Apparently these methods reflect a general physiological principle; a kind of holographic mirroring of the whole organism in its parts. It is a dynamic, two-way relationship: a pathological change in the whole organism is reflected in corresponding changes in each of the microsystems, and a therapeutic intervention in one of the microsystems may effect a corresponding change in the whole organsim. That is why we can use these methods both for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.
The common nature of these methods suggests that they are due to a general biological principle. Until recently we have, however, had no general biological science allowing us to explore the full implications of this holographic structuring of living beings. Such a new theory has now been developed in China and is presented as a new discipline to biology and medicine under the name of ECIWO biology.
ECIWO Biology
ECIWO biology has been founded by Professor Yinqing Zhang of Shandong University in China. It is based on the hypothesis that a living organism actually constitutes a multilevel mosaic, where each unit contains the information of the whole organism, and has an embryonic potential which we call totipotential, In the term ¡°ECIWO¡± the ¡°E¡± stands for embryo, the ¡°C¡± for containing, the "I¡± for information, the "W¡±for whole, and the "O¡± for organism. The idea is that each part of the organism, representing a certain degree of unity, contains the information of the whole organism, and has the potential of turning into a fetus that may generate a new organism of the same kind (Zhang 1990).
For plants, this embryonic totipotential of the part is well documented from empirical facts. If we take a branch of a tree, or even a twig or a leaf, and plant it into the soil, it may develop roots and grow into a new tree of the same kind. Each of these parts, the branch, the twig and the leaf, represent an embryonic unity––or as we say in ECIWO biology "an ECIWO¡±––at a different organic level. That is why we say that a living organism constitutes a multilevel mosaic of ECIWOs. The lowest level is the cell and the highest level is the whole organism. The cell and the whole organism accordingly represent special cases of an ECIWO in ECIWO biology.
In the case of lower animals it is also well known that a part may turn into a fetus generating a new individual. For example, if we cut an carthworm into appropriate pieces, each part may grow into a new earthworm. In higher animals, the embryonic potential of the part to generate a new individual has been lost or is suppressed. According to ECIWO theory, however, the part still contains the information of whole organism, and it has an embryonic potential which is found expressed in a regenerative potential acting on the whole organism.
This regenerative aspect of ECIWO totipotency is of great significance to medicine, both in its practical applications and in its theoretical implication. It gives us a new understanding of the biological relation between the whole organism and its parts, and it provides us with a new scientific basis to explain regenerative and healing processes.
During the 1980s four congresses of ECIWO biology were held in China. The first international congress was held in Singapore in 1990 and the second in Oslo 1992. In his address to the congress in Singapore, Hu Ximing, Vice-Minister of Public Health of China and Director of State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, stated:
¡°The founding of the ECIWO theory and ECIWO biology is one of the most important events in the history of biology in this century. It will bring about a conceptual change in our understanding of the organism. It will exert an important influence upon the development of biology and medicine, especially upon the modernization of traditional medicine such as Traditional Chinese Medicine. … Today ECIWO biology is widely applied to medicine, zoology, botany, Chinese herbal medicine, horticulture, palaentology, cancer study and some other realms.¡±(Hu 1990:1)
Very few studies have been done comparing the therapeutic efficacy of different schools of medicine. One such study done dy Huang Jiqun, chief physician of Xinfeng Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Jianxi, China, comprising 3,400 patients in a parallel study, compared the results obtained in the treatment of common medical problems, like infantile diarrhea, acute hepatitis, common cold, dysmenorrhea, fracture pain and pain due to soft tissue injury, for patients treated with either Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine or ECIWO medicine, In this study, ECIWO medicine came out best for all groups of medical disorders, except for acute hepatitis where equally good results were obtained with ECIWO medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. The group treated with Western medicine trail far behind (Zhang 1991: 45-46). Such studies should be repeated in other countries and under other medical and scientific conditions. This study from China may, however, be taken as an indication that ECIWO methods may compete well in ordinary clinical medicine. In this paper I will discuss how the bioholographic methods that have been developed in practical medicine confirm the ECIWO hypothesis; how biocybernetic concepts may contribute to a better understanding of ECIWO biology; and how ECIWO biology may give us a new understanding of organic unity. In this last discussion I will try to show how the basic postulates of ECIWO biology actually exemplify the fundamental metaphysical dialectics of Plato as we find it in his dialogue "Parmenides¡±.
