Week 8 Assignment - Cell Biology & HIV-AIDS

1. How do you feel about Western approaches to HIV/AIDS?
2. Can TCM strengthen our Immune systems?
3. What do you think of 'the deal that saved the whales'?

1.
Well, I am not really sure how to approach such a controversial and seemingly misunderstood illness. I am inclined to think that western medical and scientific approaches are trying to attack the virus (which, supposedly has never been isolated in a lab), and/or mechanically-chemically shut off the function of the infection/virus.

Whatever works. If something is working, then great. If something is not working or works just as well as a person changing their lifestyle, the relationship to themselves and their world, and the overall strength of their bodies, then why use it? Alternatives to chemical medicine appear to be cheaper than and just as effective in limiting the extent of the virus.

2.
I asked some questions on someone else's blog:

• Can the phagocytic rate really indicate an accurate measure of immune function? does a certain number of phagocytes equal a certain level of health?
• How is this determined? Through continued observation and correlation called 'science'? Haven't peoples all over the world been making careful observations for hundreds of thousands of years? What is wrong with their observations? They seem to have success with maintaining healthy immune systems...
  
• Is 'immune function' limited to the parts of the body we call the lymphatic and blood systems? what is the immune system and how do we measure it?

I think it is interesting that in TCM we ask the patient how they feel and look to the overt signs of health or illness in order to measure 'immune function' or 'health' or 'illness' rather than rely on tests of the blood and urine and other body fluids. Does allopathic medicine really understand what healthy levels of minerals and compounds in the blood are? Is there a direct relationship between the blood and a overall health of the body? Can blood tell us the health of the immune system? the liver? the heart? the kidneys? etc. or can they only tell us how far off the standard we are?

I think that TCM, in it's root form, as an intuitive and direct-observational medicine/art is capable of assisting people in experiencing their ideal state of wellness.

I am becoming less certain of what 'health' is and less interested in specific details that allopathic medicine focuses so much on. I want to feel good and I want others to feel good too. I don't need to know what levels of phagocyte are in the blood to know how I feel.

Keep the qi flowing and eat well and eat happily... that is all that is required for me to continue.

Think about this: illness is not the cause of death; simply because you have illness at the time of death does not mean that the illness caused the death. Birth causes death more than illness does...

3.
Save everything from capitalistic globalized greed. Save ourselves... save the whales, the fish, the sand, the waters, the trees.... all of it. I love seeing that people are realizing their true relationship to one another and the space and place we live in, on and from. Greed only begets more greed, anger, resentment, isolation, and illness. Who wants any of that?

The Immunse System and a New Theory of Cognition

In Fritjof Capra's essay on the Immune System's intelligence, he notes the web-like spreading of the immune system throughout our body:

"Instead of being concentrated and interconnected through anatomical structures like the nervous system, the immune system is dispersed in the lymph fluid, permeating every single tissue. Its components - a class of cells called lymphocytes, popularly known as white blood cells - move around very rapidly and bind chemically to each other. The lymphocytes are an extremely diverse group of cells. Each type is distinguished by specific molecular markers, called "antibodies", sticking out from their surfaces. The human body contains billions of different types of white blood cell, with an enormous ability to bind chemically to any molecular profile in their environment. According to traditional immunology, the lymphocytes identify an intruding agent, the antibodies attach themselves to it and, by doing so, neutralize it.

Recent research has shown that under normal conditions the antibodies circulating in the body bind to many (if not all) types of cell, including themselves. The entire system looks much more like a net- work, more like people talking to each other, than soldiers looking out for an enemy. Gradually, immunologists have been forced to shift their perception from an immune system to an immune network." (Capra)

This reminds me very powerfully of the way in which the fungi spread themselves throughout the ecosystems in which they take root. Stamets describes this complex spread as such, "Covering most all landmasses on the planet are huge masses of fine filaments of living cells from a kingdom barely explored. More than 8 miles of these cells, called mycelia, can permeate a cubic inch of soil. Fungal mats are now known as the largest biological entities on the planet, with some individuals covering more than 20,000 acres." (Stamets) Not only is this simply an amazing interconnected web of living micro-filament, Stamets describes this as the "essential wiring of the Gaian Consciousness".

Something I have noticed in my experience and observations of reality is a pattern of fractalized pattern. "As above, so below," is the basic idea but this concept appears throughout science, mathematics, and everywhere in nature. Try checking out the Fibonacci sequence: