All of reality can be ordered levels of reality, and there can be
an
infinite number of such levels. These are in a dynamic plenum, flowing from and through each other,
and generating an explicate order, which is the reality currently addressed by science. And this
would include quantum mechanics. This view of existence was developed by the theoretical physicist, David Bohm
(e.g., Bohm, 1980). In 1967, he took part in a
symposium, organized by the developmental biologist, C. H. Waddington, in which, Bohm presented, in part, this theoretical view, based on his own
investigations into quantum mechanics. In those investigations, Bohm strove to demonstrate an
underlying level of order to quantum phenomena, manifesting as an underlying and hidden determinism
or deterministic potential of implicate orders, which unfold into an explicate order. Quantum
mechanics, manifests randomness and discontinuity because it is especially incomplete at this micro
level of the explicate order. Statistics is applied in order to provide a less incomplete
view of quantum behavior. In doing so, it does not address or overlooks specificity. Grasping such
complementing specificity would enable a less incomplete view in research. Continuity exists throughout the
ordered implicate levels. Such levels are themselves ordered in hierarchies.
In this symposium, Bohm addressed biological issues
in the context of a reality of orders, which are enabled by a unifying, implicit continuity. He postulated that mutation in organisms and
within evolution are not random but follow an inner ordering as reflected and enfolded dynamically through the orders of
reality. Such an inner ordering of mutation would be a necessary component of evolution, he
proposed. As Bohm states in this regard:
One observation that could be relevant
would be to trace a series of successive mutations to see if the order of changes is completely
random....There may be a tendency to establish a series of similar changes [mutations] or
differences that would constitute an internally ordered process of evolution... in which mutations
[in a transitional species] tend to be fairly rapid and strongly directed in some order... If
such deviation from randomness could be found, this could have very far-reaching consequences. For
it would imply that when a given type of change [or mutation] has taken place, there is is an
appreciable tendency in later generations for a series of similar changes to take place. Thus,
evolution would tend to get 'committed' to certain general lines of development. Of course, survival
in the total natural environment would ultimately decide which lines could be sustained.
Nevertheless, an entirely different principle of internal order would determine both the nature of
these 'lines' and how they would tend to vary and transform into other 'lines' (Bohm, 1969).
In 1967, it was postulated by the author that evolution has occurred through the
controlled, directed mutation of genes. This control was due to genetic mutators, which
enhanced the degrees of mutagenesis and the timing of such, giving such mutagenesis developmental
features and providing evolution with an inner, non-random parameter (Lieber, 1967).
Subsequent, published research by the author gave repeated support to the view that mutation has
developmental features, such as spatial-temporal control at various genomic levels of organization.
And thereby, such inner, developmental control at different levels would have provided evolution with an
inner-order of non-randomness (Lieber, 1972, 1975, 1976, 1989, 1996, 1998b,
1998c, 2000, 2001 2011, 2016, and 2019.) This gives a strong credibility, from the stand point of the biological scale or order of reality, to Bohm's theoretical position.
Temporal control or temporality appears to be a significant feature of biological
phenomena at various scales, as C.H. Waddington points out in reviewing the commonalities of the
articles presented in the 1967 symposium. This suggested a way to present or unify a theoretical
biology (Waddington, 1969). Such temporality is clearly evident in the genetic control of mutation,
which generates a ordered, programmed mutagenesis.
As pointed out by the author, the genetic control of mutation in response, adaptively, to
environmental stresses may provide a unifying insight into all biological processes, suggesting a
unifying principle of ultimate order and coherence in the universe (Lieber,
1998a, 1998b, and 2016).
Temporality, its unfolding, would be a feature of such order.
This would be a view similar to that of Bohm's. A
unified, theoretical biology, circumventing a total statistical approach, could arise from such views, which may provide further insights into physics.
A sole statistical approach would be limiting.
