An individual energon does not actually consist of vehicles of effect (or functional units) but taken together, they consist of effects. These are what matters. What the individual vehicles of effect look like is irrelevant - provided that, with some division of labour, they produce the effects that are required from them as an entirety. That fourth "inner front" ensues from the demand that all those effects have to be maintained. It is not sufficient that suitable vehicles of effect are available - they also have to be attended to and renewed, many of them need a regular supply of energy and substances; the waste that occurs has to be disposed of in order to avoid hindrances.

I call that fourth inner front "preservation". Basically it is all about the preservation of effects. Practically it is about the preservation of vehicles of effect and their productivity.

What are the "demands" that the vehicles of effect make? This is the problem of the fourth inner front. Here, there exist enormous differences. Completely undemanding vehicles of effect are rather an exception.

An example is presented by the foundations of buildings and the dead elements of consolidation (wooden bodies) with plants. Once they are created, as a rule, they bring forth their services and their effects without needing any further attention or care. A similar situation is found with the skeletons of corals that build reefs as a sort of seating, a large base previously built in the water by polyps. Here everyone uses the work of past generations so that their energy balances do not show any items of expense for the maintenance of those supporting structures – more precisely: for the maintenance of their supporting effects. In contrast, the bones of animals have to be nourished, controlled and regenerated continuously. Still higher demands are made by all active vehicles of effect that consist of living cells. Similarly - in businesses – by all employees and machines.
 
 

Every active vehicle of effect needs appropriate amounts of free energy and in addition also often substances in order to fulfil its function. The energon to which they belong acquires both in the form of a central output - that is on average more than it has to spend for the acquisition. Now the problem is: how can those "goods" be supplied for all the units that are in constant need of them?

Within the bodies of unicellular organisms we do not find special organs such purposes. The protoplasm is in a ceaseless flow and the quantities of energy and substances taken in spread themselves in it and are seized by the places needing them. After all, there already exist vehicles of effect which influence and order the allocation – for instance the endoplasmatic reticule, the bordering layers of the organelles and also the "compartmentalisation" of the inner structure mentioned.

With simple multi-cellular organisms (both plants and animals) substances move from one cell to the next by way of diffusion – via appropriate openings (pores). Thus, they are already additional units which have to be charged to the account of "preservation". If we close them, the effectiveness of certain cells cannot be maintained. With sponges, enidaria and other primitive multi-cellular organisms the additional units specialised in the transport of energy and substances we find there are "itinerant cells". They take over the vehicles of energy and building substances from the acquisitive organs (for instance the intestine-cells) and creep to other tissues in order to "supply" them. It goes without saying that those activities inside such cells require particular behavioural blueprints. Both those cells and their recipes become necessary through the inner front "preservation". If the functional units that are supplied by them had no such requirement, they would be superfluous. They burden the energy balance of their energon.

In the further course of evolution the formation of extended systems of output occurred: with higher plants it was the development of the sieve tubes, with higher animals it was the development of the blood vessel system. This is common knowledge – what is not so common, however, is to consider those extended structures as adjuncts and servants of other functional units, as it were. Yet, this is what they are. If the units of acquisitive activities, of the protection from disturbances, of the inner co-ordination, etc., had no need for them - they would be a superfluous expense. Our hearts, too, in this case would be unnecessary functional units.

With the energons that have not coalesced, built by humans, a lot has changed – however, that principle stays the same.

Machines, too, have to be supplied with energy and for that additional devices are required. They have various shapes but serve the same functions. Crude oil reaches consumers via pipes or tankers, coal gets there in wagons or trucks and electricity travels via highly organised cable-systems. Also, the allocation of substances is often necessary, especially within businesses of production. All units that produce the acquisition organs (sales products) receive substances. From there, too, there ensue the necessary additional devices.

Today, people working in businesses (and in the state) usually are not provided with food directly any more. They receive money which enables them to buy food and goods. After all, that process of allocation also results in the necessity for additional vehicles of effect: for instance wages accounting¹. If the extent of that necessary process of allocation is reduced - through automation – then it shrinks correspondingly (as does the item of expense connected to it).

