Relatively Painless Health Tips for Us Pensioners

Of all your possessions, your personal health is the most valuable and something that can’t be readily replaced once lost or damaged. There are going to be elements of your health beyond your control – you can’t stop the aging clock. But, many facets of your overall health are under your own control. Being healthy doesn’t translate into having to endure lots of dietary, etc. pain or restrictions.

Since the Year Dot there have been billions of articles, pamphlets, books, documentaries, Internet web sites, and other personal opinions that instruct you in how to be a healthier you. Over the millennia, all and sundry collectively have apparently achieved positive results – the average human lifespan keeps on keeping on increasing. No doubt each and every person has their own personal best way or philosophy of maintaining their health, and won’t hesitate to pass on their secrets to everyone else!

Yes indeed, everybody and their grandmother has THE solution to a healthy lifestyle and longevity. My dear old departed grandmother’s sole piece of advice to me as a child was to chew 32 chews with every bite of food. Even then I thought that was just about the dumbest piece of advice I’d ever received, and still do – no offence grandma. However, she lived to a ripe old age of 78 (that’s not a bad innings), so what do I know? I doubt I’ll make it that far. Anyway, different strokes for different folks, that’s my motto or philosophy. But as grandma had her go, here is mine, and forget the 32 chews!

Aspirin: There are lots of studies that suggest the common aspirin tablet has a mostly beneficial aspect to the average person if taken once a day or several times a week. However, not all people react positively to aspirin, and in some people can cause unwanted side effects like bleeding ulcers. See your medical practitioner first before taking an aspirin a day, but overall the vast majority of the population will benefit, not so much from the apple-a-day, but the aspirin-a-day.

Calcium: There are lots of trace elements essential to health, in this case having good solid bones that won’t crumble to dust in your maturing years. That something is calcium, most often found in dairy products. I get my daily dose from a cheese fix, but other dairy products are available. Don’t like dairy products? Well, one can buy over-the-counter calcium supplements instead.

Companion animals: Own a pet(s). Pet-a-puss! Lots of studies have suggested that having little something else in your life to focus on, something that can focus back on you – provide reinforcement to your attention – is beneficial to your state of mind, and mind influences the state of the health of the body. Translated, that something else is an animal companion (on the assumption that by the time health becomes an issue, that other ‘pet’, your kids, are no longer that something else in your day-to-day life; they are no longer your dependents. Companion animals however will forever and a day be dependent on you. So, not only will you thank the animal; the animal will thank you for being a loving guardian and looking after its welfare.

Dietary sins: There are about four of these with both pluses and minuses attached. 1) Alcohol provides calories, but empty (non-nutritional) calories. However, studies suggest that some alcohol is beneficial to mind and body. 2) Salt doesn’t provide any calories, and some salt is essential to a well functioning body, but too much can cause problems with blood pressure, etc. 3) Fats are high in calories, but also provide some essential nutrition; 4) Sugar, like alcohol, provides lots of empty calories. Since you need calories, sugar can have a positive role to play, but too much – well, a moment on the lips; forever on the hips.

It’s probably not likely for anyone to go the minimum route on all four ‘sins’. I say indulge in a reasonable way in two out of four that most appeal; absolute minimums on the other two. I personally take alcohol over sugar products; salt over fat, so I have a relatively large high alcohol, high salt diet, but I’ve nearly eliminated fat and sugar. Life’s too short to try for dietary perfection unless you’re content with a minimum sugar, fat, alcohol and salt diet. You’ve got to strike a balance between what you like, and what’s good for you.

Exercise: Experts suggest that everyone get a minimum of a half-hour of mild exercise/day. That’s real easy if you like walking, cycling, swimming, golf, or a host of other physical activities. On the other hand, I’ve never seen a jogger smile while running! If you don’t, like jogging, etc., then I suggest combining a half-hour of mild exercise while doing something else, accomplishing something else, that’s overall constructive at the same time as a substitute, something that you’re going to have to do anyway. That could be vigorous workout at housework; a half-hour of gardening; or, in my case, a half-hour walk, but to the store and back to buy the daily groceries or get other shopping done. Two birds with one stone. 

Genetics: It helps if you have a good genetic heritage. Actually you have no control over that, but by knowing the strengths, weaknesses, risks, and what did in your ancestors (parents, grandparents, etc.) you can take appropriate lifestyle steps to minimize your risk of going down life’s gurgler the same way.

Gums: I heard a long time ago that it was just as important to brush your gums as your teeth; a kind of massage for them, which probably helps to stimulate the blood flow through them and keep them healthy. Healthy gums make for better teeth. It sure ain’t because gums get cavities and need fillings! Anyway, I’ve adopted the practice and still have all my teeth firmly in place.

