Immateriality and its children Where does knowledge find existence? Where knowledge of bio-morphogenesis lies The forms of knowledge and why it is limited Forbidden knowledge The limits of knowledge The pool of knowledge used by life The highest knowledge Bibliography

IMMATERIALITY AND ITS CHILDREN

As the debris hurled in dizzyingly repeated circles in the form of a tornado is nothing more than matter in the grip of invisible forces. And, though from a distance a tornado gives the appearance of a solid cone, even on film or captured by brush on canvass. And, though it will rip apart and pulverize to indistinction matter caught and ground in its teeth – as would be in storms on Jupiter where, in comparative size, earth would be but like a rock. Still, at root – though one sends us all scampering like trembling mice to shelter – a hurricane is an immaterial structure of electromagnetic forces binding together material forces coming within its grip and for all the world appearing material. And in no sense of the word is there anything material about its fundamental essence. A tornado is a swirlling force and only secondly a material form and power.
In like manner are all so-called physical things, material objects, forms of matter nothing more than mirages of materiality draped around the forces which themselves form. At root, the forms of matter identified as leptons – frequently in the form of electrons – and quarks (primarily in the form of protons and neutrons) are nothing more than the semblance's of materiality: the ghost-like clothes of, respectively, the electromagnetic and strong forces that command their every nuance and move. Necessarily, then, all forms built on top of these forces – on top of the particles they make, and on top of the atoms particles make; on top of the molecules atoms make; on top of the germ cells molecules make; on top of the multi-cellular creatures cells make; on top of the behaviors, thoughts, and knowledge these living organisms possess. At root, this inverted pyramid of life rests solidly upon immaterial foundations.

WHERE DOES KNOWLEDGE FIND EXISTENCE?

Knowledge, being the understanding of truth, life, and living, is housed in minds, brains, nervous systems and such. Yet, the pattern of knowledge – or understanding residing in configurations of molecules on atoms, on particles, on forces – in the end is a sub-microscopic package of energy: the complement of what in matter it becomes. It is thoroughly impossible for a physical pattern in the form of atoms, molecules, or such, to assume an independent form in the sense that it would (as is impossible) adopt a form and behavior different from the commands given to it by the forces that it comprise.
As matter adopts the forms, shapes, and behaviors so demanded by the forces commanding matter to, it is quite impossible for any form of matter to form that which did not in an energy form pre-exist. Energy pulls matter to itself as a magnet pulls iron filings. As material forms can only assume the shapes and behaviors given them by the forces undergirding them, material must evolve to the "raw material inputs" needed before the material form can itself come into existence. The energy form is the seed that will later become flowers, birds, and animals. On other planets with different physical conditions, we cannot even imagine what life would there unfold.
Thus, particles had to form before atoms could be made. Atoms had to exist prior to molecules springing into existence. Molecules had to be before amino acids could form. Amino acids were required to be present before DNA could exist. DNA had to evolve before rabbits could be emerge. Rabbits had to emerge prior to eagles being "programmed" to catch them. All the preceding needed to come into existence before man could seek knowledge about all the preceding.
But, the microscopic or submicroscopic blueprint in energy of particles, atoms, molecules, cells, rabbits, eagles, human beings, and human inquisitiveness (in the human genome) had to pre-exist: knowledge of all these had to pre-exist. And any knowledge which any of these have internally had to pre-exist within them internally in energy-blueprints (the writer, however, believes in much of evolutionary dogma). At root, all knowledge possessed by anything could only pre-exist in the form of organized energy blueprints, as it were: immaterial blueprints that drew matter to itself and became physical.
All knowledge used by any industrial or scientific process pre-existed and has existed since the beginning of and before the universe was formed. Why before the universe was formed? For the laws governing the universe have remained unchanged since the beginning and would have had to have been in perfect form prior to the inception of the universe. If not, all of scientific law would have had to have quickly formed between the beginning of the big bang at 10^-43 seconds and before, say 10^-42 seconds for already at that time the universe was rapidly expanding and different regions would have developed different kinds of "natural law." As that did not happen, law had to have been in place prior to 10^-43. Knowledge is an immaterial entity that outdates the age of the universe in which we all exist.

