Cell Intelligence in Physiological & Morphological Spaces

[Federica]

I’ll try to give a simple overview of what the simulation actually does.

Thank you, Cleric, for these handy tools that make the conceptual DIY work on this research so much more accessible!
Trying to see how to properly use them and understand the thought process behind the research, I have a few open points.

At every timestep we reduce the concentration of the reactants and increase the concentration of the products according to the corresponding (experimentally discovered) dynamics.

In the first simulation (fully dispersed chemicals), starting from experimental/law-based knowledge of the reactive pattern in time of every chemical involved with each of the other chemicals (A + B), I wonder how the researchers designed the full simulation of all possible combined and/or mutually exclusive cross-reactions.

I understand the equations have to assign probabilities to each alternative reactive scenario, since the chemicals could potentially engage in a multitude of reaction patterns? How do they assign the probability of certain reaction alternatives occurring first, thereby imparting a certain distinct direction to the reactive general scenario, since the hypothesis is perfect diffusion of all chemicals and so any reaction (among the many possible) could ‘start the dance’?

I’m asking this because I'm not clear how the simulation is adding value to the general intention of making progress towards simulating life.

I would guess they don’t let the pattern of combined reactions be random (all alternative first reactions equally likely) but maybe use the deterministic concentration picture provided by the timesteps to ‘back-steer’ the probabilistic makeup of the equations, and control distorsions in this way? Is it right that the simulation goal is to fine tune the 'guesswork' inherent in the combined probabilities so as to come to the timesteps with as little gaps as possible between simulated and observed concentration of each chemical, and the reserchers use the timesteps not only for reset, but also to shape and improve on the equations? Otherwise I don't understand how the model is of value in terms of predictive power.


Then the usefulness of the second model - in the thought process of the researchers - is also unclear to me, since more abstract postulates have to be introduced for plausibility. What are the researchers trying to show with this refinement of spatially constrained levels of concentration? In this connection, you said in a previous post:

there's no danger of some higher life spaces creeping into our algorithm and meaningfully manipulate the results of our calculation (the same can't be said for the way we think out the algorithm itself. I'll explain later when I write in connection with the full paper)

Is there more to add at this point?

***

That was to try and grasp the intentions of the researchers and in what direction they invest their efforts.
But now, trying to think more holistically, there is the question of the relation between a potentially perfect simulation (no distortion at timesteps) of the whole ‘chemical reaction flow’ for the whole cell, and the life forces. What can be said about the possibility of a chaotic simulation trend versus the cell being “taken over” by life forces, and why topology is relevant in this respect? I can’t grasp this idea of possible takeover, once the topology is in place… Because in a sense better topology would mean less abstract model, but the thought process represented by the model would be just as abstract, no matter how perfect the topology is, and so how could that "take over" be real...

[Federica]

Ashvin,

It's clear now, thanks for elaborating!

(...)

Yes, that’s definitely true and I think it goes to show how higher cognition can only serve its intended function when it also descends into the normal sensory-conceptual spectrum and becomes intimately familiar with phenomenal dynamics. Without prior familiarity of cell biology, there are simply no conceptual slots for my higher intuitions about the architecture of reality to resonate with when exploring that topic. Although perhaps the amount of familiarity I would need to obtain such a resonance would be less than the average person who has not worked on deepening their thinking activity. Put another way, I could condense the time it would take to become familiar with the basic phenomenal foundation that is necessary for my spiritual activity to work through. Nevertheless, I need to be able to take a keen and effortful interest in the way the Spirit expresses itself in diverse domains of phenomenal experience for those domains to yield greater insights.

Here I was wondering whether you feel or felt a similar intention to acquaint yourself with other scientific theories or technologies (information technology, relativity, nuclear energy,...) or if there is something particularly appealing in biology? (neutral question, I am not trying to conclude anything)

Right, those are important questions to understand why the simulation is fundamentally different than using existing cells or cell components to generate new cells. The latter already started off with the life space in a certain harmonic resonance with the physical space, while the former clearly starts from only the dead physical space.

