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.

Universals of the Human Condition 2: Part One

It’s pretty obvious that all humans share with all other humans various but fundamental universals. We all have a biological mother and father for example. One normally however associates every human being and every human society as unique in terms of their worldview. Yet there remain certain universals (like mom and dad) seemingly shared across the board by the great majority of individuals comprising any and all cultures. Some of these universals were explored in an earlier essay. Now let’s explore several more universals common to the human condition, which are innate to our internal psychology and/or based around external realities. 

Aliens: Humans have probably speculated about alien life ever since they looked up at those points of light in the night sky and wondered “what if”. Universal interest in and speculations about the reality of alien life, especially extraterrestrial intelligences has waxed and waned over several thousands of years. Naturally Christian religions have had to butt in and contribute their two cents worth – nothing positive came of those I can assure you. Religion should really keep its bloody nose out of scientific issues that have no moral or ethical implications. Anyway, though dating back to the ancient Greeks and probably before them, it’s only in the last 500 or so years that’s witnessed an order of magnitude increase in speculative interest about aliens and in the last 100 or so years an order of magnitude increase above that. There’s been a further exponential increase in interest just in the past couple of generations as speculation has turned to experiments such as the Viking space probes to Mars and SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). That, coupled with the appearance of the UFO phenomenon and the rise of interest in possible ‘ancient astronauts’ has up the ante. A whole new science of astrobiology (nee exobiology) has risen within those last two generations and is now a well established discipline. However, as of this writing, we’re no wiser as to alien life than the ancient Greeks were. However, probably before many of you reading these worlds head up to that great radio telescope in the sky, you’ll have an answer – it might only be microbes on Mars, but that’s still an answer.

Creativity: Both humans and some animals can be innovatory creative – necessity being the mother of invention – such as employing tool use to further their odds of survival. The classic example is some animals using twigs to pry out insects from inside trees for their lunch. It’s snack time! Only humans however are artistically creative (with one possible exception – whale songs). We’re all artistically creative even if it’s just planning and cooking meals; deciding on furniture and its arrangement; ditto our wallpaper and/or paint schemes; our choice of carpets or tiles. Even writing a letter or an email is an artistic creation as is choosing ones wardrobe and hairstyle. Amateur photography is an artistic expression of course – an exercise in creativity. Animals do none of these things. And it’s obvious from the archaeological and anthropological record that our ancestors were of the same mind – artistically creative, perhaps designed with a purpose in mind like making pottery to store food in or perhaps creating something for religious purposes. Quite often however an artistic artefact was created just for the hell of it, or because it pleased the person to do so. The Mona Lisa might be considered to be a nice artistic work (though you’d have to pay me to hang it in my home) but it’s useless – just another dust collector. Okay, it might be useful dragging in a few tourist dollars, but 99.999% of all artistic creations just collect dust. Creating something with little hope of recognition is definitely a universal human trait. 

Exploration: Many animals explore, but not for theoretical academic reasons. Their exploration has a practical purpose in mind – a new and better home possibly; a possible food source that lurks inside that unexplored cupboard. Humans explore too, and often equally for practical reasons – finding the Northwest Passage; seeking the exotic spices of the Orient by heading west from Europe but bumping into the Americas instead; looking for new lands to add to your nation’s empire with a bit of personal glory tacked on as well. However, humans also explore just because they are curious and boldly go where no one has gone before just to satisfy that curiosity. Voyages to the Moon are at one extreme of that urge, but on another level, what’s beyond that distant hill? As it was in the past, so it still is. If you move into a new neighbourhood or city what’s just about the first thing you do? Explore and find out what’s what and where’s where. It’s the personal version of bolding going where you haven’t gone before. 

Hybrid Creatures 1: Human-Animal Hybrids: Our universal mythologies are loaded with human-animal hybrids. You name the animal and no doubt you’ll find either the body of that animal topped up with a human head & neck (sometimes including torso), or else the human body will be topped off with an animal’s head and neck (sometimes including it’s torso). You don’t have to dig too deeply to find examples: the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Centaur, the Satyr, the Mermaid, the Harpies, and the Sirens are all well known examples.

Hybrid Creatures 2: Animal-Animal Hybrids: Our universal mythologies are also loaded with animal-animal hybrids. There are combinations of two different animals; three different animals; sometimes four of more make up a composite hybrid. If you can imagine one; someone has beaten you to it and recorded it in one or more ancient mythology. While there are literally hundreds of examples from around the world, it’s easy to name the commoner ones: the Dragon, the Griffin, even Pegasus the winged horse.

