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J.Konstapel,Leiden,14-10-2026..

Het boek From Cell to Mind onderzoekt de evolutie van prikkelbare cellen tot de menselijke geest in twee strikt gescheiden lagen.

The book asks one question. How did excitable cells, nerve nets, brains and minds evolve? It wants the answer in order, in sizes, in times and in counts. It also asks a second question. Can that evolution be described within the author’s Vacuum.Net model?

The book is the fourth in a series. Plants on the Ladder, The Company of Plants and The Weaving of Life covered photosynthetic life, co-evolution and the interweaving of the kingdoms. This volume follows one line through the animals. It runs from the charged membrane of a single cell to the human mind.

The design is unusual and it is the key to reading the book. The text is split into two layers that are kept strictly apart.

Layer A is biology only. It has ten chapters, A1 to A10. Each chapter follows the same template. What it is. First appearance. Partners or groups. Sizes. Times. Counts. Order of events. Present quantities. Each chapter closes with a Pattern paragraph of at most 150 words. Then it lists what could not be verified and its own references. Layer A never mentions the theory.

Part C gathers the numbers. Seven tables collect the measured values of Layer A across all chapters. They cover first appearances, repeated origins, sizes, times, lifetimes, neuron numbers and present-day quantities. Together they hold more than a thousand rows of data.

Layer B is the confrontation. It asks one question of Layer A. Do the measured patterns correlate with what the Vacuum.Net texts state? Nothing new is added. The texts speak of the membrane, the nerve cell, synchrony, sleep, seizure, memory and consciousness. Three tests were fixed from the texts before any dossier was written. Then they were run. Section B14 gives the answer to the book’s question.

This design has a clear business logic. The data are gathered first and blind to the theory. The claims are fixed before the data are seen. The outcomes stand as they fell. In a field where theory and evidence often blur, the book separates them by rule, not by rhetoric.

2. The rules that make the book checkable

Three rules run through the whole work.

Marks for every statement

Every factual claim carries a mark. Measured means the number was read in a cited source. Computed means arithmetic on measured numbers, shown openly. Modelled means the output of a published model. Text means a statement of a Vacuum.Net text, and appears only in Layer B. Read means a pairing between a text statement and a measured pattern. A read is a hypothesis, never a fact.

The ladder

Every size and every time is placed on a logarithmic scale of base three, called its position. The units are Larson’s natural units. A day sits at position 43.50. A year at 48.87. A two-millisecond spike at 27.50. An 80-year human lifetime at 52.86. The position is a coordinate. It lets the book compare a nanosecond ion current with a geological age on one axis.

What is not added

No rule is added to the theory. No sentence says the net causes a biological pattern. Where the texts are silent, Layer B says none. Chapter B12 collects these silences. The texts make no statement on neuron numbers, brain size, energy use, gene counts or sense-organ counts. The book records the gaps and refuses to fill them.

The verification discipline is strict. Citations were checked against OpenAlex or Crossref. Items found only in secondary sources are listed under “Not verified” and are treated as non-facts. Where two sources disagree, both numbers stand. The book does not choose.

3. Layer A: the ten chapters as one story

The ten chapters form a single arc. Each stage builds on the one before it. The story moves from chemistry, to cells, to networks, to organs, to behaviour, and finally to minds.

A1. The Excitable Cell

The story starts before neurons, before animals, before multicellularity. Every cell measured carries a voltage across its membrane. The inside is negative. Plant cells hold the largest values, up to −250 mV. Bacteria come next, at −105 to −150 mV. This is not a detail of animal life. It is a property of life itself, already present in LUCA.

Excitability comes from channels in the membrane. They open and close with voltage, ligand or touch. Potassium, sodium and calcium channels occur in bacteria, archaea, protists, algae, plants and animals. The voltage-gated sodium channel family emerged “more than a billion years ago”, before nervous systems and before multicellularity.