Hobbies: If you sit around the house bored out of your skull, that’s not good for your mental state which in turn has an effect on your physical well being. Hobbies help stimulate the mind, and everyone should have a hobby – actually several in case one loses its appeal for a while or peters out for one reason or another. One shouldn’t of course be weather dependent. I hear that mind gambes like chess or crossword puzzles or solving paradoxes or figuring out whodunits are especially useful for older, less able to be active, seniors. Hobbies don’t have to be expensive, though that’s between you and your bank manager if your hobby is collecting Rembrandts!

Iron: Iron is another one of those other trace elements that are essential to life and limb – okay, not so much a limb; rather in this case healthy blood. Foods rich in iron aren’t my thing, so I take an iron tablet as a dietary supplement. That works for me. But if you like lots of liver and spinach, you’re doing okay in the iron department.

Lifespan: I read a long time ago that two geographical regions had the longest and healthiest life-spans for their residents – The Japanese and those surrounding the Mediterranean region. In the former case, it was due to a diet high in fish. In the later case, it was due to a diet high in tomatoes. Both fish (and fish oils) and tomatoes apparently have positive values when it comes to contributing to overall healthy benefits.

Music: Music soothes the savage beast. Translated, listening to your favourite music has positive effects on your mental state; a positive mental state translates into a positive physical state – mind over matter. A happy mind makes for a healthy body. 

Organics: Eating organic foods are healthy eating right? Well, labelling something as ‘organic’ is just a PR rip-off designed to separate more of your money from you than you would otherwise pay for the same product but without the ‘organic’ label. One shop owner proudly displayed meat labelled with the word ‘organic’. I asked him to show me his range of presumably cheaper inorganic meats and of course he couldn’t since there is no such thing. All meat is organic. But the absolute height of idiocy was seeing a display of bottled water labelled ‘organic’. Now since does water contain the element carbon, which is what the word organic means, or should mean, as in organic chemistry – the chemistry of carbon compounds? And bottled water is another total rip-off. Tap water is just as good, cheaper and there’s no plastic bottles left over littering up the landscape. Actually, when my cats are faced with a choice of fresh tap water in their water bowl, or a rainwater puddle to drink out off, wild water wins hands down. Wild animals do very nicely drinking water that’s far less pure than what comes out of your kitchen or bathroom tap.

Purpose in life: You really need a reason(s) to get out of bed in the morning – some purpose in life. If you have no really real reason to get out of bed in the morning, you’ll vegetate. You may hate to get out of bed in the morning, but if you have a real reason to, a purpose, a responsibility to something above and beyond yourself, you’ll do it. There’s 101 plus purposes you could adopt as your own – charity work for one.

Sleep: Sleep is a very important part of our lifestyle. Much like oxygen and food and water, you can’t go on very long without it. And different people require differing amounts of sleep per day. However, as your time left on Earth as a living, breathing entity gets less and less; it’s seemingly a waste to spend one third or thereabouts of what’s left to you in limbo – asleep. You have personally got to decide for yourself a trade-off between quality of life remaining (lots of sleep; fully rested) and quantity of life (bugger sleep, live life 24/7/52) that’s left to you.

Smoking: Don’t smoke. Smoking is about as unnatural act as you can do and there is no shortage of nasties that are linked with smoking.

Stress: We all have to deal with stress to some degree or other. Mother Nature, fellow humans, politicians, and the tax man all throw curveballs at us 24/7/52. I’m sure even the world’s richest human; dictators, presidents and prime ministers, the British Royal Family; and associated pampered upper-crusts have to deal with some stress now and again. No one is ever stress-free all the time. Surprisingly, some stress is beneficial. It keeps you focused and on your toes. Too much stress stresses the mind too much which has an effect on the rest of the body – ulcers if nothing else. The only advice I have is plan ahead where possible to minimise or deflect future stressful situations; and try not to worry over those things you have absolutely no control over. It also helps if you have a friendly shoulder to cry on!

Thinning your blood: An ancient remedy for whatever ailed you was often to have leeches attached to your skin and having some of the blood sucked out of you. Apparently that had positive results in many cases. I’m not going to advocate you attach leeches to you, but there is one way to thin your blood, obviously beneficial to you, and also to others, and that’s to donate blood on a regular base if eligible. Losing 500 ml of your blood every 12 weeks doesn’t harm you one jot. Not everyone can donate of course – an aspirin a day can accomplish a bit of thinning as well or as an alternative. 

Variety is the spice of life: Don’t stick yourself in a total rut, even if routine is comfortable. Vary your daily routine or diet, even if just a little, so as to experience something new. If the one-off experiment flubs, well nothing ventured, nothing gained. You can then try something else. If you can’t find one tiny variation to your normal routine or diet per week, you’re not trying hard enough.

