From atoms and orbiting electrons to galaxies, we see self-similarity in objects from small to large. They’re everywhere: in the clouds above you, in a piece of coastline or a river network; in the shape of leaves and snowflakes. Scientists call these self-similar shapes fractals. Because they appear similar at all levels of magnification, fractals are often considered infinitely complex. Other examples of natural fractals include mountain ranges, lightning bolts, trees, river networks, lines in the palm of your hand and blood vessels. A branch of a tree or frond of a fern is said to be recursive because each is a replica of the whole, not identical but similar in nature. Repeating a process indefinitely and asking whether the result is infinite resembles feedback processes in the everyday world, according to James Gleick, author of Chaos: Making a New Science.

The concept of fractal geometry, developed by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975, originated in chaos theory, both of which show that natural order is not random, given that it generates its own order. It’s self-organized.

“Water is a self-organizing system,” writes Dr. Paolo Consigli, author of Water, Pure and Simple. Water’s self-organizing generates spontaneous order and synchronicity from disorder through the local interactions of components within its disordered state. The system creates islands of predictability in a sea of chaotic unpredictability. It’s self-creating; it’s “autopoietic.”

According to biochemist and plant biologist Rupert Sheldrake, all living things have their own fields. Morphic fields create information clusters through their living memory bank, which regulate the networks of living systems. This drives evolution, says Sheldrake, who posited that nature conveys information from the macro- to the micro-world through the repeating geometric form of fractals.

Science writer Alick Bartholomew writes that, “Fractals are generated by the quantum field working with water in the transfer of information.”

Decades ago, at university, I learned in my ecology and limnology courses that the environment of inanimate and animate things was interconnected and interdependent. Nature and her ecosystems flowed in a dynamic network of relationships, succession and sustainability. Systems generally operated through a closed loop of natural creative–destruction; from birth, growth and production to senescence, decay, and recycling to a redistribution, reclaiming and rebirth. The yin–yang closed circle of the Ouroborous. Unlike most reductionist mainstream sciences, the study of ecology elucidates Nature’s “intent” (in defying the second law of thermodynamics) to not only conserve, but sometimes to create energy and promote evolution.

While mainstream science recognizes many of water’s weird and anomalous qualities—such as being a powerful solvent, its need to move, spiral and pulsate, that it balances temperature and has unique density properties—mainstream scientists do not understand (or even accept) some of water’s quantum properties—such as its ability to store or transmit information, self-organize, self-purify, and exhibit some of the properties of life.

For instance, water can transfer vibrational information, through a phenomenon called jump conduction or proton tunnelling, delivering frequencies for long distances at the speed of light. Jump conduction describes how water molecules continually switch polarities as protons pass rapidly through the matrix of fairly static, hydrogen-bonded water molecules. This establishes a kind of coded history or “memory” not unlike what a computer does.

As early as 1806, Theodor Grotthuss proposed a theory of liquid “decomposition” mediated by electrical currents. He envisioned the electrolytic reaction as a kind of “bucket line,” in which each oxygen atom passes and receives a single hydrogen atom. His description of proton-hopping through the cooperation of neighbouring water molecules was later known as the Grotthus mechanism. The mechanism, also called proton jumping describes how an “excess” proton travels along the hydrogen bond network of water molecules as covalent bonds form and cleave.

Water behaves in a quantum way.

 

References:

Bartholomew, Alick. 2010. “The Spiritual Life of Water: Its Power 
and Purpose.” Park Street Press. 368 pp.

Consigli, Paolo. 2012. “Water, Pure and Simple: The Infinite Wisdom of an Extraordinary Molecule.” Watkins Publishing. 244 pp.

Gleick, James. 1987 (2008). “Chaos: Making a New Science.” Penguin 
Books. 384 pp.

Ho, Mae-Wan. 2014. “Water Is the Means, Medium and Message of Life.” Int. J. Design & Nature and Ecodynamics 9 (1): 1–12.

Mandelbrot, Benoit. 1982. “The Fractal Geometry of Nature.” W.H. Freeman and Company. 480 pp.

Riistama, S., G. Hummer, A. Puustinen, R.B. Dyer, W.H. Woodruff,and M. Sikatrom. 1997. “Bound Water in the Proton Translocation Mechanism of the Haem–Copper Oxidation.” FEBS Letters 414: 275–289.

Sheldrake, Rupert. 1982. “A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of 
Formative Causation.” J.P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles. 229 pp.

Varela, Francisco, Humberto Maturana, and R. Uribe. 1980.“Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Organization of the Living.” Reidel, Boston. 141 pp.

This article is an excerpt from “Water Is…” (Pixl Press) by Nina Munteanu

On sale worldwide May 10, 2016

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist, limnologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.