Thinking out loud, I would say that the thought of simulation appears as nothing different from an abstract model, an attempt to extract a law, like formalizing any law of physics. And using a real cell (natural, or hybrid) is the experiment that attempts to confirm that law by using it. So the thinking approach seems the same usual scientific approach that extracts from observation a third person model and later tests the model to check its validity, accuracy, robustness, etcetera against experience. Now in the case of a biological organism there's the complication of working across morphic spaces, rather than only within the morphic physical space, but other than that the thought process is the same, I would think.

So the simulation and the experiment that tries to validate it are normal phases of the usual third person approach, and maybe not fundamentally different from each other, in this sense. Maybe a fundamentally different inquiry would be one that is adapted to working at the intersection of 2 morphic spaces, through the integration of a better understanding of time, balanced between past and future. For the moment, the standard method tries to approach life through a memory integration 100% based on the past. No future intentionality is "factored in'', internalized, or acknowledged. But the past alone brings dead ends, inertia, inability to sustainably react to changing contexts. Focus on past brings that in our direct life experience, and so should it be for cell simulation also... If this makes sense, then a better 'model' would be one that is oriented by various orders of future intentions, towards which the rules of transformation of the cell are oriented... easier said than done

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

It's clear now, thanks for elaborating!

(...)

Yes, that’s definitely true and I think it goes to show how higher cognition can only serve its intended function when it also descends into the normal sensory-conceptual spectrum and becomes intimately familiar with phenomenal dynamics. Without prior familiarity of cell biology, there are simply no conceptual slots for my higher intuitions about the architecture of reality to resonate with when exploring that topic. Although perhaps the amount of familiarity I would need to obtain such a resonance would be less than the average person who has not worked on deepening their thinking activity. Put another way, I could condense the time it would take to become familiar with the basic phenomenal foundation that is necessary for my spiritual activity to work through. Nevertheless, I need to be able to take a keen and effortful interest in the way the Spirit expresses itself in diverse domains of phenomenal experience for those domains to yield greater insights.

Here I was wondering whether you feel or felt a similar intention to acquaint yourself with other scientific theories or technologies (information technology, relativity, nuclear energy,...) or if there is something particularly appealing in biology? (neutral question, I am not trying to conclude anything)

Federica,

Yes, I think all those other domains are equally important to become acquainted with. They cannot really be separated when it comes to their significance for spiritual reality, since they are all partial ‘interfering’ angles on the unified archetypal structure through which phenomenal reality comes into existence and together make a Whole. And of course, they all offer insights into how our thinking activity unfolds in its current constitution. That being said, every individual will have to prioritize what part of the phenomenal dynamics is most necessary for them to become familiar with at any given time based on their intuitive insights into their own stream of becoming on the spiritual path. As a general rule, I think we want to work on those areas that we would be most hesitant to approach under normal circumstances, based on our ingrained beliefs, sympathies-antipathies, temperament, disposition, etc. That way we can strive to attain a more well-rounded, holistic orientation towards the World. We can also take a single topic of inquiry and try to approach it from the 7 different ‘moods’ and 12 different world-outlooks that Steiner outlines, or at least a few different ones.

Right, those are important questions to understand why the simulation is fundamentally different than using existing cells or cell components to generate new cells. The latter already started off with the life space in a certain harmonic resonance with the physical space, while the former clearly starts from only the dead physical space.

Thinking out loud, I would say that the thought of simulation appears as nothing different from an abstract model, an attempt to extract a law, like formalizing any law of physics. And using a real cell (natural, or hybrid) is the experiment that attempts to confirm that law by using it. So the thinking approach seems the same usual scientific approach that extracts from observation a third person model and later tests the model to check its validity, accuracy, robustness, etcetera against experience. Now in the case of a biological organism there's the complication of working across morphic spaces, rather than only within the morphic physical space, but other than that the thought process is the same, I would think.

So the simulation and the experiment that tries to validate it are normal phases of the usual third person approach, and maybe not fundamentally different from each other, in this sense. Maybe a fundamentally different inquiry would be one that is adapted to working at the intersection of 2 morphic spaces, through the integration of a better understanding of time, balanced between past and future. For the moment, the standard method tries to approach life through a memory integration 100% based on the past. No future intentionality is "factored in'', internalized, or acknowledged. But the past alone brings dead ends, inertia, inability to sustainably react to changing contexts. Focus on past brings that in our direct life experience, and so should it be for cell simulation also... If this makes sense, then a better 'model' would be one that is oriented by various orders of future intentions, towards which the rules of transformation of the cell are oriented... easier said than done

Right, I agree with that characterization.

