The picture that the energon theory gives of the organisms as cross-sections through a stream of evolution is self-evident with our conventional way of thinking. What is evident for us is the dog that greets us while it wags its tail and which we stroke. Also evident are the flowers attracting insects. So is our neighbour, who is just about to leave her house, carrying her shopping bag. What is not evident, on the other hand, is the network of effects of the energons that expand beyond the bodies that we are used to and in which humans, including the neighbour’s body, are also just a part.

It will not be easy to shake the basis of concepts in current biology that are nowadays taken for granted. I would, however, like to draw attention to the following: there is no disagreement of any kind regarding natural selection – it always determined what was to survive, to continue to live and what would not. Now, however, the "bodies" where this selection intervened are not necessarily identical with the genetically grown bodies. In many species, they still are, in others they no longer are; in man as we know him today they never are. This, however, means that it is not the genetically grown body that represents actual reality but rather the effective body – even though it is not something that is immediately obvious to our senses at first sight.

Goethe said, "The senses do not deceive but our judgement fools us." This is true – but also wrong. What the senses show us are true aspects of reality. Thus, it is up to our judgement to interpret these messages correctly. On the other hand, however, they provide our brain with a rather one-sided picture. What they show us is presented by them in convincing clarity; what they hide from us is eclipsed by this firework of presentations.

Despite all critical ability our judgement thus has a weak foothold if it turns against this "world of the senses". It is up to our judgement not to give in to deception, in this respect Goethe is right. But the fact that the senses deceive us is surely true as well.

In the field of business the way of looking at things as the energon theory does will most readily be understood. Here, one has always concentrated not so much on bodies that have grown together but rather on companies. The central concept that comprises all acquisitive efforts is – in this case – called "enterprise". This factor, that is so essential, cannot, however, actually be grasped by the hands, cannot be smelled, cannot be seen. It does not comprise merely the actual entrepreneurial means – premises, tools, goods – but apart from that also services, business contacts, and a good "reputation", location, licences, loans, experience, business ethics of the staff, and so on.

These, too, are concrete units that determine success or failure – just as those that can be touched. They are called "immaterial goods" – which again is not correct insofar as they are indeed of a material nature. They are functional units. In the whole structure of the acquisitive process they are the components that provide functions. But this is exactly the way how the energon theory looks at the effect structures in the world of animals and plants. Even supporting forces can become artificial organs – if the energon is capable of forcing them to render services to itself from time to time.
 
 

There are environmental forces that virtually carry the energon on their backs – just like a horse carrying a horseman. They support it, improve its energy balance. Sometimes this assistance occurs automatically, without any active help. This, however, is the exception to the rule. In most cases the energon itself has to make some effort in order to get the benefit of these favourable effects. It has to "mount the horse", has to "saddle" it. In concrete terms: it has to produce behavioural formulas and structures by which it forces the outside powers into its network of structures.

The shield/spear relationship, opposing interference and enemies, always presents a negative balance. An unfavourable effect has to be warded off, causing expenses. In the horse-horseman relationship, however, expenses are necessary as well – but there are accordingly higher energy gains (Fig. 22).

Spiders make use of the energy of the wind in order to perform long journeys through the air. They produce a longer spider’s thread on an elevated place: this is the sail that carries them forward. The friction of the thread forces the wind to carry it along and the spider clings on to it as the passenger. Such spiders have been caught in nets from planes at heights up to 3,000 metres. This proves that they are carried over very long distances.

In many plants the seeds are able to take to the air. This, too, is an investment which leads to the utilisation of external energy. If the seeds happen to fall directly next to the plant, it thus creates competition for itself. It is, however, not able to transport the seeds all by itself. In this case, too, the wind is utilised.

A windmill is a far more complex structure, though it works according to the same principle. By means of an appropriate device the wind power is forced into the service of an energon (the miller). The decisive factor here – and that is an issue that has not been taken into consideration and left aside so far – is that in each such case energy works directly for the energon without being monopolised by it. The spider does not eat and digest the wind power but it works directly in favour of the spider. In plants the wind power is not monopolised by the plastids and subsequently invested in the flight process – it has a direct effect on the seeds. This also applies to the miller. The wind power is not obtained by means of the money he earns. It works directly for his professional entity – by powering an artificial organ, the windmill.