Waste products: Unfortunately, the very process of living means that your body has to intake various chemicals, process them, and eliminate the unwanted residues – waste products. There are four ways the body eliminates or gets rid of waste products – sweating, exhaling, urine and faeces. You don’t have any real control over exhaling – mainly carbon dioxide. You have relatively little control over sweating, which mainly eliminates salt from your system (which is not always good; your body needs some salt); you also don’t have much of a say in your more solid wastes. However, you can have some control over all those waste products that build up but ultimately get eliminated in your urine. You don’t want those waste products hanging around any longer than necessary. You can drink water, or products/foods that contain a lot of water. Extra water has to be eliminated, and along with it those other waste products that have accumulated. So, drinking lots of liquids, or eating foods which contain a lot of water like pasta, eliminates waste products building up in your blood stream that much faster. Good riddance to bad rubbish that does you no good while inside of you. 

Weight loss: There is one and only one way to lose weight. You have to burn more calories than you ingest. Say you need 2000 calories/day but want to lose weight. Most people go on a crash diet of say 500 calories/day and they are miserable. My solution is to ingest 1800 calories. Sure, weight loss will take longer, but because there’s hardly any real pain, it’s sustainable and you eventually achieve your goal. The other alternative is to keep ingesting your quota of 2000 calories, but start to burn off 2200 calories/day – like getting a bit more exercise. Then too, you could both eat just a little bit less; exercise just a little bit more. Rome wasn’t built in a day; weight loss isn’t a one-day affair either. Think long term.

Finally, for a happy healthy life, empty what’s full; fill what’s empty; scratch where it itches.

P.S. Essays like this are all well and good, but they are no substitute for consulting your favourite heath professional/medical practitioner for spot-on up-close-and-personal advice that conforms to your specific needs.

Reincarnation: Hatched Again or Forever Dead and Buried?

“Nothing is certain but death and taxes”, so the saying goes, and while much has been written about taxes, death is my topic under consideration here, well a variation on the theme anyway. Reincarnation doesn’t of course cheat death, but it certainly circumnavigates or negates the finality of it. However, reincarnation makes relatively little if any real sense.

If reincarnation is bestowed upon you as a reward or punishment for whatever you did (fill in the blank yourself) in a previous life, the lesson is lost if you have no memory of that past existence(s) or of whatever it was that you did (fill in the blank). Now here I discount the claims of some people that they have lived prior lives and have memories of same. No matter what the merits of reincarnation are (and there are none IMHO), it is impossible to recall past lives. The egg and the sperm from which you were conceived had no past memory of your alleged past lives since they came from individuals not so related to your past existences. So, you started out from the get-go with no memory. A newly conceived embryo (blastula) has no memories. Any and all memories you now have started from that day of conception onwards – full stop*. On top of that, there’s been no absolute hard and fast historical evidence to support any such claims – otherwise reincarnation would be scientific fact, not pseudoscience supposition. It’s rather suspicious that all too often a previous  life or lives includes, against all probability, well known historical figures, like Napoleon, Elvis or JC (Julius Caesar -  presumably, if you believe in the Biblical account, that other JC is alive and kicking in an somewhere elsewhere). The probability, based on sheer numbers, of a previous life or lives, actually favors said life (or lives) being that of a cockroach, or ant, or microbe by odds of billions to one in favor. 

Anyway, the reincarnation mechanism isn’t ever explained other than by resorting to supernatural powers – there’s no known physics or chemistry or biology that could explain reincarnation.

And exactly what is reincarnated?  It’s certainly not anything physical like body shape, sex, or eye color, and it can’t be anything to do with memory, since nearly all of us have no personal you-were-there recall of what happened in say 1812 (AD or BC for that matter).  Do you have the identical personality, emotions, I.Q., etc. as your previous lives did? It’s all too nebulous!

Another thing, if Julius Caesar, Napoleon, or Elvis, or even your not as well known great, great, great Aunt Gertrude were floating around in their afterlives, and you are now ‘they’ reincarnated, you’d think they would have a vested interest in you and might therefore appear to you, keeping you on the straight and narrow  to ensure that when you get reincarnated in turn, your whatever goes to a good family who are about to conceive a child instead of a puppy dog about to drop a litter off!

Of course if your previous lives still exist in an afterlife, then what part of them can actually be in you? Of course maybe there’s no afterlife and somehow Julius Caesars’ essence goes directly into someone else hence someone else, etc. hence Napoleon, hence more people of unknown race, creed, sex and nationality, until we come to Elvis, and you (assuming you were born post Elvis’s demise)!

What if someone is totally obsessed with a particular historical time, event, and/or character, might this be a sign that they, in a previous life, lived in that time period, or participated in that event, or was that character – even if they have no direct memory of same? Methinks not. For example, there are way more individuals, with a lot of time on their hands and with a less than healthy obsession over the RMS Titanic disaster, than there were individuals on the actual ship – obviously not all could be reincarnates of the actual crew and passengers. In fact, there’s more than one individual claiming to be the reincarnation of her captain – a mathematical impossibility.

