Friday, September 05, 2003

Understanding Human Intelligence Timothy Wilken, MD writes: Human intelligence science has revealed that our enormous intelligence is the result of possessing dual minds. These dual minds create pictures of a dual world in which we live. Most of us don’t know we have dual minds and almost all of us don’t know we live in a dual world. We live in two worlds all of the time. ... The time-mind is concerned about becoming. To become somebody, I need to understand. And, if I understand something I know what it means. So understanding, allows me to develop meaning in my life. Meaning and becoming are tied integrally to understanding. Understanding leads us to predict what will happen and with accurate prediction, I can control. We humans judge our lives by how the events in our world compare to our predictions. So if nothing is going the way I predict it should—If nothing is the way it ought to be, I feel depressed. Depression results when our lives are not working as we predict they should. I predict a well deserved raise in my salary, but instead I get fired. I predict the pleasure and enjoyment of a brand new car, but I buy a lemon. I predict my wife will throw me a surprise birthday party, but she doesn’t even remember my birthday. When life does not occur as I predict it should, I am disappointed. When my experiences do not become what I expect they should, I am depressed. And, just the opposite, when things go the way I predict they should, I am satisfied and excited. I predicted I would win the award as an outstanding employee, and I won the award. I predicted I should get a new car, and I did and its even nicer than I imagined. I wanted my spouse to celebrate my birthday, and she threw me a marvelous party with all my friends.The space-mind makes a picture of the world as it "is". The space-mind’s purpose is to secure survival for the body. When it’s decisions produce high survival it feels pleasure. When its decisions produce low survival it feels pain. The space-mind tries to guide the organism towards pleasure and away from pain. ... The time-mind is in charge of understanding the world around it. The time-mind forms opinions of how the world could be or ought to be. It thinks in words and forms its words into opinions and predictations. We can have very low prediction accuracy—very low meaning. Life can be depressing. We can have low prediction accuracy—low meaning. Life can be disappointing. We can have high predictive accuracy—high meaning. Life can be satisfying. We can have very high predictive accuracy—very high meaning. Life can be exciting. Things are going the way I predict they should be going. My life is meaningful. I am becoming a success. I feel in control. (09/05/03) The Importance of Losing Jonathan Schell writes: The basic mistake of American policy in Iraq is not that the Pentagon-believing the fairy tales told it by Iraqi exile groups and overriding State Department advice-forgot, when planning "regime change," to bring along a spare government to replace the one it was smashing; not that, once embarked on running the place, the Administration did not send enough troops to do the job; not that a civilian contingent to aid the soldiers was lacking; not that the Baghdad museum, the Jordanian Embassy, the United Nations and Imam Ali mosque, among other places, were left unguarded; not that no adequate police force, whether American or Iraqi, was provided to keep order generally; not that the United States, seeking to make good that lack, then began to recruit men from the most hated and brutal of Saddam's agencies, the Mukhabarat; not that, in an unaccountable and unparalleled lapse in America's once sure-fire technical know-how, Iraq's electrical, water and fuel systems remain dysfunctional; not that the Administration has erected a powerless shadow government composed in large measure of the same clueless exiles that misled the Administration in the first place; not that the Administration has decided to privatize substantial portions of the Iraqi economy before the will of the Iraqi people in this matter is known; not that the occupation forces have launched search-and-destroy operations that estrange and embitter a population that increasingly despises the United States; not that, throughout, a bullying diplomacy has driven away America's traditional allies. All these blunders and omissions are indeed mistakes of American policy, and grievous ones, but they are secondary mistakes. The main mistake of American policy in Iraq was waging the war at all. That is not a conclusion that anyone should have to labor to arrive at. Something like the whole world, including most of its governments and tens of millions of demonstrators, plus the UN Security Council, Representative Dennis Kucinich, Governor Howard Dean and this magazine, made the point most vocally before the fact. They variously pointed out that the Iraqi regime gave no support to Al Qaeda, predicted that the United States would be unable to establish democracy in Iraq by force-and that therefore no such democracy could serve as a splendid model for the rest of the Middle East-warned that "regime change" for purposes of disarmament was likely to encourage other countries to build weapons of mass destruction, and argued that the allegations that Iraq already had weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them