There are actually only functional differences: morphologically, ganglion cells and glia cells in the human brain do not essentially differ from those of apes. The cerebral cortex, where the association centres of our conscious thinking are located, is considerably bigger; the internal structure, however, has not revealed any fundamental differences to date. Even if this may not be very flattering for us, it seems to be purely a matter of quantity. Just as computers acquire entirely new skills when the number of their units is enlarged by a hundred- or thousandfold, our higher level of intelligence also seems to be connected with the possession of a larger number of brain cells². Of course it is possible that completely different discoveries will be made in the future.

On the other hand, experiments with chimpanzees show quite clearly where there are functional differences³. If you fasten a banana to the ceiling of their cage and you give them blocks that can be joined together and also a few boxes they will pile them up, join the blocks together, climb the box tower and fish for the banana. They only succeed after numerous attempts and often do not succeed at all, yet, the possibility exists. However, if the blocks and the boxes are not in their visual field at the same time (but spread out in other, neighbouring cages), they will not be able to fulfil the task. This account is strongly simplified but it shows – in my opinion – what it is that obviously matters. The brain of an ape (and of other intelligent animals) is able to grasp causes and effects in the imagination – but only if the elements involved are spatially and temporally close together. If the animal perceives them in different places or at different times, its brain is not capable of the appropriate and necessary combinatory work.

Human beings, on the other hand, are able to connect impressions and experiences which they perceive at completely different points in time and space within the realm of their "fantasy", which means somewhere in the brain itself. That represents major progress. With our imagination we can actually relate every item of which we are conscious to any other. We are able to draft new patterns of behaviour without having to lift a finger – "plans" for sequences of action or for the formation of structures that are useful for us. We are even able to scrutinise these plans – which still happens "in our fantasy" – for their feasibility. We can reject them, supplement them, alter them. We can "theoretically" find out what the functional unit has to look like for this or that purpose. We then start to look it or construct it artificially according to our imagination⁴.

Perhaps it will turn out one day that we only owe this invaluable skill to a gradual or even quantitative further development of the thinking apparatus of animals. The resulting consequences were enormous in any case. The whole network of effects of the development of human power can be deduced from that one premise of functional innovation.
 
 

First consequence: Artificial organs are not chained to the body. They do not have to be carried around all the time. Human beings put on clothes; if they get too hot, they can take them off again. They take a knife – if they do not need it any longer, they put it down again. They get into a car – then leave it again when it has taken them to the desired destination.

Every animal has to carry all its organs around with it continuously – if one leaves out of account the few artificial organs which have already been created by animals themselves (nest, catching devices, etc.) . This means in the first place that animals have hardly been able to produce organs which they did need constantly. The task was simply too laborious – and above all every organ has to have its place in relation to other organs, has to be nourished, well looked after, renewed, etc. Whenever such formations were achieved, the advantages did not outweigh the disadvantages. Individuals with such formations were not able to assert themselves – therefore no further development took place, they disappeared again. We are used to considering animals as miracles or perfect structures – but if we compare them to human beings with their removable organs it becomes apparent how immensely limited animal evolution had been up to that stage of development.

Animals – with a few exceptions – were usually only able to specialise in one particular way of life. With the organs created for that purpose they were tied to it for better or for worse. Only in rare cases do we see development of the ability to get rid of superfluous functional units. For instance, male termites discard their wings after their wedding flights.⁵ However, such units are then lost for good and cannot be added to the functional body again.

Human beings take off their artificial organs – clothes, a pick, a spear ... a car. If they are in need of them again they use them again.

Some of the artificial organs we attach to a location: then they do not burden us at all. For instance: a machine, a library, a mill, an electron microscope. If we need their services we go to them, operate them, use them. The single professional entity or business organisation can thus also include big immovable units towards which the movable and directing structure – "man" – according to his needs moves in order to activate them.

Second consequence: From the very beginning the new advantages were also associated with new disadvantages, new problems. Every unit that does not grow into the body can get lost – but, more importantly, can also be stolen.

