FRONTIER SCIENCE/SOCIAL CHANGE

by Paul Von Ward

"Paul's Book Review: Life and Mind"

LIFE and MIND: In Search of the Physical Basis. Savely Savva (Ed). London: Trafford Publishing, 2006.

Despite mind-blowing technological strides in unraveling and producing images of the insides of living organisms -- from single cells to human bodies -- how they come into being, survive, and reproduce still eludes science. Savely Savva and fourteen other scientists probe what is inside the insides of all organic structures -- and even some we consider inorganic -- in this collection of "paradigm-busting" studies.

Have you ever stopped to wonder which laws of nature produce a living, conscious organism made up of originally inert matter? What sort of process can make life out of non-life? That you have never heard of a totally unique, single life form points toward an answer. Living forms always come as members of a group or species, each kind distinctively shaped by a set of abstract principles known as a "biological control system."

Most of today's biologists, biochemists, neuroscientists, and other life-sciences specialists assume the inert-matter-to-life process is limited to chemical and electrical interactions. But, to describe a process begs the question of how that process "pulled itself together" out of chaos. It does not explain why such a universal process works and how it maintains life, and even adapts through changing external and internal conditions.

Savva and his colleagues are attempting to learn how unseen patterns can account for increasingly complex combinations of living matter?even the human mind. They deal in the concepts of matter-shaping, but nonmaterial structures that parallel and inform the nature of the physical universe. The implicit holy grail of their research into the foundation of fundamentals is to understand how simple matter orders itself to produce a level of consciousness that takes the initiative to study itself.

At this preliminary juncture, they have concluded that each living entity has at least two forms. One is the visible and touchable, physical organism. The other is an energy field (likely not electromagnetic) with patterns that control four stages in the life of each member of every species [page 7]. This bioenergetic field shapes the processes of development, maintenance, reproduction, and death. Reproduction (with various methods of gestation and birth) cannot occur independently of a pre-existing, generic species-biofield.

(While Savely and his scientific colleagues shy away from addressing the question of an original source for the so-called species biofields, the descriptions they give can be related to the more simplistic terms of Egyptian and other metaphysical models of multilayered life forms. In this way science seems to sometimes reinforce intuitively developed information.)

The authors generally agree with one of their colleagues (Beloussov) that a phenomenon with the characteristics of the biofield model is necessary to explain the ontogenesis (life cycle) of organisms. One (Drochioiu) states it this way: "biostructures" can be formed from "nonliving prebiotic systems" only because of established rules for living systems.

Other authors of various chapters in the book ask where such rules of biological control patterns might be stored. [p.12] Some options being tested include biological nuclear reactions, thermophysical processes, consciousness, universal plenum vacuum (Puthoff and Sotina), and the quantum level of psychoenergetics (Tiller). Evidence is offered to support the call for further research in each area.

Regardless of scientific discipline, all the authors agree that "the problem of stability in any living system is one of the greatest mysteries of nature." Given the entropic nature of the universe in general -- a process of degradation or running down, or a trend to disorder -- life is an "anti-entropic process." [p. 63] They, in their respective fields of research, seek an understanding of why life maintains order among chaotic physical conditions, where, regardless of missing elements or changing conditions, the process goes on.

One study (Burlakova) focuses on the power of low doses of elements to have the same impact as full doses on plants and animals. (Note. This concept was made famous two decades ago by evidence that a homeopathic drug still had an effect when diluted in water to the point where no physical presence remained.) Another (Kiang) studies the role of bioenergy (subtle energies like chi or prana) as a possible medium for the BAS. What has been called a level of primary perception or biocommunication (Backster) is also offered as a possible medium.

While different terminology is evident among the various contributor's to Savva's book, a general consensus emerges that all living systems and pre-life molecular organisms are embedded in parallel with or as "continuations" of a conterminous force field of a non-physical and non-molecular character. This points to the next revolution called for in physics. The revolution wrought in thinking and science by quantum theory must be built upon and complemented by a pattern theory that includes bioinformation fields that shadow quanta of energy in whatever form they assume.

Fortunately, some physicists are already moving in that direction. The rest of us can feel comfortable in our attempts to validate information from extradimensional sources. We know that scientists will closely follow and help us to discern the difference between private, anthropomorphic projections and what is certain enough for public implementation.

For these reasons, I recommend reading books like Life and Mind. They show us a middle path between being trapped in the dogma of science and wishfully changing our view of reality based on untested assertions by any would-be guru. Only with a balance between the extremes of blind skepticism and irrational credulity can lasting progress be made in the evolution of human consciousness and behavior.

Copyright 2008
Paul Von Ward
All Rights Reserved