It is also important to emphasize that everything gained through the 3rd person past-oriented approach provides material by which the future-oriented activity is supported and will continue to blossom forth into higher stages. For example, most of our lives we are observing things, undergoing events, and interacting with people as 3rd person spectators, with minimal to no consideration of how our first-person spiritual activity has influenced and continues to influence the situations we are encountering. When we meet people on the street or in a store or some other circumstance, we are hardly thinking of the karmic pathways that placed them in our experience and the karmic fulfillments that should come from those encounters. Mostly we feel like we are confronting external laws of nature, cultural conventions, and random circumstances. When we develop our higher thinking, however, everything we went through in this way can be re-encountered in memory (not necessarily intellectual memory) to extract its true essence, i.e. the real eternal values of our I-becoming that were embedded in the experiences. We then realize that the 3rd person perspective was instrumental in attaining a certain objective consciousness of phenomenal relations that would otherwise go smeared into the stream of subjectivity and thereby unnoticed.

So the same can be applied to all of our scientific inquiries and the results that arrive through them. They are only dead ends as long as we have not used our strengthened thinking capacity, born from working through the objective landscape, to turn back on itself and recover the essential ‘subjective’ flow through which that landscape has come into existence. In a weird way, the living thinker becomes something like a parasite, feeding off of the entire World and its efforts across various diverse domains of experience and inquiry. But it’s more accurately a process of awakening to what we have been doing anyway and gaining the capacity to do it in a more responsible way, in service of higher ideals. So it ideally doesn’t occur at the expense of the ‘host organism’ anymore but prepares the self-conscious means by which the host organism will be rescued from its terminal illnesses, in part by devising new creative research strategies like you mention. In most cases, I think the deeper insights won't come directly from the most obvious content of the theories, hypotheses, models, etc., as they were envisioned based on the past-oriented perspective, but from the 'trivial' and unsuspected details, or perhaps the contradictions, paradoxes, gaps, and so forth, that emerge quite independently of anyone's conscious intentions.

[Federica]

As a general rule, I think we want to work on those areas that we would be most hesitant to approach under normal circumstances,

Then you should immediately abandon any interests in VR and start redeeming, say, the philosophy of reconstructionism instead?

And for my part I should delve into something like this (from today's news):

Until recently, Bryan Johnson was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to infuse one litre of his teenage son’s youthful plasma into his own ageing blood stream every month. “I’ve never paid more attention to what he’s eating … because that was going into my body,” the 46-year-old American tech entrepreneur says on new podcast The Immortals. He also pumped his own plasma into his 70-year-old father’s body to help improve his declining physical and cognitive health: “It was one of the most meaningful moments in his entire life. And it was the same for me.”

It is also important to emphasize that everything gained through the 3rd person past-oriented approach provides material by which the future-oriented activity is supported and will continue to blossom forth into higher stages.
(...)
So the same can be applied to all of our scientific inquiries and the results that arrive through them. They are only dead ends as long as we have not used our strengthened thinking capacity, born from working through the objective landscape, to turn back on itself and recover the essential ‘subjective’ flow through which that landscape has come into existence.

Yes, we are trying to do that with the minimal cell simulation, and I also appreciate your example of revisitng our life events with increased understanding. One could start to experience more meaningfulness even before developing higher thinking.

In most cases, I think the deeper insights won't come directly from the most obvious content of the theories, hypotheses, models, etc., as they were envisioned based on the past-oriented perspective, but from the 'trivial' and unsuspected details, or perhaps the contradictions, paradoxes, gaps, and so forth, that emerge quite independently of anyone's conscious intentions.

Interesting, what you say reminds me of this:

[AshvinP]

As a general rule, I think we want to work on those areas that we would be most hesitant to approach under normal circumstances,

Then you should immediately abandon any interests in VR and start redeeming, say, the philosophy of reconstructionism instead?

And for my part I should delve into something like this (from today's news):

believe it or not, I probably started out more antipathetic to the course of modern technology than even you. Apart from the typical childhood fascination with video games and computer 'hacking' and whatnot, I quickly grew disinterested in such things and then even righteously opposed to them. I think spiritual science has helped me outgrow much of my instinctive reaction, but I'm still working on cultivating an active interest. I still hardly know how a computer works!

[Cleric K]

I understand the equations have to assign probabilities to each alternative reactive scenario, since the chemicals could potentially engage in a multitude of reaction patterns? How do they assign the probability of certain reaction alternatives occurring first, thereby imparting a certain distinct direction to the reactive general scenario, since the hypothesis is perfect diffusion of all chemicals and so any reaction (among the many possible) could ‘start the dance’?

I’m asking this because I'm not clear how the simulation is adding value to the general intention of making progress towards simulating life.

I cannot give you an exact answer because I myself am not so knowledgeable in the details of these methods. I understand the stuff as much as to have some general orientation in the domain but otherwise I’m a complete layperson.

As far as I understand, the kinetic models don’t work by deciding which reaction to allow at each time step. Actually, the timesteps are not an intrinsic part of the model. They are only a specific method for solving it.

Let’s compare this with continuous mechanics. Think of water flow and a pipe junction, where the flow splits in pipes with different diameters. Let’s say we have a known flow rate (liters per minute for example) at the inlet. We solve the equations and get the flow rate for each of the outlet pipes. A simple constraint here is that the sum of rates at the outlets must be equal to the rates at the inlet(s). We don’t ask the question by imagining a water molecule and asking through which of the outlet pipes it would go. In a sense, we assume that the flow is infinitely divisible. For example, if we have flow rate of 0.00...0001 l/min this might be so low that realistically only few water molecule would have to pass in an hour. But in continuous mechanics we don't care about this. The flow rate is what we simulate and it could be anything we want, we're not concerned that the flow is made of particles. Similarly, we don’t ask to which reaction we give way but simply what the reaction rates are.

The timestep is used for something else. If we imagine a steady state pipe system, then with constant input flow rate we’ll probably also have constant output rates. But imagine that the input pressure fluctuates sinusoidally. In that case the output rates will also likely alternate in some way. If we can solve the equations analytically we may get as a result some nicely formed mathematical function such as sin(t) (with some coefficients of course). Then if we want to know the output rate at any arbitrary time t we simply plug that into the function and get the result.

Alas, such exact mathematical functions can be found only for the simplest cases. In the general case we can’t simply calculate the state of the system for any arbitrary time t. Instead, we have to start from some initial conditions and slowly modify the system in tiny steps until we reach the time we need. At every step we’re still dealing with continuous mechanics. We still care only for the rates, we don’t ask which molecule will go where. It is similar with the chemical models. Think of the reactions as pipe flows that transform one substance into another at certain rates. At every step all reactions happen, just like with the pipes at every step water flows through all of them.

In other words, the timestep is used to break down the temporal process in tiny snapshots. The rates are well defined in each snapshot. The steps are needed in order to understand how the rates change from moment to moment. But we don’t care that at a lower level everything is discontinuous.

So this is the main point: we don't think about probabilities - which reaction is likely to happen - but assume that all reactions happen all the time and they smoothly vary the chemical concentrations (transform then from one another). Such probabilities can be inferred from the rates but we don't have to. We only care about how given chemical concentration (water inlet) is transformed and distributed to other chemical concentrations.

That was to try and grasp the intentions of the researchers and in what direction they invest their efforts.

It is simply a normal part of the modern scientific process. The vast majority of papers that get published today don’t present anything groundbreaking. They are only small steps. For example, the present paper wouldn’t be possible if in hundreds previous papers the dynamics of all the different reactions in the cell were not studied. So to understand the motivation we always have to think of a greater goal, that everything contributes to greater knowledge.

Now maybe you ask more specifically why would scientists want to simulate a cell? One answer is – to verify if our current understanding (implemented as models) stands up to the facts. Then, if the model seems to match known dynamics we can more confidently assume that it will give correct results even for novel simulated conditions. For example, a gene can be removed (which precludes the corresponding protein being synthesized) and we can see how this affects the workings of the whole cell.