Bioholographic Methods
The ECIWO theory explains the different "bioholographic¡± methods that have been discovered in practical medicine, as pertaining to different ECIWOs of the body. These methods, like ear acupuncture and foot reflexology, are based on the common principle that the various organs and parts of the organism are reflected cartographically as poines or small zones within the boundaries of a circumscribed part of the body. These zones are found to be in a singificant physiological relationship to the corresponding organs, a relationship which is utilized for diagnostic and therapeutic pruposes.
Writing about these bioholographic methods in 1982, I wrote: "It is striking to see how these different methods founded on the same principle have been developed in different parts of the world on empirical grounds. Although the validity of some of them may be disputed, the collective evidence indicates that such a holographic principle must be of great and largely unexplored medical importance and have a biological significance that merits further discussion.¡±(Schjelderup 1982:168-169)
Since 1982, some more such "bioholographic¡±methods have become known, and quite a lot more clinical and experimental evidence has been gathered. Such methods have been discovered for the external ear (ear acupuncture and ear medicine); the nose and the nasal mucosa (nose acupuncture and nasal reflex therapy); the hands (hand acupuntcture and hand reflexology); the feet (foot reflexology); the scalp (old and new scalp acupuncture); the retroauricular and the jugular areas (Yamamoto's new scalp acupuncture); the teeth and dental mucosa (the oral acupuncture of Jochen Gleditsch); the retromolar area (Jochen Gleditsch); the iris (iridology); and the periorbital area (eye acupuncture).
These methods, that have been discovered and developed independently of ECIWO biology, have proven highly effective in clinical medicine. ECIWO biology has added new similar methods, like Yingqing Zhang's second metacarpal system, and given these bioholographic methods a broader scientific basis in biological theory (Zhang 1990 and 1991). All these methods are in accordance with the ECIWO principles, exemplifying how the part contains the information of the whole organism, how corresponding zones of the different ECIWOs are related by the bioholographic law, and how the part has embryonic properties and may exert a regenerative effect on the whole. Taken together these methods offer a very strong scientific argument for the ECIWO hypothesis and provide a huge amount of clinical and experimental evidence for its medical significance.
Biocybernetic Function
In bioholographic diagnosis there are two main parameters we use to identify an affected zone in an ECIWO, corresponding to an ailing part of the whole organism. The first of these is increased pain sensitivity to pressure. The other is increased electroactivity, in general a marked decrease in electrical skin resistance. From a biocybernetic point of view the increased sensitivity of affected bioholographic zones to pressure may serve a biological purpose. If we for example look at the zones of foot reflexology, these zones will continuously be massaged when we walk. Operationally, this means that the increased sensitivity of affected zones may selectively serve to strengthen the corresponding ailing parts of the body by a feedback mechanism. A similar biocybernetic function will apply also to other ECIWOs, or bioholographic systems, of the body. The bioholographic zone systems apparently have an important biological function, serving to restore homeostasis and stimulate regenerative processes where these are needed in the living organism.
The increased electrical conductivity of affected biohologphic points may serve a similar purpose. Looking at it from a bioelectrical point of view, the body may be sucking up necessary wanted electrons from the surroundings, or discharging superfluous electrons, through these points. The increased electroactivity of affected bioholographic points may in this way serve a biocybernetic function promoting homeostaisis and regenerative processes in the living body. A prerequisite for such a hypothsis would be that we have a bioelectrical system in the body regulating homeostasis and regenerative processes, and that this system accounts for the electroactivity of bioholo graphic zones.
Such a bioelectrical system has in fact been discovered by the American orthopedic surgeon Robert Becker. Measuring electrical skin potentials during the regeneration of amputated forelegs in salamanders, Becker discovered in 1958 a negative electrical current concurrent with the regenerative phase. Through his further research Becker discovered that. this "regenerative¡± current, is a direct eletrical current of semiconductive type that is mediated by the nervous system. It is, however, not mediated by the nerves and nervous cells proper, but by the Schwann cells of the peripherous nervous system and the glial and ependymal cells of the central nervous system (Becker 1985). It is thus a perineural system, and it apparently serves as an analogy electrical information system, regulating regenerative and healing processes in the body.
This bioelectrical system based on semiconductor electricity which Becker has discovered, may well explain the electroactivity of bioholographic points. We have therefore reason to conclude that both the increased sensitivity to pressure and the increased electroactivity of affected bioholographic points serve biocybernetic functions. Such a biocybernetic function may not be restricted to the physical modalities of pressure and electricity. Other physical stimuli may play a similar role exerting a biocybernetic effect on the organism through the bioholographic zone systems.