Somebody who has mislaid his glasses or somebody whose bicycle has been stolen is not able to use these units anymore. All artificial organs can only serve human beings as long as they remain available to them, as long as they stay in their domains.⁶ We do not have to carry these functional units around with us constantly – however, if they are separated from us additional facilities have to ensure that they remain available to us.

One functional aid in order to diminish the dangers of "forgetting", "mislaying" and "losing" is what we call "keeping something tidy". By assigning certain definite "resting places" (drawers, files, cupboards, buildings) to all movable artificial organs we make it easier for our brain to keep control. With units that are fixed to a location – for instance, a fountain or a fence – the problem is less pressing. As their locations stay the same once and for all there is smaller risk that we will forget them.

Much more serious with all kinds of functional units – no matter whether they are fixed or movable ones – is the second problem, namely how it is possible to avoid them being stolen so that the right to use them is thus usurped by other people. This is very critical because almost all artificial organs can serve other people too.

Here we have reached an important point. Also every animal and every plant is constantly exposed to the risk that parts of their bodies will be snatched away from them. These, however, always serve as nourishment for the thief – but their actual functions can hardly ever be used by it. If a lizard bites off the wings of a dragonfly cannot fly with those wings.

The functions of organs that are not ingrown, on the other hand, can also be used by other individuals. Instances are homes, nests and traps made by animals. With the elaborate gadgets and facilities that have been created by mankind in the course of time, that problem has increasingly come into the foreground. All additional units have to be protected effectively.

To guard, to defend, to hide, to lock up, are countermeasures against that second danger. However, they are – for the energy balance – a considerable strain. The only really effective and efficient protection for the individual consists in the formation of a community of interests with a division of labour. Some energons specialise in the function of protectors – police, soldiers, judges – and are maintained by the others. The latter then are able to practise their individual gainful activity undisturbed. Their artificial organs, although they are separate from them, remain tied to them, within their right of disposal. By that a special kind of tie is created: the right of ownership that is protected by a community.

Much thought has been given as to how and why the formation of human associations and states came about. Seen from the point of view of evolution that necessarily had to happen – just as with bigger animals the formation of special organs of breathing or circulation took had to occur. The further unfolding of energons since the beginning of mankind was based on the formation of artificial organs: they were a burden in that they have to be protected against robbery. However, such a protection can only be supplied – effectively and efficiently – with the aid of a "community with division of labour".

A tendency to form small groups is innate in human beings ever since our ancestors used to create herds. The formation of larger communities, however, arose from the inevitable connection of causes and effects. Artificial organs were the necessary consequence. Human beings who achieved the formation of organised communities had an advantage eo ipso. Therefore that tendency was successful. Here Darwin’s guiding principle of "natural selection" slimmed things down. If we are confronted with huge communities of human beings everywhere today, the reason is not because they were invented by one person or another – because other things had been invented, too, which were not successful – but on the grounds that such facilities had eminent advantages and made superior those energons which had them at their disposal.

The cultural, artistic, "psychological" development of human beings, which we tend to rate most highly, is in terms of evolution only concomitant – though for ourselves personally very important. What has to remain in focus is the hard fact that there cannot be any kind of activity and as a result any culture without surplus energy. I know of no counter-argument to that. Surplus energy is always the prerequisite for everything else. What is important here is that for energons in the second stage of evolution this are only attainable with the aid of artificial organs. The latter – as one of a number of consequences – have been responsible for the formation of communities.
 
 

Third consequence: Artificial organs are interchangeable . This means that humans can alternately specialise in one or the other activity. If I take a shovel I specialise in digging. If I take a pencil I specialise in writing. If I sit in a rowing boat I specialise in moving on water. Lorenz called humans "specialists in being non-specialised". This is only true to a certain degree, as our brain is highly specialised. In my opinion it would be more correct to say: "humans are specialists for versatile specialisation". With that we can do better justice to the peculiarity of the germ cell "human being". Never before has something so chameleon-like been developed. By employing sometimes one and then the other functional unit that is separate from the body, we transform ourselves sometimes into one and then into another highly specialised being.

Our hands were the prerequisite for that. Whether we like it or not: we owe to our ancestors' climbing way of life the fact that we have them. Other animals have not been able to attain a comparable development. For instance, the brain of dolphins is particularly capable – nevertheless, even in a million years dolphins could not become comparable to human beings. This is simply for the reason that they do not have an organ that is suitable for the production of artificial functional units and for connection to their bodies. They would never be able to produce a hand-axe, to take up a pick or to play the piano. It is possible for us – and not only because of our brain’s capability.

As a further consequence the interchangeability of artificial organs made it possible for more people to use the same organ alternately. What’s more, they can be passed on from one energon to another.

Just imagine what that means for the evolutionary process. Up to the developmental stage "human being", with every dying plant and every dying animal also all the parts of the bodies of which those energons consisted died (apart from reproductive processes). If a rosebush dies, all its leaves die as well. If a giraffe dies, hen also its four legs die, so do its heart and its eyes. The descendants do not benefit from it in any way – except (and this really happens sometimes) if they eat their parents.⁷ This changes with human professional entities. If a shoemaker dies, his son – or some other appropriately qualified person – can "take over the company". Artificial functional units maintain their operability after the owner’s death. Another person, another directing centre, slips into the structure of all those artificially created units and reactivates them. Or "the company is liquidated": tools and equipment are "disposed of". In that case, too, the single parts live on in other bodies of professions or luxury. Some early stages are even found in the case of animals. A snail-shell serves the hermit crab analogously after the snail’s death. The hermit crab dies – and another one moves into that shell. It is similar with the homes of animals.

Fourth consequence: Artificial organs are not considerably burdened by their past history. With the bodies of animals and plants new functional units were only able to develop in small steps and mostly only out of already existing units. Every organ is – as Hesse and Doflein put it – "doubly conditional": not only through its manner of "performance" but also "through its history". It is true that the tools and machines of human beings often show similar burdens. One tool is often developed from another one and can only overcome the traces of the original purpose of its use gradually. In principle, however, every artificial organ is a new entity – or at least can be one. With animals and plants this hardly ever is the case. If we take a closer look at their organs we will most of the time be able to tell from their structures and the way they function what their historical development has been. From the point of view of construction the organisms are only rarely perfect.

Fifth consequence: Artificial organs can practically be built out of every material. For those consisting of cells this is not possible. Plants and animals, for instance, have not been able to use metals. The reason for this is the high temperatures that are needed to mould them but which the living cell cannot tolerate. Outside the body, on the other hand, functional units can be created (e. g. furnaces) which can withstand such temperatures.

Sixth consequence: Artificial organs do not necessarily have to be operated with energy from their bodies themselves: it is in principle possible that outside-energy operates them directly.⁸

If somebody’s sailing-boat is driven by the wind, he does not take in the wind’s energy into his body like food, spend it there and then transfer it onto the boat (as is the case with rowing) but the wind drives the artificial organ, the boat, directly. If a farmer harnesses an ox to his plough, then he does not take in the ox’s strength but the ox pulls the artificial organ plough directly. If we melt metal in a furnace or fry meat on the stove, then the fire’s energy does not enter our bodies but serves us directly. If our car is driven by the energy that is contained in petrol, then we do not have to drink the petrol but the energy drives the artificial organ car directly. For those processes there are also many preliminary stages within the plant and animal kingdoms but only humans were able – with the aid of artificial organs – to make outside-energies serve acquisition structures on a large scale.

The concept of the energon, with the human race as its centre, is thus increasingly distancing itself from the common notion of it. Those living bodies of a higher order – which are the actual reality – consist of parts that have not only not grown into each other but which are in many cases operated using differing sources of energy completely independently.
 
