BIO-LIMINAL
PHOTOGRAPHY A NEW CONTROVERSY, DOES IT VALIDATE VITALISMBIO-LIMINAL
PHOTOGRAPHY A NEW CONTROVERSY, DOES IT VALIDATE VITALISM
by CJ.Wansbrough unpublished 1999
(word bio-liminal was coined to indicate that this phenomena is at the edge or threshold, hence liminal, of the biological system)
Throughout the history of biology, there has been an ongoing polemic between mechanism and holism, reiterated over and over again in a constant antagonism found between those supporting some form of vitalism, and those with a profound faith in a reductionistic model. It revolves around the intrinsic differences between substance (structure, matter, quantity) and form (pattern, order, quality). Such controversy started early in the history of Western science and philosophy between Plato and Aristotle, arising fundamentally from the different emphasis placed on the importance of form and matter. Plato emphasised the spiritual qualities of existence and elaborated on the patterns intrinsic in matter, while Aristotle considered form to be immanent in matter, and outlined an empirical and far more materialistic approach.
By the end of the seventeenth century and with the advent of the scientific revolution, the medieval worldview became replaced by an analytical methodology that was effective and powerful in the unravelling of nature and its secrets. While the engine of analytical reason pioneered an extraordinary transformation in our landscape and values, the embers of its thematic counterpart, those embedded in the vitalist tradition seem to fade away into controversy and muted silence, lost to the charges of magic and sorcery. As the scientific method gathered speed at a phenomenal pace, discoveries and the inordinate faith generated by so powerful a system, led to the belief that life would fundamentally yield up its secrets through the study of chemistry and physics. By the end of the nineteenth century, the discovery of the microscope led to many powerful advances in biology, and together with the increasing
success of microbiology and embryology gave overwhelming credence to the view that life was at heart, a mechanical process.
Nevertheless, one flaw in this dogma, lay in the immense difficulties such a model faced, when it tried to explain how all the units and sub-units resolved into integrated functioning organisms. This became particularly acute when engaged in explaining away the problems of cell development and differentiation. So critical was this problem that a German embryologist Hans Driesch , following some pioneering work on the sea urchins, realised that after destroying one cell at the early two cell stage of a developing embryo, the remaining cell still developed into a complete sea urchin and not half an urchin, that such a mechanism could not be explained purely in mechanical terms. The result led him to resurrect the doctrine of vitalism in the early thirties
Meanwhile as biology and medicine, continued to make strident inroads into the very substance of life, with advances in molecular biology and genetics, another doctrine arose, albeit in the form of a transmuted vitalism, which began to pose as a serious contender to the predominating austerity and supposedly value-free paradigm of reductive megalomania. This was the doctrine of Organismic biology that has steadily gained ground as we have moved towards the end of the twentieth century.
Both Vitalism and Organiscism are opposed to this mortifying necessity of science to reduce life to the bare and ascetic essentials of chemistry and physics. Both seriously believe that the sum total of an integrated life form is greater than its parts. But both doctrines differ sharply in their answers to the question
‘ In what sense exactly is the whole more than the sum of its parts? Vitalists assert that some non-physical entity, force or field, must be added to the laws of physics and chemistry to understand life. Organismic biologists maintain that the additional ingredient is the understanding of ‘organisation’ or organising relations. ‘ For vitalism to survive in any form it must address the issue of such a vital field, in a way that confirms or denies the qualities of such a field, but though a number of versions have been presented this century, none have so far stood up against adequate scientific scrutiny.
On the other hand, the doctrine of organismic or holistic philosophy has gained enormous strength from a number of recent advances and denies categorically the need to posit any separate energy field, maintaining that the organic relationships between the different parts of an organism are wholly immanent in the physical structure of that living organic system.
As the character of the bio-liminal photography (a word coined by Patrick Richards to identify his area of inquiry) phenomena under study, may well bring in another perspective to the underlying dialectic between vitalist/organismic versus reductionist arguments, I feel it may well be helpful to give a brief overview of the developing organismic model.
