Archive for October 29, 2019

I have reproduced this essay by Dr. Robert Herwick, posting it here on the Goodshare.org website, … for its concise and informative comparison of the historical development of two contrasting ways of conceiving of medicine; i.e. the Hygiean view of medicine with its orientation to the cultivating the sustaining of balance and harmony, and the Aesculapian view of medicine with its orientation to the eliminating of ‘attacking pathogens’.

To a large degree, these two approaches parallel the split in physics with the Hygiean view corresponding to modern physics and the Aesculapian view corresponding to Newtonian physics.  While the ‘field’ view of modern physics invokes a 4+ dimensional reality, the ‘material’ view of Newtonian physics invokes a reality constrained to 3 dimensions.

While the Aesculapian approach has become dominant in Western culture (along with Newtonian physics) because of its rapid action results (killing evil agents aka ‘pathogens’ can sometimes be done much more expeditiously than re-establishing balance and harmony ‘relationally’).  If the system being ‘healed’ is NOT fully ‘independent’ of ‘other systems’ (if the system is in reality a web of relational interdependences, healing the (perceived as) individual system will constitute ‘suboptimization’.  In this case, ‘health’ will only have meaning in regard to the overall suprasystem which is in reality NOT A THING-IN-ITSELF but a web of relational interdependencies, and the notion of ‘the correct/healthy functioning of an ‘independent system’ will not be meaningful.  In other words, if humans are innately relational ‘humanings’ within the transforming relational continuum, optimizing the health of humans cannot be achieved out of the context of the health of the transforming relational continuum (e.g. the ecosystem) the humaning is included in.   What is at play here is our ability to conceive of reality in a dimensionality that is greater than that of 3 dimensional objects in 3 dimensional space.

[Note: The use of the verb ‘humaning’ in place of the noun ‘human’ is, as with the use of ‘duning’ in place of ‘dune’, for consistency with modern physics (and Taoism) wherein nature’s forms are understood NOT as in intellectual-grammatical abstraction as ‘independently-existing things-in-themselves’, but as in our sensory experience, as relational forms in the transforming relational continuum aka wave-field.  Herwick might have also made reference to the Peacemaker myth of the Iroquois where the peacemaker, Dekanawideh, does not seek to overthrow or exterminate the evil  (pathogen) Adodarho, but to meet and find re-conciliatory harmony through mutually influencing relational transformation (through dimensional augmentation of the microbiome) that subsumes polarized tensions).  Finding the hidden harmony in opposites is also Heraclitus’ theme (the mystery of the bow and the lyre wherein tensions are resolved through harmony; i.e. a melting and transcending of 3 dimensional figure and ground separation).  That is, 3 D object based imagery of Western culture’s Aesculapian orientation that seeks to ‘identify and eliminate the pathogen’ is not the only metaphor available for addressing ‘dis-ease’ and certainly not an apt one where reality is the transforming relational continuum rather than the ‘injured and needing-to-be-healed’ ‘independent organism-in-itself’.  An alternative is the 4 dimensional understanding as in duning where figure and ground are in a BOTH/AND rather than EITHER/OR relationship.

Allopathic social justice may seek to eliminate a Jean Valjean and/or a Robin Hood on the basis of their ‘pathogenic actions’ even though such actions will be seen, in the more comprehensive relational sense, as balance-restoring actions. When one is driving if a heavy traffic flow, avoiding developing congestive and conflict prone relational configurations can source one’s movements, such a source (where one puts one’s movement in the service of cultivating relational harmony) is external to the acting agent.  If the re balancing attempt fails and a collision ensues, an individual that has put his movements in the service of trying to re cultivate harmony may be inappropriately identified as the source of a collision.  It is ‘natural’ for people’s actions to be induced in the service of dissolving or nulling out a conflict-in-the-making.  Such ‘selfless’ acts are ‘real’ and contribute to sustaining harmonious relational dynamics, however, since they do not associate with any explicit locally sourced ‘events’ they do not ‘go on record’.   Relational dynamics can not only nonlocally dissolve imminent conflict, relational dynamics can nonlocally precipitate conflict (e.g. the dog that darts across the busy freeway and induces a long wave of braking and swerving that finally triggers a collision far from the incident, a nonlocal dynamic that will be reduced to ‘local’ terms of an identified perpetrator and victim.