Then too, some people are equally ultra-fanatical over fictional characters, like Sherlock Holmes, James Bond or Harry Potter. Clearly you can not be the reincarnation of a fictional being! And how many thousands of Star Trek fanatics are out there whose life seems to revolve around that universe?  If it’s impossible to be a reincarnate of a fictional character from the past, then its impossibility squared to be a reincarnate of some literary character depicted as existing in your future.

The upshot is that you can be a person totally immersed in, highly knowledgeable of, or even obsessed to the point of delusion, with something historical, without there being any actual causality connection between the then and the now that one could interpret as reincarnation. Some people just live in fantasy worlds of their own making.

Then there’s the interesting “On the Beach” scenario. The novel (plus film plus made-for-TV remake film) deals with nuclear war. Unfortunately, fallout radiation spreads across and around the entire globe. Everyone is doomed – the plot deals with the waning days of the last few survivors in Australia as the radioactive ‘cloud’ heads their way. The question is, if all of Earth’s billions of people (and other higher animals) all die off, what happens to all those essences in search of something to be reincarnated into? Oops!

To pile on the absurdities, why confine your reincarnation(s) to Planet Earth? Perhaps you’ll be reincarnated as an ET (extraterrestrial) – perhaps you were an ET in a previous life!

No, reincarnation doesn’t make any sense, IMHO.

*When I mentioned this observation to a friend, she immediately suggested that the memory of a past life or lives was due to the implantation of your soul. It’s your soul (assuming there is such a thing) that has the memory.

Actually I was under the impression that it was one soul per person, but maybe not. One soul might be passed down from one person to that person’s reincarnation to that person’s reincarnation for however long the process goes on for. Maybe it’s like in Doctor Who - you only get so many regenerations (or in this case reincarnations).

Anyway, I was also under the impression that the soul is intangible or nebulous – it has no actual substance. The soul isn’t a thing that can be examined in the laboratory and under a microscope. If it has no actual matter/energy substance to it, it can’t store any memories.

Memory has to be something part and parcel of the biochemical’s and biochemistry and associated energy flows that happens in your brain whenever you remember something. Memory is encoded in your brain’s biochemistry. Memory must have some physical substance – it takes mass and energy to store and process memories. Memory can be affected by chemicals and energy. A soul that doesn’t have mass or energy presumably can’t be altered by external influences. So, if your soul contains the memories of your past lives, then no amount of foreign drugs, disease, lack of sleep, the aging process or injury will make you forget past lives because the soul is indestructible. Sorry, but if you have a memory of a past life then I suggest that memory, even though it’s a false or delusional memory, can be affected by physical influences, like drugs, disease, lack of sleep, the aging process or injury.

Thanks for the Memories

For Starters, A Personal Disclaimer: What follows is 100% my own thoughts on the subject of memory. I haven’t done any independent readings or research on the topic, not wanting my own ideas to be otherwise or somehow influenced by what no doubt millions of others have speculated on.

Introduction: Maybe neuroscientists would disagree, but I think the phenomenon of memory is one of the greater mysteries in science. What can we agree on from the start? Well, whatever memory is, it resides in the brain and is a function of brain chemistry. We know memory is biochemically based because biochemical’s like some drugs, alcohol, etc. can affect memory. Ditto the aging process which is ultimately biochemical in nature.

The biochemicals have got to be complex enough to not only store and provide the recall of the memories they represent, but versatile enough to provide recall not only for sight, but sound, smell, taste and touch as well. In addition, they have to be of such a nature that can provide combinations and sequences of these sensory memories. They also need to be able to store non-sensory bits like your memory of how to do addition so you can add up numbers in your head, as well as on paper. Ditto, the abstraction of the memory of how to look things up – all those factual bits and pieces of things you’ve never bothered to actually commit to memory, or have long since forgotten (like all those boring dates and places in history). There’s also the complexity of what makes up memories to draw on any number and variety of them to assist you in your current situation.  

Memory Is Not Unique to Humans: I’m probably stating the obvious here, but memory is not a characteristic that sets humans apart from other animals. While we can be pretty sure plants don’t have memories, experiments have shown that even relative simple fauna have memories, even if rudimentary. Certainly vertebrate animals have quite sophisticated memories. My two cats, for an example, have total recall over where their food and water bowls are located; ditto the litter boxes. They have memorized the geometry of the house. They know where the doors are leading to outside. They have learned and memorized where the sunny spots are and how they move during the course of the day. It’s no longer trial and error as it might have been on their first day getting used to their new surroundings.

