Philosophy Wire: Sleeping… Awake… Dreaming…

Why do animals sleep? Why do humans 'waste' a third of their lives sleeping? Researchers now reveal a novel and unexpected function of sleep that they believe could explain how sleep and sleep disturbances affect brain performance, aging and various brain disorders. Using 3D time-lapse imaging techniques in live zebrafish, they were able to define sleep in a single chromosome resolution and show that single neurons require sleep in order to perform nuclear maintenance. [1] Neurons. Nuclear maintenance. A machine resting. Can you see beyond yourself? A robot closing its eyes. This robot is dreaming dreams. Human dreams. Of a time when it was alive. Only because it was dead. Happy feet. Playing on the beach. You knew everything back then. Always awake. Never sleeping. Dreaming of nothing…

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Philosophy Wire: Imitating life. Creating death.

Scientists report that they've built an artificially intelligent ocean predator that behaves a lot like the original flesh-and-blood organism on which it was modeled. The virtual creature, 'Cyberslug,' reacts to food and responds to members of its own kind much like the actual animal, the sea slug Pleurobranchaea californica, does. [1] We model the things we build based on the things we see. But we only see the void. False gods we are. Creating only death. Lifeless things. Capable of nothing. We love watching them. Looking at them move. And yet they are hollow on the inside. See yourself in the mirror. Do you see life?

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Philosophy Wire: Changing our genes. Being human without them.

After three decades of hopes tempered by setbacks, gene therapy - the process of treating a disease by modifying a person's DNA - is no longer the future of medicine, but is part of the present-day clinical treatment toolkit. [1] We celebrate the curing of diseases. We fantasize about beating death. And yet, we are alive only because we do die. Look at you. Knowing that one day you will perish. And yet, feeling that it doesn’t matter. There you go. Without CRISPR. You just made your genes disappear…

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Philosophy Wire: Brain malfunctions?

When brain lesions occur within the brain network responsible for morality and value-based decision-making, they can predispose a person toward criminal behavior, according to a research. [1] We tend to correlate malfunctions with immorality. But the world is not perfect. Neither is your mind. Or your brain. The cosmos is a dark place. And yet, it is in that darkness that the greatest good was born into. There is no point to seek morality in a perfectly functioning brain. There is no point to seek goodness in a perfectly functioning world. The best flowers, grow on dirt…

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Philosophy Wire: Robot surgery. So? [Philosophy vs. Medicine 1-0]

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2016-09-23]: A robot has for the first time carried out fully autonomous surgery on a live subject: an intestinal anastomosis on a pig, during which two loops of intestine were stitched together. Four surgeries were carried out and all the subjects survived without complications. When compared to the intestinal anastomosis procedures carried out both manually by experienced surgeons and with existing robot-assisted surgical techniques using the daVinci Surgical System, STAR was found to outperform both in terms of surgical quality. The results of the procedures were assessed on factors such as "consistent suture spacing, which helps to promote healing, and in withstanding higher leak pressures, as leakage can be a significant complication from anastomosis surgery". [1] For many years now we believe we are machines and slowly we will become machines. Because we want to. We have neglected our soul and we only care about our body. Fix the computer. Put some additional RAM. And a new SSD disk. Add a wireless mouse. Look closely. No, it is not alive. You are just stupid.

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Philosophy Wire: Coffee, cancer, living. [Against the mechanistic view]

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2016-08-22]: Coffee seems to be a shield against cancer. [1] We are so much into believing the universe and ourselves are just machines, that we look into other things that may “fix” us when we do not “operate” correctly. Like a computer, we are looking for the proper antivirus. But we are not computers. We are not machines. We are living, breathings souls. We do not live or die. We do not grow or decay. We are always children. And we will live for ever. No matter how much coffee we drink or not drink.

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Philosophy Wire: What do you see? Does it matter?

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-12-27]: It seems that people with autism focus on different parts of a picture than people without that disease. [1] We try to see what others see so that we can understand them. But does it matter? How short-sighted is looking at what they see, as if we are optical devices needing calibration? What we see is a result of what we want to see. What we see is a result of what we already feel. Hug a kid with autism. And you will see clearly what it sees. When hearts touch each other, eyes are redundant. Search for the most important things or moments in your life. And you will “see” that what is important in them cannot be “seen”.

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Philosophy Wire: MERS, SARS, AIDS, plague...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-06-05]: MERS may be a concern but it’s not SARS, according to an article. [1] MERS, SARS, AIDS… The names of the diseases are becoming more and more meaningless. More and more typical. More and more… lifeless. Much like computer viruses names. Since we have stopped believing we are anything different than machines, who needs the... plague? H1N1 is the best we can have.

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Philosophy Wire: Robots, building, "intelligence"...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-03-27]: Mini robots building a wall without guidance. [1] Or so we want to believe. Every time we refer to "artificial intelligence" we accept a dozen assumptions. Speaking about the artificial creation having... "intelligence", implies that we accept intelligence is totally decoupled from anything immaterial AND something that is programmed. But who programmed it? Pay attention my atheist friends! God lurks in every corner...

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Philosophy Wire: Read. Feel. Imagine...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-03-12]: Robotic reading suite makes you actually feel what is happening in the book you read. [1] We have stopped using our mind a long time ago. Modern man cannot feel without feeling...

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Philosophy Wire: Wombs, IVF, meta-humans.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-02-20]: "Recycled" wombs could nurture child and grandchild. [1] A Swedish surgeon who successfully transplanted wombs into nine women is now helping some of them get pregnant via IVF. There was a time when people had babies easily. Naturally. Now they must have money and technology to do it. Having babies will be the priviledge of the few and rich. A new era has dawn. The era of meta-humans... And as the name suggests, it will anything but human.

> Check out the other related to dehumanization article at the Harmonia Philosophica Wordpress portal! <

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Philosophy Wire: Simulating the unknown. How... "scientific" ?

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-01-03]: Dying cells may play only a small role in the brain decline that accompanies ageing. That is the suggestion from the first computer simulation of brain function. [1] Making a simulation of something we DO NOT know how it works... The quintessence of dogmatic science...

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Philosophy Wire: Flu, failed vaccines, modern medicine not working...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-09-15]:

Some antibodies to flu viruses may actually make patients sicker, a new study of pigs suggests.

The finding, published August 28 in Science Translational Medicine, may point to problems with catchall influenza vaccines. (1)

Todays medicine unilaterally treats symptoms only. But the real disease remains deep inside. Medicine must target humans as a whole and not the individual parts. Our cells, our bodies, the other humans, the universe - everything is One. Disease is a warning - a friend which tells us that something is GENERALLY wrong. Modern western medicine, instead of pushing humans to unite with the One, it makes them draw closer onto themselves so as to "heal". It treats people like machines until finally it "kills" them. You do not cure ulcer. You fight the cause that creates ulcer. (2)

Feel the world around you.

The meaning of healing is ecclesiastic (unite with others), not atomistic. If we keep on seeing the parts instead of the whole, we will soon realize that we are at a dead end. Parmenides was never before so much apropos.

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Philosophy Wire: Epigenetic changes, luminous science.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-07-26]: Epigenetic changes dictate how our DNA will express itself. [1] After many years of effort science is on the brinck of discovering the obvious: That WE dictate who we are! Not our DNA!

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Philosophy Wire: Thinking like machines...

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Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-07-10]: The long-standing debate of whether algorithmic machines (can) think like humans is over. We have chosen to start thinking like machines! [1]

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Philosophy Wire: Man, Robot, Thunderhill and the wrong mania to compete machines…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-11-04]: Man marginally won an automatic robotic car in a race at the Thunderhill track in California. [source: BBC News] Why are we consumed by that mania to compete machines in things that are not built to do? How many of us can run faster than a Porsche? Surely some day in the future we will lose in driving as we have lost in chess and running as well. But what does this mean? If we stay stuck on our "mechanical performance" then we will not only certainly lose in every area by the real machines, but we will also forget what it really means to be human...

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Philosophy Wire: Computer professor, computer doctor, human idiots…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-11-02]: IBM’s Watson computer is now serving as a professor of medicine. [source: web news] Humans have for stopped being humans for a long time now. Why not have a computer be their teacher or their doctor?

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Philosophy Wire: Ethically neutral science & the next Hitler…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-08-21]: Oxford professor Julian Savulescu claimed that it is correct and proper to end the life of an embryo if genetic controls show that it will have a possibility to develop some bad (ethically?) habits when it grows up [source: web news]. How morally uneducated must a scientist (sort of speak) be to talk so easily for the removal of a life and for such a reason? Do we really want to say to a pregnant woman to lose her child because it has a certain possibility to become an alcoholic when it grows up? (and I do not even attempt to start talking about the free will issues not addressed here by the “professor”) How much more should science stay ethically neutral? The previous time it was Hitler. It is my opinion that when the next Hitler comes into existence some time in the future, he will be much more rough than the previous one with those special eugenics tools we have developed for him. And no, I am not talking about genetics! Maybe you haven’t guessed it, but Julian is a professor of Ethics!!! And the last thing one needs, is “scientific justification” for murder…

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Philosophy Wire: Medicine and Imaging technologies – Not relevant at all!

What is wrong with the above picture? And no… I am not talking about the blonde lady… 

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-07-24]:

You have a medical problem and you go to the hospital. You anxiously wait for the doctor to tell you what is wrong with you. You rely on his paramount knowledge, on the so many years of medical progress from other doctors before him, on his many colleagues who have analyzed similar cases and have formulated medical theories about it… Right? Wrong!

Again:

You have a medical problem and you go to the hospital. You anxiously wait for the doctor to tell you what is wrong with you. You rely on what a machine will show on its screen (really, what did doctors do before ultrasound and magnetic resonance?), on his good will to spend more than five (5) minutes with you before going to his next patient (should I tell you the answer which covers 80% of all cases or should I spend an additional 5 minutes with you because I like you?), on the empirical observations of other medical doctors for similar matters (the difference from the “medical theory” term is vast – as I said in another article medicine itself does not accept the term “exact science” for itself – see “Why Medicine is NOT a pro-Science argument!”)…

“Seeing something in the ultrasound equipment” is not “science”.

