of signal as well as its intensity (the size of the letters as in the above-mentioned example).
Physicists (see above-mentioned photon research by Popp) have shown us that ultra-weak signals transmit information in living organisms. These signals are oscillations, their intensity well within the range of the so-called broadband noise. Broadband noise is signals that occur in each material caused by the movement of elementary particles, molecules, and atoms. (As particle movements are dependent on temperature, the expression thermal noise is also often used.)
To date researchers assumed that signals below the noise level do not affect anything. In any case, these kinds of signals are no longer measurable using common measuring devices and receivers.
Meanwhile it is certain, however, that biological systems selectively register information even within the frequency range and far below the measuring ability of technical devices commonly used today.
Research has shown that biological information seems to have an effect only when it is that subtle!
When experimenting with cerebral cells from chicks, the American physicist W. R. Adey (1988) discovered that they only respond to a certain frequency (about 10 Hz). At the same time, the amplitude must lie within a very specific (low) range. No reactions are measurable below or above that range. This limited range (obtained from the ratio of amplitude and frequency), within which a biological system is able to respond to electromagnetic signals carrying information, is known as the Adey window.
Apparently, transmission in the so-called molecular chain conductors is possible only if the frequency and amplitude of a signal fall within this small “window.” If the amplitude of a signal is too low, it lies below the point of resonance and is ineffective. If it is too high, the protein chains will break up and the signal will be blocked (Ludwig).
The idea, intrinsic to scientific medicine, that weak signals cannot be effective when similar strong signals show no measurable results has been proven wrong.
Let us remember:
Information is neither matter nor energy. It operates in biological systems via ultra-weak electromagnetic signals and therefore plays an important part in all life processes.
Modern biophysics considers information today as “a latent, but potent causal factor inherent in molecules, cells, tissue, and the environment. It enables all these entities to recognize, select, and instruct each other, to construct each other and themselves as well as regulate, control, and determine events of any kind” (Oyama 1985).
Experts continue to debate the actual biophysical nature of biological information. The most modern and promising aspect for the future might be the concept of the morphogenetic field phenomenon. Rupert Sheldrake devised the brilliant and revolutionary thought modality of the, to date, be wildering process of how Nature uses fields to create forms. These fields have the ability to store the “knowledge” of individuals in a species. He defined a morphogenetic field as “a non-material zone of influence of physics” (Sheldrake 1990).
Sheldrake and many other physicists postulate that, besides the commonly known gravitational field that causes the force of gravity, there are a great number of other fields that structure and organize the entire universe, from subatomic particles to the farthest galaxies in some kind of hierarchical layers. Considering the latest physics research, it is acceptable to think of the cosmos as an entirely oscillating space, structured by intangible forces. The material spectrum we are used to living and operating in is just a tiny part of the whole. All of its parts are subject to these intangible forces.
All these ideas are almost inconceivable for a layperson. As previously mentioned, it is more important to accept a substantiated subject and incorporate it into one's own view of the world rather than understand it completely. In order to make the discoveries of science more accessible and palatable for laypeople, simple thought modalities have been introduced. They do not claim to be absolutely correct within the framework of the presently accepted scientific paradigm, but offer tremendous illustrative ideas that facilitate often complicated interrelations.
Fig. 1.1 Even though the “thought modality” of two levels separated by space is surreal, it facilitates the understanding of many biophysical regulatory processes in living systems.
One of these proven thought modalities is the idea of two distinctly separated ways of operating. Both affect and order our entire world:
On the one hand there is the material level, with its dimensions directly accessible to our senses: substance, form, cells, tissue, biochemical processes, etc. This is what we are accustomed to and the premise allopathic medicine operates under.
On the other hand there is the idea we are less familiar with of a sphere of intangible control and regulatory processes. This is the informational level that the material level is subject to (Fig. 1.1).
The term level was used to better illustrate the idea. We could also use the term field. This would be closer to the reality of physical science, but would place us between the opposing sides of the physicists still vehemently debating the term.
Information and MedicineOur previous findings support the fact that everything in this world that operates in one way or another is subject to the controlling and regulating forces of the informational level. In terms of all areas dealing with living organisms, medicine included, this means that all processes regarding life, growth, development, metabolism, sickness, health, even death and decomposition occur on the material level in biochemical ways. However, they receive their regulatory information from the level above. Without exception, all processes pertaining to matter are subject to the informational level. This also signifies that all processes can be influenced from that level. Therefore a medical evaluation, be it diagnosis or therapy, that can affect the informational level has to be far superior to any method restricted to the material level!
It is easy to come to this theoretical conclusion. In practice it is difficult to obtain access to a system. We have to find a “code,” just like with a computer, certain information that opens the system like a key and creates the possibility to influence it.
A homeopathic simile, for example, would be compatible information. Searching for the greatest possible congruity between the patient's symptoms and the effect of the medicine is nothing more than looking for this codification. It allows access to the regulatory level, the patient's informational system.
Homeopathy as a Physical Therapy Modality
Samuel Hahnemann, a gifted and brilliant man, intuitively recognized 200 years ago that a substance's intangible information can bring about a profound effect in the body assuming it is the right information at the right potency. The simile and potency principle belong together and are law-governed, as physicist W. R. Adey postulated 200 years later: “Frequency (informational content) and intensity of a biological signal must lie within a certain limited range (Adey window) in order to have an effect on a living system”(Adey 1988).
Hahnemann and the teachings of homeopathy were too far ahead of their times to be commonly acknowledged. Homeopathy existed in the paramedical arena and was not completely understood, even by its own devotees. Now we know that a purely physical scientific principle had been found empirically and developed into an effective healing method. The healing principle is based on specific physical scientific information, the physics codification, of a medicine interacting with the intangible controlling and regulatory processes of an organism.
For