Living and Non-Living Systems
This subject threatens to become very intense and arcane. I can't say I fully understand the autopoetic definition of living systems. I really don't understand the role of cognition in it. That being said, I'll just throw some thoughts out there.
It's hard to come up with a notion of a living system that is any smaller in scope than the whole earth, or maybe the whole universe. Living systems are supposed to be self-sustaining. But, nothing is really self sustaining. All creatures need to feed themselves, and so rely on being able to find food. When one species dies out, it threatens the rest of the food chain. So, are any of those systems self-sustaining? Also, we all need certain environmental conditions to survive. Global warming could threaten and/or destroy most of life on earth. So, does that make any of the species self sustaining? I don't think so. The concept of Gaia comes up for me, and the idea that the earth is an organic, living system. Perhaps it is self-sustaining, doing what it needs to do to we humans in order to ensure its survival.
Tools and Language in Chimps
I find this fascinating and exciting, but not all that surprising. We have learned over the years of complex social structures among lots of other species, and not just primates. Whales have complex communication systems, as do dolphin. And, it's not just mammals. Crows have complex communication systems. We are so species-centric that we are forever surprised by these revelations. In my opinion, humans are the ones who need to work on their language and communication. If we're so smart, why are the polar ice caps melting? Let's talk about that!!!
The other cool thing about chimps is that while the one is burrowing the hole, the others sit and watch and wait their turn! That only happens in Canada. Definitely not in New York. Why do we think we're so much more highly evolved?
Chinese Medicine Gaining Respectability in the West
What I find interesting about the mainstreaming of Chinese medicine is the way it's happening. It is a grass roots movement, driven by consumer demand because people witness its effectiveness. I love the fact that it is growing at break neck pace. I looked for statistics about the increase in demand, and couldn't find anything recent. But in 2002, 2.1 million people visited an acupuncturist, and by 2003 over 8 million people did. That's an unbelievable jump. I love it when people vote with their feet, and on the strength of their personal experience force change in the system. Now that mainstream press and medicine has noticed this surge in consumer demand, they are reluctantly trying to show up at the party. Acupuncture is part of the truth, and doesn't need to rely on hokey commercials aired during football games or prime-time soaps to sell it.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Week Five
Diversification saving Species
Why haven't we learned from the banana or even the potato? I am mystified. Diversification is natural and necessary to ensure survival of various species. But, it's not particularly convenient for shorter term goals, like making money with the least amount of work. So, we find ourselves facing the end of the banana as we know it. Given that it is one of the few non-processed foods on the approved list around my household, I am sad.
I think that part of the reason this is happening is the lack of oversight by an entity other than industry. We would need policy makers to get involved and highlight longer term issues. Self regulation clearly is not working. But, the Department of Agriculture seems like its sole function is to protect antiquated subsidies that are hurting consumers. And, it would take a multinational body to actually deal with theses issues. We need an Al Gore figure to take this one on.
Chicken or the Egg
This seems like another example where science shows us that there's really no precise answer. An egg mutated, and a chicken was born to non-chicken parents. So, I suppose it's the egg. But wasn't it a chicken in the egg for as long as the egg existed? Let's just call it a tie and put this question to rest once and for all...
Eating Broccoli
Yes, I always eat my broccoli. For one thing, broccoli is one of the few vegetables that I can always find organic. In Marin, organic veggies are not as easy to find as you may think. Also, I've been aware for some time about the protective effect of DIM against cancer. But, realisitically, you'd have to eat truckloads of broccoli to get the effect that they've seen in studies where they are working with highly concentrated levels of DIM and IC3. I like broccoli and my kids do too, so we eat a lot of it for that reason!
Why haven't we learned from the banana or even the potato? I am mystified. Diversification is natural and necessary to ensure survival of various species. But, it's not particularly convenient for shorter term goals, like making money with the least amount of work. So, we find ourselves facing the end of the banana as we know it. Given that it is one of the few non-processed foods on the approved list around my household, I am sad.
I think that part of the reason this is happening is the lack of oversight by an entity other than industry. We would need policy makers to get involved and highlight longer term issues. Self regulation clearly is not working. But, the Department of Agriculture seems like its sole function is to protect antiquated subsidies that are hurting consumers. And, it would take a multinational body to actually deal with theses issues. We need an Al Gore figure to take this one on.
Chicken or the Egg
This seems like another example where science shows us that there's really no precise answer. An egg mutated, and a chicken was born to non-chicken parents. So, I suppose it's the egg. But wasn't it a chicken in the egg for as long as the egg existed? Let's just call it a tie and put this question to rest once and for all...