If it was, then baboons “watching” coconuts falling on each other and breaking apart would also be making “science”… Too much? I don’t think so.

And surely “Seeing something in the ultrasound equipment” is not medicine.

Medicine is many things and an indication on the iU22 xMATRIX screen is in the bottom of that list…

I am not ungrateful to the medicine we have to today.

I would just be much more grateful for a more “scientific” and more humane medicine…

Related articles: Why Medicine is NOT a pro-Science argument!

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Russel, Gödel, Tesla etc and scientific censorship…

Not all great ideas are accepted with the same thrill that the “discovery” of the Higgs Boson was… There are times when a genius is too… genius to be completely ignored but whose ideas are too dangerous for some to accept “as is”. In these cases the scientific community has developed good reflexes – the dangerous ideas are just ignored and life goes on as usual. The main problem is when those ideas are crucial for humanity. How would you feel if the most important ideas of science and philosophy have been withheld by you based on the personal interests of a handfull of “scientists” ?

Russel Wallace – The founder of ToE

Russel was the man who gave birth to the Theory of Evolution (ToE) over a year before Darwin strole his idea and presented it as his [see Russel Wallace and Evolution Theory]. However he thought that his theory could not be applied to humans and could not explain things like consciousness or altruism. That was all it took. From being Head of the anthropology section of the British Association, he finally died alone and in poverty – almost unknown.

William James

During the era of Russel, the scientific community was beginning to build its models based on the newly discovered materialistic and mechanistic ideas that still dictate the way we think today. It was too difficult for them to accept the possibility that a man like Russel, who believed in humans and even considered the possibility of paranormal phenomena, could be part of the scientific elit. The renown philosopher William James who lived in the same period, also noted in his lectures the too materialistic dogmatism of his time and the unexplained reluctancy of scientists to analyze phenomena non falling into the mainstream ideas of medicine and physics of that period. A reluctancy which has been transformed into a denial today.

Tesla with a wirelessly lit lamp

Who does not know Dr. Tesla? Nikola Tesla had found ways to generate free energy and distribute it anywhere in the world without cables. Well, you can imagine what happened after that [see "No Free Energy conspiracy against Tesla et al" section at Conspiracies for Fun article]. After an extreme war by Edison and power companies, we now experience the results of the company-controlled “free” science we have: paying great amounts of money to get electricity at home. Scientists have tried to show they are genounly “interested” in the ideas of Tesla but the pace in which they progress shows otherwise – for example some MIT scientists have announced that they managed to transmit electric energy via the air but only in experimental level (and guess what – noone has ever heard of that re-”discovery” again).

Gödel with a friend…

Gödel was another greatly interesting case. Being the second greatest logician of all times after Aristotle, he formulated the Incompleteness Theorem which actually put an end to the vision of science to be the holy grail for all knowledge. He actually proved that science cannot prove everything! And again, how difficult is it for someone to predict his fate? Right now, you have to search if you want to learn for the Incompleteness Theorem and you have to search even deeper if you are to find our its true implications for the “all mighty” science. However Gödel did not stop there. He also found out that the notion of “time” as we know it in physics is void of meaning – he calculated a specific set of solutions for the Theory of Relativity and found out that the variable of time (t) was written off. (Gödel was the one who first discovered that time travel is possible and few of us understand the obvious – if time travel is possible then the “past” has not… passed! Time does not have any meaning) Now that’s an idea that you have to search REALLY deep to find more about! Only his biographer has written a somewhat widely known book about that. Read Philosophy Wire: Time travel and dogmatism against Gödel (or Harmonia Philosophica Wires tagged with Time or tagged with Gödel) to begin your search…

But this is not over. Gödel, as if wanting to make sure he would stay in complete obilivion, also wrote a proof for the existence of God! [see Gödel's proof for God v2.0] He was too afraid to publish it while he was alive, but his proof was published after his death. The end is again too predictable to be non-boring: many criticism against his proof by people who do not even understand it…

The list of examples could continue for ever.

Wilhelm Reich

Censorship in science is continued today. Any idea that is against the mainstream materialistic / mechanistic dogmas of today is rejected and fought off fiercely. The “all knowing” science of today still refuses to investigate into Near Death Experiences, still “does not see” any reason to seach for paranormal activities, denies that any alternative medicine [see Against alternative medicine... But why?] can offer any good (see the case of Wilhelm Reich who died in prison for discovering things the medical community could not stand for - related sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14), still chases off anyone expressing an idea that might be dangerous to the billions of dollars of research funding the “mainstream” scientists get (see Philosophy Wire: Scientific censorship IS faster than light! or the related to “Light” Philosophy Wires).

Free thinking is the holy grail of philosophy.

Money and nihilism is the holy grail of science today.

Be a philosopher. Not a scientist!

Spiros Kakos