The purpose of a physics of life

The purpose of a physics of life is the understanding of life, of living systems, and the development of a perceptual and cognitive system able to appreciate such richly integrated information.

From what we understand about the role of cerebellum in the creation of internal models we can imagine that such rich somatic concepts would need a corresponding motoric foundation. There is ample evidence that suggests the role of the cerebellum, the hindbrain, is homeostatic, coordinative, and stabilizing. Moreover it is fundamentally motoric, with a very clear separation of function from the rest of the brain, almost like the nucleus of a cell. The nucleus or core of our vertebrate system in addition to the spinal core is composed of an axial system of muscles and bones woven into a structured body wide fascial matrix.

Metastability in the proprioceptive system is simply postural biomechanics conceived as a functional whole, which is its nature.

We understand the cerebellum, what Sherrington described as the “head ganglion” of the propioceptive system deep within us, to be the organ which transforms the integrated, bodywide sensory experience of the self, the awareness of the organism of itself, into oscillations, patterns, or models that inform our understanding of the kinds of concepts required for a physics of life.

What I am trying to say is that the nature of truth, of complexity, and of life, is something that you breathe into rather than think into. Physical metastability in the core postural system, activation of the “muscle” or “sixth” sense, produces a phase shift in activity within the cerebellum. From the perspective of the muscle sense and the postural system we can think of this as a shift in attitude.

The great value of Sherington’s model and the light it sheds on the deep field or muscle sense, is this tangible, motoric avenue into shaping perception and cognition.

Sherrington could not, over a century ago, imagine what we have come to understand since. He understood that there would be a fundamental shift because his synthesis, Integrative Action (1906), was a big part it, much like the contributions of many of his contemporaries, like Einstein on relativity (1905) and Planck on quantum theory (1901). Sherrington explained:

“After some hundreds of years of experience we think that we have learned here in Oxford how to teach what is known. But now with the undeniable upsurge of scientific research, we cannot continue to rely on the mere fact that we have learned how to teach what is known. We must learn to teach the best attitude to what is not yet known. This also may take centuries to acquire but we cannot escape this new challenge, nor do we want to.”

(Eccles, J.; Gibson, W. (1979). Sherrington: His Life and Thought. Berlin; New York: Springer International.)

We understand so much more about the components of Sherrington’s system, muscle spindles, mechanotransduction, myofascial synergy, cybernetics, over 100 years of continued research on the basic foundations Sherrington established. The most important development in terms of belief updating in Sherrington’s model is our understanding of the motoric (muscular, haptic, embodied) anatomy of the deep field. We now understand the sensory motor system of proprioception as a body wide myofascial synergy with very clear structure, biomechanics and self evident bony landmarks.

Who would have though paradigm shift would be so physical?