Another expenditure belonging here is that on canteens. The exchange process money for food is made easier by them. Losses of time are avoided and the degree of satisfaction is increased. This is a double function. Canteens are basically aid units for the "preservation of effects". Yet, at the same time they also become a means of rationalisation and lead - if they are good and cheap and if they create an atmosphere of general satisfaction - to an intensification of the bonds.

The necessary supply with energy and substances, however, has - indirectly - a range of further expenditures in its wake.
 
 

Where processes take place there is usually waste too. Speaking of which, it has to be excreted, disposed of, and cleared away. Otherwise it appears as self-inflicted disturbances within the energon structure – and impairs the effect.

With single-celled organisms there already exist units specialised in that: the "pulsating vacuoles". They are vesicles that rhythmically narrow themselves and often have rather visible supply-canals. They take in the metabolic products which are obtained in the protoplasm and evacuate them to the outside. Here it has to be mentioned that those "organelles" exclusively serve refuse disposal, yet they do not serve the supply of energy and substances.

If with higher animals the blood vessel system performs both functions, then this is not necessarily self-evident. With those energons there rather occurred an extension of the function as has already been discussed: through additional vehicles of effect – kidneys, urethra, etc. – the blood stream distributing energy and substances additionally became a vehicle of effect of the refuse disposal (excretion).

"Travelling cells" still play an important role with higher animals. Within our bodies numerous "phagocytes" ("white blood corpuscles") creep about. They "eat" waste and parts of tissue that have become unusable and take them to the surface of the intestines from where they are then excreted with the faeces. With echinoderms such units of refuse collection, if they are fully loaded, penetrate the body wall. They leave the multi-cellular association "body" – and perish in that. Also for that "selfless" type of functioning particular recipes of behaviour are certainly a prerequisite.

Another possibility to get rid of waste products is to deposit them in parts of the body where they do not do any harm. For instance the big countryside plants do not have an excretion system. Many of them store their metabolic slag in the form of crystals (oxalic acid) in the dead wood of their trunks and branches. Thus a necessity becomes a virtue: the supporting elements of the plant are even more strengthened thereby. Something worthless becomes something functional - according to my previous definition (Part Two, Chapter 4, paragraph 5, figure 20) a "function-birth". Also with numerous animals in the first place urea is deposited in special tissue areas and organs. With snails such organs are called "reservoir-kidneys". With butterflies and fish the pigments of the outer skin are often built out of crystallised metabolic slag. By way of guanine-crystals built from waste, fish obtain their silver gleam and that substance is also deposited in the tapetum of their eyes. In every single one of those cases something that is harmful to functioning is turned into something that serves it.

According to our conventional thinking it is regarded as superficial and eccentric to name kidneys, urethra, phagocytes, pulsating vacuoles and guanine-deposits in the same breath as wastepaper baskets, rubbish bins, sewage systems, toilets and industrial waste utilisation. Since those structures look very different we put them into completely different terminological drawers within our brains. As soon as we start questioning that order of the drawers our brain resists energetically. If, on the other hand, we withstand the impressions of the outer appearances but instead take the energons and their balances as a starting point, those facilities fall into the same category.

Every energon is a structure of effects that is dependent on an energy balance which on average is positive. According to that, within every energon acquisition processes take place. With almost every energon there occur waste products which have to be disposed of or neutralised in some way so that they do not impair the acquisition process. What follows from that is that for almost every energon refuse disposal constitutes an additionally necessary expense, additional costs. Whether here the units in charge of the refuse disposal look one way or another does not show in the balance. What appears is only how expensively, how precisely and how fast they work. That - and only that - influences the competitive value. And only the competition value - and only that - eventually determines what exists and what does not exist. If we force our brains to think along these lines, then the joint consideration of rubbish bins and kidney canals is really not banal. Rather, the consideration of that effect-relation acquires central significance. From that point of view the opposite happens; namely, the outer relation becomes secondary, minor, insignificant. Even the "natural" (phylogenetic) relation - the phylogeny of the evolutionary development – then shows us no more than simply the historical course.