 

Seventh consequence: Artificial organs do not necessarily have to be produced by the one whom they are to serve. Within a community single persons can specialise in the production of one or the other functional unit. This was the basis for manual work, trade and industry and furthermore for the institution of the "market", for the universal agent "money" and for "trade". Again, they are not random creations deriving from human inventiveness but necessary results of the development that was triggered off by artificial organs.

Through specialisation the artificial organs also get better and cheaper. So they can be produced at a price and with a quality otherwise unattainable for the user. These advantages were increased considerably through industrialisation and mass production.

Another precondition for that process of development was the existence of organised communities. Only with them did the single person have the opportunity to concentrate on one task. Thus a community where that process of specialisation took place could acquire better artificial organs. The balance of single persons – and also of communities – was improved by that and therefore also their superiority over less organised groups of people. By virtue of their intelligence, humans recognised this and promoted such development. In that respect too, artificial organs functionally resulted in the formation and inner organisation of larger communities.

Eighth consequence: Artificial organs do not necessarily have to be financed by one energon only. A number of energons can pool their surpluses of energy and then use the created organ together (e. g. a bridge) or in turns (e. g. a tractor). This is another factor which encouraged the formation of communities. Within a state common organs can be created with a relatively small expenditure by all citizens and which then increase the power potential of every individual.

The most important common organs were first of all the ones that secured life and property, that is, organs for the maintenance of internal and external security within the nation. On the one hand we call these large functional units national defence, on the other hand we call them legislature and executive. Other important common organs are the sewage system, plumbing, roads, energy supply, railways, the mail, the telephone system, institutions of education, the fire brigade and more besides.

Those organised structures are so colossal in parts that one finds it difficult – with conventional thinking – to attribute them concretely to every individual person. However, if one follows the developmental history of the energons and the vehicles of effect, both built by humans, then this is indeed the case. Within a state the whole structure of the national defence, just as the mail, the national library or any road, are vehicles of effect for every acquisition structure – from the pedlar to the production business, from the housewife to the insurance company. Here we can use a way of thinking that has been common practice within the legal system for a long time. It is every body of acquisition’s duty to partake in the maintenance of those common organs by paying taxes – and everybody has a right to the benefits of their effects.

The functional structure of the acquisition entities that build the germ cell "human being" becomes more and more branched: it becomes increasingly difficult to grasp it. However, if one keeps in mind the artificial organs and their consequences for the structure of the energon, then one has the key to the comprehension of those interconnections.

Ninth consequence: Artificial organs can also be "rented". Humans do not have to acquire them in their entirety but they can – at lower cost– take possession of them only when they need to use them. This means a further saving of energy. That process got its special significance as a device for the acquisition of human achievements. For instance, if I rent the services of a messenger, then he becomes my functional unit, my artificial organ for the period of time in question. It is the same when I hire the services of an attorney, a hairdresser or a steamship company. If I insure myself, then the insurance company in question becomes my functional unit for the period of validity of the insurance policy. If we go to the theatre we share in renting –as a "luxury"– the services of the theatre and of the ensemble.

Today large communities are organised in such a way as to put almost countless numbers of potential functional units at the disposal of humans. If people have enough surplus energy to rent their services, these units will – for a certain amount of time – become organs to serve them.

That means that there are a variety of interactions and connections that can hardly be kept track of. At the centre all this there is still an organic core: the germ cell "human being". Around this a growing number of organised units are situated that are affiliated short-term and which then produce effects for the respective structure of acquisition. In fact, such services can already be performed before the central human being has even thinks of enlisting them. The same goes for all commodities that are not produced to order but are held in stock. If I buy a gramophone, when I pay for it I am purchasing a share of the work of the company in question. However, that work has already been done when I pay the rent for the work – the price of the gramophone.
 
 

Tenth consequence: Also the upkeep, the repair and the renewal of artificial organs can be transferred to others who are specialised therein. Here the advantage has to face a disadvantage, however. Plants and animals are very autarchic. They care for and repair the different functional units in their "own company" and can even reproduce some of them in cases of injury or loss. With the artificial organs of humans ,on the other hand, it can be more difficult to get a repair carried out. This is only of minor consequence compared to the advantage that in principle every functional unit can be attended to separately and becomes almost without exception replaceable.