It might still be unclear why would we do that instead of simply trying it out in a real cell. Part of the answer is that it’s simply technologically impossible at our stage to have clear overview of the cellular processes. This can be presented as an image. Think of a big amusement park. From an airplane we can have only very general picture of the processes there. The people are not even visible. This is what we can get of an cell with an optical microscope. There’s a physical limit of how much we can zoom in. It’s not a matter of perfecting the lenses. It’s simply that at the small scales everything acts as diffraction grates since the wavelength of light is comparable to the molecules sizes. Thus at some level we simply get a complicated diffraction pattern instead of sharp outlines of the small details. These details can be studied in roundabout ways but what we learn about them can be compared to schematic snapshots. For example, we can have a snapshot of a person handing money in the ticket booth. Another of a person putting the safety belt on a ride and so on. From these snapshots of transactions we have to build up the picture of what the life in an amusement park is like.

Even though every textbook has many images of the cell processes and today we also have nice animations, in reality we can’t see things in this way directly. The overall picture is patched from our disconnected snapshots, our partial understanding of the different reactions. Simulating all the reactions simultaneously is one way to see if all really plays out as we conceive it.

there's no danger of some higher life spaces creeping into our algorithm and meaningfully manipulate the results of our calculation (the same can't be said for the way we think out the algorithm itself. I'll explain later when I write in connection with the full paper)

Is there more to add at this point?

As said above, our knowledge consists of quite sparse snapshots which we connect through our thinking. The part that we fill in is largely influenced by our beliefs. Let’s consider the fact that the minimal cell needs some 500 genes (blueprints for proteins) in order to work. Some of these are completely critical and if they are missing, the whole cell fails to work. The question of how could this have evolved is very hard because there’s no simple solution that explains how all of this can have evolved gradually by tiny mutations. Nevertheless, the materialistic belief holds that it must have happened somehow. Thus science behaves as if we have certain sparse snapshots and it’s only a question of time the interior will be filled with the details.

It is in this sense that I’ve said – higher spaces can’t augment the way a computer algorithm works, but they can surely steer the thinking that thinks the algorithms and devises them in such a way that it seeks confirmation of its beliefs.

It’s similar with the workings of the cell (even if we ignore how it came to be). It is assumed that it’s all chemical automata and the algorithms that we develop seek to implement these ideas. Thus the spaces can’t interfere with the algorithm once it is implemented in the silicon but surely steer how the algorithm is thought out.

The trouble is that the gaps in knowledge are so large that we can always justify saying: "We shouldn't be in a hurry to dismiss the possibility that life is a purely mechanical process (basically random collisions between chemicals that looked from above seem to form a pattern). There's no need to invoke magic just because we don't understand all the details. Maybe it is precisely in understanding the details that we'll see that everything is perfectly explainable by random collisions of chemicals."

[Federica]

As far as I understand, the kinetic models don’t work by deciding which reaction to allow at each time step. Actually, the timesteps are not an intrinsic part of the model. They are only a specific method for solving it.

Let’s compare this with continuous mechanics. Think of water flow and a pipe junction, where the flow splits in pipes with different diameters. Let’s say we have a known flow rate (liters per minute for example) at the inlet. We solve the equations and get the flow rate for each of the outlet pipes. A simple constraint here is that the sum of rates at the outlets must be equal to the rates at the inlet(s). We don’t ask the question by imagining a water molecule and asking through which of the outlet pipes it would go. In a sense, we assume that the flow is infinitely divisible. For example, if we have flow rate of 0.00...0001 l/min this might be so low that realistically only few water molecule would have to pass in an hour. But in continuous mechanics we don't care about this. The flow rate is what we simulate and it could be anything we want, we're not concerned that the flow is made of particles. Similarly, we don’t ask to which reaction we give way but simply what the reaction rates are.

The timestep is used for something else. If we imagine a steady state pipe system, then with constant input flow rate we’ll probably also have constant output rates. But imagine that the input pressure fluctuates sinusoidally. In that case the output rates will also likely alternate in some way. If we can solve the equations analytically we may get as a result some nicely formed mathematical function such as sin(t) (with some coefficients of course). Then if we want to know the output rate at any arbitrary time t we simply plug that into the function and get the result.

Alas, such exact mathematical functions can be found only for the simplest cases. In the general case we can’t simply calculate the state of the system for any arbitrary time t. Instead, we have to start from some initial conditions and slowly modify the system in tiny steps until we reach the time we need. At every step we’re still dealing with continuous mechanics. We still care only for the rates, we don’t ask which molecule will go where. It is similar with the chemical models. Think of the reactions as pipe flows that transform one substance into another at certain rates. At every step all reactions happen, just like with the pipes at every step water flows through all of them.