At the beginning of the century the philosopher A.N. Whitehead, developed his own theory of the organism. He was continually occupied with the problems of abstraction, and how abstract processes relate to concrete reality especially in light of their dynamic nature. In his major work Process and Reality he spoke with admiration of Plato’s insight into ‘how to seek the forms in the facts’. His philosophical conflict arose from trying to tie together a view of the world as made of dynamic fluent processes and at the same time exhibiting structures that could be clearly defined in mathematical formulations. This conflict led him to propose a sophisticated form of animism, in which nature and organism are mutually implicated and mutually constitutive. Nature and organism were intimately intertwined; to such a degree that one could not occur without the other. An organism in his view came into being by its own activity out of a substrate which Whitehead refers to as the underlying ‘energy of realisation’.The analogies between his philosophy of nature and those of many traditional indigenous philosophies are obvious, and innumerable parallels can be sought between this ‘energy of realisation’ and ancient holistic philosophies. The Chinese Taoist philosophy speaks of ‘Qi’, the undifferentiated primal energy pervading the universe, which is an essential feature of Chinese medical practise, and is regarded as the motivating force that animates all life. An invisible force known only by its effects, Qi is recognised indirectly by what it fosters, generates and protects. In the same way Prana is an essential feature of most Indian philosophy and is used conceptually in its own medicine to underpin the shifting energies between nature and organism. Many traditional philosophies and their related healing systems, rely to an enormous extent on a vitalist philosophy which, to reiterate again, takes for granted the existence of some non-physical field which is an underlying matrix in all existence. Such reiteration is necessary to stress,(and I will return to this point later) since this underlying concept of energy in most indigenous traditions defines life and its ecosystem. Even though this vital force is impossible to grasp, measure, quantify, or isolate, immaterial yet essential, it informs and defines the very nature of existence according to many ancient philosophies.
Yet due to its ineffable credentials, it has gained few converts amongst the scientific community, and so remains vociferously understated but value-rich only in the domains of complementary medicine and New Age philosophy.
During the early twentieth century, Reductionism, maintained a dominance that appeared unchallenged, till some biologists, began with renewed vigour to re-examine some key insights made by Aristotle, Goethe, Kant, and A. Whitehead and, to reformulate a philosophy, which we can call systems thinking. The purpose of such a philosophy was to define some universal characteristics that could be found in all hierarchical systems, and could therefore act as a focus to reintegrate the subtle yet alienating power of reductive thought. Ross Harrison, an early exponent of organismic philosophy explored the concept of organisation, and came to identify configuration and relationship as two crucial aspects of organisation, which came to be unified in the concept of pattern as a configuration of ordered relationships. Further refinements on these themes, together with the enormous progress made in quantum theory and the biological sciences in general have made this particular philosophy a powerful counter argument to the austerity and inhumane operation of the present reductive paradigm.
The themes of major importance in this profound, ecologically centred doctrine can be found in biology by asking the simple but profound question,
What are the characteristics of a living organism? As stated above, reductionism takes a mechanistic perspective; vitalism enthuses over some soulful essence, while organiscism takes on a panoramic overview of an ecology mediated by a network of relationships.
Two principal architects of this organismic panorama, who have deeply influenced the biology of the organism, have been Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela.
They suggested that the uniqueness of a living organism lay in its ability to organise itself into a self contained unit. This insight led to the definition of a living being as being a unity in which its components are organised in such a way that they take part in the continual process of recreating that unit. That is to say that a living being is self organising and self producing and to convey this idea with clarity they coined a term ‘autopoetic’ which comes from the Greek auto meaning self and poesis meaning production. Such a definition imposed a very clear distinction between organisation and structure, between form and matter, implying that an organisation consisted of an abstract description of relationships and does not identify the components. The example given is a chair, for something to be regarded as a chair, it must have a flat portion to sit on, legs and a back and this represents its organisation (or information content). It does not matter whether the chair is made of wood, plastic or metal or that it is put together with screws or glue; this is its structure but not its organisation.
One further and far more radical conclusion was that after identifying life with ability to self-organise, this in turn would imply that such an organism was capable of maintaining some form of internal coherence by a process of constant self-reference. In other words, coherence arose as a function of its cognitive abilities. Perception became an essential feature of the organism to maintain its own position in the constant dynamic between its internal and external environment. In his words ‘ living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition. This statement is valid for all organisms with or without a nervous system.’ This is indeed a radical conception since by identifying cognition with the process of life, it implies that perception or indeed cognition creates and specifies a reality that is solely determined by its need to maintain an internal integrity at all times. In other words cognition does not represent an external reality but defines and co-creates it. Our perceptions define our relationships to reality and our relationships define our perceptions, they are both structurally coupled with the sole purpose of maintaining integrity. In such a ceaseless choreography, an exchange of coherent information must at all times be maintained.
In such a model between the environment and the living organism, dialogue arises as a function of perception, structurally coupled; nature and organism maintain a ceaseless process of self-determination.
In the pursuit of such self-determination what becomes essential is the self-assertive process of generating the distinction between self and non-self and preserving the distinction between the two. In creating such a boundary, it has been proposed by Ashbridge and Booth in an article in Advances, a further elaboration on the theme of organism, that the relationships among the psychological, neurological and immunological levels of a living organism can be better explained through a unifying principle of ‘teleological coherence’ as defined in the two following premises
1. The relationships between psycho-neural and immune systems arise as a consequence of the goal to maintain self-identity.
2. The nature of these relationships is governed by the necessity for harmony of purpose (teleological) or coherence among all levels of the organism involved in establishing and maintaining self-identity.
What again is essential to this idea is that any changes in one domain must necessarily affect behaviour in another domain in such a way as to maintain coherence and harmony amongst all other domains in the living organism.
This model of organism assumes that the properties defining life are immanent in the emerging organisation of the individual. They are not apart and do not entertain any underlying vitalist theory of a separate organising field. So the characteristics of life in this model can be succinctly summarised
To be self organising, self-referential and self determining in an effort to maintain integrity and identity in a coherent fashion. It also presupposes that the nature of this coherent identity is in a continual process of recreation that couples it dynamically to its environment, both are mutually implicated, and inclusively interdependent.
In the words of A. Whitehead
‘ An individual whose own life-history is part within the life history of some larger, deeper, more complete pattern, is liable to have aspects of that larger pattern dominating its own being, and so to experience modifications of that larger pattern reflected in itself as modifications of its own being. This is the theory of organic mechanism’.
In such a model not only are individuals part of a greater organism, but the reverse is also true, there is an eternal shuffle between identity and dissolution, between the implicate and explicate patterns of environment and life forms. Each organism on creating self-identity enfolds the environment into itself simultaneously as it unfolds to the environment. This is precisely how David Bohm envisages his quantum universe. Bohm, suggests that the flow or process is immanent to life, and prior to forms or things, which arise out of and dissolve back into this flow. He suggests that this unbroken movement contains layer upon layer of more and more general levels of ordering. Specific manifestations or appearance of some thing or thought is the revealing or unfolding of some layer of order out of the whole. Because appearance is hidden within the unbroken whole, he calls this the ‘implicate order’.
In essence he envisages a universal process of creation and dissolution, determined by a field he labels the super-quantum potential, so as to give a world of form and structure in which all manifest features are only relatively constant recurrent and stable aspects of some greater whole.
I apologise to my readers for the rather lengthy preamble, but I have tried to find a context into which it might be possible to explain the phenomenology of this peculiar anomaly.
I would first like to explain the technology involved, the empirical observations made with said technology, then surmise on the possible nature of this phenomenon and finally discuss some of the wider implications of this technology.
Originally work was done on a machine to develop some mode of regulating the thermal currents in a room. It was noticed that the machinery produced some sort of field and when a photograph was taken using a particular type of photography, it was noticed that the image captured, seemed to represent some sort of visual phenomena.
After some 14 years of constant experiment, Patrick. Richards developed a feasible hypothesis to explain the nature of this luminous phenomena.
My readers must bear with me, as Patrick whose background is in engineering tried to create a theory, which would make sense of his discovery.
The machine designed by him, seems to create an altered field, not only by changing the magnetic dipole in the environment but also by changing the quality of light in the environment, to such an extent that an individual life form and light information intrinsic to that individual can be imaged with normal photography. It is the nature of this image and its implications that represents the extraordinary nature of this phenomenon.
We originally surmised that the image represented the sum total of cell light being emitted by the organism. It is widely accepted that all living systems exhibit a very weak photo-emission of up to a few hundred photons per second in ranges from at least ultraviolet to the infrared range. In the work of Fritz-Albert Popp, a bio-physicist who has investigated the nature of light emissions from organisms over 20 years, it appeared likely that this "low-level luminescence" corresponded to a chaotic, spontaneous chemi-luminescence. However, manifold correlation’s to physiological and biological functions, as, for instance, radical reactivity, oxygen consumption, stress, cell proliferation and differentiation, biological rhythms, even DNA conformations, point to a regulatory activity of these "biological"' photons, called bio-photons. His conclusions are that the characteristics of light emitted by diverse organisms, point to the existence of a coherent photon field underlying the living organisation. Nevertheless, even using very finely tuned and sensitive instruments, which have allowed researchers to surmise the existence of such a field and even postulate that a coherent field is absolutely necessary to optimise communication between different aspects of the organism, there is as yet no direct evidence that organisms are coherent systems. Much of the organismic philosophy discussed above assumes coherence to be an essential feature of their model, but part of the difficulty lies in how to evaluate these phenomena. In the absence of an appropriate theory, there are no observational criteria that would satisfy the sceptic as to whether a given observation constitutes evidence for coherence.
