When I first read Genesis in the Bible, I was curious about the giants and the people who lived to be a long age. Someone explained to me that the people who lived beyond five hundred years were not individual people but families. Still, the notion of living to a very old age was inspiring. We see around us trees that survive human beings and live to be well over two thousand years old. How?
Recently, the odds have improved that a few people may live to an age that staggers the imagination. Again, one needs to ask the questions how and what is the evidence. Most people I talk to about the issue say that living so long is not attractive. They site the loss of friends and immediate family as their biggest concern.
Who says that people can live much longer? We know that Ponce de Leon searched Florida for something that would allow long life and he appears to have failed. What sent him on the mission and have the odds now improved because companies and research groups are beginning to understand how the body actually works rather than what works on the body?
The Washington Post recently ran with a story about Aubrey de Grey, a 'young' man in California, who has just published a book on ending aging. They report on a competition amongst biologists to assess whether the idea is completely implausible or whether there is a possibility. The odds are stacked up against a person, even one in the future, living beyond one hundred years, but what are the real determinants of the possibilities? If you have one thousand dollars to give each year for 25 years, you can join a group that seeks the science of curing aging.
The Determinants of the Aging Process
The determinants can be organized into many groups of determinants:
1. what you eat, drink, and consume that strengthens or weakens your body's healthy normal functioning
2. what you breath and how well,
3. how often you exercise your whole body,
4. how well you tend to all your senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch,
5. whether you have a mate and regular exchanges of a meaningful and intimate nature,
6. how well all your body systems function, especially respiration, digestion, immune, neurological, physical, and cognitive systems,
7. how well you function within your support groups,
8. where you live and engage with other people,
9. how well endowed you are with the right genes,
10. how well financed you are,
11. whether you are under stress,
12. whether you are happy and feel in control,
13. how easy it is for you to be motivated to create and engage in activity that is pychologically enhancing,
14. what systems can be put in place to help strengthen those systems in your body that fight disease, that resist aging, that heal and promote a sense of well being,
15. how well you fit into your community,
16. how quickly the sciences needed to support your anti-aging programs are put into place,
17. How well you can sustain a positive attitude and initiative to continue with life and life strengthening activity,
18. whether your community and you can protect itself against those forces of nature that would increase the risk of dying abd contamination,
19. whether there is international peace and shared prosperity for you and your neighbours,
20. whether the intractible issues of poverty, disease, hunger, lack of shelter and clean water can be resolved,
21. whether you and your neighbours can develop spiritually,
22. whether nature's systems survive along with you and strengthen,
23. whether there is sustainability and balance in your environment for the widest variety of people, animals, plants, and the earth ecology,
24. whether the supportive natural, physical and social sciences supporting longetivity are developing at a sufficient pace,
25. whether the depressing problem of debt can be eliminated.
What is the Score?
Whether you achieve a high score or not, you will begin to realize how interconnected we are to other people and the many natural and geophysical support systems of our planet. We house an extremely complicated world, and it is not getting any simpler. If we are to increase the odds of living longer, it needs to be a community effort and we cannot leave out the plants and other systems that sustain life support. If any key system fails, such as the ability to share clean fresh water with plants and people, then the goals of longetivity also fail.
In my model Wuh Lax world, it is working 'cum alliis, pro alliis', 'with others, for others' that will ratchet up our survival possibilities.
Science of Not-Aging
In 1975, I interviewed many heads of research in pharmaceutical companies in the UK. Some of them related their interest in the financing of basic research into the aging process and what it would take to slow it down. That was thirty years ago and some of this basic / fundamental research is just beginning to show favourable results. The science of understanding the aging process is still very much in its infancy, but the results are amazing.
Scratches to Sketches
Tuesday 8 January 2008
Why Didn't Some One Tell Me?
When might you ask or exclaim, "Why didn't someone tell me?" Perhaps, just perhaps, someone did tell you, but you were not listening, or you could not interpret what they were saying.