Eating Broccoli
Yes, I always eat my broccoli. For one thing, broccoli is one of the few vegetables that I can always find organic. In Marin, organic veggies are not as easy to find as you may think. Also, I've been aware for some time about the protective effect of DIM against cancer. But, realisitically, you'd have to eat truckloads of broccoli to get the effect that they've seen in studies where they are working with highly concentrated levels of DIM and IC3. I like broccoli and my kids do too, so we eat a lot of it for that reason!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Week Four
A Drug For Everything?
It seems like that is the way that we are headed. Clearly, there's an alarming trend toward medicalizing everything, even personality, and then making nearly every aspect of the human condition "treatable". Looked at from this standpoint, this is appalling. I believe strongly that people need to look deep within themselves and deal with what they find. Taking pills to cure a gambling problem keeps people from doing that. And, of course, it won't work. I hate the ads for drugs. They are creating conditions and then creating cures. It's madness.
But, I do feel that there are situations where the pharmaceutical industry has made important strides in saving human lives. It's not a very popular viewpoint, especially in the non-western health world, but I thank God for things like the polio vaccine having heard about my parents' lives as kids, and seeing pictures of gymanasiums filled with kids in iron lungs. It's easy to say, well we need to be comfortable with letting go. But, I feel very deeply the fundamental human impulse to heal and preserve lives. (I am pro-choice). Each person is truly precious, and if the pharmaceutical industry can come up with cures for things like polio, leukemia, other cancers, I'm all for it.
Raising Levels of Dopamine in Ourselves
Apparently, we can increase levels of dopamine in our brains if we think we are being injected with its precursors. I'm not surprised. It's been shown time and again that treatments are both positively and negatively affected by what we believe. What would be interesting would be if we could teach people to raise levels of dopamine without injecting them with anything. That would truly be self healing, and would result in an incredible sense of empowerment.
I think that so much of disease and poor health arises from a sense of powerlessness: a belief that our bodies are separate from us, like our cars or something. Therefore, there is a sense that they need to be cared for by doctors, the equivalent of the car mechanic. People don't think they can fix themselves; it's too complicated. So, they take the back seat. It's a vicious downward spiral into sickness.
How Did Chimps and Humans Diverge?
I think the most likely theory is the one that we read this week, specifically that the chimps and humans diverged more gradually rather than in one single event. Toumai, discovered in Chad, seems to represent a hybrid human-chimp creature that existed after the date that we believed that pre-human and chimp speciation occurred. Apparently, there was interbreeding creating creatures like Toumai, and modern humans emerged from one of those hybrid species.
So, pre-humans bred with chimps! No wonder evolution scares the ultra right so deeply. But, that's a subject for psychology...
It seems like that is the way that we are headed. Clearly, there's an alarming trend toward medicalizing everything, even personality, and then making nearly every aspect of the human condition "treatable". Looked at from this standpoint, this is appalling. I believe strongly that people need to look deep within themselves and deal with what they find. Taking pills to cure a gambling problem keeps people from doing that. And, of course, it won't work. I hate the ads for drugs. They are creating conditions and then creating cures. It's madness.
But, I do feel that there are situations where the pharmaceutical industry has made important strides in saving human lives. It's not a very popular viewpoint, especially in the non-western health world, but I thank God for things like the polio vaccine having heard about my parents' lives as kids, and seeing pictures of gymanasiums filled with kids in iron lungs. It's easy to say, well we need to be comfortable with letting go. But, I feel very deeply the fundamental human impulse to heal and preserve lives. (I am pro-choice). Each person is truly precious, and if the pharmaceutical industry can come up with cures for things like polio, leukemia, other cancers, I'm all for it.
Raising Levels of Dopamine in Ourselves
Apparently, we can increase levels of dopamine in our brains if we think we are being injected with its precursors. I'm not surprised. It's been shown time and again that treatments are both positively and negatively affected by what we believe. What would be interesting would be if we could teach people to raise levels of dopamine without injecting them with anything. That would truly be self healing, and would result in an incredible sense of empowerment.
I think that so much of disease and poor health arises from a sense of powerlessness: a belief that our bodies are separate from us, like our cars or something. Therefore, there is a sense that they need to be cared for by doctors, the equivalent of the car mechanic. People don't think they can fix themselves; it's too complicated. So, they take the back seat. It's a vicious downward spiral into sickness.
How Did Chimps and Humans Diverge?
I think the most likely theory is the one that we read this week, specifically that the chimps and humans diverged more gradually rather than in one single event. Toumai, discovered in Chad, seems to represent a hybrid human-chimp creature that existed after the date that we believed that pre-human and chimp speciation occurred. Apparently, there was interbreeding creating creatures like Toumai, and modern humans emerged from one of those hybrid species.
So, pre-humans bred with chimps! No wonder evolution scares the ultra right so deeply. But, that's a subject for psychology...
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