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Beyond Cell Doctrine
Author(s) -
Theise Neil D.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04410.x
Subject(s) - doctrine , unitary state , epistemology , scale (ratio) , cognitive science , philosophy , psychology , physics , law , political science , theology , quantum mechanics
Cell doctrine is the foundational paradigm of Euro‐American medicine and biology. Even without stepping outside that tradition, one may imagine alternate models of the body such as a fluid model in which cells do not exist or a model wherein cells are described as overlapping fields of molecular organization in space and time. With a complexity analysis of cell biology, we find that the existence of cells as unitary entities, as things, is contingent on the level of scale at which the body is observed. Therefore, alternate models of the body may be conceived that are specific and appropriate to other levels of scale. These ideas suggest that some bodily phenomena, particularly from Asian traditions, which have previously resisted explanation from within the cell‐based Euro‐American tradition (e.g., acupuncture) may be productively investigated with one or more of these other models. Additionally, the seemingly metaphorical concepts from Tibetan medicine of the coarse, energy, and subtle bodies may represent precise, though somewhat poetically expressed representations of the body at different levels of scale.