What on Earth is Human?
Wu Zhi
Who are we? Where are we from? Where are we heading for? These fundamental questions had been puzzling human beings ever since. Darwinism was established to explain the source of human beings; however, it explores only the surface rather than the essence. This dissertation is designed to answer the first two questions, which actually share the same answer. If the first one is replied, so will be the second one. Therefore, these two questions will be studied together in one dissertation.
Life is ubiquitous, alive with each human being or existing by our side, so it may dispense with experiment as many of the experiments have been done by Lord or the Nature itself on our behalf, many other experiments have been made either intentionally or unintentionally by human beings, so it follows that human beings only need to do large numbers of observations, on the basis of which human beings just ponder over what they've observed and arrived at the conclusions. Darwin's “The Origin of Species” was completely based on his meticulous observations which contributed to his conclusion of the evolution of species. The time he lived was backward without the modern communication means and he had to take the warship to conduct the global observations to support his reliable conclusion. Yet under today's well-developed communication conditions, all human observations and discoveries can be swiftly transmitted by various media, such as, newspapers, books, television and network to research personnel, so the interested persons can meditate on the relevant information and draw some vital research results correspondingly.
During the past three years, after a large amount of books of bioscience were studied and various life phenomena appeared in my own body and around me were observed, with all the efforts and considerable quantities of biological illustrations, a conclusion is drawn in this dissertation that mankind is neither created by God nor by nature but by some undiscovered mysterious power——elementary organisms! They are independent beings with profound wisdom and even live in a perfectly organized society.
What is an elementary organism? The smallest and elementary being body is an elementary organism. So far people can see through vision, the elementary organisms include cell, unicellular germ, unicellular fungus, virus, viroid, spirochaeta, mycoplasma, chlamydia, rickettsia and so on.
We all know that a cell is a living tissue, having features of life. But life of the cell of human beings depends on life of the human body which likewise can't be departed with cells. This kind of opinion greatly underrates cells' vitality. Actually, the cell is an advanced form of life and an independent being with profound wisdom while the human body is no more than a society created by cells or a group of object piled up by cells and their products.
1. Why can a cell be judged as an independent being?
Life is the process of living things' physiological movement, while living things are the carriers of life. Judging from their situation on earth, living being, composed mainly of protein and nucleic acid, is a multi-molecule system renewing itself constantly.
According to this definition, a cell itself is absolutely an independent being. A cell is a multi-molecule organism composed by protein and nucleic acid. It goes through physiological processes of birth, growth, maturity, reproduction, aging and death. It absorbs substances and discharge waste through cell membrane. Human beings breathe, so do cells: they inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. To be exact, men can breathe only because cells breathe; men breathe for the sake of their cells’ breath. Cells are continuously undergoing process of metabolism and exhaling the old and inhaling the new. They propagate within the carrying bodies and let life continue from generation to generation. What would such a cell be if it is not an independent being?
Human body cell has a big head (the body), a tail (flagellum), feet (pseudopod) and organs such as chromatin (chromosome), mitochondria, golgiosome, ribosome, lysosome, centriole, vacuole and so on. Human beings have only a little knowledge of these cell organs' functions. Furthermore, cells have skin——cell membrane, which is a symbol of a cell's being an independent being. Though various cells in human bodies present more than two hundred shapes, they are inherently the same despite of all apparent changes.
Picture 1 Structure of an animal cell（Jessop，1988）
There is space among cells, either big or small, either liquid or solid intercellular substance. Some cells are tightly connected by the mucus; cell membranes and the mucus form a “wall” between cells, just like cells in honeycombs. Some cells are joined by desmosomes with buttony lumps which functions as a rivet or a weld to fasten the cells. Some cells are combined of the passages across narrow interstice between cells, communicating the cytoplasm in the two cells, which are mainly combinable means of cells of human body. Some cells are coupled of intercellular substance, which have more liquid or solid intercellular substance to separate each other. In many tissues and organs of human body, there is plenty of intercellular substance, more content of which is blood. And within the blood, the intercellular substance is plasma (90% of which is water, the rest are protein, dextrose and inorganic salt respectively) which makes up 55% of the blood, while blood cell accounts for 45%. Erythrocyte, leukocyte and blood platelet cells in blood are just like fishes in the river. Bone also contains plenty of intercellular substance, main ingredients of which are calcium sulfate and calcium phosphate. These two matters pile up into the bone; it is like a trunk where bone cells inhabit. But cells in the bone are far away from one another, which is similar to the situation of worms digging out holes in a trunk and live there. Spatial distances among cells represents independence of their life each other. Cells gather to form various tissues, organs and systems and then to accomplish a collective mission. In this case, cells lose their freedom, but that doesn't mean they lose their selfhood. This is just like the condition of a human being in society.
Human beings tend to consider that only those mobile are independent beings (though plants are not mobile) but cells actually are indeed mobile. In the human body, blood cells shuttle, while cancer cells stray freely. At many stages of embryo development, there are cells or cell groups that move from one part of the embryo to another. The mobility of a single cell is a short-distance one while that of a cell group is a long-distance and collective one, which is similar to that of flock on the grassland. This kind of mobility is not propelled by outside force but from the inside. A single cell moves by the means of amoeboid mobility, exploring the surroundings, proving up a favorable direction and then moving with the membrane rugae of the precursor surface.1 (An) Some cells achieve this by utilizing cilia on the cell surface rowing in the same direction and send cell to a destined position. A zygote's movement to the womb through the Fallopian tube is an example of this kind of mobility. Besides cells of embryonic stage, cells of the adult stage are also mobile. For instance, there will be cells moving to the wounded area when the skin is recovering from damage.
