Cell

Cell Consciousness, Human Consciousness And Their Relations

Hundred years ago there were no electrical devices; five thousand years ago no metallic devices; ten thousand years ago no dishes or spoons; 5 million years ago there were no human beings; 100 million years ago, there was dinosaurs instead of mammals and a great ocean (called Thetys) instead of our countries; 500 million years ago there was no terrestrial life at all; 3 billion years ago, no animals and plants; 4.5 billion years ago no life at all on our planet; 5 billion years ago, there was no Earth; and ca. 15 billion years ago, there was no cosmos at all, but a very dense (energy full) and very small sphere instead, consisting only of sub atomic particles. Taking it all in all, we are living in a continuously changing and metamorphosing nature. "Time" is an indicator of those changes and transformations fulfilled by the flow of energy. (When all things in the world (or cosmos) were frozen like in a snapshot and no movements or actions were there, how could we perceive "the time"?)

All humanity believed to live in a suddenly created and shaped world, until STENO (1669) ascertained "beds" with rests of marine organisms in mountain ranges. So he concluded that our world was shaped and created in marine environments, in continuous steps following each other so that the "lower beds must be older than the overlaying beds". So born the geology - palaeontology and the reconstruction of the earth and life history began.

"Changes and transformations" are first observed by Darwin and Wallace in animal kingdoms and called evolution. Nearly one century later Einstein proved the evolutionary nature of our cosmos and the term time was described also as the 4^th dimension indicating the metamorphosing nature of our cosmos. As the consequences of these statements a much shorter definition of time is possible: Time is the indicator of evolutions. Because life is a span of time, then life must be a step of the evolution!

And this evolution is achieved in the following manner.

All phenomena are interplay between matter and energy. By this interplay, energy create polarity in combination-styles of matter, which further increases the combination potential of the created items. The consequence of these polarities are "bonds between units" (which are certain kinds of energy storage). In this manner, each unit adapt itself to the conditions around itself. And so each cell "knows" in which conditions, in which form they have to develop; how many organs to build, etc. Therefore we can say that energy is converted into "knowledge", leading to the phenomena known as "self - assembly" in the organic world. This "knowledge" in the organic world is written with A(denine) - T(hymine) and C(ytosine) - G(uanine), which are called "the 4 nucleotides or bases". These nucleotides also have polarised structures and can be attached to each other by "covalent diester bonds" enabling long polynucleotide chains (DNA or RNA chains). Furthermore they have a second kind of "polarity": "A" can combine with "T" and "C" can combine with "G", so that a double helix structure arise. From the ternary combinations of those four letters are developed the "words" of organic world (amino acids). As expected, these amino acids also are "polarised" and they build long chains of polypeptides by "peptide bonds". Genes came into being in this manner and are considered as "sentences" of the "cell-books".

Suppose you are writing a letter to your child, to explain how to make something. Getting this letter and applying all indicated points your child can fulfils great works! But without those instructions, he or she can't do anything. Here lays the importance of knowledge, which is a senseful combination of words; a product of tiresome, intricate works, achieved by consuming so much energy. Hence all kinds of knowledge (be it of humans or of cells) are established by testing. Therefore we can say that "knowledge" is compressed, condensed experiences, in fulfilling the tasks with less energy than before.

Genes are the equivalents of such "letters": cells store their experiences in the form of DNA codes described above and hand them down to their descendants, so that they can make use of them and not expend so much energy in fulfilling the presumed task, as their parents have spent for gathering this "knowledge".

When an organism grows up, the reproductive organs develop and begin to function, i.e. they begin to re-write their hereditary "knowledge books". Each cell in the body has a "copy" of this book and the "jobholders" begin with the "re-writing". The "germinal epithelium cells" of the reproductive organs (ovary or testis) produce the first "copies" (oögonia or spermatogonia). Those are processed further within the body and the existing conditions of the environment are reflected to the writings. Because the living conditions of organism are due to continuous changes, the copies are produced always under different conditions and these changes are imperatively reflected to the copies. Therefore each "new cell-book" has more or less differences from those of their ancestors. For this reason each new-born has more or less different outlook than their parents.