This is an extremely important principle, the meaning and significance of which one has to fully realise. No horse/horseman relationship has anything to do with the actual acquisitive process. It supports it but is separate from it. It is always based on some free energy prevailing in the environment that is made directly to operate an functional unit of the energon.

An energon (E) needs a function (f); k represents a force that exists in the environment and acts totally independent of E. Thanks to the additional functional unit x (structure, behavioural formula) the energon is capable of compelling this force to serve its purposes: it now performs either entirely or partly the function f. Example: utilisation of wind or water power, of heat, of the activities of other organisms, or a given and necessary resistance, of an economic trend, etc. Thus it saves its own energy expenses or structure.
 

This possibility for humans to increase their power has become of enormous significance. It has also played quite an important role in the energons of plants and animals.

The botanist Troll, too, realised this difference. The transport of water in land plants, he wrote, did not take place "with the help of an individual energy potential generated in the metabolism: the plant with its organs rather enters a potential gradient which it encounters in its surroundings and has this gradient work for it."¹ It has to be added, though, that only a special kind of formation in the plant may lead to this utilisation of environmental powers. The leaves’ surface in connection with the tubular system leading down to the roots causes the water to be sucked via the evaporation that takes place. What also comes in is the active root pressure. The main work, however, when the water is pumped up is performed by the evaporation caused by the sun’s heat.

The liana and ivy show another kind of energy saving. If these plants were to build a trunk all by their own, which would elevate them to a certain height above the ground, this would result in certain costs. A significant share of these expenses is saved by the formation of tendrils by means of which they can climb up other plants. Thus they exploit the energy expenses of another energon and increase their own energy potential.

The mistletoe even spares itself climbing up. Its fruits are sticky, adhere to the beaks of birds and are wiped off on branches. This is where the germ anchors its seed to the wood and thus gets access to the tree’s sap channels. A precondition for this twofold utilisation of external energy was the formation of adequate formulas and structures. By means of the fruits and their stickiness the bird is made to carry the germ to its destination. This is where subsequently the sap channels of the other plant are utilised by the seed – i.e. external invasion – for its own acquisitive purposes.
 
 

Some "horses" are utilised simultaneously by several horsemen – like, for instance, in sponges.

Their acquisitive process runs as follows: waving their cilia causes a water stream to be led through their inner cavity. The micro-organisms therein are captured by the collar cells (choanocytes).

Maintaining the stream of water costs energy, and numerous other energons use this energy in order to facilitate their acquisitive process. Brittle stars (Ophiotrix spec.) position themselves in front of the suction openings and snatch the plankton that has been stirred up away from the sponges "right from their mouth". Others settle right inside these channels. A. S. Pearse, a British natural scientist, was patient enough to count all the "tenants" living in a large sponge. He ended up with 17,128. All of them benefited from the continuous water stream, and in addition also from the protection effect within the tubular system. Still, we have to consider the following here: these advantages gained have nothing to do with the acquisitive process itself. All these organisms are spared those expenses they would otherwise have to meet themselves, be it for the supplying of food, be it for the formation of a protective device. In this case, too, the energy gained does not take the troublesome way via the organisms’ own stomach, via their own digestive system.

a) The liana climbs up the trunk of a tree, thus brings its leaves closer to the light and spares itself the formation of an own supporting trunk.

b) The meloe beetle climbs on blossoms, where it waits for bees, clings on to their hairs, and has itself carried into the beehive. This is how it gets right to the nest unnoticed, where it subsequently feeds.

c) Human beings grow plants with thorns as hedges: for the purpose of fencing in their sphere of activity (protection against invaders, instrument for preventing the escape of pets).

In all three cases mentioned above utilisation is based on one behavioural formula: in a and b an innate, in c an acquired one. In a and c, resistance is required, in b, a movement is needed.
 

On land, as well as protection the gain of heat also represents a significant problem. Thousands of different species of small animals live in holes and nests of other animals. They thus achieve effects – by forming corresponding behavioural formulas – that cost them nothing.

