An acorn is dropped into the ground from a branch of the oak. It knows what to do without anyone spelling it out for it. It knows how to develop roots that seeks its way down into the soil. It knows how to interact with the life below, the interaction with the fungal mycelium. It just knows. Then it raises its sprout towards the sky. It knows that it will become an oak, a part of a forest together with other oaks, trees and plants.
How can this be? Where is all information stored? Where is the blueprint for the acorn hidden? Is it in the DNA of the acorn? We know that all living species has some kind of DNA that describes what to become. But where is the information of how to interact with the surrounding environment?
Let us try to find some answers to the questions raised. A journey that will take us into the quantum world. Today we know that the smallest entities we know about, that is visible in time-space, in the quantum domaine, is very coherent. Particles responds to other particles and are interconnected particle to particle. The phenomena is known under the name Entanglement. In the beginning it was assumed that this could only occur in situations with very low temperatures and only at lowest possible level. Entanglement on higher levels would create a situation of decoherence. Today we have found out that this view is not correct. We know that it occurs on higher system levels and we know that a living being need to be coherent to survive and to be able to develop itself. The organism shows coherence with itself and with the surrounding environment.
The level of coherence of a viable being with all of its molecules, cells and different organs is almost unrivaled. The coherence that occurs at quantum correlations is not limited to the organism itself, it also occurs between organisms.
Seen from a higher perspective it is clear that an active and continuous interaction between the organism and its surrounding biosphere in the coherence domain level is a foundation for life itself. Even an uncomplicated organism has a genetic structure very complex and an adaptation to surrounding environment that is very delicate. An adaptation that could not occur without a high degree of coherence between the genetic and the epigenetic parts that defines and guides the organism.
When we look in to the evolution of complex species or organisms we find that t a species genotype ( the species heredity) is not isolated from its phenotype (how it is expressed through the organism). ”A genotype is an individual's collection of genes. The term also can refer to the two alleles inherited for a particular gene. The genotype is expressed when the information encoded in the genes' DNA is used to make protein and RNA molecules. The expression of the genotype contributes to the individual's observable traits, called the phenotype.”The genotype and the phenotype is an integrated system that is coordinated with the surrounding environment.
During the evolution of the world as we know it, and of life itself, we can add a new phrase - sensitive interaction. During this phase of evolution a kind of perception was evolving. Alfred North Whitehead called it ”prehension” in the meaning of apprehend or perceive something. All entities perceives all other entities as a kind of mutual perception. This kind of perception does not require any sensory organs, on the contrary it is more of an expression of built in coherence between the elements in the system.
Today we know that this kind of primal perception can be found among all living beings. With establish knowledge around this we can say that organisms that has developed nervous system actually can apprehend the in two completely different ways. One via the nervous system and another one via the coherence created through resonance within the quantum field.
The development of earth and life has moved along a way of continual development of increased coherence. First in the form of entanglement, the via basic irritability between elements through primal perception into a more steadily expressed perception. Prehension on higher levels is expressed as perception. One part is perceives the other parts and can also perceive itself as a part of the surrounding world.
Now let us turn back to the acorn and the questions raised in the beginning of this text. We have found out that the acorn has part of its blueprint built in its DNA and that this is expressed through the acorns genotype and phenotype. We have also found out that there is an interaction between all the elements within the acorn seed. An interaction of coherence performed on the quantum level. But this is not all, we also found out that this kind of interaction, on the quantum level, occurs between the elements within the acorn and the entities in the surrounding environment. That there is a coherence between the different elements from one type of being with other types of beings. This will, just as an expression, to be coherent with surrounding elements seem to be a fundamental part of development.
As the acorn seed starts to grow to become an oak tree we know that the tree perceives the surroundings, both by its sensory systems as well as with its elements on quantum level. As a part of a forest the oak even communicates with other oaks and trees when exposed to pests. So there is little doubt that we will find out how this occurs within the human beings.
But there are two questions without an indication of a clear answer. First - where is all information about the seed stored? - and second - where is the information of how to interact with the surrounding environment stored? Questions not easy to answer. The first one is partly answered with DNA and its expression. But it is more focused on the acorn in this example. How to interact and to adapt to different environments and surroundings might not be stored there. There are suggestions for the second question but it will take another article to even start to describe a plausible answer.
It will be published later on.
Be conscious
Ulf