Even so, statistics has played a significant role in
biological investigations, especially with regard to studies of mutation. A statistical methodology
was brought to bear on the study of inner-controlled mutation at the karyotypic level in a colonial fungus (Lieber, 1972,
1976). In the
colonial, green fungus, Aspergillus nidulans of a particular constructed strain, programmed mutator phenomena in many
green colonies were
made evident in the groups of colonies. These colonies had two karyotypic mutators that interacted with one
another in such a manner as to produce temporally, controlled mutations, manifested phenotypically as yellow sectors. (For a picture of one such colony, see
Figure 7 on the first
page of this website.) These colonies were studied using statistical methodologies. Many of the
colonies exhibited controlled mutation frequencies very similar to one another. Yet, some
other colonies in the same experimental group had reduced mutation frequencies, and those mutations
were not so ordered. However, such statistics did not
reveal certain information as to what caused some colonies to exhibit a difference in mutation
frequency and pattern from that of the high mutation producers, a few differences being major. In
other words, the statistical
methodologies did not reveal the cause or dynamic for variations in the degrees of such mutator
phenomena between colonies composing each sub-group. The statistics revealed only information for any group of colonies
as a whole regarding the most likely global effects of the mutators. Of course, likely explanations were postulated, many pertaining to
the known genetic instability of one of the mutators itself. However, the statistics did not inform
one of the pattern of such instability, nor its temporal occurrence.
In subsequent studies, colonial mutator strains derived
indirectly from cultures stored for a significant period in cool temperatures displayed lower, less
programmed mutation frequencies when such were grown at culture-growing temperatures. Some, in that
group produced relatively higher frequencies of mutations or mutant sectors than other
colonies in that group. (See an example of one such colony at the end of this article.) Again,
statistics did not provide insights for such differences in mutation frequencies. Also, though of
the same strain, the colony
pictured below differed from the colony in Figure 7 in mutation frequency and in the pattern of such
mutations, as noted by observing the mutant yellow sectors produced by the respective colonies.
Why would this be the situation? The statistics applied to this
specific situation did not provide insights. Yet, non-statistical based postulates were made. These
pertained to age of cultures and the possible influence of high temperature. These postulates were
supported through a change and broadening of experimental protocols. Only through young cultures
(colonies) of fungi, derived from newly
generated spores, grown at high temperatures, were very high,
programmed mutations generated again in a highly programmed manner within such colonies. There was very little
variation in frequencies from colony to colony.
This could be inferred from the statistical data and significance tests involving experimental and control groups of
colonies. The high temperature, or
high infrared radiation, acted, it was concluded, as a non-local agent in the promotion of a high degree of programmed
mutation within the experimental colonies.
The change in experimental protocols thus made evident a new
cause pertaining to or influencing genetic control. However, the statistical method did not address or explain this, and an
epigenetic explanation was
given that again circumvented statistics (Lieber, 1972, 1976, 1998b, 2016; also, see articles on this website.)
Again, the explanatory power of statistics is shown to be limited. Nevertheless, the designing of
new experiments through the application of mind enabled the detection of a further cause (or causes), thereby
negating the appearance of randomness, or apparently random specifics, through the agency of the revised
experimental protocols. And because of such, through changing protocols, enabled by the human mind, a growing,
more complete view has been enabled. And such a new experimental view, enabled through the human
mind, has thus circumscribed the limitations of statistics, (itself a creation of the human mind).
These are limitations that appear to be due to uncontrolled specifics or random specificity beyond a certain
level or scale, and which are tied to a specific experimental method or design. The human mind can
nevertheless circumvent the limitations of its own approaches to nature, but ironically, it is bound
to them when accepting a priori a limitation of our knowledge of nature; though, some people
also ironically do not accept (at least completely) the limitations of this knowledge's mathematical tool or methodology.
