METAPHORIC PHYSIOLOGY - A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

We humans love to stress the fact that we are the top of the tree of the evolution. By this assumption we morally justify our behavior towards other species be it animals or plants denying them the abilities for communication, feelings and consciousness. 

What chases me to pick a topic of this kind? Since many years I wanted to do some work that gives an insight into the body's principle rules of function. Actually, until today I never exactly knew how to tackle this matter. I knew that I had to find an avenue that left the beaten path of textbooks. Easy said but difficult to realize. It took me quite I while to comprehend that I have to see the body and the world as such as multi-directional connected.

 

I had to introduce myself as an observer

 

This meant that I had and have to focus on the relations between and among the things, parts, pieces, elements - one name it -  the body and the world are composed of, and that I had to look at the direction of the relation at a certain moment in time. I had to introduce myself as an observer who is actively influencing the directivity of the relation. And I couldn't leave time aside which is so often the case in biology.

 

In this process of learning I finally began to understand that function follows form, that matter per se is less important than its shape that emerged due to its relation with another matter. I think this applies to the macro- as well as to the microcosm, whereas it is far easier for us to accept this proposition for the world beyond the reach of our eyes.

Physiology is the term I apply to all the processes that let life emerge including all beings from plants, invertebrates to vertebrates and humans.

Especially during the last 100 years of scientific development - when the belief that science being a truth production plant turned into a fatal fact - other views of the world had a hard time to spread and survive. They have been widely ignored or actively discredited. 

Upfront philosophy and in its jet stream natural science at the fringes have begun to strongly contradict this anthropocentric mindset.  

The borders among species are blurry.

Endless is the space of forms

 

Our project called »metaphoric physiology« is a cross-species approach focusing on the topic of physiology as the foundation for comprehending how we and other life forms function anymore important are connected. We don’t only cross the species border, we also cross the boundaries between the so-called living beings and the dead matter. 

 

The sheer endless space of forms and the plasticity of all forms and shapes allows this bold transgression. The man-made distinctions between men and matter dissolve at a closer look. The observations of the similarities and interferences, of the blurriness of the interfaces between the living and the matter is thrilling and makes metaphoric physiology a possible concept for us to depict processes of and within the living. 

Is it a cell, maybe a lymphocyte? Or is it a bollard along a river shoreline?

Our aim is to make the dynamic multidirectional relations within the living organism visible by crossing all species barriers in space and time. 
I think that the material world around us drifts along similar spaces of forms as do the inside worlds of the organisms of the most various species.

Complexity Fragements