The peculiar effect of preserving other effects has to be produced by every energon. All energons are related in that way. On the one hand, what concerns us here is the supply with necessities, on the other hand it is the removal of harm. Moreover, in that sector, however, further facilities, which again look completely different, are necessary.
 
 

Accordingly, many vehicles of effect need attention and maintenance.

Swords and ploughshares have to be sharpened: otherwise their effect diminishes. Soiling through contact with the environment has to be removed - through cleaning tools, innate patterns of keeping clean, wash-rooms, orders, cleaning facilities. With organisms such keeping clean is also of additional significance (double-function) for the repelling of enemies - for the repelling of microorganisms. That is true for both an insect state and for the human body. Parts that have become worn-out and defective have to be replaced, protective coats have to be renewed.

The upkeep of the "work ethic" in businesses and of the "patriotic sense of belonging" in the state is considered – instinctively – as something completely different to the facilities and phenomenons discussed so far. For energons and their power of effect from the functional point of view it is all the same. Both in the energon "business" and in the energon "state" humans (with all their peculiarities and complications) are just vehicles of effect. Also their willingness to produce effects has to be attended to and maintained. Otherwise there is the danger that another business will poach that vehicle of effect, will snatch it away².

Within a state it is also important that the willingness to produce effects does not get lost, that the individual does not succumb to the insinuations of another party or of another state – that he does not become "unfaithful" to the order set down in the state constitution.

In the functional unit "army" attention to and maintenance of the readiness for action is especially important. Not only the weapons and means of transport have to work properly, not only the connections of commands and rules have to function. The willingness to function, the "subordination", the will for action has to be maintained. How? Through the infectious force of a leader personality inspiring confidence. Or through forged informations which are expounded adroitly by a demagogue. Or through threats and terror: a coward or a traitor is executed publicly, exposed to torture – and behold: the common willingness to produce effects rises again. These are also aids for the "preservation of effects".

Even blueprints and patterns have to be attended to and maintained. With all innate behaviour what is connected to it is an also innate drive to perform it. Within research on behaviour that is called "appetence" and it has only been considered as an aid for the fulfilling of functions (achievement of the drive) up to today. However, if we compare that mechanism to the processes with acquired recipes, then it appears in a slightly different light.

It is commonly known that acquired skills have to be practised - otherwise they are "forgotten". With every artist, every musician, every military troop this can be seen very distinctly. Thus, for acquired patterns maintenance is necessary – otherwise they disintegrate. If they are not used, they are something as superfluous as every other functional unit that is not used. Only by activating them regularly can they be maintained. With all innate blueprints that particular type of attending is also innate. That might be the second and not less important function of the "appetences" and it might explain why they occur periodically "spontaneous". It is the necessary "servicing", so to speak. With acquired patterns self-discipline and drill have to perform the same function.

With every tool and with every mobile aid also the "keeping-in-order" belongs to the necessary attending. On the one hand this is a way to objects mutually impairing and damaging each other, on the other hand also their willingness to produce effects is preserved. For only someone who knows where to find his screwdriver, his cooking recipe, the required instructions or an employee can make use of those functional units, can have them at his disposal. Otherwise it is true that they are there – but not ready to produce effects. Thus order, too, is an aid for the preservation of effects.

From all that results the importance of controls. Whether it is the maintenance of a machine, of state consciousness, industrial instructions, a cellular structure or the attending of the swarm in a beehive: there always has to be an is compared to a should.

In enterprises we find aid facilities of all sorts of kinds – technical measuring instruments, statistics, controllers etc. – that are entrusted with that important preservation function. In the bodies of organisms we have to recognise the effectiveness of similar controlling authorities – but temporarily only know rather vaguely what they look like and where they can be found. The genetic blueprints contain the key for the actual organisational blueprint. However, how precisely the constant controls and feedbacks are carried out is still partly not clear. What has to be concluded from a comparative functional consideration is the fact that they have to exist. For without specialised functional units such differentiated achievements of that kind would not be possible.
 
 

Further vehicles of effect which belong to the inner front "preservation" are all security precautions which prevent a vehicle of effect from becoming overstrained or from destroying itself.