Like animals, cells have a perfect motion system. Flagellum of the cell is just like the oar of a boat, which can propel the mobility of cells by continuous wagging. In this way, sperms move through vagina, womb, Fallopian tube and then to the ovum around ovary. With one ejaculation there will be approximately 80-120 million sperms in the woman genital tract swimming to the ovum like hundreds of thousands of trudging tadpoles. Through the microscope we can see that a sperm's mobility is caused by wagging its tail forming counterforce like a tadpole or a fish, and the force of the wagging tail obviously comes from the inside of the sperm. Therefore, there is no other explanation except that the sperm is an independent being.
Cells can communicate with one another in perfect methods. They can send messages to cells far away and receive responses as well. They communicate by various means, some of which are even more advanced than those of human beings. One means of their communication is the perfect wire communication system which is the neural network spreading all over the body. Cells of certain part of the body can deliver signals of vision, audition, olfaction, gustation and feeling to the distant cerebrum nerve cells through nerves. In return, cerebrum nerve cells will send indication to those cells via these nerves. Nerves communicate by using electric current (bioelectricity) like electrical wires, in which there are break points distributing either between two neurons or inside the neuron. Nerve cells can switch the electric current on or off by getting through or cutting off these break points with a kind of nerve communication media secreted by them. Information is contained in this kind of electrical current, just like what is done in the current of a telephone line. Short distance cells communication is equal to inner line telephone network. Nearby cells are connected by protoplasm threads by which they communicate cell language signals with one another. These language signals do exist even though they haven’t been interpreted yet.
The second means of cells communication is the medium one. Cells communicate via media indwelling between cells as human beings by means of air or water. Communication media of cells in short distance include extra-cellular matrix and adhesion molecules. Cells can mutually communicate by means of two media and bring into completion the actions, such as, identification, congregation and migration. Communication media of cells in a long distance include blood, by which information is sent to certain cells far away. In this case, the information is contained in many kinds of hormones and cell genes released by cells. Receivers (receptors) inside or on the surface of the cells on the other side will take actions according to the information received. For example, pancreas islet β cells in pancreas will release insulin into the blood to inform far-away liver cells, flesh cells and fat cells to accelerate carbohydrate metabolism.
The third means of cells communication is delivering communication, which is achieved by delivering tiny abio ions or bigger molecules through the cell membrane between neighboring cells.2 (An) It is just like human beings delivering message by passing a note.
Since cells can communicate with one another, they have their own language of various kinds like human beings such as oral language, written language, body language, face language, eye language and code language similar to human language. One of these languages is carried by hormone. For instance, neurohypophysis cells of a pregnant woman will release oxytocin into the blood which is sent to the womb cells. After receiving the oxytocin, the womb will shrink regularly to deliver the baby.
Cells are able to finish the task of transportation independently. Red blood cells will actively stand in queue, go into the lung, pick up one O2 each, and then deliver them to cells all over the body. After this they will pick up the discarded CO2 in return and send them to the lung where they are released like balloons. People may wonder how they can finish this exchange for 60 trillion cells in such an orderly way. Obviously, this is an organized, intelligent and professional transportation team made up of independent beings.
Cells can complete the complex repair work independently. Blood platelets will swiftly gather and fill up and restore the leakage in blood vessels. That's similar to the way how plumbers fix a leaking pipe. Only those life-forms with an independent being can probably accomplish a complicated task which requires both physical strength and techniques.
What is amazing is that cells have independent fight capabilities. When the human body is invaded by pathogens, white blood cells of various types will move out, identify the enemies and attack them. This is just like soldiers to make an assault on the intruders who invade into their nest. However, bacteria with benign influence will live and work in peace and contentment in the human body without any interference of the white blood cells. White blood cells can distinguish enemies from friends without making any mistake. Once the betrayers of human body cells——cancer cells appear, white blood cells would chase and kill them without mercy. Most of the time white cells would win the battle against cancer cells. But that doesn't mean that cancer cells would await their doom without any resisting. They are also independent beings; they would fight as a guerrilla against white blood cells, they would avoid the attack of white blood cells by removing the discriminable exterior albumen or covering up the antigens attacked by white blood cells.3（An）The friend-or-foe identification by the white blood cells is rather accurate, for the most part, but only occasionally mistaken. Why do white blood cells have this organizing capability and wisdom? The reason is quite simple. They are an army built up with independent beings. Otherwise, the army composed of various arms of services and their fighting action would be beyond belief.