All life processes are evolutionary phenomena. All our feelings and emotions are the results of energy transformations: when some things happen and we feel distressed or joyous, then some kind of energy is transformed from one form to another. "Individual lives are evolutionary steps" and "evolution" is inherent in all life-processes. Therefore, all terms relating life (consciousness, mind, etc.) are considered in this aspect.

We see that each unit of our cosmos (be it molecules, cells, or other smaller or greater units) has the ability to "sense" the conditions and situations around itself and react accordingly. Inorganic matter have a lesser ability in this aspect. A thermostat or a robot can adapt themselves only to a certain range of conditions; they can't make readjustments in their structures for adaptation to changing conditions around. But organic cells can recognise the changeovers in the environment and make the necessary adjustments in their structures, enabling them to adapt to the new conditions. If we define the consciousness as the ability of a body to be aware of the situations and conditions in and around itself, and to make the necessary adjustments in their structures (or constitutions) for adaptation to the environment and its continuously changing conditions, then we must accept that the cells must have also their own consciousness. Their subjective experiences are reflected in the immense amount of individuals, each one with more or less different genetic codes then others. According to its content, they construct our bodies and determine our thinking and behaviour. (Mentally retarded humans, or babies, are similar to inorganic matters in this respect; they can't solve their problems; therefore their consciousness is not developed.)

In this manner the cells have handed their "experiences" down to their offspring since the begin of life on the earth and today their descendants continue to follow the instructions written in those books and the life cycle goes on. Humans as a member of this life cycle began to develop their own consciousness system and begin to produce their own works as products of their consciousness system, what we call "culture". By this development some control systems over "human - bodies" are transferred from cell-consciousness realm to human-consciousness realm. The most important of them are the controls of "body-covers" (clothing and housing), "food selection and storage" (agriculture and stockbreeding) and "movement" (different transport systems). Consequently, human consciousness should be applied only to human products, and we have to distinguish between "human-cell consciousness" and "human consciousness". If we are still unable to make this distinction, then it is surely due to consciousness defects (or reasoning distortions) being results of inadequacy of our traditional knowledge about the reality.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. ON WHAT KIND AN EARTH WE ARE LIVING?

Once upon a time, there was a village whose people consisted only of blinds. They heard that a strange animal called "elephant" was introduced to the neighbourhood. They were curious about this animal and sent three "inspector" to their neighbourhood. The first blind inspected the "legs" of the animal, the second one the "trunk" and the third one the "ears". They returned to their village and reported their results: The blind who inspected the legs, said: "Elephant is an animal resting on four big trees". The blind who inspected the "trunk" said: "Elephant is an animal with a hosepipe". The blind who inspected the ears, said: "Elephant is an animal with two very fleshy leafs". And the people tried to make a picture of those three different observations.

"Life" is a very complex phenomenon and interdisciplinary approaches (and views from many different area) are needed to get a nearly adequate picture. Aware of this fact, the author (being self a geologist-palaeontologist) has begun nearly 20 years ago, to get appropriate knowledge about astrophysics, quantum physics, neurology, physiology, genetics, molecular biology, theology (Sumerian religions, Old Testament, New Testament, Koran), palaeo-anthropology and archaeology; and tried to make a synthesis. And here is his last essay which is reviewed after Tokyo '99 conference.

 A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANITY.

Geological data indicate a doming effect (uplifting of the earth crust) in East Africa about 8-10 million years ago. Because the doming of the Earth crust is coupled with splitting and valley building, the well known East African Rift system was developed with lakes like Tansania, Victoria, Kioga, Rudolf, etc. and rivers like Omo, Havvas, etc..