The safety valve of the steam engine is a good example. If the pressure in the boiler rises above the allowed level, the valve opens and steam escapes. The sleep drive has the same functional meaning. It forces energons to take periods of rest and thus prevents an overstraining of the functional units. This is especially important for the nerve cells which are very sensitive and in a need of rest. Just as the steam engine is prevented by the safety valve from destroying itself, the behavioural patterns which trigger off tiredness and sleep avert an overstraining of the steering centre.

A fire extinguisher, safety instructions, the common organ "fire brigade" but also the anxiety drive and the feeling of pain also belong to that category. Partly the blame for those structures and functions is to be laid to the account "repelling of environmental disturbances", but partly also to the account of the inner front "preservation". The jeopardising of the structure of effect or of individual functional units can happen both from the outside and from the inside. In both cases safety precautions are necessary, in many cases the same ones suffice for both.
 
 

Depending on how the sources of acquisition with an energon and the other environmental conditions are constituted it has to have appropriate reserves at its disposal in order to continue to exist. If the functional units did not make any demands – and if there were no wear and tear and no damage, that actually "dead" and not working expenditure would be superfluous.

With plants and animals such reserves exist both inside individual cells and inside tissues and in organs that are particularly specialised in it (for instance in the root tubercles of plants and the liver of animals). For some of those energons energy reserves are more important, for others, in contrast, reserves of substances (for instance water) are more important. With professional entities, businesses and in the state we find energy reserves in the shape of food, crude oil, coal, etc., and reserves of substances in the shape of stored raw materials, semi-finished products or finished products (for instance machines in reserve). (We speak of reserves of workers if qualified employees are not made redundant in spite of a lack of work as there is the risk that they won’t be available anymore). The most important reserve with all human acquisition structures, however, is the universal order for human labour (or its results): i.e. money. As such it can be stored as cash ( in a safe), in bank accounts or in the shape of valuables.

All of those things are burdens for the respective balance: necessary functional units of preservation. The total size of that expenditure that is not really working but just necessary for security depends on the type of acquisition and on environmental influences, thus belonging to the functional field "matching". If the reserves are too big, they form a useless burden. If they are too small, then the risk grows too big. With organisms natural selection, with humans acts of intelligence based on experience bring about suitable in-between values. In any case those values have to be laid down in the steering system. They are not less important a functional unit than every other piece of information in the structural and behavioural blueprints.

Moreover – for times of need – a special plan for distribution can be important. With states that are at war this can be seen in the rationing of food and of reserves of substances: as a result of acts of intelligence. In the bodies of organisms the same problem exists - and is solved there too. With higher vertebrates for example what happens is not that every organ simply "serves itself" from the bloodstream just as it likes. In times of need here, too, we find "rationing": more vital and more sensitive organs – for instance the brain – are given priority. That also requires an appropriate system of controls and commands. Where and in whatever form they are grounded: they have to be charged with the additional expenditures that are necessary for the "preservation of effects".

With many energons further emergency reserves are located in functional units that they can do without temporarily. In times of need professional entities or enterprises "dispose of" parts – that is, they sell them – or mortgage them. With organisms tissues and organs are "melted down" – the body, as it were, eats and digests them itself. It breaks them down in order to make their contents of energy and substances utilisable for vital parts. This also constitutes an enormous output, which requires additional facilities. In this case no animal can reach such parts with its mouth or with its intestines. The units specialised in the breaking down of molecules can thus not even go into action. Completely different processes and controls are necessary for that³.

Finally, another possibility to survive times of need and thus preserve the effects is: the shut-down.