Like what human beings do, cells generate their offspring. The complexity of cells' reproducing process is truly amazing. There are 20,000 to 100,000 genes, 3 billion base pairs, and 6 billion nucleotide molecules (actually twice as much as the base pairs and the nucleotides, because DNA molecules exist in pair) within one karyon. And a cell can actually assemble these 12 billion components into 46 DNA molecules. It would firstly store enough material such as nucleotides within itself, disconnect the double helix shape of DNA for one side and form a Y shape, which is just like sliding a zipper. Then, by using the nucleotides as components, it assembles them one by one into double helix shapes from the disconnected side. Like mankind, cells make mistakes, with a mismatching rate up to one in ten thousand. However, cells are able to check and amend themselves. On finding mistakes of mismatching, they will immediately reassemble the DNA over again. And the probability of mistake of every replicated DNA is only one in a billion.4 (Song) Storing material——disconnecting the helix——assembling the material by copying the helix——checking and revising, through these four procedures, cells finish reproducing DNA. This is only a small part of the reproducing of cells. A cell would divided into two after DNA reproducing, and thus give birth to two offspring. A cell can independently finish these without any external assistance. How could it be possible for a cell to accomplish this complicated and tremendous mission if it is not an independent being?
Of all the 6 billion cells in a human body, every one has a complete set of human genes. In perspective of procreation, human genes in an ovum and a sperm are enough for people to generate an offspring. Why should every cell carry so many intricate genes? We know that biologic constitution is always precise, scientific without any excrescence. But why are there seemingly overlaps and redundancies in this case? It's simply because that every cell is an independent being and thus every cell has to contain complete human genes.
One fact is that a human zygote is a cell with an original diameter of only 0.14 to 0.2 mm; such a tiny little thing can actually grow up and finally turn into a big living person. And a cetaceous zygote of the similar size of a human zygote can ultimately develop into a jumbo of tens of tons. What makes this happen? Why could it happen? So far there is no known external power to facilitate this process. It is an unsolved big problem in Life Sciences. However, from the viewpoint of a cell’s being an independent being, all these questions can easily be answered. With intelligence and strength, the cell guides its children and grandchildren to construct a society by following its ancestors' biologic blueprint. Over ten years of construction, they built a society propitious to the living, multiplication and development of its family. This society can be a human body, a whale etc. Surely, the main material of this construction is the cell itself; among cells there are some other substances such as water and bone. In this tremendous project, the zygote's mother——the pregnant woman doesn't take part in the construction directly but only takes care of the logistics by providing nutrition. This kind of explanation makes sense and no other explanation is more reasonable. The truth is always simple. Only human beings complicated it before getting to know it.
The cells within a human body won't die as soon as the human dies, they can live on for a period of time until using up their food. Every day, a large amount of cells die in the body which still lives quite well without feeling discomfort. What does this account for? The answer is quite simple: the life of a human body and the life of its cells are independent from each other. Either can live while the other dies. Their relationship is similar to that of a society and its people. Many people die every day in the society but the society goes on with vigor. Although the life of a society and the life of every people have to depend on each other for existence, they can be self-governed, so are the cells within the human body. Some of the cells live shortly for a couple of days, while some live as long as the human do. Even the same type of cells have different life-spans, they die earlier or later. While around 1 billion cells die in a human body every day, 1 billion are born at the same time. Still, this account for the cell's being an independent being.
However, there is independence as well as reliance between life of a human and life of cells as well as life among the cells. They rely on each other so much that they can not even be separated. It is because of this dependent relation that human beings refuse to accept cells as independent beings. The main reason for this is that cells can not live long after they are separated from their matrix. It seems reasonable. But if we can overturn this reason, the cells can be independent. Can't a cell live long after it is separated from its matrix? Yes, it of course can. With its karyon, cytoplasm and cell membrane, an impregnated egg is a typical cell, although it is a little bigger. After being given birth by a hen, the egg places itself in a natural circumstance. It is obviously an independent being since the life within the egg exists. With suitable temperature, it can even give birth to a chicken. Maybe someone will deny this by having the account that an egg needs to be incubated by a hen. But actually, it is not necessarily. For example, eggs of turtles don't have to be incubated; neither does spawn, once they are ovulated they can live independently. After being separated from its mother, a human zygote can grow and develop normally for a certain period when it is placed in a test tube filled with cultivation liquid. And the zygote can live well during this process when it is away from its mother. Therefore, zygotes of human beings are independent beings too. They live on by themselves so long as they are provided with a suitable living circumstance.
The zygote can live after it is separated from its mother, so can the cells. If we take out a cell from a living person or a body which has died for a short time and put it into the cultivation liquid, it will live perfectly in the new environment, reproducing itself from generation to generation. In the near future, with proper inducement, any one of these cells can grow into a person.
This has been proved to be workable in the vegetable kingdom. Take out a cell from a plant and put it in the cultivation liquid, then it will grow into a seedling. Plant the seedling in the soil, it will continue to grow and then bloom and fructify. Judging from the truth that a cell can live outside the body as well as inside the body, we can attest that the cell is an independent being. There is no essential difference between animal cells and plant cells, except for structural unlikeness. With similar structure and common origin, they are like brothers-in-blood. It's just like that between liver cells and flesh cells; they are different in structure only because they don't live in the same place. If there is no cultivation liquid, can the cells live as well? Yes, they can. For some plants, if you cut out part of their branch, trunk or root, and plant it in the soil, it can grow into a seedling. As the saying goes: a branch left in the soil can accidentally grow into a flourishing tree. A kind of plant called Bryophyllum pinnatum can have their leaves in the soil grow into seedlings. Thus, a conclusion can be drawn that plant cells are independent beings as well.