In our world of advertising, we are constantly bombarded with information, or messages, in forms that are intended to distract us from thinking broadly about things. We are being loudly guided in our thoughts towards relatively narrow solutions. That is the role of advertising and most forms of paid communication. If the messages are too loud or the solutions favouring some particular group, we think of them as propaganda.
Nevertheless, we are constantly being bombarded by messages that we may not be equipped very well to receive. These are the messages that require the knowledge provided by a form of Rosetta stone experience or science. The facts are that you may need to get off your backside and search for the Rosetta stones yourself and then for the messages that you will be able to interpret. This is partly what continuing education is all about.
Once you have learned enough to make a living, you may find it advantageous to go back to school to learn enough to make life meaningful. Earning a living and meaningful existence may not be the same activity, so you probably need to determine whether they are.
In our world of advertising, we are constantly bombarded with information, or messages, in forms that are intended to distract us from thinking broadly about things. We are being loudly guided in our thoughts towards relatively narrow solutions. That is the role of advertising and most forms of paid communication. If the messages are too loud or the solutions favouring some particular group, we think of them as propaganda.
Nevertheless, we are constantly being bombarded by messages that we may not be equipped very well to receive. These are the messages that require the knowledge provided by a form of Rosetta stone experience or science. The facts are that you may need to get off your backside and search for the Rosetta stones yourself and then for the messages that you will be able to interpret. This is partly what continuing education is all about.
Once you have learned enough to make a living, you may find it advantageous to go back to school to learn enough to make life meaningful. Earning a living and meaningful existence may not be the same activity, so you probably need to determine whether they are.
Religion as Models of What Should Be and of Fairness
The purpose of a religion would seem to be that of giving people an ideal towards which they can direct their energies. We can search for the source of the inspiration of the 'messages' that enable a religion to form, or an individual to become receptive to an ideal or pattern within oneself or between oneself and the cosmos. It is this search process that forms the basis of the notion of pilgrimage.
What happens is that some one tells some one else that they should go somewhere and if they do, they will be inspired by either the journey to that place or by the place itself. Often, it is the very act of trying that makes the search meaningful.
Its like trying to experience sex for the first time. One tells you that you get a wonderful thing happen to you if you have sex. They prescribe the ideal conditions in which sex is to be performed. Until you actually try to have sex or someone intervenes and shows you what sex is all about, you are ignorant as to what sex is all about. The fact is that within each person there is a potential for having sex.
There is also a potential within each person for having inspiration. This potential for inspiration is strongest when one is not yet ready for sex being immature to the normal bodily functions that make sex a normal function. There seems to be a progress of development in the human being that moves in stages and being inspired occurs before being sexually active.
In a very real way, it is probably possible for people to move in the direction of seeking inspiration and away from seeking the sexual experience, just as there may be a way to avoid eating as a pleasure for the sake of exercising one's other faculties.
Development of Our Senses
We have the sense of sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. From these senses, we derive sensations that inspire, awe, please, disgust, attract, repel, and so on. There is a normal pattern to the development of our senses, but we may or may not be in control of this pattern.
Religions tend to try to control the pattern in order to create meaning out of experience. In this they may or may not be successful, the potential differences between development situations being enormous or gargantuan.
Religions Interpret the Cosmos in Ways That Define Order
To the religious mind, there is an order within the cosmos that can be tapped by the individual following rules that the religion presents to its followers. The big issue is whether the rules of a religion are fair to 'newcomers' to the religion.
Fairness to Newcomers as a Measure of Grading the Value of a Religion
A religion is unfair if newcomers to that religion are not treated in an even handed way. There is no room in the cosmos for disparity of treatment within a religion. Biased treatment of newcomers to a religion predisposes the religion towards a destructive exclusiveness that is harmful to an intelligent community.
For example, if a religion were to say that every fifth child joining the religion were to be killed and the blood drunk by a select group of the other members, we would say that the religion was unfair to the child who was killed. We would say that almost irregardless of whether the drinking of the blood allowed the other members of the religion to have eternal life.