For professional entities and enterprises that path is open for them rather than for animals and plants. A business can dismiss its employees, it mothballs its machines, closes the buildings. By that the regular costs can be reduced to a minimum. For organisms it is only possible in exceptional cases to throw off organs (for instance the throwing off of the leaves with the decline of the trees in autumn). After all, here, too, there exists the possibility of cutting back activities, processes and energy expenses to a minimum. With "alternately warm" animals (amphibians, reptiles) that happens quite automatically: they fall into a frozen stiffness – or "dry stiffness". With some warm-blooded animals we find hibernation. Some of them also have an additional safety precaution: the "wake-up stimulant". If the temperature drops below a certain minimum (for marmots it is five degrees Celsius, for hedgehogs it is three degrees Celsius), the animals wake up, take up their normal metabolism and work actively - through locomotion and "heating" - against a further cooling. With unicellular organisms but also with many low multi-cellular organisms the shut-down assumes even greater dimensions. Some of them form "permanent states". Practically this means: many of the body’s functional units are "melted down" and the energon turns them into a unit that is able to reconstruct the body.

That, however, is already the transition to "reproduction". For if later, with the setting in of more favourable environmental conditions the body gets reconstructed, this is actually not the "same body" any more. It rather is already another body of the "same species".

The fluid transition from the individual to the species – which we will deal with in more detail in the next chapter – already becomes clear in this respect. What is more, this process also shows that what is crucial with energons are not actually the vehicles of effect but the effects. It is possible to a large degree to do without every vehicle of effect (or functional unit) – on the one condition that the structure of effects is constituted in a way that it can produce it anew.
 
 

Again another but related problem ensues from the possible damage, from the possible loss of functional units. If the effects should be maintained, in such cases appropriate "repairs" or appropriate substitutes are necessary.

For energons which have not coalesced and which are built by humans, there ensue much smaller problems than is the case with organisms. In the organised structures of civilised countries the professional bodies and businesses always bounce back. If parts of them become useless, get lost or are stolen, they can nearly always be replaced – provided there is enough access to human labour available, i.e. via money. That, however, can be "advanced" by completely different sources, the community can even intervene selflessly with help. In this case not even the structural blueprints and behavioural patterns have to survive. Almost every energon can, as it were, be reconstructed completely.

This means a significant progress within evolution. The security factor that something already attained cannot be lost is increased considerably by that. Until the developmental stage human being it happened only too often that certain species of energons died out – although they would have been able to continue to exist elsewhere or with again changed environmental conditions. That danger now vanished to a large degree. If there is again a market for types of acquisition that have long ago died out – for instance through the human striving for change or through tourism – then they can easily be revived. In the shape of books and other writings the recipes for construction and behaviour have long ago left the organic bodies. If they are needed, they are – provided that not all the records were violently destroyed – again available.

For organisms the replacement of lost parts creates a far bigger organisational problem. First there have to be control-reports about possible losses to those vehicles of effect that are qualified for the restoration. Secondly, it has to be considered that the function of constructing organs does not necessarily have to be identical to the repairing or the restoration of organs. The general situation during embryonic development is quite a different one than that of restorations. As for the latter, much can be achieved through regulated circuits but not by any means everything.

First of all, an appropriate wound occlusion is necessary with injuries so that no body liquids are lost or the left open for rapacious intruders (endo-parasites). The coagulation of the blood and all units that cause it, for example, belong to that functional circle. Then parts that are damaged or have become functionless have to be broken down, repelled or eliminated in some other way – a task which in the original constitution programme is at best available for the breakdown of aid structures. Finally, newly built organs have to connect with the already existing systems of co-ordination, supply and control: another difficult problem.

Here, too, it is still not clear how all those outputs are produced inside the bodies of plants and animals. In any case, there are special functional units necessary for that which are partly unknown to us. Also, all costs and additional matchings caused by them are a necessary adaptation to the fourth "inner front". They also belong to the category "preservation of the effects" regarding their functions and balances.

With plants and animals "undifferentiated" cells play an important role for that. They are, as it were, universal constituents which can transform themselves into everything that is needed and that has to be replaced, they can "re-differentiate" themselves. With human acquisition structures something similar is achieved through standardisation. Lost parts can be replaced more easily thereby. Today, if possible, machines are constructed in such a way that all parts can be exchanged as easily as possible (principle of modular systems). The VW is an example.

