Dance of life

Summarizing findings in physics and biology that should inform social science, Barbara Adam writes, “All organisms, from single cells to human beings and even ecosystems, display rhythmic behaviour. Rhythmicity is a universal phenomenon. Scientists conceptualise atoms as probability waves, molecules as vibrating structures, and organisms as symphonies. Living beings, they suggest, are permeated by rhythmic cycles which range from the very fast chemical and neuron oscillations, via the slower ones of heartbeat, respiration, menstruation, and reproduction to the very long range ones of climactic changes. Their activity and rest alternations, their cyclical exchanges and transformations, and their seasonal and diurnal sensitivity form nature’s silent pulse. Some of this rhythmicity constitutes the organisms unique identity; some relates to its life cycle; some binds the organism to the rhythms of the universe; and some functions as a physiological clock by which living beings ‘tell’ cosmic time.”

Adam uses this evidence to cleverly deconstruct the dualism of natural/social time that is a foundational structure of much social science. The notion that human rhythms respond to astronomical ones makes the point vividly: “All the varied cycles of physiological activity – temperature, blood pressure, respiration, pulse, haemoglobin and amino acid levels, hormone production, organ function, cell division – rise and fall within [circadian rhythms of light and darkness] and are synchronised into a cohesive temporal whole. The image of a symphony is frequently used to stress the complexity, the interdependence, and the fine-tuning involved. This bodily symphony, however, is not placed in isolation. It is performed in synchrony with all the earth’s other symphonies.”

Obviously, these rhythms are integrated with, adjusted and adapted to, suppressed by artificial organizations of time – whether technological (clock, bell, whistle, electric lights) or social (holiday, festival). And the various artificial forms of time-formation take their rise from, and symbolize, these natural rhythms.