Politicians: Politicians by any other name (royalty, ministers, senators, emperors, congressmen, presidents, pharaohs, etc.) are still politicians, near universally viewed by the ruled as among the lowest of the low, whether elected to rule, rule by divine right, or rule by force. Politicians are probably in that category of you can’t live without them; you can’t live (much as you’d like to anyway) with them. At best we have to conclude that politicians have been, are, and will continue to be a necessary evil from any and all societies that have, are, or will exist.

Recreational Drugs: There’s little doubt that recreational drug use (and probably abuse) dates back multi-thousands of years. The fermenting of gapes for wine and its use goes back at least from 8000 to 6000 BC, and was a very common drink in Ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome; the production and use of beer dates back even further to at least 9500 BC; smoking has been recorded from at least 5000 BC onwards, often as incense and for use in various religious/shamanistic rituals from the Middle East through to Asia and the Americas; and no doubt our ancient ancestors, via trial and error as to what was eatable and what wasn’t tasty, no doubt discovered ‘magic mushrooms’ and other similar natural plant materials that not only provided a few calories but a bit of a buzz too! For example, opium use goes back to roughly 4200 BC. The list could be massively extended but you get the gist. Drug use is one of those human universals – always has been; probably always will be. And while some species of animals can be induced artificially into becoming addicted to say alcohol, a wild animal can not afford to become addicted to any substance in its environment and become disoriented. A mouse nibbling on a magic mushroom is just asking for trouble.

Shape-Shifters and Were-Creatures: Shape-shifters and were-creatures are very popular in sci-fi (“The Thing from another World” or “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country” and horror (those endless variations on the “Wolfman” classic). They are also popular in reality, if mythology be reality. Anytime within the field of mythology one comes across a theme which is universal, that is it cuts across all cultures, geographies, races, etc. then I believe one needs to pay extra heed, as universal themes are more likely to have some basis in reality. One such theme is that of the shape-shifter, including were-creatures. Almost every culture around the world has some type of transformation myth, and almost every commonly found animal (and some not-so-common ones) probably has had a shape-shifting myth attached to them somewhere along the line. With respect to humans, the most obvious explanation is that at some time or other we’d all like to have been an inconspicuous fly-on-the-ceiling observing and listening in to that which was not meant for our eyes and ears. Much as we’d like to at times, we can’t shape-shift into a fly. But that doesn’t really explain why we would attribute that ability to others – it doesn’t do us personally any good, now does it? The popular idea of a shape-shifter is of a human (or humanoid) being who turns into something else, or something else that turns into something human (or humanoid) and common examples include skin-walkers, the werewolf and vampire (though humans have been attributed to transform into just about any mammal or bird you can think of). Other common shape-shifters include fairies, wizards, witches, kelpies, and some, even most of the gods (like Odin, Loki and Zeus). Satan would have to be included too. However, though we can’t shape-shift (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde not withstanding), even though other humans can (or could), that ability has also been attributed to literally hundreds of creatures from time immemorial. There are numerous stories about animals that can transform themselves into other animal forms as well as the above mentioned human-animal transformations.

To be continued…

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. 

Humans Have the Intelligence; Animals Have the Smarts: Part Three

There’s no question that of all species on Planet Earth, modern humans, Homo sapiens, are top of the pops when it comes to intelligence (IQ). All other species, however close they might be in evolutionary terms to modern humans, pale in comparison. BUT, and there’s always a BUT, animals are way smarter, which raises questions about our actual relationship to them. Here I give numerous examples where animals are top of the pops when it comes to pure smarts.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

MENTAL CONCEPTS

Birth, Death & Deities: Animals have no concept of their own death, hence an afterlife. They have no remembrance of their conception and probably their birth and of the concept of creation. Animals therefore have no need of religion and deities. Animals therefore have to carry around a lot less philosophical baggage. Humans however are obsessed with these concepts, really all unnecessary philosophical baggage IMHO.

Economics & Finance: No animal jumped out of windows at the start of the Great Depression. They lose no shuteye over the tax man, and bills are something on ducks.

Lifestyle: Animals don’t need to go to the ‘beauty’ parlour for a quick pick-me-up. The whole idea of a social scene – the right venue, the in-crowd, being seen with the ‘right’ people – is totally foreign to them. What to wear is a non-issue. The current must have fashions (doomed to be out of date within months if not less) is just so much ho-hum. There’s no need or desire for tattoos and body piercing. The latest celebrity scandal in the tabloids is a non-event. Collectables aren’t. A snazzy sports car or any other boy toy is boring. Animals don’t suffer from information overload. Because animals don’t purchase any products, they can’t be held responsible for any litter that arises (of which there is plenty). Humans however engage in this ever ongoing, never ending, pursuit in quest of the ‘good life’ and are usually never satisfied. Animals just enjoy life as best they can one day at a time – they live for the moment. 

