Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis

Since I've mentioned this disorder once or twice in passing, here's the name for it.

China's answer to Colonel Sanders

I'm halfway through the "Cambridge Illustrated History of China" but it just wasn't answering the most pressing question I had about Chinese history. With the powers of Google I finally have a definitive answer:
Who Was General Tso And Why Are We Eating His Chicken?

I was also looking for a Chinese nickname in the names of historical luminaries, and I think I found a funny one: Laizi.

Boring Travel Tips

My passport shows me with purple pox. Hasn't gotten me kicked out of any countries yet, but I decided it would be best to get a new one today. It would kind of stink to get off the plane in Beijing after eighteen hours only to have them put me right back on another plane. I love me my worst case scenarios. Luckily, they have a new passport agency that's opened in Colorado, so I don't have to wait too long (since I need to send in my application by next week.).

Word to those with the common sense I lack. It isn't a good idea to put your passport directly in a money belt when you're in a tropical climate (or maybe I just got the wrong type of money belt). From then on I've been storing my passports in a zip-lock bag of some sort. I'm paying more attention to travel tips, definitely can save chugh-change.

"Do you believe in magic?"

I was one of those strange kids who liked writing book reports. So, I figure I’ll start to write more about what’s on my bookshelf, if only to have a biblio-biography.

This week, I bought and devoured “Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife,” by Mary Roach. (I also got “Cien Años de Soledad” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez but it will take me about a hundred years to read it in Spanish.)

I’m trying to cut back on my book purchases, but I liked the first seventy pages I read at Borders so I shelled out. Quite possibly it was that I recognized some of my own writing style in her humor and penchant towards irrelevant asides and puns that are nevertheless amusing.

The title is the usual marketing-inspired misnomer and the book is not really going to satisfy the serious souls who would take the title literally.

Taken as nothing more than a handful of journalistic vignettes of Roach’s encounters with historical and present-day seekers of the soul, it is very entertaining. It does not stake out a strong position on the question in so much as take a gander at the cast of characters who seek and have sought to claim to examine the afterlife question in a manner analogous to any other scientific topic.

She points out the methodological flaws of much of that research, most notably the work of Duncan MacDougall, famous for “ascertaining” that the soul weighs 21 grams, when he had only six test subjects and was not able to replicate his initial result with any consistency. While pointing out the often ridiculous hypotheses and research methods that can be hilarious, she doesn’t try to decide whether the given individual is acting in the spirit of science, or the spirit, well, of the spirits.

Although it was a bit tedious on occasion, it was interesting to learn about the origins of “ectoplasm” and the mechanisms for medium-ship. (Hint: Variants of “ectoplasm” ranging from lamb organs to wool were sometimes hidden by mediums near where the sun doth not shine. "Tainted" evidence for the supernatural, I guess.) If for nothing else, there’s great trivia to be learned.

In terms of jumping off points that I’d like to learn more about, she mentions that the rise of Spiritualism corresponded to the development of inventions we now take for granted, such as the telephone and radio (explaining why some notable inventors and scientists were involved in the movement).

But most of all, if two of her interviewees are correct, they have the formulas for creating the most awesome haunted house possible. One, an engineer named Vic Tandy thinks that some visual apparitions are explained by sounds in the 19 Hertz infrasound-range, which may cause interference with the aqueous fluids of the eye as well as the balance organs (which might create artifacts in the peripheral vision and feelings of unease). Another tries to initiate hallucinations using focused magnetic fields. Hopefully, these will both be a part of the Disney Haunted Mansion circa 2020.

What’s disappointing about reading the book is precisely what’s disappointing about the subject matter. I still remember my disappointment when I was a kindergartner and excitedly ordered a magic book from the books they sold at school, only to find that I couldn’t really make anything disappear. Magic consisted of sleights of hand and not the fantastical, so I lost all in interest in it. Likewise, if the characters canvassed in “Spook” are representative, there’s nothing of great interest in psychic or afterlife research at second or third glance other than for comic material. And yet, I think most hold that great curiosity for a genuine phenomenon to be found, because it’s just more fun to think “the truth is out there.”

Bill Clinton Sighting at the Church of the Holy Sepulcre

My older brother and his girlfriend went to Israel about a month ago, and while seeing the Holy Sepulcre who should appear but the Señor Ex-Presidente. Snapped a shot from his camera phone. Hmm...don't have a point. There's probably some smartass remark in order.

Half-Witticisms

(Since we're on the topic....)

