Biomedical subjects

Søren Ventegodt

Publications and source records attributed to Søren Ventegodt.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Human development x: Explanation of macroevolution--top-down evolution materializes consciousness. The origin of metamorphosis.

In this paper, we first give a short discussion of the macroevolution viewing life as information-directed, complex, dynamic systems. On this basis, we give our explanation of the origin of life and discuss the top-down evolution of molecules, proteins, and macroevolution. We discuss these subjects according to our new holistic biological paradigm. In view of this, we discuss the macroevolution of the organism, the species, the biosphere, and human society. After this, we discuss the shift in evolution from natural selection to a new proposed process of nature called the "metamorphous top-down" evolution. We discuss the capability of the evolutionary shift to govern some of the processes that lead to the formation of new species. We discuss the mechanisms we think are behind this proposed shift in evolution and conclude that this event is able to explain the huge biological diversity of nature in combination with evolutionary natural selection. We also discuss this event of nature as an isolated, but integrated, part of the universe. We propose the most important genetic and biochemical process that we think is behind the evolutionary shift as a complicated symbiosis of mechanisms leading to metamorphosis in all biological individuals, from bacteria to humans. The energetic superorbital that manifests the consciousness governs all these processes through quantum chemical activity. This is the key to evolutionary shift through the consciousness, and we propose to call this process "adult human metamorphosis".

Animals↗

PubMed2006

Human development VI: supracellular morphogenesis. The origin of biological and cellular order.

Uninterrupted morphogenesis shows the informational potentials of biological organisms. Experimentally disturbed morphogenesis shows the compensational dynamics of the biological informational system, which is the rich informational redundancy. In this paper, we use these data to describe morphogenesis in terms of the development of supracellular levels of the organism, and we define complex epigenesis and supracellular differentiation. We review the phenomena of regeneration and induction of Hydra and amphibians, and the higher animal's informational needs for developing their complex nervous systems. We argue, also building on the NO-GO theorem for ontogenesis as chemistry, that the traditional chemical explanations of high-level informational events in ontogenesis, such as transmutation, regeneration, and induction, are insufficient. We analyze the informational dynamics of three embryonic compensatory reactions to different types of disturbances: (1) transmutations of the imaginal discs of insects, (2) regeneration after removal of embryonic tissue, and (3) embryonic induction, where two tissues that normally are separated experimentally are made to influence each other. We describe morphogenesis as a complex bifurcation, and the resulting morphological levels of the organism as organized in a fractal manner and supported by positional information. We suggest that some kind of real nonchemical phenomenon must be taking form in living organisms as an information-carrying dynamic fractal field, causing morhogenesis and supporting the organism's morphology through time. We argue that only such a phenomenon that provides information-directed self-organization to the organism is able to explain the observed dynamic distribution of biological information through morphogenesis and the organism's ability to rejuvenate and heal.

Cell Physiological Phenomena↗

PubMed2006

Human development VII: a spiral fractal model of fine structure of physical energy could explain central aspects of biological information, biological organization and biological creativity.

In this paper we have made a draft of a physical fractal essence of the universe, a sketch of a new cosmology, which we believe to lay at the root of our new holistic biological paradigm. We present the fractal roomy spiraled structures and the energy-rich dancing "infinite strings" or lines of the universe that our hypothesis is based upon. The geometric language of this cosmology is symbolic and both pre-mathematical and pre-philosophical. The symbols are both text and figures, and using these we step by step explain the new model that at least to some extent is able to explain the complex informational system behind morphogenesis, ontogenesis, regeneration and healing. We suggest that it is from this highly dynamic spiraled structure that organization of cells, organs, and the wholeness of the human being including consciousness emerge. The model of "dancing fractal spirals" carries many similarities to premodern cultures descriptions of the energy of the life and universe. Examples are the Native American shamanistic descriptions of their perception of energy and the old Indian Yogis descriptions of the life-energy within the body and outside. Similar ideas of energy and matter are found in the modern superstring theories. The model of the informational system of the organism gives new meaning to Bateson's definition of information: "A difference that makes a difference", and indicates how information-directed self-organization can exist on high structural levels in living organisms, giving birth to their subjectivity and consciousness.

Biological Evolution↗

PubMed2006

Human development VIII: a theory of "deep" quantum chemistry and cell consciousness: quantum chemistry controls genes and biochemistry to give cells and higher organisms consciousness and complex behavior.