Anyhow, cells will turn fragile when they leave the body. After hundreds of millions of years of community life, cells have become so dependent on the community that they turn fragile once being separated from society. Human beings share the same thing here. It can be very difficult for them to survive if they leave the developed society which they have long used to, and move to the remote mountains. Since a person is an independent being when he can not be insulated from his society, cells are independent beings as well because neither can they be insulated from the community where they live.
Though so many evidences are set out above, some may still think that they are not enough to prove that cells are independent beings, unless they can find some cell that is able to live and reproduce in the natural environment without any external force. Do cells of this kind exist? Of course yes. There are cells independent from nature in the animal world, the vegetable kingdom and the microorganism kingdom. The bacterium of the microorganism kingdom is a monad; it's a single cell as well as a creature. They live in various surroundings in nature. Without a doubt, they are independent beings. The chlamydomonas of the vegetable kingdom is a single-celled plant; it's a single cell as well as an individual plant. They live in fresh water. Without question, they are independent beings. The paramecium of the animal kingdom is a single-celled animal; it's both a single cell and an individual animal. They live in fresh water too. Unquestionably, they are also independent beings. Monads have a big family with not only various microbes but also diverse unicellular animals accounting to 31 thousand kinds.5 (Zuo) Though some of the bacteria and unicellular animals live within the human body and will die after the body dies, we can hardly doubt that they are independent beings.
Picture 2 single-celled animal, paramecium
Picture 3 single-celled animal, amoeba
Single-celled animals, plants and microorganisms in nature are all acknowledged independent beings. Body cells of multi-cellular animals, plants and microorganisms are similar to these independent beings in terms of conformation, tissue, apparatus, structure, and reproducing pattern. Therefore, we can conclude that these two kinds of cells have the same genesis and the same ancestors, like descendants of the same forefather. And it would be ridiculous to insist that some of them are independent beings while others are not.
Therefore, cells are all independent beings no matter they live in the natural environment or in the internal environment within an organism, including both original beings and parasitic beings. In other words, the cell of monad is independent being, so are cells of multi-cellular creatures. They are all cells with no fundamental difference, though they live in varying environment. They are just like self-employed laborers and corporation employees, who are all independent beings living in a different environment.
With so many evidences listed, are there still reasons for mankind to deny that cells are independent beings? Mankind will have to accept an “illogical” truth: beings are made up of beings.
2. Why do cells possess profound wisdom?
Wisdom is the ability to know, analyze, process and create objects.
In the past, people thought wisdom is unique to mankind. Afterward, they had to admit that animals also have wisdom. To prove this, many scientists have done various experiments. The experiments are still going on up to the present. What scientists want to find out is whether animals have certain capacities which are possessed by human beings.
However, human beings do not think plants and microorganisms have wisdom, except for certain instinct for survival. Human beings consider wisdom to be extremely holy, because they distinguish themselves from other living things with wisdom and divide living things into different classes according to the degree of their wisdom. If wisdom is not sanctified, human beings would not consider themselves that great.
What does wisdom base on? Human think wisdom is based on cells, because the human brain is composed by numerous nerve cells (neurons) and glial cells. If this is correct, there would be no wisdom in monad. However, single-celled animal paramecia can make harmonious movements and change the direction in water constantly. They would recede and swim another direction if there are barriers in front of them. When confronting enemies they would speed up and avoid their offence, or defend by launching dense missiles——trichocysts. All these actions of paramecia make clear that they are creatures with wisdom. Therefore, wisdom is probably based on molecules. One molecule or a group of molecules can engender wisdom.
Wisdom exists in all creatures including animals, plants, microorganisms, and certainly elementary organisms. We should accept that there is wisdom in cells since we have accepted cells as independent beings. Either self-supported cells in nature or body cells in animals, plants and microorganisms possess wisdom. What molecules or what kind of molecule groups are imbued with intelligence remains yet to be studied.
Suppose human beings are wiser than other animals, plants and microorganism, where does wisdom of human beings come from? It comes from the brain. And where does the wisdom of the brain come from? It comes from the cells of the brain. Certainly, if we trace back to the source, we would find that human wisdom is from cells of the brain. If the cells are reduced to a certain amount out of death, the human intellect would be brought down to a certain degree. When atrophy of the brain develops to some extent, Alzheimer's disease will come into being. In case of a serious Alzheimer's disease, people may lose their memory and could not even recognize their relatives.
There is certain relation between the degree of intellect and the size of the brain, but not in simply direct ratio. Man has a small brain, while the whale has a much larger one. However, man is much wiser than whale. Ants are smart too, though they have quite small brains. But it would be difficult to compare the intellectual levels of ants and whales. Cerebra of some extremely bright scientists are not big; even, they are smaller than the average size. A hummer weighs 32 grams, and has a cerebrum of the size of a grain. However, it can tell the exact location of the flower which it has visited before and the time when every flower produces nectar next time. They can even migrate as far as 1500 kilometers away.6 (Hurley) Thus, the intellectual level should not be under estimated because of the small size of the cells. Cells display their wisdom in various aspects.