On hearing an acquaintance was going somewhere Southward on a proselytizing mission: “[He’s] probably going to El Salvador, I bet they never heard of Jesus there.” (For the non-Spanish speakers, El Salvador = the Savior)

gods personals ads

Umar had some intriguing reflections on the manifesto I posted earlier which got the cogs working. But now I need to do that whole work thing and not think about the subject so I'm posting my preliminary thoughts to get this off my brain.

To tell the truth, I haven’t yet read the whole manifesto word for word, so there’s probably some more nuttiness I’m missing. In my second skimming I noticed a secondary argument for animal rights – not that de facto that’s nutty – just that it’s so expansive and in the sci-fi geek tone that it would take a lot of time to analyze the logical (in)coherence of it all. So here’s my over-expansive half-serious, half-not, ever-tangential response. But a good first of one hundred revisions draft.

Happiness as a by-product of "precision" neurochemical engineering would still not fulfill humankind's need for meaning.

If people were happier would they feel the need to search so desperately for meaning or other consolations, or would they just experience zen-life? That way we all could spend a lot more quality time wondering about the sound of one hand clapping while relaxing on the beach enjoying nature.

Obviously, it is an intriguing question, what would fulfill humankind’s need for meaning? But it triggers the follow-up question: when will humankind’s need for meaning be fulfilled, if ever? And how?

To this end, I can note the religious answers given as authoritative in the traditions I am most familiar with, as they provide scenarios for such an event. And what I note about those answers is that they seem to hold an interesting possible interpretation if taken metaphorically: that this final fulfillment will coincide with a changed mental state for all humankind analogous to a re-engineering of the psyche. The only difference would be who was doing the re-engineering.

That is, unless literally the afterlife holds only the external stimuli each person is thought to merit by the guy upstairs. (Heaven will be straight out of the Matrix, huge savings for God’s energy bill. Discuss. :-)

Problematic for me is a postulated future state where happiness never wanes and the heart’s every desire is fulfilled. Why not push the fast-forward button? Why not see what is achievable in this life and take a more direct route? “Take the cash, and let the credit go.”

I don’t understand the cosmic purpose of delayed gratification and life qua test. I’ve read rumors that the Vatican will do away with Limbo-land, and that infants who die will now go to heaven first-class direct, with no pesky stay-over in any of the sublunary realms. Perversely, would theologians say that these infants won the eschatological lottery, not having to throw down a wager with Pascal on the ever-growing roulette wheel of religions and sects?

Now, I don’t know of many religious people who say that their meaning in life is to go to heaven. It’s kind of a side membership benefit, just like AARP members get IHOP early bird discounts and after age seventy I get to go to Six Flags for free (the only reason I’m trying to take good care of myself and get regular doctor’s checkups).

Now here’s the meaning. A medieval king’s trumpets sound. Love and sacrifice. Life is about love and sacrifice. Life is love and sacrifice.

Now, those three sentences are a simile to me for what much of popular “meaning” discourse consists, at least in the cultural milieu I’ve found myself near on this American continent.

I have been told by some that their meaning in life is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus loves them. Jesus sacrificed for them. And they love Jesus. And they love other people too. Everyone. So they sacrifice their time (and occasionally my time) to tell other people that they love them, and that Jesus loves them even more.

Emotionally, I see the multifaceted appeal of this posited meaning. I’ve even done an experiment or two. Heck. However, I notice that the meaning is consolatory in nature. “You’re a screw-up. Everybody is a screw-up. Life doesn’t go how you want all the time. No worries though, Jehovah thinks you’re swell if you think he’s swell. And he has powers to make things up for you, if not now, later.” I don’t know how to avoid the flippant summary, but I have no doubt much of my distillation has been used un-distilled by some televangelist somewhere.

Now, I can’t analyze what people “know in their heart.” “Whatever lets them walk on water.”

But having been approached to consider their meaning proposition in the past, I feel obligated to analyze a specific claim that the meaning of life is a “personal relationship” with Jesus Christ (in the lingo of some denominations of Protestantism). Well, I’m not sure what that personal relationship consists of, but one noticeable fact is that I have not met a Christian yet who has met Jesus in person (“Obiwan Kenobi you’re my only hope” 3-D projection images gladly accepted). I’m not counting the zany older lady who told me that she had an IQ of 500 and possessed magical powers whom I met when I was doing a community service project in high school.

