activity on the channel proteins of the neuron's trigger zone (the region where the axon leaves the soma).

9.4.30.
Before we postulate where mnemic causation enters into all this, there is one matter which we should make clear. Ultimately, all ordered change resolves into coordination of sequence frequency. And, in this ontological theory, the frequency of a qualification sequence is directly proportional to its absolute velocity. As the neuron fires, a wave of movement passes down the axon, of which the most obvious component is the chain of to and fro motions across the axon membrane of numerous ions. But the ordered changes in motion which we have been envisaging as the staple of complex experience are the motions of electrons in chemical changes. And in a nervous impulse these are outstandingly occurring in the channel proteins. In short, from our noumenal, or experiential, standpoint, the successive transverse back and forth motion of ions across the membrane, serves principally to ensure an associated regular succession of chemical changes of the channel proteins. It is these successions that provide the coordinated frequency changes. And this would apply, mutatis mutandis, to all regular changes involving the neuronal membrane. I refer particularly to regular waxing and waning and shifts of potential on the soma and dendrites; all of which must be regulated by changes of conformation of the channel proteins.

9.4.31.
What, then, in broad terms, is the role of mnemic causation in nervous activity? We postulate that the most significant mnemic actions in the nervous system are those which initiate structural - more particularly, conformational - changes in the chemically gated channel proteins, whether pre- or post-synaptic, and whether controlling the flow of ions or of neurotransmitter. Further, that as a general rule, physical forces alone are not strong enough to initiate significant action in these channel proteins. The additional force supplied by mnemic causation is required to activate them, and thereby increase or decrease, as the case may be, the rate of neuronal firing: effectively regulating the organism's nervous system. These neural junctions, we are claiming, are ‘genetically programmmed’ to be structured thus; so that mnemic causation is thus genetically built into their functioning. Their action requires mnemic causation, and this is forthcoming or not forthcoming according to the present state of the whole psychophysical system - the ultimate source of mnemic causation. We must not forget that the normal state of the nervous system is an active one, in which a signal consists of a significant increase or decrease from a norm of neuronal firing. For example, in the case of muscle activation a certain rate of firing defines a level below which nothing of significance will occur.

9.4.32.
Although this mnemic activation of channel proteins is the principal modus operandi of the nervous system it is not the only one. Subsidiarily, there are such activities as phosphorylation of channel proteins, so as to raise or lower the neuron's general firing threshold; or the growth of dendritic spines to increase the number of synapses, and hence the amount of neurotransmitter received. Such developments arise with use to facilitate or - less often, and in the former case only - to impede the flow of nervous activity in certain physiological processes; with disuse they tend to disappear. Such general regulation fulfills an essentially adaptive role.

Absolute and Relative Velocity
9.4.33.
Current phenomenal physics rejects the concept of absolute velocity. But in the noumenal physics we are advancing all velocities are absolute. Further, the period of N successive simples of a qualification sequence (electron) is always inversely proportional to this absolute velocity (v). So that v = c/N, where c is a universal constant, known to phenomenal physics as the speed of light. This basic discrepancy implies that two configurations of particles which orthodoxy would regard as intrinsically identical, will, in our conception, be structurally different if they are moving with different absolute velocities. One would naturally expect this to have significant implications, more especially in living organisms, where mnemic causation, arising from similarity between past and present experience, is their very essence. But consider any ubiquitous biochemical structural feature, say the phospho-diester bond. Orthodoxy would claim that, apart from negligible differences, every such bond is the same as every other. Whereas we are saying that, according to the alignment of the bond with the direction of the absolute velocity of the Earth, the velocities - and hence the periods - of the electronic components of the bond will differ from instance to instance, though never so greatly as to render the formation or continuance of such a bond impossible. Then it is obvious that there must have existed myriads of past instances of the bond in every possible absolute orientation, so that mnemic causation will be unaffected. And much the same could be said for processes consisting of a series of changes to such bonds. Yet considerations of symmetry may well make for preferred orientations. We mentioned such a possibility in our last chapter (8.6.2. and Note 21). But if such preferred orientations do exist, why have we no empirical evidence to this effect? There are two obvious answers. Firstly, because they are too small or otherwise elusive to be detected in the present state of our instrumentation. And here we must bear in mind that, ex hypothesi, our measuring instruments may be thus affected no less than the objects they are measuring. Secondly, they have been detected, but have been assigned to other causes; a supposition all more probable given our current obsession with false, mechanistic theories.

 

NOTES
1. Errol E. Harris, The Foundations of Metaphysics in Science, (George Allen and Unwin, 1965, p.464.).
2. Not to be confused with mnemo-physical (See 9.2.4-5).
3. Errol E. Harris, ibid. (p.p. 180-1).
4. Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Problems of Life, (Harper Collins, 1952, p.13

Chapter 10

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Theory of the Universe