Outer physical world exists in the form of electromagnetic field and matter. The field quanta and molecules of the matter influence the receptor layers of human sensor systems; and this influence transforms into electric signals which are transmitted to the central nervous system for processing. It is possible to say that the receiving layers of sensor receptors are the “windows” through which the external signals (photons, molecules, etc.) enter our consciousness. The structure and chemical composition of the receiving layers of human sensor receptors determine the capabilities to perceive the physical world.
Based on our perceptions, we constantly create the picture of the surrounding world in our brain.
It is known today that the physical world surrounding us has electromagnetic fields of a broad energy spectrum but our receptors are able to respond only to a very narrow range of electromagnetic field wavelengths — 400–750 nanometer — termed ‘visible light.’ Visual receptors can form a response to a single absorbed quantum of light. That means that the receiving layer of the human visual receptor — retina — has the maximum possible photosensitivity. In order to achieve this high efficiency level, the evolution process created a nanostructured biomaterial of an hierarchical structure containing cones and rods that use nano-sized protein complexes (rhodopsin) as the absorbing centres for light quanta.
The characteristics of these complexes determine the fact that we “see” the world around us in such a narrow spectral range but with the one-light-quantum sensitivity.
The sensor system of the living organisms that allows to “feel” the molecules of the matter in the environment is the sense of smell. Membrane proteins (nanostructures) of the olfactory receptor cells are able to bind the molecules of various chemical substances. The receiving layers based on such proteins can create the response to extremely low molecule concentrations (up to several molecules per cubic meter) to distinguish molecules differing from each other with a single atom — for example, oxygen and ozone.
Interestingly, the receptor centres of the olfactory and the visual systems are based on the proteins belonging to the same class of proteins containing seven membrane domains. Given the fact that visual receptors were created on a later stage of evolution, it is possible to say that nature used the “ready models” to address visual reception issue after supplementing them with new features.
The photosensitive and chemosensitive nano-structured materials and devices based on them that exist today are close to natural sensor systems concerning their characteristics.
M. V. ALFIMOV, editor-in-chief, academician
The Russian Nanotechnologies magazine, #7-8, 2011
Comments
Thank you Dr Affimov. Our Science-Art Research Centre has just won another award from the Australian Node of the United Nations Millennium Project. Your statement "Outer physical world exists in the form of electromagnetic field and matter" is fundamental to our argument that the 15 human survival objectives of the Millennium Project cannot be implemented without that understanding.
NASA has published the argument that the Classical Greek Science for Ethical Ends was based upon infinite fractal logic. The 20th Century understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, referred to by Einstein as the Premier law of all science, does not permit any life science logic to extend to fractal logic infinity.
The entropic art appreciation theories from John Stuart Mill and Henry Cole, who was appointed by Royal Decree as Head of the British Department of Practical Art in the 19th Century, used Kantian Aesthetics as the basis for a perpetual economic growth and development, which is an impossible concept within an entropic closed system. As a result of this we now have entropic aesthetics upholding Moral Jurisprudence Law governing global economic rationalism, with no consideration at all about Immanuel Kant's electromagnetic Ethics. Oersted had been awarded honours for his papers in aesthetics and his Doctorate in 1799, the Architectonicks of Natural Metaphysics" was based upon Kant's ethics, derived from the ancient Platonic ethical science.
Kant's Ethic has been modified to explain that the nanoscale electromagnetic motor driving the sperm, when entering the female field within the ovum, morphs into the human centriole. This balanced electromagnetic spark of life is considered to function in accordance to your model of reality. It can be considered that the supra human survival technologies needed to fulfil the United Nations Millennium Projects objectives, can know be derived from the new relevant Platonic-Fullerene Chemistry that has recently emerged. It is interesting to note that Henry Cole's famous dictum was “Straight lines are a national want”. The book The Beauty of Fractals – Images of Complex Dynamical Systems, opens its preface with a paragraph which contains the words “ And that line is the rotten foundation of our doomed civilisation.