The meaning of personal relationship is being altered, unless we assume that Jesus is the “silent type” or just doesn’t like to offer tutoring from heaven when students beg for a miracle on the test on Tuesday. To be more accurate, perhaps future proselytizers would do better to say they will have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, once they finally get around to shaking his hand, but for now they’re practicing what they’re going to say in the mirror and they’re dead-set on making an excellent first impression. (Now the most obvious objection is “Dude, he like created you.” But notice we don’t say that children have personal relationships with a biological father they never met, even if they send some daily-bread/child-support by way of third parties.)

What was the question?

My point is that subjectively someone claims to have a meaningful relationship, the meaningful relationship, and yet externally it’s difficult to see what is so meaningful yet about the relationship (although certainly the social bonds and real relationships formed around this rallying belief no doubt give meaning). “You seldom write! You never call. I hear rumors from every direction. I never see you, and yet we’re ‘engaged’ until death do us start.”

My take would be that ascribing one’s self a relationship is viewing the universe through an anthropomorphic interpretational frame. If man is the measure of all things, I don’t see evidence that the universe cares more than a teaspoonful.
That is, I have reasons to doubt a number of proposed meanings for life.

As such I would have to examine the axiom that mankind seeks meaning in more detail, and question what we mean by the need for meaning, or more specifically what is meant when someone says “they’re searching for meaning” and conversely what is meant when they say “they’ve found meaning.” The need for meaning is more likely to be posited by those who believe they have found the meaning, which carries the danger of circular reasoning.

At this point in my life, I’m sure that a person can find a meaning, but I’m positively skeptical of “the meaning.” And I’m not using positively skeptical as an oxymoron, but in all other possible intonations. But, I’m getting tired of wearing an existentialist’s beret, so who knows what funny hats the world has in store.

Happiness is most valuable to us as a marker of some accomplishment, a signpost of a certain kind of success. The experience of happiness is so subjective that it can be aroused by completely disparate "stimuli." A saint may find happiness in remembering his Lord, an usurer in his wealth, a surfer in big waves.

To biochemically induce the "sensation" of happiness without such triggers or accomplishments may have its own unintended psychiatric consequences. In a sense, emotions are a byproduct of experience.

The proximate cause of happiness is always biochemical in my view. You see the pretty woman, who is the ultimate cause of a dose of happiness, but this happiness reaction can be blocked or dampened by organic biochemical causes. Hence A is necessary but not sufficient. (Just wanted to sound philosophical for a second.) Give the hypothyroid patient a boost, and turn that frown upside down.

As you mention with regards to psychiatric consequences, drug addictions illustrate the possible ill-effects of removing triggers from the pathway. However to look at human history as in part a tale of universal drug experimentation, a fascinating subject is the use of mind-altering drugs to trigger states thought of as spiritual in many traditions. So it would seem that some traditions see these substances as allies in the search for meaning, while yet others see them as sources of danger hindering the search (with exceptions usually made for mild stimulants like caffeine or nicotine).

I don’t foresee the goal of the engineering to necessarily be a constant euphoric state but it could alternatively be formulated to be an amplification of happiness generated by triggers or to include other states of well-being such as serenity. I would not rule out a nearly ever present low-level euphoria being worthy of consideration. Does this sound like crude attempts at obtaining an ergot-heaven?

I know not what of I speak, but does not much of the ill-consequence of some drugs stem from the inability to maintain the state indefinitely (without withdrawal and cravings)? From overloading the brain such that hallucination might result? From causing toxicity that damages the body?

The perfect drug appears. This hypothetical drug has minimal bodily side effects and stays at constant levels. It eliminates depression. It improves motivation among the apathetic, because life is more rewarding -- literally.

To take one example, the Eyore-sadsack-personality might feel 1 Bentham of happiness at the prospect of getting an A in home economics, whereas the sense of reward could be modified to the 10 Benthams of happiness of the hypo-manic personality. The same event, but maybe greater positive stimulus could be engineered so that Eyore doesn’t drop out of school and get involved in a life of seeking inefficaciously to close this hedonic stimulation deficit by buying every Tony Robbins tape set in existence. No doubt Eyore would then have greater motivation in future efforts, and be inspired to be the next Martha Stewart...Oh, what am I saying, dare I say that this slope-so-slippery leads to legions of Marthas!? We gotta put the kibosh on this right now!

On the other hand, Winnie the Pooh naturally goes into heavenly rapture at something as small as getting his noggin stuck for the seventieth time in a honey pot. He probably got a C in Home Ec., but because he has pooh-bear cognitive biases that lend him to overestimate his achievements and abilities, this is enough to convince him he is Iron Chef. In other words isn’t the subjective difference in happiness between Pooh and Eyore in part a function of their individual sanguine-o-stat settings? Why shouldn’t Eyore see about tweaking his settings rather than deciding to go Goth and revel in his apathetic, ahedonic outlook? What if he was more optimistic, perhaps he would see more meaning in life? A manic-depressive in the manic phase can feel their actions are vested with great meaning.

