BioChemistry Final - The Microbiome & TCM

The Microbiome and TCM

Tiana McGuire

The total destruction of bacteria that antibiotics cause could become a thing of the past.  For every single human cell in the body there are 10 more microbes living on the surfaces of and within the body.  It’s time to accept that the experience of being human is a symbiotic experience. The question is how long a human devoid of all microbial life would survive?  If one goes so far as to consider that each of our cells hosts a mitochondria with its own DNA, which is not human DNA, than human life would be impossible without our symbiotes.

Which brings us to consider the human microbiome as a ecosystem whose health is directly tied to the health of the individual. The more that biochemists understand and map out the what’s and why’s of the major bacterial players in the microbiome, the more specific treatments can become. In the article The Body’s Ecosystem the author states that “anything we can do to restore more balance or more appropriate microbe composition in the skin, as in all the tissues, is extremely important.” In order to know how to bring balance back into the organism we must first understand what that individuals microbiome should look like.  Companies such as the South San Francisco’s UBiome offer microbiome mapping of multiple locations on the body, such as internal organs, oral cavity, skin, nasal mucosa, and genital. This can allow an individual to have a reference of their baseline microbiome when they are healthy. (I have taken part of a study for Crohn's Disease and have been tracking my gut flora over the last three years. Being able to watch what does and what does not change over time is fascinating.)  Then if they fall ill a comparison of their biome can be made, and an individualized plan of action to reinstate balance created. This is night and day compared to the scorched earth approach of antibiotics that have helped to create exceptionally hard to kill bacteria such as MRSA and CDAD.

Diversity is also key to a healthy microbiome. In the chapter on ‘Trillions of Mouths to Feed’ (The Good Gut, 2014) Sonnenburg discusses how the Western gut has come to be lacking diversity. They discuss that the combination of lacking exposure to food-borne microbes such as those found in fermented foods and lack of plant material, fiber, in the Western diet has led to our microbe diversity suffering. I find that there is an opportunity to draw a connection to the Chinese thought of the human body as a microcosm of the universal macrocosm here. As the Western diet has shifted to eating from the industrialized food industry, farmers have shifted to monoculture crops, foods are pasteurized and sterilized. So too we see has gut microbiome shifted towards its own monoculture/lack of diversity.  And the same weakness that exist with monoculture crops can happen with our guts. Just as Panama Disease is killing off the world’s monoculture bananas, so too can C-difficile take over the microbiome of a individual after a heavy course of antibiotics. As above, so below.

One of the core theories in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is Yin Yang Theory. The unity of the body is based upon the balance of two opposing and complementary relationships.  Pathology appears when the bodies systems are out of balance and TCM seeks to return the body to health via returning the body’s systems into a balanced state. This seems to be congruent with the idea of nurturing a healthy microbiome instead of eradicating all bacteria as though they all are pathogenic.  There is hope that as western medicine begins to shift, we as humans may start to appreciate that promoting balance in our symbiotic human condition is a effective treatment that so too will the medicine open up to an integrated approach to wellness in cooperation with TCM.

References

Staff, The Scientist (August 2014) The Body’s Ecosystem

Justin Sonnenburg & Erica Sonnenburg (2015) The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-Term Health.

BioPhysics Final - Our Biophysical Future

Our Biophysical Future

Tiana McGuire

The Zabjek and Kehler article on joining AI with prosthetics in order to create a ‘smart’ bionic limb, had a striking statement that, “the seamless communication, the interaction between humans and machines to solve problems together.”, would be the key to not just using technology to help disabled bodies perform as able bodies but to create a “super-abled” body.  The comment has an unspoken assumption that the human body is lacking, that there is a need for technology to use it’s advances to further human biology.

This is a very interesting assumption and one that Cyprus born artist Stelarc has been exploring through his performance art for the last 30 years.  I first became aware of Stelac while researching body suspension, via piercings through the flesh, that took place outside of cultural practice. Stelarc had done a series of suspension in the 1980’s. The foundation of Stelarc’s vision is that the body is obsolete and in part that “The body's LACK OF MODULAR DESIGN and its overactive immunological system make it difficult to replace malfunctioning organs. It might be the height of technological folly to consider the body obsolete in form and function, yet it might be the height of human realisations. For it is only when the body becomes aware of its present position that it can map its post-evolutionary strategies.” (Stelarc.org/?catID=20317) Stelarc’s artwork creates an opportunity to pose the logic question of ‘has the human race reached the point where it is evolving faster than nature, and in order to allow for humanity to continue to thrive and grow that it must take technology into the flesh itself in order to thrive in the future?’ to the public.  

