When Cells Become Questions

A reflection on autism research, science, and the limits of understanding

A brief summary of the research

A recent study published in Nature investigates how different genetic forms of autism affect early brain development. Researchers took ordinary cells (such as skin or blood cells) from individuals with and without autism and reprogrammed them into stem cells. These were then grown into small, brain-like structures—so-called cortical organoids—that model early stages of human brain development.

By following these organoids over time, the researchers found something striking:

Although different genetic mutations initially produce different effects, these differences tend to converge as development progresses. In other words, many distinct biological starting points may lead into shared developmental pathways, particularly affecting how neurons form, mature, and connect.

This suggests that autism, despite its many causes, may involve common underlying biological processes—especially in early brain development.

Science and reflection at sunrise

Created by OpenAI/GPT togeter with me

When understanding begins with hesitation

I must admit:
When I first read this research, I hesitated.

There was something in me that resisted.
Something that felt close to what Kierkegaard once called fear and trembling.

Not because the science was weak—
on the contrary, it is among the most advanced we have.
But because of what it does:

It takes living human cells, reprograms them,
and allows them to grow into small, brain-like structures—
organoids—so that we may study development as it unfolds.

There is something both fascinating and unsettling in this.

A new kind of window

The promise is clear.

For decades, autism research has been marked by fragmentation:
many causes, many pathways, many stories.

But here, something different appears.

Even if autism begins in many different genetic variations,
these differences may converge—
meeting in shared biological pathways during early brain development.

Different beginnings.
A kind of shared unfolding.

From a scientific perspective, this is powerful.
It offers coherence where there has been complexity.

But it also raises a deeper question:

What kind of understanding is this?

Understanding as explanation—and as interpretation

Here I find myself turning, almost instinctively, to Gadamer.

For Gadamer, understanding is never just explanation.
It is always interpretation—
a meeting between what we study and who we are.

Science seeks what can be measured,
what can be repeated,
what can be placed—so to speak—“two lines under.”

And this study does exactly that—beautifully.

It maps gene expression,
tracks development over time,
identifies networks that seem to regulate other networks.

It gives us clarity.

But Gadamer would gently remind us:

Understanding is not only about what we can see—
but about how we make sense of what we see.

And here, something remains open.

The human being beyond the model

Because what is being studied is not the human being as lived.

Not the child who struggles—or flourishes.
Not the adult who experiences the world differently.
Not the quiet, often invisible work of making meaning in one’s own life.

What is studied are cells.
Signals.
Patterns.

Important, yes.
Necessary, even.

But still only one layer of what it means to be human.

Heidegger and the question of technology

At this point, Heidegger enters the room.

Not to reject science—
but to ask a different kind of question:

What happens when we begin to understand life primarily as something that can be produced, modeled, and controlled?

The stem cell, once part of a human body,
is now part of a laboratory system.

It is reprogrammed.
Directed.
Observed.

Nothing here is careless.
Everything is ethically regulated.

And yet—

Heidegger might say that something subtle shifts:

The human being begins to appear as something that can be
revealed through technical processes.

Not wrong.
But incomplete.

Kierkegaard and the single individual

And then, perhaps most importantly,
Kierkegaard.

Because in all convergence, all patterns, all shared pathways,
he would insist on one thing:

The single individual cannot be reduced.

Autism, in lived experience, is never just a pathway.
Never just a network of genes.

It is a way of being in the world.
A way of relating.
A way of sensing, understanding, and sometimes struggling.

There is no convergence that can fully capture that.

Between insight and humility

So where does that leave us?

Not in rejection.
Not in fear.

But perhaps in something more demanding:

a double movement.

On the one hand:

• To recognize the power of this research
• To acknowledge that it reveals something real about human development

On the other:

• To resist the temptation to believe that this is the whole story

Because it is not.

A quiet closing

There is something deeply human in wanting to understand.

To look closer.
To see patterns.
To find connections where there was confusion.

This research is part of that movement.

But perhaps practical philosophy asks us to remain aware of something else:

That understanding is not only something we achieve—
it is also something we live into.

And maybe the most important thing we can say is this:

Even when science brings us closer to the mechanisms of life,
the meaning of a human life still asks to be understood—
not in the laboratory, but in the encounter.

References

Gordon, A., Yoon, S.-J., Bicks, L. K., Martín, J. M., Pintacuda, G., Arteaga, S., Wamsley, B., Guo, Q., Elahi, L., Dolmetsch, R. E., Bernstein, J. A., O’Hara, R., Hallmayer, J. F., Lage, K., Pașca, S. P., & Geschwind, D. H. (2026). Developmental convergence and divergence in human stem cell models of autism. Nature, 651, 707–715. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-10047-5

Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and method (2nd rev. ed.). Continuum. (Original work published 1960)

Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology and other essays. Harper & Row.