Cells have benefit-driven trait. About 100 million of sperms swim to the ovum, but only the one which can get into the ovum survive. This is a perfect portray of cells' benefit-oriented trait. Cancer cells escape the hunting of white blood cells by disguising and concealing themselves, which also demonstrate their benefit-oriented trait. At the stage of embryo development, a single cell or a cell group would travel towards the favorable place after exploring a favorable direction and environment, which again is a good illustration of this characteristic of cells. A big tree will stop growing towards the direction of a wall when it confronts the wall; it won't grow like crazy intending to push over the wall. A tree has thick branches and leaves in the parts which receive abundant sunshine, while thin branches and leaves in the parts which receive little sunshine. The roots of a tree grow towards the soil where there is water, instead of growing to granite or concrete. Some plants can grow in a shape of a helix by climbing up a fence skillfully and accurately. Certain kinds of grasses can even catch insects and then digest them. These phenomena are all the exterior demonstration of plant cells' trait of benefit-driven.
Flowers, grasses and trees choose to pullulate in spring, bloom in summer and fructify in autumn. In the past, all these actions were considered as instincts of plants. But as a matter a fact, they are demonstrations of cells' benefit-driven trait. Many plants have spines, which obviously are designed for keeping themselves safe from the harm of their animal natural enemies that eats leaves and fruit like reptiles etc. The plants would not grow out spines if they can not realize the existence of their natural enemies. Moreover, growing out spines takes efforts and skills. In Hainan Island of Southern China, coconut trees on the coast areas grow obliquely towards the ocean, some trunks even grow transversely for the purpose of defending themselves from the attack of the ocean wind. This means that trees can sense the violence of the wind. In order to transfer their pollens, some orchids grow in the shape and color of a female bee, and even give off the aroma of a female bee to attract male bees to mate. One kind of flowers can ably use flies to transfer their pollens. When flies get into the flowers, the doors would be closed and they would be shut in the flowers for one night. On the second morning when they are attached with pollens, they would be set free. If flies get into the flowers of nepenthes, the door would not open for them again, for they have become the quarries of the nepenthes. This is the plants' wisdom that we mentioned. Plants don't have cerebra, thus the wisdom of plants is the wisdom of plant cells. It can be said that these plants are smarter than some insects since they have the ability to capture and fool the insects.
When the legs of some animals are bitten off by their natural predators, they will regenerate a new leg, so do trees in this respect. There stands a redbud tree in front of my window, measuring 4 stories tall. The tree branched out at the trunk at an adult man's height from the ground, producing a Y-shaped twigs and foliage, and each branch is as big as a man's leg. A selfish man was disgusted at the tree for it blocked his vegetables field from the sunshine, so he cut off one branch. The tree lost half of its body; it seemed half of the sky to fall down. A few years later, a new branch grows out in the original cut, almost the same size and shape, perfectly seamed as if an artificial leg were transplanted to a crippled man, covering half of the sky. As the sunshine is strong on this side, there is adequate sunshine and the tree crown covers a larger area than that without being cut off. In addition, a knotted loop bulges out to hold the added weight around the intersection.
If you think it is the natural instinct of trees, you are as wrong as wrong can be. Yet there is still another redbud tree of the same size just close to it, taking the identical Y-shaped branches and as luck would have it, almost at the same time one of its branches was blown off. There is no new “leg” sprouting out in the original place, yet four or five stick-like twigs and leaves sprout out in a disorderly way, forming a small tree crown. Why doesn't the tree regenerate another “leg”? As it is, there is not enough space for it to grow. One side is occupied by the crown of another branch and the other side is too close to the wall, no further leeway is left for its growth, so “the big leg” is replaced by four or five “smaller legs”.
Thus, it is clear that the trees don't grow by the intrinsic way; they select neatly their growth directions, modes, speed and scale according to the objective conditions. There is a kind of occult power manipulating its growth by all appearances, which is obviously attributable to the cellular wisdom which suffices for the plants, so there is no need for plants to form an arboreal brain.
Apart from phototaxis, the illustrations of the cells' benefit-driven trait lie still in other aspects. There was another typhoon when I was writing this article. The tresses of these two redbuds’ crown bended down like an arc, together with the leaves which folded up like mimosa, formed a big orb to protect the tress from the attack of the wind. I was filled with deep esteem to see such a profound wisdom and strong will of the trees. In this case the cells' benefit-driven trait was demonstrated completely.
Cells have the capability to planning. All activities of cells are all planned ahead and can be foreseen, and executed as arranged. The composing of protein and nucleic acid, the assembling of genes and the reproduction process are all planned ahead in terms of shape, structure, function and purpose. Cells understand what they are going to do and what they do for. Over ten years of the process of cells' producing a human is even more a planned and step-by-step social activity. The reason of human beings having bones is to bestow them with the ability to move around; without bones, a person would be a group of meat which can not move at all. Again, the bones are planned to be hollow just in purpose of saving both material and energy, which would be largely consumed in case of moving a heavier body. Every human organ is produced for a certain purpose. Communication of cells, the object, means, language and purpose of communication are all systematically arranged, thus enabling the target cells to receive the transmitted messages and respond to the message correspondingly.