Inside cells – this has only been discovered recently – processes of regeneration even take place on the recipe-threads (DNA-molecules)⁴. Even here it is assumed that there is a mechanism which is specifically responsible and there necessarily have to be control-reports for it, too. With humans, as it were, all medicine (doctors, medicine, hospitals, etc.) has become a common organ of control and restoration. In all those units the function of the preservation has left the genetic body and is performed by artificial organs. Through transplants which have become possible today even the total renewal of genetically built functional units is practicable. Just as is the case with all artificial functional units also the natural ones are replaced by others built completely somewhere else.

With animals that metamorphose it has to be considered that each of their shapes requires correspondingly different units of attending and restoration. With the injuries of a tadpole the processes of healing and of regeneration have to be different to the ones for the succeeding frog. Parasites take on about four or five different shapes one after another. For each of them individual blueprints and functional units are necessary for the "preservation of the effects".

If parts are destroyed by intruding robbers (micro-organisms), by disease or age, organisms are often not able to repel them. They are rather encapsulated so that they cannot harm the healthy sections anymore. This also needs – just as the taking over of functions by other organs – appropriate mechanisms as a prerequisite.

Another problem which is easily overlooked is that each attending unit has itself to be attended to. Functionally, here the cat bites its own tail, as it were. Thus with all organisms the functional units of the energy supply have themselves to be supplied with energy. And those dealing with rubbish removal most of the time also produce waste products. These problems are not solved automatically. Cleaning units themselves have often to be cleaned, controlling units have themselves be controlled, regenerating ones themselves have to compensate for damage.

Everybody knows that with many types of plants a new plant can be built from a bulb – that is, a small part. There is a similarity to some animals, If the head and the tail of flatworms (planaries) are cut off, the, the middle part regenerates both and gradually a body of the same shape, only smaller, is built. With the germ of the sea urchin after the fourth step of the division still every one of the sixteen daughter-cells that have developed is "totipotent". If such a cell is removed from the others, then it is able to build a whole –only correspondingly smaller – sea urchin.

According to our habitual way of thinking we consider the development of an organism as its "beginning" and the eventually finished body as its "consequence". The energon theory, however, forces us to view that connection in an exactly opposite way. For energy surpluses are necessary for every reproduction – the obtaining of them thus necessarily constitutes the beginning. The answer to the old riddle: "Which came first – the chicken or the egg?" here gets its clear answer: the hen. In the endless chain-process which goes back to the first molecular structures that were able to acquire and to duplicate themselves those that obtained surpluses of free energy or that influenced free energy (use of outside energy) were necessarily at the beginning.

Seen from that point of view reproduction is nothing other than a special kind of regeneration. A highly specialised vehicle of effect achieves that function – namely the germ cell.

In order to see the breeding-process in the proper light it has to be differentiated markedly from the sexual copulation that is often related to it. There are two completely different functions that we are dealing with here – they only appear combined in the sense of a useful combination.
 
 

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Comments:

¹ Also the question of determining the size of the payment here does not arrange itself. Humans are not as unpretentious as the cells of a multi-cellular organism. For every employee the business is the source of acquisition which is tapped by him/her in the best possible way. This matching causes not inconsiderable costs for the business.
² In larger businesses in Japan the executives (from the factory manager to the president) are bound for life through the special facility of the permanent position (chushin-koyo). The business commits itself to take care of them while they commit themselves to not leave the business. Their incomes – even with the same work – is raised with the duration of belonging to the company. Thus the “fluctuation” – which in the West amounts to a third of the workforce a year – is significantly reduced. In the united States the fluctuation is seen as a positive factor, even a basical pre-requisite for the productivity of the business. In Japan, however, the “immobilisation of the workforce” and the resulting by far stronger sense of community attained considerable successes. (Cf. J.- J. Servan-Schreiber, “Die amerikanische Herausforderung”, Hamburg, P. 284f.)
³ With a tomcat starved to death it was established that he lost 97% of his fat, 54% of his liver, 31% of his muscles and only 3% of his brain, spinal chord and heart. Those and similar observations have shown that there are not only distribution-plans for periods of need but that there are also appropriate blueprints and steerings for a break down should the need arise.
⁴ “Scientific American”, 1967, Volume 2, p. 36.