articles
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Daniel Ledda
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<html>
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<head><title>How do you know? Students, patients, and discovery</title></head>
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<body>
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<h1>
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How do you know? Students, patients, and discovery
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</h1>
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<p></p>
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<p>
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"For the real world has inexhaustible splendour, the real life is full of meaning and abundance, where we
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grasp it, it is full of miracles and glory." <em>
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N. Hartmann</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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"I am myself plus my circumstances" <em>
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Jose Ortega y Gasset</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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Knowledge should be useful and provisional.
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</p>
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<p>
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I think comparing the doctor-patient relationship with the teacher-student relationship can be useful, and
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it might suggest ways that both of them could be made more productive, with implications for the nature of
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learning and knowing.
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</p>
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<p>
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40 or 50 years ago, advocates of student-centered education were encouraged by the popularity of
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psychologist Carl Rogers' client centered therapy. Rogers was interested in what made some therapists
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successful, and he found that their personality and attitude, not their theories or techniques, accounted
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for their success. Successful therapists had three essential traits. They offered their clients acceptance
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or "unconditional positive regard" and empathic understanding, and they themselves were congruent, not
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presenting a facade of authority or esoteric knowledge. According to Rogers, "accurate diagnosis" and
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"specific treatment" didn't have anything to do with helping the client.
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</p>
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<p>
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Some therapists thought Rogers' approach was impractical, others were sure it was foolish. Medically
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oriented psychiatrists saw Roger's prestige among psychologists as evidence that psychology wasn't suited
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for dealing with the "mentally ill," who needed authoritative diagnosis and treatment--such as drugs,
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convulsive shock, or surgery. Scientifically, however, Rogers' ideas were supported by evidence, and medical
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psychiatry had no evidence to support many of its diagnostic concepts or their therapeutic usefulness.
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</p>
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<p>
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Most university professors felt that Rogers' ideas were irrelevant to their educational work, and some
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clearly saw their own function as being a sort of Malthusian selection of the fittest, and deliberately
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designed their classes as barriers that only a few could surmount.
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</p>
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<p>
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When I taught English composition, instructors were told that they must grade according to a standard
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scoring system for errors of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and diction. Our success was seen in terms of
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the number of freshmen who had dropped out by the end of the year, as evidence that the department had "high
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standards." Knowing that system, most students chose to write in the style of the first grade "See Spot run"
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readers, hoping that they could handle the mechanics of writing if they reduced the complexity and content
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of their essays. It didn't work, and they didn't improve during the weeks when their mistakes were being
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brought painfully to their attention. Since I hated reading their meaningless efforts, I told them that I
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was going to grade them on content, rather than punctuation and spelling, and that they should try to write
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about something that was important to them. Only their success in communicating something would be graded.
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Their papers became more readable, and the interesting thing was that the mechanical things improved
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immediately. (The intention to communicate something is the real source of structure in language.) I had
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another teacher score some of their compositions, and he confirmed that they had improved according to the
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department's system. The attempt to steer a person can make it hard for them to move, because it inactivates
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their own guidance system.
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</p>
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<p>
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A physics professor would notice that writing classes have a lot in common with psychotherapy, and would
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dismiss the possibility that such an approach could be used in serious education.
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</p>
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<p>
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Professors of medicine see themselves as models of the authority that their students will need to apply in
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dealing with patients, and the physicians trained in the authoritarian style are likely to see their
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patients as recipients of their medical knowledge, rather than as occasions for listening and learning
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something new.
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</p>
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<p>
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Students entering these disciplines must expect to be disciplined. This means that they learn not to ask
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silly questions about the fundamental assumptions of their profession. Their common sense of meaning, their
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original guidance system, must be inactivated to keep them from asking questions such as "is that a disease
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or a theory?" Some patients find that their physician has little patience for their questions, but most
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patients don't want to ask questions, because they have been taught to respect the authorities.
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</p>
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<p>
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Our nervous systems are made up of physiology and culture.
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</p>
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<p>
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That can be a philosophical problem, because our experience is governed by our composition. In people like
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Heraclitus, physiology was in the foreground, and in people like Plato, culture was in the foreground.
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(Heraclitus understood that things are always becoming, Plato believed that change wasn't real.) To change
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someone's mind, it's necessary to change the way they experience themselves and the world, and that requires
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changing their substance.