Kierkegaard, S. (1985). Fear and trembling (A. Hannay, Trans.). Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1843)

Even when science brings us closer to the mechanisms of life,

the meaning of a human life still asks to be understood—

not in the laboratory, but in the encounter.

This text was written by me in conversation with OpenAI/ChatGPT

The Problem of Repetition

The Problem of Repetition

Reflections from a reading of Johansen, Kjell Eyvind (1985). The Problem of Repetition in Søren Kierkegaard. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo.

Becoming Through Repetition

I stand at a crossroads, but not merely between two external paths. What I see is an inner situation made visible. On one side, light, continuity, and perhaps the promise of meaning; on the other, fragmentation, uncertainty, and the weight of existence. Yet the decisive point is this: repetition does not lie in choosing one path once and for all, but in continuously becoming the one who walks it.

In this sense, repetition is less about choice as a single act, and more about decision as an ongoing task. The road toward the light is not simply given—it must be repeated into existence through commitment, again and again.

And perhaps that is where my own reading of Kierkegaard becomes most visible here:

the real tension is not between two worlds, but within the individual who must decide—and then remain faithful to that decision in time.

Introductory Reflections

The dissertation is divided into five main chapters. It begins with an examination of the origin of the problem of repetition, followed by discussions of repetition’s ethical solution, repetition as an objective problem, repetition as an ethical-religious project, and finally a chapter addressing doubt, faith, and history. Given the breadth of subtopics, I have chosen in this reconstruction to omit much of what is interesting in order to focus on the core issue: repetition itself.

Having read the dissertation several times and undertaken this reconstruction, I am left with the impression that the concept of repetition itself is not the primary problem. Rather, the difficulty lies in the concretization and operationalization of the concept. At its core, the problem is that of decision. The challenge is not to perform repetition, but to enter into it.

In my view, the dissertation represents a theoretical examination of repetition rather than a repetition in itself. It appears that Johansen relates to the concept without daring to develop a project that could be called a repetition. This may seem a strong claim, yet I would argue that although repetition is treated as an ethical-religious project, the project ultimately collapses due to its one-sided epistemological focus. A “project” ought to be understood as a concept expressing philosophy’s practical interest.

John Lundstøl’s master’s thesis The Autonomous Human Being (1970), in contrast, may be seen as an example of repetition. His work, and the existential consequences he draws from his decision, are imbued with the seriousness of existence. Repetition is not an epistemological category, but a category of will and continuity. Lundstøl, unlike Johansen, wills repetition and has matured—both as a human being and as a philosopher—through existential seriousness.

Introduction

In De omnibus dubitandum est, it is stated that repetition becomes possible only when a relation between ideality (concept, idea) and reality (empirical existence) has been established. Kierkegaard employs the concept in the sense that something which has previously occurred or been done now occurs or is done again.

However, the original meaning of the concept is found in Plato’s doctrine of anamnesis: that knowledge is recollection. In recollection, a given reality is traced back to a presupposed ideality. This doctrine is not merely an epistemology, but also a teaching about the soul’s longing, its goal, its passion, and its model. Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous author Constantin Constantius calls recollection a “backward repetition.”

Repetition, especially within the ethical-religious domain, is marked by conflict—a conflict between the individual who seeks at all costs to realize the ideal and the surrounding world. In this context, despair also plays a role, as the individual who lives with awareness of the ideal must confront an insufficient self—or more precisely, a self that relates to itself as insufficient. Johansen is not concerned with reconciliation but with the many forms this conflict assumes.

Repetition in Kierkegaard consists of ironic allusions to the suffering of the passionate individual. Its meaning therefore varies according to the character and direction of passion—whether aesthetic, ethical, or religious. The pseudonymous authors approach repetition from different premises, and consequently their interpretations vary.

Although Kierkegaard employs multiple pseudonyms, they are not entirely independent perspectives. Rather, a developmental trajectory can be discerned. The Danish theologian Johannes Sløk argues that the unifying idea in Kierkegaard’s authorship is not a constant X, but a transcendental point beyond it. Kierkegaard emphasized that the task of life is to maintain continuity amid change. Johansen, however, treats decision as the central thematic constant.

The Origin of the Problem

The problem of repetition arises when an individual seeks to actualize an ideal—not merely to imagine it aesthetically, but to bring it into reality. Repetition belongs to the relation between the aesthetic and the ethical.

