The Ghost in the Machine by Arthur Koestler Page A

sub-cellular
structures -- organelles -- of staggering complexity. And the most
striking fact is that these minuscule parts of the cell function
as self-governing wholes in their own right, each following its own
statute-book of rules. One type of organelles look as quasi-independent
agencies after the cell's growth; others after its energy supply,
reproduction, communications, and so on. The ribosomes , for
instance, which manufacture proteins, rival in complexity any chemical
factory. The mitochondria are power plants which extract energy
from food by a complicated chain of chemical reactions involving some
fifty different steps; a single cell may have up to five thousand such
power plants. Then there are the centrosomes , with their spindle
apparatus, which organises the incredible choreography of the cell
dividing into two; and the DNA spirals of heredity, coiled up in the inner
sanctum of the chromosomes , working their even more potent magic.

I do not intend to wax lyrical about matters which can be found in
any popular science book; I am trying to stress a point which they
do not sufficiently emphasise, or tend to overlook altogether --
namely, that the organism is not a mosaic aggregate of elementary
physico-chemical processes, but a hierarchy in which each member, from
the sub-cellular level upward, is a closely integrated structure,
equipped with self-regulatory devices, and enjoys an advanced
form of self-government. The activity of an organelle, such as the
mitochondrion, can be switched on and off; but once triggered into action
it will follow its own course. No higher echelon in the hierarchy can
interfere with the order of its operations, laid down by its own canon
of rules. The organelle is a law unto itself, an autonomous holon with
its characteristic pattern of structure and function, which it tends to
assert, even if the cell around it is dying.

The same observations apply to the larger units in the organism. Cells,
tissues, nerves, muscles, organs, all have their intrinsic rhythm and
pattern, often manifested spontaneously without external stimulation. When
the physiologist looks at any organ from 'above', from the apex of the
hierarchy, he sees it as a dependent part. When he looks at it from 'below',
from the level of its constituents, he sees a whole of remarkable
self-sufficiency. The heart has its own 'pacemakers' -- in fact
three pacemakers, capable of taking over from each other when the need
arises. Other major organs have different types of co-ordinating centres
and self-regulating devices. Their character as autonomous holons is
most convincingly demonstrated by culture experiments and spare-part
surgery. Since Carrell demonstrated in a famous experiment that a strip of
tissue from the heart of a chicken embryo will go on beating indefinitely
in vitro, we have learnt that whole organs -- kidneys, hearts, even
brains -- are capable of continued functioning as quasi-independent wholes
when isolated from the organism and supplied with the proper nutrients,
or transplanted into another organism. At the time of writing, Russian
and American experimenters have succeeded in keeping the brains of
dogs and monkeys alive (judged by the brain's electrical activities)
in apparatus outside the animal and in transplanting one dog's brain
into another live animal's tissues. The Frankensteinian horror of these
experiments need not be stressed -- and they are only a beginning.

Yet spare-part surgery has, of course, its beneficial uses, and from
a theoretical point of view it is a striking confirmation of the
hierarchic concept. It demonstrates, in a rather literal sense, the
'dissectibility' of the organism -- viewed in its bodily aspect -- into
autonomous sub-assemblies which function as wholes in their own right. It
also sheds added light on the evolutionary process -- on the principles
which guided Bios in putting together the sub-assemblies of his watches.

The Integrative Powers of Life

Let us go back for