In other words, the timestep is used to break down the temporal process in tiny snapshots. The rates are well defined in each snapshot. The steps are needed in order to understand how the rates change from moment to moment. But we don’t care that at a lower level everything is discontinuous.

So this is the main point: we don't think about probabilities - which reaction is likely to happen - but assume that all reactions happen all the time and they smoothly vary the chemical concentrations (transform then from one another). Such probabilities can be inferred from the rates but we don't have to. We only care about how given chemical concentration (water inlet) is transformed and distributed to other chemical concentrations.

It is simply a normal part of the modern scientific process. The vast majority of papers that get published today don’t present anything groundbreaking. They are only small steps. For example, the present paper wouldn’t be possible if in hundreds previous papers the dynamics of all the different reactions in the cell were not studied. So to understand the motivation we always have to think of a greater goal, that everything contributes to greater knowledge.

Now maybe you ask more specifically why would scientists want to simulate a cell? One answer is – to verify if our current understanding (implemented as models) stands up to the facts. Then, if the model seems to match known dynamics we can more confidently assume that it will give correct results even for novel simulated conditions. For example, a gene can be removed (which precludes the corresponding protein being synthesized) and we can see how this affects the workings of the whole cell.

It might still be unclear why would we do that instead of simply trying it out in a real cell. Part of the answer is that it’s simply technologically impossible at our stage to have clear overview of the cellular processes. This can be presented as an image. Think of a big amusement park. From an airplane we can have only very general picture of the processes there. The people are not even visible. This is what we can get of an cell with an optical microscope. There’s a physical limit of how much we can zoom in. It’s not a matter of perfecting the lenses. It’s simply that at the small scales everything acts as diffraction grates since the wavelength of light is comparable to the molecules sizes. Thus at some level we simply get a complicated diffraction pattern instead of sharp outlines of the small details. These details can be studied in roundabout ways but what we learn about them can be compared to schematic snapshots. For example, we can have a snapshot of a person handing money in the ticket booth. Another of a person putting the safety belt on a ride and so on. From these snapshots of transactions we have to build up the picture of what the life in an amusement park is like.

Even though every textbook has many images of the cell processes and today we also have nice animations, in reality we can’t see things in this way directly. The overall picture is patched from our disconnected snapshots, our partial understanding of the different reactions. Simulating all the reactions simultaneously is one way to see if all really plays out as we conceive it.
...

As said above, our knowledge consists of quite sparse snapshots which we connect through our thinking. The part that we fill in is largely influenced by our beliefs. Let’s consider the fact that the minimal cell needs some 500 genes (blueprints for proteins) in order to work. Some of these are completely critical and if they are missing, the whole cell fails to work. The question of how could this have evolved is very hard because there’s no simple solution that explains how all of this can have evolved gradually by tiny mutations. Nevertheless, the materialistic belief holds that it must have happened somehow. Thus science behaves as if we have certain sparse snapshots and it’s only a question of time the interior will be filled with the details.

It is in this sense that I’ve said – higher spaces can’t augment the way a computer algorithm works, but they can surely steer the thinking that thinks the algorithms and devises them in such a way that it seeks confirmation of its beliefs.

It’s similar with the workings of the cell (even if we ignore how it came to be). It is assumed that it’s all chemical automata and the algorithms that we develop seek to implement these ideas. Thus the spaces can’t interfere with the algorithm once it is implemented in the silicon but surely steer how the algorithm is thought out.

The trouble is that the gaps in knowledge are so large that we can always justify saying: "We shouldn't be in a hurry to dismiss the possibility that life is a purely mechanical process (basically random collisions between chemicals that looked from above seem to form a pattern). There's no need to invoke magic just because we don't understand all the details. Maybe it is precisely in understanding the details that we'll see that everything is perfectly explainable by random collisions of chemicals."

It took me a few times reading through, but I think I understand everything you have explained. I see I could have asked better questions, thanks for such detailed reply nonetheless, thank you Cleric!