Mites stick to dung beetles and are consequently carried from one cow pat to another. As the latter remains soft and usable only for a couple of days this is important to them. The larvae of the meloe climb up to the blossoms; this is where the bees alight, and they subsequently cling to them. Thus they reach – unnoticed and without great effort – the otherwise strictly guarded beehive – coming directly to the eggs, which are then eaten up, including the food resources kept for the larvae.

The vulture is said to carry turtles high up into the skies and drop them – thus shattering their shells. Only then it is able to eat the turtle. If this is true, one might say that the force of gravity is utilised here. In the Puszta, collared pratincoles fly back and forth between the legs of the cattle grazing there. The cattle stir up the insects for them, which the birds subsequently snatch.

In this case, special behavioural formulas are the "bridle" so to speak, by means of which external energy is used to render certain services to the energon.

This also applies to sea turtles. They crawl ashore on sandy coasts, where they dig a hole with their hind legs and put their eggs in it. They then close the hole and make it invisible. The heat of the sun hatches the eggs. In the Malayan islands scrub hens build heaps which – soaked by the rain – start to decompose after 4 to 5 weeks. Then they dig a hole and put their eggs inside where the temperature rises to 41 - 45 degrees. In all these cases animals have arrived at behavioural formulas by which they channel external streams of energy into their own effect structure. In each of these cases the energon spares itself energy expenses.

In one Japanese reserve macaques were fed on seeds which were scattered on the sea-shore. One of the monkeys discovered – the term "discovery" is really suitable here – that the seeds were much easier to separate from the sand when it grabbed them together with the sand and threw the grains and the sand into the water. The sand sank, the seeds floated on the surface. The animal remembered this method, and others imitated this behaviour. In the course of 12 years this method was adopted by 18 members of the troop².

Here we already stand at the threshold to human progress. Using previous experiences a new behavioural formula was developed and passed on to others. By means of this formula the powers of nature are used to "separate the chaff from the wheat".
 
 

One form of energy that is hard to access for animals is the energy stored in wood. By way of fire humans became able to make use of it. At some point in time someone discovered how to unleash this process – and the method was subsequently passed on traditionally.

We force the energy contained in crude oil to run our artificial organ, the car. The functional unit necessary for it was the internal combustion engine. When we use water power it is the turbine. Neither petrol nor the waterfall pass via our mouth into our stomach – these powers rather operate artificial organs for us directly. By means of the functional unit we call an atomic reactor we can even access the amounts of energy restrained within atoms.

Wilhelm Ostwald saw "energy transformers" in every kinds of machine. The superiority of the human race was to be explained by "the amount of the energy organised by it, i.e. the energy brought under his dominance".³

This is a very similar point of view. In that sense the machine’s very first predecessors can already be found in the spider’s thread. There, too, external energy is already infiltrated into the individual effect structure. By the intermediary function of the thread the energy of the wind is being taken into service for the interests of an individual energon. This, too, constitutes a useful transformation of energy.

The entire human increase in power is based on this process in the end. Our stomach is able only to process food to a very limited extent, the performance of our muscles has absolute limits. Our central nervous system, however, not only succeeds in extending our genetic body by artificial organs – it also creates transformers which force external energies directly to operate such artificial organs. It is only thanks to that that humans were able continually to increase the power of the acquisitive body formed by them.

The topic "integration of external energy" alone is so extensive that it should be dealt with in a separate book. All I can do here is give a broad overview.
 
 

A particularly interesting method of utilising external energy consists in acting on the innate behavioural formulas of other organisms.

The cuckoo puts its eggs into other birds’ nests and thus is relieved of the business of hatching them. It is a prerequisite that the young cuckoo triggers an even stronger breeding care behaviour than the bird’s own offspring. Due to its particularly big and peculiar craw they feed the baby cuckoo preferentially. The young cuckoo then displaces the others and throws them out of the nest. Trumpet fish swim up close to the body of parrot fish and thus get close to their prey unnoticed: small fish. The peculiarly coloured and harmless parrot fish are thus used as camouflage shields. In this example, as well as in the cuckoo, the expense of a creature's own energy is saved by adapting to behavioural formulas innate to other animals.

