Multicellular Systems - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 545

1 2

Mind
(Piscatawaytor)

Cells
(Bhopalator)

Molecules
(RMWator)

4 3

= top-down (or downward ) causation
( flow of control information )

= bottom-up (or upward ) causation
( flow of free energy )

Fig. 15.17 The Principle of the Reciprocal Causality of Mind and Molecules ( RCMM ) mediated
by cells, or more briefly the Principle of Mind-Molecule Coupling ( PMMC ) . Step 1 represents the
action of mind on cells, as when I decide to lift a cup by activating neurons in my motor cortex
which in turn activate the muscle cells in my arm and fingers. Step 2 represents the action
potential-triggered activation of the myosin ATPase molecules in muscle cells that catalyze the
hydrolysis of ATP, the source of free energy. The free energy released from ATP hydrolysis in
muscles and the brain powers all the motions in muscle cells (Step 3) and neurons in the body
which constitute the mind (or the brain) (Step 4). It will be shown in Footnote 26 below that this
figure embodies what is referred to as the First Law of Coordination Dynamics ( FLCD ) . Mind
(viewed as a part of the human body), cells , and enzyme molecules in action are examples of
dissipative structures (or dissipatons ) and hence can be named as X-ators, where X is the name of
the city where the most important research is done on a particular “ator.” The acronym RMW
stands for Richland, Minneapolis, and Waltham (see Footnote 27 in Table 15.10)

Table 15.10 Coordination dynamics at three distance scales
Coordination dynamics at three scales
Macroscopic
(~1m)

Mesoscopic
( ~10 5 m)

Microscopic
( ~10 10 m)

1. Renormalizable
bionetwork a

Node Cells Biopolymers Atoms

Edge Intercellular

messenger-
mediated cell-cell
interactions b

Noncovalent
interactions c

Covalent
interactions d

Bio-network Human body Cells Biopolymers

2. Experimental
data

Kelso e.g., lip and jaw

movement in
speech production

(a) Human anatomy e Ji (a) Metabolic

Pathways g

(a) DNA
supercoils i

(b) Pain pathways f (b) Genome-wide

microarray
data h

(b) Single-
molecule
enzymology j

(c) Brain reward
system f

(a) Biomechanical k
(b) Nonlinear
dynamical l

3. Methods Kelso

(continued)