The chapter then shows that electrical signalling works long before there are nerves. Bacillus subtilis biofilms send long-range potassium waves. Diatoms fire fast sodium-based action potentials. The Venus flytrap closes its trap on action potentials. A glass sponge conducts all-or-none impulses with no neurons at all. The chapter sets the reference values the rest of the book will scale against. The neuron rests at −70 mV, with threshold −55 mV and peak +30 mV.

A2. Before the Neuron

If every cell is excitable, what is a neuron for? This chapter collects the parts of the neuron that exist without neurons. The post-synaptic scaffold occurs in choanoflagellates, the unicellular sister group of animals. Sponges keep a nearly complete post-synaptic scaffold without synapses. Placozoans coordinate feeding with secreted peptides.

The chapter also records the open question of the field. Did neurons arise once or twice? The answer hinges on the branching position of ctenophores. In ctenophores many bilaterian neuron-specific genes are absent or not expressed in neurons. The chapter logs every statement found on division of neurons in early animals. That record will matter in Layer B.

A3. Nerve Nets

The first true nervous systems are diffuse nets. The Pattern paragraph fixes the numbers for Hydra: 0.12 nerve cells per epithelial cell, in two nerve nets that do not mix. A stem pool of 3,000–6,000 cells supplies about 900 nerve cells per day. The whole net is renewed every two to three weeks.

Molecular clocks place nerve nets at about 741 Ma. This is the first rung of the ladder with a date. The chapter also records the spread of speeds within one phylum: cnidarian conduction spans a factor of 133, from 3.0 cm per second to 4 m per second.

A4. Centralisation

Nets then gather into cords, commissures and brains. The chapter is honest about the disagreement in the literature. One account derives the bilaterian nervous system from the fusion of two centres, an apical and a blastoporal one. A second account, based on gene expression across five clades, finds no conserved dorsoventral regionalisation. Origins of nerve cords are recorded as one fused system and as convergence “many times”.

The counts climb fast. Ciona has 177 CNS neurons. C. elegans has 302. The fly larva brain has 3,016. The adult fly brain has 139,255. Fossil brains appear in Cambrian Stage 3, around 520 Ma. Molecular dates sit earlier: bilaterian phyla before 638.8 Ma, the vertebrate split at about 560 Ma.

A5. Speed and Size

Centralisation raises a cost problem. A bigger body needs faster signals. The chapter records two solutions: giant axons and myelin. Myelin arose in five groups across three bilaterian superclades. Its speed gain is at least tenfold. Myelinated copepods react in 1.5–1.6 ms; non-myelinated ones need 3.1–6.6 ms.

Speed has a price. One action potential costs 3.84 × 10⁸ ATP. The adult human brain is 2% of body mass but takes 20% of resting energy. In childhood its share reaches 65–66%. Neuron numbers run from about two million in a gecko to 257 billion in an elephant. The chapter closes with the division status of vertebrate neurons. Human cortical neurons date from around birth. This record feeds directly into Layer B.

A6. Senses

Brains are only as useful as the information they receive. This chapter covers the receptor molecules and organs of light, smell, taste, touch, hearing and electric fields. Light is treated in most detail, and for a reason that will surface in Layer B.

The numbers are striking. Eye or photoreceptor origins are counted at least 40 times, up to 65 or more. A quarter of those lineages reached resolving eyes. Mammals carry about 400 to 2,000 olfactory receptor genes. Electroreception arose at least four times and was lost at least five times. The first dated compound eyes, at about 515 Ma, already hold 3,000 and 16,000 lenses.

A7. Rhythms and Sleep

With senses and speed in place, the book turns to what brains do over time. Networks of neurons oscillate in well-defined frequency bands. One research group publishes ten classes, from 15–40 s to 200–600 Hz. The mean frequencies form a linear progression on a logarithmic scale. The Pattern paragraph notes that these frequencies vary only 30–100% across mammals, while brain size varies hundreds- to thousands-fold.