In the 2008 piece ‘Ear on Arm’ Stelarc teamed up with a group of surgeons and stem cell consultants in order to implant a functional ear into his arm.  The ear had a microphone implanted along with it that would transmit what was heard to external speakers. With further plans to plant a bluetooth enabled speaker into Stelarc’s mouth, so that people could use their mobile phones to call Stelarc who could then speak to them via the ear on arm and could then hear the caller inside his cranium.  Additionally if the a third party stood close to Stelarc and he opened his mouth, that person too would be able to hear the caller. This would enable an acoustic presence from another location, and the ear on arm would become an internet accessible organ for the body.

What does Chinese Medicine think of the implantation of technology into the body?  As I near the end of my first year of studies in TCM, I can gather that bionics would not be seen as positive.  From my understanding and from lecture by Jackie Sheck, scars on the body create blockages and stagnation. Qi cannot move freely by these blockages.  From this perspective the multiple surgeries on Stelarc’s arm to implant the ear will have disrupted flow of Qi from all three of the Yin arm channels.  This would impair the Lung channel, the Heart channel, and the Pericardium channel directly. Indirectly this would inhibit the flow of Qi through the circuit of the channels as well, leading to Qi vacuity in the Large Intestine, San Jiao, and Small Intestine channels.  I think it is also important to take note that not all of Stelarc’s surgeries were not successful. He initially had to remove the micro-speaker due to infection, and had issues with necrotising tissue at the initial site of intended ear implantation. When the nature balance of a healthy human body is compromised, even with the most careful intent, the body is susceptible to pathogenic attack.  I find this to be ironic as the lack of modular design of the body is part of the philosophy behind why Stelarc finds the body to be obsolete.

I believe that technology has not reached a place where it is stable enough to take on the nuances of the human body.  Each year we see huge gains in technology, what this also means is there is an equally huge wake of obsolescence in its path.  What will happen to humanity version1.5 when “super-abled” humanity 3.0 rolls out?

References

Stelarc.org

Alex Zabjek & Therese Kehler, May 9, 2018. Researchers create ‘smart’ bionic limbs. http//www.ulberta.ca/newtrail/featurestories/2018/may/researchers-create-smart-bionic-limbs

Biochemistry wk 14 - Our Biochemistry and Cognition

In class we spent a good amount of time discussing the use of LSD in the treatment of Schizophrenia.  The article that we read in class was looking at LSD's ability to bind and stay bound to serotonin receptors and how this effects an individuals perceived feeling of deep meaning. As Aldous Huxley described "solidarity with the Universe."

Part of the discussion that I found interesting was about Psychiatrists who would take LSD with their patients while they were in treatment.  One view point was that by the doctor also ingesting the drug, it made them more relatable to the patient.  If the patient had previously felt that there was no common ground for the doctor to understand, or empathize with the client that sense of othering and of authoritarianism would diminish as both parties participated equally in ingestion of the psychedelic.  I don't agree with this point of view. I do not see Psychiatrists taking any other drugs that they prescribe to their patients, and many of them could interfere with the doctor being able to properly do their work. I also saw this as tangential to the point of the article about using LSD for it's serotonin binding / solidarity with the Universe effects and not it's psychotropic effects.

Another point brought up in class was that by doctors taking LSD with their Schizophrenic patients that they would be able to better understand the delusional world of the patient.  I am curious why the assumption is made that the LSD would act as an entry into a very specific individuals break with reality?  And if someone who already had psychotically broken with reality, what effect would a further psychotropic experience do to their perceived reality?  Could it further deepen the break from reality?  Would the sense of "solidarity with the Universe" perhaps cause them to form a deep bond with their delusions? Is the experience of taking LSD similar enough across individuals that it would create a common reality that both the doctor and the patient could relate to, and in that way anchor the client away from their schizoid delusion?

The article ended with a plea that Psychiatry desperately needs new drugs.  This added a sense of urgency to the research as well as setting the scope that anything that is better than what is currently in use is acceptable.  This isn't a search for a cure, this is a search for a better drug treatment.  Living in a community where there is almost daily rhetoric about finding the cure for disease, it is curious to read about this situation where a better treatment is the goal.

BioPhysics wk 14 - Bionics and our Biophysical Future

Using conversation in class as a spring board, I've got a couple of fringe ideas to bring forward and am interested on what people may think.

