Ian Thompson.
Version 1: April 19, 2020

We have discussed how biological cells could respond to targets for a specific future folded arrangement of protein molecules. But the question then is: how do they know when to make a target to fold as needed? It would seem most unlikely that the uppermost consciousness of an organism would concern itself with such a low-level activity.

Let me begin to sketch some general scheme for the management of these other subsidiary aspects of molecular management in an organism.

The requirement for any management is that there are some overall needs in the future, specifically for some arrangements of molecules to perform specific uses to satisfy those needs. The uppermost needs here do not come from the ‘external management’ consciousness of an organism (which is mostly concerned with moving and acting in the world), but some other spiritual love. I am now thinking of the principal ‘love of life’ of an organism, a love which is unique to that organism. These loves are part of the internal spiritual nature of the organism — just as we saw existing in Hans Sloane’s bird in DLW 344, as Andy has talked about. This ‘seeing’ is not so much in the ‘spiritual kingdom’ of wisdom and cognitions, it more in the ‘celestial kingdom’ of love and uses as a kind of ‘instinctive infrastructure’ to support cognition-based actions.

Given then with each animal a distinctive love of that kind of living, that love will have with it an intrinsic ability to see and encourage the intermediate steps needed to satisfy that love.

For example, a love of living requires future actions. Though not yet deciding which act to perform, the very need for future actions means that there must be capabilities for future muscle movements. That capability requires energy transport and protein structures. That requires correctly folded proteins. That requires production and folding of proteins if they are missing. That requires detecting and remedying any unfolded proteins. That requires chaperones to act to fold any slow folders, and to pass on the folded product. It is when proteins (chaperones, peptides, etc) actually have to be moved that physical 3.1 targets are produced to apply fine-tuned electric forces on the molecules. Before that stage, the needs and ends will be in the outermost 2.3 degree of the external spiritual. 

Let me surmise that plants have uppermost spiritual structure in 2.3.2 (forms and growth), and animals have uppermost spiritual structure in 2.3.1 (sequences of actions). This is slightly different from the ‘perception’ process in 2.3 I’ve recently described for object recognition, but don’t forget that we are talking not of the kingdom of cognition (for perception), but the kingdom of use (for motivating actions). The kingdom of use can see, but only concerning needs in the chain of needs. It does not day-dream or remember, but always focuses on what needs to be done. 

All of these steps are subsidiary ends of the principal love. The ends are the progressively more detailed loves of the preparatory needs, and those desires will be mental loves in the spiritual world. They are not part of the high-level management consciousness, but derived from the instinctive and distinctive love which energies each creature. They could be produced by the relevant corresponding sub-community in the Grand Man, but before then and most probably still now comes directly from Divine influx into the inmost spiritual form of the creature.

Such a theory as above is quite different from the common principles of evolutionary biology, since now we have explicit ends and targets in the spiritual and physical degrees respectively. We have final causes which are able to produce the necessary effects for some final product.