Or, for example, if a religion were condone the practice of killing non-members, we should grade the religion as being unfair whether or not the religion gave eternal life to members of the religion. Taking of the life of 'infidels or outsiders, or potential newcomers to a religion is unfair.
Many Unfair Religions Go Unrecognized As Unfair
We often hear that the world is unfair. "Get used to it," some people say. "Be Real," others say.
No!
We Need to Deal With Unfairness Within the Scope of Religion
When we see, hear, smell, taste, touch a process that is unfair, we should all as human beings sense repugnance with that process. If a religion is to have any value whatsoever, it needs to be constantly on the watch that it promotes fairness to potential newcomers, the so-called infidels and outsiders. A religion that is fair, is also one that is inclusive, and is seen to be inclusive by potential newcomers, or the sponsors of potential newcomers to the religion.
When a religion is fair, it is open to newcomers and to new ideas that define it as a religion. If a religion remains a constant in its refusal to provide an even path of entry for newcomers, it is unfair and should be rejected by present participants of the religion. Inclusiveness is the standard by which religions should and need to be judged.
Ineffective or Temporary Religions
A religion might be regarded as being ineffective if it has only a temporary message or if its message requires that the world stand still for the religion to survive. Potential newcomers to a religion need to be aware of whether the religion is capable of coping with the challenges of many new people joining it. An effective religion is one that develops the capacity within its membership of inspiration, good living, or good works.
What happens is that some one tells some one else that they should go somewhere and if they do, they will be inspired by either the journey to that place or by the place itself. Often, it is the very act of trying that makes the search meaningful.
Its like trying to experience sex for the first time. One tells you that you get a wonderful thing happen to you if you have sex. They prescribe the ideal conditions in which sex is to be performed. Until you actually try to have sex or someone intervenes and shows you what sex is all about, you are ignorant as to what sex is all about. The fact is that within each person there is a potential for having sex.
There is also a potential within each person for having inspiration. This potential for inspiration is strongest when one is not yet ready for sex being immature to the normal bodily functions that make sex a normal function. There seems to be a progress of development in the human being that moves in stages and being inspired occurs before being sexually active.
In a very real way, it is probably possible for people to move in the direction of seeking inspiration and away from seeking the sexual experience, just as there may be a way to avoid eating as a pleasure for the sake of exercising one's other faculties.
Development of Our Senses
We have the sense of sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. From these senses, we derive sensations that inspire, awe, please, disgust, attract, repel, and so on. There is a normal pattern to the development of our senses, but we may or may not be in control of this pattern.
Religions tend to try to control the pattern in order to create meaning out of experience. In this they may or may not be successful, the potential differences between development situations being enormous or gargantuan.
Religions Interpret the Cosmos in Ways That Define Order
To the religious mind, there is an order within the cosmos that can be tapped by the individual following rules that the religion presents to its followers. The big issue is whether the rules of a religion are fair to 'newcomers' to the religion.
Fairness to Newcomers as a Measure of Grading the Value of a Religion
A religion is unfair if newcomers to that religion are not treated in an even handed way. There is no room in the cosmos for disparity of treatment within a religion. Biased treatment of newcomers to a religion predisposes the religion towards a destructive exclusiveness that is harmful to an intelligent community.
For example, if a religion were to say that every fifth child joining the religion were to be killed and the blood drunk by a select group of the other members, we would say that the religion was unfair to the child who was killed. We would say that almost irregardless of whether the drinking of the blood allowed the other members of the religion to have eternal life.
Or, for example, if a religion were condone the practice of killing non-members, we should grade the religion as being unfair whether or not the religion gave eternal life to members of the religion. Taking of the life of 'infidels or outsiders, or potential newcomers to a religion is unfair.
Many Unfair Religions Go Unrecognized As Unfair
We often hear that the world is unfair. "Get used to it," some people say. "Be Real," others say.
No!