The consequence of this uplifting of the Earth crust was that the earlier tropical forest conditions changed to a savannah condition and consequently fauna and flora of the region has changed too. The morphological changes in geography affects first the floral compositions and afterwards the faunal compositions. Geological data show that one of the natural elements of the earlier tropical forests, apes on trees, couldn't keep up with the (new) savannah conditions and were obliged to change their life habits from tree climbing to bipedal life, because bipedal life granted a better adaptation to savannah life. So comes a new genus (Australopithecus) into being.

This new genus Australopithecus appeared about 5 million years ago in East African rift valley, had a brain volume of nearly 400-450 cm³ and bore about 4 species until its extinction ca. 1 million years ago. During this time interval, the changeovers in nature continued further and in one branch of this Australopithecus a change toward a greater brain volume took place and an other bipedial species evolved. This new species (with a brain volume of ca. 650 cm³) is assumed to be the ancestor of the human beings and is called Homo habilis. Homo habilis was clever enough to make cutting blades of hard stones (therefore its attribute habilis). About 2 million years ago another species (Homo erectus s.l., including H. ergaster) with a brain volume of ca. 900 cm³ replaced the Home habilis. Homo erectus was clever enough to widen the living environment of bipedal organism from Africa to Asia and Europe, whereas its "cousin" Australopithecus couldn't endure its rivalry and became extinct ca. 1 million years ago. (The increase in brain volume of "Homo" was more in the association area of cortex than in sensory or motor area, in contrast to other mammals.)

The life span of Homo erectus is one of the most turbulent epochs in the world history.

Homo erectus lived in a time, where the Earth climate has underwent very abrupt climatic changes. In this time interval many ice-ages and short-lived interglacial periods between them occurred. During glacial periods huge amounts of marine water evaporated and settled as ice sheets on lands (or mountains). Its consequence was that all shallow marine environments (less then ca.130m depth) came to a state of land. Some marine environments of today's like Persian Gulf, Bering Strait, Aegean Sea, English Channel, etc. became parts of terrestrial environments. In this time interval the individuals of Homo erectus were able to produce knife and axe of hard stones and to control "fire". In a world with such rapid climatic changeovers, ca. 200 thousand years ago a new species of Homo (H. sapiens) with a brain volume of nearly 1400 cm³ evolved. Observational data indicate two different H. sapiens evolution at two different environment: one evolved in cold environment "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis" and one evolved in warm environment "Homo sapiens sapiens". Until nearly 30 thousand years ago both subspecies lived contemporaneously; H. neanderthalensis in colder Europe and western Asia, and H. sapiens in other more warmer parts of the Old World. In the last 30 thousand years H. neanderthalensis disappeared from the scene and H. sapiens become the only sovereign species on the world.

Now let's look at this last "30 thousand years". As mentioned earlier, 30 thousand years ago there was the last glacial period "Würm" dominant on the earth and world geography looked like in Figure 1. Northern hemisphere is covered with a thick ice sheet and all shallow marine environments are parts of land area, therefore North America and Asia are connected via Bering "Bridge", there is not a Persian Gulf but a flat land with two rivers flowing through it, etc.. (First human beings migrated in North America via this "Bering bridge" ca. 20 thousand years ago.)

Figure 1: Geography of last glacial period.

In Figure 2 one can see the cultural development of humanity. There is seen clearly that human beings began to develop a remarkable culture only in the last 30 thousand years, and especially in the last 10 thousand years they were able to produce communal works like mining, stockbreeding, agriculture, pottery, etc.. Archaeological data let pinpoint when and where the first urbanisation have started (see Figure 2). As seen in the figure the first urbanisation started ca. 10 thousand years ago in the SW Asia and spread from this centre to other parts of the world. For example, NW Europe reached the same culture level ca. 3 thousand years later.

Figure 2: Archaeological data showing the locality of first civilisation.