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</p>
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<p>
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In the 1950s a group called "Synectics" was formed to study the creative process. They found that having an
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expert in the group could be useful, but it could also often stifle the group's ability to find a good
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solution to a problem. W.J.J. Gordon described their method as "trusting things that are alien, and
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alienating things that are trusted." They used metaphorical thinking to help them to see the complexity and
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potentiality of a situation, and to go beyond the existing understanding.
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</p>
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<p>
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Professors and physicians too often present themselves as having "definitive knowledge" about a subject. For
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people who already have "definitive knowledge" about something, anomalous facts (if they are perceived at
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all) will simply remain anomalous and will be quickly forgotten. The things they produce will be extensions
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of what already exists. For others, things that aren't easily explained have special interest, and cause
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them to ask new questions. New perspectives can lead to new possibilities and new realities.
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</p>
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<p>
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Once during a lecture, Alfred Korzybski offered his students some cookies, which they seemed to enjoy, then
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he showed them a label on the bag, "dog cookies," and some of them felt sick. "I have just demonstrated that
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people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste
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of the latter." Hypnotists have often demonstrated that words can have physiological effects.
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</p>
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<p>
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Many of our institutions use language as a system for preserving culture, that is, for preventing change.
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Korzybski wanted to correct the cultural habit of making abstractions seem like objects or "elements," by
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making people aware of the degree of abstraction in their words. This can be useful, but his book has been
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used to promote an extreme linguistic relativism in the theory of knowledge and science, placing "meaning"
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entirely within the nervous system.
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</p>
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<p>
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This approach evades the fact that patterns exist objectively, and that they can be perceived as they unfold
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through time. Although Korzybski thought he was teaching people to overcome the limitations of thinking in
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the style of Aristotle or Plato, he was supporting an attitude that would make it impossible to perceive in
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the style of Heraclitus.
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</p>
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<p>
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If Heraclitus said it's impossible to step in the same river twice, his comment was directed to those who
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ignore the rich complexity of experience because of stereotyped "elemental" thinking. He was pointing to the
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abundance of the world, but elemental-concept thinkers have felt that he simply negated their objective
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meanings.
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</p>
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<p>
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To perceive another person accurately requires the ability to perceive the person as a pattern unfolding
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coherently through time, as a potential realizing itself. Carl Rogers' insight was that one's awareness of
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being perceived in this way encourages the unfolding of potentials.
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</p>
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<p>
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The refusal of institutions or individuals to perceive others in this way is an imposition of their way of
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understanding, and is itself a form of oppression. People who think in terms of "professional training"
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often describe learning in terms of "conditioned reflexes," producing a desired response to each stimulus.
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</p>
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<p>
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The terms "conditioned reflex" and "conditioning" were introduced into psychology by the behaviorist J. B.
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Watson, who mistranslated and misrepresented Pavlov's ideas, and who insisted that the ideas of
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consciousness, volition, and self should be eliminated from the science of psychology.
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</p>
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<p>
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The orienting reflex, the alertness provoked by something new, was described by Sechenov in 1863, and
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explored by Pavlov (who also called it the "what <em>is</em> that? reflex" and the "exploration reflex") who
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considered it to be our most basic and most powerful reflex. The fact that novelty powerfully arouses our
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exploratory systems means that we have a mental image of our familiar environment, and that a change in that
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environment requires us to investigate the properties of the new thing, to see whether it can be explained
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by the things we already know, or whether it requires us to change our basic ideas about our place in our
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surroundings. For Pavlov, the study of psychology or physiology without consciousness was simply crazy.
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</p>
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<p>
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Pavlov said that he studied nutrition to understand consciousness and the nervous system, because eating is
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our closest interaction with the world. Our brain is part of our digestive system. But eating has become
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highly institutionalized and influenced by our cultural beliefs. If people begin to think about the meanings
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of eating, they are beginning a process of cultural and philosophical criticism.
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</p>
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<p>
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Helping people with physical problems (such as obesity, headaches or joint or nerve pain, or named diseases)
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and helping people who want to understand something about the world beyond themselves, are structurally
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similar, but in the issues of health the questions and the potential answers are more clearly present and
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immediate.
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</p>
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<p>
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The Synectics group began with the study of artistic creation, but they found that it was easier to evaluate
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their progress when they concentrated on technical invention. They found, as Pavlov had, that consciousness
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and meaning could best be studied in concrete situations. The process of goal-seeking was to be studied in
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action.
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</p>
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<p>
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I see the therapeutic or educational or productive situation as a goal-directed biological and social
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interaction, and the goal can be either the creation of something new and better, or simply the preservation
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and application of something already existing.