Empirical observations have led us to conclude that the bio-liminal phenomenon offers some sustainable and testable predictions regarding the evidence for coherence. The bio-liminal field offers a window into the evolving state of that particular life form at that particular moment in time. It appears from observation, that the degree of luminous coherence that the organism displays with respect to its environment as captured on photography is a function of the degree of integrity (or health) that organism demonstrates in respect to the ongoing exchange between his own self determination and that of the environment.
In other words we have for once managed to capture in this altered field, a quantitative evaluation as to the degree of integration that an organism can display with regard to the evolving informational patterns found in his environment.
It appears that a clear crisp image captured on the photograph indicates that the lifeform is in harmony with those life patterns found in its environment. While a vague or fragmented image, is an indication of internal or external conflict or disharmony? It is difficult to comment on the nature of this informational field but Patrick Richards found empirically that by using the differentiation between clear and fragmented photos as a diagnostic indicator in the degree of integration a patient demonstrated, he was able to obtain some astounding results in the field of health.
By introducing various different medical interventions, ranging from the subtle effects of homeopathic medicines, acupuncture intervention, the use of Ayurvedic medicine, and even orthodox drugs, the photographic assessment as to the degree of coherence that individuals demonstrated in respect to all these different modalities, gave us crucial information in restoring coherence and health to that individual.
The technique used is entirely solution orientated, and the information captured by virtue of the photographic image allows us to assess in a more objective manner than has hitherto ever been done in the field of subtle medicine.
The questions as to the characteristics of this field may be many, but I suspect that the nature of this field may well remain a mystery unless we turn back towards the discredited doctrine of vitalism, and review some of its earlier proponents and assume another dimensional aspect to light, that has only become unveiled with this remarkable technology.
The nature of light, even today with the stunning technological advances in society, still remains as elusive as ever. But it is clear, that despite the enigmatic quality that light still displays in the many quantum experiments performed, the bio-liminal field has captured a subtle yet enigmatic signature of the living organism that represents a statement about the degree of conflict or harmony about that lifeform at that present moment in time. Such a liminal language has never before been captured with such clarity, or been experimentally validated over such a long period.
Though the nature of this bio-photon field is still in the realms of speculation, an important distinction made by medieval philosophers may serve to highlight an important quality of this ongoing luminal dialogue that lifeform and environment seem entangled in.
For many cultures, Light and its multiplicity of metaphors, have acted as a central theme in the genesis of life in general, many philosophies based on light, have based their systems on the principle of emanation and radiation. By far the most influential was a Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus (204-270ad) who proposed that from the source of all being, the self-transcendent One, proceeds all being by an overflowing or emanation of his essence, just as rays light emanate from the sun. Emanation from the One gives rise to Mind; further emanation carries on down the scale of being to soul and ultimately to the world of sense experiences. The image of the One becomes progressively weaker through successive emanations, and when we reach matter we have an image that has truly escaped the qualities of being. In proclaiming a unity between the physical and metaphysical realms, the visible became an image of the invisible. Moreover, from such a theory he derived the idea about light, being incorporeal, powerful yet formative in nature. Later on he returns to this theme, by interpreting light as an actualisation of a luminous body. This idea had profound implications and was widely disseminated through medieval Europe. It culminated in a brilliant book, De Luce by Robert Grosseteste, a medieval scholar (1175-1253) who has been declared to be the first true expositor of experimental science. His book is a story of creation, a Neoplatonic genesis in which the entire universe comes into being through the expansion and modification of light. He sets forth his first thesis, that light is the first corporeal form, saying ‘the form and perfection of all bodies is light but in the higher bodies it is more spiritual and simple whereas in the lower bodies it is more corporeal and multiplied.’ The remainder of this short book is occupied with an explanation and attempted proof of this proposition together with a detailed analysis of the process of emanation. To Grosseteste, light possessed two aspects, one aspect was the light of our physical existence condensing to matter, and the other aspect was a light of intelligence embodied in the purely spiritual realms of the Godhead.