So, check out Stelarc - he is an artist that has been performing works based on the body being obsolete since the 1970's.  I realize this is art and not science, but I feel that as humans are inspired to discover technology that artists and storytellers guide the way in creating an avenue for the everyman glimpse into what is becoming or what could be.  This quote is from the end of a interview that Stelarc did with Stanford University about what he perceives is next for the human body:

Stelarc: It is time to recolonise the body with microminaturised robots to augment out bacterial population, to assist our immunological system, and to monitor the capillary and internal tracts of the body. We need to build an internal surveillance system for the body. We have to develop microbots whose behavior is not pre-programmed, but activated by temperature, blood chemistry, the softness or hardness of tissue and the presence of obstacles in tracts. These robots can then work autonomously on the body. The biocompatibility of technology is not due to its substance, but to its scale. Speck-sized robots are easily swallowed and may not even be sensed. At a nanotech level, machines will navigate and inhabit cellular spaces and manipulate molecular structures to extend the body from within.

If bionics refers to building a replacement or augmented piece of anatomy it's sibling would be cybernetics, where technology is used to add something that did not previously exist to a body A view of cybernetics available today is the concept of adding on extra sensory perceptions, such as a sense of magnetic north with Cyborg Nest's - North Sense :
Two specially designed titanium bars are inserted under the skin and act as the anchoring system. The North Sense attaches to the bars and vibrates whenever facing the magnetic north.

Biochemistry wk 13 - Living Diversity

".. the human species is living as if it had more than one planet to occupy ..."

I think this is a very ethnocentric view of the human species.  I think not all of human kind is living this way, I do however believe that enough humans are living beyond the means of the planet to have a dire effect.  I don't know the exact numbers, so I did a quick Google search on what percentage of the world resources does the US use.  What I found is that in 2007 while the US is 5% of the worlds population we use 24% of the worlds power.  The following image is a pretty good example of how much energy the US uses, comparing each state to other nations that have equal energy use.




The amount of consumption that happens every year by our nation alone is quite thoughtless of the amount of resources available for future generations.  The future better hope that there's resources that haven't been leveraged yet, because this rate of consumption is not sustainable.

Let's change gears and continue the conversation about restroom hand dryers for a moment.  The concern is that hand dryers recirculate contaminated air from the bathroom and that freshly washed hands will no longer be clean if they are blown air dried.  I think that everyone needs to step back a moment and stop trying to create a sterile living environment.  I hesitate to see the purpose of painstakingly creating a perfected clean hand drying system when our hands come into contact with dirty items constantly.  For example paper money.  Working for years as a cashier in a number of retail environments, I have seen bills speckled with dried blood, bills pulled from sweaty bra's and socks.  I used to have a significant other that worked at a porn shop making changes for Jack Off's (my term) to use in the video arcade, how many different bodily fluids do you think those dollars came into contact with?  And the money just gets circulated around and around.  It's common to lick the tip of your fingers to get a better grip when counting a number of bills at a time....

Just let that sink in.

I realize I have digressed.  To get back to the point of public bathrooms.  I've got a harm reductionist view.  I think it's best to have the greatest number of people wash their hands after using the bathroom, so I think having a quick and easily accessible sink and available hand drying option is key.  I think in environments where there is a higher chance of having diseases transmitted in a restroom, for example in a hospital or at airport, these locations should have restrooms where there is a higher degree of cleanliness maintained.  This could include HEPA filters over the toilet stall areas as well as built into the dries, hands free sinks, not having a handled door at the entrance, ect.  There are more than one best practice to put into place let's not just blame it all on the dries, ok.

Biophysics Wk 13 - Energy Medicine Energy Fields

Acupuncture as effective energy medicine -

This week we took a look at a diagram that outlined The Biofield, this hypothetical definition comes from viewing the organism as a self controlled cybernetic, thermodynamically open system.  (side note: I thin I could benefit from someone breaking that sentence down into layman terms for me).  In this table physiology and mid lay on either side of programs of development, maintenance, reproduction and death these two overlaying systems then join back together again and create a group of control subsystems.  One of these control subsystems are those manifested in acupuncture as defined as acupuncture meridians carrying impulses of x-interaction (Qi, prana).  I feel that this outlines how the system acupuncture acts on as an energy system exists within living organisms.

In our reading, we discussed a 1997 finding by the NIH Consensus Development Conference on Acupuncture that acupuncture is an effective treatment for nausea, surgical anesthesia and for pain resulting from surgery and a variety of musculoskeletal conditions.  BOOM!

What conclusions can you draw from Kirlian photography?
What I learned from the article from www.themysticica.com on Krilian photography is that it is capturing a corona discharge phenomenon, between an object that is electrically grounded (I am deducing that this grounded object is the the subject of the photograph) and metal plate that has been connected to a Tesla coil generating an electric field.  The coronal discharge is then captured on film.

