divagreen

Are you begging the question as to whether or not a general malaise is congruent with the sense of powerlessness that is associated with apathy or the overwhelming sense of moroseness that stems from failing to overcome the world's ills? Then I don't think seeing an apple is a disease. But please keep in mind it is their apple. Is it reactive or endogenic?

Wishing you a speedy recovery, Moontanman!

Ooops...thank you Swansont. I found this interesting in the article: But then I also felt that the research was guided by this: Confirmation bias of due interpretation?

Is there an actual news article involved? I wouldn't mind debating on the validity of acupuncture...I am on the fence about it myself...but then I don't dismiss the placebo effect, especially if it still attains a desired response.

Allow me to clarify...this is one of my sources: Cite: International Journal of Psychophysiology Volume 13, Issue 3, December 1992, Pages 225-232 Please allow me to restate that the chemical reactions in the brain that relate to the corresponding emotions assigned may be observed via EEG. And when I say emotions I am talking about anger, pain and pleasure. It has been observed that certain parts of the brain become more active under the influence emotions. So when I said that, "emotions are easier to read on an EEG" I was speaking within the context of, "Can you not use Psychology to learn how the brain works? For example what part does what?" and attempting to provide some input on the relevance of Psychophysiology in response to your question. I think that we are coming at this from different angles... I think that I might be understanding where you are going with this...I have worked on clients where their bodies are visibly flinching, the muscles that I am palpating are tensing, their eyes slightly dilate and they may break out into a sweat...all indications of a pain response. I would be willing to bet an EEG would confirm this. But if asked, "Is this pressure okay?", I may receive the answer, "Yes, it feels great". I think that it is the context and expectations of the communication involved that can best provide the validity of the response...

With much respect, Swansont...ad hominems are a fallacy but not all ad hominem arguments are fallacious. My link I think that was beerjuana's point. How is the example given not a poisoning of the well? By following their refutation with, "you are an idiot", is that not a pre-emptive attack on future refutations?

I do not mean to cherry pick, but I never said that psychology was less valuable than the hard sciences...I was merely making the distinction with regards to the original post. But I do apologize for my originally flip response, ...it was dismissive and disrespectful. So... Playing devil's advocate here, since I think that this ponders the inquiry of the chicken or the egg...but I have been under the impression that behaviour may also have an impact on brain chemistry, no? If someone refuses to get out of bed and engage in interaction or pursue a small amount of pleasure, will not their dopamine levels drop and eventually lead to a seratonin dip? You will receive no argument from me on this... Diseases also have to do with physiological functionality which may predetermine the chemistry involved, which may be classified as systemic and not so easily mapped out...obfuscation is not the intent of medical diagnosis, but IMO rather an acknowledgement that all of the information may not be at hand at the time of diagnosis or treatment. As much as I would like to respond, to this I bow out since the original post is not talking about how life came into existence. I think that I have veered enough off topic... Living matter or living humans? Because I do think that is the distinction with psychology with regards to the OP... It just seems to me that a value statement is placed more upon the term "science" rather than an examining of the process itself... Emotions are easier to read on an EEG but personal preference is subjective and is hard to measure...you reminded me of that and thank you.

I always thought that participation in debate was an excursion into dialectic discussion for the purpose of acquiring more knowledge and a greater understanding? I have never been on board with the approach of "I am right and you are wrong" type of stylistic debate since it tends to speak in the language of absolutes and leaves out a whole lot of grey matter for further exploration... But I do see your point.../edit: on further investigation after coming across a couple of your posts, no I don't...I maintain what I said in the above /divagreen May I please quote this? I have always wondered why some posters will claim an argument is an ad hominem or a strawman without ever stating why it is as such...always seemed like either intellectual laziness or ineptitude, IMO... I am speaking from past experiences on other forums, not my present experience on this one, btw....

I was waiting for the five to five count between phwannabe and needimprovement to post, out of respect for original post, but I guess it is okay to post now... Is psychology a science? I dunno...does it have to do with reliable predictability based upon the specifics of quantifiable observation? Because I think that might be the difference... I was going to say that it is considered to be a soft science, but someone beat me to it. So much for being considerate...

I am just going to address this one, Op. Music isn't just an expression, it's not just an art form; there are qualities and quantities to what music is that adhere to laws of physics, it goes deeper. There are limits to what can be perceived by any specific human, ...that are purely dependent on whether or not their brain has experienced the ability to discern the difference. See: Daniel J. Levitin's extensive research at McGill university to see what we've discovered via the science of neurology. That said, ...the axiom, "There's no accounting for taste" is not exactly true. Ask a musician who's trained from childhood. Music is an "art" and a "science", ...the art consists of the phenotype, ...the performance, ...the synthesis. It is also based on a science, a body of knowledge, theory and method, ...it's analogous "genealogy". Sure, perception is subjective (isn't it always?), ...but your view ignores the "other side" of perception.