[Federica]

I'm reading Oskar Kürten's book, Symphonies of Creation. I believe that understanding life, understanding how a cell evolves and remains functional, being able to master and replicate the process of life, is what Kürten refers to as incarnating in the plant kingdom in occult sense (plant kingdom not in common sense, but as evolutionary state of existence). That's when the nature of life will be fully understood. For now, we are at our mineral stage of development and we only fully grasp the mineral (more or less).

Only when human beings have learnt to understand plant life in the same way as we manipulate things today in the dead mineral kingdom, will we be incarnated in the plant kingdom.

But this will be in thousands and thousands of years! Regardless of whether it will be in the Jupiter planetary reincarnation of Earth, or in the Plant round of the current planetary condition, which is unclear to me at the moment, it will be far ahead in the future... That would suggest that science is not anywhere close major breakthroughs in the direction of mastering life, our simulating a cell.

It seems like that understanding will come with the realization of the idea of growth from within. What does it mean to grow from within, through a fractal expansion in future memory layers? And maybe such understanding will blur the limit of our individuality, because when we really understand growth, we will see that it only can happen by going beyond oneself, like a cell does, by endlessly partitioning its whole being, and becoming more and more expanded into the collective.
Yes, I guess this could be a thought to explore: a cell sacrifices its whole being in reproduction, not that it gives birth to another cell, and lives on besides it. We have to understand that from within...

[Cleric K]

It seems like that understanding will come with the realization of the idea of growth from within. What does it mean to grow from within, through a fractal expansion in future memory layers? And maybe such understanding will blur the limit of our individuality, because when we really understand growth, we will see that it only can happen by going beyond oneself, like a cell does, by endlessly partitioning its whole being, and becoming more and more expanded into the collective.
Yes, I guess this could be a thought to explore: a cell sacrifices its whole being in reproduction, not that it gives birth to another cell, and lives on besides it. We have to understand that from within...

These are great questions, Federica. In my path the question of biological life has always been a running thread. Even in my atheistic years I was deeply interested in the origin of life and all the amazing cellular machinery (of course in a purely materialistic way at that time). I often wonder what would Steiner say about all this. None of these incredible details were known at his time, except the basic things visible with a microscope - the nucleus, the division, etc.

Early on I was very eager to arrive at some more spiritual understanding of biology. Alas, in time I noticed that I always tend to some kind of mechanistic explanation. Only in recent years I really try to find understanding from the 'within' you speak of. I can't say that I have much success but at least now I recognize some of the stumbling stones for whatever may come.

In my opinion, one of the greatest obstacles is the inertia of the way we think about processes of any kind, which is of course the result of the intellectual mode of cognition. In our sensory life basically we can only create forms. The 'animation' of the forms is left to the laws of reality. This is the case with any technology that we presently know - from the primitive to the advanced. If we create a windmill, we create the parts and let the wind do the animation. If we create a computer, we etch the traces of the circuits and let electricity do the rest. We have the same approach even towards life.

In all of this we have to sense how we technologically create the forms (even artificially synthesizing DNA can be considered producing a form) and let Nature animate them. This polarity was at the core of the TCOTCT, where it was attempted to show that only in our spiritual activity we live in an actual temporal law which metamorphoses the forms through time.

I think that this is one of the most important things when we try to approach the within perspective. The life forces have to be found as something spiritual, as something that intends the metamorphoses of the forms, as we intend the metamorphoses of thoughts.

The second important thing is that most certainly these forces don't create the forms from 'the side', in the way we can perceive them (with microscopes or other imaging technologies). In that sense, biological life must be thought of much more as a kind of language in which the spiritual world thinks as it reaches into the decohering physical spectrum. An enzyme is a thought which somehow fits in the whole symphony. Yet one of the most interesting things for me is how that thought takes the form of a sequence of amino acids. Speculating intellectually, I think it must be some kind of filtering process, where all possible physical forms are in superposition, so to speak, and gradually only those sequences that can result into a protein that implements the idea, remain. This also suggests that the DNA and the proteins take form simultaneously, which only reminds us that time is experienced differently when the states of being are not forced to follow deeply decohered processes. Basically, we have to learn to think about superposition not only in space (which through quantum mechanics we have more or less accustomed ourselves to) but also through time. In other words, before our stage of mineralization is reached, in a more etheric form of existence, the cells are blurry not only about their contents but also about their processes through time. As an example, we may have a superposition of all processes that can satisfy the life-thought of growth. When this life-thought decoheres, the processes and contents become filtered out of the superposition and only certain concrete variants remain. That's how the pure etheric life becomes mineralized and constrained in physical biology.