I conclude that Kirlian photography is going to show the areas that have the greatest conduction as the brightest on the photograph, as the electric field will ground out through those areas quicker than others.  I think this is consistent with the idea of how qi flows through meridians and comes to the surface at acupuncture points.  This is also consistent with the Soviet scientist that found the brightest 700 points on the body concurs with Chinese acupuncture.

Krilian photography has yet to be leveraged in a way that has gained popularity, and because of this it has be relegated to the realm of entertainment.

Human intent as it affects health -

For the individual, if a person cares to be healthy then that intent will color all the decisions made.  In a moment of hunger, there could be a fast food/convenient option or perhaps an individual that has an intent to be healthy would have an healthy snack on hand in case of such an hunger emergency and they would not make the unhealthy choice.  It's a long game vs immediate type of mind set. One person may see a box of doughnuts and think, "Free tastes best!  I'll have two!" where as if a person who has an intent of health sees the same box of doughnuts the thought may be, "Oh dang, that looks like a box full of belly aches & feeling awful after a sugar crash.  No fun, no way!"

Intent also comes to play on the part of a practitioner.  If the intent is to see 3 patients every hour in a clinic setting, the practitioner could miss information that could be key in diagnosis a patient because they were in a hurry to 'help' the next person and were not able to be present in the moment.

Biochemistry wk 12 - Cell Biology and Radioactivity

The daily radiation exposure comparison chart was quite interesting to me.  It drove home that on top of a CT Scan being a "crazy x ray" it really does expose the individual to many more times the amount of radiation than a x ray image will.   The difference in cvert dosage that a airplane passenger is exposed to was also interesting to me.  I am still pondering why amount changed relative to the seat?  I am assuming that the radiation is not coming from a single direction, so people in the front have less of a human shield to radiation exposure than those seated at the rear of the plane.  I confess my ignorance on the design of a plane, my intuition is that there is more structure around the wings then in the front or rear of the aircraft and I would think more structure would mean more of a barrier between cosmic radiation and passengers.

Mushrooms are also wicked interesting bioacumulators, and I can understand how the cost of using mushrooms to track the radiation in the soil would be less than using livestock.  It does still belay the question of how is the irradiated fungi or meat disposed of?  And does that create more of a radioactive hazard?

Biophysics wk12 - Life & Living Systems

• I know I’m a “living system” because…….The base of my molecules is carbon chains.  I can reproduce a variation of my self, as  noted on the paper on Autopoietic Organization " Our proposition is that living beings are characterized in that, literally, the are continually self-producing. 

• TCM and Biophysics - Again I must proclaim my novice position in both TCM & Biophysics, as such my views will not be fully informed.  In my current perception of TCM it individual is not apart from nature but a part of the biosphere.  There is a microcosmic duplication of the macrocosmic universe in each person.  In this I think that there is much more room for Biophysics to directly inform the way of knowing that is used in TCM.

Biochemestey Wk 11

1. Biochemistry is the study of the chemicals, chemical reactions and chemical interactions that take place in living organisms.

This definition of biochemistry resonates with me because it's focuses in on the chemistry aspect of the hybrid science.  Biology acts as a boundary within the focus of this chemistry.  Only the chemistry that takes pace inside living organisms please.  


I was not in class for this week, but I did read the article about MD's giving their clients placebos. Personally I think that the taboo around placebo needs to be removed.  There is such a fear of mystery in western science, if it's beyond the scope of what can be explained with the modern system then it is discarded.    


Giving antibiotics as a placebo, for example in the case of a viral infection was disappointing for me to learn.  Moving forward I hope that MD's will be much more choosey when administering such powerful medicine as antibiotics.  For me, my go to placebo is to vigorously rub any impact injury that only time will heal.  (I need a step up from a kiss making things better)

Physics wk11 - Synthesis

My Day - An excersize in E Prime

I read the clock as it displayed 7:30AM when I awoke from my slumber.  Then I met up with a friend to work out at a beach in Pacifica.  Next I believed that I was going to study in the garden with my classmates.  However, I received a text message asking me if I was going to show up for a tattoo appointment.  I had forgotten to write the appointment down in my calendar, this oversight lead to me forgetting about the tattoo appointment and double booking myself.  I canceled the study session without much time before the planed meet up.