Sleep appears here too. Sleep-like states occur from Hydra to mammals. Daily sleep spans 0.69 h to 20 h. Infraslow sleep periods run 47–51 s in endotherms and 84–134.5 s in lizards. The chapter holds the data for one of the book’s three tests.

A8. Learning and Memory

The chapter records three forms of learning: habituation, sensitisation and association. These forms are not reserved for animals with complex brains. A slime mould, Physarum, habituates. A ciliate, Stentor, habituates. A plant, Mimosa, habituates. Box jellyfish with tiny nerve rings learn by association.

One pattern recurs in four animal groups. Spaced training gives memory of days to weeks; massed training does not. The phase that lasts beyond hours needs protein synthesis. This holds in rat, Aplysia, worm and bee. Two forgetting curves show breaks, at 24 hours and at 3–6 years. These are the data that Layer B will set beside the theory’s statement on memory.

A9. Minds in Many Bodies

Complex brains are not a human monopoly. They are also not a shared inheritance. The chapter records complex brains in seven groups that do not share a complex-brained ancestor: insects, octopodid molluscs, teleosts, corvid and psittacid birds, cetaceans, elephants and primates. Each pairs with a different multimodal centre: mushroom bodies, the vertical lobe, the pallium, the cortex.

The measured capacities include counting, self-control, planning, tool construction, play and mirror self-recognition. The chapter closes with dated statements on animal consciousness, such as the New York Declaration of 2024. It reports them as positions held by named authors, not as measurements.

A10. The Human Brain and Beyond

The final chapter gathers the human numbers. The brain holds 86.1 ± 8.1 billion neurons and is described as “an isometrically scaled-up primate brain”. Cranial capacity runs from about 450 cc in Australopithecus to 1,297–1,460 cc in modern humans. The rate of increase steps up at 2.10 Ma. Tool and image dates run from 3.3 Ma to 51.2 ka. Synaptogenesis peaks follow one another from three months to 28.7 years.

The chapter then steps beyond the single brain. Social insect colonies, ant biomass, and the global count of internet users enter the tables. The human mind is placed in its widest context.

4. How the chapters connect

Read in sequence, the chapters form a chain of dependencies.

Excitability (A1) is the foundation. It exists in every cell and needs no nervous system. The parts of the neuron (A2) then assemble from components that predate animals. Nerve nets (A3) are the first system to exploit those parts at tissue scale. Centralisation (A4) is a solution to a coordination problem of larger bodies. Speed (A5) is the price and the enabler of centralisation. Senses (A6) are the reason centralisation pays off: a fast brain with good input can act on the world.

Rhythms (A7) and memory (A8) are what the fast brain does with its input. Rhythms segment time; memory stores what matters. Complex brains (A9) show that these capacities were invented again and again, in bodies as different as a crow and an octopus. The human brain (A10) is the last rung: not a new kind of organ, but a scaled-up primate brain, wrapped in culture and tools.

The recurring theme is continuity. Nothing in the chain is a true novelty. The neuron is an excitable cell with a specialised edge. The brain is a net with gathered centres. The mind, in the book’s reading, is the third rung built on the second.

5. Layer B: the theory set beside the data

Layer B does not reinterpret the biology. It sets the Vacuum.Net texts next to Layer A and asks where the forms match. The texts name four rungs: closure, life, representation, consciousness. They say the membrane carries the largest potential step of the cell. They say the nerve cell adds nothing new. They say each layer is a factor three. They say memory reaches two rings directly. They say a brain in which all cells fire together is a brain in seizure.

The pairings produce three reads. First, the neuron adds no new part; it adds speed and reach to an edge every cell already has. Second, membrane, nerve net and brain follow the rungs of life and representation. Third, the carriers are fast and the forms slow at each scale. In Hydra, the nerve cell itself is a carrier and the net is the form. In the human cortex, the neuron is the slow form and its spikes are the carriers.