Why Memory? Why do we have any ability to recall anything from our past at all? Well, the obvious answer is memory has survival value. I mean it’s important to remember to lock your door at night; remembering what is, and is not, eatable is also important; which is more likely to bite me, a shark or a dolphin – I can never remember but there’s this fin cutting through the water heading my way! It’s important to remember where your home, village, cave, whatever is. Of course you’re going to be in deep poo if you forget who your partner is or who your children are. I know there’s a reason why I shouldn’t jump off this high cliff, but I can’t remember what it is – oh well, it probably isn’t important, so here goes nothing – whee; splat! Memories should also be distributed throughout the brain; even one memory should be stored in a number of places is case disease or injury to one part of that organ results in total memory loss and forfeiture of survival.

Some Various Puzzlements: Okay, so here is this conglomeration of biochemical’s representing some memory of an experience of yours, a memory which, for the moment is out of sight and out of mind. The biochemical(s) are just sitting in the brain, sort of dormant. How is it that biochemical configuration activated, resulting in that memory no longer being out of sight and out of mind?

I can recall multi dozens of favourite film music themes – name a favourite film and I can recall the theme. Yet, I have lots of other equally favourite film music themes that just refuse to stick in my mind – ever. Why some and not others? I don’t know. Conversely, if I hear a favourite film music theme, I can usually, but always name the film. When however I can’t, it can be very frustrating! You know it like the back of your hand, yet it eludes you.

Memory and Thinking: Before you can recall anything, you’ve got to think of what it is you want to remember. It’s an active, not a passive recall. Before you can remember what you had for dinner last night you’ve got to think to yourself what’s the answer to what I had for dinner last night? But what prompted that thought in the first place? Maybe it was in response to a question someone else asked you. But that is of necessity not the only possibility. You could have thought of that yourself, maybe because you’re planning tonight’s dinner and don’t want to duplicate. Presumably there is a logical and independent reason why you would think of what last night’s dinner was prompting the biochemical chain of events that provided the memory and answer of what it was.

Memory and Dreams: I think that memory and dreams have relatively little relationship; aren’t that interlinked or connected. I’m going from personal experience here, in that most of my dreams (what few I can recall after the fact) are about imaginary people and places and events. Where real people, places and events are part and parcel of my dreaming, there is a unique spin to the dream scenario that has nothing to do with actual memories. Yes the people and or place and or events are superficially accurate, but it turns out to be an original story, and not a replay of an actual historical happening. While on the subject of dreams, it occurred to me that for all practical purposes being awake (using your active imagination) and asleep (dreaming) are really the same thing (not to mention that in both states your heart pumps and your lungs breathe and your stomach digests, your cells divide and ageing of course happens). Anyway, anything you can dream while asleep you could imagine while fully awake. So if dreams are an example of a possible simulated reality, so is the day-to-day active imagination scenarios your mind generates while you’re wide awake.

You Are Forgetful: In fact, you have forgotten thousands upon thousands of times more stuff than you can actually remember. Imagine if you could recall every minute of every day of your life – every dream; every word in every book, article, etc. you’ve ever read; every meal you’ve ever had and cooked; every headache and backache; every conversation; recalling every advertisement, jingle and commercial along with every other thing that’s ever annoyed you, like recalling word-for-word every boring lecture you’ve ever heard. What an absolute clutter that would be. So your brain is good at holding garage sales; hitting the delete key. Some memories are just lost for good and no amount of willpower or hypnosis is going to bring them back.

Earliest Memories: It would be a very odd individual indeed who could remember anything about anything from conception through to probably at least their second or third birthday – maybe later. Is there something about the brain’s biochemistry that inhibits remembrance from those first several years of experiencing sensory input?

Submerged Memories: You may not have read that book, or seen that film or TV episode, or listened to that piece of music or visited that building in decades, yet doing so today brings back to the surface nearly all the details you got all those decades ago. In other words, it’s not a new ‘from scratch’ experience.

Mental Blocks: Some people can be walking encyclopaedias of entertainment or sports trivia, but hopeless at learning and retaining a foreign language. Some people soak up historical names, dates and places with ease yet can’t memorize the chemical elements and associated symbols. Some people have no success at memorizing the multiplication tables, yet seemingly have a photographic memory of a favourite book(s).  Some people are walking dictionaries, yet some people, like me, can’t spell worth beans. My old man once offered to give me $10 (good bucks back in those days) if I ever passed a spelling test in school. His money was safe – I never did. The question is why seemingly all people have some sort of innate ability to memorise a particular facet of human knowledge, yet have a mental block to another. I’d assume that our brain’s biochemical base is pretty uniform across our species, yet it’s really, when it comes to memory, a case of different strokes for different folks. Further, I’m not aware that our animal companions differ in this way. My cats seem to be two peas-in-a-pod when it comes to what they recall. Do animals have mental blocks too?  

Short Term vs. Long Term Memory:

Very short term: Well, remembering dreams comes to mind. Usually, upon awaking, we don’t recall any dreaming at all. Sometimes we do recall one (the latest since I gather we have several per night), but it tends to fade very quickly. Of course once in a rare while it lingers on, and now and again, becomes part of your long term memory. There doesn’t seem to be a biochemical rulebook for this process however. Also very short term, I would suggest is the reading say of a chapter in a book, or watching a TV episode or film. Immediately upon completion, you can not recall verbatim the word-for-word, or image-for-image (scene-for-scene) contents. However, the overall theme of the contents or plot remains behind.

Short term: Well, I’ll define this as several days, perhaps weeks, before the memory’s elimination. After a week or so, it’s going to be hard to recall specific meals, and outfits worn and day-to-day doings from, after a week or so. Unless you keep a detailed diary, you’d be pretty hard pressed to recall in precise detail exactly what you did, the order you did it in, and the outcome(s) a week ago.

Long term: One off, traumatic, unique and rare occurrences are more likely to stick around in that brain thing of yours. For example, you’re more likely to recall the day you broke your leg, not the thousands of days you didn’t. Why, since your leg is okay now? Maybe it has something to do with the philosophy that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. By remembering the events surrounding your broken leg, decades after-the-fact, makes it less likely you’ll do it again. 

Specific vs. General Memories: As an example of a general memory, I can remember the quadratic equation decades after the various maths classes I had it exposed to me – yet in those subsequent decades, I’ve never had to put it to any use. It thus seems to be a pretty worthless thing for my mind to have retained. Another example of general memory – my mother didn’t care for pasta and never cooked it. If I or my father wanted to eat pasta, we had to make it ourselves. Again, a question of why? That gastronomic quirk of my mother’s no longer has any relevance in my life and hasn’t for decades, so why hasn’t that memory been erased unlike probably thousands of other equally irrelevant bits that have been deleted?

Summary: A good summary tries to address who, what, where, when, why – and how - central to the issue. ‘Who’ of course are we ourselves; ‘what’ is what our memory is all about; ‘where’ is the domain of our our brains; ‘when’ is now, a good a time as any; the ‘why’ is obvious! ‘How’, well that is ultimately our central point. This essay is saying a lot about ‘what’ memories are – its traits and characteristics – not ‘how’ it is what it is. Neuroscientists and biochemists may be able to explain all – someday.

The Mind: Explaining ‘The Inner You’

Are you just a squishy version of bricks-and-mortar full stop, or is there an undefined and indefinable nebulous, spiritual, something lacking substance that’s housed within that flesh-and-blood version of bricks-and-mortar? You tend to separate yourself into the physical you (your body), and the mental you (your mind). But is your mind just another body brick or just a bit of body cement holding you together, or something else entirely? Well, IMHO, bricks-and-mortar (or physics and chemistry) rule. 

‘You’ is the physical or physiological you. ‘The Inner You’ is the nebulous (apparently non-physical) psychological parts of you. That is, those bits not considered physiological and which you can not hold in your hand or see with a microscope - for lack of a better word, your mind or your personality. For example, things like free will, creativity/ideas, likes and dislikes, a sense of humor, memory, emotions, the thought process, understanding/comprehension, dreaming, morality/ethics, the state of being conscious, consciousness, sense of self, beliefs/faith, personal philosophy and knowledge.

If any of these attributes can generate a physiological reaction, then that attribute of mind, or of ‘The Inner You’ must also be physiologically based - or, vice versa. Can anything physiological, or biochemical influence ‘The Inner You’ attributes given above?  In both cases, I suggest the answer is ‘yes’.  Translated, there is no actual separation between the physical you and ‘The Inner You’ components.

You exist in time and space in a self contained physical body comprised of various biological systems, in turn composed of various body organs, hence cells, complex organic molecules, not so complex organic (and inorganic) molecules, atoms, and those fundamental particles (and forces) from which all else flows.

Of course ‘The Inner You’ within the physical you also consists of more nebulous things like your awareness, comprehension or understanding, creativity, consciousness, dreams and nightmares, emotions, hallucinations or visions, knowledge, instinct, intellect or IQ, interests, logic, memory, mind, morality, perception, personality, reasoning, sense of self, spirituality, etc., etc.

‘The Inner You’ still remains even if some of the physical you is removed or altered like loosing a tooth, or having your appendix or tonsils removed or having an artificial hip replacement. All of the above (mind, etc.) however somehow do reside in a physical structure called the brain, which, being a bodily organ, is ultimately composed of a combination of biochemical substances, in turn composed of  simpler molecules, hence atoms and those fundamental particles and associated forces (in this case mainly the electromagnetic force). ‘The Inner You’ in other words exists as a subpart of the physical you – the brain. In fact, if I understand correctly, some of the specific aspects of ‘The Inner You’ have been found to be associated with specific locations within the brain complex. If the brain is removed or altered, then aspects of ‘The Inner You’ will cease to exist or (probably) be altered. This also suggests that all those aspects associated with ‘The Inner You’ are internal to the physical you and don’t have any sort of separate and apart existence outside of the physical you. Since ‘The Inner You’ vanishes if your brain is removed or dies, let’s concentrate on alterations instead that show that the electro-chemical brain is the be-all-and-end-all of ‘The Inner You’. 

