The Effects of Bacopa monnieri

FIG. 4. Camera lucida tracings of basolateral amygdaloid neurons from control rats (A) and rats treated with Bacopa monniera for 6 weeks at doses of 20 mg/kg (B), 40 mg/kg (C) and 80 mg/kg (D). (Vollala et al. in Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 320)

Caution! The author of this blog is an undergrad in humanities and has no significant acquaintance with neurology or neuropharmacology. This collection of quotes is assembled for personal use. Those interested in Bacopa monniera should acquaint themselves with the source material.

Pase, Matthew P., James Kean, Jerome Sarris, Chris Neale, Andrew B. Scholey and Con Stough 2012. The Cognitive-Enhancing Effects of Bacopa monnieri: A Systematic Review of Randomized, Controlled Human Clinical Trials. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 18(7): 647-652.

Objectives: Traditional knowledge suggests that Bacopa monnieri enhances cognitive performance. Such traditional beliefs have now been scientifically tested through a handful of randomized, controlled human clinical trials. The current systematic review aimed to examine the scientific evidence as to whether Bacopa can enhance cognitive performance in humans. (Pase et al. 2012: 647)

What I've read elsewhere suggests that brahmi is a potent antioxydant and it's memory-enhancing effects can be reduced to that. I'm not sure whether it promotes dendrite growth as some unreliable or unknown sources suggest.

Across trials, three different Bacopa extracts were used at dosages of 300-450 mg extract per day. All reviewed trials examined the effects of Bacopa on memory, while other cognitive domains were less well studied. There were no cognitive tests in the areas of auditory perceptual abilities or idea production and only a paucity of research in the domains of reasoning, number facility, and language behavior. Across studies, Bacopa improved performance on 9 of 17 tests in the domain of memory free recall. There was little evidence of enhancement in any other cognitive domains. (Pase et al. 2012: 647)

Lay-users are for some reason more exact, noting the bacoside content along with dosage.

Bacopa has long been renowned for its medicinal properties. This has been documented in the sixth-century Ayurvedic text, the Caraka Samhita, whereby Bacopa is recommended for the treatment of various mental conditions. Of late, Western medicine has shown interest in this ancient herb as a potential cognitive enhancer. (Pase et al. 2012: 647)

Scriptural authority?

Sample populations were comparable both in age range and in that subjects tended to be healthy without any chronic illnesses. Although one study recruited a sample with subjective memory complaints, the sample was apparently free from cognitive impairment. (Pase et al. 2012: 648)

"My memory sucks."

Given the richness of information available, this factor was subdivided into the more specific facets of memory identified by Caroll. These domains include (1) memory span: the quantity of information one can recall in order following a single exposure to the information; (2) associative memory: the ability to recall or recognize information paired (associated) with other arbitrary information; (3) free recall memory: recall of arbitrary information when the information to be recalled exceeds the quantity of one's memory span; (4) meaningful memory: the ability to recall or recognize information when the information to be remembered has meaning; and (5) visual memory: recall or recognition of visual material that cannot be easily recoded into a nonvisual modality. (Pase et al. 2012: 649)

In this blog I apparently engage mostly in associative memory. "Meaningful memory" poses some problems - what were the criteria for considering a memory meaningful? Caroll JB. Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor analytic studies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

The current systematic review of randomized, controlled trials revealed some evidence to suggest that Bacopa is efficacious in improving the learning and free recall of information. This suggests that Bacopa could potentially be clinically prescribed as a memory enhancer. At present, there is insufficient evidence to suggest that Bacopa improves other domains of cognitive performance in healthy nondemented subjects. (Pase et al. 2012: 651)

At least there's that. As I understand it, memory enhancement is exactly why some nootropic communities take Bacopa as a food supplement.

The focus toward testing memory over othe rcognitive domans most probably stems from Bacopa's long-standing Ayurvedic reputation as a potent "memory enhancer." Although the first randomized controlled human clinical trial to explore the long-term effects of Bacopa on cognitien reported both enhancement in memory and cognitive speed, follow-up research has not given mental speed (or other cognitive domains) the same attention as memory. (Pase et al. 2012: 651)

Thus, other cognitive domains were noted in the abstract so tautologically because there is a bias in research to ignore other domains, such as cognitive speed.

To advance current knowledge, future research in the area is required to manipulate dosage size and supplementation durations. (Pase et al. 2012: 651)

Yes! // Even some earlier research took this route.

Aguiar, Sebastian and Thomas Borowski 2013. Neuropharmacological Review of the Nootropic Herb Bacopa monnieri. Rejuvenation Research 16(4): 313-326.

Cognitive enhancement typically exacts a toxicological and psychological toll. The milieu of nootropic phytochemicals found within Bacopa monnieri (BM), primarily triperpenoid saponins called bacosides, exhibit minimal observable adverse effects at standard dosages. BM demonstrates anti-oxidant, hepatoprotective, and neuroprotective activity. Emerging research demonstrates several mechanisms of action - acetylcholinesterase inhibition, choline acetyltransferase activation, β-amyloid reduction, increased cerebral blood flow, and monoamine potentiation. (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 313)

I have noted a psychological toll with Ginkgo Biloba. I wonder how bacopa and ginkgo would interact in terms of cerebral blood flow.

Western biomedicine is in the midst of investigating the potential value of the Eastern pharmacopeia. (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 313)

Yup. Ginkgo is Chinese, Bacopa is Indian.

Unlike the potentially addictive and forceful action of widely used psychostimulants, chronic and moderate administration of BM appears to nourish rather than deplete neurons, an action compatible with 1400 years of Ayurvedic study. BM was initially described around the 6^th century A.D. in texts such as the Charaka Samhita, Athar-Ved, and Susrutu Samhita as a medhya rasayana-class herb taken to sharpen intellect and attenuate mental deficits. The herb was allegedly used by ancient Vedic scholars to memorize lengthy sacred hymns and scriptures. (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 313)

It feels like this turn to Eastern pharmacopeia is underlined by a need to replace depletive drugs with nourishing ones. E.g. replacing coffee with Maca.

The long-term effect of BM on humans is unknown, but animal models suggest considerable protection against age-related neurodegeneration rather than progressive toxicity or tolerance formation. (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 314)

On forums it is known for its neuroprotective qualities. Something to do with dendrites?

The researchers found that cigarette smoke depletes zinc and selenium levels in the brain, which is especially problematic because zinc is a SOD [superoxide dismutase] co-factor and selenium is a GPx co-factor. Administration of bacoside A also restored zinc and selenium levels. (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 314)

E.g. Bacopa may equalize some problems caused to the brain by smoking cigarettes.

Cerebral blood flow and vasodilation. Adequate perfusion of blood to capillary beds within the brain is of utmost importance. Otherwise, deficits of oxygen and nutrients will ensue alongside the buildup of cytotoxic waste. Diminished cerebral blood flow is implicated in various pathologies, including dementia. (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 318)

"Elav organ vajab vahetuseks tarvilike aunete pidevat juurdevoolu, samuti peab toimuma lagu- ja jääkproduktide äravool. Aju varustamise ja jääkidest vabastamise häired põhjustavad paratamatult kesknärvisüsteemi tegevuse häireid, s.t. psüühhilisi häireid." (Saarma 1979: 203)

Volalla et al. studied the effect of BM on the dendritic morphology of neurons in the basolateral amygdala, a region implicated in learning and memory. Twethy-four rats were divided into 2-, 4-, and 6-week treatment groups, and then further divided into 20, 40, and 80 mg/kg per os (p.o.) dose groups and age matched to controls. All of the rats were tested in spatial learning and passive avoidance tests. They were then decapitated, and their brains were Golgi stained and evaluated for dendritic branching (arborization) and intersections (length). The results indicated an improvement in spatial learning and memory retention and a significant increase in dendritic length and branching points within the basolateral amygdala at the doses 40 and 80 mg/kg at the 4- and 6-week intervals (Fig. 4 [post heading picture]). (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 319)

Hopefully there are other means for studying dendritic morphology of neurons in humans other than decapitation. It should be noted that the dendritic aspect has only been studied on rats, not humans. Although it would explain why it was used for learning lengthy hymns and scriptures. Mo' dendritic branching mo' neuroprotection, yo!

Pace et al. supports previous findings that BM most effectively reduces the rate of forgetting, but not acquisition or other aspects of cognition (though this matter is by no means settled). (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 321)

This would suggest that Bacopa monnieri is not "magical" and will not give you elephant memory. Rather, it would be most effective if taken alongside active memorizing.

These findings evidence the potency of BM, particularly in measures of verbal recall. Remarkably, contemporary findings appear to support the alleged use of BM in Vedic antiquity by scholars memorizing lengthy hymns. (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 321)

It's quite nice when folkloric knowledge of herbs actually stands up to verification.

The researchers found no significant acute cognitive effects in the BM group. The absence of noticeable acute effects may diminish the likelihood of dependency-forming or -reinforcing behavior. (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 321)

It is common knowledge that the nootropic effects of Bacopa are longitudinal, e.g. that it takes at least 8 weeks for a noticeable improvement in memory. While other studies bemuse the lack of acute effects, here it seems like positive quality.

BM demonstrates immense potential in the amelioration of cognitive disorders, as well as prophylactic reduction of oxidative damage, NT modulation, and cognitive enhancement in healthy people. Biomedical research on BM is still in its infancy, but preliminary results such as these have begun to open the research floodgates. It is critical that much longer-term studies be conducted BM in combination with other substances, as is prescribed by the Ayurvedic system, may result in synergistic effects and should also be investigated. The social implications of cognition-enhancing drugs are promising but must be appropriately tempered with ethical considerations as researchers enter the brave new world of neural enhancement. (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 322)

The neural enhancement community already acknowledges that it is better to take up a wider variety of nootropics than to take higher doses of a single nootropic. I even found two studies of Bacopa in combination with Ginkgo!

Nathan, P. J., J. Clarke, J. Lloyd, C. W. Hutschison, L. Downey and C. Stough 2001. The acute effects of an extract of Bacopa monniera (Brahmi) on cognitive function in healthy normal subjects. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental 16(4): 345-351.

Ginkgo biloba and Bacopa monniera are two herbal extracts sharing similarities in their mechanism of action (Nathan, 2000; Nathan et al., 2001b) and demonstrating cognitive endancing effects in humans. Recently we have shown that chronic administration of these extracts in healthy human subjects can improve neuropsychological functioning, particularly learning and memory, executive processing and information processing (Stough et al., 2001a; 2001b). (Nathan et al. 2001: 163)

I think this mechanism of action may have something to do with cerebral blood flow.