Drugs: Animals do not wilfully harm themselves with substances foreign to their day-to-day survival. Humans – well there’s caffeine, smoking, drinking alcohol, all sorts of recreational drugs with varying degrees of mental addiction and artificial ‘stimulation’. Need one say more!

Harmful Habits: Animals do not engage in habits harmful to their wellbeing other than what’s required for basic survival, like say a predator taking on prey way larger than itself, defending your offspring from attack, or herds crossing a raging river on an annual migration. Then there are head-butting type contests over mating rights, but they usually result in a back-down, not death or extreme injury. Of course animals are still hardwired for the natural environment. Their eons ago development and evolution hasn’t caught up with our modern civilization yet, and so dogs may chase cars, and the road kill is additional evidence of how humans put animals in harms way – they don’t do it because they are suicidal. Humans, well from tattoos to body piercing to baking in the sun for an unnecessary suntan to extreme sports, humans like to take on risk without any possible actual additional benefit. Habits aside, humans, usually young macho males with way too much testosterone, like to put themselves in harms way – demonstrate the ‘right’ stuff. Pity more of them didn’t end up with a Darwin Award and remove themselves from the gene pool! I’ll drink to that since such self-destruct events wouldn’t bother me one iota.

Mental Health: Animals, left to their own devices, are in no need of a shrink. It’s only when humans try to force a (square) companion animal into their requirement of a (round) behavioural hole that problems arise. Companion animals under the influence of their human associations have ‘need’ of pet psychologists, or at least some of them apparently do according to the human, and really it’s ultimately the human’s fault. Do you think any wild animals have any such need of a shrink? No? I didn’t think so. Humans of course are often on the couch for counselling and therapy of one sort or another; the list way to long to detail in a short essay.

Isms: Animals do not discriminate on the grounds of gender or appearance. A ginger male cat will accept or reject a black male cat on grounds that have nothing to do with fur colour. A white female cat might pick and choose between lots of male cats and reject them all – that doesn’t mean she’s sexist or prefers female cats. Humans on the other hand, accept or reject other humans on just such distinctions, plus a whole host of other ‘isms’ that animals have no conception of in the first place. 

Opinions: Animals ask no questions; tell no lies; mind their own business; take everything at face value. Humans – can you say the same about you and the rest of the human race? Let’s face it; humans do anything but mind their own business. They happily pass judgements on any other lifestyle (especially one involving sex in any shape manner or form) that doesn’t conform to their own moral standards.

HUMAN-ANIMAL INTERACTIONS I’D LIKE TO SEE

What about jockeys carrying the horses around on their backs as they run around the race track! Now that would be worth watching!

How about a human three-ring circus with an animal audience!

In fact, just about any human-animal role reversal would be interesting.

CONCLUSIONS

So what does this analysis tell us about the differences between humans and ‘mere’ animals? We’ve seen there are many fundamental differences between way overrated humans (overrated by our own human opinions of ourselves of course) and way underrated animals (again, underrated according to the relatively biased opinions of humans). If the human-animal differences are due to natural selection, then there is a puzzlement in why did the rest of the animal kingdom take the ‘smart’ and commonsense road while humans took the intelligence road? While I’m sure there is an evolutionary connection between animals and the human animal, I also think there is some hidden variable(s) that caused the human branch to head off into uncharted territory (and go off the rails). If these differences (the hidden variables) are due to God, what does that tell you about what God is like?  Nothing good, that’s for sure! If it’s artificial selection, but not due to anything supernatural, then things get interesting.

The celebrated astrophysicist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking, among many others, is a strong advocate of humans boldly going and colonizing space as the only viable way of ensuring our long term survival. The Big Question however in my mind is should humanity infect the wider cosmic scene? Isn’t it enough one ‘pale blue dot’ has to suffer our lot? So, ET, if you are out there; be afraid, be very afraid!

Humans Enslaved: Part Two

Humans can be enslaved in all manner of ways. By force by others is the usual image, but there is conscription and of course the bowing and scraping that’s part and parcel of being a law-abiding citizen. You probably feel a slave at work, but at least its voluntary and you do get paid for it. What I’m on about here is self-enslavement and how you willingly dance to the many tunes of the numerous pied pipers.

