Science vs. Nature

[Alendar]

Man's nature, I mean. I've read some amazing things going on in the science world. I'm sure Zendog sees it as the beginning of the Great Conspiracy to begin human experimentation, but as paranoid and cynical as I am I can't see it as bad.

They are finding molecules that fight viruses now. Imagine that! Antibiotics have been a dead end and everyone has known it, yet we haven't been able to turn away from the cliff. The drug companies love the fact that antibiotics gradually fail and weaken against old enemies. They are kept in constant business; their product includes planned obsolescence. Phage research seems to have died out, and I've always suspected behind-the-scenes shannigans to block research funding for it.

But now more methods are coming to bear. They finally figured out what everyone knew: Flu is more contagious in the winter! When scientist finally catch up with common sense, there is cause to celebrate. Why? Because common sense and folk wisdom can only ever go so far. It can only take in so much information and intuit so much from experience. There are no mathematical models or disciplines in the shaman's art to enable him to push beyond the evidence of his senses or the history of his people's experience.

Science can build past experience into theory and prediction, can solve the things that cannot be seen by the naked eye.

They've found copper surfaces disable the flu better than stainless steel now. Now isn't that against anything you'd see in a hospital, with there shiny steel everywhere? The war against viruses may be winnable. I expect hospitals will be switching to copper soon.

Heat increases the efficacy of chemotherapy 40%, all kinds of drugs, all kinds of cancers. What a simple thing, to be so powerful. Cancer cells hate heat! Plus they are finding ways to insert iron nanochips in cancer cells so they can be microwaved and cause the cancer to fry. Amazing!

Plus a possible vaccine for AIDs on the horizon. Hard to believe. They've found a virus that may cause chronic fatigue. Remember not long ago when it was "all in their head"? Not less than 10 years ago. In the world of science this is blazing speed.

My faith is slowly restoring in the future. Perhaps the indomitable spirit of Man will come through in his research, his inquiring mind, and the greedy corporations will be unable to stem the tide. Stem cells! They are starting to work - I read of how they are generating heart cells after figuring out a catalyst. Turned out you can't just drop stem cells in a body and have them do more than become a lump of tissue. They need some sort of framework to take off properly.

Seems like everyday they unearth a new proper skeleton. I can remember when all they had was one lousy tooth for old Lucy. That was pathetic and sad and made the Evolutionists look foolish. Now they've unearthed entire colonies of creatures that shed a whole new light on current theories. The Creationists are surely at work, but they can't be completely excited.

Water on the moon?? What strange times we live in, perhaps space is not a dead void after all. Exoplanets being detected, too. And the new computerized telescope that runs billions of adjustments to map gamma rays from the surface of the earth. The belt around Saturn at 15 million miles detected by infrared! Hubble, finding the edge of the universe, at least as it was long ago. And black holes at the center of galaxies, revealing more secrets. I think the whole "darko" collection of things has gotten a bit whacky and silly, but I'm sure real science is on its way.

And the new super collider coming in 2010 has experiments that may finally reveal the graviton. This may not seem like much, but it would be a big step towards the Theory of Everything. Scientists could turn their attention more seriously to string theory. String theory may be the final theory, imagine that!

That viruses and cancer are linked is not news to me, but apparently it is to scientists. My wife had COPD and fatigue long before she had leukemia, and constantly had infections of all sorts. They are finding the connection to fatigue and prostate cancer in viruses, and they've found viruses that cause cervical cancer. The mysteries are breaking down.

Their figuring out how our internal clocks work, they're finding that diabetes drugs may be the new anti-aging drug (!), and on and on.

And computers can't seem to stop getting faster, even as they reach the limit of the current technology lithography. New technologies are coming about, and quantum computing is not just a crazy theory anymore. Plus finally they may be tieing classical and quantum physics together. The pieces form, Einstein would be shocked and amazed! And entanglement and chaos are now related, perhaps chaos is a measurable phenomena.

Not to mention the cracking of the brain. I suspect they will find everything we do to be deterministic, the output of measurable processes. Free will will cease to be, at least to the knowledgeable. We will still act as if we were free, but will hopefully know better.