A recent study by Wesnes et al. (2000) showed that combined administration of two herbal extracts has positive effects on cognitive functions. In this study administration of Ginko biloba and Panax Gingseng improved working and long-term memory. This study suggests that administration of two extracts in combination may have a better efficacy im improving cognitive function in normal healthy subjects. (Nathan et al. 2001: 163)

I'll have to look into Panax Ginseng as well. Although I've been long aware of it and even drank some gingseng tea a while ago, it appears that it is sold in capsules at a nearby heart-specialized pharmacy.

The current findings suggest that acute administration of standard doses of Ginko biloba and Bacopa monniera has no acute effects on cognitive function in normal subjects. (Nathan et al. 2001: 164)

Why again do the effects have to be acute? It's pretty clear that chronic administration is the way to go.

Nathan, Pradeep J., Sally Tanner, Jenny Lloyd, Ben Harrison, Leah Curran, Chris Oliver and Con Stough 2004. Effects of a combined extract of Ginko biloba and Bacopa monniera on cognitive function in healthy humans. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental 19: 91-96.

The cognitive effects of Bacopa monniera have not been examined extensively. It has been shown that acute (300 mg) administration of an extract of Bacopa monniera had no effects on cognitive function (Nathan et al., 2001), while chronic administration (3 months) led to significant improvements in information processing, learning and memory consolidation in normal healthy subjects (Stough et al., 2001b). (Nathan et al. 2004: 91)

The abstract states that this study investigates sub-chronic (2 weeks) and chronic (4 weeks) effects, but results demonstrate no significant effects on testing cognitive processes. Thus, it appears that even 1 month is not enough for noticeable enhancement. The nootropic community advises at least 8 weeks for first noticeable effects. It is clear that Bacopa is meant for the long run.

It is possible that differences in the dose of Ginko biloba in the extract and duration of treatment may in part explain the lack of efficacy of the combined extract. Firstly, the total dose of Ginkgo biloba used in this extract was 120 mg (2 x 60mg) in comparison with doses ranging over 120-600 mg in the studies that have demonstrated positive effects. (Nathan et al. 2004: 95)

It would appear that I am playing it safe by taking 2 x 60 mg Ginkgo giloba daily.

A likely reason for the lack of effect of the combined extract on cognitive function may be related to the sensitivity of the tests to neurochemical manipulation. We have suggested previously that while certain tests are validated clinical measures of neuropsychological function, they may not be sensitive to pharmacological manipulation, especially to herbal componds (Nathan et al., 2003). (Nathan et al. 2004: 95)

Yeah, no, these herbs don't make you a "superwoman" (or a "superman"). My experience with chronic administration of Ginkgo bilob says that it merely reduces mental fatigue and enhances cognition so that I am able to stay awake in extremely boring lectures and can read lengthy and complicated texts without fatigue.

Rosso, A. and F. Borrelli 2005. Bacopa monniera, a reputed nootropic plant: an overview. Phytomedicine 12(4): 305-317.

Preliminary studies established that the treatment with the plant (Malhotra and Das, 1959) and with the alcoholic extract of BM plant (Singh and Dhawan, 1982) enhanced learning ability in rats. Subsequent studies indicated that the cognition-facilitating effect was due to two active saponins, bacosides A and B, present in the ethanol extract (Singh and Dhawan, 1992). These active principles, apart from facilitating learning and memory in normal rats, inhibited the amnesic effects of scopolamine, electroshock and immobilization stress (Dhawan and Singh, 1996). The mechanism of these pharmacological actions remains conjectural. It has been suggested that the bacosides induce membrane dephosphorylation, with a concomitant increase in protein and RNA turnover in specific brain areas (Singh et al., 1990). Further, BM has been shown to enhance protein kinase activity in the hippocampus which could also contribute to its nootropic action (Singh and Dhawan, 1997). (Rosso & Borrelli 2005: 307)

"[The hippocampus] belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation." (Wiki) Although this is wildly conjectural, the connection with protein kinase activity (changing the function of the protein) in the hippocampus would thus explain not only it's memory enhancing effects but also the anecdotal evidence of Bacopa making you acutely aware of your body language, especially your posture.

The central cholinergic system is considered the most important neurotransmitter involved in the regulation of cognitive functions. Cholinergic neuronal loss in hippocampal area is the major feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and enhancement of central cholinergic activity by anticholinestrase is presently the mainstay of the pharmacotherapy of AD-type senile dementia. (Rosso & Borrelli 2005: 307)

Note: eggs! Eggs with Bacopa.

All the extracts showed a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on acetylcholinesterase/AchE activity in vitro, but none of BM extracts showed more than 50% inhibition, suggesting that the extracts of GB and BM have potent cognitive enhancing properties, but with different mechanisms of action. (Rosso & Borrelli 2005: 308)

Thus, Ginkgo and Bacopa may have different mechanisms of action, as opposed to earlier remarks on their similarity.

Recently, Stough et al. (2001) undertook a study, using a double-blind placebo-controlled design and a battery of well-validated neuropsychological tests, to examine the chronic effects of an extract of BM on cognitive function in healthy human subjects. The authors showed that BM (300 mg) given chronically for 12 weeks improved early information processing, verbal learning and memory consolidation in humans. This is consistent with the study of Sharma et al. (1987), who also observed positive effects on learning and memory following 12 weeks administration. However, as reported for GB extract (Nathan et al., 2002), no acute effects on cognitive function were found at a lower dose (300 mg) (Nathan et al., 2001), even when BM extract was combined with GB extract (Maher et al., 2002). Therefore, as suggested by the authors, it is possible that the combined administration of both these extracts chronically may exert more potent effects on cognitive function. (Rosso & Borrelli 2005: 314)

Higher doses and chronic administration seems to be the keys here.

Rout, Susanta Kumar and Durga Madhab Kar 2010. A review on antiepileptic agents, current research and future prospectus on conventional and traditional drugs. International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Review and Research 3(2): Article 004.

Around 75-80% of epileptic patients may be provided with adequate seizure control with the help of conventional antiepileptic drugs. Carbamazepine, ethosuximide, phenobarbital, phenytoin, and valproate are the most frequently used conventional antiepileptics. The therapeutic failure in 20-25% of patients has stimulated intensive research on novel antiepileptic drugs and so far most of them have been developed and licensed mainly as add-on treatment in patients poorly responding to conventional therapy. These are ferbamate, gabapenin, lamotrigine, levetiracetam, oxcarbazepine, tiagabine, topiramate, vigabatrin, and zonisamide. This period has brought many new antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) to the practicing physician. (Rout & Kar 2010: 19)

Thus it would appear that oxcarbazepine is variant B, for when conventional antiepileptic drugs fail. Reading up on the side effects and especially the possible reproductive risks on Wikipedia, it seems understandable why this compound is not a first choice.

Antiepileptic drugs are well-known for their drug interactions; not only between each other, but also with other pharmacologic agents. These observations have led to a shift in focus to the use of herbal remedies in the management of epileptic seizures. (Rout & Kar 2010: 19)

#EasternMedicineAndNewAgeBullcrap (e.g. Cherokee Hair Tampons)

Traditional medicinal practices have remained as a component of health care system of many societies in spite of the availability of well-established alternatives. Plants have been used by mankind for their relieving and therapeutic abilities and still we rely on their healing properties. Plants having active constituent have a direct pharmacological action on our body including various organs like brain. The Indian system of medicine "Ayurveda" clossified the plants affecting the brain and other major organs. (Rout & Kar 2010: 20)

Bacopa monniera belongs to this class. Also, it is a happy coincidence that aju means "brain" in Estonian. Ajurveeda...

Lamotrigine (LAMICTAL) acts by inhibiting the release of excitatory amino acids such as glutamate through the modilation of sodium and calcium channels. (Rout & Kar 2010: 20)

"BM (Bacopa monniera) appears to act as a vasodilator by releasing NO (nitric oxide) from the endothelium and inhibiting calcium fluctuations in and out of the sarcoplasmic reticulum. More research on this property of BM is warranted." (Aguiar & Borowski 2013: 318) I would bet that those darn calcium channels have something to do with BM's antiepileptic properties.

Oxcarbazepine (TRILEPTAL) and its active metabolite (10 monohydroxy epoxide derivative) block voltage dependent sodium and voltage-activated calcium channels. Oxcarbazepine is similar to carbamazepine in its spectrum of anti-convulsant activity. It is currently recommended as either a first line monotherapy or an add-on therapy for partial seizures with or without secondary generalization with the major side effects of hyponatremia and hypersensitivity reaction. (Rout & Kar 2010: 20)

So the general mechanism (blocking or inhibiting calcium channels) may be the same. Hyponatremia is a condition that occurs when the level of sodium in your blood is abnormally low. Both hyponatremia and hypersensitivity reaction have been noted on Wikipedia in simple English: "A craving for salty foods (such as potato chips) and increased impulsiveness have also been noted."

Seizure activity leads to neuronal cell loss and, as it has been already mentioned, neurodegeneration may affect the protective activity of some antiepileptic drugs. (Rout & Kar 2010: 21)

This would explain "lost memories" of an epileptic person.

Mathew, Jobin, Jes Paul, M.S. Nandhu and C.S. Paulose 2010. Bacopa monnieri and Bacoside-A for ameliorating epilepsy associated behavioral deficits. Fitoterapia 81(5): 315-322.

Bacopa monnieri is an outstanding nervine tonic used for raising the mental performance. It helps in concentration, comprehension, recall and alertness, Brahmi is particularly beneficial as it ads in categorizing information in brain and its subsequent expression. Bacopa is also called as a natural antioxydant which may give details its neuroprotective role siin in the memory centers of the brain. Epilepsy is neuronal disorder characterized by learning, cognitive and memory impairments. The present review summarizes information concerning botany, chemistry and beneficial effect of Bacopa monnieri on epilepsy associated behavioral deficits. (Mathew et al. 2010: 315)

This characterization seems tendentious. Previous readings have suggested that although it may enhange concentration and memory (e.g. recall), it's effects on comprehension and alertness are unsubstantiated.

