Holism and Life Manifestations: Molecular and Space-Time Biology

Appeals of philosophers to look for new concepts in sciences are being met with a weak response. Limited attention is paid to the relation between synthetic and analytic approach in solving problems of biology. An attempt is presented to open a discussion on a possible role of holism. The term "life manifestations" is used in accordance with phenomenology. Multicellular creatures maintain milieu intérieur to keep an aqueous milieu intracellulair in order to transform the energy of nutrients into the form utilizable for driving cellular life manifestations. Milieu intérieur enables to integrate this kind of manifestations into life manifestations of the whole multicellular creatures. The integration depends on a uniqueness and uniformity of the genome of cells, on their mutual recognition and adherence. The processes of ontogenetic development represent the natural mode of integration of cellular life manifestations. Functional systems of multicellular creatures are being established by organization of integrable cells using a wide range of developmental processes. Starting from the zygote division the new being displays all properties of a whole creature, although its life manifestations vary. Therefore, the whole organism is not only more than its parts, as supposed by holism, but also more than developmental stages of its life manifestations. Implicitly, the units of whole multicellular creature are rather molecular and developmental events than the cells per se. Holism, taking in mind the existence of molecular and space-time biology, could become a guide in looking for a new mode of the combination of analytical and synthetic reasoning in biology.