These aspects were clearly distinguished in medieval philosophy as the differences between Lux and Lumen. Within this epoch they understood the light of creation to have a noble, spiritual quality they called Lux. This represented the soul of that creative phenomenon, and was distinguished from its emanation and bodily counterpart Lumen. Lux was God given, an essential light, a being of light that reflected the divine attributes of its maker. Lumen, by contrast was the material means by which our perception of the being of light(lux) arose. From such subtle and early formulations, the being of light that ensouled space (lux) retreated , leaving only a hard material vestiges (lumen) as a fossil record for the curious. This distinction is curious, as it gives Lux, the properties of an embodied intelligence, that is both formative and self referential to that state of ensouled light that best suits its own purposes.
In some ways the nature of Lux appears to have not dissimilar properties to that of the bio-liminal field, both represent luminal dialogues between the individual and nature, both display an embodied intelligence in the way they decide to integrate their activities with those of the environment.
In the late 1880’s J. T. Kent one of the founders of Classical Homeopathy, whose influence can still be felt today, published a lecture on the Vital Force, since homeopathy has remained primarily vitalist in its formulations. In this lecture he gives a succinct definition of those properties that must pertain to a Vital force
1 Endowed with formative intelligence i.e. it intelligently operates and forms the economy of the whole organism
2. The substance is subject to changes in other words, it may be flowing towards order or disorder; be sick or normal
3. Any simple substance may pervade the entire material substance without disturbing or replacing it.
4. When simple substance is an active substance it dominates and controls the body it occupies. It is the cause of the force. Energy derived from simple substance keeps all things in order.
This was formulated in the 1880’s and uses archaic language, derived from certain esoteric schools predominant at the time, but as a depiction of the vitalist position it is succinct and to the point. In the language of today, it would be formulated in a rather different clothing but the same sentiments would hold true.
In a modern version, the components might be reformulated, to become
1. A Morphogenetic component -indicating an aspect of the field that can generate and contain form
2. A Biophysical component –referring to the actual energetic aspect of this field
3. A Teleological component- refers to that aspect of formative intelligence that maintains integrity
My contention is that all these properties of a so-called vitalist hypothesis can be demonstrated by empirical observation of the bio-liminal field.
For not only does the field demonstrate an embodied intelligence, luminal in quality, but has shown to display with uncharacteristic alacrity, an embodied sense of its self, since by solely following its luminal signature through a series of appointments with a large number of patients, and its own intrinsic integrity is maintained by restoring health to many individuals when the circumstances are appropriate.
In his rather controversial book, the New Science of Life, Rupert Sheldrake he argues that the power of organismic philosophy has so far made little difference or given rise to any substantial or testable predictions. He illustrates this by referring to morphogenetic fields, which are supposed to help account for the coming into existence of developing systems. This term clearly refers to a new type of physical field, but many organismic biologists deny the presence of such a new field, and instead use it as a metaphor to provide a new way of talking about complex physico-chemical systems. I would tend to concur with these sentiments, in so far as, the descriptions given above summarising the organismic hypothesis; seem to represent vitalist theory retailored to suit those scientist searching for different metaphors to temper the power of the reductionist model. To state categorically that those characteristics of an organism such as self-referential, self-deterministic and internally coherent, are immanent is no better frankly than stating that a vital force exists. One doctrine presents an ineffable or non-physical field, the other doctrine tries to turn properties into a mis-aligned metaphor for life.
It is clear that for any vitalist theory to sustain any credibility, one must propose some form of field that from the scientific point of view can lead to testable predictions that differ from those of conventional theory. I believe that the phenomena of Bioliminal photography presents such an opportunity, and should assuming its nature to be a non-physical phenomenon, generate a series of possible predictions.
In my final few words, I would like to say that whether this anomaly is ignored or not, it presents some extraordinary and controversial evidence in the ongoing dialectic that has arisen from the early days of Western civilisation when Plato and his pupil Aristotle set the terms and conditions to this debate. Maybe A.N. Whitehead was correct when he went as far as to say that ‘the safest general characterisation of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato —alluding to the wealth of general ideas scattered throughout his writings’. But is clear that Plato recognised some transcendent and organising principle in life, and it is possible that this technology offers us a window onto another level of the evolutionary ladder. Perhaps this technology offers us whispers of an ensuing ecology of compassion, where its benign effects will allow us to consummate our profound desires to render our-selves and our environment into a harmonious whole.