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</p>
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<p>
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Until just about a generation ago, "teleology" (especially in biological explanation) was considered to be
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metaphysical and inappropriate for science. Norbert Wiener, who coined the word "cybernetics" (from Greek
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for "proficient pilot" or "good steersman") helped to change attitudes toward the word when he used the
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phrase "teleological mechanism" to describe cybernetic control systems.
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</p>
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<p>
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A goal-directed system is one that senses its actions and makes adaptations so that its actions can be
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refined to achieve a purpose. Between 1932 and 1935, a student and colleague of Pavlov's, P.K. Anokhin,
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developed this idea of self-regulating systems, and originated the concept of feedback, in describing the
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ways organisms guide themselves and their adaptations. Building on Pavlov's work, and investigating the
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origins of innate reflexes, he found principles that would explain the origin of organs and their functions,
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and that would also apply to the interactions between individuals. The functional system on any level, in
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embryology, psychology, or society, is a sequence of interactions with a useful result. Movement towards a
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goal is adaptive, and the system is shaped by the adaptations it makes in moving toward the goal. Resources
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are mobilized to meet needs, changing the system as it moves towards its goal.
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</p>
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<p>
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Since there is always novelty in the real world as contexts change, the exploratory function is causing us
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to continually revise our understanding. Every question forms a functional system, and our brain adapts as
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we find answers.
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</p>
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<p>
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This kind of systems theory and self-regulation theory developed along with the field theories in
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embryology, psychology, chemistry, and some branches of physics. Pattern and analogy were central to their
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approach. The functional systems are processes that occupy time and space.
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</p>
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<p>
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The "field" idea in biology (wholes shaping themselves) can be understood by considering its opposite, the
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belief that cells are guided by their genes (producing a mosaic of parts). That idea, in its extreme form,
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claimed that cells contained an internal map and an internal clock telling them when and where to move and
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how to change their form and function as they matured and aged. In reality, cells communicate with
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surrounding cells and with the material between cells. The existence of long-range ordering processes
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between atoms, molecules, and cells threatened some of the central dogmas of the sciences.
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</p>
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<p>
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Although Norbert Wiener popularized some aspects of the "teleological" approach to regulatory systems in the
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1950s, and saw analogies between the teleological machines and the way the brain functions in Parkinson's
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disease, by 1950 the digital approach to information processing, storage, and transmission was displacing
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analog devices in computation and engineering, and was compatible with theories of intelligence, such as
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neo-Kantianism, that believed that human intelligence can be defined precisely, in terms of discrete rules
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and operations. Field thinking in embryology, cancer theory, psychology, and other sciences effectively
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disappeared--or "was disappeared," for ideological reasons.
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</p>
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<p>
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Wiener's goal-directed machines, like Anokhin's functional systems, worked in space and time, and the idea
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of steering or guidance assumes a context of time and space in which the adjustments or adaptations are
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made. Analog computers and control systems in various ways involved formal parallels with reality. The
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components of the system, like reality, occupied space and time.
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</p>
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<p>
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Digital computers, with their different history and functions, for example their use for creating or
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breaking military codes, didn't intrinsically model reality in any way. Information had to be encoded and
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processed by systems of definitions. A sequence of binary digits has meaning only in terms of someone's
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arbitrary definitions.
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</p>
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<p>
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Parallel with the development of electronic digital computing machines, binary digital theories of brain
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function were being developed, by people who subscribed to views of knowledge very different from those of
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Anokhin and Wiener. (Anokhin argued against the idea that nerves use a simple binary code.) These computer
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models of intelligence justify educational practices based on authoritative knowledge and conditioned
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(arbitrary) reflexes. Neo-Kantianism has been the dominant academic philosophy in the U.S., turning
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philosophy into epistemology to exclude ontology. "Operationism" and logical positivism share with
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neo-Kantianism its elimination of ontology (concern with being itself).
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</p>
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<p>
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In the 1960s, Ludwig von Bertalanffy developed a theory of systems, defining a system as an "arrayed
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multitude of inter-linked elements." Although it was intended as a description of biological systems, it
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reduced the teleological factors, needs and goals, to a kind of mechanical inner program, such as
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"regulatory genes." "Following old modes of thought, some called this orderliness of life 'purposiveness'
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and sought for the 'purpose' of an organ or function. However, in the concept of a 'purpose' a desiring or
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intending of the goal always appeared to be involved--the type of idea to which the natural scientist is
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justly unsympathetic" (von Bertalanffy).