Once the appointed time for being tattooed was reached I was bandaged by the artist I left the shop.  Now it was time for me to head to work.  I caught the SF/Milbre BART train and headed towards San Francisco.  I was in a good amount of discomfort as the fresh tattoo had begun to noticeably swell.  My shift seemed to pass slowly as there was multiple opening acts and less than 50 people sitting in the section of the venue that I had been tasked with serving.  Once the band stopped playing music and departed the stage, I was able to end my shift.  My work was over for that day and so I headed back to my home.  upon arrival I provided my cat with wet canned food which he ate.  I then went to bed and fell asleep without any problem, even though the fresh tattoo was still causing discomfort.

Synthesizing East/West thought in Physics

From that I have learned in this class, Quantum Physics is both a vast realm of science of which only the surface has been scratched.  I believe it is easier for a person to understand Eastern thought as well as Quantum Physics if one has an understanding of the other.  currently I stand as a novice in both realms, however I am fascinated by both.  I hope to deepen my understanding of physics even after the completion of this course.

Physics wk 10 - Symmetry / Super Symmetry & Sacred Geometry

My asymmetrical world -

"Sisters not twins," have become words that I live by.  I first heard this saying in regards to a friend of mine attempting to create the perfect liquid line of eyeliner.  She explained to me through the reflection in the mirror that perfection/duplication/symmetry is impossible.  If one strives for perfect symmetry in makeup application that it will lead to hours of time and emotional frustration that are really not necessarily needing to be wasted.  Shoot for an achievable goal and you will find success.  Our faces are not symmetrical, and that is something to be celebrated and not worked against.

In my work as a body piercer, I find myself pairing up earlobe piercings quite frequently.  You may or may not be aware of this, but ears are quite regularly drastically different from one another.  Overall size, location on the head, and shape can vary from left to right ear.  And so I say to myself and to my client "sisters not twins" what I mean is that finding a pleasing balanced location of the adornment to sit is the goal.  If I were to take out a measuring tool and place the piercing on the exact same location  as measured from the bottom of the lobe and distance to the side of the face, the outcome could appear very lopsided.  Such is my asymmetrical world!

Just what does this CP violation really mean?

Ho-Lee-Shit this stuff when way over my head.  But I will try and explain it back to you.  Because energy is conserved for every "thing" there is also an "anti-thing" that also exists, however they must also exist in different locations.  If a "thing" and and "anti-thing" meet, POOF, they undo each other and there is nothing.  So how come this hasn't happened to everything?  In my understanding it is because of the CP violation.  On the tiny tiny tiny level, once in a very long time when a "thing" is created "anti-thing" is not created instead "bizzarso-anti-thing" is created (this may or may not put it back to being the same as "thing"). Like if Bizzaro World Superman was a good guy, and so didn't lead to an epic battle between Superman & Bizzaro Superman.  Because there wasn't that mutual self destruction both can go about existing, and because of this CP violation there can be matter of "things" in existence.  And so the universe exists.

Are there connections between Sacred Geometry and Physics?

I think the better question would be, can you elucidate on the connections between Sacred Geometry and Physics.  I think that the connection between geometry and physics has become more apparent once the computational power of computers has come into play.  The fractal images that are a part of Chaos Theory show a direct link to Physics.

On a more instinctual level, as I think about why Sacred Geometry exists.  If the golden mean exists because it is the most efficient way for energy to be organized on the micro as well as the astronomical scales, isn't that in itself at the heart of Physics?  Physics is the asking of why the universe is?  In class we have spoken to the point that no question is out of the question of Physics.  Well, it would appear to me that the Golden Mean has presented itself as an answer to some of these questions. This leads me to wonder, why haven't more Physicists that I am aware of reversed engineered theory around the answer that we see in the Golden Ration?

Physics Midterm - Eastern vs Western Perspective On Where We Are In Time

Foundations of Chinese Medicine was one of the first courses that I took here at the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences.  The class was taught by Phil Settels, and in one of his first lectures he asked the class to imagine time was a condensed down to a line that ran through the room & he was standing in this moment on that line.  The question that Phil posed to the class was this; which way should he be facing on that timeline?

My thought was that time is unidirectional, it always proceeds forward.  The future becomes the present and then the past. As such, it was my view that Phil should face into the direction that time is moving.  That he should face “forward” into the future. This is a very Western Monochronic Time perspective of where we stand in time. Always planning for the future, rigid, eyes on the horizon, innovating new ways to forage ahead and create the future that we desire.