It is used in traditional Indian medicine, the Ayurveda, for the treatment of anxiety, and in improving intellect and memory for several centuries. In addition to memary boosting activity, it is also claimed to be useful in the treatment of cardiac, respiratory and neuropharmacological disorders like insomnia, insanity, depression, psychosis, epilepsy and stress. It was reported to possess anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antipyretic, sedative, free radical scavenging and anti-lipid peroxidative activities. The plant is reported to have shown barbiturate hypnosis potentiation effect. The plant is anticancerous and improves learning ability. It is used as a tranquilliser. The plant is astringent, bitter, sweet, cooling, laxative, intellect promoting, anodyne, carminative, digestive, antiinflammatory, anticonvulsant, depurative, cardiotonic, bronchodialator, diuretic, emmenagogue, sudorfic, febrifuce and tonic. (Mathew et al. 2010: 316)

This is where the "sedative" effect factors in. Some users of Bacopa report that it gets increasingly difficult to get out of the bed in the morning, which is - along with diarrhea and stomach cramps - one of the prime reasons for cutting back the dosage.

In a subsequent study the same author investigated the constituents responsible for Bacopa's effect and demonstrated that the isolated bacosides A and B were effective in enhancing memory in rats in learning tasks involving both positive and negative reinforcement. Additionally, this study demonstrated that the bacosides produced changes in the hippocampus, cerebral cortex (areas critical to memory function) and hypothalamus regions of the brain and caused enhanced levels of protein kinase activity and increases in protein levels in these regions. This indicated positive implications for improved neurotransmission and repair of damaged neurons via enhanced regeneration of nerve synapses. (Mathew et al. 2010: 317)

The bit about protein kinase activity was already noted (above) - "increases in protein levels in these regions" pretty much captures it. Improved neurotransmission is also almost a given, but the part about "enhanced regeneration of nerve synapses" needs elucidation. Is that why Destiny's Equation used Bacopa - because of her brain damage? It would certainly make sense that dendritic growth would regenerate some nervous connection, but it would be neat to know more about the mechanism of action.

The bacosides aid in repair of damaged neurons by enhancing kinase activity, neuronal synthesis, and restoration of synaptic activity, and ultimately nerve impulse transmission. (Mathew et al. 2010: 317)

Oh. Dat kinase activity.

Stress elicits a defensive response in living organisms. The defense response involves several mechanisms including stress gene expression, enhanced antioxidant protection, and enhanced toxin clearance. Bacopa has been shown to facilitate each of these adaptive resources by modulation of Hsp 70 expression, and enhancement of activity of both superoxide dismutase and cytochrome P450 enzymes in stressor exposed rat brains. Thus, Bacopa may facilitate the capacity of the brain to withstand stress, and help the brain to function under adverse conditions. These findings support the afore-mentioned medhya rasayana classification of Bacopa in ancient Ayurveda in that they imply a brain tonic and adaptogenic effect (adaptogenic meaning improved resistance to stress). (Mathew et al. 2010: 317)

Neat. "Hate or dislike of any kind did not compute, I could only love."

Bacopa significantly improved the ability to retain information over time as measured by a task requiring delayed recognition all of word pairs. The authors commented that this may be due to less information being lost from memory, that is, the results are due to decreased forgetting, as opposed to enhanced acquisition because learning trials did not show any effect of Bacopa. Outcome measures in this study which failed to show a significant effect for Bacopa were tasks of short term memory, working memory, attention, retrieval of prior knowledge and psychological state (anxiety, stress and depression). (Mathew et al. 2010: 318)

This was already noted above: Bacopa should go hand in hand with actual and active learning and memorizing. It alleviates amnesia rather than improves memory as such.

Because of the side effects of chemical drugs, drugs of plant origin are gaining importance and are being investigated for remedies of a number of disorders. Since the introduction of adaptogen concept, several plants have been investigated, which were used earlier as tonics due to their adaptogenic and rejuvenating properties in traditional medicine. B. monnieri has been reported to possess anxiolytic, antidepressant and memory enhancing activity. (Mathew et al. 2010: 319)

An adaptogen is apparently a chemical compound that stabilizes physiological processes and promotes homeostasis. It is "medicine for the healthy".

The mechanism of action behind the memory and cognition enhancing effects of B. monnieri is still uncertain, as its multiple active constituents have multifunctional properties, making its pharmacology complex. But the antioxidant properties of B. monnieri have been well documented. (Mathew et al. 2010: 319)

If nothing else, it's a potent antioxidant.

Previous studies showed decreased Rotarod performance demonstrated the impairment in the motor function and coordination in the epileptic rats, suggesting impairment in their ability to integrate sensory input with appropriate motor commands to balance their posture and at the same time adjust their limb movements on the metallic rod and is indicative of cerebellar dysfunction. Treatment using B. monnieri and its active component bacoside-A improving cerebellar function. (Mathew et al. 2010: 319-320)

This is the part that interests me most. There are so many calls to study this or that aspect of Bacopa's effect, but one that hasn't been mentioned anywhere is the connection with motor cortex. I think this warrants investigation.

Biosfäär, tehnosfäär, psühhosfäär

Saarma, Jüri 1979. Biosfäär, tehnosfäär, psühhosfäär. Kivi, Juhan (ed.), Teadus ja Tänapäev. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 203-211.

Inimese vaimne tervus [sic] on närvisüsteemi, peamiselt selle keskse osa, peaaju tegevuse üks avaldumisvorme. Peaajuta ei ole psüühhilist tegevust. Peaaju tegevuse hälvete korral ilmnevad psüühhikas kõrvalekaldumised. Psühhohügieen on seega tegelikult kesknärvisüsteemi hügieen. Kesknärvisüsteemi mõjutavad kõik ajule kui ainelisele organile toimivad materiaalsed ja bioloogilised tegurid. Samuti mõjutab psüühhilist tervist psüühisi-emotsionaalne külg.
Elav organ vajab vahetuseks tarvilike ainete pidevat juurdevoolu, samuti peab toimuma lagu- ja jääkproduktide äravool. Aju varustamise ja jääkidest vabastamise häired põhjustavad paratamatilt kesknärrvisüsteemi tegevuse häireid, s.t. psüühhilisi häireid. Peaaju tegevis sõltub peaaegu kõigest, mis välismiljööst organismi satub. Peaaju tegevisele mõjub veres ning kudedes leiduvate keemiliste ainete iseloom ja omavaheline suhe. Häirete laad, intensiivsus ja kestus sõltuvad nii ainete toime laadist kui ka kestusest. Mürgi ühekordne toime põhjustab tavaliselt lühiaegse psüühilise tegevuse hälbimise, näiteks alkoholijoobe korral. Pikemat aega kestev toime aga toob endaga kaasa püsivad psüühikahäired, näiteks isiksuse degradatsiooni kroonilise alkoholismi korral. Loomulikult võivad ka öhekordsed kahjustused (põrutused, mürgitused, vigastused) põhjustada püsivaid psüühikahäireid, kui ajukoe mingi osa hävib. (Saarma 1979: 203)

See on väga kummaline minu jaoks. See on esimene kord kui ma loen midagi nii materialistlikku psühholoogias. Ilmselgelt on tegu marksistliku eetosega, kus psüühika on taandatud ainevahetuseks. Kõhutunne ütleb, et "psühhohügieeni" lähenemisel on midagi pistmist sellega, et J. Saarma õppis/töötas Kanadas ja Põhja-Ameerikas oli tollal moes "mental hygiene" temaatika, mis väitis nt, et ropendamine ja sexually explicit content rikuvad noorte mõistusi, nö risustavad seda. See seos on aga nõrk, sest põhineb vaid sõnade sarnasusel. Samamoodi ei saa ma Jurgen Rueschi teost Semiotic Approaches to Human Relations seostada human relationism'iga mis oli USAs maailmasõja järel populaarne.

Nüüdisinimese organismile langev koormus on viimase kahe-kolme inimpõlve jooksul kardinaalselt muutunud. Veel sajandivahetusel oli lihastöö esmane elatise hankimise ja miljööle kohastumise vorm. Nüüd aga domineerib psüühiline koormus ja seda eeskätt füüsilise koormuse vähenemise ning psüühilise tegevuse suurenemise tulemisena.
Teaduse- ja tehnikarevolutsiooni saavutused on teinud inimese elu kergemaks ja mugavamaks. Raske kehaline töö üha väheneb. Tehnika, see inimaju looming, võib inimese täielikult vabastada igasugusest lihastööst.
Meie aja inimese tegevust (kuigi mõnedes üksikasjades võib-olla veidi liialdatult) võiks ehk nonda kirjeldada. Ekskavaatorijuht kaevab uue hoone vundamendi süvendit, lihasjõudu kulutab ta ainult kangide ja hoobade liigutamiseks. Kuid seejuures tuleb tal olulisel määral pingutada oma aju, sest võimsa mehhanismi täpseks juhtimiseks peab ta kiiresti läbi töötama tohutu hulga ajju voolavat informatsiooni ning kavandama oma reageeringud väga täpselt ruumiliselt ja ajaliselt kohandatuna. Töölt koju ja kodust tööle minekuks kasutab ekskavaatorijuht oma sõidukit, mitmekilomeetrilise teekonna läbib ta minimaalse lihastööga (aktseleraatori ja rooli reguleerimine). Kuid see-eest on tema aju pingul, et analüüsida lakkamatult saabuvaid signaale ja teha ainuõigeid otsustusi-reageeringuid ning seda pealegi äärmiselt kiirest. Lihastegevust vajab see inimene üpris vähe ka koduolmes. Kohvi saab jahvatada elektriveskiga, pesu pesta pesumasinaga, kuivatada tsentrifuugiga. Puid lõhkuda ning kanda pole vaja, majas on keskküte. Raadio ja televiisori reguleerimiseks pole vaja tõusta toolist, kaugjuhtimise seade asub käeulatuses. Isegi hambapuhastamistöö teeb ära elektrimootor.
Niisiis, inimorganismi koormuses on toimunud ulatuslikud nihked ja sellest ka probleemid. Vähenenud lihastöö ja füüsiline koormus põhjustavad nähtuse, mida üsna laialdaselt tuntakse liikumisvaeguse ehk liikumisnälja nime all. Toimides esmajoones inimorganismi bioloogilisele süsteemile, ei jäta liikumisvaegus mõjustamata ka vaimset heaolu. Peaaegu kõikidel elualadel ja -kutsetes suurenenud psüühiline koormus toob enesega kaasa täiesti uut moodi nõuded töö- ja puhkusrežiimile ning tõstab psühhohugieeni vajaduse kõige aktuaalsemate sotsiaalsete probleemide valdkonda. (Saarma 1979: 203)

Liikumisvaeguse ohver olen minagi. Need on valiidsed punktid, kuid kõne ise tundub kummaline. Näiteks "ajude pingutamine" on veider, sest aju ei ole lihaskude mis tõmbub pingule. Semiootika seisukohast on siin oluline, et märgitakse füüsilise tegevuse taandumist vaimse tegevuse ees. Märgiprotsessid omastavad olulisema rolli kui lihastöö.

Evolutsiooni käigus on liikumine olnud eksistentsi tagamise põhivahend. Et hankida toitu, võidelda vaenlase vastu, otsida endale partnerit, kindlustada kooselu, hoolitseda järglaste eest, ikka on liikuda tulnud. Nüüd on inimene andnud vähegi suuremat lihastööd nõudva liikumise masinate ja seadmete hoolde ja enesele jätnud vaid mõõdukal hulgal tööd keelelihastele (kõnelemiseks) ning sõrmelihastele (kirjutamiseks). Tõsi, inimene ei ole enam päris ainus sellise muutunud elulaadiga liik: tema algatusel ja kaasabil (ikka taas seadmetemasinate rakendamisega) on ka mõned koduloomad-linnud kõudnud sellise liikumisvaegusega eksistentsini, näiteks linnuvabrikus, seavabrikus, suurfarmis.
Lihtsameelsus oleks käsitleda liikumisvaegust ainuüksi lihastöö hulga vähenemisena. Oleks see nii, siis oleks tehnika tõepoolest ainult suur õnnistus inimkonnale ja poleks mingit probleemi inimese tervise, sealhulgas vaimse tervise aspektist. Tegelikult on aga olukord üpris keerukas.
Lihastöö ei ole ju mitte üksnes lihaste poolt mingis ajaühikus tehtud kontraktsioonide hulk. Lihastöö tähendab tunduvalt muutunud ainevahetust organismis, eeskätt süsihüdraatide ainevahetuse kardinaalset muutumist koos seda reguleerivate fermentide tegevuse muutumisega;
vereringe ümberkõlastumine hoopis teisele režiimile: südametöö intensiivistub, kapillaaride süsteem lülitub ümber siseelundeilt lihastele;
suuri muutusi hingamises niihästi kopsude ventileerimise osas kui ka gaaside vahetuses kopsudes ja kudedes;
suuri nihkeid sisesekretoorsete näärmete tegevuses ja hormoonide tasakaalus, sellest on ajuripatsi vahendusel hõlmatud eranditult kõik sisenäärmed;
ühtlasi on ka olulist muutust kesknärvisüsteemi tegevuses, tihedat koostööd väljast saabuva informatsiooni töötlemise ja lihaskonda tema tegevuses reguleeriva innervatsiooni vahel. On ju lihastöö kõige tihedam, vahetum ja aktiivsem tegelikkusega suhtlemise vorm.
Sellest kõigest tuleneb tõsiasi, et liikumisvaegus põhjustab ulatuslikku muutust kogu organismi elutegevuse rütmis ning regulatsioonis. Loendamatute põlvkondade vältel evolutsiooni kõigus lihastööga õkonoomseimaks koostööks lihvitud organismi reageeringukompleks on lihastegevise kardinaalse vähenemise tõttu tõsiselt häiritud. Lihastöö vähenemine tähendab võimsa bioloogilise stimulaatori äralangemist, mis on olnud ainevahetuse, südamevereringesüsteemi, sisesekretoorsete näärmete tegevuse, gaasidevahetuse ja kogu organismi elutegevuse regulaator ja koordineerija. Ei ole midagi imestada, et lihastöö vaegus, liikumisnälg toob enesega kaasa märgatavaid häireid organismi elutegevuses kuni füüsiliste ja psüühiliste haigusteni välja. (Saarma 1979: 203-204)

Mujal olen taolist arutelu kohanud vaid Desmond Morrise kirjutistes. Pisut edasi on märgitud ka ülerahvastatuse probleem ja arvud vastavad ka Morrise ennustusele, niiet siin võib isegi olla otsene mõjutus.

Biosemiotics: The Semiotic Web 1991

Anderson, Myrdene 1992. Concerning Gaia - Semiosic Production of/in/by/for Our Planet. In: Sebeok, Thomas A. and Jean Umiker-Sebeok (eds.), Biosemiotics: The Semiotic Web 1991. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1-13.

Language embarrasses us when transparent, mystifies us when opaque, even schizophrenically poised as it is between the obvious and the arbitrary. (Anderson 1992: 2)

The scenario warranting special attention here is that suggested by James Lovelock (1972, 1979, 1988, 1991), the chief visionary of Gaia. In 1965, Lovelock (1991: 21) first articulated his empirical observation that our planet, unlike other planets, displayed the telltale sign of life: an atmosphere maintained far from expected equilibrium by the regulatory throughput of living organisms. This observation did not reach print in a suitably prominent place until 1972. Two years later, Lovelock collaborated with Lynn Margulis (1974) to expand on the same model: that the earth was a holistic, self-organizing, and actively self-regulating system. Lovelock's first book-length exposiion of his ideas in 1979, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, provoked discussion from several quarters, and a number of scientific symposia. Both books and symposia continue, as does the controversy, to which this discussion returns at a later stage. (Anderson 1992: 3)

Besides Lovelock's formulation, made by a person trained in tropical medicine and working in meterology, we have at least two other comparable propositions that the earth is a living organism, though these others are predicated on less exotic empirical data. One such formulation came from Venezuelan biologist, Leon croizat, in 1962, with his Space, Time, Form: The Biological Sythesis. Still another model was developed by Walter Bargatzky, a German jurist and scholar living in Bonn, who in 1978 published Das Univerrsum Lebt> Die Aufsehennergende Hypotheses vom Organischen Afbau des Weltalls. (Anderson 1992: 4)

(However, lovelock's metacoevolution - so labeled by Anderson et al. 1984 and Anderson 1985 - was anticipated by Hutchison's early biochemical models of ocological cycles, in part for which he received the Franklin Medal in 1979.) (Anderson 1992: 5)

Scientists, even more than other practitioners of language, swim in and with metaphor. (Anderson 1992: 5)

Some persons have difficulty accepting the Gaia hypothesis either way. For instance, Lovelock's employer at the time of his discovery, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, would prefer to, and did, nurture the romance of directly sampling planets for life rather than making these assessments from mundane, affordable, earthly telescopes. Nonetheless, Lovelock and other scientists continue to demonstrate the manifold ways that the earth is not just constituted by signs, and condensing a turbulent field of signs. More important to the issue of biosemiotics, though, Gaia communicates with herself in the process, and this is the crux of her homeostatic system. (Anderson 1992: 6)

As any child seeking sex education from a dictionary knows, nothing interesting can be defined; and as noted elsewhere (Anderson 1990: 257; 1991: 195-96), biology is interesting. So is life. And biology is even more curious because, of all disciplines, carefully avoids any definition of life. This being the case, how can one approach the assertion, metaphorical or otherwise, of the earth being a living organism? (Anderson 1992: 7)

One terminological tack Lovelock tried later in 1985, at the United Nations University Task Force meeting in Basel, was to back off from referring to Gaia as a 'living organism' and rather call this new science of Gaia 'geophysiology'. Reporting in Nature five years later, Lovelocj (1990: 102) laments that few have followed suit in referring to Gaia research as geophysiology. Perhaps others find the ditinction of anatomy from physiologf (Lovelock 1991) too predictable, with too few engaging payoff. This application of geophysiology to Gaia may someday rest no more comfortably in science than those antique predecessors of Lovelock who sought to read the earth as a body, and for whom a volcano was a toss-up between a breast and an anus. (Anderson 1992: 9)

Deely, John 1992. Semiotics and Biosemiotics: Are Sign-Science and Life-Science Coextensive? In: Sebeok, Thomas A. and Jean Umiker-Sebeok (eds.), Biosemiotics: The Semiotic Web 1991. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 46-75.

Semiotics can be said to be the study of signs, but I think this is a loose and casual way of speaking that needs considerable expansion in order to be correctly understood. A sign is anything that stands for something other than itself. 'A', for example, stands for the first letter in our alphabet in capitalized form, or for an indefinite article opening a new sentence. But you see at once that a relation of 'standing for' requires a specified context: one thing stands for another only in some respect or capacity. So the sign is not a thing as such, not a physical element merely existing in the enviromnet, like a rock or a toad, but something as doubly related: A stands for B in context C.
Yet to say 'doubly related' is not to say 'two relations', but to say rather that one 'thing' is related in two other 'things' at one and the same time by one single relation. It is not a question of twe relations, one between A and B, and another between A and C, for, even supposing there to be such, neither such relation taken independently would contitute A as a asign. The relation contituting A as a sign is a single relation with three terms - sign, signified, and specific context or ground within and on the basis of which the sign signifies this signified rather than some other, or rather than not signify ar all. The physical mark A is contituted as sign not by its physical 'reality' or being as such, but by its being the intermediate term in a triadic relation of the type Jakobson (1974, 1980) aptly named renvoi - a relation which has an intermediate term that sends the mind beyond itself to a signified according to a specific context. (After all, a athing may represent itself and nothing more, in which case it is an object rather than a sign.) (Deely 1992: 45-46)

In recognition of this complexity within the sign, contemporary semioticians have learned to speak rather of 'sign-vehicles' than of signs when intending physical entities - be they marks or sounds or cultural artifacts of whatever type - functioning in the role of signs. Signs, strictly speaking (that is to say, signs as signs), it is now recognized, are not as such perceptible at all. Signs are rather certain patterns of relationships - always triadic, as we have seen - into which perceptible entities as such enter upon actually being perceived or understood (that is to say [in either case], objectified). Semiotics is not the study of sign-vehicles: the physics of acoustical phenomena is not the science spoken langiage for all that spoken language involves such physics, any more than the physics of light waves is the study of written language, for all that written language involves light waves; the physiology of optic nerves is not the study of reading, for all that reading normally involves optic nerves; and so on. Each science has its subject matter, the study of which gives rise to the knowledge typical of that science. (Deely 1992: 47)

Associative Drift. Certainly, in association of ideas, 'one thing leads to another', 'one thing makes us think of something else besides,' as is required for a sign. Like semiosis, associationism knows no bounds.
Without question, association is a factor in semiosis. But can the two be identified? As an interpretive habit, Eco has recently pointed out, associationism - which Eco callso 'Hermetic drift' - 'is based on the principles of universal analogy and sympathy':

The basir principle is not that the similar can be known through the similar but also that from similarity to similarity everything can be connected with everything else, so that everything can be in turn either the expression or the content of any other thing. (Eco 1990: 24)

Such a process, Eco suggests (1990: 29-30), 'could be defined as an instance of connotative neoplasm', inasmuch as 'in cases of neoplastic growth... no contextual stricture holds any longer'. Eco goes on to discuss alse Derridean or deconstructive drift, in which likewise we confront a process which knows no limits outside itself. (Deely 1992: 53)

In this case the interpretant is a physical rather thas a psychical structure, but one that has been so determined by A as to represent through A also B. In this way the interaction is a virtual semiosis - that is, a series of interactions at the level of Secondness that, at the same time, provides an actual pathway through time whereby it is possible that what happened long ago might be partially understood. Indeed, from such a standpoint, the present might be regarded as a mosaic of traces from the past, each providing, for a sufficiently knowledgeable present observer, the starting point of a journey into what used to be. Notice that the possibility in question need not be actualized in order for it to be virtually present; nor is it merely 'possible' in some abstract, conceptual sense. Our example is of something that exists in the geologiral formation, not a mere 'possibility'. The bone (A), or the rock formation that used to be a bone (C), is 'not a sign formally but virtually and fundamentally', as Poinsot puts it (1632b: 12-18): 'For since the rationale of moving or stimulating the mind remains, which comes about through the sign insofar as it is something representative even if the relation of substitution for the signified does not remain, the sign is able to exercise the functions of substituting without the relation.' (Deely 1992: 58-60)

Out of cosmic dust, stellar systems form through subatomic, atomic, and molecular interactions. At various stages of the process, even as now on earth we can in laboratories bring into being a few elements not existent in nature itself, new elements not previously given in nature precipitate from the natural interactions. These new elements, in turn, prove essential to the formation in planetary systems of the conditions under which living beings become possible, and these beings, in turn, further modify the planetary conditions so that successive generations of living beings are incomparable with the original conditions of life. Oxygen, essential for life on this planet now, for example, was originally introduced as a awaste product of living beings who neither needed nor could survive within a heavily oxygenated atmosphere. (Deely 1992: 61)

'In structist terms', says Eco (1990: 28), 'one could say that for Peirce semiosis is potentially unlimited from the point of view of the system but is not unlimited from the point of view of the system but is not unlimited from the point of view of the process. In the course of a semiosic process we want to know only what is relevant according to a given universe of discourse.'
Eco is speaking of a robust semiosis, to be sure, but I am not sure that associative drifts or even leaps do not have a asubsidiary role in the process. To reduce semiosis to such associations, hewever, is quite another thing, as Eco has well shown with his distinction of semiosis as such from the various forms of cancerous drift that have tried to claim the name for teir own vagary. (Deely 1992: 68)

Hoffmeyer, Jesper 1992. Some Semiotic Aspects of the Psycho-Physical Relation: The Endo-Exosemiotic Boundary. In: Sebeok, Thomas A. and Jean Umiker-Sebeok (eds.), Biosemiotics: The Semiotic Web 1991. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 101-123.

That appearacnces are deceitful is certainly true as far as children and young people are concerned. Coming of age, however, we all become more exposed. Wrinkles, gestures, carriage, etc. tell a story about our lives. For better or worse, we have incarnated our past in our present. The immunity we aquired following an infection of the blacksmith's big muscles are examples of the incarnation of physical or chemical events of our past. But it is now a widely recognized fact that the bedy remembers its mental past as well as or better than its physical past. The body, therefore, is outobiagraphy in the most immediate and authentic sense of that word. (Hoffmeyer 1992: 101)

In contrast, all living systems have selective mechanisms for the incorporation of the present into the future. Thus, every species represents - literally in-carnates - a selective memory of its own phylogenetic history, right back to the beginning of life. And the more brainy species have in addition to this developed "short-time' memories intended for selective conservation of individual life-history in coded form.
Strange as it may seem, oblivion is the key to these processes whereby history - whether phylogenetic or ontogenetic - is incorporated into the present and eventually into the future. Most of the genetic information ever created has been forgotten due to extinction of species, genera, or whole families. And most of our personal experiences have fortunately disappeared from our minds. Due to oblivion, history is kept alive in a meaningful way and not just in toto. (Hoffmeyer 1992: 101)

We can then make a distinction between endosemiotic and exosemiotic processes (Sebeok 1976, 1979). In a time-perspective natural to human beings, the organism would normally be seen as the relevant unit of activity, and most often the prefixes 'exo' and 'endo' refer to what goes on outside and inside that entity, respectively.
For obvious reasons, the communicative character of many exosemiotic processes has long been recognized, and has been categorized under rubrics such as 'ethology', 'animal behavior', 'animal communication' and (as far as the human being is concerned) 'semiotics'. It is to be expected, hewover, that almost any kind of behavior - even growth - will in the final analysis be shown to have semiotic implications not hithero recognized.
The area of endosemiotics, on the contrary, has only recently attracted semiotic attention. In spite of widespread use in biological science of such linguistic metaphors as 'code', 'messenger', 'proofreading', 'error', 'reading,' and so on, scientists have generally neglected the question of hew physical theory can possibly account for the implied semiotic relations (Hoffmeyer and Emmeche 1991; Yates 1987; Fates and Kugler 1984). To use the expression of Daniel C. Dennett, they have taken out 'a loan of intelligence' which they forgot to repay (Dennett 1978: 12). (Hoffmeyer 1992: 108)

Traditionally, the study of natural history has emphasized the development of different morphological characters. Yrom the point of view of this author, however, the most central feature of organic evolution is not the manifold fantastic morphologies of organisms, but the general increase of semiotic freedom - i.e., the increased richness and 'depth' of communicated meaning, gained from the development of multitudinous kinds of horizontal semiotic processes from pheromones to the song of birds, from antibody production to Japanese greeting rituals. I suspect that the creativity and flexibility conveyed to systems partaking in still more refined kinds of semiosis is the prime mover behind organic evolution, and that the development of morphologies is largely framed within and must obey certain constraints arising from this trend toward semiotic freedom (Hoffmeyer, forthcoming). (Hoffmeyer 1992: 109)

Recently, Tor Norrentraders has suggested the term 'exformation' to signify all the 'information' that has ho be thrown away before a given message is emitted and which the receiver will have to implicitly 'know of' in order to decode or understand the message (Norretranders 1991). In 1985 the physicist Charles Bennett introduced the related concept of 'logical depth' as a measure for the meaning of a piece of 'information'. Informally, we can explain logical depth as the number of steps in the deduction or causal path connecting a thing with its plausible origin (Norretranders 1991: 109-10). The underlying idea is that complexity or meaning depends not on the length of a message, but on the 'work' spend in producing it; not on the 'information' contained in the mesage, but on the calculation time needed for throwing away superfluous 'information'. (Hoffmeyer 1992: 110)

Only a tiny fraction of the potential 'information' a person receives will reach consciousness. On the surface of the retina, for instance, there are around 100 million receptors, each of which may be capable of firing perhaps as many as 100 times per second. Less than one percent of this enormous amount of 'information' from the retina reaches the brain, the rest being selectively filtered out in the retina. Still, this 'information' has been calculated to some 10 million bit/sec, and perhaps a great deal more. Compared to such figures, the supposed 'information'-processing capacity of consciousness, the so-called 'channel-width' of consciousness, is surprisingly low - 100 but/sec at most. Into this small channel-width, however, consciousness will have to condense not only vision, but all sorts of 'information' cominf from other parts of the body, including the system for watchinf over the state of the organism - the enteroceptive and proprioceptive senses, and the kinaesthetic senses. (Hoffmeyer 1992: 113)

These experiments might seem to justify the idea that the brain proposes while consciousness disposes. But I think we should consider a slightly different interpretation. Is voluntary action necessarily identical to conscious decision? If our body and brain decides to do something before our consciousness knows of it, is that decision then not our own? Even if the decision is at first unconscious, why not see it as a personal choice based on previous life experiences and on the highly personal but mostly unconscious calculation devices in the brain? In other words, might it not be that consciousness is not itself in charge of making decisions, but that it works like a vibrating pointer in a measuring device which may or may not secure its meaningfulness in relation to our life history? Subsejuently, then, this illustration might 'release' a bodily response or a thought. (Hoffmeyer 1992: 114)

Merrell, Floyd 1992. As Signs Grow, So Life Goes. In: Sebeok, Thomas A. and Jean Umiker-Sebeok (eds.), Biosemiotics: The Semiotic Web 1991. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 251-281.

Erwin Schrödinger (1967), in a series of lectures delivered in 1943, speculated that what was at that time considered to be the essence of life, a chromosome fiber, could suitably be called an aperiodic crystal, thus establishing a continuum between the inorganic realm and that of living organisms. An aperiodic crystal grows by ions attaching themselves to its surface, but attachmenti to this symmetrical surface is weaker than attachment to slight indentations or 'flaws' that eventually appear somewhere in the process. As the crystal continues to grow, the indentation spreads trigonometrically, somewhat like 'strange attractors' in chaos physics. Upon continuation of the process, ions recursively pile upon ions, and gradual rotation, initially caused by the indentation, produces a spiraloid succession of layers ideally following the lines of a Fibonacci curve as depicted in nature most notably in ram and narwhal horns and sea shells. (Merrell 1992: 251-252)

Comparable problems arise concerning signs. It has been postulated from diverse angles that signs generate signs by recursive processes. But if recursion in the strict formal sense inheres, how does a sign become an interpretant? A sign, one might presume, can be a 'thing' (or better, 'event') 'out there', or it can be a 'thought' 'in here'. We can take signs and their objects as either 'mental' or 'physical' or both, as we desire. However, Peircean interpretants in their full-blown sense, it would seem, are best qualified as 'mind-stuff', and as such, they must certainly pertain to 'life-stuff'. In the conception of T.L. Short (1982), where there is life there are legisigns, and since interpretants are the supreme manifestation of legisigns, thef must lie at the roots of life. This equation appears appropriate for our present concerns, for, in the spirit of Peirce, it makes no all-or-nothing distinction between life and nonlife: to ask how a sign becomes an interpretant (legisign, life) is like asking how a molecule becomes a code (DNA) capable of generating messages (interpretants, proteins). Even more to the point, we might conjecture that inquiry into how a collection of signs (or minds) is capable of generating its own description and interpretation potentially to reveal the nature of semiosis as a living process is comparable to inquiry into how a collection of matter (brains, signs) is capable of producing its own description and interpretation in order that it may gain a conceptual grasp of its own life processes. (Merrell 1992: 255)

According to Löfgren - and in line with Peirce's 'Man≈Sign' equation - only when a description is interpreted to describer and interpreter enter center stage: they now mingle with the described upon its being interpreted. Yet what is interpreted becomes in the final analysis partly indescribable. There can be no interpretation processes with totally described properties, for the interpreter is drawn into the system at the same time that there is some claim, however weak, of her having described those very processes. In other words, there is no absolute break between interpreter and description (interpreter-interpretant and sign in the Peircean sense); rather, all descriptions are themselves interpretations, and interpretations of interpretations. Hence descriptions-interpretations are themselves inexorably at once self-descriptions and self-interpretations: the entire system, including the interpreter, constitute a self-referential process. In short, Löfggren argues that since both life processes and language processes are perpetually evolving (that is, unfolding), any attempt to acccount for them must be incomplete. Both are recursive - albeit aperiodic - operations on themselves in a constant effort to describe, interpret, and know themselves, but they cannot effectively do so, for they are in constant flux. In Peircean terms, signs' coming into existence marks their predecessors' phasing out, and at the same time they are in the process of heralding the entrance of their own successors. (Merrell 1992: 256-257)

However, the concept of participatory semiosis according to which all signs and their interpreter-interpretants - also signs - incessantly become other signs by infinite regress and infinite progress tactics render inseparable any and all sign interpreters and interpretants. So the whole shebang, taken in its totality - which includes all signs and their interpreters - becames self-referential. In other words, Seconds and Thirds accumulate, in interaction with their interpreter-interpretants, eventually to become tantamount to self-contained Firsts. Consequently, the series of descriptions, interpretations, and interpreters meet: descriptions are interpretants for interpreters, who are themselves interpretations of their own self-descriptions. There is no innocent eye; seeing is believing; and believing presupposes something already interpreted. (Merrell 1992: 262)

The water gushing into the kitchen sink in a smooth, round, and transparent stream consisting of a alaminar flow, a sheaf of countless layers of molecules projecting downward at different velocities in apparent harmony with one another. When increased water pressure causes the jet to form turbulent strands, the regularity of the laminar flow is destroyed and disorder seems to rule, though it is actually a new form of order. While mevement of the molecules follow a random statistical law in the laminar flow, the turbulent flow grouped them together into powerful streams which in their over-all effect permitted an increased volume of water to rush out of the foucet. Both flows are forms of structure, but what is here termed 'structure' is not schematic, determinable, or rigid. Rather, it is a dynamic, ever-changing regime regulating the varying levels of flow. It is a process structure (Jantsch 1980: 21). (Merrell 1992: 264-265)

Above all, dissipative structures are self-organizing. Self-organization in the classical paradigm is usually limited to life systems. But life is no longer considered a thin superstructure over the lifeless inorganic world. Rather, in the principle of self-organization lies the common ground between life and nonlife. Dissipative structures of purely chemical reactions provide examples of self-organization of the purest sort. They evince the same characteristics - openness, nonequilibrium, irreversibility, nonlinearity, internal reinforcement - as more complex life systems, but with greater clarity and simplicity. (Merrell 1992: 265)

As Prigogine has often put it, the universe is far too rich to be expressed in a single language. Just as neither music, nor painting, nor poetry can exhaust themselves in a sequence of styles, so alse our experience, intuition, contemplation, and intellection regarding the universe is irreducible to a single descriptive mode. We need a set of mutually exclusive (though on closer inspection complementary) languages, with no precise rules of translation - in fact, translation is rendered radically indeterminate. (Merrell 1992: 266)

And it is daunting to think these disturbances could have had their beginning as microlevel peturbations which quickly became magnified at macrolevels. It is like a young lad who, from a bridge overlooking a flooding river, tosses his beer can into the water. This causes a slight perturbation, the ripples of which bring about a degree of turbulence some yards downstream; as the turbulence is gradually a treshold is reached, then crossed. A dike gives slight, it disintegrates, and a town is devastated.
It is in this manner that signs of 'higher' form and complexity - having been bred by asymmetry, aperiodicity - are generally less stable than signs of 'lower' form. Take, for instance, signs 8, 9, and 10, or monads (terms), dyads (propositions, descriptions), and triads (arguments, interpretations). In ordered, linear, chiefly binary (dyadic) systems - that is, systems of interaction at the 'descriptive' level - the interpretation (interpretant) dominates whatever descriptions are generated regarding the system. At more complex levels, however, descriptions become problematic and interpretations (interpretants), instead of relating to the 'semiotically real' phenomena at hand or to their respective descriptions, begin interpreting themselves (translating themselves into themselves). In this process, the semiotic object becomes the sign being signed (it is never the 'actually real' an sich), the sign or representamen becomes the sign of that signed and hence the sign of a sign, and the interpretant serves to integrate the signing process inte the stream of semiosis. The representamen-object-interpretant (R-O-I) relationship can in this manner be viewed as a complementary set of sign, signing, and signed entities whose roles are constantly changing. The sign signs the already signed and the signing process is already becoming sign and signed. Signs change; they grow; they evolve. But they alse inexorably lag behind themselves; they are always in the act of signing themselves. (Merrell 1992: 270)

Signs grow into symbols, from raw sensation to volition to cognition, from sentiment to desire to intellection, from spontaneity to reaction to habit;: that is, a sign potentially runs the gamut from First to Third. Moreover, in the Peircean sense, just as mind sublimates from matter and matter contains the essence of mind, so also ideas, interpretants that they are, evolve and crow like mind - and all symbols, for that matter (CP 6.289). Indeed, mind-symbols are not simply opposed to matter, as classic thoight has had it; the two domains are complementary. Moreover, mind, especially that of the human variety, has generated such an elaborate and complex system of symbols that the latter have become labyrinthine in their countenance and numbering in their effect. Nevertheless, the essence of the problem rests at the very initial lurch of life processes themselves. (Merrell 1992: 271-272)

Regarding the enigmatic 'Man≈Sign' equation, see Bohm 1987 [Unfolding Meaning]; Burks 1980 ["Man: Sign or algorithm? A rhetorical analysis of Peirce's semiotics"]; Fairbanks 1976 ["Peirce on man as a language: A textual interpretation"]; Merrell 1991, 1992; Peirce CP 5.268, 5.313, 6.322; Sebeok 1977 ["Ecumenicalism in semiotics"]. (Merrell 1992: 276)

Uexküll, Thure von 1992. Varieties of Semiosis. In: Sebeok, Thomas A. and Jean Umiker-Sebeok (eds.), Biosemiotics: The Semiotic Web 1991. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 455-470.

The result of this history is the dualistic medicine of today - for diseased bodies without minds and for suffering minds without bodies. This deplorable situation can only be overcome if medicine rediscovers the paradigm of circumstancial proof for the somatic discipline as well.
In order to do this, medicine must replace its mechanical model for the body with a model of the living system. Living systems do not react in a mechanical way to mechanical inputs; rather, they transform inputs of the environment on their receptors into signs which inform the systems about the meaning of the environment for its needs. These signs enable the system to reconcile and to assimilate the resources of the environment in order to maintain their autopoiesis as basis for their health (th.v. Uexkül 1986).
The concept of the living system has different aspects which pose diffrent questions. Systems theory describes one aspect by defining levels of integration and creating the concept of 'emergence'. Another aspect is the dynamic quality of living systems, with the paradox of ongoing change as inescapable condition for the maintenance of their unchanging identity. (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 455)

Physicians find proof of this statement in the fact that different persons have different endosemiotic reactions to the same signs. This suggests the following definition as a basis for more complex definitions: the 'semiotic self' is the hidden interpreter in the radical sense that even the single cell has its semiotic self or its 'Ego-Ton' (J.v. Uexküll 1940) as hidden interpreter of the impressions on its receptors. The private characterr of signs and their hidden interpreters ('semiotic selves'), with their changing interpretants, are the basis for 'identity' and 'individuality', both qualities that cannot be shared with others. (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 457)

These considerations have two consequences for biosemiotics: (1) They clear out understanding of other living beings, non-human and human: we can imagine ourselves in the position of other living beings, but our and their identity and individuality make it impossible for us to actually become the others. (2) Biosemiotic inquiry is therefore always interpretation of interpretations, or in one word, meta-interpretation. We must interpret the observed behavior of a living being as a reply to its interpretations of its environment. (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 458)

Every behavioral reply to a sign has to be seen as an activity which can be realized only with the help of a matching counter-activity of the environment. Every step requires the resistance of ground, ever ybreath requires the presence of air. No role can be played without the matching counter-role of a partner. Taking requires giving, speaking listening and vice versa.
Just as our behavioral activities need help from the human and/or non-human environment, every reply to a sign must reveal the secret of its signified object. This is the reason for its 'public character.'
A last remark: Sebeok draws our attention to important exceptions to these relations between sign and its signified object with a hint of Freud's statement that the only kind of defence against a danger from within is not motor-activity, but flight from awareness: the flight from awareness as reply to the private sign 'anxiety' prevents its signified object from becoming public by preventing the subject from knowing about it. Moreover, the public character of signified objects is also prevented if the response to signs is not a motor activity, but merely some type of activity (trial actions) in our imagination. However, this reaction to signs seems to be specific to human beings (because it requires - in psychoanalytic terminology - secondary proccesses). (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 459)

In semioses of informatios (or signification) the inanimate environment acts as a 'quasi-emitter', because it seems not to assume any semiotic function. Böttner (1980) explains that in these semioses all semiotic functions have to be performed by the receiver. In this way living systems assign meanings to the signals which they receive via the receptors. The meanings correspond to the systems' biological needs, and transforms the signals into (for example) signs for medium, territory, enemy, etc. (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 460)

In semioses of symptomatization the emitter is a living being sending signals by its behavior or posture which are not directed toward any recceiver and do not await an answer. Signs in this category are called 'symptoms'. They inform expert observers about the situation or state of living beings. This kind of sign plays an important role in medicine (Th.v. Uexküll 1984). Again, interpretation seems to be the task of the receiver alone (for example, the physician discovering a symptom of disease), yet the metaphor of manual operation is no longer sufficient. G.H. Mead (1934) terms signs of this kind 'unintelligent gestures', and states that they do not represent cooperative activity yet, but only preparatory stages of it (see Mead 1934: 55f.). (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 460)

Only in semioses of communication do the emitter and the receiver share the semiotic task by informing each other about the interpretant (or the code) which gives the emitted signs the meaning intended by the emitter. Mead (1934) calls these processes of signification 'intelligent gestures'. He emphasizes that they are the prerequisite and foundation of cooperative activity; also, they constitute a prerequisite and foundation for any actual communication. In this case signs attain their 'public character' only through exchange of information between emitter and receiver. (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 460-461)

Analyzing the strands which weave the context of our world in this way means exploring the relations between interpreters of signs and their animate and inanimate partners. Here we are sooner or later confronted with the ffact that the body enters the scene, because there are no interactions with the environment in which it does not take part. (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 462)

This possibility of role-changing between subject and object is even more obvious in the semioses of symtomization that create our bedy-self. Neurologists have discovered that we possess our body as reality of body-self only through feedback-messages of the body to its own messages of muscle activity. Oliver Sacks (1984) describes in detail these semioses between the movable parts of the body and certain parts of the central nervous system:

It it this 'muscle sense', as it was called, before Sherrington investigated it and renamed it 'proprioception' - it is this sense dependent on impulses from muscles, joints and tendons, usually overlooked because normally unconscious, it is this vital 'sixth sense' by which the body knows itsely, judges with perfect, automatic, instantaneous precision the position and motion of all its movable parts, their relation to one another, their alignment in space.... The word 'proprioception' implies a sense of what is 'proper' - that by which the body knows itself, and has itself as property.... One has oneself, one is oneself, because the body knows itself, confirms itself, at all times, by this sixth sense. I wonder how much the aburd dualism of philosophy since Descartes might have been avoided by proper understanding of 'proprioception'.

In a dramatic story, Socks (1984) informs us about what happens if the semioses connecting the activity of the muscles with our nervous system and its feedback-messages fail. Their absence gives evidence that the body, which we call 'our body' and which we experience as our 'body-self', must be continually constructed by these semioses.
Sacks had undergone surgery in London after an accident that had caused a rupture of a large muscle in his leg. After the removal of the cast it happened:

I turned... to my leg... And in that instance, I no longer knew it. In that instant, that very first encounter, I knew not my leg. It was utterly strange, not-mine, unfamiliar. I gazed upon it with absolute non-recognition. I have had - we all have had - sudden odd moments of non-recognition, jamais vu; they are uncanny while they last, but they pass very soon, and we are back in the known and familiar world. But this did not pass - it grew deeper and deeper - and stronger and stranger.

The title of Sackns's book, A Leg to Stand On (in German, 'the day my leg went away'), hints at how long it took before his leg 'came back'. In this period he learned that his body was not a possession that could be lost by 'pathogenesis' and can be restored by healing, but that it must be continually built up by semioses as 'salutogenesis' (Antonowsky 1987) needing its pragmatic feedback messages. (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 463-465)

Hoffer (1966) has described the importance of integration of hand and mouth for the development of Self and Ego in our early evolution. The pediatrician and analyst Winnicott (1954) was especially interested in the roots of 'being' and the connection between 'being' and 'self'. He wonders about the meaning of the term 'I am', and suggests that the actor who understands this problem should perform the first line of Hamlet's famous monologue, 'To be or not to be...', in a very special way: as if trying to understand an inscrutability, he should say, 'To be... or...', then keep silent, since he cannot know any alternative. (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 465)

Returning to my initial remarks: we have to acknowledge that all this is not new. It is a rediscovery of a cencept at the turn of the eighteenth century, as a consequence of an idea of the Scottish physician John Brown (Tsouyopolous 1988). His theory of 'irritability' (which corresponds to Winnicot's concept of creativity) has been interpreted by the philosophiral-minded German physicial Andreas Röschlaub in a way that inspired the philosopher Schelling in his early writings. Schelling influenced one of the most outstanding physicians of that time, Johannes Müller (1801-1856), the founder of physiological medicine, with his theory of the 'specific sensory energy' as a 'creative energy of life' (J.v. Uexküll 1977). According to this theory the senses of living beings create colors, sounds, cold, warm, soft, hard, up and down, in front and behind as signs for objects in their environment. In his 'handbook' of the physiology of man, Müller writes (1840):

The sensations of our senses are not the transmission of a quality or a state of outer objects to the consciousness, but the transmission of a quality or a astate of a sensory nerve to the consciousness, instigated by an outer event; and these qualities are different in different sensory nerves: the energies of the senses.

But, as I mentioned, this culmination of a semiotic biology, medicine, and the most advanced development of the paradigm of circumstancial proof has been extinguished by the 'scientific revolution' (Kuhn 1962) of the incipient technical culture. Müller's followers (among them heroes of the new positivistic trend) achieved in an astonishingly short time the paradigm-change in medicine, from a semiotic science to a science based on Newton's mechanics as its foundation (Th.v. Uoxküll 1991). (Th.v. Uexküll 1992: 467)

• Tsouyopoulos, N. 1988. The influence of John Brown's ideas on Germany. Medical History, Supplement 8, 63-74.
• Wiener, Norbert 1954. The relation between the mind and the body-psyche. British Journal of Medical Psychology 27.

On John Bulwer

Green, Thomas R. and Louis G. Tassinary 2002. The Mechanization of Emotional Expression in John Bulwer's "Pathomyotomia" (1649). The American Journal of Psychology 115(2): 275-299.

John Bulwer's Pathomyotomia of 1649 appears to be the first substantial English-language work on the muscular basis of emotional expressions. Although Bulwer's impact on modern investigators has been indirect at best, it is clear that he confronted many of the issues concerning the nature of the emotions and their relationship to facial movements, although his solutions to these problems clearly reflect the theories and methods of his time. (Green & Tassinary 2002: 275)

Useful piece of information. I would have considered Charles Bell the first to take note of facial muscles in relation with emotional expressions.

A strange Essay Indeed, that dares to trace
All the rare Springs and Wards that move a face
To make Anatomy by Muscle wind
The swiftest motions of the minged mind
Natures high piece of Clockworke this You call
Reason and Spring winds up, the Muscles all
Like wheels move this or that way, swift or slow,
As the Affection's Weight doth make them go
- From a laudatory poem in Pathomyotomia (Bulwer, 1949, pp. xv-xvi)

Hmm. "The swiftest motions" sound like microexpressions and "The Affection's Weight" like the expression of emotion.

Whereas in his first two works he explored the uses of hand and finger gestures, in Pathomyotomia Bulwer addressed the expressive movements of the head and face, making a detailed analysis of the muscular basis of different emotional expressions. The unusual title was an invention of his own, referring to the Greek pathos (passion, emotion, experience) and myologus (muscle). The stated goal of the work was to present a new and more intuitive system for naming the muscles of the face, one in which muscles would be named after the passions they were used to express. The idea clearly foreshadowed the later work of French anatomist and electrophysiologist Guillaume-Benjamine Duchenne, who presented just such a terminology in his Méchanisme de la Physiognomie Humaine (Duchenne, 1862/1990). (Green & Tassinary 2002: 276)

I do enjoy invented words.

Of all the pre-twentieth-century works devoted primarily to the expression of emotion, only three receive much attention from modern psychologists. These are Sir Charles Bell's Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Paintings (1806/1984), Duchenne's Méchanisme (1862/1990), and Charles Darwin's influential The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872/1955), parts of which were inspired by the works of Bell and Duchenne. (Green & Tassinary 2002: 276)

Thus far I've managed to read only one of these (Darwin's Expressions).

In some respects, at least, Bulwer was more in sympathy with modern theorists and researchers than with many of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors. For example, in contrast to many pre-twentieth-century treatises on physiognomy, Pathomyotmia was concerned almost exclusively with the study of dynamic factial actions, as opposed to permanent structural aspects of the face. This approach is hardly surprising given Bulwer's background in gesture and kinesics. (Green & Tassinary 2002: 277)

This is important, as most physiognomies deal with static stuff, stereotypically with the structure of the skull. Yet I object to the use of the word "kinesics" here, as the word didn't appear until mid 20-th century and in my mind does not denote all body motion communication but Birdwhistell's study specifically.

Despite Bulwer's painstaking efforts to provide a thorough anatomic and psychophysical grounding for his classification of expressions, he operated under a fundamentally different set of assumptions regarding mind and body than we do today (or, for that matter, than did Darwin and Spencer). His Pathomyotomia may have some distinctly modern facets, but it is not a modern work, and this is part of its value to the modern investigator. It demonstrates that the importance of certain issues tends to transcend the particular theoretical systems that dominate in any given era. (Green & Tassinary 2002: 277)

This is why I am taken by acrhaism - some matters are not dependent on current theory and method but stand for universal interest.

The following eifht themes are among the most important and will recur often in our analysis: Why and how do emotions or passions arise, and what is the role of the body in this process? If the material seat of the mind is the brain, how does the brain transform the mind's continuous appraisal of the world into bodily events such as emotions and expressions? Why does the face seem to move in particular ways in apparent synchrony with different feelings or states of mind? What is the function or purpose of emotional or other forms of expression? Why do some movements, especially expressive movements, seem to occur involuntarily, and should they be regarded as instinctive? What are the immediate, proximal causes of the movements of the face? Which facial muscles seem to be associated with particular emotions or mental states? And finally, what causes or controls the particular patterning of facial movements for a complex expression such as laughter? (Green & Tassinary 2002: 278)

Interesting questions indeed, although there are many possible answer to each outlined in numerous modern works which I have yet to consult.

Bulwer saw emotions or passions as a process divided into several distinct stages, somewhat analogous to the information processing and appraisal theories of today. The first stage involves the conveyance of sensory information about the world to the brain. here, the appetite, a reflexlike appraiser of what is harmful or beneficial, makes a rapid judgment of the sense data in terms of its desirabilitu, and a series of motions is triggered throughout the mind and body. Some of these motions involve the presentation of the sense data to the soul, where an image or idea is experienced in consciousness; other motions reverberate throughout the body, causing adjustments in vital (life-supporting) physiological systems. The entire process was seen as highly automated; "whence the sense offering what is desired, the motions are done no otherwise than as you see in machines, the pullies loos'd, one thrusting forward the other, but in machines without the mutation of qualities" (pp. 17-18). (Green & Tassinary 2002: 178-179)

This should be compared to the biosemiotic accounts available today.

Bulwer did not believe that nervous activity consisted of spirits issuing through the nerves from one part of the body to another; rather, the nervous system was conceived as perpetually full of flowing spirits, which somehow conducted information to and from the brain by a means faster than the movement of fluids. His favorite metaphor is a musical one. Just as striking the string of an instrument produce notes and chords of precise intervals on a scale, so does the soul's motive faculty cause the mobile spirits to fly to their appointed organs. Exactly how this happens is not specific, but one can speculate that Bulwer conceived of every innervated part of the body having its own designated chord, such that the brain caused spirits to vibrate at the correct combination of frequencies needed to activate the appropriate part of the body. (Green & Tassinary 2002: 280)

I think a whole lot can be written about musical metaphors in science. Especially the case of von Uexküll's tones and counterpoints comes to mind.

As the tongue speaketh to the ear, so the gesture speaketh to the eye.
- from Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning (1605/1869) (as cited in Cleary, 1974, p. xiii).

Neat. This sounds just as epic as the famous quotes from Sapir and Freud.

• Bulwer, J. 1644. Chirologia: or, the natural language of the hand, and Chironomia: or, the art of manual rhetoric. London: T. Harper.
• Bulwer, J. 1648. Philocophus: Or the deaf and dumb man's friend. London: Humphrey Moseley.
• Bulwer, J. 1649. Pathomyotomia: Or a dissection of the significative muscles of the affections of the mind. London: Humphrey Moseley.
• Bulwer, J. 1650. Anthropometamorphosis: Man transform'd; or the artificial changeling. London: J. Hardesty.
• Cleary, J. 1959. John Bulwer: Renaissance communicationist. Quarterly Journal of Speech 45: 391-398.
• Harre, R. 1986. The social construction of emotions. New York: Basil Blackwell.
• Minsky, M. 1986. The society of mind. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Smith, Justin E. H. 2010. ‘A Corporall Philosophy’: Language and ‘Body-Making’ in the Work of John Bulwer (1606–1656). In: Wolfe, Charles T. and Ofer Gal (eds.), The Body as Object and Instrument of Knowledge: Embodied Empiricism in Early Modern Science. Dordrecht: Springer, 169-183.

But how does a gesturology amount to the culmination of something left incomplete in Bacon’s own work? (Smith 2010: 171)

Hmm. What Bulwer calls Chirologia is here named gesturology (a term I'm meeting for the first time).

Bulwer often invokes the metonymy of ‘the hand’ to describe body language in general. (Smith 2010: 171)

Indeed he does.

“...it does not appear that Bulwer’s work had much impact on the main body of language projectors” (Lewis 2007, 46) (Smith 2010: 171)

The previous author also contended that Darwin and others dismissed Bulwer's work. Yet it is clear that Bulwer's body of work comprises a universe of interest for the nonverbalist.

Most early modern theories of a primordial Adamic language held that it was not spoken language as such that compromised true meanings in favour of their mere approximation in the sounds that humans agree by convention will stand in for them. But Bulwer appears to want to argue that speaking, whether pre- or post-lapsarian, corrupts meanings precisely because sounds can only ever be conventional. For this reason, the true primordial embodiment of meaning is only to be found in the body itself, which is to say in gesture. (Smith 2010: 172)

define:lapsarian - "The Fall of Man or simply the Fall refers in Christian doctrine to the transition of the first humans from a state of innocent obedience..."
I tend to agree with Bulwer here - if there is universal meaning then it is embodied in human anatomy and physiology. This is a blunt statement, but a more elaborate formulation can be construed later.

Even what is sometimes called 'giving the finger' is qualified by Bulwer as 'naturall': "The putting forth of the middle-Finger, the rest drawn into a First on each side, which is then called... vulgarly Higa, in the ancient tongue, pugner ..., is a naturall expression of scorne and contempt. Hence also Martial calls this Finger, Digitum impudicum." Bulwer's insight here seems to be that the middle finger functions as a sort of 'natural symbol' in virtue of certain anatomical correspondences that are transparent to any observer. (Smith 2010: 173)

Now that is interesting! Also, the word "impudence" suddenly makes perfect sense.

He complains of all of these ‘Nations’, the Virginians, the Englishwomen, the Italians, and the Moors alike, “what needlesse paine they put themselves unto to maintaine their cruell bravery! Nay, which is yet stranger, they seeme to love this unnaturall and bloudy Gallantry so well, that they hate their own flesh and bloud, whereof they freely sacrifice to their fantasticall imaginations.” (Smith 2010: 177-178)

Some people like to quote Shakespeare. I think today's youth would do well to learn these words and expound them on people wearing tattoos. It would make a sight to behold.

It is hard to imagine that Bulwer might have thought that any proposition whatsoever could be expressed by natural gesture. Did he really think that one could debate, say, transubstantiation vs. consubstantiation without resorting to conventional signs? Probably not, but he also probably does not think that such doctrinal disputes, or adherence to doctrine, is necessary for the possession of natural wisdom. In this connection, Bulwer again seems to be in agreement with ancient Stoic, and perhaps Cynic, doctrine, according to which animals are the supreme embodiment of reason. The language of the hand, which is to say gesture, is for Bulwer just the language of animals, which, while lacking hands strictly speaking, nonetheless comport themselves in such a way that their internal states can be read directly off of their bodies. (Smith 2010: 181)

Something for the zoosemiotician.

Wollock, Jeffrey 2012. Psychological Theory of John Bulwer. In: Rieber, Robert W. (ed.), Encyclopedia of the History of Psychological Theories. Dordrecht: Springer, 839-856.

John Bulwer (1606–1656) was a London physician best known for his writings on gesture, the semiotics of the body, and speech for the deaf. However, his psychological theory has received almost no attention from historians, and the fact that Bulwer was the most important British contributor to the psychology of motor action, physical expression, and nonverbal communication in the period between William Harvey (ca. 1627) and Thomas Willis (1664) has gone largely unrecognized. (Wollock 2012: 839)

Ha! So the dates of his birth and death are indeed known. Also, I should look into the psychology of motor action; and check out the two physicians/doctors mentioned here.

Man’s corrupt ingenuity had invented myriad modes of disfiguring what William Blake would later term “the human form divine,” by way of dress, cosmetics, and mutilation. Like the other works this one is about the semiotics of the human body. It has been frequently described as a work about “monsters,” but this extends the word monster in a way that Bulwer could not have intended. (Wollock 2012: 841)

There have been many semiotics of the human body, so this is just one possible meaning of the term.

Medical signs are both nonverbal and natural. An observable physical sign points to an underlying condition not by custom but by natural connection. In
Peirce’s terms, it is an index. In Galenic medicine, “disordered motions” or “injured actions” are recognized as a distinct class of symptoms (Wollock 1997:109–112). However, a physician must be able to recognize not only disease but also health and all degrees in between. Thus, just as disordered motion is a class of symptom, so all motions of the body provide clues as to what Bulwer calls (borrowing a phrase from King James I’s Basilikon Doron, 1599, also quoted by Bacon) “the present humour and state of the minde and will.” This is virtually equivalent to the study of expression as suggested by Bacon, who himself reviewed the natural signs of fear, grief and pain, joy, anger, light displeasure, shame, pity, wonder, laughing, and lust in his Sylva Sylvarum (published posthumously in 1627), “Experiments in consort touching the impressions which the passions of the mind make upon the body” (Cent. VIII, experiments 713–722). (Wollock 2012: 842)

Wollock makes a recourse to Augustine's and Peirce's definitions of the sign and then follows up with bodily signs (nonverbal and natural).

But it is also possible to construct artificial nonverbal signs, which Bacon calls “real characters.” These are as arbitrary as alphabetical symbols, and may be adopted by convention. Being abstract, and capable of systematization, they are more rational than the “primitive” hieroglyph and gesture, and thus an improvement and advancement.
Significantly, Bulwer scarcely alludes to the real character, except in one place where he refers to the gestures of the hand as the “universall character of Reason” (1644a:3), and another where he describes the correspondence between particular speech sounds (from whatever language) and the motions of the mouth necessary to produce them, as “very neere to the nature of an universall character” (1648:156, cf. 38–41). This lack of interest in the artificial real character can be explained by the fact that Bulwer, as a physician, privileged the natural over the artificial. This also had ethical implications – the natural is morally superior to the arbitrary, misleading character of verbal language – an outlook he shared with Bacon (Wollock 2002:230–240). The real character, though intended to provide an accurate reflection of the structure of reality and all its interrelationships, was still an artificial construct; Bulwer preferred a ready-made, universal mode of expression emanating straight from the roots of human nature and the structure of the human body (cf. Wollock, forthcoming). (Wollock 2012: 842-843)

These are basically nonverbalist assumptions.

Gesture is impossible without the ability of the body to move itself. Pathomyotomia (1649) begins by affirming that self-motion is the highest perfection of the animate creature, the Creator’s last and noblest end in the fabric of the body; that it belongs to the very substance of the animal; and that the chiefest and nearest instruments of animate motion are the muscles. (Wollock 2012: 843)

Self-motion (#self!) may be useful for discussing automaticity and programmes of behavior.

. . . what is custome? if I should aske, you would spend above two days in deliberation what you were to say, & it would fall out well if you could then come off with credit (Exerc. 339, 1620:1017–1018), Custome is nothing else but a habit, but a habit is not the cause of motions but a quality added to the motion [the qualities of promptness, order, and timing, according to Scaliger’s own text], because it so adheres to the members, that [it]. . . brings forth its actions as they are to be done without any inquisition. Custome, indeed, and the aptitude of parts doe advance and helpe forwards the doing or perfecting of some motions. (Bulwer 1649: 36)

As habit is a common word in Peirce's semiotics and Bourdieu's theory and many other discourses elsewhere, this definition may prove useful.

Now, everything that we call muscle, Aristotle referred to as a kind of flesh. If flesh is the organ of touch and movement is a common sensible perceptible through touch, then one feels a proportionate sense of tactile movement in this flesh when either pushing or resisting an object possessing weight. Since the body itself, and every part of it, possesses weight, the weight of one’s own body can be sensed in every local motion, whether of the whole body (holon athróon) or any part (kata méros). This is the same phenomenon that Bastian in the nineteenth century called kinesthesia and Sherrington in the twentieth, proprioception. (Wollock 2012: 845)

From Thure von Uexküll I learned about the origin of proprioception. Until now I had no idea where kinesthesia came from. No doubt this is an interesting avenue to take in future readings.

Bulwer was, in the style of his day, both a scientific investigator and a philosopher. The larger issues he grappled with continue to confront modern researchers, who are only now beginning to recognize him as a pioneer in their field. We realize that he was in fact the first to take a scientific approach, consciously in the spirit of Francis Bacon, to many psychophysical issues of human communication that are of great interest today, whereas his philosophical insights are drawn from the whole history of the subject, emanating particularly from Aristotle and Galen (whose psychological acumen is today recognized as timeless) and their late renaissance interpreters like Scaliger (1620 [1537]) and Marinelli (1615). If Bulwer was ignored for so long, we can say in hindsight that this is not because he is unimportant, but because it has required a long historical perspective to understand that he was “ahead of his time.” (Wollock 2012: 857)

Indeed I can jot Bulwer down as a proto-nonverbalist.

• Arbib, M. A. (ed.). (2006). Action to language via the mirror neuron system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Butterworth, G. (1995). An ecological perspective on the origins of self. In J. Bermudez, A. Marcel & N. Eilan (Eds.), The body and the self (pp. 87–105). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
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