Posted By crates on April 8, 2009

I was holding a great golden leaf that had fallen from a Big Leaf Maple last autumn.  It was much bigger than my hand, and it had fallen onto a wide carpet of these leaves that lay over my usual walking path.  I was admiring the pattern of veins that was revealed, marveling at the intricate and convoluted detail, and I began to think of the cells that made up the leaf.  I thought of how normally this beautiful yellow color was hidden by the green chlorophyll in the leaves.  As the winter approached the chlorophyll in the cells broke down revealing the other pigments that were in the cell.

The green chlorophyll is contained in the chloroplasts, tiny organelles which are hypothesized to have been once free living cells of blue-green algae which gave up their independence eons ago to begin living inside other prokaryotic cells, eventually becoming specialized as centers of photosynthesis for the larger cell (see endosymbiotic theory).  I thought of the interior of these green chloroplasts, little oblong structures with a double membrane and with stacks (the granum) of disc-like membranes (thylakoids) inside, which was embedded within a matrix (stroma) where the chemical reactions of photosynthesis occurs.  I thought of these reactions which used the energy of the sun and the raw materials of carbon dioxide and water to make sugars and give off oxygen as a byproduct.

I got to musing about it all, and I thought that perhaps that with a complete knowledge of the workings of the cells in these leaves,  photosynthesis being just one process, one could explain the entire tree.  That is by understanding the workings of its parts, we could understand how the entire tree functioned.  Maybe it was possible to extend this knowledge and figure out how animal cells functioned, and from that knowledge we could progress to the understanding of the individual animal.   Perhaps from understanding one tree’s function and the workings of one animal, we could go on from there and explain the workings of the entire forest ecosystem.

I drew myself mentally to a halt.  Perhaps I was starting this process from the wrong level.  Perhaps I needed to go down further…into the workings of molecules, of atoms, of atomic particles, of the very basic particles of the universe.  If we knew how these particles worked, could we proceed from there and explain everything on the macro level?  And as physicists say there are only four forces that run the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces, could we start with these four forces and proceed to explain everything?

I raised my eyes to look upon the mist floating through the forest, glowing in the light of the rising sun, the golden and crimson leaves of the great trees contrasting with the dark greens of the fir, and I began to wonder.  Could quantum mechanics and the actions of subatomic particles explain this ineffable sense that I felt when I looked upon such beauty?  Could it explain the sense of wonder that I had?  Could it explain my sense of self?  Could it explain consciousness?

Categories: biology, Consciousness, Philosophy/Religion
Tags: chloroplasts, endosymbiotic theory, photosynthesis, reductionism