Eleventh consequence: If an artificial organ is not needed anymore, it can be "liquidated" without giving it a second thought. It is thrown away – or it can even be "sold". With animals and plants it is a different matter. Often changes of the environmental conditions occurred or an energon changed to another form of acquisition: in those cases organs became superfluous or amounted to burdens. Only changes in the genetic make-up could eliminate them, however, that must have taken hundreds or thousands of generations. Until then every newly developing energon of the species in question repeatedly reproduced units which had become superfluous and above all, they also had to nourish them continuously. The possibility of throwing off such functionless parts in the twinkling of an eye – or even of converting them into energy (when they were sold) – also represented major progress.

Twelfth consequence: It was of really enormous significance that thanks to artificial organs energons suddenly did not have to bring forth descendants of the same species all the time. Every fir can always produce firs only, a lion always only more lions. From the proceeds of professional bodies and businesses built by humans, however, it is by no means always necessary to build energons of the same species only. The return from a shoemaker’s workshop might equally well finance a tobacco shop or a night club.

With mankind, evolution surmounted the immense handicap of propagation limited to the same species or (with mutations) to a similar species. If the living conditions of a maybug are bad but if they are favourable for violets, nevertheless the maybug will only be able to bring forth young maybugs and no violets. The mere thought of such an eventuality seems grotesque to us – but only because we are used to taking for granted propagation that is tied to the species. Seen from the energon-aspect this was a rigid one-way street that was practically not circumventable – but still a burden.

Energons built by humans are liberated from those bonds to the species, they are not "tied down" to their species as regards their propagation. For instance, if the economic situation is unfavourable for cinemas, the owner is by no means forced to open up further picture places. The capital – or better: its variable part – is then shifted to other lines of business where there are better earning possibilities. On the basis of separate functional units – and only because of them – energons thus reached the point where individuals of one species can also produce individuals of a completely different one.⁹

This was also the reason for a much greater individuality in the shaping of energons. Whilst one stag-beetle is almost exactly like another one or a fir almost exactly like another one, professional bodies belonging to the same "species" already show structural differences to a much larger extent. The notion of the species – which biologists define by the process of production – loses its clarity. The same form of acquisition still compels basically similar structures to a large degree but adaptability to the respective environmental conditions grew tremendously. In the Middle Ages there were still plenty of professional structures which remained constant over many generations. On the basis of technological progress and progress in the means of communication, however, energons increasingly become single phenomena which – as will be shown – may well be constructed according to the same principle but which are almost as variable in the details of their structures as the environments where they operate.

Thirteenth consequence: Eventually artificial organs opened up the portals for culture, art and convenience – for our actual "existence as human beings". To put it bluntly: an animal could hardly bring forth a garden swing serving its convenience or silver cutlery for the ingestion of food. On the basis of competition animals could hardly acquire organs which merely served their "convenience" and their "happiness" but not the effort of acquisition or reproduction. If such organs emerged, then they were burdens in the competition for acquisition. They set back their energons correspondingly, eliminated them.

With energons consisting of separate functional units that suddenly changed. The successful businessman may very well use surpluses for his comforts also and the functional units (e. g. summer residence, motorboat, evening dress) serving that purpose by no means hinder his professional body.

The striving for convenience and especially happiness – in the broadest sense – became the greatest motivation for humans regarding their efforts of acquisition. If a soap manufacturer is forced always to put his income into the manufacturing of soap only, his motivation to work will certainly be weaker than if he is also able to spend his earnings on a trip to Mallorca or on the purchase of a red cabriolet.

Artificial organs not only open up eminent possibilities to create successful structures of acquisition for the germ cell "human being", but they also activate very decisive stimuli in it. That the world became the way it is very much due to that one important functional step forward.¹⁰
 
 

Within physics an important change has taken place in the last fifty years. The world which for Newton was still perfectly concrete has increasingly retreated beyond human imagination and comprehension. Our brain cannot reproduce the processes inside atoms as pictures anymore. We can only understand them mentally (through formulas and figures), however, we cannot understand them with our senses.