Phil’s point was that in the Eastern Polychronic Time perspective one can only see what has already come to pass. Just as the western saying goes “hindsight is 20/20” so to is the perspective of Eastern thought.  The viewer on the timeline must face towards the past, as that is the only known time that one has physically seen. The logic follows that the eyes should face towards the past. The future cannot be seen or known so the viewers back is toward the future.  The importance is placed on knowing and learning from what has already happened in order to inform the viewer as they move into the unknown future.

In our Physics we discussed the differences between Western Monochronic Time and Eastern Polychronic Time.  I find that the thought experiment that Phil had us participate in was a great example of how ethnocentrically entrenched each of us is in our view.  As was exemplified by our M-Time interpretation of the where the viewer faced on a timeline.

Physics wk 8 - Classical Physics

When I think about Newton's laws i am reminded of my childhood.  I grew up in a family with three sisters, and when we drove it would often entail three of us girls filling up the entire row in the family car.  Summer trips to the beach included driving down a windy canyon road.  We came upon a bit of a game as we would round a corner, the sibling towards the center of the turn would exclaim "Newton's 2nd law!" and add a little extra lean into the forces we felt pulling us towards the opposite edge of the vehicle.  More or less it was an excuse to go back and forth squishing your sister.  The sibling in the center just got squashed the whole time, which typically was the youngest of us (and why she thought she was the middle child for a long time).  

Newton's 2nd Law states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the forces acting on it, and inversely proportional to its mass.  Force = Mass x Acceleration.   With my better understanding of physics that I have now, I know that we were feeling feeling was that our bodies wanted to continue moving in a straight line & that as the car turned we continued moving forward until the frame of the vehicle acted on our bodies forcing us to also turn with it.  Though it felt as though our bodies were being pushed towards the side of the car.

Overall even if the use of Newton's Laws wasn't spot on, I am still fairly impressed that as children we were aware enough of the laws of physics to create games out of them.

Our "Energy Efficient" culture.  I agree with the liberal use of parenthetical in that sentence.  Thermodynamics, turning heat energy into work energy was the basis for the industrial revolution. Which was a tremendous advancement of technology, however that does not mean that it was the most efficient way to create wok energy.  My mind is still reeling at the idea of the sunken processor banks that are off the coast of Scotland, with all of their excess heat leaching out into the ocean.  The effect on the local ecosystem must be dramatic.  I personally know very very little about how ecosystems work, but I surly know that the water off the coast of Scotland is not naturally warm & and a large body that will consistently be producing heat has just been dropped smack dab into the middle of that watery world. 

Cartesian thought - A note that I wrote in the sideline of our handout.  You don't need a brain to be cognitive,  A living system can act with cognition, think a slime mold that can solve a maze in order to locate a food source.  Also looking at a bee hive as a system acting with cognition vs. focusing on the individual bee.  

Physics wk9 - unabashed loafing

This week I spent an extended amount of time laying down.  I like to think of it as savasana, or corpse pose.  I find it mediative and sometimes nap inducing.  My 18 year old cat likes to join me and sometimes he insists that we savasna by climbing up onto my torso and getting comfortable, he then slides a paw into the ditch of my throat and just dares me to try and go anywhere.  And with this weeks assignment including some unabashed loafing I was not going to struggle against the feline's demands to stay in bed.

 

This is what loafing with my cat looks like.

In further less static loafing, I started the process of making Calendula oil.  The flowers were grown in my community garden & individually picked and dried by me.  I've never made medicinal oils before.

At the very least, it looks pretty.

Physics wk7 - Vibrations

 Are all vibrations “good”? 
The simplest answer to this question, dodges the intent of the question.  I think that it would be impossible for all vibrations to be good, because good cannot exist without it's opposite.  I believe all vibrations could be neutral.  

 Resonance in my world 
I commute using the BART train, and I will use my experience riding the BART to speak to resonance in my world.  As I occupy my seat on the train, I experience the sounds that the train makes though it's journey.  My place as an observer does not change but the sounds that I hear very quite dramatically.  If the train is going through a tunnel the wheels get very very loud and screechy.  They are not this loud no screechy when the train is moving through a portion of the trackway where it is wide and spacious.  I think that the resonance created inside the tube of the tunnel causes an amplification of the sound waves of the train in such a way that the volume is amplified as well as the frequency is higher and thereby the pitch of the train wheels gets screechier.  

 Connections I can make between Energy and Qi?
I want to preference this with saying that I do not have a good grasp on Qi.  The connections I can make at this point is that both are invisible yet provide the power for observable outcomes.  Qi can be used to describe many different things just as energy can also describe many types of energy.  There is Kinetic Energy, Atomic Energy, Matter is a ton of energy condensed.  So too there is gathering qi, upright qi, defensive qi, the qi of an organ, the qi that circulates around the body as well.  I am learning that it is very important to be clear about what type of Qi one is referring to.  I think the same thing can be said of Energy.

