Cell Language Theory, The: Connecting Mind And Matter

The Bhopalator 101

“6x9” b2861 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter

The interrelations among the five classes of factors or entities

determining cell functions are visualized in Figure 3.21 using the geo-

metric properties of the body-centered tetrahedron (BCT) discussed in

Section 10.10 (see Figure 10.15).

3.2.16 An Atom–Cell Comparison Based on Aristotle’s

Four Causes Doctrine

According to Aristotle (384–322 BC), it is necessary to elucidate four

causes in order to completely describe any object X, each cause providing

an answer to its associated question: (i) the material cause (What is it

made out of?), (ii) the formal cause (What is it?), (iii) the efficient cause

(How does it work? How did it come about?), and (iv) the final cause

(What is it for?) [191]. This is graphically represented in Figure 3.22,

again using the BCT as in Figure 3.21. Note that the efficient cause entails

two different kinds of answers. For this reason, in [25, pp. 191–192],

I proposed to divide the efficient cause into two types: (i) the synchronic

efficient cause (i.e., the cause operating here and now) and (ii) the dia-

chronic efficient cause (i.e., the cause acting over a cosmological or an

evolutionary time scales), thus effectively expanding Aristotle’s Four

Causes Doctrine into a Five Causes Doctrine.

Figure 3.21 The living cell is here viewed as a BCT (see Figure 10.15). The tetrahedron

is the simplex of the three-dimensional space, an n-dimensional simplex being defined as

the simplest polyhedron in an n-dimensional space. The six edges connecting the four

vertices (B, D, R, and P) are not shown. The cell can be viewed as the product of its envi-

ronment. To symbolize the fundamental importance of the environment, it is placed at the

center of the BCT.

Biochemicals (B)

Environment (Env)

Proteins(P)

RNA (R)DNA (D)

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