These are only intellectual musings but at this time I feel they can give us certain guidelines about the kind of experiences we can expect in the within.

[AshvinP]

It seems like that understanding will come with the realization of the idea of growth from within. What does it mean to grow from within, through a fractal expansion in future memory layers? And maybe such understanding will blur the limit of our individuality, because when we really understand growth, we will see that it only can happen by going beyond oneself, like a cell does, by endlessly partitioning its whole being, and becoming more and more expanded into the collective.
Yes, I guess this could be a thought to explore: a cell sacrifices its whole being in reproduction, not that it gives birth to another cell, and lives on besides it. We have to understand that from within...

Federica,

I am traveling and dont have much time to comment, but I wanted to share this excerpt that fits nicely with your thought above and also what Cleric shared.

On the question of timing, I think we should keep in mind everything unfolds on a gradient and even the 6th PA epoch will experience significantly more conscious involvement with the etheric forces relative to where we are now.

You will remember that the most important substance that forms the basis everywhere of the organism, whether it be of plant, animal or man, is albumen. And albumen also forms the basis for the germ of a new plant, animal or human organism. From a fructified germ cell proceeds that which evolves into an organism, and the substance of the germ is albumen. In these days, instead of pursuing true science, men build up all kinds of imaginations, and they make a picture to themselves of this albumen as composed of substances in intricate chemical combination. It is composed, so they say, of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, and a trace too of phosphorus, all in complicate combination. And so the atomist comes to see in albumen the example par excellence of chemical combination. The atoms and molecules have to be thought of as arranged in a most complicated manner. And in the mother-animal or mother-plant arises this complicated albumen-molecule, or whatever you choose to call it; it develops further and the new animal comes to birth from it, arising, that is, purely through inheritance.

From the spiritual point of view, all this is sheer nonsense. The truth is that the albumen of the mother animal is not a complicated chemical combination at all, it is all broken up, destroyed and reduced to chaos. The albumen that is otherwise contained in the body is still to some extent organised, but albumen that forms the basis for propagation is distinguished by this very characteristic, that it is in a condition of complete disorganisation. The substances that are contained in it are reduced to chaos and are in no sort of combination, they are tossed and jumbled together to form a mere accumulation without order or proportion; and on this very account the albumen is no longer subject to the Earth. So long as the albumen can by some means or other be held together in inward cohesion, so long is it subject to the forces that work from the centre of the Earth. The moment the albumen is inwardly split up and destroyed, it comes under the influence of the whole sphere of the Cosmos. Forces work in upon it from every quarter. And then we have the tiny particle of albumen that forms the basis for reproduction. This tiny particle is an image of the entire Cosmos, because albumen substance has been split up, destroyed and reduced to chaos — converted, that is, into cosmic dust and thereby fitted to become exposed to the working of the entire Cosmos.

Of all this men have to-day simply no knowledge at all. They imagine the old hen has the complicated albumen. This is included in the egg, and thence arises the new hen. It is the albumen continued, it has gone on evolving. Then the germinal substance is developed once again; and so it goes on from hen to hen. In actual fact it is not so. Every time the transition takes place from one generation to the next, the albumen is exposed to the whole Cosmos.

On the one hand, therefore we have the earthly substances, subject to the earthly or central forces. But we can also imagine these earthly substances exposed in certain circumstances to the forces that work in from all quarters, from the farthest limits of the universe. The latter forces are the ones that work in the human etheric body. The etheric body is subject to the forces of the Cosmos. These are real conceptions of physical body and etheric body
...
We can actually find certain places in Nature where the physical forces of the Earth enter into the midst of the etheric forces that stream in from all sides. You may imagine albumen to begin with as a substance present in the physical Earth. So long as sulphur, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen are in any way chemically recognisable in it, the albumen is in fact subject to the earthly forces. But the moment it enters the sphere of the reproductive process, it is lifted out of the physical forces. The forces of the circumference of the Universe begin to work upon it in its disorganised condition. New albumen comes into being as an image of the whole Universe.