P.H.Damsté MD PhD, Utrecht Netherlands
The essence of life was recognised in the early 70's with the discovery of "excitable media". The humble amoeba living in the soil, the network of lymphocytes and the specialised cells of muscle and brain were studied to know the way they handle and store information. JWS Pringle and B Goodwin understood that the complexity of life could be explained in terms of patterns in time, better then in spatial structures. The distinction time-pattern versus spatial form is related to the well known paradox of waves versus particles in defining the nature of electromagnetic radiation. Although both are true descriptions, one is preferable over the other depending on the context. Thus surgery is manipulation of space and form, and psychotherapy is manipulation of memories and cognition. It is an exchange of information, a learning process in patterns of time.
To be alive is to be communicating. Living is the art of perceiving the challenges in the environment and to deliver the responses. Internal communication is the traffic of information within cells or organ systems. External communication is detecting relevant stimuli and responding with physiologic, social, moral and verbal responses.
The central theme in this book, Concentric Man, is the dynamic layered structure of living beings and societies, animals and human. The layers are tuned to respond to either slow or fast and ultra-fast changes in the environment. Man can be compared to a transmitter-receiver that detects and responds to changes in oscillations (stimuli) of widely different wavelengths. This faculty is acquired in the course of interaction with the environment. The result of the interaction varies with the time-frame in which the dialogue of challenge (stimulus) and response develops. The exchange may result in
From an angle of time-structuring these are analogous Darwinian processes of variation and selection. A comparable model has been applied to the societal institutions (KE Boulding, Ecodynamics 1978).
My book aims at "consilience" (EO Wilson 1998) between disciplines, applied to a quality of health and well-being, called resilience. This quality is attained by successful adaptation cum defence (AcD) in communicating with the environment. The dialogue between a species and its environment takes the form of adaptive changes that serve to defend its identity. The expression AcD indicates that adaptation and defence are inseparable. Individual resilience, physical as well as mental and emotional, is achieved by continuous learning during one's lifetime. Learning is a mode of AcD. The process leading to resilience is one of evolution and learning and takes place in four systems:
[1] the genetic adaptation and defence system (Genic AcD) protecting the identity of the species
[2] the immune system's lymphoid adaptation and defence (Lymph AcD) protecting the individual's health and well-being
[3] the nervous or neuronal adaptation and defence system (Neural AcD) which accommodates drives, emotions and skills, as well as attitudes and value-judgments
[4] an intraspecific signalling system, which in humans has developed into a linguistic or verbal adaptation and defence system (Verbal AcD). It is the matrix of societal and economic institutions.
The four systems for adaptation and defence have in common that they have memory, they evolve, that is they learn. They do this in different time-scales: a stimulus - response transaction requires centuries for Genic AcD, minutes to weeks for Lymph AcD, seconds to hours for Neural AcD and Verbal AcD. The general Darwinian principle of variation followed by selection applies to all four systems.
The systems for adaptation and defence acquire cognition relating to their environment, which in the long term is expressed as form, in the short term as function and behaviour
The time-oriented concept of Concentrical Man, apart from disclosing a great structural beauty, has been found to be a useful tool. It has helped us to understand that crucial events during development of the child may result in serious abnormalities. These evolve when inappropriate demands are made on the lymphoid system, the neural system or the verbal system. For the LymAcD (allergy), the NeuAcD (neurosis) and the VerbAcD (stuttering) a reciprocal relationship has been established, which means that effective preventive measures can be taken.