Deep quantum chemistry is a theory of deeply structured quantum fields carrying the biological information of the cell, making it able to remember, intend, represent the inner and outer world for comparison, understand what it "sees", and make choices on its structure, form, behavior and division. We suggest that deep quantum chemistry gives the cell consciousness and all the qualities and abilities related to consciousness. We use geometric symbolism, which is a pre-mathematical and philosophical approach to problems that cannot yet be handled mathematically. Using Occam's razor we have started with the simplest model that works; we presume this to be a many-dimensional, spiral fractal. We suggest that all the electrons of the large biological molecules' orbitals make one huge "cell-orbital", which is structured according to the spiral fractal nature of quantum fields. Consciousness of single cells, multi cellular structures as e.g. organs, multi-cellular organisms and multi-individual colonies (like ants) and human societies can thus be explained by deep quantum chemistry. When biochemical activity is strictly controlled by the quantum-mechanical super-orbital of the cell, this orbital can deliver energetic quanta as biological information, distributed through many fractal levels of the cell to guide form and behavior of an individual single or a multi-cellular organism. The top level of information is the consciousness of the cell or organism, which controls all the biochemical processes. By this speculative work inspired by Penrose and Hameroff we hope to inspire other researchers to formulate more strict and mathematically correct hypothesis on the complex and coherence nature of matter, life and consciousness.

Behavior↗

PubMed2006

Human Development IX: a model of the wholeness of man, his consciousness, and collective consciousness.

In this paper we look at the rational and the emotional interpretation of reality in the human brain and being, and discuss the representation of the brain-mind (ego), the body-mind (Id), and the outer world in the human wholeness (the I or "soul"). Based on this we discuss a number of factors including the coherence between perception, attention and consciousness, and the relation between thought, fantasies, visions and dreams. We discuss and explain concepts as intent, will, morals and ethics. The Jungian concept of the human collective conscious and unconscious is also analyzed. We also hypothesis on the nature of intuition and consider the source of religious experience of man. These phenomena are explained based on the concept of deep quantum chemistry and infinite dancing fractal spirals making up the energetic backbone of the world. In this paper we consider man as a real wholeness and debate the concepts of subjectivity, consciousness and intent that can be deduced from such a perspective.

Consciousness↗

PubMed2006

Human development V: biochemistry unable to explain the emergence of biological form (morphogenesis) and therefore a new principle as source of biological information is needed.

Today's biomedicine builds on the conviction that biochemistry can explain the creation of the body, its anatomy and physiology. Unfortunately there are still deep mysteries strangely "fighting back" when we try to define and understand the organism and its creation in the ontogenesis as emerging from biochemistry. In analysing this from a theoretical perspective using a mathematical model focusing on the noise in complex chemical systems we argue that evolving biological structure cannot in principle be a product of chemistry. In this paper we go through the chemical gradient model and argue that this is not able to explain the ontogenesis. We discuss the used gradients as information carriers in chemical self-organizing systems and argue that by use of the "Turing structures" we are only able to modelling the mostly simple biological systems. The bio-chemical model is only able to model simple organization but not to explain the complexity of biological phenomena. We conclude that we seemingly have presented a formal proof (a NO-GO theorem) that the self-organizing chemical systems that are using chemical gradients are not able to explain complex biological matters as the ontogenesis. We need a fundamentally new, information-carrying principle to understand biological information and biological order.

Biochemical Phenomena↗

PubMed2006

Human development IV: the living cell has information-directed self-organisation.

In this paper, restricted to describe the ontogenesis of the cell, we discuss the processing of DNA through RNA to proteins and argue that this process is not able to transfer the information necessary to organize the proteins in the cell, but only to transfer the information necessary to form the shape of the proteins. We shortly describe the structure of the information carrying field recruited by the cells that we think is responsible for building the organelles and other cellular structures. We use the cells superior control of its cytoskeleton as an example of how the cell is using an informational field giving the positional information guiding all the local chemical processes behind the cell movement. We describe the information-directed self-organization in cells and argue that this can explain the ontogenesis of the cell. We also suggest the existence of an undiscovered phenomenon behind the information transmitting cell interactions. We conclude that during evolution the cell has developed into an information-guided self-organizing structure. The mystery we want to solve is: what is the mechanical cause and nature of biological information?

Animals↗

PubMed2006

Human development I: twenty fundamental problems of biology, medicine, and neuro-psychology related to biological information.