We Need to Deal With Unfairness Within the Scope of Religion
When we see, hear, smell, taste, touch a process that is unfair, we should all as human beings sense repugnance with that process. If a religion is to have any value whatsoever, it needs to be constantly on the watch that it promotes fairness to potential newcomers, the so-called infidels and outsiders. A religion that is fair, is also one that is inclusive, and is seen to be inclusive by potential newcomers, or the sponsors of potential newcomers to the religion.
When a religion is fair, it is open to newcomers and to new ideas that define it as a religion. If a religion remains a constant in its refusal to provide an even path of entry for newcomers, it is unfair and should be rejected by present participants of the religion. Inclusiveness is the standard by which religions should and need to be judged.
Ineffective or Temporary Religions
A religion might be regarded as being ineffective if it has only a temporary message or if its message requires that the world stand still for the religion to survive. Potential newcomers to a religion need to be aware of whether the religion is capable of coping with the challenges of many new people joining it. An effective religion is one that develops the capacity within its membership of inspiration, good living, or good works.
Do Random Events Happen?
One way to consider random events is by seeing them as events arising where there is no intervention. In the world of mathematical statistics, we have the possibility of a mathematical equation or system of equations that seemingly creates a series or wave forms that one could consider random. People even patent such generators. In the real world, and especially if the cosmos could be considered as a ginormous calculator, we have 'something or somethings' that seemingly generate what appear to be random events. Such random distributions are even said to be normal.
When Being Abnormal is Normal
The science of statistics makes extensive use of the concept of the 'normal' distribution of events that exhibit randomness against which other distributions can be compared. If such a distribution is normal then why or how do we exist? We find that in the normal world, it is perfectly fine to discover events that are not normal. Individually, our very existence is 'not on the chart of cosmic normality." But, then we all realize this.
The Relativity of Normality
What we find is that normality is relative. Within the world of human beings that have lived on earth over the past two thousand years, we may think that we are relatively normal, but is that true?
Randomness
To get a random distribution in statistics we collect numbers from some source and we then classify the numbers as somehow meaningful or alternatively is random and without a specific meaning if the pattern or scatter of the numbers against a vector to measure differences produces or does not produce a recognizable 'bell shaped' distribution. When we say something is random, what we usually mean is that we cannot say that there is some relationship between two entities that produced the numbers. This is because we tend to work with associations. We say that there is no relationship between the two entities that is statistically significant. The relationship appears to have no discernible meaning in a statistical sense.
A is associate with B. There appears to be no relationship between A and B as far as a particular characteristic is concerned because we find that the distribution of measures of this characteristic on our frequency number chart is entirely random. We know what random is because we have in mind a statistical formula that produces frequencies that we would consider random.
Fooled by Randomness
The fact is that two things or events might appear to be entirely disassociated and random relative to each other, yet be connected in a meaningful way. We use the world meaningful to describe a relationship of a causal nature whether directly causal or indirectly causal.
The problem is that a relationship can exist between two entities that we have not captured because we are not really looking at the true relationship at all. We are blind to the relationship that exists, just as certainly as a blind and deaf person may be unaware of someone sitting on a wooden stool at a bar near them.
To pick up relationships, one needs a lens or something that can detect the waves or relationships between entities.
In our world of sight, sound, smell, taste, feeling, intuition we have an array of tools that measure some but not all of the waves. Our lenses may not detect relationships because we do not see the fields that exist between things or link them. We may not be aware that the relationships come in and out of existence into or within our cosmos following a pattern.
Meaning
We say something has meaning because we know of a relationship. Our next door neighbours may not know of this relationship and would have to admit that the same something has no meaning for them. This is not the same as coincidence, but in coincident events an interpreter or observer might say that several events provide the basis of meaning. Another interpreter may say that the same events have no meaning.
Language of People and the Language of the Universe
For a long while the language of the Egyptians had no meaning to scholars. They tried to understand the hieroglyphs, but could not make sense of them. Suddenly, someone discovered that by using another language found on the Rosetta Stone, it would be possible to gain a meaning of what would otherwise appear to be random scratchings. Well, we knew that the scratchings were not random, but we had no way of interpreting them without the help of the Rosetta Stone.