The three tests

Three tests were fixed before any dossier was written. This is the book’s strongest methodological move. The outcomes stand as they fell.

M1: the nerve cell does not divide. Required: no documented completed division of a differentiated neuron. Found: Rb-deficient mouse cortical neurons in culture divide, with daughters that keep their neuronal marker. Fail. The direction survives in most of the data: with cell-cycle brakes intact, the neuron does not divide. But the text made no exception, and the test does not grant one afterwards.

M2: the rhythm step is three. Required: a mean step of 2.85–3.15 between oscillation classes. Found: 2.73 over ten published classes. The value e = 2.718 lies 0.5% from it. Three lies 9.8% above it. Fail. The constant step and the conservation across brain sizes hold; the specific number does not.

M3: the living form is not synchronous. Required: at least 80% of awake spike-count means below 0.1, and higher synchrony in every sleep and seizure comparison. Found: 69%. One sleep comparison shows less synchrony. Seizures go in both directions. Fail. Again the direction holds in much of the data; the strict form does not.

B14: the answer to the question

The book’s own summary is candid. Layer A gives the history: a negative inside in every cell measured; channels with a fourfold pore in bacteria; synaptic parts in the unicellular sister of animals; nerve nets at 741 Ma; brains at about 520 Ma; myelin in five groups; eyes at least 40 times; complex brains in seven groups; ten rhythm classes held across a thousandfold range of brain size; two phases of memory in four animal groups.

Layer B gives three reads and three failed tests. Across the four books of the series, the theory has been set against biological data twelve times with the outcome fixed first. One passed. Six failed outright. One failed on its own rule. Four could not be completed.

The conclusion follows the book’s rules exactly. In these terms the mind is the third rung built on the second. Its parts are older than the neuron. Its rhythm classes keep nearly one spacing. Its cells are carriers or forms depending on the scale. The texts give the form of that description. Where they gave a number, three times, the number failed.

6. Assessment

The book’s value rests on two achievements that are easier to state than to practise.

First, the reference layer is disciplined and dense. Fixed chapter templates, explicit marks, checked citations, recorded disagreements and “Not verified” lists make the claims auditable. The Pattern paragraphs give each chapter a usable summary, and Part C turns the whole into a numerical corpus.

Second, the theory layer is honest to an unusual degree. Tests are fixed before the data are seen. Failures are printed as failures, with the surviving directions clearly labelled as reads made after the test and not as passes. Chapter B12 lists the places where nothing pairs, rather than stretching the pairings. Part D lists what was left out, by rule.

The reader should note what the book does not claim. It does not claim the Vacuum.Net model is confirmed. On the numbers, three of its fixed claims failed. The book claims only this: the model supplies a vocabulary of rungs, carriers and forms that fits the shape of the data at many points, and that vocabulary is now marked, tested and bounded.

That is a rare position in a debate often driven by assertion. The book treats evolution and theory with the same instrument: a measured number, a fixed claim, and an outcome that stands as it fell.

