The Doctrine of Signatures as Nature's First Science

The Mystery of the Bee Orchid

Consider the bee orchid (Ophrys apifera). Its flower mirrors the body of a female bee so precisely—furry, striped, pheromone-scented—that male bees attempt to mate with it, unwittingly pollinating the plant. Evolutionary biologists puzzle at this uncanny resemblance. Standard theory invokes gradual selection for bee-like features, yet the precision suggests something more: that forms resonate across species, appearing as signatures in a shared field of meaning.

The Doctrine of Signatures, long dismissed as pre-scientific thinking, proposed that nature marks her creations with signs of their inward virtue. Here, we explore this ancient intuition through a radical scientific lens—not as quaint folklore, but through the framework of codality, a principle recently articulated by Ji and Davis whereby life both reads and writes into an informational field that may underlie physical reality itself.

The Ancient Recognition

The Doctrine of Signatures — Nature's Semiotic System

Paracelsus (1493–1541) declared that "Nature marks each growth... according to its curative benefit." Jakob Böhme's The Signature of All Things (1621) crystallized this worldview, claiming that God inscribed a legible text into nature. Liverwort for the liver, eyebright for the eyes, walnuts for the brain. This wasn't unique to Europe—across continents, Indigenous healers employed parallel logic: in Ayurveda, the taste of an herb (sweet, bitter, pungent) signals its effects; in Chinese medicine, color corresponds to organs (red for blood, green for liver).

William Coles, in Art of Simpling (1656), wrote: "God hath not only stamped upon plants a distinct form, but also given them particular Signatures, whereby a man may read, even in legible characters, the use of them."

The doctrine was never merely about superficial resemblance. It constituted a system of reading nature as text—biosemiotics before the field existed. These observers, lacking our molecular tools, nonetheless detected real patterns that we can now partially validate through nutritional science.

The Documented Correspondences

Food as Information, Not Just Fuel

Modern nutritional science confirms that many signature resemblances correspond to genuine therapeutic relationships. While mainstream science attributes this to coincidence or observer bias, the patterns are striking:

• Walnuts — The Brain's Mirror. Walnuts resemble a miniature brain, complete with hemispheres and a corpus callosum-like seam. They contain precisely the lipids the brain requires: alpha-linolenic acid, DHA precursors, and neuroprotective polyphenols.

  

• Clinical studies confirm walnut consumption improves cognition and protects against Alzheimer's. The "coincidence" extends to the molecular level—walnuts are among the richest sources of the exact fatty acids that comprise brain tissue.

• Carrots — The Eyes' Lamp. Slice a carrot: its rings resemble the iris and pupil. Carrots contain beta-carotene, converted into vitamin A—essential for rhodopsin in the retina. Diets rich in carotenoids significantly reduce macular degeneration. The signature extends beyond appearance: both the eye and carrot exhibit radial symmetry, a shared geometric principle.

• Pomegranate — The Ovary. Open a pomegranate: its many red arils resemble clustered ova within ovarian tissue. Research shows pomegranates protect ovarian reserve, improve uterine blood flow, and reduce hormone-dependent cancers. The fruit contains phytoestrogens (and even bioidentical testosterone) that specifically modulate female reproductive hormones.

• Tomatoes — The Heart. A sliced tomato reveals four chambers, like the heart. Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, which specifically accumulates in cardiac tissue and reduces cardiovascular disease risk by up to 30%. The red pigment that creates the visual similarity is the very compound providing the benefit.

• Grapes — The Alveoli. Grape clusters mirror both lung alveoli and mammary tissue. Grapeseed extract demonstrates powerful effects against lung and breast cancer specifically. Resveratrol in grape skins protects pulmonary function and breast tissue through targeted antioxidant activity. Resveratrol, in fact, has hundreds of documented benefits to mammalian physiology as documented extensively on the Greenmedinfo.com database, making the consumption of it a profound intervention in human health.

• Ginseng — The Human Form. Ginseng roots often resemble the human body, sometimes complete with limbs. In Chinese medicine, it's the supreme adaptogen for whole-system vitality. Modern research confirms ginseng modulates the HPA axis, supporting systemic stress response—a whole-body effect matching its whole-body appearance. Learn more about the role of miRNAs in ginseng’s well-documented therapeutic profile.

  

These correspondences extend beyond chance when examined statistically. A systematic analysis would likely reveal that signature resemblances predict therapeutic relationships at rates exceeding random distribution.

The Theoretical Framework

Codality and the Informational Field

To understand how these correspondences might arise through more than coincidence, we turn to cutting-edge theoretical physics and biology. Ji and Davis recently introduced "codality"—information-mediated correlation distinct from force-mediated causation. In their framework, two objects can correlate not through direct energy exchange but through shared information in a mediating field.

This concept gains substance when combined with emerging research on biological information transfer:

Plant MicroRNAs and Trans-Kingdom Communication
Zhang et al. (2012) demonstrated that plant microRNAs survive digestion and enter mammalian bloodstreams, where they regulate gene expression. Rice microRNA-168a specifically binds to mammalian LDLRAP1, affecting cholesterol metabolism. This isn't mere nutrition—it's information transfer. The plant literally writes instructions that our cells read and execute.

However, these findings remain controversial. Replication studies have shown mixed results, and because it concerns the dark side of genetic modification, the topic is highly contested. Yet the possibility is profound: we may be in constant genetic dialogue with our food. And if so, we should reevaluate all RNA interference systems used in our food supply with a new toxicological risk model.

Morphogenetic Fields and Biological Organization
Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of morphogenetic fields—while not accepted by mainstream biology—offers a framework for understanding how forms might resonate across species. These fields would carry the informational template for biological structures, potentially explaining why a walnut's convolutions mirror brain gyri, or why kidney beans curve like the organs they benefit.

Recent work attempts to ground this concept in physics. Konstantin Meyl proposes that DNA acts as a helical antenna for scalar waves—longitudinal electromagnetic waves that could carry biological information. His calculations suggest DNA's structure is optimized for transmitting and receiving such signals. If biological systems communicate through scalar fields, the resemblance between foods and organs might reflect shared resonance patterns in this informational medium.

The Aetheric Hypothesis
Some physicists propose reviving the concept of aether—not as a mechanical medium for light, but as an informational field underlying quantum mechanics. In this model, heavily developed by researchers like Rivera-Dugenio, scalar waves propagate through this field, carrying information without conventional electromagnetic constraints.

This remains highly speculative. Scalar waves, if they exist as proposed, have not been conclusively detected by mainstream physics. The experiments cited (Tesla's wireless transmission, Montagnier's DNA teleportation) are either historically ambiguous or lacking robust replication.

Yet the framework offers testable predictions:

• Separated biological samples from the same source should show correlated responses to stimuli

• DNA should exhibit electromagnetic properties consistent with scalar antenna function

• Informational medicine (homeopathy, flower essences) should show effects in properly shielded experiments