By “humans enslaved” I mean not so much physical ownership and physical slavery imposed on you by others, the form of slavery that has been and often still is practiced in the world, but often self imposed mental slavery. You are a slave and what is enslaving you is in fact you. But if you want a scapegoat, you can pin the blame on society for brainwashing you in the first place since none of what follows is hardwired or innately carved into your little grey cells.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

TRADITIONS & HABITS: More likely as not, you’re a slave to various traditions and personal habits. You might say something like “that’s the way my parents did it; that’s the way their parents did it and their parents before them and as far back as you care to go – it’s tradition and we observe tradition and no correspondence will be entered into on the matter!” Or, it’s such-and-such a time; such-and-such a day or date, therefore such-and-such will be done or observed. Sound slightly familiar? We’re often creatures of, slaves to, tradition and habits without ever stopping to question “why”?

CHRISTMAS: Christmas just has to be singled out especially from the rest of the book of days because it’s at the extreme end of our numerous traditions and habits. By any way you care to measure things, Xmas can be the best of times but it’s usually the worst of times (conveniently forgotten one year on). The Xmas propaganda (i.e. – the Xmas Season) starts months before the appointed date and is relentless in its build-up and intensity. It extends several weeks past the use-by date when the Xmas wrapping paper and Xmas cards are now 50% off, and those post Xmas sales where you’re tempted to by next years Xmas gifts now. And then the Xmas bills arrive just to remind you about all those fun times you had over the past several months.

Do you do Xmas because you want to, or because society has so shoved this concept down your throat ever since you were knee high to a cockroach that you now just go through the motions by rote because you have got to appease that great deity called “Shop Till You Drop”? Translated, do you do Xmas just because it’s expected of you? The latter you admit? I thought so. I mean what sane person voluntarily desires to max out their credit cards for gifts for others who probably don’t need or want them and will just shove them towards the back of their closet? What sane person voluntarily spends hours in crowded stores just for the pleasure or satisfaction of maxing out their credit cards on behalf of others? There’s hardly a store you can shop in that isn’t loaded to the rafters with Xmas trimmings. What sane person would voluntarily, laughing all the way (Ho, Ho, Ho), spend hours writing and addressing Xmas cards to persons they really don’t give a damn about? And isn’t it just jolly good fun wrapping up all those gifts? Do you honestly look forward to hearing all those Xmas songs for the millionth time?  There’s hardly a shop in town (not to mention buskers) that doesn’t bombard you with endless repetitions of Xmas music. How the staff can stand it is quite beyond me.

I’m sure you just love being exposed to Xmas spin multi-thousands of times per Xmas Season and not just the repetitious music and endlessly reading the word “Christmas” or “Merry Christmas” but those endlessly repeating Xmas images and Xmas colours. It hardly qualifies as subtle or subliminal – you’re clobbered over the head and you love it – “pay attention stupid, it’s time to do your Xmas bit or else there’s no Santa for you!” Now this isn’t some national emergency as in “Uncle Sam Needs You!”, rather the Chief Executive Officers of the retail sector need you, especially if they are to get their Xmas bonuses!

And what about slaving over the kitchen stove preparing that special Xmas meal for all those relatives you’d really rather poison? Speaking of Xmas dinner, why not try something different for a change, like pizza, spaghetti, macaroni & cheese, chicken pot pie or even sirloin steak. Fish & chips would make a nice change too! No? It has to be ham or turkey and plum pudding / mince pies / Xmas fruit cake according to someone’s (whose long since dead) tradition. Actually it’s not your fault. That’s the Xmas dinner fare that the supermarket catalogues and store displays feature, in LARGE PRINT, that twist your arm and in a manner of speaking end up shoving this must-have-because-it’s-traditional Xmas fare down your throat; this time literally! Boring! Same old fare! No imagination! So, being an independent minded SOB, its fish & chips for Xmas dinner for me (and no leftovers either).

So why do you do it, year after year after year? Because society says it’s that time of year to test your ‘right stuff’, to see if your heart (and sanity) can stand the pressure one more year. Society says you snap to attention at Xmas and you reply, via your wallet, “Yes sir! I will sir. Thank you sir”! Society says you will run the annual Xmas obstacle course, and run it you do, and aren’t you proud of yourself, huffing & puffing, when you cross the finish line. So, if you do Xmas for any reason other than because you want to, you really honestly and truly want to, then you’re enslaved, hook, line and Xmas sinker.

