This evening on the 6:30 p.m. "NBC Nightly News" Brian Williams announced the teaser, "Hospitals that are embracing the idea that the body is indeed attached to the mind!" Turns out NBC Nightly News is kicking off their week of a series special of "The Mind-Body Connection" In bridging the subject of integrating non-traditional means of health and healing as opposed to "just traditional medicine" - a misnomer here - he's calling allopathic medicine - the infant of medicine, traditional. Homeopathy was the dominant form of medicine practiced in "civilized" America in the 19th century and was taught in medical schools alongside allopathy into the 1950s. This is an illustration of how irrational, unscientific bias creates ill-formed, widely held societal points of view. Williams then asks, "What about combining the two?" followed by "According to the NIH, 36% of American adults use some form of what's called 'complementary alternative medicine'." They progress to stills of a person meditating, then people lying on mats in yoga poses. Brian turns the audience over to NBC's Chief Science Correspondent - that Science in his title means his point of view is unquestionable and inherently accurate and superior. A waterfall of unscientific terms - meditation, massage, biofeedback, acupuncture, healthy meals and exercise, rain down on us. We are told that Duke's Integrated Medical Center supports and provide these practices because they have been "proven" acceptable, but they discourage patients from using "unproven" treatments - like herbal supplements. These new integrated medical center have become the proponents of a "system" of health.
In 1994, Philosopher Mary Midgley provided sound evidence supporting the insoluble relationship of mind and body in “The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom and Morality.”
I am impressed that 14 years after being published, her theories on the nature and origins of ethics have not been scientifically disproved. It is interesting to note, however, that the numerous competing theories espousing the dualistic nature of humans, the separation of mind and body, which Midgley rationally and soundly excised in her book, remain the culturally dominant accepted theory.
Hopefully, tonight's news will challenge viewers to question their points of view on the historically accepted, ill-conceived notion of mind-body separation. Perhaps it is a reflection of our society's progress towards what Midgley seeks, "to move us to a more integrated notion of ourselves.”
Monday, May 5, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Final Q & A
In a literal sense, this assignment was created by and only achievable within the human construct of written language. This is a system of formerly-arbitrary, formalized and currently uniformly understood symbols created to enable intelligent communication of thought and sense between human beings sharing a particular language in common, or who possess the ability to acquire a translation of the assignment symbols into their own language. Therefore, carefully considered in the strictest sense, all these terms must be considered and categorized as entirely and only human constructions.
However, if one considers the conceptualized definition of these symbolic terms as accepted and understood by their representational language, other possibilities of categorical organization arise.
Electrons, the color red, apples, and the concepts on which we have reflected then assigned the terms the number three, time, and music are all things that exist outside of and independent from human context. Conceptualized in terms of human language they exist entirely as a human construction, and only partly as a human construction because they also exist in reality absent human construction.
I lack sufficient resources to determine whether or not our human definition of war, i.e. conflict, active hostility or contention exist on the subtler, sub-atomic planes. Having no knowledge of its existence there, I will currently accept that war is partly a human construction, because war as a concept can be seen on earth, in other non-human societies.
I also believe that science, broadly defined as the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation, exists in other non-human societies.
I would locate morality in the same category as war and science, with the caveat that I firmly believe that other superior beings who may or may not exist, always or ever as corporeal beings, also possess what we define as morality.
God is the tricky one. Something exists outside of humankind that drives humans to seek an explanation of it. However, I do not believe that the human definition of God is an apt or accurate definition of that which exists and is commonly known as "God."
I do believe that there are beings superior to human beings. How they exist, what they exist as, their purpose for existence, and whether or not they exist in an intentional, purposeful relationship with other species - including humankind, is far beyond the scope of my knowledge or capacity to ascertain, at least in my current form in this present time. But if there be Gods, I most fervently pray they be moral gods.
However, if one considers the conceptualized definition of these symbolic terms as accepted and understood by their representational language, other possibilities of categorical organization arise.
Electrons, the color red, apples, and the concepts on which we have reflected then assigned the terms the number three, time, and music are all things that exist outside of and independent from human context. Conceptualized in terms of human language they exist entirely as a human construction, and only partly as a human construction because they also exist in reality absent human construction.
I lack sufficient resources to determine whether or not our human definition of war, i.e. conflict, active hostility or contention exist on the subtler, sub-atomic planes. Having no knowledge of its existence there, I will currently accept that war is partly a human construction, because war as a concept can be seen on earth, in other non-human societies.
I also believe that science, broadly defined as the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation, exists in other non-human societies.
I would locate morality in the same category as war and science, with the caveat that I firmly believe that other superior beings who may or may not exist, always or ever as corporeal beings, also possess what we define as morality.
God is the tricky one. Something exists outside of humankind that drives humans to seek an explanation of it. However, I do not believe that the human definition of God is an apt or accurate definition of that which exists and is commonly known as "God."
I do believe that there are beings superior to human beings. How they exist, what they exist as, their purpose for existence, and whether or not they exist in an intentional, purposeful relationship with other species - including humankind, is far beyond the scope of my knowledge or capacity to ascertain, at least in my current form in this present time. But if there be Gods, I most fervently pray they be moral gods.
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