Tycho de Brahe Verlag
SUMMARIES 2008/2009
HEINRICH BRETTSCHNEIDER An anthroposophical perspective on human cancer
HEINRICH BRETTSCHNEIDER Benjamin Libet and free will – How platonic is our modern picture of the human being?
ROSELIES GEHLIG The mineral realm in living bone
SUSANNA KUEMMELL Temporal pattern in the evolution of mammals and their ancestors
GERO LENEWEIT A contribution to the methodology of Goethean physics using the example of the water cycle
WOLFGANG SCHAD Evolutionary Biology today
ANDREAS SUCHANTKE Mistletoe and the secret of its healing power
ULRICH WUNDERLIN Aspects of a natural classification of plant substances according to their formative processes
HEINRICH BRETTSCHNEIDER
An anthroposophical perspective on human cancer
In the eighties of the last century it was realised that cancer is more than just a formless mass of proliferating cells. Ian Folkman discovered that blood vessels from the apparently healthy surroundings of the tumour grow into it, without which an increase in the diameter of the tumour to more than 3-4 mm is impossible. Moreover, the metastasis of tumours was then understood as the result of this 'tumour angiogenesis'. In the course of only two decades this led to the development of a completely new class of cancer drugs, the so-called 'tumour angiogenesis inhibitors'. Even today these are more successful than all efforts hitherto to activate the immune system for tumour-defence, although knowledge of the immune system predates it by decades. After a further ten years, research has shown why this is: The immune system behaves ambivalently in relation to tumour formation in that it not only attacks tumours, but can also significantly support them. This article is concerned with this ambivalence and presents the consequences for mistletoe therapy and the biological understanding of tumour formation.
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HEINRICH BRETTSCHNEIDER
Benjamin Libet and free will – How platonic is our modern picture of the human being?
In 1982 and 1983, Libet et al. published experiments on a group of healthy subjects who were required, without external cause, to make simple hand movements while simultaneous measurements were made of electrophysical activity of the brain with the best temporal accuracy that was technically possible at that time. To the great surprise of all concerned, the electrical activities of the brain preceded not only the hand movements but also the conscious awareness of the subjects. Subsequently, the result of this experiment was interpreted worldwide to the effect that the human being only thinks he has himself decided on an action, whereas in reality he is only the witness of his brain's conscious awareness. Far removed from this, in order to question whether their own conclusions about this are mere electrophysical brain activities as well, many neuroscientists have exploited Libet's experiments for supporting a physical identism that threatens to lead western humanism to absurdity.
In the analysis presented here, we firstly examine how far, on the one hand, Libet's experiments are psychologically and philosophically dilettantish in their basis regarding the question at issue and, on the other hand, at the same time to what extent the physical monism derived from them goes far beyond the possible interpretations actually available, and is in this respect to be regarded as both philosophically and psychologically dilettantish. Secondly, we sketch out a view of a gulf that has opened not only between brain and soul but also between both the brain and the rest of the human physis as a consequence of the 'cerebrocentrism' demanded by Plato.
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ROSELIES GEHLIG
The mineral realm in living bone
The mineralisation of the skeleton is based on the dissolved calcium, phosphate and carbonate of body fluids and even on the water and carbon dioxide of the earth's hydrosphere and atmosphere. But it is also related to the mineral realm's crystalline calcium phosphate and carbonate, especially to apatite. The polar extremes of skeleton formation actually lie in the 'environment' which expresses itself in a distinct tendency to two-dimensionality:
First of all organic-mineral germs arise on and in the outer membranes of the mitochondria of cartilage and bone cells and the outer membranes of extracellular vesicles.
Apatite precursors (brushite, octo-calcium phosphate-like phases) form lamellar structures in close relation to the aqueous realm.
Collagen fibres gradually become completely coated with biological apatite.
Despite its three dimensional, networked, stable scaffolding-structure the biological apatite remains connected with two-dimensionality. Its microcrystallinity provides the skeleton with an enormous inner surface area which is in intense exchange with the environment via the hydrate envelopes of the crystallite.
Non-apatite areas of the surface of the apatite crystallite contain highly reactive, exchangeable, labile phosphate and labile carbonate, which is greatest in the cartilaginous and young bone mineral. Labile carbonate is physiologically decisive for this.
As the skeleton matures stable phosphate and stable carbonate increase. Above all, stable carbonate replaces stable phosphate, the most stable position in the crystal structure. To a lesser extent it is replaced by the more readily exchangeable hydroxide, fluoride or chloride. The latter and the equally exchangeable calcium are localised in particular 'migration zones' of the crystal structure.
The extent of variation and readiness to partake in processes of apatite are particularly strongly connected with carbonate. Even in the mineral realm, apatite shows an extraordinary capacity for absorption of various exogenous ions. Apatite's natural typical structural variability makes it particularly suited to its function in the organism. But even the carbonate of the mineral realm is very inclined to variation, between, on the one hand, totally dissolved calcium hydrogen carbonate and, on the other hand, calcite, the mineral with the greatest number of forms.
Something of the nature of bone already resides in the apatite of the mineral realm. No mineral other than apatite can form the skeleton in such a living way, and keep it in connection with life.