7. Annotated references

The book and its texts

• Konstapel, J. (2026). From Cell to Mind: How Excitable Cells, Nerve Nets, Brains and Minds Evolved. A Reference Work in Two Layers. Constable Research, Leiden, 14 October 2026. The source work discussed in this essay. Its Layer A holds the biology; Layer B holds the theory tests; B14 states the answer.
• Konstapel, J. (2026). Life and Consciousness from One Rule: Closure in the Net. Constable Research, Leiden, 29 September 2026. Source of the four rungs (closure, life, representation, consciousness), the membrane as the place of the largest potential step, and the coherence values R = 1 and R = 0. Quoted in B2.
• Konstapel, J. (2026). One Window: Light-Gated Channels, the 2026 Nobel Prize in Medicine, and the Closure Rule of the Vacuum.Net. Constable Research, Leiden, 10 October 2026. Source of the statement that the nerve cell adds nothing new, and of the synchrony reading used in test M3.
• Konstapel, J. (2026). Three Chains, One Standstill: Dementia and Parkinson’s Disease on the Ladder of the Vacuum.Net. Constable Research, Leiden, 10 October 2026. Source of tests M1 and M3, and, with Life and Consciousness, of M2. States the nerve cell as a ring that does not divide and each layer as a factor three.
• Konstapel, J. (2026). The Balanced Three, the Balanced Tree and the Vacuum.Net Theory. Constable Research, Leiden, 29 August 2026. Source of the memory statement: reach two, chaining, and the impossibility of forgetting. Set beside the A8 data in B10.
• Konstapel, J. (2026). The Climate on the Ladder of Three. Constable Research, Leiden, 3 October 2026. Defines depth as layer and the position coordinate used for every size and time in the book.
• Konstapel, J. (2026). Plants on the Ladder; The Company of Plants; The Weaving of Life. Constable Research, Leiden, 12–13 October 2026. The three earlier books of the series. B13 counts their nine earlier tests together with the three new ones.

Key primary sources used in Layer A

• Burkhardt, P., et al. (2023). Syncytial nerve net in a ctenophore adds insights on the evolution of nervous systems. Science 380:293–297. DOI 10.1126/science.ade5645. Central to the A2 question of one or two origins of neurons. The ctenophore nerve net lacks classical synaptic machinery.
• Buzsáki, G., & Draguhn, A. (2004). Neuronal oscillations in cortical networks. Science 304(5679):1926–1929. DOI 10.1126/science.1099745. With Penttonen & Buzsáki (2003), the source of the ten oscillation classes tested in M2.
• Azevedo, F. A. C., et al. (2009). Equal numbers of neuronal and nonneuronal cells make the human brain an isometrically scaled-up primate brain. J. Comp. Neurol. 513:532–541. DOI 10.1002/cne.21974. Source of the 86 billion neuron count that anchors A10.
• Herculano-Houzel, S., et al. (2014). The elephant brain in numbers. Frontiers in Neuroanatomy 8:46. DOI 10.3389/fnana.2014.00046. Source of the 257-billion-neuron elephant brain, the upper end of the neuron counts in A5 and A9.
• Attwell, D., & Laughlin, S. B. (2001). An energy budget for signaling in the grey matter of the brain. J. Cereb. Blood Flow Metab. 21(10):1133–1145. DOI 10.1097/00004647-200110000-00001. Foundation of the spike-cost figures in A5, including the 3.84 × 10⁸ ATP per action potential.
• Kuzawa, C. W., et al. (2014). Metabolic costs and evolutionary implications of human brain development. PNAS 111(36):13010–13015. DOI 10.1073/pnas.1323099111. Source of the childhood brain-energy share of 65–66% of resting metabolism in A5 and A10.
• Bielecki, J., et al. (2023). Associative learning in the box jellyfish Tripedalia cystophora. Current Biology 33(19):4150–4159.e5. DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.056. Shows associative learning in an animal with a few thousand nerve cells. A key A8 data point.
• Bliss, T. V. P., & Lømo, T. (1973). Long-lasting potentiation of synaptic transmission in the dentate area of the anaesthetized rabbit. J. Physiol. 232(2):331–356. DOI 10.1113/jphysiol.1973.sp010273. The classical LTP paper, cited in A8 as the cellular counterpart of long-term memory.

Background books

• Godfrey-Smith, P. Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Framed the cephalopod material of A9.
• Buzsáki, G. Rhythms of the Brain. Framed the oscillation classes of A7.
• Herculano-Houzel, S. The Human Advantage. Framed the neuron-count scaling of A5 and A10.
• Striedter, G. F. Principles of Brain Evolution. Framed the comparative structure of A4 and A9.
• Feinberg, T. E., & Mallatt, J. The Ancient Origins of Consciousness. Framed the consciousness positions recorded in A9.

From Cell to Mind