Bacteria, worms, cancers, but most of all insects and mites trigger growth processes in plants by excreting special substances that promote their own energy balance. This is called the formation of "galls". In gall wasps and gall flies the eggs are laid in the interior of young leaves where the growth substances excreted by the larvae result in the leave’s tissue forming a sheltering home for them. Even suitable food is provided by the plants’ cells. The perfect nature of this manipulation goes so far as that some plant cells form lids which subsequently open up the way into the open to the insects. These processes used to be called – from the teleological point of view – "externally serving purposefulness". According to the energon theory, this term may just as well be retained. By excreting certain substances, the energons succeed in playing on the genetic genetic blueprints of other energons, like on a piano. The latter are stimulated to form structures that do not serve the plant itself, which are indeed "externally serving". Energons have here arrived at the point where they make foreign organisms work for them by influencing their genetic code.

The most extreme example of this process is demonstrated by the viruses (Ill. 24, 25). They consist of nothing but a genetic blueprint and a covering. If they reach the inside of the cells of animals or plants – in most cases by the externally serving transmission of biting or sucking insects – then the following process sets in: the virus formula – a DNA thread – displaces the genetic blueprint innate in the cell and the infested cells now start to produce viruses instead of a species-specific structure. The "assembly line" of the cell operating is virtually has another control formula foisted on it The substances for the development of new viruses (nucleotides) are provided by the cell, as is the necessary energy. Now it not only produces further such threads of formulas, it also covers them. In the process of this externally serving process it dies. Thus the virus multiplies.

In terms of "life-forms" as used to date, nobody was really sure how to classify viruses. On the one hand, they consist of organic molecules – on the other they do not have any inner metabolism at all and are able to crystallise as an anorganic substance.

These smallest of all parasites consists of a "head" (K), a "tail" (S), a tailplate (P) and tail thread (F). This energon does not have any metabolism at all. By external energy it gets in contact with micro-organisms or cells, its tailplate adheres to the skin, and the inner tube (I) penetrates the cell. The DNA thread contained in the head, a single giant molecule (the genetic blueprint R), thus gets to the respective cell, where it functionally replaces the cell-specific formula threads and causes the cell to produce only such viruses instead of endogenous substance – until it dies. The formula threads of all animals and plants are constructed according to the same principle, their "code" is spelled with the same four "letters" (the bases adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine) which adhere to the thread in long rows (b).
 
 

This picture taken with an electron microscope magnified 60,000 times was made by A. K. Kleinschmidt (Biochem. Biophysik. Acta, 61, Amsterdam 1962). The DNA thread (deoxynucleic acid thread) has entirely emerged and is visible as a long thread molecule with clearly visible ends (x and y). Whenever I talk about genetic blueprints in this book, I am primarily referring to structures like these).
 

According to the energon theory this is a clear-cut case. The viruses are energons which exist only through the acquisition of external energy. These are parasite hereditary formulas which became independent. The entire apparatus for acquiring own energy was omitted here. What was left is a formula protected by a wrapping that converts – upon penetration into other cells – their inner organisation to the production of viruses. W. Weidel called this "vagabonding genes", "parasites in the form of molecules". The existence of these structures is based on the fact that they are able to prompt living cells to a certain activity. This activity consists of the multiplication of themselves.

As the structure of the genetic blueprint – which remained the same up to the appearance of human beings – cannot be studied anywhere in a simpler and clearer way, genetics has made these objects a special object of study. For the principle of acquisition of external energy that is so important in genetics they represent a highly descriptive example. While in the cuckoo and the gall-producers the genetic blueprints of other energons are manipulated, but merely supporting the individual acquisition process, in viruses the entire structure focused on the individual acquisition of energy has been omitted– which certainly became what they are now by secondary retrogression – and what is left over is the formula that causes its multiplication⁴.
 
 

I now arrive at something quite difficult. I am referring to the principle of sensitivity and of reaction. This mechanism developed in plants as well as in animals usually works in such a way that there is a potential gradient available in every organism that may trigger a process. Just as a gun can be fired by pulling/ the trigger, a certain reaction is triggered upon a certain stimulus. Troll put this very clearly: "Reaction is thus based on an energy potential that is ready and only hampered in creating a balance. Upon stimulation these inhibitions are removed." Thus, a subsequent "re-installation of the potential gradient has to take place", in order to make further such reactions possible. Troll called this interaction "impulse causality".