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SUSANNA KUEMMELL
Temporal pattern in the evolution of mammals and their ancestors
The fundamental threefold shape of the vertebrates, namely head, trunk and limbs, had formed by the Upper Carboniferous period, primarily in water. After this, in the Permian and Mesozoic periods, the development of the threefolding of organs and parts of the body came with the complete move onto land of the Synapsida. This involved the head, the limbs, the hand (together with the arm) and the foot, by evolving, for instance, the secondary palate, the middle ear and the brain case. In contrast to the development in water, the innovations during this time were not completely new organs or bones, but predominantly separation of functions that developed as long term trends. The sequence of separation of functions develops from the distal to the proximal part of the head, the limbs, and hands and feet. Firstly the region of direct contact with the surroundings develops, the limb pole, then the rhythmic region and finally the region of control faculties, the nerve pole. The organs and other parts of the body thus become more independent of one another, while the whole organism acquires autonomy in relation to its surroundings. The various trends evolve in more or less close connection with the development of endothermy (warm-bloodness) that accompanies the whole process. With some trends it can be shown that the function was already established before it came to its full form in the skeleton. Here the form follows the function. As far as the organism is participating in its functions, it is also participating in its evolution.
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GERO LENEWEIT
A contribution to the methodology of Goethean physics using the example of the water cycle
Wonder at natural phenomena raises questions in us as to their inner circumstances. Rudolf Steiner provided the methodological foundation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's practical science of inorganic nature, but in doing so, presented only very few examples and in philosophical brevity. Therefore, an attempt has been made to apply the search for the primal phenomenon, the methodology formulated by Steiner, to a realm of phenomena other than those studied by Goethe, in order thereby to discuss the consequences of the method and its results. Observational experiments on evaporation and condensation were studied as examples and formulations suggested for their corresponding primal phenomena. Primal phenomena contain both qualitative and quantitative aspects. Their didactic significance as sensorial pictures for an understanding of nature that is in accordance with reality is discussed.
Steiner goes into the context of a comprehensive idea for the whole and a conceptual understanding of its parts in general form, though not concretely, however, for inorganic nature. The methodology of the search for the idea is tested using the example of the water cycle as a natural context of many phenomena, in order to come closer to the context of being and appearance in both nature and the cognising mind. In doing so, polar phenomena of the water cycle are contrasted with one another, in order to discover the processes that mediate between the polarities.
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WOLFGANG SCHAD
Evolutionary Biology today
Following the initial discovery of photosynthesis and respiration of organic substance, General Biology has discovered the principle of symbiosis at all levels of the living world: in the biosphere as a whole, in the eco-organism of the landscape and in the so-called single organisms of plants and animals, from lichens to human beings. Molecular Biology has recently been able to demonstrate the symbiotic character of all higher cells (eucytes), including horizontal gene transfer that breaks the delimitation by species of the higher taxonomic categories beyond species. This evolutionary anastomosis significantly supplements the divergence and competition principle of classical and neo-Darwinism as understood hitherto. This paper will show the inappropriate word usages of evolution, sexuality, struggle for existence, strategies and deceptions. The hitherto valid constants of biology have become increasingly porous and give way to a dynamism that extends to the dissolution of gene definitions and the stability of genomes in ontogeny. To conclude, the social causes of the past and present paradigms and the coming relevance of the just emergent paradigms are discussed.
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ANDREAS SUCHANTKE
Mistletoe and the secret of its healing power
A practical method for finding the specific in a phenomenon is to look for antagonistic or polar manifestations of it. There are some immediately striking antagonisms in the case of the two closely related families Viscaceae and Loranthaceae :
1. Loranthaceae tend to have lush and largely disorderly growth, mainly through extra-cortical runners in all directions, lush foliage and highly specialised, conspicuously coloured flowers adapted for bird pollination.
2. The evolutionary trend of the Viscaceae stands in stark contrast to this, especially the genus Viscum. It stops its organ formation at early ontogenetic stages (no differentiation of the leaf into a physiologically upper and lower surface) and at germination soon ceases its phototropic and geotropic orientations which are initially still present. This condition is unique for higher plants and best compares with the weightless condition of the embryo in amniotic fluid. The tendency to reduction increases within the Viscaceae in the genus Viscum, in the case of V. minimum, and above all with Arceuthobium species (dwarf mistletoe). Both form only rudimentary 'above ground' organs and their vegetative parts literally creep away into the host plants.
The Loranthaceae present the opposite picture: intense interaction with the host tree can give rise to the formation of tumorous woody growths (burrs) as defensive reactions. Even more strongly than the vegetative luxuriance, the extremely antagonistic character of this plant that directly contrasts with Viscum is emphasised by the remarkable similarity in form of the leaves of various Australian Loranthaceae to the foliage of the respective host plants that they parasitise. This conformity is the result of the parasite taking advantage of and consuming the formative forces of the tree to develop its own form! Through this, the contrast with Viscum album becomes especially striking: its 'embryonic' character means that the formative forces of the tree are indeed taken over, but instead of their being appropriated by the mistletoe for developing its own form they are stored within it. It is these unused formative forces from the tree on which the mistletoe grows that are then available for cancer therapy!
The question of why we do not use the substances of the tree itself is superfluous. In the tree, its own formative forces are already tied to its species-specific substance formation. They can only be kept and preserved in their full potency in their 'virgin' state, by Viscum album.
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ULRICH WUNDERLIN
Aspects of a natural classification of plant substances according to their formative processes
The question of the classification of plant primary and secondary substances is repeatedly raised and sometimes controversial. In the work presented here this question is investigated in relation to two ways. On the one hand the physical qualities of the substances are presented and characterised in their relationship to time, and on the other hand the formative processes of the different substances in the plant are taken into consideration. Perspectives for classification of the plant substances according to their formative processes result from the synthesis of these two ways of regarding the matter. This then leads to a clear and relatively comprehensive classification of the substances. The formative processes (metabolic cycles) are very suitable for characterising the metamorphosing principle of the realm of matter and substance. The summary shows that the metabolic cycles should be seen as primary. Matter and its organisation according to a natural ordering is revealed as a 'coagulated process'. This work thus indicates another way in to process-chemistry.
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