Several of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authors emphasize that repetition is a task. Vigilius Haufniensis writes:

“The task is to transform repetition into inwardness, into freedom’s own task, its highest interest: whether, while everything changes, it can realize repetition.”

Wilhelm, the Assessor, maintains that the task is to preserve love in time:

“However you twist and turn it, you must admit that the task is to preserve love in time. If this is impossible, then love itself is impossible.”

The aesthete’s limitation lies in the disappearance of pleasure. Once pleasure fades, the aesthete withdraws. The aesthetic dimension represents the individual’s immediate self. While all individuals possess aesthetic conditions, the aesthete has not established a free relation to this dimension. From the ethical perspective, all aesthetic life-views are forms of despair.

The ethical individual asserts that human beings possess an inherent drive toward becoming conscious of themselves as spiritual beings. If this development is halted, melancholy arises—what Kierkegaard describes as “the hysteria of the spirit.”

Repetition and Freedom

Freedom relates to repetition on three levels:

1. Freedom is experienced as pleasure; repetition is feared.
2. Through prudence, the individual learns limitation but remains trapped.
3. Repetition becomes freedom’s ally; the individual makes repetition the task.

At the highest level, freedom itself becomes repetition. The problem then emerges: is repetition possible?

Decision and Existence

Descartes advocated universal doubt, but Kierkegaard’s ethicist recommends despair. Through despair, one discovers the eternal self. Once freedom is established, the task becomes repetition—not preserving freedom in aesthetic detachment, but realizing it through ethical action.

Kierkegaard increasingly emphasizes the suffering of the individual who seeks to realize ethical and religious ideals.

The decisive difference between Hegel and Kierkegaard lies in decision. For Kierkegaard, the task of the subjective thinker is to realize the idea in existence.

Repetition as an Objective Problem

Kierkegaard distinguishes between empirical and non-empirical knowledge, and between ordinary faith and faith in its eminent sense.

Scientific knowledge concerns what is necessary and unchanging. Logic, mathematics, and metaphysics fall into this category. Existence, however, is anti-speculative—it is the medium in which the synthesis must be realized.

For Kierkegaard, the starting point of thought is hypothetical. The absolute is not found in thought, but in the passionate decision to commit oneself to an idea.

Hegel’s philosophy, as interpreted by Charles Taylor, describes self-realization through contradiction. The subject must overcome itself to achieve unity within a higher rational whole.

Kierkegaard, however, insists that such unity cannot be realized in existence. As long as one exists, one exists in contradiction. Identity is a horizon, never fully attained.

Faith, Contradiction, and Repetition

The connection between ideality and reality cannot be resolved through knowledge alone. Plato resolves this through recollection, but Kierkegaard introduces faith as the connecting link.

Subjective truth is defined as:

“Objective uncertainty, held fast in the most passionate inward appropriation, is truth.”

Continuity in human life cannot be achieved through imagination or reflection. It must be realized through repetition.

In Repetition, Constantin Constantius distinguishes between recollection (backward repetition) and repetition proper (forward movement). Repetition “forward” is the ethical realization of an idea through action.

Repetition, Despair, and Faith

In The Sickness Unto Death, despair is defined as the refusal to be oneself or the desperate will to be oneself. Stoicism represents a highly developed form of despair—self-sufficiency without grounding.

Repetition requires continuity. The aesthete lacks this continuity and therefore cannot realize repetition.

The transition to the ethical requires a decisive choice: to will oneself. Repetition becomes the realization of this decision.

The Religious Dimension

Repetition ultimately requires faith. In Fear and Trembling, faith is described as a double movement: infinite resignation and belief in the absurd.

Abraham embodies this paradox. He relinquishes his son, yet believes he will receive him again. Faith thus becomes the condition for repetition.

The task of existence is to unite the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. This synthesis cannot be fully grasped empirically. Repetition becomes possible only through faith and love.

A concluding remark: Repetition as Existential Responsibility

In conclusion, the problem of repetition, as it emerges in Kierkegaard’s authorship and in Johansen’s reconstruction, cannot be resolved at the level of conceptual clarification alone. Repetition is not primarily a theoretical problem, but an existential task. It concerns the individual’s capacity to enter into continuity with oneself through decision, action, and perseverance.

This is precisely where the connection to practical philosophy becomes evident. Practical philosophy is not concerned with knowledge as such, but with how knowledge becomes lived. In this sense, repetition expresses the movement through which an individual seeks to embody an ideal within the changing conditions of existence. It is the ongoing effort to remain faithful to what one has chosen to be.