This limitation of this statistical or methodological tool when addressing biological
nature, especially with regard to causation, is analogous, if
not similar, to the statistical investigations in quantum mechanics. Such statistics is based, for example, on studies of the behavior
of large numbers electrons or the behavior of large numbers of atoms exhibiting radioactivity. The
statistics does not provide information as to behavior of an individual electron as far as its
trajectory or path is concerned, or, when and why an individual atom becomes radioactive. The
statistics does not address causation at that level. In fact, it precludes an awareness of such
causation or an ordering, integrating process. As Einstein indicated, such statistical limitation
makes quantum mechanics itself unable to present a complete view of reality. The implication would
be that quantum mechanics is incomplete. This is a position that Einstein held through the years. As
Albert Einstein wrote on this subject in 1949 :
What does not satisfy me in that theory [of
quantum mechanics], from the standpoint of principle, is its attitude towards that which
appears to be the programmatic aim of all physics: the complete description of any (individual)
real situation...One arrives at very implausible theoretical conceptions, if one attempts to
maintain the thesis that the statistical quantum theory is in principle capable of producing a
complete description of an individual physical system. On the other hand, those difficulties of
theoretical interpretation disappear, if one views the quantum-mechanic description as the
description of ensembles of systems...Within the framework of statistical quantum theory there is no
such thing as a complete description of the individual system (Einstein, 1949).
In studying biological processes and quantum phenomena,
statistical studies leave out significant information pertaining to the behavior of specific structures
and processes.
Though biology and quantum mechanics operate on vastly different scales, they display the same
lack of accessibility to the causes of deeper, specific phenomena through a statistical approach. Within both
scales, the accessibility to causation at a specific level becomes precluded. As with quantum
mechanics, biological knowledge is also incomplete, lacking a unifying concept or perspective
as to underlying dynamics that connect specific situations. David Bohm
and this author have attempted, through their respective and similar theories and approaches, to
circumvent this problem and to show that reality with its various features is dynamically and coherently unified through all
scales. And thereby, it can be accessed more completely through new experimental approaches and a
flexible application of reason. This would bring us towards completion in our knowledge of quantum
mechanics and biology. As Bohm stated:
More generally, what is needed, in physics as well
as in biology, is to perceive the existing facts anew, in the light of the notion of order, and of a
hierarchy of orders. Such perception will evidently tend to lead us to ask new questions in our
scientific research (Bohm, 1969).
The limitation of statistical approaches could thus be
circumvented in physics and biology. A new paradigm could eventually ensue. This new paradigm would
recognize that our access to reality is not complete, but can become progressively less incomplete.
This would be so because the explicate reality is itself undergoing varied completion
dynamics, and we are part of those dynamics. The completion dynamic would be restricted because the unfolding of the processes of an implicit, implicate reality into an
explicate realty, the reality of science, are not completely simultaneous, as noted by Bohm in later
publications, precluding our current methodologies from overcoming such at present. Yet, recognizing
such a joined duality of the implicate and explicate orders, through increasingly completing
dynamics, and the human mind's participation in this, making causation more and more evident, could
lead to new conceptual and methodological approaches that would circumvent (or make unnecessary) a
statistical approach, at least for the most part. However,, when such a limited though
effective statistical method was used as significance
testing between population means, important though limited information has nevertheless been
acquired in various biological investigations. And which, in my own biological research, such supported important
hypotheses. However, the very method also revealed its limitation as far as obtaining complete
information regarding mutation.
Because this
explicate order is not totally complete, and not completely accessible through current methodologies, according to Bohm, it has features of apparent discontinuity.
This enables the appearance of randomness and thus the application of statistics to make a disconnected appearance
less incomplete, and thereby, fuller. Such discontinuity appears to be due to (or manifest) the fractural nature
of our explicate order or existence, which is also vortical in its design (Lieber, 2023). Fractals
are self-similar structures or designs that exist across different scales or levels of organization,
and which may even extend into the implicate order of existence. An example of a universal,
self-similar fractal occurring in nature is the generative logarithmic spiral. And such a spiral generates continuity as
well as discontinuity. In fact, it is a situation where discontinuity emerges from continuity.