Even psychology may be cracked, as the numerous blind alleys slowly die out. Freud and Jung were great, but oh so very foolish. As cute as the ideas of some, they are merely guesses presented as facts to a gullible fan base. Now science will take the good and bad out of the definition of Man, and we will have to find our demons elsewhere.

I think perhaps I may banish all other news of politics, of the world, of the insanity. It seems only to drown me in a depression and miasma. There is madness in the spindoctoring on all sides of an issue.

What will the future be? When we know how everything works, but still can't seem to get along?

[Maricel Evasco]

Why do you think the universe is violent? I would suggest it is indifferent to our particular existence. Turquoise

I think the universe is elegantly violent--- violent because of the interplanetary and intergalactic collisions, elegant because it can be seen as a cosmic dance which is mimicked at the subatomic level w. the collison of protons, electrons, neutrons


And the early solar system is a place of collisions, as little planets, asteroids and comets all smash into the larger worlds, leaving the craters we still see around us today.

Over time, our sun settles down into stable middle age... and nearly 5 billion years later we humans have emerged with our telescopes and scientific understanding to figure out what makes the sun shine.

The ultimate source of the light and heat on which we rely is found in the core of the sun.

Here temperatures reach nearly 15 million degrees, and pressure makes the gases many times denser than lead, though there's nothing solid here...

In the heart of the sun, protons-the nuclei of hydrogen-collide at such speed that they overcome the force of electrostatic repulsion, and fuse together.

Beginning with 4 protons, you end up with helium-the second most elemental gas in the universe-2 protons and 2 neutrons.

In the process, zero point seven percent of the proton's original mass is converted into pure energy-as expressed in Albert Einstein's famous E=mc2, which means "energy equals mass times the speed of light squared."
http://passporttoknowledge.com/scic/fusionandfission/video/script.html

[caseyjo]

"Not to mention the cracking of the brain".....Funny you just said that. I was just thinking the same thing except our bodies will turn to mush before our brains ever crack. Once the bodies turn to mush the brains wont be healthy enough to think anymore. I very rarely see my neighbors kids outside playing. The parents of all these children keep them inside under cover on their computers like if they go out and play something terrible might happen to them. Most of the kids in my neighborhood have very little definition or muscle. They look like little gumbies or that huge baby chicken that wears the diapers...forgot his name.

I was babysitting at 9 or 10...My neighbors have teenagers and have to be home by three when their kids come home. I took a couple friends out to lunch at the willow tree cafe the other day..They both ate half a sandwich and wanted to leave because it was almost 3:00...I will never take them to a nice place again...Next time it will be in & out burger...just their speed...

[caseyjo]

"I hope to be a relegated to the class of primitive someday"

I think there is really something to this. Maybe we will all become so smart, we will revert back to simple mindedness( There is a fine line between genius and mental Illness in many cases) which could be the truest form of ourselves. Sometimes I think simple mined people are the happiest....... Maybe we know too much already.

I suspect the further away from nature we move, the further away from real freedom and happiness we will move. Seems the more we know, the more mental illness we seem to deal with. Sometimes I think the knowing of ones own existance is a curse. While animals live day to day, we worry about the past, present, and future, we worry we aren't good enough, we worry about not having enough money, we worry about what happens to us after we die.

In my next life (If I have one) I don't want to be caged....I am very aware that when I am putting up walls and fences to keep others out, I am also caging myself inside.

[ZenDog]

Not to mention the cracking of the brain. I suspect they will find everything we do to be deterministic, the output of measurable processes. Free will will cease to be, at least to the knowledgeable. We will still act as if we were free, but will hopefully know better.

THEY ALREADY DID AND THEY ARE WRONG. THEY CAN KISS MY ASS.

and I don't really give a shit how predictable that response is . . .

[Maricel Evasco]

I think and believe that the ego serves its purpose in the larger scheme of things just as darkness serves to characterize light, our ego serves to characterize our spiritual ("non rationalizing" selves. Then again, this is just my fanciful wisdom.

[caseyjo]

BTW......I wrote my post after Turquoise then went in the kitchen half way through it. came back and finished and my post popped up with several others talking about ego....It is pretty cool how perceptive people are to the fact ego causes most of our problems, and we still can't all get along....Maybe we aren't meant to, maybe competition makes us strive and if all we did was share maybe we would all die out.....Just a thought. I for one... always thought sharing would be the answer, but the more I think about it...Maybe I really know nothing.

