week 13 links

Just a few thoughts on the links -- first, the phrase "computational quantum chemistry" is one I'd never heard before -- wow. And it was interesting to have chemistry described as linking biology and physics. I guess I am actually still figuring out what chemistry is! In the second link I really want to say a big AMEN to their goal of "fostering the development of an informed and environmentally aware public" -- can I get a "Hallelulia"? And their theme of Earth systems and resources. The third link was cool because I realize that our course has been decidedly "constructivist" -- having us integrate the material into our already constructed, (but hopefully always changing) world view. Cool, Larry! I just wish we had a lab -- you know we all really wanted to blow stuff up.

week 13, Memory and magic

The article on memory reinforces to me the need for many colors of pens and highlighters in school. Like the infant interested in the blue square for a while and then the red square, I am more interested in my notes if they are in pretty colors. And varying between index cards and charts to get the information to look different while I study it! Whatever it takes to get that extra brain loop in the hippocampus! As for magic, or illusion, I think politicians must be taking lessons from illusionists these days, they sure know how to get people not noticing things. It reminds me of this one part of the film "What the @#*!! do we know?" -- they say that we get something like 10 million bits of information per second but we can only be conscious of about 2000. So there is just TONS of stuff going on that we don't notice. And the biggest factor in which things we notice is familiarity. So we keep creating our world in the image of how it's been. But if we can gradually shift which things we are perceiving, then our world changes. So, the blog assignment says "how might you view things differently now?" Well, if I go to an illusionist's show, I'm just going to let them misdirect my attention because I think it's fun to play along and be amazed, but other than that I'd like to be seeing through the illusion, or at least expecting what I'd prefer to see.

week 13 "to live is to know"

Well, being as this is final exam week, I'm thinking that if "to live is to know" then I shouldn't have to study I should just live and I'll know all the answers, right? So I don't think it works that way, unfortunately. But in the sense of the Ancient Chinese Saying "When I hear, I forget/When I see, I remember/ When I do, I understand" I could imagine doing and living as close to the same thing, and that doing something, ie living it, is what brings true understanding. That's why we do so many clinic hours, so that we are doing/living Oriental Medicine, thus hopefully developing true understanding. At any rate, I like "to live is to know" better than "I think therefore I am." The latter making it all dependent on thought is kind of scary, since thought is so capricious, and I certainly think that we can "be" on a deeper level than thought -- go beyond the intellect to a purer state of being. The phrase "to live is to know" allows for that deeper state of being, and ultimately true knowledge probably arises from that state -- I hope to experience that.

week 12, spike's gallery

WOW, this was super gorgeous. Isn't life beautiful? I just wished I knew what some of those things were, but they sure were cool to look at.

By the way, did you all read that article in last week's packet about sleeping pill users and binge eating??? Truly startling! I think of Ambien as fairly harmless, but my goodness. Definitely better to treat people's yin deficiency or blood deficiency instead!!!

week 12, cells

These links are pretty cool -- I really liked the pictures, and they were quite informative too. I was surprised at the animal cells -- I didn't know we didn't have cell walls, and yet our cells are hairy! (well, they have cilia.) I was really fascinated to read about archeans, which I hadn't heard of. They live in boiling water, super salty pools, sulphur spewing volcanic vents, acidic water and deep in Antarctic ice. Strange choices, but I guess there isn't room for all of us to live in Northern California, so it's good we have different preferences! The picture of a virus freaked me out. It looks like a malignant robot. Yikes. And I had forgotten that they are not technically alive and only can do things that look like living when they're in a host organism. Altogether an icky concept. Eerie how they look like something other than Mother Nature made them. Where do they come from??

The cell tour was kind of cool, except that it didn't explain anything.

week 12 living diversity

The environment around my house has a fair diversity of species. Pine trees, manzanita trees, ferns, dogwood trees, redbud, and poison oak are what's growing naturally, then there's apple trees, blackberry bushes, jasmine, geraniums, mint, chives, oleander, roses, grass, maple trees, all kinds of different things in my neighbor's garden, but not too obvious at this time of year. Definitely predominated by pine trees -- they have a knack for limiting what else grows, as they acidify the soil. Then there humans, cats, dogs, goats, sheep, horses, chickens, mice, lots of birds -- doves, blue jays, flickers, something with small white feathers.... coyotes, wild turkeys, deer, mountain lions. I haven't seen a mountain lion in a long time, but I'm pretty sure they're still around. And I don't see the coyotes but I see their poop. Not a whole lot of insects around these colder days, but there are spiders. Oh, and I've been seeing some wildly huge mushrooms lately. And a lone wasp, looking cold and out of place.

week 12, the ethics of gene therapy

I really don't feel like I know enough about this to have a respected opinion, but I'm basically pretty sqeamish about healing modalities that are dependent on killing something else. Who are we to decide that we're more important than the mice? Although if it's something that was dead anyway I feel better about it. A yoga teacher who I've really appreciated through the years has a knee problem that people have recommended he take shark cartilege for, but he's a staunch vegan and would rather live with the pain than kill sharks, and while I personally just might take the shark cartilege if it were me, I really admire his sticking to his principles. And even if gene therapy is going to save countless lives, it begs the question -- do we really want to save those lives? The planet is overpopulated as it is, what is so bad about people dying? And of course we are attached to each other, and don't want someone we love to die, but how far are we going to go to keep them from dying? And then, at some point, they are going to die anyway. Conversely, we are killing things all the time, by living, we're eating other organisms, we're stepping on them, we're chopping them down to make furniture out of them...I'm not going to be like the people of a religion in India, I forgot the name right now, who wear scarves over their mouths so they won't breathe in bugs and thus, kill the bugs, and they sweep in front themselves as they walk so they won't step on a bug -- you could drive yourself crazy trying not to harm anyone. So I don't know where to draw the line.