The relation to the control causality as described in part 1, chapter VII is obvious. Here, too, the energy of the stimulus does not enter into the process triggered by it – just as little as releasing the trigger of the gun accelerates the bullet. Hassenstein, too, pointed out: "The term ‘control causality’ might just as well be understood as an analogy to the familiar term of ‘triggering causality’."

At this point let us recall the predatory bird which controls the formation of the white colour in rabbits. This process extends over many generations – and thus finally leads to the formation of a protective unit against this enemy. This would mean: the interfering factor itself causes the – evolutionary – reaction directed against it.

In the impulse causality (or "triggering causality") the same process takes place in the individual. If a defensive reaction is triggered in an animal or a plant by a stimulus, the interfering factor also turns into the trigger of the reaction already ready and directed against it.

In the field of external energy this process is of significance insofar as also in this case external energy is active on behalf of the energon. Here, structures have developed as a reaction to environmental influences which are of such a kind that the influence to be reacted to itself causes the defensive action. Figuratively speaking, this can be compared to a situation when an enemy attacking me triggers the shot which hits himself.

It is exactly this process that characterises on the one hand the formation of defensive structures within natural selection, and on the other the triggering of individual reactions. In any case, the flow of evolution turns the interfering factors themselves into the cause of the processes warding them off.
 
 

In humans the ability to force external activity into their own effective structure amounted to virtuosity. Let us first look at our manipulation of the genetic codes of animals and plants.

What we understand under the peaceful term "breeding", is nothing more or nothing less than an purposeful modification of hereditary formulas to our advantage. While the virus and the gall-producer always exert nothing but their self-serving effect individually, we went a bit further in this respect. The breeder – it was Darwin who first pointed this out – replaces natural selection by "artificial breeding choice". Practically speaking this means that we deliberately select those hereditary varieties which suit our needs best. This is how domestic animals came into existence, how useful plants developed which we feed on. They would not be competitive in the natural struggle for existence. The fruit trees produce much bigger and sweeter fruits than they normally could afford. Cattle and pigs produce much more meat and fat than usually. And this suits us because we want to eat them. Just by shielding and protecting them against natural selection they can continue to exist.

In these cases, we caused the formation of genetic blueprints by intentional selection which facilitates the improvement and enlargement of the respective yield and thus makes it possible to increase our energy potential. Thus, we control the development of organisms that act in accordance with our ideas.

Humans showed a similar tendency towards their own fellow-beings. Those who gained power over territory in one way or another had power for a long time over anyone who lived in this region. For food is provided only by the soil in the end. "Serfdom" and "subjection" are commonly used expressions for the method of forcing other persons into operating foreign-serving professional entities. Direct violence is another one. In this case we speak of "slavery" and "subjugation". We find the analogous process in robber ants. They intrude on other ant states, rob them of their pupae and the young ants emerging then become servants of their community. The Amazon ants of the species Polyergus are no longer capable of feeding themselves. They have to be fed by the captive workers. The fact that in the case of the ants the process of forming is based on innate behavioural formulas, in the case of human beings on acquired ones, is of no fundamental significance. In both cases we see the same functional principle, namely to turn foreign energons or members of the same species forcefully into one’s own functional units.

The beginning of industrial development was also characterised by this tendency. The entrepreneur had a monopoly of distributing jobs in certain areas and used it to his advantage. He enforced the formation of professional entities useful to him. This constitutes the basis of Marx’s criticism, and for the whole avalanche of the development of communism resulting from it.
 
 

What was most important for the development of mankind was the utilisation of results of the work of others done in the past.

Here, too, we can trace the very beginnings back to the animals. The hermit crab acquires an additional functional unit: an empty snail shell. The snail has long been dead. The shell – which now serves the crab – thus is the result of previous work.

