BIOLOGICAL ORDER 



high degree of coupling between regulating genes, operator genes, 

 structural genes, repressors, enzymes, and metabolism. The normal 

 cell is a structural and functional system of order, in which all 

 macromolecules are interdependent units. 



The living organism is an integrated system of macromolecular 

 structures and functions able to reproduce its kind. Waves and 

 particles are the complementary aspects of the atom. Structures and 

 functions are the complementary aspects of the organism. Separated 

 from its context — that is, extracted from the cell — any structure, 

 either a nucleic acid or a protein, is just an organic molecule. Such 

 a thing as living substance or living matter does not exist. Life can 

 only be the appanage of the organism as a whole. Only organisms are 

 alive. 



The upsurge of molecular diseases, whether cellular, subviral, or 

 viral, is apparently the consequence of a molecular tendency 

 toward an escape from cellular control, toward autonomy. 



The study of viruses has revealed the existence of sequential 

 viral functions controlling the autonomous reproduction of the 

 viral genetic material and the synthesis of viral proteins. These viral 

 functions may be submitted to specific viral repressors. 



The genetic material of a virus is sometimes under the control of 

 the regulating mechanisms of the host. The genes of the host cell 

 are sometimes under the control of the virus. The pathological order 

 is dual, structural and functional, just as the normal order is. Normal 

 and pathological entities may undergo structural recombination and 

 exhibit functional interchanges. The story of the cell/virus system 

 is the story of the quadruple interactions between two different 

 types of dual order. 



* * 



In a complex organized system, the units are necessarily inter- 

 acting. Any one of us, as a human being, has to visualize himself as a 

 person, as an independent unit, and at the same time as a de- 

 pendent part of a community, as part of a whole. During three 

 weeks, I had the privilege and pleasure to be part of M.I.T. I have 



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