WHERE KNOWLEDGE OF BIO-MORPHOGENESIS LIES

Physio-morphogenesis: The distinction of knowledge enabling bio-morphogenesis was made to delineate it from knowledge enabling physio-morphogenesis for physio- morphogenesis is the morphogenesis leading to the development of the physical universe. And that morphogenesis is specific from superforce to its separation into the four forces; matter particles (primarily hydrogen) formed by the clash of forces; hydrogen forming gaseous clouds – the facsimile of the galaxies they later became – whose gases condensed into stars and in whose stars the higher elements were formed. And frequent explosion of supernovas distributing the heavier elements from carbon to iron and uranium throughout the universe often establishing themselves in planetary systems.
And when those planetary systems have temperature ranges in the extremely narrow band of 0⁰ C to 100⁰ C (the range is bone-crumbling cold today of 3⁰ K average universe temperature to a sizzling 10³² K at big bang ), life can form following the initiation of gaseous environments, amino acids cooked in hot oceans, and the stage is set for bio-morphogenesis. Bio-morphogenesis is an extension of physio-morphogenesis and they are part of the same process of Cosmic-morphogenesis, it would seem. The knowledge of physio-morphogenesis lies in the four forces which undergird and manipulate matter. And all that knowledge resided in the tiny area of 10^–36 cm in which our universe was begun. Dear reader, can it logically be and have been anywhere else?
Where knowledge of bio-morphogenesis lies and the architecture of life: After the strong force anchoring electrons around atomic nuclei thereby establishing atoms – and gravity forming celestial bodies made of atoms – the architecture of the physical universe is based on the blueprint of electromagnetism which forms the nature or characteristics of every atom and is the bridge between one atom and the next such that you and I and the earth, solar system, galaxy, and universe exist. This electromagnetism is something quite marvellous for if there is any place where the knowledge of bio-morphogenesis exists, its totality is within any figurative "drop" of electromagnetism (identical "drops" of electromagnetism made matter as E = mc²) and the different configurations that it makes. In 1935, Harold Burr, the editor of the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, wrote that " 'life fields' hold the shape of organisms just as a mould determines the shape of a pie or pudding."¹ Regarding the formation of the living mould, Burr stated the belief that:

It is not improbable that electrical differences may be bound up with the dynamic wholeness of a living system. Electrical currents produce electric fields and it is possible that a living organism possesses not only many small fields but a single large field (Note: in a related manner MRI shows inner images of discrete organ parts as parts of discrete whole organs). Moreover, it is possible that these fields are not mere by-products of cellular activity but are to some extent determining and guiding factors in development and in living processes. ²

As it is, the field does indeed precede matter and is to matter as light is to a shining bulb. Or the field is to matter as the antennae is to an insect. The field is to matter as the hand is to man: it is the hand of man that reaches out and shake the hand of another thereby making physical contact. Man relates to and builds the world through his hands. And, it is the field that makes "physical" contact between one form of matter and the next. The field serves as matter's hands and feet. More importantly, it serves as matter's brain. It has the knowledge of how matter should behave and the field calls all the shots. Knowledge resides in the field: and the field is electromagnetic (or gravitational, or strong, or weak as they are all equal as they all emerged from superforce and in the early universe interchanged into one another (click).
Back to Burr, however. Burr turned out right regarding his perception that the field guided bio-morphogensis for just 11 years later, in 1946, Linus Pauling, the Father of Molecular Biology, discerned the key catalytic role of the enzyme in morphological development in the form of that same electromagnetic field.³ All food, from apples to steak, have different shapes, and their molecules have a host of different shapes. (We are still working towards the question of knowledge).
Yet regardless of the shape of these foods and their molecules, their shapes are all transformed to make the spherical surface of our eyes, the semi-circular edge of our fingernails, the mountainous shape of the surfaces of our grinding teeth, the straight shape of our bones, the straight or curly strands of our hair, the heart shape of our heart, and so on. For the cow, enzymes transform grass into fur, teeth, and milk. For the butterfly, enzymes transform simple pollen into beautiful flying flowers. From water alone, lovely water lilies are formed and starting from the lowest part of the food chain in the ocean, every creature there is from water and sunlight by enzymes transformed.
An apple, pear, peach, strawberry, and watermelon seed thrown into the soil are all by enzymes transformed into the fruits we eat: nothing but mud and sunshine! There is some force which transforms the shape of molecules as they are to what an organism's body needs them to be from thorns on a rose to the perfumed rose's petals themselves. This is the role of enzymes where acting as brick layers, enzyme A takes and lays protein (substrate) A; next, enzyme B takes and lays protein (substrate) B, and so forth until each cell or body is formed. Jencks defines the nature of Paulings enzymes as:

[To describe this phenomena] we propose the term Circe effect. The Circe effect refers to the utilization of strong attractive forces to lure a substrate into a site in which it undergoes an extraordinary transformation of form and structure. ⁴

In Greek mythology, Circe was an enchantress who detained Odysseus on her island and turned his men into swine. William Jencks proposed this term to describe the phenomena of enzymes radically transforming the shape of protein it anchors at sites. Where lies the knowledge used by the body for morphological development? The "guiding electrical current" spoken of by Burr is none other than the field of the enzyme named the Circe effect by Jencks. Where could the sum total of knowledge needed for bio-morphogenesis exist? The information lies within the germ cell, within the electromagnetic force so forming the architectural structure of the germ cell. And, dear reader, where was all that information, all that knowledge when the universe began? Could it have been any other place than the figurative tiny space of 10^–36 cm of the early universe? And existent, in energy form even prior to then? Reader. Draw your own conclusions.

THE FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE AND WHY IT IS LIMITED

Animals have intimate knowledge about their own ecosystems but not more. A well-educated person may conclude that the ability for the human to obtain knowledge is due to man's superior brain. However, the claim introduced here is that knowledge is sufficient to efficient and contented living. With such a restriction, this would mean that knowledge which did not serve the purpose of allowing life to be efficient and contented would be superfluous and Nature would not give a creature access to it. Excess knowledge is irrelevant to life and would be counterproductive. Knowledge reaches a point of diminishing returns where additional knowledge detracts from an efficient and contented life. Limits on knowledge, it will be argued, is by design whereas the question of where knowledge lies will still be pursued.
Nature purposefully limits knowledge access. Take, for instance, the amygdala: a self-enclosed mini-brain which is so high-security the conscious mind has no access. Based upon an animal's or person's perception of a situation, the amygdala combines as a special forces rapid action arm and supra-intelligence agency in the body which controls physio-mento-behavioral functions of the organism in the interests of insuring its survival by instigating "proper" behaviors for emergency situations. These behaviors are start-to-finish plans of action. The amygdala is one of the oldest structures of the brain and is found in the brain stem of living creatures from the reptile up the line of evolution to man.
As all that is needed to kill something is one mistake in judgement, and since the amount of time it would take to analyze a life-threatening situation would often take so long that life would be lost, the brain developed the emergency control center for rapid reflex-action, the amygdala. This reflex system based on the amygdala is based upon perceptions, remembers life-threatening situations and files them away in itself. The amygdala is like a puppeteer moving its organism like a marionette where feelings, emotions, facial expressions, muscular movements, behaviors with behaviors manifested as carried-out plans of actions are controlled by the puppeteer i.e. amagydala.
What is meant by the amagydala being the puppeteer for "behaviors manifested as carried-out plans of actions?" It means that for flight rather than fight, an animal will run placing one foot after the other; survey the terrain. Notice and jump over rocks. Lean forward to run up a hill but cautiously run down hill. Look around for routes of safe escape. And, after loosing the pursuer, calm down and resume normal activities again. That is one behavior. But, it controls and coordinates all behaviors — from curiosity to love, hate, anger, determination, ecstacy, sleepiness, concentration, ect. — with the rest of the brain.
Back a few lines: the amygdala acts based upon perceptions run through it and it always gets information before the analytical brain. When the perception says, "You're going to be killed!" The amygdala sends blood to the big bone muscles to prepare for flight. When perception says, "You have to fight!" It sends blood to the hands so that they can grab objects to strike with. When perception says, "It's dark on a lonely dangerous street and I think I heard footsteps behind me!" The amygdala freezes the breathing, widens the eyes to heighten perception so that the danger can be determined.⁵ For more detail on such puppeteer- to-marionette or amygdala-to-organism behaviors, please click.
However, with the exception of the neocortex which enables us to analyze a situation and make a cool plan of action (only after the perception has been processed through the amygdala, though, and by then, the amygdala may already have triggered extreme actions) neither we nor animals have any access whatsoever to the amygdala. We are its slaves. And, herein lies the point. The amygdala is privvy to knowledge that we can't get at any price. Or if some of us can through psychoanalysis, so-called lower animals cannot.

FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE

We see, then, that the amygdala functions as a supra-brain. A separate intelligence. It resides above the conscious and is usually its master. It is aware of the conscious, but ruthlessly ignores any forms of communication as so far as it is concerned, it knows what is best for survival. The stupid consciousness doesn't know anything, it feels. It is the wise old snake that has been around for billions of years. To it, the conscious mind is a young upstart, a greenhorn, the new kid-on-the-block that knows nothing about the real human nature and the real ways of life. The amygdala scorns, doesn't trust the conscious mind. This brings up the point that there are kinds of knowledge that do us no good to possess as knowing them would only detract from an efficient, contented life. In otherwords, there are types of knowledge the forces which organizing us have simply made inaccessible except, perhaps, at extreme effort. Lewis Thomas, former dean of Yale Medical School, speaks of the enormous preoccupation that our conscious mind would have if it had knowledge of all things internal:

I am, to face the facts squarely, considerably less intelligent than my liver. I am, moreover, constitutionally unable to make hepatic decisions, and I prefer not be obliged to, ever. I would not be able to think of the first thing to do. I have the same feeling about the rest of my working parts. They are better off without my intervention in whatever they do. It might be something of a temptation to take over my brain, on paper, but I cannot imagine doing so in real life. I would loose track, get things mixed up, turn on the wrong cells at wrong times, drop things. I doubt if I would ever be able to think of my own thoughts. My cells were born, or differentiated anyway, knowing how to do this kind of thing together. If I moved in to organize them they would resent it, perhaps become frightened, perhaps swarm out into my ventricles like bees ... Imagine having to worry about running leukocytes, keeping track, herding them here and there, listening for signals. After the first flush of pride in ownership, it would be exhausting and debilitating, and there would be no time for anything else. ⁶

Both living processes in nature and our own brain and body (all coded initially in the single genome from which we emerged) keep knowledge away from us except for the handful willing to expend great time and effort to obtain information that nature has "No tresspassing" signs around. And certainly animals don't know. At the close of 1997 Antonio Damasio, of the University of Iowa, wrote:

When we retrieve a word to name a particular object, the mind does not let us glimpse directly the complex machinery that was put to work to come up with that word. We also have no sense of the relatively long lapse of time taken by the brain to perform the search and selection. ⁷

Our greatest knowledge is but an insignificant subset of the amount of knowledge the body possesses and requires to function. And the Nobelist, Richard Feynman, pioneered thinking, as far back as 1959, about microscopic-sized computers using quantum mechanics "credited his inspiration to the molecular-scale machines and information systems of living things."⁸ Alluding to pre-existing knowledge in nature – to which the human being was not invited to the dinner table to learn of – we hear: " 'Biomolecular systems have such fantastic properties in and of themselves, and they literally grow on trees,' says Stanford chemist Steven Boxer. 'We've decided that since we can't beat them, we should join them.' "⁹ Nature possess knowledge kept from man and other living things. And, it is intentional.
And, consider that we all emerged from a single germ cell. That cell took nutrition in the form of trillions of individual molecules and created our mind and body first as new born babes, then later as adults. Our conscious mind is not aware of each of those molecules being formed into protein in each cell each second of the day each second of our lives. As stated, there comes a time when knowledge brings diminishing returns. Nature it would seem, designed life such that it could be lived efficiently and contentedly. For this reason, the butterfly has no cause to know the way to perform arithmetic operations in a base other than 10. An ant has no cause to understand continental drift. A giraffe has no reason to know molecular cell biology. In each case, their lives are presently lived efficiently and contentedly as possible. Any additional knowledge would cause inefficiency and destroy contentedness.

THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE

Man will challenge any boundary of knowledge. But, there are limits on the healthy amount of knowledge that a person or society can bear. A man like Theodore Kazynzsky, the unibomber, had too much knowledge and should have spent 3/4ths less time reading and 3/4ths more time enjoying the lovely things of this world. Social and familial happiness and stability are being exchanged for the endless pursuit of knowledge. It would seem that there are many forms of knowledge kept from us as in the case of the amygdala having information about us that the conscious mind is kept away from. And, the details of the operation of the body are kept from us. The formation of our bodies in the womb are kept from us.
The activities of each particle in our bodies are kept away from us. The only reason is not that we don't have the capability of knowing. But that such knowledge would be pure hell. It is too much to know. Considering, though, that the body knows when there are deficiencies of assorted multiple vitamins in the miniscule amounts of those supplied by one-a-day multiple vitamins, enough to meet the body's needs with the excess passed off through urine or creating toxicity, THERE IS INTELLIGENCE IN THE BODY THAT DOES KNOW ABOUT EVERY MOLECULE AND THE ACTIVITY OF EVERY PARTICLE. We know enough to slowly pursue that which will improve our own lives and society. Aside from that, the knowledge just mentioned and knowledge which exists but is kept from us: How was God formed? What is the purpose of life? How did God design the universe? How and why do we have the nature that we do? For billions of people, there are no answers to these questions. They are beyond the limits of our knowledge.