Animals that use holes or lodges which others have produced before serve as further examples. The beehives are used by several generations. The macaques mentioned earlier, living in the Japanese reserve, also benefit from the work of a member of the species that does not exist anymore. The formula discovered by it to separate seeds from sand has been passed on to them by way of imitation. All in all, however, there are only a few pre-stages.

This changed only when the human species appeared on the surface of the Earth. Many artificial organs still serve other humans beings long after the death of their original producer. This applies to tools and utensils, but even more to houses, streets, and public institutions. If a new company is found, it plays an important role in its balance whether there are already roads leading to the premises, whether there are water supplies, whether there is a sewage system, electricity and other communal institutions. If this is the case, the energons that form make use of the work previously done by others. It then integrates external services that already exist into its own network of effects.

This process is even more important when it comes to the development of all such formulas that are necessary for the production of artificial organs and for their reasonable use. Here, human beings almost always rely on what we call the "intellectual heritage" of mankind. The internal investment necessary for it is what we call knowledge – or education.

If it were possible to split up every single daily activity – let us stick to the professional world – into each of the individual performances it is based on and to trace these back to their origins, we would arrive at times past ages and ages ago where some of them are concerned. Each activity that aims at something special is based on the co-ordination of actions and reactions – behavioural formulas which were once produced by human beings for the first time and subsequently passed on to others. Of course, our intellect itself creates new formulas on an everyday basis, but the major part is still based on the efforts and earlier work if other men. By means of imitation, language, writing and schools they thus proliferated, and branched out into an unforeseeable network.

At this point we have arrived at the most telling part of the picture which outlines the image of the energon theory of the human species and the acquisitive bodies developed by it. To an incredible extent – which the average person is hardly aware of – we integrate the work performed with external energy in times long past into our network of effects.

If we look at the development of energons from the very outset – as far as we still can trace them back – we see a series of formations that became increasingly less obvious. At first, the individual effect bodies – with their visible and tangible body – which we to this day call "creature" – were still largely identical. As time went by, however, additional units were turned into own functional units. The real body, which dealt with natural selection, was augmented. Up to the human race, this process was kept within narrow limits. But then, with the ever increasing capabilities of one of our functional units – our brain – and its significant functional expansion and its taking over of new functions, the energons practically burst the chains that had existed until then. Suddenly the part of the effect body that was not part of the grown-together structure, that was no longer tangible in its entirety, started to expand beyond all measure.

The energons formed by humans which spread in gigantic dimensions all around him – very much like the multi-cell bodies around the germ cells producing them – consist of a constantly pulsating, extremely complex network of effects. Hundreds and thousands of additional units are integrated into this body – some often just for short moments. And most of these additional units are no longer operated by energy which the central structure, the human species, personally sets free in its stomach. Rather, hundreds and thousands of external streams of energy are made to run these additional functional units directly.

The connections, however, are even more complicated. The most important form, to integrate external energy into the horse/horseman relationship has not been discussed yet.
 
 

Back to the Table of Contents

Continue to "Horses that are fed"
 
 

Comments:

¹ W. Troll, “Allgemeine Botanik”, Stuttgart 1948, p. 352
² M. Kawai, “Newly Acquired Pre-Cultural Behavior of the Natural Troop of Japanese Monkeys on Koshima Island” (“Primates 6”, 1965), pp. 1-30.
³ W. Ostwald, „Die energetischen Grundlagen der Kulturwissenschaft“, Leipzig 1909, p. 55, 73 f
⁴ In biology “metabolism (including “change of energy” is considered to be a fundamental criterium of life forms. Its existence can be proved in nearly all organisms, but there are functional units which are also functional without any change ( for example the thorns of a rose bush whose functions even improve after they have died. Viruses have no metabolism or change of energy whatsoever. L. von Bertalanffy considers it as a characteristic of beings that the are in a “flowting equilibrium”, that they are open systems. That is right, but this does not distinguish them from the anorganic phenomena. Also a lake in the forest which flows into a creek and from which another creek flows off is an open system, it is also in a “flowing equilibrium”. Metabolism and change of energy are – viewed from the perspective of the energon theory – only aids which under particular circumstances also can become superfluous. The only characteristic element of vehicles of life is only the on average active balance of useful energy.