Changes to the brain (temporary or permanent), whether induced by physical injury, physical medical procedures, or via exposure to various chemicals (say drugs of any nature, legal or illegal) can result in changes to those ‘The Inner You’ attributes listed above. Blows to the head can affect memory. Surgery can cure or modify various personality disorders. Drugs ditto – but sometimes for the worse. The upshot is that for ‘The Inner You’ to be subject to natural physics and chemistry, strongly suggests that those nebulous qualities that are ‘The Inner You’ are grounded in physics and chemistry and therefore can’t really be all that nebulous.

For example, take the commonly used recreational drug alcohol. Alcohol can alter your sense of morality or moral conduct, as in having to much to drink at the office Christmas party – conduct unbecoming! There’s no disputing that it is the alcohol that is the cause of the (temporary) personality change. There’s no disputing that alcohol is matter – organic molecules comprised in turn of atoms and those fundamental particles. To be physically or chemically acted on, or physically affected by, your morality or personality must also have a physical or chemical basis. Matter such as alcohol can’t influence things that have no nuts-and-bolts physical reality, like the nebulous concept of Wednesday or citizenship.

Turning things around, from personal experience, some of ‘The Inner You’ attributes can cause physical (physiological) changes in other parts of the physical you. Emotions, dreams, etc. can cause accelerated heart beats or sweating or abnormal secreting of digestive juices. ‘The Inner You’ can cause the physical you to become unwell – ulcers perhaps. Again, how can something intangible cause something tangible? Therefore, I must conclude that these apparently nebulous ‘The Inner You’ attributes must be based on physics and the laws, relationships and principles of physics (and chemistry).

Because all of ‘The Inner You’ resides in the brain, and because the brain can be observed, measured and experimented on, and because the main force operating within the brain (as a result of observation, measurement and experimentation) is electromagnetic, and because all of this is on a micro level, then quantum effects could rule. So, to understand the workings of your inner self ‘The Inner You’ or your mind as it were, you need to understand quantum physics. The relationship(s) between quantum physics and ‘The Inner You’ aren’t readily understood. If they were, ‘The Inner You’ attributes wouldn’t be as nebulous as they currently appear to be. Nevertheless, that’s where the ultimate explanations lie. One interesting bit, a connection perhaps, is that at the very heart; the fundamental property or nature of quantum physics is uncertainty or unpredictability or indeterminism. If quantum events rule ‘The Inner You’ then perhaps it’s not surprising that most aspects of ‘The Inner You’ (personality, emotions, creativity, etc.) are also fundamentally uncertain or unpredictable or are indeterminate. ‘The Inner You’ is not consistent. Seemingly identical situations can (and probably will) produce differences in ‘The Inner You’, which is why humans can be so unpredictably exasperating to other humans.

I kind of wonder whether the physical you (or in this case the specific part of you called the brain or brain structures) can be equated to hardware, whereas ‘The Inner You’ is akin to software. Unlike a strict analogy with computers however, in that computers have their software installed in one go (with periodic updates perhaps), ‘The Inner You’ software has evolved over time, just as the physical you has, only in the case of the physical you, it’s called aging! The aging process in turn can have rather dramatic impacts on several of ‘The Inner You’ attributes – memory or creativity for example. That’s just further evidence that there is a physical (physiological) relationship that is probably quantum in nature between the physical you and ‘The Inner You’.

Of course the physical you has many types of software ‘installed’ within you, of which one happens to be collectively ‘The Inner You’. Another type of software in the physical you, for example, controls the involuntary nervous system; another is responsible for the aging process.

One (of many) interesting evolutions of ‘The Inner You’ could be considered a form of immortality. While nearly everyone wishes for immortality, whether they realize it or not, this is a case of be wary of what you wish for, least you get it. Immortality (which doesn’t preclude death by accident or design – just natural [aging] death), if achieved, would be a very boring existence as you’d end up spending trillions of years in a dark, intensely cold, lifeless Universe that keeps expanding, and accelerating expansion at that, ever cooling and dying as stars exhaust their fuel and galaxies pass out of sight of one another. Such is the predicted fate of our cosmos. The Universe ‘ends’ as it were, not with a bang but with a ‘heat death’ whimper.

Anyway, that aside, how could you (actually ‘The Inner You’) achieve if not infinite immortality, at least near quasi-immortality? After all, you really don’t want to achieve immortality if the only part of you that achieves immortality is your nose or thumb or liver; what you want to be immortal is ‘The Inner You’ – the rest of your physical body is pretty much irrelevant.