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</p>
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<p>
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His system theory was highly compatible with programmed digital computers, that could define the
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interactions of "elements," but unlike Anokhin's definition of functional systems, it lacked a
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pattern-forming mechanism. In Anokhin's view, the system is formed by seeking its goal, and perceiving its
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progress toward the goal.
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</p>
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<p>
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Carl Rogers' approach to person-centered processes recognized that the interacting therapist and client or
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teacher and student were a formative system, rather than just an occasion for one to inform the other.
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</p>
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<p>
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In the Synectics group, they learned to identify the types of deeply involved interaction that would lead to
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the best inventions. As in Anokhin's functional systems, resources are mobilized or generated as they are
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needed. Like Anokhin, they showed that the process of creating something new can be understood and
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controlled.
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</p>
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<p>
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Every meaningful interaction involves formative systems.
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</p>
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<p>
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Stimulation of sensory nerves can cause cells to move into the stimulated area, causing the organ to grow.
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Environmental enrichment causes brains to become larger, and to metabolize at a higher rate. All of these
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processes, from the level of energy production to the birth of new cells and the creation of new patterns in
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the brain, are called up in the formation of a functional system.
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</p>
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<p>
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The studies of organismic coherence by Mae-Wan Ho and Fritz Popp appear to support the idea that even the
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alignment of molecules in cells is responsive to the state of the entire organism.
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</p>
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<p>
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The reason this seems implausible to most biologists is that cells are commonly still seen as analogous to
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little test-tubes in which chemical processes occur as the result of random collisions between molecules
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floating in water. But Sidney Bernhard's study of glycolysis showed that the reactive sugar molecules are
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passed individually from one enzyme to the next, in an orderly manner.
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</p>
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<p>
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In this system, the flow of energy, a series of oxidations and reductions changing glucose into other
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substances, effectively "pulls" the molecules through the system, contributing to order on a molecular
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level. Function creates structure, which supports function.
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</p>
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<p>
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Self-regulating systems are self-ordering systems. When a person is allowed to function freely as a
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goal-directed, questioning system, the formation of patterns in the brain will be spontaneous and
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appropriate, and orderly. Knowing is the ability to hold patterns in awareness. Knowledge, rather than being
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stored like money in the bank, is something that is regenerated, or generated, as we need it.
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</p>
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<p>
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When our own steering system is commandeered by the authorities, our patterns of knowledge will be
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compartmented, and arranged in a fixed pattern. This kind of knowledge either deteriorates, or it seeks more
|
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of its own kind.
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</p>
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<p>
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While self-regulation and the generation of knowledge are pleasurable, having knowledge imposed isn't.
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</p>
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<p>
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Korzybski was right in warning about the dangers of letting names become "elements." This perception led
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Paolo Freire to emphasize the educational importance of critically giving things their appropriate names,
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rather than just "banking" the names given by an authority. "To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to
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change it. <strong>Once named, the world in its turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of
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them a new naming.</strong> Human beings are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in
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action-reflection." ". . . to speak a true word is to transform the world." "'Problem-posing' education,
|
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responding to the essence of consciousness--intentionality--rejects communiques and embodies communication"
|
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(Freire, 1993).
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</p>
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<p>
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Having the power to assign names is a source of power and wealth. The pharmaceutical industry has been
|
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accused of inventing new diseases to sell new drugs for treating them. Old definitions of cancer are hard to
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change, when the medical profession has invested so much in treatments--radiation and cytotoxic
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chemotherapy--which conflict with newer biological understanding of cancer.
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</p>
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<p>
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The person who is learning is critically interacting with both nature and culture, with practical issues and
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theories.
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</p>
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<p>
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Applying this to practical problems of health and nutrition, a first step is to begin to think about which
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things are theories or deductions from theories, which are habits, and which things are felt needs or
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appetites, and to get in the habit of watching processes or things--such as "signs" and "symptoms"--develop
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through time.