Thus, repetition may be understood as the ethical form of continuity: the sustained realization of a decision in time. It is here that philosophy moves from reflection to life—from understanding what is good, to becoming responsible for it.

References

Hannay, A. (1982). Kierkegaard. London: Routledge.

Hegel, G. W. F. (1807/1977). Phenomenology of Spirit (A. V. Miller, Trans.). Oxford University Press.

Johansen, K. E. (1985). Gjentagelsens problem hos Søren Kierkegaard (Doctoral dissertation). University of Oslo.

Kierkegaard, S. (1843/1983). Fear and Trembling (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton University Press.

Kierkegaard, S. (1843/1983). Repetition (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton University Press.

Kierkegaard, S. (1843–1846). Either/Or (Vols. I–II). Princeton University Press.

Kierkegaard, S. (1849/1980). The Sickness Unto Death. Princeton University Press.

Kierkegaard, S. (1844/1980). The Concept of Anxiety. Princeton University Press.

Kierkegaard, S. (1846/1992). Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Princeton University Press.

Løgstrup, K. E. (1968). Oppgjør med Kierkegaard. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.

Lundstøl, J. (1970). Det myndige menneske. Oslo: Gyldendal.

Sløk, J. (1954). Die Anthropologie Kierkegaards. Copenhagen.

Taylor, C. (1978). Hegel. Cambridge University Press.

The text here is written by me.

Life Must Be Understood Backwards — But Lived Forwards

 

Life Must Be Understood Backwards — But Lived Forwards

This illustration is made in co-operation with OpenAI/ChatGPT from a photo taken by my father. I am five years old here, fishing in the Adirondacks Mountains, Up-State New York,

Opening

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
— Søren Kierkegaard

I find myself returning to this sentence these days.

Not as an abstract philosophical idea—but as something lived.

I am writing a book of memories. My memories.
And I ask myself, quietly: Why?

I do not have a clear answer.
I simply feel the need to do it.

Perhaps it is because time has opened up.
Perhaps because, with age, the past comes closer.
Or perhaps because I sense that memory is fragile—and that what is not written may slowly disappear.

Some memories come gently. Others carry weight.
But they all seem to ask for attention.

Looking for Meaning

Kierkegaard’s words touch something in me.

If I want to understand my life, I must look backwards.
But I cannot live there.

Life insists on moving forward.

And that is the tension.

I read. I search. I try to find where Kierkegaard actually wrote this.
Not just the quote—but the source.

It turns out the sentence we often use is incomplete.

In his journals from 1843, he writes something more demanding:

It is true that life must be understood backwards.
But we forget that it must be lived forwards.
And the more one reflects on this, the clearer it becomes that life can never fully be understood—because we are never able to stand still long enough to truly look back.

This changes something.

Understanding is always incomplete.
Because life does not pause.

What Are We Looking For?

When we turn to the past—what do we actually seek?

Do we look for explanations?
For someone to blame?
For confirmation of what we already believe?

Or do we look for something else—
traces of care, moments of closeness, signs of meaning?

Our intention matters.

It shapes what we see.

Between Past and Future

The past cannot be relived.
The future cannot be known.

And yet, we often try to live in one of them.

Kierkegaard warns against this.
And here, I also think of Martin Heidegger—
and his idea of being present, here and now.

Life happens in the moment.

Not in memory. Not in anticipation.

A Simple Image

As I write, an image keeps returning to me.

I am sitting in a rowboat.

The boat moves forward.
But my gaze is turned backwards.

I see where I have been.
The landscape shifts as I move.

And slowly, something becomes clearer—not everything, but enough.

Enough to know where I am.

And perhaps enough to choose a direction.

A Quiet Ending

Maybe this is what Kierkegaard was pointing toward:

We never fully understand life.
But we can come closer.

Not by stopping.
But by moving—while remembering.

And so I continue writing.

One memory at a time.

References (APA)

Kierkegaard, S. (2000). Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (Vol. 18). Copenhagen: GAD.

Kierkegaard, S. (1962). Journals and Papers (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Eds. & Trans.). Indiana University Press.

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Blackwell.

This illustration is made by Open AI/ChatGPT in co-operation with me, from a photo taken by my wife. The lake is Vegår, in Southern Norway (Vegårshei/Agder). I am 70 years old here, still reflecting over life backwards, but living my life forwards.

The text is mine and OpenAI/ChatGPT has created the illustrations.

 

The Autism Spectrum That Breathes

Toward a multidimensional and phenomenological understanding of autism

Introduction

The concept of the autism spectrum is often presented as a linear continuum,
ranging from “mild” to “severe.” This representation suggests that individuals can be located along a single axis of variation.

