Location and accommodationOntological Distinction between Mechanical, Chemical & Biological Systems

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“As scientists attempt to understand a living system, they move down from dimension to dimension, from one level of complexity to the next lower level. I followed this course in my own studies. I went from anatomy to the study of tissues, then to electron microscopy and chemistry, and finally to quantum mechanics. This downward journey through the scale of dimensions has its irony, for in my search for the secret of life, I ended up with atoms and electrons, which have no life at all. Somewhere along the line life has run out through my fingers. So, in my old age, I am now retracing my steps, trying to fight my way back.”

:: Albert Szent-Györgyi (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937)





“From the reader's perspective, a book is composed of alphabetical letters; but the book itself did not originate from these letters. Ultimately it is from the ideas of the author that the letters of the book come to be. In the same way, the molecules of a biological organism are the result, not the origin of life. This is the difference between the order in which we come to know things (ordo cognoscendi) and the order in which something comes to be (ordo essendi).”

:: Sripad Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. (Conference Chair & Serving Director, Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute of Spiritual Culture and Science)





How Life Changes Itself: The Read-Write Genome by James A. Shapiro, Ph.D.


Bacterial Intelligence