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</p>
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<p>
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With practice, people can begin to see themselves as functional systems in their main activities, such as
|
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eating, and to watch how their needs influence their actions, and what effects different ways of eating have
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on their other functions, such as sleeping and working. Do appetites govern the timing of meals and the
|
||||
choice of foods? How does the time of day or time of month affect appetites? People often watch for effects
|
||||
of foods, but usually only for a few minutes or hours after eating. Some foods can produce symptoms days
|
||||
after they were eaten, and the activation of the digestive system by a recent meal can cause a reaction to
|
||||
something eaten previously.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Our traditional cultures, and advertising and schools give us definitions and expectations relating to foods
|
||||
and symptoms and physiology, and they teach us to think of our bodies in terms of an "immune system,"
|
||||
"endocrine system," "digestive system," "nervous system," and "circulatory system," which are mainly
|
||||
anatomical concepts that are more useful to the drug companies than to the consumer of culture. Both
|
||||
conventional and alternative approaches to medicine and health are likely to let those arbitrary ideas of
|
||||
systems cause them to overlook real, but unnamed, processes.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
When the organism is seen as a mosaic of parts, rather than as a system of developing fields, medical
|
||||
treatments for one part, such as the "circulatory system," are likely to cause problems in other "systems,"
|
||||
because the "parts" being treated don't exist as such in the real organism, with the result that the
|
||||
treatments are seldom biologically reasonable.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Besides learning to perceive one's own physiology and becoming aware of the processes of perceiving and
|
||||
knowing so that they can be improved, it's important to seek information to expand the interpretive
|
||||
framework, and to look for new contexts and implications.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Reading with a critical imagination is as important for science as it is for literature or advertising. Good
|
||||
literature often opens expansive new ways of seeing the world, and good science writing can do that too, but
|
||||
too often scientific publications have ulterior motives, and should be read the way advertising propaganda
|
||||
is read.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Some publications now require authors to state their conflicts of interest (such as receiving money from a
|
||||
drug company while testing a drug), but editors and publishers, who choose which studies will be published,
|
||||
seldom reveal their conflicts of interest. As Marcia Angell showed, editorial choices can turn statistical
|
||||
randomness into statistical significance. Private ownership of science journals permits control of their
|
||||
content.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Besides being aware of the conflicts of interest and the frequent insignificance of "statistical
|
||||
significance," it's possible to recognize some features of the style of argument which is often used in
|
||||
science propaganda. A deductive style, rather than a descriptive and inductive style is extremely common in
|
||||
technical writing, and it should always lead the reader to question the principle from which deductions are
|
||||
made.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
"Membranes are made from Essential Fatty Acids, therefore those fatty acids are nutritionally essential."
|
||||
But cells can multiply in a culture medium that provides no fats. In biology, the most popular "principles"
|
||||
are simply dogmatic beliefs about genes and membranes.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
In physics, where testable inferences can be drawn from arbitrary assumptions or doctrines, predictions that
|
||||
may be made based on different assumptions are often ignored for ideological reasons. This ideological
|
||||
quality of physics can permeate the other sciences when they use reductionist explanations.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Korzybski felt he was helping humanity to escape "word magic" and to advance to a mathematical view of the
|
||||
world. But the same processes that caused people to "confuse words with things" can cause people to confuse
|
||||
mathematical descriptions with reality.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
"Chaos theory," which was a faddish excitement about the ability to generate unpredictable output from a
|
||||
simple rule (which could be endlessly repeated by a computer), has been suggested to explain many things in
|
||||
biology, including heart rate variability. It doesn't. Instead, it has probably had a slightly harmful
|
||||
effect, by distracting attention from real biological pattern- forming processes.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Real substance can sometimes be modeled by descriptions of randomness, but substances at all levels have
|
||||
intrinsic pattern-forming tendencies, and context-dependent histories. Water, for example, has structure and
|
||||
structural memory that can affect even simple chemical reactions, and even gases have internal complexities
|
||||
that are often ignored. Real observations shouldn't be displaced by theories. The ideal and identical atoms
|
||||
of the reductionists are a crude fantasy, invented, more or less consciously, to serve their ideological
|
||||
purposes. One purpose has been to justify their abstract models of reality. A particularly noxious way of
|
||||
modeling reality has been based on the assumption of randomness, justifying a statistical view of all
|
||||
things.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The neo-Kantian philosophy that has dominated US universities for more than a century argues that our senses
|
||||
