Multicellular Systems - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 553

Size System Time Force

~ 1 m Muscle ~ 1 s ~ 1 N

Fassicle

~10 -5 m

Muscle Fiber

~10 -6 m

Sarcomere

Myofibril

~10 -9 s ~ 10 -12 N* ~10 -8 m

Myosin
( Conformons )

Fig. 15.19 The upward arm of the mind-molecule coupling depicted in Fig. 15.17 . The
macro-micro coupling in the muscle tissue by increasing the effective mass of contractile system.
Myosin molecules generate mechanical energy packets known as conformons during the hydroly-
sis of ATP that myosin catalyzes (see Figure Panel d in Fig. 11.34 ). *Tominaga et al. (2003)

by chunking it into six different structural units (or chunks) ranging in size from
2 to 1,400 nm in diameter (see Fig. 2.9 ) . Similarly it is postulated here that the
human body effectuates the FDT amplification by chunking the contractile
system into six hierarchical structure ranging from (1) myosin molecules to (2)
myofibrils to (3) sarcomeres to (4) muscle fibers (or muscle cell) to (5) fassicles,
and to (6) skeletal muscle (Fig. 15.19 ).
Chunks are dissipative structures (or dissipatons) requiring continuous
dissipation of free energy in order to maintain their functions. The chunks depicted
in Figs. 2.9 and 15.19 are the shadows of the functional chunks of DNA and the
contractile system, respectively, that are projected onto the 3-dimensional space.
Cells or the human body forms their functional chunks so that they can more
efficiently control the motions of DNA or the skeletal muscle, perhaps not unlike
the human brain chunking symbols into phonemes (units of sound) ,morphems
(units of meaning), words (units of denotation), sentences (units of judgment) ,
paragraphs (units of reasoning ?) , and texts (units of theory building?) to control
the language.