For example, the curves of a special yet universal logarithmic spiral generated over 90 degrees are
disconnected with respect to one another when viewed along their increasing radii; but, they are
connected or continuous to one another through the growth of the self-similar spiral. Moreover, the
increased sizes of the curves, as measured by their radii, are in a constant growth proportion with respect
to one another. This proportion is 1.618, the golden ratio of constant proportional growth in many
organisms.
Thus, continuity determines or generates discontinuity. This
geometrical perspective applied to quantum mechanics indicates that the apparent discontinuity of
quantum or energy states is ultimately due to an underlying or implicit generative continuity
displayed through a vortical, fractal design or structure. (Also, see Lieber, 2023.) For example, the
different energy levels of electron orbitals in an atom are in discontinuity with
respect to one another. However, they can also be the continuous, vortical energy curves of a
vortically structured atom. Vortical atoms manifest a vortical reality (Lieber, 1998a, 2021, 2023).
Also, through the intersections of vortical continuities, discontinuity, as quantization, also
becomes manifest (Lieber, 1998a, 2021). Discontinuity thus becomes fracturalization and
intersection. This appears to be the inherent reality of the micro-realm and of various
features of the macro-realm, such as missing or uncontrolled specificities. And which, current
experimental protocols necessarily allow.
Nevertheless, such discontinuity is not an absolute structure of
existence, whatever scale, but a contingent, emergent feature of an unifying, underlying generative
continuity (or continuities), which is represented by a generative logarithmic spiral of
generated continuity, and which is enabled through a constant growth rate of the golden ratio, a
universal constant. This generative continuity or constancy present in reality has become
seized by the human mind, and thereby has enabled scientific progress by making more and more
evident new dynamic causes, and thereby less and less randomness. For the future, through the
application of this universal constant via new research
approaches, enabled by an evolving or unfolding human mind, would a new paradigm arise. This would
allow
scientists to grasp, comprehend, and make evident more completely, and to better control to a point, the generative, stable,
interconnected specificities within the continuities of existence, whereby randomness, or random specificity, becomes a
limiting case at best.
Such control through experimental methodologies would not be
totally enabled because of the immutable universals being embedded through the specifics of reality. This
was a position presented by Paul Lieber to account for experimental protocols not being able
to provide a certain or complete view, but only a statistical view, of reality, especially that of quantum
behavior. Yet, he conjectured that an investigation of the dimensional universal constants, as
dynamic imprints (via forces) of the universals, their deeper realm of true reality, onto
space-time, could be a major step to overcoming such limitation. This author has attempted this
through the integration of such constants through a demonstrated universal, biological dimensionless
constant. Most interesting, the physicist, Max Planck, considered integrating the dimensional
universal constants as a possible avenue to revealing a deeper, truer reality beyond that revealed
by physics (see, Rosenthal-Schneider, 1949). All of this has been through the use of the human mind.
The human mind has also
immutable features joined to the universals, and this has enabled us to progressively access such
causal interconnections between specificities, and the completion dynamics of the universe. And in
so doing, features of a deeper realm or reality have been progressively revealed. And,
through such access, humans have been enabled to gain progressive control of many of reality's
specifics, as made evident by technology.
A dual mutator strain of Aspergillus
nidulans. This colony was derived from newly generated spores produced by a newly generated green sector of
improved growth rate and smooth morphology. That sector emerged from a colony obtained from spores
produced by a colony that was stored in a cold room for a significant period. Other colonies were
obtained from the spores of other, newly generated green sectors, but those colonies produced far less yellow
sectors. One could also ask why this colony displayed a mutation pattern different from the one in
Figure 7, even though the above colony is of the same strain as the colony in
Figure 7. And both were cultured at the same temperature. Yet, the statistics precludes any idea of a
cause. The white sectors are endemic to colonies of the dual mutator strain, as inferred from statistical data,
but not the reason or cause of such.
See the article
on evolution in
this website for more detailed information about the Aspergillus strains involved and their
histories.
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Copyright (c) by Michael Lieber