Let’s say you have an intense personal desire to have a career exploring the planet Jupiter – not via telescope, but in person. bioToday, for various reasons, your prospects are bugger-all. There’s no way to get you there at the moment, and you couldn’t survive the hostile environment even if you did. There’s no part of your organic body that would survive the Jovian environment.  And if you wanted to explore, in person, extra-solar ‘Jupiters’,  in addition to hostile environments, you wouldn’t survive the time frames necessary to get you to them which would be measured in tens to hundreds of thousands of years at projected relatively near future interstellar spacecraft velocities.

So, even a combination of your biology coupled with machine technology (you’re say becoming a cybernetic bio-mechanical hybrid for example) wouldn’t ultimately help your goal. What would work would be an entirely technological or mechanical ‘organism’ – a robot with artificial intelligence – one that could survive the lengthy journey times and the hostile environments. But that doesn’t do the physical you (or more to the point ‘The Inner You’ within the physical you) any good – unless you became that robot! But then one needs to get the organic ‘The Inner You’ into an inorganic form.

Just as it’s currently possible for one to transfer or download the contents of one computer into another computer, and just as your brain (which contains ‘The Inner You’ is an advanced type of computer – it’s ‘The Inner You’ software (or wetware) that controls the physical you, so too might it be eventually possible for the organic ‘The Inner You’ to be downloaded into a nuts-and-bolts computer which could then be merged with an appropriate mechanical body or other technology specifically designed to achieve a particular goal unachievable by actual  flesh-and-blood. Examples are exploring Jupiter, interstellar space travel to distant stars and solar systems, or even deep sea exploration here on Planet Earth. You can’t currently walk around the ocean bottom exploring the wreak of the Titanic in your birthday suit! But a robot could.

The upshot is that if ‘The Inner You’ were part and parcel of, and inside inorganic (silicone and steel)  bodies, given that inorganic materials last a hell of a lot longer than organic bodies, then you’ve achieved quasi-immortality!  That’s ditto the case in that when ‘The Inner You’ becomes software in an inorganic computer, that ‘The Inner You’ software can be later transferred to another computer and then another and then another – on down the line. This can also lead to lots of copies of ‘The Inner You’ around. Not only quasi-immortality, but non-biological cloning as well!

Apart from transferring the organic ‘The Inner You’ into an inorganic ‘The Inner You’, in your organic state, well, as they say, ‘life’s a bitch, and then you die!’ However, there’s immortality, the hard way, because there could be a resurrection, the hard way.

It’s a principal of physics that information can not be destroyed – scrambled, yes; lost from view, yes; but ever destroyed to the point where it can’t be reconstructed even in theory. Since you are but a packet of information encoded in flesh-and-blood form, you, as a packet of information, can not be entirely destroyed.

Now your squishy wetware brain-thingy contains a lot of information. It seems however pretty obvious that when you die, your brain will be attacked, fed upon, will decay and ultimately be consumed and destroyed by those ultimate scavengers, bacteria. The information in your brain packet has been lost to all and sundry still in the land of the living. Or has it?

If information can not be destroyed then in theory you can not die – the information that is ‘you’ forever exists. It may be next to impossible to recreate or reconstruct, but in theory not impossible. How is it so? One could take your blueprint, highly complex but in theory knowable, and rebuild you up, via nanotechnology, subatomic particle by elementary particle by fundamental particle back into ‘you’.

The implications are that you are one with universal physics – energy and matter; forces and particles. There is nothing nebulous about you, your mind, “The Inner You”, whatever. Your most basic bits, your emotions, your memories, your sense of self, your morals and ethics, your ‘soul’ if you will, can all be boiled down into the relationships between elementary particles and the four fundamental forces of nature.

Conclusions: All of the various personal attributes you acknowledge as being ‘The Inner You’ all started to accumulate and evolve from the moment of your conception onwards. You had no memory, no personality, no ‘The Inner You’, no nothing prior to that event. As you grew and matured and aged, your inner self further developed and matured. Alas, when your physical body kicks the bucket, the vase that houses ‘The Inner You’ dies as well. Dust to dust; ashes to ashes, or in this case the complex bio-molecules that make up your physical body including ‘The Inner You’ break down into simple molecules, atoms and elementary particles that get recycled onto their next destination or port of call, which may or may not include becoming part of another living organism; perhaps part of that organism’s ‘The Inner You’. Regardless, ‘The Inner You’ has now been lost, but not destroyed. Normal biological cloning can’t restore the original ‘The Inner You’; that cloned brain would be virgin and an empty vase ready for new inputs. But high technology, many years down the track might be able to duplicate or transfer ‘The Inner You’ prior to your biological death; maybe, albeit farfetched, reconstruct ‘The Inner You’ after that fact.