Enough with the two sides of the spectrum. If Josephina Average is always at 5 Benthams, but could be at 7 Benthams, why should she stay at 5 Benthams, just because she’s not by any traditional definition an outlier? That psychiatry has not yet invented a disorder for normalcy (although this is pretty debatable)? What is the root problem with making mental functioning better than well? Aside from insurance premiums in the stratosphere until mental performance enhancing drugs fall in the category of plastic surgery?

The question I have about spiritual solutions for Eyore’s predicament is if they are sufficient in themselves or supplementary. Also, do these theories of spirit imply that happiness or true happiness is only obtainable through their methods? When will psychiatry go out of business? Why did it come into business, if the theories of spirit predate it?

I haven’t traveled much yet to survey the world, but I suspect I will find a multitude of generally happy and generally miserable people, irrespective of their spiritual beliefs. Certainly, we could examine the correlation at a statistical level for any patterns, but what if some people are happier being spiritual and others less so? With the grain of salt until happiness can be measured independently of self-report (well, if it wouldn’t always be dependent if no clear anatomy of happiness can be found.). As you said, the saint finds enjoyment in prayer, the surfer in hanging ten. It doesn’t equate one to one with ethics as you mentioned, since it’s probable Saddam Hussein was pretty well pleased with himself until the latest change of fate. So, if we could determine that belief system X resulted in the greatest happiness, would we be obliged to accept it? Or belief system Y that calls for total sacrifice of this life and promises outright redemptive misery under the guise of a greater holy purpose? I guess it depends on one’s mood.

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As your response has illustrated abundantly, if you start from different axioms you go through different chains of logic. Starting from the axiom that the human mental condition is divinely-ordained ends far differently then the axiom built upon the theory that the human mental condition was shaped by evolutionary and physical forces that don’t necessarily have human subjective interests at heart. However, the ideal human mental states seem to have some overlap in both schemes, just the time frames and perceived limitations are different.

Given that people will disagree about this, I don’t advocate any coercive schemes (“Take the soma! Big bro knows what’s best for you.”) But likewise, I am not so sure that the government or other authority has a place in preventing people from pursuing such schemes in their pursuit of happiness, outside of the given role of holding people accountable when their pursuit steps directly on other’s toes, or comes very close.

Also, as you mention, constantly feeling happy is not necessarily a good thing. Sadness, guilt, yearning all have their place in our emotional lives and can be deeply enriching in their own way.

They have their place, but this gets back to whether these feelings are always in humankind’s best interests, or if they could be improved or attenuated to the different circumstances we now find ourselves. I need to move away from analogies to specifics, but for now, until I get a chance to move into a library and quit my day job, I will posit other facets of human experience that have their place, but nevertheless are unpleasant.

If I break a leg, I need only feel pain until such a time that I’ve had the leg treated to promote healing and avoid further injury, but the pain does not have a direct interface to consciousness that we can say “everything’s groovy, the injury is being handled with twenty-first century medicine, you can stop it now.” Instead, we hack the pain circuits and give the patient hill-billy heroin. Okay, I imagine you doctors out there probably give them something else, aspirin with a kick, but luckily I am licensed only to prescribe grandiose societal prescriptions, not the class I narcotics.

My point here is that as a society we don’t generally recognize further purpose in this pain and hence counteract it, since we’ve found more efficient ways to handle broken legs than limping for a few months like other animals would. Rarely will a person go to a dentist and tell them to go ahead and do a procedure without novocaine. “I’m joining the Special Forces, I want to train for if I’m captured and the enemy interrogator wants to rearrange my smile.”

There are mythological explanations for certain types of suffering. Eve was a bad apple and so womankind is condemned to the agonies of childbirth.
Should a Sumerian myth determine whether Mrs. O’ Riley ought to get an epidural? Again, maybe this pain once served a purpose. “Hey you there, stop hunting and gathering, and pay attention! Push! Right this moment! (stone-age Lamaze) ‘Oooh gaaah, boooogah!’ Come on, ‘Oooooooooh gaaa!”