From a biological point of view these biocybernetic functions of the bioholographic organization of the organism must be of very great significance. They help to explain the great resilience of living organisms, and how living systems in spite of far greater complexity may outlast mechanical ones. This inbuilt, biocybernetic resilience of living organisms explains how we actually preserve and strengthen our health through activity and interaction with our surroundings. ECIWO theory supports a dynamic view of human health.
A Biophysical Explanation?
The biocybernetic properties of living organisms, due to their structuring according to ECIWO principles, explain their functional strength and adaptability and must be of great biological significance. We see how a living organism functionally is knit into a dynamic wholeness where the whole organism and its different parts intimately respond to each other and reinforce each other to create what we might call a tightly bound organic unity.
If this may be a part of the answer to the biological question of "how?¡±posed by ECIWO biology, it is, however, not an exhaustive answer to the even more significant scientific question of "why?¡±. What is the deeper meaning of ECIWO biology? Why do we discover that living organisms are composed this way of parts that contain both the information and the potential of the whole?
In 1982 discussing the biological significance of the bioholograhic principle, I tried to answer this question on the basis of physical holography and the physics of wave function:
"In mathematics the theory of holography belongs to the classical theory of partial coherence. In the physics of radiation a hologram is created as an interference pattern between the difracted radiation from an object and a coherent background, like a standing wave. From a part of this hologram the image of the original object may be reconstructed by physical or mathematical means. Actually, any part of the hologram contains the information of the whole object, only the sharpness of the reconstructed image will depend on the size of the part.
"In the holographic methods we encounter in medicine, the organism as a whole is seen projected as a kind of hologram on a part of the organism, such as the extermal ear, the nasal mucosa, the feet, the hands, the scalp, the irises or the large intestine. This holographic pattern again reflects back on the organism as a whole. It is this two-way holographic process ––or this dynamic holography, as we may call it––which constitutes the basis for the use of these methods both for diagnostic and for therapeutic purposes.
"The holographic process is thus seen to serve a double function: to impress the message of the whole on the part, and then by a feedback mechanism to let the whole respond to a change in the part. Such a double function will obviously serve the porpose of biological organization: how the organism, which so the analytical eye is seen to be composed of an infinite number of parts, may as yet function as a whole and preserve internal coherence. This great, unsolved problem of biological organization and coherence will pose enormous demands to any physical explanation and would require the most from any mathematical theory of partial coherence. We should indeed not be surprised to find that this startling child of mathematical physics, the science of holography, may have an important part to play in this connection.
"The ability to utilize biholographic processes may thus be a fundamental property of living organisms. We should expect it to be an intrinsic mechanism in embryological development, a means by which the embryological plan of the organism is worked out. Dr. Nogier's image of the human ear and the embryo would thus convey a double insight that of the projection of the organism in the ear, and that of the fundamental significance of the holographic principle in the embryological development.
"In physics the principle of holography is a consequence of the wave properties of physical reality. If the holographic systems that have been discovered in medical practice, really represent holographic patterns in a physical sense, they must be explained on the basis of a biophysical theory which accounts for biological wave patterns. Such biophysical theories have recently been developed.¡± (Schjelderup 1982: 169)
A main argument against an explanation of the bioholographic systems based on physical holography and a biophysical theory of biological wave patterns, is that the bioholographic patterns do not conform to what we usually perceive as physical holograms. This argument is, however, not decisive. Physical holography may still account for how such bioholographic patterns were developed early in embryological development, or indeed during the early development of life on this planet. In the theory of bioplasma, as this has been developed by Professor V. Injushin, holographic processes are an integrated part of the biophysical structure of living organisms. And at an even deeper physical level the ECIWO structuring of living organisms may be explained on the basis of David Bohm's theory of the implicate order and holomovements. (Bohm 1980). Bohm's theory may even provide us with a physical explanation of the medical effects of high potency homeopathy, as I have tried to show (Schjelderup 1989). It is thus possible on the basis of the theory of implicit order to develop a scientific theory of healing processes that embraces both the bioholographic methods of ECIWO biology and bomeopathy.
Wholeness and Unity
An investigation into the possible physical basis of ECIWO biology in holography and the wave properties of physical reality certainly is relevant. I have, however, come to the conclusion that such a biophysical explanation will not be sufficient to explain the "why?¡± of the ECIWO principles. It may to a large extent explain the wholeness of living organisms, and how the part relates to the whole and the whole to its parts. But it will not give a sufficient explanation of the unity of a living organism.