 I found a physics experiment out in the wild.  After scrolling through multiple pages of really cool, really "easy," physics experiments I realize that they are only easy if you have all the necessary parts to build the experiment.  I found that I lacked the resources to build out an experiment at home.

And then my sister came into town from out of state, and we met up for dinner and a drink afterwards.  LOW AND BEHOLD -  I found one of the Little Shop of Physics experiments at the bar.  It is a variation of the mirror wormhole

Using double sided mirrors to create an infinity array of the light bulbs and bricks reflected back upon each other for ever.  It creates the illusion of there being a hole into the center of the earth.  *WOAH*

The physics comes with how the double sided mirrors let some but not all of the light through every time a light particle hits the face of the mirror.  As LSOP explains:

"Every time the light hits a mirror, some of it is transmitted (so you see it) and some of the light is reflected back. The result is that you see multiple reflections, and the string of lights looks like it repeats forever."

In the second photo I tried to capture the corner where you can just see the second mirror placed at the bottom of the light box.

Physics wk 6 - Chaos Theory

I think ordered chaos is depending upon ones viewpoint.  An outside observer looking at my living room could describe it as chaotic.  There are piles of books, papers, pens, shoes, acupuncture equipment, personal effects seemingly strewn about.  However I know where my Tuesday classes books are related to my Thursday class books.  And I can locate everything within  seconds.  To me, because I have created the space there is an order to it.  If, my girlfriend were to be ever so helpful and tidy up the front room these view points would become reversed.  The space could appear tidy and all items squared up and organized and yet to me it would be chaos and I would take a long time to find an item I was searching for. 

This leads me to think about the differences in the organization of public vs private spaces.  In my private space it only matters if I know how to navigate it, where in a public space the organization and navigation of the space needs to be relatively easy for the majority to understand or Inuit.  Like the duodecimal system at a library.

 Franctals are a physical representation of a system, they allow us to visualize patterns that appear in complex numerical systems.  I find the way that the smallest piece of a fractal is representational of the whole to be fascinating.  Take the cauliflower in the image.  Each tiny cone looks like the large cone that each of the smaller ones combine to make.  It pleases me that there are visual representations of fractals because I lack the mathematical knowledge to understand the complex systems that they represent.

The article that we read on the consciousness of chaos took me a while to comprehend.  I initially could not see where the chaos theory crossed paths with the state of consciousness, depression specifically in the article, that was being discussed.  But then I understood, by comparison to the images of fractals.  A depressed consciousness will have depressed behaviors that lead to the continuation of that state.  Just as every section of the fractal has the same shape as the whole and the summation of those similar parts create the whole.  We see the same concept of chaos can play itself out in very different aspects of nature.

Physics wk4 - Energy, Matter and the Four Forces

One of the most popularly known equations is E=mc^2.  The equation has become part of the Einstein brand, along with unruly hair.  The image of Intestine smoking a pipe that emits the cosmos has become imbedded in pop culture, and t-shirts available at Target.

via GIPHY

However when I pose the question to myself of how has e=mc^2 affected me, I'm initially left at a loss.  Energy is mass x a very large number.  The speed of light being that very large number, however I feel like it's easy to get caught up on the idea of light zooming around seemingly instantaneously versus how that quantity acts in this equation.  Which is to say it makes the sum of the parts a very very large amount of energy.

My assumption is that Einstein's theory of relativity relates to the coming the atomic age and the creation of the atomic bomb & nuclear power. Whether or not this assumption is true, it has colored my lens for viewing my world since childhood.

When I compare the four forces, I instinctively rate them by their relative magnitude.  With the Strong nuclear force & Electromagnetic forces massively outweighing the power of the Weak nuclear force and at the comparitivley easy to see but lacking in power the force of gravity.

Gravity is the attractive force that mass exerts over other mass.  Gravity functions to keep our bodies engaged with the ground and in such a balanced state that we can move about the surface of our planet without floating off into the atmosphere or it requiring so much energy to lift our limbs in fight of the gravitational force that we would never move at all.  Gravity has many many more functions, that a person more scientifically minded can appreciate with ease.  But for me, gravity is what is keeping me & all the objects that I interact with daily grounded.

