Ralph Stayner Lillie

From The Autonomous Field, 1945 by Gustaf Strömberg

By a study of different types of living fields we can obtain some idea of the characteristics of the non-physical world.   [...]

Whatever conception we have of how the heart has been developed in the animal world, there can be not doubt that, at present, it performs a very essential function in certain animals, and that its motions and structure . . .&nbps;are admirably adapted to perform this particular function. We may well say that the heart exhibits a purposeful action although we are not consciously aware of its purpose, which we have known for only a relatively short time. This observation indicates that one of the characteristics of the non-physical world is purposeful activity.

Another indication . . .&nbps;is offered by those muscles the activities of which are associated with a conscious will. In a consistent materialistic school of thought there can be no place for a will, as an independent and effective agency. Adherents to this school therefore claim that will is an epiphenomenon that accompanies certain muscular activities, but not others. This, however, is contrary to our experience, since we are well aware of a will, or at least a desire to do something, without the will being accompanied by any appreciable muscular action. In other words, the will does not seem to accompany muscular activities, and it certainly does not follow them. Instead, all our experience tells us that it precedes them, and it can therefore well be regarded as the cause of action. According to the autonomous-filed theory, the living field in our nervous system is modified and directed by something in our own consciousness which we cal l will, (etc). since will does not have any space properties, it belongs not to the physical but to the non-physical world, although it is in intimate association with the field structure. Again we find that in the non-physical world there is a purpose, which we perceive as will when it originates or appears in our consciousness. Whether or not the will is free to act is a question that cannot be answered [?] (etc). The only thing we can say about its origin is that it cannot be located in material particles, (etc).

These ideas are incomplete harmony with those expressed recently by R. S. Lillie. He regards living systems as "psycho-physical," that is, they are assumed to have both physical and psychological characteristics. I quote from one of his articles entitled "Living Systems and Non-Living Systems":¹¹ "in the adult animal . . .  the functioning of the whole organism as a biologically well adapted unity is demonstrably dependent in large part on psychological factors. It is true that these have their physiological correlates. Nevertheless, such general facts remind us, whenever we are inclined to forget, of the special character of the living organism as not merely a physical but a psychophysical system ; and they show the scientific insufficiency of a purely physical conception of the living organism." If we accept the idea that all organisms have psychological as well as physical properties, will may play a much more important part in the development of the living world than we have thought. Although this will only reaches our consciousness in special cases . . . we can still regard it as an active force, provided we accept the theory of the autonomy of force fields. But since we do now know to what degree, if any, our will is "real [?]," we cannot answer the question whether the will, whose effects we perceive, is that of the individual or of a more general "cosmic will." Personally I believe it is a combination of both.

      ¹¹ Philosophy of Science, 9, 319-320, 1942.   See also his latest article "Vital Organization and the Psychic Factor," Philosophy of Science, 11, 161, 1944.   In these and previous articles Professor Lillie has emphatically expressed the opinion that the organization in the living world cannot be reconciled with ordinary physical laws.   The autonomous-field theory developed from an attempt to explain the organization in the living world and at the same time to understand the origin of consciousness.

( Journal of the Franklin Institute, Vol. 239, pp. 27-40, 1945. )
Per The Soul of Universe by G. Strömber, 2nd ed.
Philadelphia : David McKay 1948, pp. 275-77.

Bibliographic (University of California)

Author Lillie, Ralph Stayner, 1875- Title General biology and philosophy of organism, by Ralph Stayner Lillie Publisher Chicago, Ill., University of Chicago Press [1945] Description 215 p. 23 cm Note Bibliographical foot-notes

Author Lillie, Ralph Stayner, 1875- Title Protoplasmic action and nervous action, by Ralph S. Lillie .. Edition 2 d ed. .. Publisher Chicago, Ill., The University of Chicago press [c1932] Description xiii, 417 p. illus., diagrs. 20 cm Series The University of Chicago science series Note Produced in 1967 by microfilm-xerography by University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Mich Note Bibliography at end of each chapter

Author Lillie, Ralph S. (Ralph Stayner), b. 1875. Title Protoplasmic action and nervous action, by Ralph S. Lillie. Publisher Chicago, Ill., University of Chicago Press [c1923] Description xiii, 417 p. 20 cm. Series The University of Chicago science series