A living organism constitutes a whole. But even more basic to our understanding of a living being is its unity. It is this unity of a living organism which is the basis for its uniqueness, and the fact that we may regard it as a subject in its confrontation with an external world. Wholeness implies the concept of unity. But wholeness is something that is composite of parts, and unity by definition is something singular. Implicit in our understanding of what a living organism is, we are thus faced with a logical paradox which needs clarification. A solution of this paradox is beyond what has generally been considered as belonging to biological science. This problem actually belongs to philosophy and metaphysics. It may, however, be deeply relevant to our understanding of ECIWO biology and its more profound scientific implications.
The classical exposition of this paradox is found in Plato's dialogue "Parmenides¡±. In this dialogue Plato explores the logical relations between the two basis metaphysical ideas of "unity¡± and "being¡±. Exploring the logical consequences of the second hypothesis of "Parmenides¡±, we find: "if the one is ¡± ––that is , if unity has being or existence––it follows that "number is¡±and ¡°the straight and the broken line¡±(Plato: "Parmenides¡±142B1-153E3): That means that reality has a mathematical structure. The second and the fourth hypothesis of "Parmenides¡±("if the one is , what must then necessarily be the consequences for the other(s)- than-the-one¡±)(Planto: "Parmenides¡±157B6-159B1), thus give the methaphysical foundation for the rational and nathematical structure of physical reality which has been expiored in science.
For our discusion it is important that Plato in his logical analysis of the consequences of the second and fourth hypotheses of "Parmenides¡± actually removes the basis for the wholeness/part axiom of Euclid's geometry. This axiom states that no part can be equal to the whole of which it is a part. Just as the strict mathematical necessity of the parallel axiom of Euclid was disproved by Riemann in 1840, the wholeness/part axiom was finally disproved by the German mathematician Cantor by the end of last century. Riemann's geometry forms the basis for the geometrical formulation of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and Cantor's group theory has become an equally essential mathematical tool for 20th century physics. Hermann Weyl's classic "The Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics" is probably still the most elegant mathematical formulation of quantum theory existant.
A part is not , as Plato shows in the fourth hypothesis of "Parmenides¡±, just a part of "all ¡± parts, but a part of a whole. If there is no wholeness, there are no parts, just a sum of separate things. The concept of ¡°wholeness¡±may imply different meanings. But if we look at a living organism, it constitutes a unity that cannot be explained by the combination of its parts. Rather, as we see from ECIWO biology, the whole organism and the different ECIWOs of which it is composed, belong to the same group theory. The whole organism is just a special case of an ECIWO, as we learn in ECIWO biology. And each part, or ECIWO, contains the information, i, e. the pattern, of the whole.
This relationship between the whole and its parts is what we call ¡°holomeric ¡±(from¡°holon¡±meaning whole, and ¡°neros¡±meaning part). In this holomeric relation the part is not only a part of the whole, but the whole is also a part of each of its parts, biving the part a structure or pattern of the whole. (Wyller 1981) This is exactly the relation we find in ECIWO biology between the whole organism and its part. For this reason it would be scientifically more accurate to use the term¡°holomeric ¡±instead of ¡°holographic¡± to designate this relationship in ECIWO biology.
Plato gives a metaphysical foundation for this holomeric relation in his exposition of the second hypothesis of ¡°Parmenides¡±. If unity, which strictly spoken is ¡°beyond ¡±being, takes part in being, it will establish together with being a plurality consisting of two elements,¡°unity¡±and ¡°being¡±. Being a composite, this can be divided into parts, each part necessarily having both "unity¡±and ¡°being¡±. Each part will thus construct a new unity, having the same pattern of wholeness, and at the same time be a composite that can be further divided. According to the fourth hypothesis of "Parmenides¡±,this will be the structuring "the other(s) than the one¡±which will suffer as a consequence of partaking of the "one ¡±, i.e., of unity.
In ¡°Parmenides¡±Plato thus gives us a metaphysical framework for solving the biological paradox of a living organism being at the same time a unity and a composite of parts. We see that such a solution would be in agreement with ECIWO biology. The findings of ECIWO biology may thus inspire new thought on the fundamental scientific and philosophical basis of biology. Incidentally, Plato in "Parmenides¡±also answers the Aristotelian criticism of his theory of ideas, at the same time laying the metaphysical foundation for a better theory. ECIWO biology thus touches on profound questions implicit in the tradition of Western philosophy. It may thus not only inspire a renewal of Chinese medical and philosophical thought, but also a renewal in Western biology and philosophy. Here possibly East and West may meet in a new understanding of life and its relation to the universe.
Bohm, David (1980):¡°Wholeness and the Implicame Order¡±,Rourtledge and Kegan Paul, London.