Cells are organized. The human body is a society composed of approximately 60—100 trillion cells. Its tremendous scale, strict organization, reasonable division of labor and precise operation largely surpass that of human society or any country in the world. In these aspects, human beings are too far behind to catch up with cells. Although cells are benefit-driven, they will not hesitate to dedicate themselves to the fight for the good of the society. Usually there will be heavy loss in white cells when they bravely fight against the invading pathogens. After the battle, a large number of bodies of both sides are left on the battle field. Human beings call these bodies pyogenesis. In order to fix a leaking blood vessel, blood platelets will dash ahead, stand in the gap, regardless of their own safety. Some of the cells will receive the headquarters' order of suicide after they accomplish the mission, then they will lead to apoptosis and leave the living space to their offspring.
Cells have the ability to intercommunicate. Mankind has already realized that through communication they can exchange ideas, knowledge, experience, and mistakes, by which they can gain more wisdom and strength. A single person is insignificant, unless he relies on his society whose collective power can be made use of. Cells knew this truth far earlier than human beings did. That's why they have begun to establish their society since 600 million years ago——this is the time when multi-cellular creatures are said to come into being. In order to facilitate communication among members of the society, cells create various languages and diverse communicating means. Further more, they communicate every second at high frequency, in high intensity and in large scale. All these establish a solid foundation for the development of cells' wisdom.
Cells are capable of camouflage. Many animals' color and shape are identical or close to their habitat. Some can even change their color to adapt to the varying environment. The most common example is that some animals who rest on the plants can keep themselves the same shape and color with the plants, making their quarries and natural enemies mistake them as parts of the plants. Some butterflies can disguise themselves as a leaves of the tree, with even the vein of the leaf. If you don't take a close look at it, you would take it as a leaf. Penguins can skillfully camouflage themselves with their feathers that are white in front and black on the back. Natural enemies or quarries of penguins would take the dark penguins as the seabed when they look down at the back of the diving penguins, and take the white penguins as the sky when they look up at the front of the penguins. The mane along the top and sides of the neck of a male lion is another type of camouflage. It makes the head of the lion looks much bigger. Because lions have to fight either with other male lions or other kinds of animal for domain, food, or lionesses from time to time, they have this mane to make themselves look stronger and more terrifying, and hopefully subdue the enemies without a fight. By the way, why do male lions have mane is still a mystery which waits for scientific explanation. Zoologists once organized observation, research and experiment in lions' habitat, but without a satisfactory conclusion. Explanation of camouflage is actually simple like this.
Animals' skills of various types of camouflage originate from certain wisdom. This wisdom is not from the animals' bodies, since they can not decide their shapes or colors. Now that cells create the colors and shapes of animals, the standpoint that cells are of profound wisdom is the only reasonable explanation. Cells realize existence and vision weaknesses of natural enemies and quarries. Cells recognize dangers and opportunities that the animals are facing. Cells are aware of the characteristics of the animals' living environment and the colors and shapes of the plants. Cells understand what paint and material can make the colors and the shapes of animals. Certainly, in this process, consciousness, knowledge, techniques and labor are all involved. Without the cells' profound wisdom, it is impossible to achieve this.
Cells have the ability to create. Human beings claim themselves to be the only creature that has creativity. This is extremely arrogant. They don't realize that, compared with cells' creativity, their so-called creativity is nothing. There are 2.5 billion kinds of creations lived or are living on this planet, most of which are multi-cellular beings. They are of varying shapes, colors and endued with unique skills. Some of them can fly in the air, some swim in the water, some run on the ground and some drill in the soil. Some of them are luminous, discharged, or virulent. Some of them have the capability to position with ultrasonic, while others can detect infrared ray. These species and their skills are all the creations of cells.
The most complicated object in universe is the human body, which is a masterpiece of the cell——the germ cell leads its offspring to easily create this. It is impossible for the cell the finish this without the help of its profound wisdom. In a human body, there are intricate components such as eyes, nose, ears, mouth, heart, liver, lung, pancreas, spleen, stomach, intestines, kidney, bones, muscle, limbs, blood vessels, nerves, cerebrum, and so on. It is amazing that the cells can perfectly assemble all these together and make them into a human body that can run, jump, talk, sing, eat, drink, defecate, urinate and think——it's a completely automatic machine. By comparison, machines created by human beings are rough and simple. Even a rocket is just a little complicated than fireworks. And the clumsy robot is only an imitation of cells' patent invention.
The creations of animals and plants by cells show wonderful workmanship and extremely fine craftsmanship. Plants seem to be simpler than man or animals, but they actually have superiorities. Human beings and animals live indirectly on solar energy, while plants live on it directly. By comparison, plants are able to live in worse circumstances, and they have a much longer life than animals.
