The Tao of Life

The book describes a hypothesis on the origin of life on earth. It assumes that the microcosmic molecular basis of life arose by adaptation to the overlaying macrocosmic astronomical rhythms impacting on the earth. Viewed from the earth these rhythms appear as the 'course' of the sun, the moon and the starry sky. They generate the time cycles of the 24 hour day, of the month and the year and, together, are united in a 'joint rhythm circle' by a fourth rhythm, the 19 years lasting lunisolar cycle (Meton cycle). The basic structure of the Chinese Book of Changes (I Ging) was also derived from the macrocosmic astronomical rhythms impacting on the earth. These rhythms and the resulting 'cyclical time' of the earth were observed by early Chinese and used for creating the Book of Changes as a symbolical microcosmic representation of the macrocosmic rhythms. Therefore, the molecular basis of life and the basic structure of the I Ging resemble each other. According to the presented approach, the basis of life is a microcosmic 'copy' of the macrocosmic rhythms. This provides a simple explanation for the unity of macro- and microcosm in the sense that the microcosm includes the macrocosmic pattern of order in itself.

Der Autor (Jahrgang 1955) ist seit 1993 Evolutionsmorphologe am Leibniz Institut für Zoo- und Wildtierforschung (IZW), Berlin. Er absolvierte ein Studium der Biologie an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg im Breisgau mit anschließender Promotion bei Prof. G. Osche. Seit Studentenzeiten besteht ein großes Interesse für das "Chinesische Buch der Wandlungen" (I Ging). Entscheidende Inspiration erfuhr der Autor durch Frank Fiedelers Buch "Die Monde des I Ging" (Eugen Diederichs Verlag 1988).