The biologist Mae-Wan-Ho, in The Rainbow and the Worm; The Physics of Organisms, wrote that biology has a long tradition of seeing organisms in atomistic terms. The distinct object has been a very productive concept in biology, with roots in ancient Greece. It encouraged scientists to discover and detail the cell, molecules, and atoms. But a lot of researchers have been concluding that the body is too holistic and too integrated with its surroundings to be strictly conceived in this way.
The biologist Bruce H. Lipton, in Spontaneous Evolution; Our Positive Future, wrote that ways we think can influence the body’s processes. He cited evidence that contradicts the modern biological dogma that the only process that determines how our bodies function is a one-way linear one of DNA determining the make-up of RNA, which determines how proteins fold. He wrote that the influence is actually in both directions, and cited evidence that the environment and our attitudes sometimes influence DNA. Our bodies seem to be more dynamic and more deeply integrated with the world around us than biology classes have often taught.
The physiologist Denis Noble makes the same point in The Music of Life; Biology Beyond Genes, saying that the passage of information is not simply one-way, from genes to function. Instead, genes, proteins, membranes, organelles, organs, systems of organs, and the natural environment interact to constitute the body. He writes that there are no privileged components telling the rest what to do. Every element at all levels can be part of the body’s regulatory network.
The field of epigenetics has further confirmed this by showing that DNA scripts are used differently depending on cellular environments in the body and on events in the environment and the society that the body lives in. Richard C. Francis, in Epigenetics; How Environment Shapes Our Genes, wrote that the idea of the naked double helix as a separate object floating around the cell’s nucleus, always ready for protein synthesis, doesn’t fully reveal the body’s complexity. Instead, compounds (including methyl groups, histones, and microRNA) attach to and cover large areas of DNA to influence ways genes are expressed, and the environment influences what attaches where. Francis concluded that most of the information in the recipe that goes into making you is not there from the outset; an original “genetic blueprint” does not determine most of who you are. Instead, the information emerges dynamically as you and your environment interact.
These relationships between the body and its environment include other people’s bodies. Mirror neurons are activated when another person (and sometimes an animal) performs the same activity. They enable infants to copy others’ actions, including grabbing and pointing. People also imitate others’ facial expressions. These neurons also mimic different people’s neurons when they feel emotions, and that this is why we feel the happiness, sadness, and pain of those around us. We can also feel the emotions of animals (most people who have lived with a dog know this well), and other intelligent mammals have been found to have mirror neurons that mimic experiences of members of their communities.
These relationships also extend to many other species. Scientists have recently discovered that the millions of microbes that live in our gastro-intestinal systems influence our well-being. Humans’ gut flora are established one to two years after birth, and many of these bacteria are beneficial for us. Some ferment dietary fiber into short-chain fatty acids. Others help synthesize vitamins, as well as metabolize bile acids, sterols, and xenobiotics. Studies have shown that diets high in sugars and processed foods can diminish a person’s gut bacteria, and that this can lead to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, emotional problems, and many other life-shortening disorders. A diet of probiotics, including yogurt and diverse vegetables and fruits, can make the bacteria more effective partners for extending our lives.
Several cultures can offer evidence that their basic ideas of the body correspond with it in some ways. Richard Gerber’s Vibrational Medicine cited research that integrates traditional Chinese and Indian medicine with aspects of the body that modern science has studied. According to Gerber, EMG electrodes in a study by Dr. Valerie Hunt at UCLA found vibrational frequencies between 100 and 1,600 cycles per second in the areas where chakras are supposed to be located. Hunt, in Infinite Mind, said that she found frequencies of up to 20,000 cycles per second.
The body is thus not a single platonic entity. It’s intimately interwoven with other people and species. It’s characterized by several integrated processes and systems rather than only one. It’s a convergence of many processes and systems. Mae-Wan Ho said that life is a process of being an organizing whole rather than a thing. But this whole includes outward and inward to include other organisms. We can now expand our ideas of the body from the distinct object to a convergence of the whole environment.