The conclusions of the energon theory lead to a similar transition in biology and in some of the humanities – which will hardly be welcomed by them. Some things that used to be rather simple and comprehensible in our previous system of thought are now blurred to a virtually incomprehensible abundance of interconnections. On the other hand, this new way of looking at things leads to a considerable simplification of thinking. It becomes possible to categorise all structures which carry on the development of life with one and the same conceptual system. It becomes possible to attain a standardised way of communication within the manifold branches of biology, of economics and political science. In fact, it should become possible to consult knowledge of one area in order to explain phenomena of other hitherto completely distinct areas.

For all energons the central activity – by which their existence stands or falls – is the acquisition of energy. This we will now examine in more detail.
 
 

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Continue to "Lock and key"
 
 

Comments:

¹ The term “medium” as McLuhan uses it and which is maintained by his translators also corresponds terminologically to the expression “artificial organ”. With media McLuhan describes all artificial “expansions" of human beings, the totality of all aids created by us.
² See B. Rensch, “Die Abhängigkeit der Struktur und der Leistungen historischer Gehirne von ihrer Größe”, in “Die Naturwissenschaften”, Vol. 45, 1958, p. 145ff.
³ Cf. W. Köhler, “Intelligenzprüfungen an Menschenaffen”, Berlin 1921.
⁴ Plato called man “an animal that draws up utopias”. Spinoza said the spirit “was not a power handling imaginings” but itself consists “ in the course of the imagination and the interconnections of imaginations”. It is interesting to ask as to what extent areas of the brain which are not accessible to consciousness have similar projection screens at their disposal. Many achievements of so-called “intuition” might be explained through the “unconscious” activity of those cerebral areas. (Cf. Konrad Lorenz: “Innate Bases of Learning”.)
⁵ The parasitical crab Sacculina even throws off a large part of its body including the legs and the eyes once it has found   its “host”, a prawn, and can then send its roots into it like a plant.
⁶ In business management similar basic ideas play a part. Thus W. Bouffier defines capital as “the right of disposal of properties of wealth expressed in terms of cash value” (“Einführung in die Betriebswirtschaftlehre”, Vienna 1946, p. 23).
⁷ This for instance is the case with the larvae of the mosquito Miastor. R. Hesse describes the process as follows: “They eat out the mother , therefore live on the parts of her body until only the hose of the body cuticle is left which is ultimately torn and thus releases the young ones.” This is one of the manifold ways of taking “care of the brood”, of the “feeding of the germ”. (“Tierbau – Tierleben”, Jena 1943, Vol. 2, p. 411)
⁸ In particular, Wilhelm Ostwald pointed this out (“Die energetischen Grundlagen der Kulturwissenschaft”, p. 81 ff). In part 2 /chap. IV and V I will come back to that problem in more detail.
⁹ A. Naef wrote: “Natura non facit saltus! Every formal element is tied to previous ones and determines following ones unless it is on the blind end of a twig from the tree of life. Morphologically there are absolutely no new appearances!” (“Handwörterbuch der Naturwissenschaften”, Jena 1932, Vol. 7, p. 4.) This especially changed at the developmental stage when human beings arose. From there every “saltus” (jump) became possible. On the basis of the functional unit called the central nervous system and its achievement of “human intelligence” absolutely everything that is new could emerge.
¹⁰ The comparison between human being and germ cell as it is often used in this context has only functional validity. The germ cells create the multi-celled body by continuous divisions: thus they are ultimately identical with it. With human expansions, however, the “germ cell” is maintained individually – that is, it does not enter the structure that it has created. It remains an individual – even if its individuality is limited within the framework of the bodies built in that way. Yet, the comparison is justifiable with regard to the function: both the germ cell and humans form life structures with a higher level of integration.