Thursday, August 6, 2015

Biophysics: Bionics and our Biophysical Future

I think if a  fully bionic person were created, it would be a very bad use of natural resources and many ethical issues would follow. In short, more problems would arise rather than be resolved. Even if it was for medical reasons, such as a paralyzed person controlling the bionic person, I still feel a lot of psychological issues would develop. This may allow the person to improve their quality of daily functions, but I don't see how it would improve the pycho-emotional stress. I think the future of bionics should stay as appendages because these options allow people to improve their daily lives.  As for how as to distribute who gets a bionic prosthetic, that is a problem all on its own.  The way I would dissolve this problem would be to have people keep in mind that humans are not immortal and cannot escape death. With this in mind, I hope people would only consider improving their daily functions instead of abusing the technology.

I would be even more against the creation of a bionic person due to military reasons.  Having a bionic person operating on artificial intelligence, just terrifies me.  With hackers being able to access to anything placed on the web or in a computer, I just see a very big risk and a gigantic disaster over head.  This makes me think of all the sci-fi movies where artificial intelligence takes over the world and decides to kill off humans.  A few that came to mind were the Terminator, the Matrix, I Robot, and RoboCop are just a few.

I won't deny the possibility that having the bionic technology is awesome and the possibilities for improving the quality  of life of humans is tremendous.  However, as I have experienced for myself, having the internet can be more distracting than watching a television. A couple of other movies came to mind that use a different combination of artificial intelligence and technology.  Avatar and Interstellar are great examples of how our technology could change our lives.

Biophysics: Energy Fields and Energy Medicine

Energetics can be found in many types of medicine such as traumatic medicine, allopathic medicine, and traditional Chinese medicine. Acupuncture is an effective energy medicine for a few reasons.  There is a 4,000 year old history backing the etiology, physiology of organs and organ network vessels, pathology of these organ and organ network vessels.Acupuncture uses  the natural energy field of the body to help itself begin healing.  I like to think of it a knitted sweater.  If there is a tangle in a shoulder of the sweater, you mend it by going to distant areas and pulling and tugging to get the threads back into order.  Acupuncture is very similar to this metaphor. The needle mends the energy field of the body by causing interactions between physical body and energetic body.Human intention plays a role  all types of medicine.  The intention of the practitioner and the patient can make a big different in the results that could be achieved.  Human intention plays a very important role in acupuncture.  Even if the patient has no faith in the treatment, the patient can still get results. This usually causes patients to come back for more acupuncture even if they don't understand the principles behind the medicine.  The results can be immediate, especially with relieving pain.  I believe this is what makes it a very effective energetic medicine. People who have to faith in the medicine can obtain results.  The stronger the patient believes in the medicine, a stronger reaction occurs, creating a very satisfying result. Kirilian photography would be a great tool to use to record the before and after treatments from acupuncture. Kirilian photography  is a technique for recording photographic images of corona discharges and hence, supposedly the auras of living creatures. A corona discharge would be the glow surrounding the object captured on film. The glow is created when a electric field is generated by a spark between a electrically grounded object and electrode.

Biophysics: Life and Living Systems

I know I'm a living system because I am constantly rediscovering myself through my daily actions and reorganizing myself according to what I learn.    The process of continually rediscovering myself is an act of autopoietic organization.  One way of looking at this process is that my constant remodeling of myself allows me to be the producer  and the  product. This example also proves  I am a living being.  Just the fact that all my actions have an impact on my internal world as well as my external world are reflected in how I present myself on a daily basis. My flection of myself is proof that I am a living system.

I am very glad that technology is continuously advancing, allowing us to measure if a brain damaged person has more consciousness then what we were previously aware.  Sometimes our discoveries bring more questions rather than resolve a question.  I believe the main issue with this technology is the ethical problems.  Who is to say what is the brain response from the brain dead person may be instinctual, instead of consciousness. even more terrifying is the thought of that person has been kept alive for 5 years having no communication externally.If his or hers consciousness still remained, who much would be left.  It is a fact that the human body is a very resourceful, like if you don't use your cells, you lose the function of those cells.  The biggest question of all is, when is the "proper" time to determine the consciousness is active. Is it 3months, 6months, or 2 years.  I think there is no good answers to any of these very reasonable inquiries.  My hope for this technology that if we could use it to help the person to communicate, this technology could also improve the quality of life for people who have paralysis.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Week Nine: Synthesis

The sun began to rise into the sky as I awoke from my slumber due to the nudging from my dog. She may be known as Nami. Her and I stroll around the block so that she may relieve herself of her morning dues. Her and I determine how to wake up our third family member, who is  known as Emil. We partake in our breakfast meals. To prepare for school, I search for my book bag and school supplies and take the bicycle to school.  there TCM teaches me how chinese medicine is applied to humans and how it may interact with western medicine.  Around sunrise, I began the journey home with my bicycle.  Nami greets me with a warm welcome home and we share our final meal of the day together.  We take another stroll around the block, so that Nami may be prepared for sleeping through the night.  By nightfall Emil returns home to discover Nami and I sleeping soundly.