(even when extended instrumentally) are limited, so our knowledge must be limited--we can only speak of
|
||||
theories or interpretations, not of being. The world we see is, according to them, only an artifact of our
|
||||
senses. A popular example is that the flower a bee sees is different from the flower a human sees, because
|
||||
the bee's eye is sensitive to ultraviolet light. (The triviality of the example is shown by the fact that
|
||||
when a person's lens is removed because of a cataract, ultraviolet light becomes visible, because it is no
|
||||
longer blocked by the tissue that is many times thicker than a bee's lens.) There is a straw-man quality to
|
||||
their arguments against philosophical realism and empirical science<strong>: </strong>
|
||||
No one claims that our senses deliver complete knowledge all at once. What the realists claim is that
|
||||
interacting with the world is an endless source of valid knowledge.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
When reading science articles, or listening to lectures, and even while privately thinking about
|
||||
experiences, it can be useful to watch for the improper use of assumptions. Our understanding has been
|
||||
shaped by the assumptions of our culture, and these assumptions present an attitude toward the nature of the
|
||||
world, in some cases even about the ontology that our philosophers have said is beyond our reach. "Evolution
|
||||
is shaped by random mutations," "nuclear decay is random," "the universe is expanding," "entropy only
|
||||
increases," "DNA controls inheritance," "membrane pumps keep cells alive," and all of the negative
|
||||
assumptions that have for so long denied the systematic generation of order.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Every communicative interaction is an opportunity for the discovery of new meanings and potentials.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p><hr /></p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<strong><em>Aristotelian motto: If the knower and the known form a functional system they are substantially
|
||||
the same.</em></strong>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p><hr /></p>
|
||||
<p><strong><h3>REFERENCES</h3></strong></p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
P.K. Anokhin: 1975, <strong>The essays on physiology of functional systems.</strong>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
1978, <strong>Philosophical aspects of the theory of functional systems.</strong>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
1998, <strong>Cybernetics of functional systems: Selected works,</strong> Moscow, Medicine, 400 p., (in
|
||||
Russian).
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<strong>Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
|
||||
</strong>by Paulo Freire. New York: Continuum Books, 1993.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<strong>Synectics,</strong>
|
||||
W.J.J. Gordon, Harper & Row, 1961.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<strong>Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields : Metaphors of Organicism in Twentieth-Century Developmental
|
||||
Biology,</strong> Donna Jeanne Haraway, 1976.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<strong>We Make the Road by Walking</strong>: <strong>Conversations on Education and Social Change,</strong>
|
||||
Myles Horton, Paolo Freire, 1990.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p><strong>Science and Sanity,</strong> Alfred Korzybski, 1933.</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Alfred Korzybski, "The Role of Language in the Perceptual Processes," in <strong>Perception: An Approach to
|
||||
Personality,</strong> edited by Robert R. Blake and Glenn V. Ramsey. 1951, The Ronald Press Company, New
|
||||
York.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Marshall McLuhan: <em>"...the devil is in the media,"</em> quoted by Derrick DeKerkhove, Director of the
|
||||
McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<strong>Biochemistry and Morphogenesis</strong>, by Joseph Needham. Cambridge University Press, 1942.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<strong>Cybernetics--or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine,
|
||||
</strong>
|
||||
Norbert Wiener 1948
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<strong>The Human Use of Human Beings,</strong> The Riverside Press (Houghton Mifflin Co.), 1950.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<em>
|
||||
"...the rules of the war game never catch up with the facts of the real situation." "The future offers
|
||||
very little hope for those who expect that our new mechanical slaves will offer us a world in which we
|
||||
may rest from thinking. Help us they may, but at the cost of supreme demands upon our honesty and our
|
||||
intelligence.</em>
|
||||
<strong><em>"</em> </strong>
|
||||
Norbert Weiner,<strong> God and Golem, Inc.,</strong> 1964<strong>.</strong>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<em>Digital thinking sees the organism as a mosaic of parts, making rigid and specific naming essential;
|
||||
analog thinking sees the organism as fields in development, making flexibility in naming essential.</em>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
<em>PS: When defense lawyers collaborate (collude) with prosecutors, it's considered a crime. What if
|
||||
physicians, instead of covering up for each other, used the adversary system that is supposed to produce
|
||||
the best knowledge in law and science, to evaluate their patient's diagnoses and treatments?</em>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
J Intern Med. 1999 Jan;245(1):57-61. <strong>Decreased heart rate variability in patients with type 1
|
||||
diabetes mellitus is related to arterial wall stiffness.</strong> Jensen-Urstad K, Reichard P,
|
||||
Jensen-Urstad M.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2010 Apr 23. <strong>Heart period sensitivity to forced oscillations in ventilatory
|
||||
pressure.</strong> Quint SR, Vaughn BV.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
|
||||
Copyright 2007. Raymond Peat, P.O. Box 5764, Eugene OR 97405. All Rights Reserved. www.RayPeat.comNot for
|
||||
republication without written permission.
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user