Lets us first investigate, where a dense human population could be expected during the glacial periods:

• Because glacial periods were very cold, not-urbanised humans could live only in caves or in warmer environments. In caves can live only very limited amounts of mans. Therefore warmer environments are more likely to harbour the necessary amounts of population to initiate a civilisation.
• Because humanity lacked the knowledge of pottery or alike, they could live only in close neighbourhoods of fresh-water resources.
• Because humanity lacked the knowledge of agriculture or stockbreeding, they could live in great amounts only in environments where flora and fauna was plentiful.

When we evaluate these three conditions together, we can assume that in the time interval between 30 thousand and 10 thousand years ago, a dense human population is expected only in the river valleys near to equatorial belt and only in lower altitudes. And the most plausible candidates are: Nile, Euphrat-Tigris, Indus, Gange, Mekong, etc..

Now we can put forward ideas geologically about where, when and under which circumstances humans were urbanised. The main aspect of civilisation is that plenty of people can be harboured in a small area, due to a symbiotic life-styles, whereby each one specialises in one field and changes their services mutually. Therefore the prerequisite of civilisation is that lots of people must be hardly pressed to live in a small area. And now the question is: where in the world and when occurred a such situation?

The last glacial period come to an end ca. 14 thousand years ago and the ice sheets disappeared slowly which lasted until ca. 6 thousand years ago. But that means that humans could spread easily in this time interval and shouldn't be hardly pressed anyway. But civilisation has started just in this time interval. How is it possible? Is there any place in the world, where the situation was different?

There are such places indeed! All the dried sea area having hilly or domed structures become first islands during the rise of sea level when the melting of ice sheets proceeded. People isolated on such islands are compelled to become socialised, because the area they have to live in was getting each year smaller due to continuous rise of sea level. There are of course many of such places, but where we have to look is SW Asia, because the initialisation point of civilisation should have been searched in this area, according to archaeological data.

Figure 3 (indicated as 6): Deep topography of Persian Gulf.

In Figure 3 we can see the bottom topography of Persian Gulf; there is clearly seen that during glacial periods most part of it was a flat dry land irrigated by elongation of Euphrates and Tigris. Near to the Strait of Hormuz there must be a fresh water lake as shown in the Figure 4. When the last glacial epoch come to an end and sea level began to rise, there must be a time where this lake had the same water level as the oceans. That must be about 12 thousand years ago. There are many hilly or domed structures on the bottom of the Persian Gulf and they become isolated islands during further rise of the sea level. Melting of the ice-caps on the mountains were subdued to seasonal fluctuations and in each spring waterlogged soils on the tips of glaciers soliflucted down the slopes of mountains with two catastrophic effects: first effect was that the flanks of mountains were deprived of the fertile soils; and second effect was that this sludging caused huge damage for people living in the valleys. Because the people of this time lacked the knowledge of pottery they were directly dependent of water resources and lived all near the valleys. Taking all in all, life conditions of the post-glacial epoch were very cumbersome for humans living densely in low altitudes like valleys: they were exposed to annually repetitive floods of water and sludge (mud); and the land they lived in was continuously but imperceptibly conquered by marine water, so that they moved each year to higher levels. Some of them moved towards the slopes of mountains (like Zagros) surrounding the valleys; but some ones moved towards doming hills which become later isolated islands. For people accumulated on domed hills a very stressful life must have began. The deep valleys were transformed into a rising sea level in a few years. For example, a domed hill 50 m high above valley level were first exposed to annually repetitive mud floods of many meter highs which destroyed all lives in his beds; after flood water level retreated, but because of a general sea level rise, the highs of hills diminished each year by about 1.5 cm. A 50 m high hill required more than 3 thousand years to get covered in sea waters. During this time interval the population of those hills were in struggle with those difficulties. Their living environment diminished each year, but their population increased, so that they were obliged to live more densely than before. This was the driving force to civilisation on the isolated islands whereas in other parts of the world, with the retreat of glaciers new areas were exposed to humans for spreading freely.