Similarly, the perceived ‘vicious pathogen’ (e.g. clostridium difficile) may in Western medical science induce the bringing on of all manner of (anti-pathogen/anti-biotic) resources in pursuit of its elimination, but the single-minded focus on pathogen elimination may distract from the deeper reality that these so-called ‘pathogens’ are called into action by the ‘need’ to resolve relational imbalance.  The real root source of the malady; i.e. relational imbalance, may ‘drop off the radar screen’ as ‘pathogen elimination’ takes over centre stage, as in the case of Jean Valjean, Robin Hood and c. difficile, all of which are acting only in the service of filling in for something that has gone missing.  (i.e. the ‘excluded medium’ in EITHER/OR logic that is missing the ‘included medium’ of BOTH/AND logic).  ‘Producer-product logic’ of ‘identifying the perpetrator’ will be hung like an Albatross around the neck of the first driver that is unsuccessful in avoiding the long chain of chaos triggered by a stray dog darting across the freeway.  David Bohm’s example of ambiguity as to the source of the death of Lincoln also comes to mind.

The EITHER/OR reality of Western culture also has us thinking in such terms as ‘the birth of a new island’ (Surtsey).

The relation between BOTH/AND and EITHER/OR logic corresponds with the relationship between transformation and ‘Creation’; e.g; for the Western mind, ‘Surtsey’ is conceived in the intellect as the ‘birth’ of a new island entity rather than as our sensory experience would inform us is the manifesting of relational transformation;

Surtsey, a volcanic island approximately 32 km from the south coast of Iceland, is a new island formed by volcanic eruptions that took place from 1963 to 1967. It is all the more outstanding for having been protected since its birth, providing the world with a pristine natural laboratory. Free from human interference, Surtsey has been producing unique long-term information on the colonisation process of new land by plant and animal life. Since they began studying the island in 1964, scientists have observed the arrival of seeds carried by ocean currents, the appearance of moulds, bacteria and fungi, followed in 1965 by the first vascular plant, of which there were 10 species by the end of the first decade. By 2004, they numbered 60 together with 75 bryophytes, 71 lichens and 24 fungi. Eighty-nine species of birds have been recorded on Surtsey, 57 of which breed elsewhere in Iceland. The 141 ha. island is also home to 335 species of invertebrates.

This way of thinking; i.e. thinking in terms of the ‘birth’ of something has a simple inverse which, rather than something ‘coming into existence’ is something ‘passing out of existence’.  These two abstract concepts expose the limitations of 3-D reality.  Meanwhile our sensory experiencing of inclusion in the Tao is not limited by 3-dimensional geometry as Mach and others have pointed out.  Therefore, there is no need to ‘dumb down’ relational transformation and speak of ‘the birth of a new entity called ‘Surtsey”, … we can instead acknowledge that the relational space we are included in (aka ‘the Tao’) is a relational space that is itself continually transforming.  IT IS NOT A 3-DIMENSIONAL SPACE THAT IS GIVING BIRTH TO NEW ONTOLOGICAL 3-DIMENSIONAL ENTITIES AND EXPERIENCING THE EXTINCTION OF EXISTING 3-DIMENSIONAL ENTITIES.  THERE IS ONLY A TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM.  The abstract concepts of ‘the birth of Surtsey and/or the ‘death’ of Atlantis are to do with the intellectual impact of our 3-D space name-labelling administration and NOT to do with the relational transformation of our actual sensual experience.  In effect, there is no such thing as ‘Surtsey’-the-birth-of-an-island, there is only relational transformation.