By synthesizing physics with pictorial language, we stand to gain a great wealth of knowledge.   The English language  is based off a sound based writing system.  This system doesn't have enough room to supporting consciousness within knowledge, communication between and among generations, and in time the accumulation of knowledge is unable to develop. English restricts our freedom to clearly express our thought. Meanwhile Chinese uses a pictorial writing system.  This system allows images to represent and retain the original meaning of a Chinese character.  Chinese is able to retain consciousness in knowledge, makes communication among generations possible, and the accumulation of knowledge is able to proceed.  Chinese supports and  allows many different meanings to be interpreted just from a character. this thought process helps to stimulate the mind. By combining a pictorial writing system with physics, physicists are able to clearly reflect their ideas without constraint.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

week 8: Classical Physics

Newton's Three Laws and Me


The first law states that a body remains at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by a force.
I really understood this theory when playing with silk worms dangling from the tree in the neighborhood.  They would stand still until you blew on them or pushed their web into a direction.


The second law states that a body's rate of change of momentum is proportional to the force causing it. 

What came to mind was comparing my walking  stride to jogging to the running start when you ride a zorb ball. Each one came at different speeds but the most exciting was the zorb ball because the faster you run the more momentum you carry down the launch off.

The third law states that when a force acts on a body due to another body, then an equal and opposite force acts simultaneously on that body
My memories of learning how to ride a bike came crashing back to re-illustrate this third principle.  I don't miss those scraped elbows, knees, or chins.

Our Energy Efficient Culture

This topic brings up many concerns for me.  Yes our culture has the potential to stop using fuel and transfer to a more clean energy that would benefit the environment. There are three countries currently operating the MagLev train, and they are China, Japan, and South Korean.

Decartes has a lot to answer for!!

In all respect, I admire Descartes for going against the mass culture.  He made in error in trying to compare the humans biological system to the mechanical working of a clock.   It is true the the human system a some mechanical quality in some areas such as the organs doing their routine to make the whole digestive system work. Due to Descartes instance that you could possible interchange organs like clock work pieces and still have the human body function unchanged seems unlikely.  Organ transplants today prove the Descartes theory untrue.  Many recipients of the organ transplants of remarked on picking up habits they never had before and finding out their new habits were that of their donor.

Week 7:Chaos Theory

Ordered Chaos

I find ordered chaos through out my life.  As a child, I really liked how my room looked with thinks strewn here and there, and I knew exactly where everything was. When I had to organize my room, I could never find things as quickly as when it was messy.  I have also tested the theory of ordered chaos in the checkout line at the grocery store  I purposely chose the longest line in the grocery store and was out of there faster.  This event occurred during peak hours and I was astonished it was still faster than if I had chosen the shorter line.  Amazing!! I am of the mind that if a enough chaos interacts with more chaos, some form of organization is bound to occur to make the most efficient use of the energy available.

Fractals as patterns of complex systems?

My thinking is that a fractal is a microcosm of a complex system. A fractal of itself is a very complicated pattern proven through complicated mathematical terms.  Thanks to fractal geometry, geometry has expanded greatly. Fractals may give us an insight into chaos.  Fractals  have a rough or irregular quality on a geometric object  part which can be divided evenlyno matter how scaled down or magnified.

A really fun website I wanted to share with all of y'all

http://fractal.org/

Cool Experiments: Fun with Flatware--Knife experiement

This one by far my favorite because my dog, Nami chased the reflection around the house and made the experiment more endearing.  I found the reflection interesting in how it distorted the images.  Before the only experiment I tried with my silver was hanging a metal spoon on the end of my nose.

Week 6: Vibrations

Are all vibrations "good?"

Good is a subjective term, and the better term to describe vibrations is efficient. The way I interpret vibrations is that they are another form of communication felt. Vibrations provide a boundary for all objects in the universe to communicate.  One can tune in to the vibration that makes the object thrive or discover the vibration that will make the object  consume more tension than it can handle and disperse leaving behind a tattered vibration.

Resonance in my world

I don't think I truly appreciated resonance in my world until we discussed it in  class.  I realized there is a lot of potential to be had by understanding resonance.  We can prevent architectural disaster such as the Nimitz Freeway  or the Tacoma Bridge Narrows Bridge from collapsing.   Resonance can be used for healing purposes.  I'm really curious how sound healing fairs in TCM.  Research has shown that eleco-acupuncture has higher sucess rate than traditional acupunture treats.  I wonder what the comparision rate would be between tuning forks on acupuncture used through TCM diagnosis and treatmen.  I have yet to find any research comparing two.

Connections between Energy and Qi

In many respects, I think energy and qi are well matched.  Both words bring up a surge of inquiries.  For example energy has a physical manifestation such as electricity and a non-physical manifestation such as love.  Qi has many definitions in TCM and one of the physical manifestations of qi is air(wind) while a non-physical manifestation of qi is consciousness. I also think the words get misused also in the press and advertisement in an attempt to bridge the gap between eastern and western cultures, and this is where a lot of the debate stem from.