However, both recent research and lived experience challenge this assumption.

The purpose of this reflection is twofold:
first, to outline how contemporary research reconceptualizes the spectrum as multidimensional;
and second, to explore how this shift opens for a deeper, phenomenological understanding of autism as a way of being in the world.

From linear scale to multidimensional model

Recent contributions in Scientific American argue that autism cannot be adequately represented as a single continuum. Instead, it should be understood as a constellation of multiple, relatively independent traits.

These include, but are not limited to:

• sensory sensitivity
• attentional focus
• preference for structure
• social communication
• emotional intensity

Such a model replaces the notion of a fixed position on a scale with that of a profile across multiple dimensions.

This reconceptualization is significant. It acknowledges that individuals sharing the same diagnostic category may nevertheless exhibit markedly different experiential and behavioral patterns.

At the same time, it is necessary to recognize the epistemological limits of such models.

Vincent van Gogh once wrote:

“I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.”

There is something in this that resonates deeply.

Not just seeing the world —

but experiencing it as something that moves, vibrates, almost overflows.

Even the most refined multidimensional framework remains a representation—a map constructed from an external, observational standpoint. As such, it cannot fully capture the qualitative, first-person experience of living within the spectrum.

And in a very different field, Albert Einstein reflected:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

It is the source of all true art and all science.”

Here, too, we find a recognition:

That perception is not always simple.

That understanding does not begin with certainty,

but with a kind of openness to complexity.

From description to meaning: A philosophical approach

To move beyond description toward understanding, it is useful to engage philosophical perspectives that address the nature of human experience, interpretation, and existence.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Perspectivism and the plurality of truth

Nietzsche’s critique of objective truth provides an important starting point.
He argues that what is commonly regarded as truth is in fact the result of dominant interpretative frameworks.

Applied to autism, this suggests that scientific models represent one perspective among many, rather than a definitive account.

The multidimensional model does not eliminate interpretation; it reorganizes it.
Lived experience, in turn, constitutes another perspective—one that cannot be reduced to external observation.

Martin Heidegger: Being-in-the-world

Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world shifts attention from categorization to existence.

Human beings are not detached objects to be analyzed from the outside; they are always already situated within a world of meaning, perception, and engagement.

From this standpoint, autism may be understood not merely as a collection of traits, but as a mode of disclosure—a particular way in which the world becomes present through sensory, cognitive, and affective structures.

This perspective does not posit a separate reality, but rather a different mode of access to the same world.

Søren Kierkegaard: The primacy of the individual

Kierkegaard emphasizes the irreducibility of the individual.

Truth, in his framework, is not only objective but also subjective, grounded in lived existence. The “single individual” cannot be subsumed under general categories without loss of meaning.

In relation to autism, this implies that no diagnostic or theoretical model—however sophisticated—can fully account for the lived reality of a person.

Each individual represents not an instance of a category, but a unique configuration of existence.

Discussion

The integration of scientific and philosophical perspectives highlights a central tension:

• Science seeks generalizable knowledge through abstraction and modeling
• Lived experience resists full abstraction, remaining context-bound and qualitative

Rather than viewing these approaches as mutually exclusive, it may be more productive to consider them as complementary.

Scientific models provide necessary structure and communicability.
Philosophical and experiential perspectives provide depth and meaning.

Together, they allow for a more comprehensive understanding of autism as both:

• a pattern of variation
• and a way of being in the world

Conclusion

The autism spectrum is not adequately described as a linear continuum.

It is more accurately understood as a multidimensional field of variation,
within which individuals move and experience the world in distinct ways.

At the same time, such models must be supplemented by perspectives that take seriously the lived, first-person dimension of experience.

Autism is not only something that can be measured.
It is something that is lived.

References 

• Scientific American. (2026). The autism spectrum isn’t a sliding scale—39 traits show the complexity. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-autism-spectrum-isnt-a-sliding-scale-39-traits-show-the-complexity/
• Einstein, A. (1931). The world as I see it. Covici-Friede.
• Friedrich Nietzsche. (1974). The gay science (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1882)
• Martin Heidegger. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927)
• Søren Kierkegaard. (1985). Fear and trembling / Repetition (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1843)
• Kierkegaard Søren. (1987). Either/Or (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1843)
• Van Gogh, V. (2009). The letters of Vincent van Gogh (L. Jansen, H. Luijten, & N. Bakker, Eds.). Thames & Hudson.

The spectrum is not merely a structure to be mapped,

but a way in which the world is disclosed through the individual.