In a new series of papers, we address a number of unsolved problems in biology today. First of all, the unsolved enigma concerning how the differentiation from a single zygote to an adult individual happens has been object for severe research for decades. By uncovering a new holistic biological paradigm that introduces an energetic-informational interpretation of reality as a new way to experience biology, these papers will try to solve the problems connected with the events of biological ontogenesis involving a fractal hierarchy, from a single cell to the function of the human brain. The problems discussed are interpreted within the frames of a universe of roomy fractal structures containing energetic patterns that are able to deliver biological information. We think biological organization is guided by energetic changes on the level of quantum mechanics, interacting with the intention that again guides the energetic conformation of the fractal structures to gain disorders or healthiness. Furthermore, we introduce two new concepts: "metamorphous top down" evolution and "adult human metamorphosis". The first is a new evolutionary theory involving metamorphosis as a main concept of evolution. The last is tightly linked to the evolutionary principle and explains how human self-recovery is governed. Other subjects of special interest that we shall look deeper into are the immunological self-nonself discrimination, the structure and function of the human brain, the etiology and salutogenesis of mental and somatic diseases, and the structure of the consciousness of a human being. We shall criticize Szentagothai's model for the modulated structure of the human cerebral cortex and Jerne's theory of the immunological regulatory anti-idiotypic network.

Biology↗

PubMed2006

Human development II: we need an integrated theory for matter, life and consciousness to understand life and healing.

For almost a decade, we have experimented with supporting the philosophical development of severely ill patients to induce recovery and spontaneous healing. Recently, we have observed a new pattern of extremely rapid, spontaneous healing that apparently can facilitate even the spontaneous remission of cancer and the spontaneous recovery of mental diseases like schizophrenia and borderline schizophrenia. Our working hypothesis is that the accelerated healing is a function of the patient's brain-mind and body-mind coming closer together due to the development of what we call "deep" cosmology. To understand and describe what happens at a biological level, we have suggested naming the process adult human metamorphosis, a possibility that is opened by the human genome showing full generic equipment for metamorphosis. To understand the mechanistic details in the complicated interaction between consciousness and biology, we need an adequate theory for biological information. In a series of papers, we propose what we call "holistic biology for holistic medicine". We suggest that a relatively simple model based on interacting wholenesses instead of isolated parts can shed a new light on a number of difficult issues that we need to explain and understand in biology and medicine in order to understand and use metamorphosis in the holistic medical clinic. We aim to give a holistic theoretical interpretation of biological phenomena at large, morphogenesis, evolution, immune system regulation (self-nonself discrimination), brain function, consciousness, and health in particular. We start at the most fundamental problem: what is biological information at the subcellular, cellular, and supracellular levels if we presume that it is the same phenomenon on all levels (using Occam's razor), and how can this be described scientifically? The problems we address are all connected to the information flow in the functioning, living organism: function of the brain and consciousness, the regulations of the immune system and cell growth, the dynamics of health and disease. We suggest that life utilizes an unseen fine structure of the physical energy of the universe at a subparticular or quantum level to give information-directed self-organization; we give a first sketch of a possible fractal structure of the energy able to both contain and communicate biological information and carry individual and collective consciousness. Finally, thorough our analysis, we put up a model for adult human metamorphosis.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Human development III: bridging brain-mind and body-mind. introduction to "deep" (fractal, poly-ray) cosmology.

Reality can be interpreted in many ways, but two distinctly different ways are the mental and the emotional interpretation. The traditional way of thinking in science today is the first: an often simple and mechanical interpretation of reality that empowers us to handle the outer physical world with great, often brutal efficiency. The development of a mind that enables us to handle the outer physical world and survive makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary perspective; the problem is that the mental reason and linear logic reduces all phenomena to well-defined interacting objects, which might not exist from a deeper perspective of reality. A more intuitive way to interpret the world makes much more sense, when it comes to our human relations. So to function as a human being, we need both these two ways of seeing the world, and two different modi operandi. In many patients, we find an internalized conflict between logical and mental reasoning on one hand, and emotional and sexual approach to reality and human needs on the other. We speculate that this conflict causes the deep emotional problems that really are the basis of most human diseases. Only by merging brain-mind and body-mind will we be whole and free and truly ourselves. We need to develop our mental understanding, deepen our cosmology, and develop our sexuality and body-mind in order to make them meet and merge. To facilitate this existential healing, we propose a third integrative way of looking at our human nature, which we call "the energetic-informational interpretation of reality". What it does is allows us to look at both brain-mind and body-mind as a highly structured field of "energy and information". Energy and information are actually the same from a scientific point of view; when the world is seen through the body-mind, it looks more like energy; when seen though the brain-mind, it looks more like information.

Brain↗

PubMed2006

What influence do major events in life have on our later quality of life? A retrospective study on life events and associated emotions.