[Maricel Evasco]

The understanding of circadian rhythms is improving. Winter depression (as it begins in me) may be better understood and better treated than just a bright light. The function of Oxytocin in social and tribal interaction is being understood. Trust is chemical! Do we want to chemically modify someone's trust in others? Its obviously risky, but for those institutionalized by paranoia, there may be some hope.


It seems that as I age my predilection towards S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder) intensifies. I'm wondering what deficiencies in my body system or nutrients cause it. I'm lazy to do the research, but this year I tried a colleague's suggestion to brighten the lights at home. So, just last month I bought a bulb that generates about 100 watts as oppose to 60 watts. I do feel a bit more "happy" these days, but then again it could be do to other factors or simply to self fulfilling prophecy. Can you please open a Blog discussion on S.A.D. I don't know much about it so I am reluctant to start the thread.

[caseyjo]

"What will the future be? When we know how everything works, but still can't seem to get along?"

Basically the same.....It is all about the human need to be right. We will always find something to quibble over. The only way we will all get along is if we don't have the need to be right about everything and that isn't going to happen. Humans are self serving individuals...Are we actually born that way, or is it what we are taught? Watch little children fight over their toys. Is it truly in our natures to compete and be self serving, or is it that we teach competition from the gate?...

What if our parenting stressed sharing was the most important human action (much more important than competition) would we have a better world then? As humans can we even perceive of a world where competition wasn't important and sharing meant everything?.....I actually think (considering our backgrounds) it would be most impossible.

[Maricel Evasco]

Alendar, I really value your insight on this topic. I'm saving your post to WORD....something I seldom do on TBD.

Thank you.

[Alendar]

It is my hope that science may cure mental illness. In the overall flow of history, the recent developments are amazing. We understand how one depression pathway works and we have many cures for it. Perhaps there are social risks in treating depression without treating the underlying causes, but a happy worker is a productive worker! Ok, that's a little dystopian, but work is a cornerstone of our system, happiness is a goal in and of itself. I cannot find too much wrong from making people both happy and productive.

The understanding of circadian rhythms is improving. Winter depression (as it begins in me) may be better understood and better treated than just a bright light. The function of Oxytocin in social and tribal interaction is being understood. Trust is chemical! Do we want to chemically modify someone's trust in others? Its obviously risky, but for those institutionalized by paranoia, there may be some hope.

The new scans of the brain are greatly increasing our understanding of how it works. Often a scientist will put a group of people through PET scans and apply psychological tests. By seeing the actual activity we are learning about belief and what it looks like, as well as uncertainty.

I believe that science now is moving at a great pace. But I also believe that within each of the myriad of reseach topics it moves at a more reasonable pace, and that "many hands make light work". Each researcher is finding small pieces in the puzzle and contributing them to the great mosaic. Great leaps of the past like the theory of relativity may no longer spring from single authors, which I see as very risky and subject to error and the cult of personality. The worship of heroes in the field is diminished and many lesser but hard-working scientists are contributing. The discoverer of DNA set the field back 50 years when he said, "If epigenetics were important, fruit flies would have them." Woe to the future, for all research into the epigenome was cursed until quite recently. Now it seems amazing that we could have thought it so unimportant.

Information flow through the Internet is feeding the great revolution. I think we are in the midst of a new scientific era, but one that will not be marked by the acceptance of a new paradigm. It is too big to fit in one thought, one idea. I think its quite fascinating as Spock would say. For one idea often becomes a burden after it has fulfilled its role. The twitter of many little changes is unstoppable and evolves continually with constant feedback and course correction. Perhaps it will be more human in its output, and seem less vivisectional and unfeeling as it has been in the past.

I do think humankind's ego will be altered someday through science, Maricel. We cannot expect anything else to change it. Seminaries can only operate on a generation, and then new ego's are born, complete and ready to wage their personal war.

But will ego need exterminating, or could we survive without it, or grow? I doubt it. I suggest that it will someday be limited at least in its direction. I don't think any human trait can be successfully eliminated, even violence. The universe is violent and oft requires violent men. Evil is a constellation of attributes and may be difficult to pinpoint, but factors may be reduced, fear levels lowered.

I hope to be a relegated to the class of primitive someday.