at any moment (within forty-five minutes after the order was delivered, it was said) were unproven. All these justifications for the war are now on history's ash heap, never to be retrieved-adding a few largish piles to the mountains of ideological claptrap (of the left, the right and what have you) that were the habitual accompaniment of the assorted horrors of the twentieth century. Recognition of this mistake --one that may prove as great as the decision to embark on the Vietnam War -- is essential if the best (or at any rate the least disastrous) path out of the mess is to be charted. Otherwise, the mistake may be compounded, and such indeed is the direction in which a substantial new body of opinion now pushes the United States. In this company are Democrats in Congress who credulously accepted the Bush Administration's arguments for the war or simply caved in to Administration pressure, hawkish liberal commentators in the same position and a growing minority of right-wing critics. (09/05/03) Ooops! BBC Health -- A technique used to protect the kidneys during major surgery could actually be doing more harm than good, say researchers. Doctors often thin the blood of bypass patients using saline solution because it is believed to decrease the risk of kidney damage during heart bypass. But research from Duke University Medical Center in the US suggests the reverse may be true. Overweight patients were at particular risk, claimed the research team. The report was published in a journal called the Annals of Thoracic Surgery. During major operations to the heart - such as bypass grafts - in the vast majority of cases the patient is connected to a "heart-lung machine", which takes over the pumping of oxygen-rich blood around the body while the heart is stopped for delicate surgery. In order to "prime" this pump, saline solution is added to it, which has the effect of diluting the blood once the machine is switched on. Doctors believe this is actually beneficial, as it makes the blood less "sticky" - and therefore less likely to form clots in vital blood vessels, which could be dangerous or damaging for the patient. Normally, blood is made up of between 36% and 40% red blood cells, but after dilution, this can fall to between 22% and 26%. It is commonly thought that because the body is often cooled during the operation, there is a high enough concentration of red blood cells remaining to satisfy the reduced demand for oxygen. But approximately one in 12 bypass patients will experience kidney damage as a result of the operation - and 2% will need dialysis as a result. (09/05/03) Stress and Smoking BBC Health -- People who smoke because they are stressed are less likely to be able to quit than other smokers. Researchers found smokers wrongly think cigarettes will help relieve stress. In fact, smoking exacerbates stressful feelings, exerts told the British Psychological Society conference in Stoke-on Trent. They said counsellors helping smokers quit should tackle the causes of stress and offer other ways of coping with problems. Researchers from Hillingdon Hospital in north-west London followed 550 smokers on a seven week cessation programme. The smokers received a combination of nicotine replacement therapy and group counselling. People were then followed up four weeks after the programme ended to see if they had successfully quit smoking. Dr Christina Chryssanthopoulou, who led the study, told BBC News Online: "We found that those people who used smoking as a way of dealing with stress were not as successful at stopping as people who didn't." She added: "Stress is one of the most important reasons people smoke. "Most smokers report that even when they give up successfully, one of the most important causes of relapse is stress." (09/05/03) Rehabilitating Nuclear Power BBC Technology -- A new international university has been set up to promote the spread of expertise in nuclear technology across the world. The World Nuclear University was inaugurated by representatives of the global atomic energy industry at a meeting in London, UK. The aim is to improve and expand education and training in nuclear technologies, which the industry believes is necessary if electricity supplies are to increase in line with growing global demand. The inauguration was welcomed by an impressive cast of speakers assembled for the annual meeting of the World Nuclear Association. Professor James Lovelock, the prominent environmental thinker and father of the Gaia theory, said atomic energy was the only away to avoid fossil fuels and the impending disaster of global warming. "I'm absolutely sure that if we - by which I mean civilisation - are going to get through this century without some greenhouse disasters, we've just got to use nuclear on a grand scale. "Renewables simply can't do it in time," he said. And the former UN weapons inspector in Iraq Hans Blix, who is to be the university's chancellor, said global warming was a greater danger than the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "While I would be the last to underestimate the risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in particular nuclear weapons, I think the environmental risks we face are even greater," he said. (09/05/03) 8:47:25 PM

© TrustMark 2003 Timothy Wilken. Last update: 10/1/2003; 9:49:31 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.