In this manner all domed hilly structures less than ca. 100 m height were drowned down in some thousand of years. The more or less civilised people of those lost "islands" landed with their rafts or boats on the shores of the "Persian Gulf". The last of them were the Sumerians, whose cuneiform scripts says that "they came from the sea to the two storm land". About the other ones whose islands  were submerged in sea water much earlier than Sumerians, Platon's "Atlantic civilisation" (Timaios and Kritias) is giving adequate knowledge.

Now let us turn to "civilisation" or "society". What understand the first urbanised people from these words? Who were setting the rules?

As seen in Figure 8, humans began to "socialise" in the time interval between 30 -10 thousand years ago. At the begin of this interval there were two different humane subspecies on the world living together, one of them being more clever than the other. One can' not pretend with clarity whether the clever Homo sapiens let accept its superiority to the other as "being the lord", but with the begin of first urbanisation, social life was accepted as privilege of holly lords being the representatives of the heavenly holy forces on the Earth, masters and possessors of "knowledge"; and ordinary humans are thought to be created for the services to those lords. Societies and its rules were set by those lords.

The ideas of Sumerians about the development of the world was so: As humans create bowls or knifes and are their proprietors, so world must be created by a much greater immortal creator, being its owner. In this manner each item must have one possessor: Sun god (Utu), Moon goddess (Inanna, sister of Utu), god of the sea, rivers and of knowledge (Enki), Shepherd-king Dumuzi (who wed Inanna!), etc.. Their "gods" are "human-like" and arranged hierarchically similar to human families; those "human-like gods" creates "normal humans or slaves" for their personal services from marine clay; etc.) This kind of reasoning led to the development of an authoritarian hierarchy and ownership system. This was the first fatal error humanity has done! Here is the reason:

Because the wealth and prosperity of the society were wholly on shoulders of the leader, he imposed that the people had to behave as he ordered. In order to appropriate these orders to themselves, the people had to be drilled in the childhood; otherwise it was impossible to let accept all the orders to the people. In childhood the persons can accept all the stuff they got, but in adulthood, they accept only the "reasonable" ones. That is why children are trained while their minds are pliant. Dogmatically trained minds are like "permanent waves", they can't be flattened again. Because of their "plicate structures" they can not be arranged to great bundles (great social units). And this social illness is continuing since the begin of first civilisation between humans.

If the brain cells of children are conditioned according to the concepts of the leaders (which must be authoritarian, and consequently dogmatic), this develops dogmatic behaviour by them, so that they can't adapt themselves to the changing conditions of the world. That is why the humans are still thinking in authoritarian system as shown in Figure 10 and are unable to think in synergetic system, which is necessary to adapt our life to natural system. Consequently, all our social problems are the results of the authoritarian systems. To call a few of them:

• Society is not defined as "a symbiotic relationship between humans, where each individual specialise him(or her)selves in a particular field and produce as much as possible and exchange his (or her) services (products) with that of others" In this manner productivity increases and humans can live in dense populations. In this definition there are no lords or leaders, but specialists like coordinators, planners, project-developers, etc..
• Life isn't defined as "a step in the evolutionary system of cosmos, developed synergetically " but differently, depending on the authoritarian system.
• The guiding force of nature isn't defined natural scientifically as "energy" but different according to the appropriate authoritarian system.
• When the authorities were accepted as lords of societies, people were alienated from communal proprieties and doesn't protected them as should be.
• Authoritarian systems are like switchboards giving services to millions but operated by a single person: The services are always delayed, or blocked!
• The wheels of bureaucracy are dependent to the "top", therefore individual interests are given often preferences and public interest are neglected.
• Our thinking and behaviour are controlled wholly by our cells (Birbaumer 1993), i.e. we are controlled by our smaller components and they are controlled by their smaller components, etc.; but our traditional evaluation system is dependent to greater units. Although we learn in the school that our bodies are constructed of cells, we can't think and evaluate the life with the view point of our cells. That is a very clear indication how far reaching the reasoning disorders are, being the results of our traditional education systems.
• Etc..

To continue: