"And I said: ’An anthropoid ape is trying to live: a clam is trying to live; an algae is trying to live; a man is trying to live. Living is duration through time and the proper word to describe that is SURVIVE and -- my god -- I’ve done it!’ "
L. Ron Hubbard
After his return to the United States, Ron had begun to substantiate the basis of a theory and in 1937, he conducted a series of biological experiments which led to a breakthrough discovery.
Having cultured a strain of bacterial cells, Ron first exposed them to steam, noting that the water vapor did not affect the cells whatsoever. Next, applying cigarette smoke, which contains deadly toxins, to the cells, he observed that the culture both reacted and retreated from the threat. Then, after taunting the cells with smoke, he substituted steam again and observed that the cells now misidentified the steam as something toxic and retreated. He cultured a second and third generation of cells from the first. Then Ron found that when he took a batch of third generation cells and exposed them to steam, they seemed to have a built-in genetic "memory," and so also misidentified the steam for toxic smoke and reacted.
"This is obviously a process of learning -- at a microscopic level," Ron explained. "These experiments seemed clearly to support the postulate that the basic unit of life was a cell and that as the cell behaved, so the most complex life organism behaved." Utilizing the knowledge gained from this experiment and his observation of the answers, Ron was now able to establish that long sought after dynamic principle of existence.
"The monocell is trying to survive and procreate," he wrote. "It must, therefore, approach and stay in the vicinity of pleasure and it must avoid pain. The two vectors of approaching pleasure and avoiding pain combine into one vector which is the survival not only of one cell but of the whole line of monocells through many generations. This is no different than the function of any other organism, no matter how large. The growing complexity of life organisms has been a development of better and better ways of approaching pleasure and avoiding pain in order to survive. This is a fundamental concept. It is a very simple concept."
"And I said: ’An anthropoid ape is trying to live; a clam is trying to live; an algae is trying to live; a man is trying to live. Living is duration through time, and the proper word to describe that is SURVIVE and -- my god -- I’ve done it!’"