Many inventions of human beings come from imitation, which forms a science called bionics. According to mankind's standards, anything imitated is neither an invention nor a creation, but a piracy. Whom does bionics imitate? It's the biology, accurately, elementary organism. To be more specific, it imitates cells, since all multi-cellular creatures are created by cells. The plane imitates the eagle; submarine imitates the dolphin; radar, the bat; spinning, the spider; computer, the human cerebrum; camera and video camera, the eyes; electric light, the firefly; and robot, of course the mankind. And with no need to mention, plastic flowers, trees or fruits are all distinct examples of imitation. The current ascendant gene technology is even more the technology of bionics. One masterpiece of human beings' bionics is Dolly——the sheep, which is created in virtue of cells. About one hundred years ago, man learned how to produce electricity. They felt complacent over this and claimed it a revolution in mankind's civilization. However, since hundreds of millions of years ago, cells have generated bioelectricity within the organisms. This bioelectricity is also made according to physical principles, and can be conducted by a genuine lead——the nerve. It can be felt and measured. Electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram are the records of certain electrical activities. Vision, hearing, olfaction, gustation and the sense of pain are all the feelings stimulated by bioelectricity. The bioelectricity discharged by a numb-fish is to turn the chemical energy in high-energy compound ATP into electric energy, resembling the discharging of a battery. The electric potential of this electricity can be more than 100 volts, which can kill a fish of a big size.
Cells possess one competence that can not be imitated by human beings at the present time: assembling themselves and fabricating a life. Cells are able to make organic matter and inorganic matter into components, and then use them to form a life. They can produce whatever apparatus needed in their bodies and then put them together to form copies of themselves. However, it is impossible for a person to produce his heart, liver, lung and cerebrum and then assemble them into a copy of self. Human beings do produce offspring, but that’s the job of their cells.
As for productive skills, human beings are greatly backward since they are still in a state in which they use knives to cut and axes to rip. They have machines such as lathes, planers and drill presses to process metals to obtain hardware by cutting, paring and drilling; while cells produce the human body by piling up atoms or molecules one by one. Various bones, vessels and viscera are produced by elementary organisms in this way, so is the entire human body. They can produce hard, soft, round, flat or shapeless components. As for this high technology, human beings are too far behind to catch up with cells, though they hope some day they can also master it. The developing nanometer technology is designed to have nanometer machines move atoms and molecules and assemble them into products. However, at the present time, human beings can not achieve that goal, which requires long-lasting research and study. Humankind will be able to order cells to produce whatever they need if they can have cells under their command. Unfortunately, it is mankind who is under the command of cells.
Cells have memory. The so-called memory is the ability of restoring information. When information gets into cells, they will be retained and then recalled when necessary. This mental faculty is called memory. The amount of information retained by cells is tremendous. The genes in cells of human body store all the information about mankind's composition and structure, partly in the DNA of karyon, partly in the DNA of chondriosome. Other structure and organs of cells are supposed to be able to store information, but that hasn’t been validated. Of all cells, white blood cells have the best memory. When germs or viruses invade the human body, B lymphocyte will distinguish them from some of their physiological features——called antigens by mankind, and then engender antibodies, which combine antigens to form a sign of enemies and draw attack of macrophages and T lymphocytes to destroy them. With this fighting experience, B lymphocytes, macrophages and T lymphocytes will remember well the features of the enemies. Next time when the enemies intrude the body again, they will surround and annihilate them without letting them develop and get strong. This is the so called immunity, which can keep people from getting the same disease.
The cells inside the bodies of animals and plants are smart, so are those outside the bodies of animals and plants. Human beings have been fighting against germs and viruses (actually viruses are not cells, but here we may take them as cells just as well) for millions of years, but only with a tie. Man so smart, why can't cells win the battle? Because they have encountered the fierce attack of tough enemies of the same kindred (they are both elementary organisms). In face of SARS viruses' attack, human beings retreated in defeat; later, they withstood, but with heavy lost. AIDS viruses are furiously attacking human beings; they are all-conquering and invincible for human beings at present, posing a challenge to human beings in such a threatening manner that human beings are haunted with horror at hearing it. Theoretically, germs and viruses can annihilate mankind, while mankind can not totally destroy germs and viruses. Only because of this, we call this kind of creatures elementary organisms.
Elementary organisms are masters of architecture and sociology; they even have a supernatural power which can turn abiotic substances into organic ones. The process of elementary organisms' reproduction is the process of constant transformation of abiotic substances into organic ones. Without this power, this world would be a world of deadly stillness.
The human body is a society, a shell and a puppet of cells. Of course, animals, plants and other multi-cellular microorganisms are also societies of elementary organisms in varying forms. It seems that elementary organisms are not only dominators of the earth but also the basic life form of the earth. In the past, we took human beings, animals and plants as life forms, but it is actually a society composed of elementary organisms. Surely, a society is a living system, and it is not mistaken to consider it as a life.
The human body is an aggregation of elementary organisms. Besides 60 trillion cells, there are numerous bacteria, epiphytes, microzymes and tiny worms on the surface of or within the body. Of these, bacteria account for more than 100 trillion, which is much larger than that of body cells. Considering the large quantity of these pertaining creatures, we have to rejudge their roles played in the body. We used to judge them as parasites, but now we have to regard them as organic parts of the human body since they take an active role in the physiological process of the human body. Their functions should not be underestimated since some of them help digest, some help defecate and others help compose vitamins. Even acari on the body surface can help clean up dead cells of the scarfskin. It would be impossible for human beings to live without the help of these creatures. Therefore, to some extent, a human body can be described as a big bag of bacteria, to be exact, a big group of cells. According to this point of view, there are two parallel courses of the growth of human body. One is the reproduction process of lineal cells, the other one is the reproduction process of collateral cells. Those cells carrying genes of human beings are called lineal cells. Those carrying no genes of human beings are called collateral cells, which were called cells of parasites in the past.