Physics Wk3 - Synchronicity

In the years aprecieding 2012 I took on a laissez faire attitude  I took risks.  The word was that the Mayan calendar came to a close in December of 2012.  So I figured, if the world ended so be it.  I would not be held accountable for debts I had accumulated and I would have had more experiences than if I had lived my life "safely." In these years of saying yes to every opportunity that came my way, I opened myself up to observing the working of interconnectedness, manifestation, and synchronistic happenings around me.  Here is an example of such:

When it came to the evening of Dec 21st, I hardly realized that the great event was upon us all.  I was entrenched in my daily grind.  I was also homeless and staying between a number of my friends houses.  Having put all my things in storage and gotten rid of my apartment in order to afford spending a month abroad. One of my friends had recently relocated to the Bay Area from Oahu.  It so happened that a couple of women from Hawaii were visiting and all of us ended up at the same roller derby practice.  The Hawaiis were going to go out after practice and I was invited.  Typically I have no time for such social outings.  But, it was the end of the world so why not?  One of the women from the Big Island caught my fancy that evening.  I pursued getting to know her, and eventually we became partners.  On the other side of the Equator in another woman I know met her now husband on that same evening.  Both of them were travelers She from California and He from Germany and crossing paths with each other on 12/21/2012 in Peru.  I think it was both synchronistic that a number of people met their long term partners on that day, along with the fact that each of the people involved were admits travel that had closed the gap of continents in order to cross paths.

My decision to return to school has be a direct departure from the say yes to opportunity attitude that allowed me to meet my mate.  Staying close to home and working on building this new knowledge base and skill set seems to me that it has closed me off to the opportunities that international roller derby coaching & play had offered me over the last decade and that has been a difficult trade off.  But that sort of thinking in and of itself may cause me to miss out on seeing the synchronistic events unfold around me here and now.

Physics Wk 2 - Quantum Physics

Quantum uncertainty describes how when dealing with the smallest parts of matter that it is impossible to know both the exact position in space & how much momentum that particle has.  In class we spent some time discussing how difficult it os for the western scientific mind to be at ease with the concept of uncertainty. Also how we as students of Traditional Chinese Medicine are learning to think in a more eastern way and this may allow us to be less at odds with concept of uncertainty.  This line of conversation raised the question for me: Are there any eastern minds working on quantum mechanics now, or in the past?  It struck me when reading the article on A history of Quantum Mechanics that all of the scientist seemed to be Eastern European men.

I wasn't very clear upon reflection about what Quantum  Causality and Entanglement was referring to so I did a quick web search and found a 2012 article published from the University of Vienna Quantum causal relations: A causes B causes A

"in quantum mechanics it is possible to conceive situations in which a single event can be both, a cause and an effect of another one."

Quantum Causality seems to remove the arrows of time from the equation of A causality.  Is it the observer that and the space time that they are occupying that forms the time directional relationship of causality of solidify?

I have a difficulty with terms such as weird/normal. I find that they are very difficult to operationally define, and if they are not very specifically defined then they have a subjective meaning for each reader.  I as the writer have my concepts of normality based upon my life experiences, which will not be the same as the normality of the reader.  So, I will respond to the idea of is the Universe full of the unexpected.  Absolutely.  I think the sciences of humanity, and quantum physics are just at the brink of seeing how much we have learned already has given us a lens to view the staggering and mind bending depths of the unknown universe that is yet to be understood.

 Your comments on Causality

 Is the Universe weird?

Through the Quantum Rabbit Hole.

Tiny black holes at the center of every atom, check out Nassim Harmein 3 part lecture to understand how the geometry of a proton contains information.



Paul Davies wrote a book called The Eerie Silence


I also want to look at the use of the idea of spooky at a distance used in distance healing, such a Rife

Week 1 - Just in the nick of time

I sit here on the eve before class, reflecting back nearly a week on the conversation that was had around the meaning of time.  Not a moment too soon, as time is running out before class will meet again and I will no longer have the time to write this blog.

What I have gathered is this.  Time exists in combination with space.  It seems to me that the meaning of time becomes variable based upon context.   It depends on the viewer in relation to space time, such as in the conversation where a clock that is approaching the event horizon will be seen by a viewer to slow down however to the clock itself time will continue in an unchanged fashion.  An individuals relationship with time is going to be informed by the culture that the person is living in.

A interesting relationship that I have with the meaning of time's value personally comes with catching a BART train.  There is a 15-25 min wait between train each train on a single destination line during most day parts.  What The moment that I find most interesting is the 1 minute that it can take miss getting on a train transmutes into 15 minutes or more minutes till the next train arrives.  The value of that one minute that is exponentially greater than the minutes that come before or after it in relationship to catching a BART train.

This is my first post.  Up next will be me thinking about space/time.

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