Some of these mythological explanations for human suffering are no longer as in vogue where suitable scientific explanations have been found, except maybe by Pat Robertson. Instead of illness being the result of wayward spirits, witchcraft, punishment for sin, we speak of microorganisms, genetic codes and disease vectors. In our experience, we see that those who traditionally have not reached the age of reason when they are posited to have moral culpability, suffer alike from these disorders and diseases as do grown-up moral agents. Many a theodicy is dicey, and they are only rendered more dicey by discoveries about the proximate causes of diseases, disorders and all manner of other natural evils. The medieval townie would have done better to kill black-death carrying rats than to perform self-flagellating penance. I read Candide recently, and one of Voltaire’s satirical jabs was directed at the inquisition not having saved Lisbon from a devastating earthquake given the amorality of an earthquake in selecting victims.

I hesitate in saying that the soul can’t be disproved by science (although I agree it can’t disprove it), because I think it can made to sound implausible because of the historical path of the conflict between science and religion as well as the history of religion. I don’t think it’s necessarily a credit to any idea to be said not to be disprovable, as I can make a not disprovable truth proposition that is totally implausible due to lack of positive evidence in its favor. When a proposition lacks any chain of observable inductive evidence, or evidence that can be deduced, there is the possibility that the proposition is grounded on something else besides evidence. (Yes, the other F-word.)

“Every time every one else is not looking, and there are no paparazzi to capture photographic evidence, Eva Langoria materializes for a second, tells me I’m the man of her dreams, and then tearfully disappears back into a vortex saying ‘¡Dios mío! No! No!’”


If you are unconvinced of this, due either to the lack of past inductive experience of spontaneously materializing desperate housewives or my given ego-gratifying interest in believing that the said housewives are desperately seeking me across all dimensions of time and space, how can you disprove it, if by definition the phenomenon evades all observation (except by me)?

You may not be able to disprove my EL hypothesis in the manner of disproving a mathematical hypothesis, but if you take out Occam’s razor and start a-slicing, you will find it more probable that I’m somehow mistaken due to my futile hope that Eva has the hots for me. You might further critique the origins and history of my proposition. You would note last year, I had made a different truth proposition that she had winked at me through the television set, which you doubted at that time since you could more simply explain it as a result of a one week unreality T.V. marathon after, say, I lost my job and was too stressed out to do something constructive about my new situation.

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The soul has more emotive plausibility because we are all conscious beings, which begs for an explanation. But on one level it could be a term for our ignorance of how the mind works, or to put it more acceptably to all, a mystery. I can empathize with the incredulity and harbor the same sentiment, “there must be something.”

Our human cultural heritage is such that we have differing, mutually conflicting accounts of spirit rules: spirits can inhabit rocks and inanimate objects, spirits can be reborn in different bodies, generation after generation, and spirits can get one pass through the world after which they must cross a bridge of judgment to determine whether they suffer eternally or have eternal delight, such as in Zoroastrianism. What decision criteria can there be other than wait and die, and see or not see? What is anything else but a guess or hunch, unless we introduce other logical decision criteria?

A naturalistic philosophical critique of this would be just as there has been a “god of the gaps” in the past to explain the motions of celestial bodies, there is similarly a “soul of the gaps” to explain subjective experience. Note that hitherto, before humans started dissecting life, this soul had a greater expanse and more responsibilities. The soul was prana, the giver of breath. The soul could reside in the cockles of the heart. When the dissections began, the soul started going into hiding, relocating to the pineal gland, or some other homunculus central. When the microscopes started to peer ever deeper and at every wavelength and bacteria became creatures that we could program to do our bidding, the vital force was relegated to Star Wars.

In the 1960’s the definition of clinical death was altered to reflect that personhood is cerebrally enmeshed. Doctors were no longer going to wait around for the angel of death to stop a heart, if the brain had been irreparably damaged (which not coincidentally coincided with the advent of organ and tissue transplantation). The shrinking soul is now sought by theorists like Penrose in hypothetically mind-bending, mind-bending quantum physics.

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Thus, a discussion of only "biochemical" happiness ignores the contribution of spirituality to happiness, serenity and all the other great states of the human experience. This sounds far fetched if one is not particularly spiritual, but it remains that such a contention cannot be disproved by science.

I do think that all these mental states have been and will continue to be in the purview of science as well as naturalistic philosophical systems. Certainly there have been attempts to document beneficial effects of spirituality and neural correlates of spiritual states. But I don’t think that we should only look at one side of the coin.

I guess to end my rambling, and to find a plot of common ground, I would agree that while a discussion of happiness can begin with biochemistry, it far from ends with it.

Poppy Wars - Who's Smoking What?

There are poppies ripe for the picking, and if this radio commentary is accurate, there exists a legitimate demand being unmet.
(As always, there are so many vested interests, it seldom is so simple.)