The Rosetta Stone Puts Meaning into Nonsense or Randomness
In order for one to attain meaning, one needs a Rosetta Stone situation that allows for a translation of seemingly random or nonsense events into patterns that can be read and understood.
Very little is Random
In the Wuh Lax cosmos, there is nothing that is random. What is needed to understand the cosmos are lenses that interpret the waves that exist between things.
When Being Abnormal is Normal
The science of statistics makes extensive use of the concept of the 'normal' distribution of events that exhibit randomness against which other distributions can be compared. If such a distribution is normal then why or how do we exist? We find that in the normal world, it is perfectly fine to discover events that are not normal. Individually, our very existence is 'not on the chart of cosmic normality." But, then we all realize this.
The Relativity of Normality
What we find is that normality is relative. Within the world of human beings that have lived on earth over the past two thousand years, we may think that we are relatively normal, but is that true?
Randomness
To get a random distribution in statistics we collect numbers from some source and we then classify the numbers as somehow meaningful or alternatively is random and without a specific meaning if the pattern or scatter of the numbers against a vector to measure differences produces or does not produce a recognizable 'bell shaped' distribution. When we say something is random, what we usually mean is that we cannot say that there is some relationship between two entities that produced the numbers. This is because we tend to work with associations. We say that there is no relationship between the two entities that is statistically significant. The relationship appears to have no discernible meaning in a statistical sense.
A is associate with B. There appears to be no relationship between A and B as far as a particular characteristic is concerned because we find that the distribution of measures of this characteristic on our frequency number chart is entirely random. We know what random is because we have in mind a statistical formula that produces frequencies that we would consider random.
Fooled by Randomness
The fact is that two things or events might appear to be entirely disassociated and random relative to each other, yet be connected in a meaningful way. We use the world meaningful to describe a relationship of a causal nature whether directly causal or indirectly causal.
The problem is that a relationship can exist between two entities that we have not captured because we are not really looking at the true relationship at all. We are blind to the relationship that exists, just as certainly as a blind and deaf person may be unaware of someone sitting on a wooden stool at a bar near them.
To pick up relationships, one needs a lens or something that can detect the waves or relationships between entities.
In our world of sight, sound, smell, taste, feeling, intuition we have an array of tools that measure some but not all of the waves. Our lenses may not detect relationships because we do not see the fields that exist between things or link them. We may not be aware that the relationships come in and out of existence into or within our cosmos following a pattern.
Meaning
We say something has meaning because we know of a relationship. Our next door neighbours may not know of this relationship and would have to admit that the same something has no meaning for them. This is not the same as coincidence, but in coincident events an interpreter or observer might say that several events provide the basis of meaning. Another interpreter may say that the same events have no meaning.
Language of People and the Language of the Universe
For a long while the language of the Egyptians had no meaning to scholars. They tried to understand the hieroglyphs, but could not make sense of them. Suddenly, someone discovered that by using another language found on the Rosetta Stone, it would be possible to gain a meaning of what would otherwise appear to be random scratchings. Well, we knew that the scratchings were not random, but we had no way of interpreting them without the help of the Rosetta Stone.
The Rosetta Stone Puts Meaning into Nonsense or Randomness
In order for one to attain meaning, one needs a Rosetta Stone situation that allows for a translation of seemingly random or nonsense events into patterns that can be read and understood.
Very little is Random
In the Wuh Lax cosmos, there is nothing that is random. What is needed to understand the cosmos are lenses that interpret the waves that exist between things.
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The Internet User's Best Kept Secret
Sketches from scratches is a provocative blogspot that has grown out of the Wuh Lax experience. It is eclectic, which means that it might consider just about anything from the simple to the extremely difficult. A scratch can be something that is troubling me or a short line on paper. From a scratch comes a verbal sketch or image sketch of the issue or subject. Other sites have other stuff that should really be of interest to the broad reader. I try to develop themes, but variety often comes before depth.
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