Page 142 - Visions of the Future Chemistry and Life Science

The making of the virtual heart 131

have done is create an excuse for not to think about it . . .’ (Bock & Goode
1998).
This leaves us with the question of whether or not the two directions
are irreconcilable.
We would like to think that the answer is a clear NO.
The logic of life will neither be recognised without precise understand-
ing of the manifold of components that give rise to biological function, nor
without a clear conception of the dynamic interactions between individ-
ual components. Likewise, the logic of life lies exclusively neither in the
most incredible detail, nor in the most sweeping synopsis.

8.2.2 Combined opposites
This concept of a natural interdependence of opposites that seemingly
exclude each other but, equally cannot survive without the other, is not
new at all.
It is the central part of modern Dialectics – ‘the soul of all knowledge
which is truly scientific’ – as taught by Hegel (Encyclopaedia of the philo-
sophical sciences, 1830) and Engels (Dialectics of nature, 1879). And, to go
back in time even further, ‘combined opposites’ – Yin and Yang – are
central to old Chinese philosophy and ancient popular wisdom.
Thus, common sense would suggest that neither of the two –
Integrationism and Reductionism (and this shall be the last time we
affront the reader with an ‘-ism’) – is self-sufficient, and both are obligatory
to the quest for knowledge.
This view lays the basis of probably the most exciting new develop-
ment in bio-medical research – the Physiome Project.

8.3 The Physiome Project
8.3.1 The vision
The Physiome Project represents a world-wide effort to organise systemat-
ically the huge data mass on biological function into a ‘quantitative
description of the physiological dynamics and functional behaviour of the
intact organism’ (Bassingthwaighte). It was publicly initiated at the 33rd
World Congress of the International Union of Physiological Sciences, 1997
in St. Petersburg (see http://www.physiome.org).
The Physiome Project sets a vision that will be much harder to accom-
plish than that of the Human Genome Project – formally begun in October