These two parallel courses of the growth share the same destination, an agglomerate of cells——the human body. So a human body is a cell aggregation consisted of approximately 160 trillion cells. The life of a person includes about 160 trillion lives. All our behavior is under supervision of uncountable lives.
Elementary organisms are characterized by their wisdom, vitality and the abilities of heredity and reproduction. They can either live alone or live with a community. They have power but not infinite; they have profound wisdom but limited; they have tough lives, but with terminability. Elementary organisms develop wisdom and grow in strength by means of producing human beings, resembling mankind's way of manufacturing computers. Elementary organisms extend their lives via reproduction. They can both copy an individual and a whole (copy a society, such as a human body). Elementary organisms create human beings. In return, human beings influence elementary organisms by extending or suspending their lives, and controlling or ceasing their reproduction.
Who is smarter, mankind or elementary organism? This is a ridiculous question, which equals to: Who is smarter, a single person or the entire human? Or: Which is smarter, the computer or human? The entire human is smarter than a single person, while its wisdom is accumulated by every single person's wisdom. The computer is smarter than mankind in some aspects, and will be smarter than mankind in overall aspects in the future. However, the wisdom of the computer exactly manifests the wisdom of mankind since computers are created by mankind.
Ultimately, the wisdom of mankind is the wisdom of elementary organisms; all thoughts of mankind are the thoughts of elementary organisms; all behaviors of mankind are the behaviors of elementary organisms; all achievements of mankind are the achievements of elementary organisms. All our behaviors derive from thoughts, emotions and desires, which are indications of elementary organisms for our actions. Whatever we do, we do it to satisfy elementary organisms' needs of survival, development and death.
Conclusion: everything that exists in universe has a certain shape, which is molded by three means.
① External force forming: Every object created by mankind is produced either directly or indirectly by man power, which is a kind of external force. Some other objects in nature are made by this force too, such as mountains, billows, tides, cyclones and so on.
② Internal force forming: Fundamentally, there are only two forces in universe: attraction and repulsion. In the perspective of forming, they both belong to internal force. The existence of atoms, molecules, macromolecules and molecule groups is the result of attraction, so is that of the moon, the earth, the sun, the stars and the black holes. They all belong to attraction forming. Repulsion and attraction are the opposite forces and the dynamite detonation, nuclear bomb explosion and cosmic explosion are the very results of the reaction of the internal repulsion, which is, in the last analysis, attributable to the repulsion of the electric charge, maintaining a specific external shape after the explosion, so it is the forming of the repulsion.
③ Living body forming: People can make up various planar or three-dimensional patterns by standing close in sequence or piling themselves up in a plaza. This is a kind of location forming of living body. Due to the shaping force of animals and plants derives from within the animals and plants but human beings can not see or feel it, so they just feel it unthinkable and ultimately attribute it to God or the Nature. The human prejudice hinders human beings from observing things in the right perspective and they always feared monsters but scoff at micro matters. However, the genuinely powerful things are the micro matters.
All objects are made through one means or several means mentioned above. Pyramids are man-made. However, if every stone has life and wisdom, they will walk to the desert, climb up the destined position and make pyramids by themselves. A zygote can develop into a big living person of certain shape only because unfailing duplicated cells are constantly dispatched to designated positions. External forces don't take effect during this process, neither does attraction or repulsion. The only possible force comes from the vitality inside cells. Cells can move themselves to a suitable place at a suitable time, except for the cell's being independent life with independent wisdom; there is no any second possibility.
In nature, any independent agminate objects share the same size, color, components, structure, and functions; they all have specific intentions and can act freely. Thus, those that create these objects must be lives that possess certain profound wisdom. In other words, those cells which can create people must be independent beings with profound wisdom.
There is one thing that deserves deliberation of mankind. There are about 60 trillion people on earth; every one has two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two ears and four limbs, and they have similar appearance and same types of internal organs. In the final analysis, these people are created out of dust and water. But the dust and water itself can not turn out to be a person. There must be a certain kind of life and wisdom that could mix dust and water, turn them into “paste”, and then “knead” it into persons. In the past, people attributed this creation to God's favor. They guessed right half: it needs certain unknown power to create mankind, but God doesn't exist, the real “God's hand” are the living wise cells within the human body.
References:
1. An Liang (安靓), ed. “Medicinal Developmental Biology”. Beijing: People's Medical Publishing House, 2002.
2. An Liang (安靓), ed. “Medicinal Developmental Biology”. Beijing: People's Medical Publishing House, 2002.
3. An Liang (安靓), ed. “Medicinal Developmental Biology”. Beijing: People's Medical Publishing House, 2002.
4. Song Lin (宋林), and Wei Han (韩威), ed. “Collage Biology”. Beijing: The Press of the People′s University of China, 2002.
5. Zuo Yangxian (左仰贤), ed. “A Course in Animal Biology”. Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2001.
6. Hurley·Andrew, etc. al. “Modern Biology” Can Kao News 12 Mar. Beijing. 2006
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