THE POOL OF KNOWLEDGE USED BY LIFE

What we have come to observe concerning knowledge is that there is a functional hierarchy of knowledge where there is a glass ceiling and glass floor, and are glass walls above which, below which, and beyond which the conscious cannot venture except with the exertion of great mental or spiritual effort – and still there are absolute limits. We will never know, for instance, how God was formed. There is an absolute consciousness which made the intelligent decision that there are some forms of knowledge whose awareness of would serve no purpose and could be counter productive.
We have also observed and discussed here and elsewhere in other essays how knowledge, intelligence, and consciousness are omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. These ideas are ancient. But, their existence leads to some interesting possibilities. First of all, in that it does not serve a grasshopper nor preying mantis well to know electrical or chemical or mechanical engineering, these things are "Known" by Nature. The idea will be here presented that the intelligence needed to form an animals body and behavior requires a technology so sophisticated that it may take mankind another thousand years to duplicate the feat of life.
In the future, there will be an essay devoted to this subject. The claim will be that there is a greater intelligence forming life. This greater intelligence enables living creatures to possess a modicum of intelligence needed for efficient and contented living and not an iota more. The idea will be that the intelligence certainly allows for things like free evolution (meaning that the greater intelligence isn't involved in the formation of each creature). But, the idea will be that there are infinitely more resources available for living creatures in the process of evolution than we presently recognize.
The idea will be that each creature is formed with complex technologies and formed with dizzyingly complex forms of calculus and unified sciences. That the material sciences, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, robotics, optics, acoustics, hunting, digestion, food assimilation, and hundreds more are involved in the construction of a single creature. That this knowledge exists in, say, idea-form in nature. That these sciences self-harmonize or self-synchronize into the formation of a living creature. That the reason creatures fit so snugly into environments that they intellectually are millions of years away from being able to understand is that knowledge is omnipresent and the gonads (sperm and eggs are formed in gonads) "know" the behaviors and chemistries of the living and non-living things of the creature's environment and designs the appropriate body forms, camouflage, and behaviors to fit in.
Certainly the conscious mind of creatures doesn't know these things. But, the higher intelligence in creatures that "assigns" the level of consciousness it has knows. Every creature, no matter how strong, has some weakness. The idea will be presented that Nature-as-a-whole knows about every type of creature and purposefully builds in weakness as Nature disapproves of absolute power and favors pride with humility. Finally, what has this all to do with the presence of Knowledge and where Knowledge lies? The claim here is that Knowledge is omnipresent and omniscient and each creature has a hierarchy of knowledge: each organ has knowledge of how it is to work, but the conscious brain is ignorant of that. Each little cell has knowledge of its domain, but is virtually unaware of the realm of the conscious.

THE HIGHEST KNOWLEDGE

There is probably no such a thing as the highest knowledge as God embodied each thing and each person with a sparkling diamond of knowledge that no other thing in the universe can match. We need the knowledge of all people well-used for good-intentioned, well-used knowledge imparts both service, comfort, and goodness. We need those with the knowledge to clean streets well as well as doctors, comedians, and disciplinarians. Yet, there is a certain kind of knowledge it does not seem people of this age are obtaining. In glorifying the human being, we sometimes forget that the glory of God shines fully in every creature and everything. God does not need to be expressed in the form of man: mentally or physically. Yet, there are things about God that seem to be a part of all things and if in our possession would put us in tune with God even though God, in essence, is not man. It should not be trite to say that Truth, Beauty, and Goodness is God's essence. And, if we seek and possess these, then perhaps we obtain God. At least in the mind of the writer.

---

BIBLIOGRAPHY SUPPLIED ON REQUEST

---

[ Home]