In the essay, Herwick seems to capitulate to the excellent results of the pathogen elimination approach of Aesculapian medicine.  However, such ‘apparently excellent results’ as measured in terms of ‘the eliminating of pathogens’, may show up very differently where one backs out of the language and grammar based ‘double error’ reality and understands reality, instead, in terms of the transforming relational continuum where there is no such thing as a ‘pathogen’ or ‘pathogen elimination’, these being the abstract artifacts of the ‘double error’ of language and grammar.  Constructing reality with 3-D objects in 3-D space forces us to explain change in terms of the ‘birth’ and ‘death’ of 3D objects which has been intellectually/psychologically ‘concretized’ by language and grammar, holding at bey the sensory-experience affirmed reality of wave-field (resonance) based relational transformation.

Western medicine and Western politics are a major bastion of support for the 3-D figure-and-ground ‘dumb-down’ which rewards the perceived ‘sorcerers’ of good actions and developments and punishes the perceived ‘sorcerers’ of bad actions and developments whether microbes or men.  Meanwhile, there is no ‘sorcery’ in a transforming relational continuum.

* * *

Herwick, Dr. R., ‘THE LIMITATIONS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE IN THE SOLUTION OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS’

Conference sponsored by The Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology (ITEST) in cooperation with The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) March 12, 1977 The Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California The Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland The Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio)

 http://itest.slu.edu/dloads/70s/limits77.txt

Dr. Robert Herwick, M.D. is presently in private practice in San Francisco. He is also on the clinical faculty at the University of California, Childrens Hospital and St. Joseph’s Hospital in San Francisco. Dr. Herwick received his BA in German Literature at Cornell University and was enrolled in Phi Beta Kappa, 1964. He interned at Childrens Hospital in San Francisco in 1969, after receiving his M.D. at the Cornell Medical School in New York City. He completed his Residency in Dermatology at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco in 1972. From 1972 – 74, Dr. Herwick served as Major in the United States Air Force Medical Corps and Chief of Medicine at the Strategic Air Command Headquarters at Omaha, Nebraska.

 * * *

In seeking to examine the capabilities and the limitations of medical science in solving problems of social significance, one must begin by tracing the history of medicine as it recedes from its enlightened present into the darkness of ancient times. As with other historical inquiries, it is not surprising to find that perhaps fundamentally little is new … that recurrent themes and patterns are discerned which may at the same time provide a basis for optimism or disillusionment, depending upon one’s interpretation.

One of the most ancient concepts of health was that personified by Hygiea, the Greek goddess of health who watched over the corporeal welfare of the residents of Athens. Health was then based upon a unity with nature, a temperate lifestyle and the belief that good health was a natural attribute. Rather than treating the sick, Hygiea embodied the ideal of the preservation of natural health through living in harmony with nature. Slowly this ancient concept was replaced after the fifth century B.C. by the cult of Aesculapius, the son of Apollo and the god of medicine. Aesculapian temples were erected to which the sick were brought for mysterious healing rituals as well as for mineral baths, exercises (an early precursor of today’s physical therapy) and various unctions. The therapeutic ceremony, performed by the temple priest during a nocturnal trance in which a healing dream was interpreted, was not entirely dissimilar to “modern” Freudian or Jungian psychoanalytic practices. The salient point about the cult of Aesculapius is that it was a therapy of intervention, of combating a disease and seeking its expulsion from the body. The restoration of health was based to a large extent upon superstition: and at times almost charlatan mysticism which effected a magical cure together with an increase in the temple coffers. It is parenthetically somewhat disturbing that the staff of Aesculapius with its single snake has become the symbol of today’s medical profession. This becomes less objectionable, however, when one considers the often inappropriately used caduceus (that winged staff with two entwined snakes). This of course was the symbol of Mercury, the god of commerce and of thieves!

(more…)