BACKGROUND: To examine associations between global quality of life (QOL) and major life events. MATERIAL/METHODS: This was a retrospective study using the self-administrated expanded SEQOL questionnaire with questions on life events and connected emotions. Seven hundred forty-six people, 55-66 years old, from a representative sample of the Danish population participated. Global QOL was measured by SEQOL (self-evaluation of quality of life), containing eight global QOL measures: well-being, life-satisfaction, happiness, fulfillment of needs, experience of temporal and spatial domains, expression of life's potentials, and objective factors. RESULTS: Life events related to health such as restraints of movement or psychological illness showed a major association with the quality of life. Most other associations between quality of life and life events were intermediate or minor. CONCLUSIONS: Quality of life cannot simply be determined by life events. Actual quality of life is determined by how all the events of life have been processed and integrated in the consciousness. The results seem to support the idea that global QOL can be efficiently improved by integrating the painful events of the past. Since several studies have shown correlations between QOL and health, it is likely that such an improvement in QOL will also cause improved health and ability.

Aged↗

PubMed2006

Quality of life and events in the first year of life. Results from the prospective Copenhagen Birth Cohort 1959-61.

The objective of this paper was to explore the association between diverse factors occurring during the first year of a child's life and the quality of life later as an adult. The design was a prospective cohort study based on material from the Copenhagen Birth Cohort 1959-61 with 7,222 participants and two sets of questionnaires used: one by a physician during the child's first year and one by the "adult child" 31-33 years later. The results showed that a mother's attitude towards her pregnancy, unsuccessful abortions, and/or institutionalization left a permanent trace on the child, since these children, as adults, have a quality of life 3% below the average. Meningitis during the first year of life resulted in a quality of life 11.7% below the average, while other illnesses or accidents did not have an effect. The largest associations were found with psychomotor development, where "walking with support" showed a difference of 14.2% in overall quality of life between the fastest and slowest group. Generally, diet is not correlated with quality of life, however, we find a small, but essential, correlation between the quality of life of the adult and the early cessation of suckling (4%). Full-time institutionalization during the first year of life showed a connection with the quality of life of the adult (7.1%). It is concluded that our quality of life, health and ability as adults are primarily determined by what we ourselves choose to do with our lives as young people and as adults--and only to a marginal degree determined by factors related to our background. This suggests that we as adults have a great freedom to achieve a good life despite our experiences in the beginning of life.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

The health and social situation of the mother during pregnancy and global quality of life of the child as an adult. Results from the prospective Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort 1959-1961.

A prospective cohort study (Copenhagen Perinatal Birth Cohort 1959-61) of 7,222 persons was used in order to explore the association between the social and health situation during pregnancy and the global quality of life (QOL) of the adult child 31-33 years later. Two sets of questionnaires were used with one filled out by physicians during pregnancy and one filled out by the adult children 31-33 years later. The questionnaires included mother's situation during pregnancy and global QOL of the child at follow-up: Well-being, life satisfaction, happiness, fulfillment of needs, experience of life's temporal and spatial domains, expression of life's potentials and objective measures. The only indicators to have clear connections with a reduced quality of life were the cases of mother's with syphilis (8.5%), mother's congenital malformations (8.8%), low social group (6.9%) and failing contraception (3.8%). The results obtained repudiate the common notion and hypothesis that the mother's situation during pregnancy is highly important for the quality of life that the child experience as an adult. This suggest that the aspects important for quality of life later on are not found solely in early conditions, but instead more dependent on later attitude towards life of that specific person.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Factors during pregnancy, delivery and birth affecting global quality of life of the adult child at long-term follow-up. Results from the prospective Copenhagen Perinatal Birth Cohort 1959-61.

This paper presents a prospective cohort study, where we explore associations between pregnancy, delivery and the global quality of life (QOL) of the adult child 31-33 years later. The data is from the Copenhagen Perinatal Birth Cohort 1959-61 using two sets of questionnaires send to 7,222 persons: one filled out by physicians during pregnancy and delivery, while the follow-up questionnaire was completed by the adult children 31-33 years later. The main outcome measures were objective factors describing pregnancy and delivery along with global quality of life, including: well-being, life satisfaction, happiness, fulfillment of needs, experience of life's temporal and spatial domains, expression of life's potentials and objective measures. Results showed two main factors in pregnancy that seemed to be associated with a reduced quality of life for the child 31-33 years later: the mother's smoking habits and the mother's medication--especially painkillers and different psychopharmacological drugs with the association being most prevalent early in pregnancy. Considering what can and do go wrong during the various stages of labour and delivery and considering how few connections we found between the factors examined and the later global QOL, it seems that the child is remarkably resilient to external influences during pregnancy and delivery as concerns global QOL in adulthood.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Why is Antonovsky's sense of coherence not correlated to physical health? Analysing Antonovsky's 29-item Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC-29).

We have previously concluded that the use of the Antonovsky Sense of Coherence (SOC) scale was unable to document a predicted strong association between SOC and physical health. By way of statistical methods numerous studies have investigated the validity, reliability, and applicability of the SOC scale with positive results. However, this paper analyses whether the questions in the SOC scale actually represent the universe of factors necessary to describe the phenomenon of SOC, which we believe is an important supplement to the statistically means of investigating validity and reliability. In this paper we explore the idea, the concepts, the theory and the operationalization behind the SOC Scale. The conclusions are: 1) it seems that Antonovsky's basic idea of coherence, for which he coined the term sense of coherence, as the basis for the highly popular salutogenic orientation is outstandingly good, in spite of the lack of statistical evidence; 2) the chosen key explanatory concepts of comprehensibility, manageability, and meaning, seems to be a fair, although mental, conceptualization of this idea; 3) Antonovsky's theory was unfortunately much less clear, as Antonovsky assumed predictability to be very important for the sense of coherence, especially for comprehensibility and manageability. This notion of predictability leaves its footprints in his operationalization of SOC into the SOC Scale. Our analysis convinced us that the SOC scale is unlikely to be a fair materialization of the idea of coherence and thus unlikely to measure SOC correctly.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2005

Suicide from a holistic point of view.

Suicide has been honoured and respected in the eastern culture, especially in Japan with the famous tradition of Hara-kiri or seppuku, while in most western societies suicide has been seen negatively and many contemporary physicians tend to consider suicide the most self-destructive and evil thing a human being can do and something that should be avoided at all cost. Religions also have different viewpoints on suicide, but from a philosophical point of view we believe that considering the choice of life and dead to be extremely relevant for a good living. The choice of life and dead is real, since responsibility for life is necessary in order to live life and even the best physician cannot keep a patient alive, who deep inside wants to die. In this chapter we present parts of a story of a young girl who had experienced child sexual abuse. In holistic existential therapy it is our experience, when the patient is well supported in the confrontation of the fundamental questions related to assuming responsibility for the coherence, that this confrontation will almost always lead to a big YES to life. Without confronting the fundamental question of "to be or not to be", life can never be chosen 100% and thus never be lived fully.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Sense of coherence and physical health. A review of previous findings.

The aim of this paper is to systematically review the available scientific publications published concerning the association between the sense of coherence (SOC) designed by Aaron Antonovsky (1923-1994), measured with the scales SOC-29 or SOC-13, and different aspects of health. The study is descriptive and integrates more than 50 scientific publications. The results are divided into the categories: Physical health; biological measures; psychological measures; health measures incorporating psychological aspects; stress; and behavioural aspects. The conclusion from this review is that SOC is highly associated with psychological aspects, including stress and behavioural aspects when SOC is operationalized with the prevailing scales. However we were unable to show a strong association between SOC and physical health that Antonovsky had predicted. Therefore we conclude that the SOC scale can only serve as a predictor for health that is measured by incorporating psychological aspects, while it is not capable of explaining physical health that is measured only by means of physical terms.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2005

Events in pregnancy, delivery, and infancy and long-term effects on global quality of life: results from the Copenhagen Perinatal Birth Cohort 1959-61.

BACKGROUND: To study causal associations between factors occurring during pregnancy, birth, and infancy and global quality of life (QOL) in adulthood 31-33 years later. MATERIAL/METHODS: Prospective study from the Copenhagen Perinatal Birth Cohort 1959-61. Two sets of questionnaires, one filled out by physicians during pregnancy, birth, and infancy and a validated, self-administered questionnaire on global quality of life (QOL) filled out by the person 31-33 years later (7,222 people). RESULTS: Only a few of the factors examined showed association with later QOL. Regarding the mothers, associations were found between global QOL and mothers with congenital malformations (8.8%) or syphilis (8.5%), failing contraception (3.8%), and low social group (6.9%). Two main factors in pregnancy associated with reduced QOL for the child 31-33 years later: the mother's smoking habits (2.7%) and her medication, especially painkillers (15.3%) and different psychotropic drugs, with the association most prevalent early in pregnancy. Most of the associations found involved factors during the child's first year, including the mother's attitude towards her pregnancy (3.4%), unsuccessful abortions (2.2%), institutionalization (7.4%), meningitis (11.7%), and psychomotor development (14.2%). CONCLUSIONS: The results appear to disagree with previous reports that factors occurring during pregnancy, birth, and infancy are highly important for the later quality of life of the adult child. In accordance with other studies, this suggests that the aspects important for quality of life are influenced only to a minor degree by earlier conditions, but the major aspects are dependent on later attitudes towards life and philosophy of life.

Adult↗