| All things must pass; objects are subdued to time and space—these riddling categories have been a matter of intense philosophical |
| and scientific debate since Aristotle (384-322 BC). A Newtonian perspective assumes that time is an independent entity that passes |
| regardless of physical/chemical changes or an external observer. For Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), time, space, and causality are |
| contained in the experience itself, pertaining essentially to the functioning of the mind [5]. This triad corresponds |
| to the intrinsic properties of the intellect, which experiences not the reality of the world (confined to experimentally unreachable |
| “things-in-themselves”), but what our senses impose relative to the world we know. To sense time and space as an experimenter |
| is to confer to the external world (and objects of study) a “borrowed human logic, in particular a spatiotemporal pattern |
| which is only human perception in disguise” [5]. This spatiotemporal pattern allows us to put objects of study in a causal logic, |
| explaining past and predicting future events, and interpreting them as goal-directed, or teleological, phenomena [6]. |
| Time and space are problematic categories to the human experience because there is a multiplicity of scales defined by |
| different clocks (from subatomic to biological and chronological time) and spatial units in which a plethora of things of human |
| interest are confined,spared from a direct sensorial experience. This is the case of pathogenic microorganisms, hidden from |
| direct human experience and unknown to men until the technological advent of microscopes by Leewenhoek (1632–1723) |
| and the conceptual revolution of the germ theory of disease suggested around the 19th century [7]. |
| Several human pathogens were identified in the late XIX century after biomedical institutions had, as a priority, elucidated |
| pathogen life cycles and disease etiology. Then and now, the main scientific methodological approach to obtain experimental |
| evidence on the life cycles of pathogens has been reductionism, the division of complex systems into smaller intelligible parts. |
| The conceptual framework of a pathogen life cycle has been constructed by a mosaic of separate observations on single factors |
| acquired at defined time points in a defined geographical or physiological location, generally without continuous |
| observation of the same individual (host or pathogen). Joint analysis of each factor could account for interpretation of the entire |
| system; similarly, single spatiotemporal coordinates accessed before and after an experimental condition could explain causality. |
| Although it is undeniable that the reductionism paradigm has been responsible for the success of modern science and |
| technological advances in our society, it “often disregards the dynamic interaction between parts,” and a complex problem “is |
| often depicted as a collection of static components” [8]. The notion of space is also dismembered from time in reductionist |
| approaches, and important concepts related to the disambiguation of scientific images, such as topology and interaction of |
| objects, lack dynamic information and can produce or exacerbate “gaps in experience.” Considering the unpredictability, |
| uniqueness, and structural/dynamic complexity of organisms [6], reducing time and space in disconnected parts in order to |
| understand biological phenomena has led to limitations in scientific investigation and inadequacy of medical conduct [8]. |