Quite apart from the commercial aspects, you’re enslaved to Xmas if you do Xmas for religious reasons because you’re still being led up the garden path by the nose. Why? It’s because you’re celebrating Xmas for the wrong ‘religious’ reason. Xmas is all about a natural rebirth, not about a supernatural birth. The latter, the alleged birth of a Christ, was superimposed by the Christian church over the real pagan reason for celebration around the late December period. That original celebration centred on the return of lengthening daylight after the Northern Hemisphere’s Winter solstice. Therefore, celebrating Xmas as the birth of Christ is not only incorrect, but irrational in that the date of Christ’s birth isn’t know by anyone. And celebrating Xmas for any reason in the Southern Hemisphere is ludicrous for either of the above possibilities. You’ve all been suckered yet again. 

TECHNOLOGY: We’re enslaved to our technology fixes, and to those repairmen and their extravagant bills who fix our fixes when those fixes need fixing. I mean when the TV goes on the blink; when the hard drive crashes, the fridge conks out, even when there’s a power failure, well we may not panic, but we get a tad close to it. We’ve all seen those quasi end-of-the-world movies where the few survivors have to rebuild civilization from scratch without all those modern technological conveniences like gasoline and electricity, and it’s not easy. Could you survive without supermarkets and clothing stores or modern hardware shops? How many drivers are now totally dependent on GPS? Would you like the task of separating a teenager from her Twitter or Facebook? Video game addiction is well known. The commuter who has to, shock horror, take the bus because the car broke down is NOT a happy camper. So what bits of technology are you enslaved to, and who forced you to adopt those bits in the first place?

AUTHORITY: I haven’t received my bill – I’m not at fault yet if I don’t do something the powers-that-be are sure to cut off my (fill in the blank) for non-payment. Do you ever find yourself in that sort of situation? The onus is always on you to rectify things even when you’re totally innocent of any wrongdoing. I’ve found myself, usually several times a year, having to chase up items which could result, if I fail to do so, in some bureaucratic authority figure come crashing down on me even though I’m not at fault of any wrongdoing. That’s enslavement. We’re enslaved to another deity – the great god of bureaucracy. We’ve all had experiences akin to banging our heads against a bureaucratic stone wall. It’s always the ordinary person who has to prove, out of fear of some authority, that it was the system at fault, and since when does any authority figure admit that the bureaucratic system to which they are a part of is flawed? The ordinary person is guilty till proven innocent; it’s never the fault of the system.

POWER: Power may not always corrupt and absolute power may not always corrupt absolutely, but we tend to seek power; we’re all slaves to seeking power and all slaves to keeping what power we have. It may be very local like the husband who beats the wife who in turn screams at the eldest kid, to the older brother who was screamed at now in turn bullying his younger sibling, to that brat kicking the dog, who then chases the cat. I guess it stops with the cat. Of course it might be power at the office – always seeking promotion so that you have more people under your command/supervision. It might be seeking political power, from local mayor to prime minister. But we all feel good having someone, or something, we have power over.

LEAVING YOUR MARK – LEGACY & POSTERITY:  You don’t have to leave any physical record of yourself behind, not even a carved tombstone, but you’re a slave to whatever inner drive compels you to do so. People tend to be obsessed (a form of mental slavery) with being noticed, even after death and even if only anonymously. There’s architecture, from the pyramids to Stonehenge to modern skyscrapers and houses. There’s graffiti (not a modern phenomenon). There’s artistic works from hieroglyphs and cave art and petroglyphs to all the various arts and crafts we have today as well as those that form part of our cultural legacy. The upshot is that in the long term, while most try, few succeed. How many of those hundreds of thousands of Ancient Greeks are remembered today, yet probably nearly all sought some sort of long-term legacy.

HOBBIES: Hobbies are any dedicated activity not normally related to day-to-day survival, usually, but not always involving collecting things. If you started to list now the various hobbies engaged in by peoples around the world, past and present, you’d probably still be jotting them all down this time next year! The critical point is that all too often the hobby controls you and not the other way around. Much of your entire existence and purpose revolves around your personal hobby obsession. It’s that transition from fan to fanatic that marks you as enslaved.  

RECREATIONAL DRUGS: Pills, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, magic mushrooms and other ‘good’ stuff, etc. Do you control them or do they control you?

CONCLUSION: Not all of the above will apply to everybody all the time, but something(s) will apply to most people at least some of the time. If any of the above is relevant, if the shoe fits, well, wear it and admit that you have to some degree or other enslaved yourself.