I am sorry...but are you asking for permission to take prescriptive drugs whilst the symptom isn't present? Consider this...one can build up a tolerance...what are you going to do if you have a lumbar laminectomy in fifteen years and the pain meds don't work due to overuse? Hyperbolic scare tactic, I know...except that I have seen where this was the case and it wasn't pretty.

Astrology is a science? I thought that Molecules That Change the World was good...it took me forever to finish it though. And it has been a while since I read it.

I found this and loved it. Look at the dates:

I was making a bit of humour. Provocateur, much? Anyway, unless someone else swoops in here and says that this is, indeed, a serious thread, I will take it as the light-hearted spirited fun that I think that it was meant to be. Cheers.

I do agree with this, but isn't it interesting just to roll the concept around in your mind that it could be otherwise? I tried to wrap my mind around what a physical law that originated from the organic that was not precisely based on laws that were based on the non-organic (physical accepted terms of what constituted as scientific law) and could come up with any. I spent a whole day wondering if I lacked imagination. Well, ya, I think that was in the synopsis but what I found really interesting was this: I have never come across anything where this was even a question with any credibility...what do you think? I think that the author started down that line of thinking with his trump quote given by Einstein. I think that the specific was in the premise that diffusion plays a smaller role than what has previously been attributed and that the author feels that this is significant. I thought that it was a nice set-up for this: The article was written in 2003 and I am open to any more recent research that involves cell function as it relates to ground substance if anyone can provide any. No woo woo, please. I have kind of hit a wall with my research on this, but if there is more, than I am open to it. (Maybe this should have been my opening thread topic. But I am not so sure I could there on my own.) Very true...so what is the language between the two? Thank you both for taking the time to answer some of my questions.

Okay. I seriously can't tell if Yomamma and Kaplunk are serious or not. But I find this thread amusing and I am just going to say that I am now convinced that the end of the world will take place in 2014, in February since that is when at least two of my friends' and mine's bank card will expire. I don't think it is an accident.

I saw this topic when it was first posted but meandered on by since it seemed to me like a thinly disguised doctor bashing thread and while I might have gleefully participated 10 to 5 years ago on some days back when I used to work in the medical field, time has tempered such thoughts and emotions. But it is the last day of my vacation and I am feeling deeply philosophical this afternoon and since I cannot post in either the ethics or philosophy forums on this site yet, I feel like my raison d'être at this moment, at this time, is to post on this thread in order to contribute to the discussion at hand since I do have a different perspective based on a unique experience with regard to the OP. I used to work as a CNA III back in the day when I was under the very misguided notion that I thought I wanted to be a nurse and as cardiovascular technician when I came to my senses. (Nothing against nurses by any stretch of the imagination, they are gems, just not for me and I had the self-awareness to recognize this.) I can somewhat empathize with Marat to a point, as far as dealing with the arrogance of some doctors but I think that this is the exception rather than the rule and so don't fall prey to broad sweeping generalizations. The negative experiences was usually with first year residents, who would be rotating services in the hospital that I worked and were going into the field of something like podiatry and would dismiss my EKG and patient care assessments despite being taught in my spare time by the department head of arrhythmia (I think that he was just delighted about my desire and enthusiasm to learn, so we would sometimes lunch together and I would just soak up everything he said.) and the three years that I worked in that department. So I do have 5 years of experience of working in the medical field and can come at this discussion from that particular perspective. Somewhere during this time, my late husband developed profound heart failure due to a congenital birth defect (transposition of the great vessels) and a Mustard procedure. (A little background info...Mustard procedures used to be standard procedure for correction for a relatively brief amount of time, now they correct the problem at birth. A Mustard procedure is where they reroute the blood so that the left ventricle becomes pulmonary and right becomes systemic). Since he wasn't a good candidate for a heart transplant due to the amount blood transfusions he had over the years, it was thought that the Mustard procedure cold be reverse, by a doctor who had only done it unsuccessfully once, but Mustard procedures were rare and the only other option was to move to Chicago away from the support of our families to attempt the reversal by a doctor who had to successfully done it twice. We opted to stay and have the doctor who had not yet done it successfully due it as he seemed to be an excellent doctor with an excellent reputation (he did do the arterial switch in babies all of the time). Anyway, to try to make a long story short, after a series of two bandings on the pulmonary artery to develop the strength of the left ventricle, the main procedure to perform the switch. The switch itself was a success, but the right ventricle was struggling from the shock of the surgery and we were having a rough time weening him off of the ventilator. On day 5 after the surgery, I noticed some black stuff in his vent tubing. I mentioned it to the nurse and she said she would let the respiratory know. 3 days later I am becoming convinced that it doesn't look like he hasn't been bathed, even though the nurse checked the assessment sheet in the computer and it had been signed off as complete, and I could have sworn I was looking at the same black stuff in his tubing that I had noticed prior, even though the nurse it was signed as being changed. Frustrated, I went and dragged director of nursing (did I mention that this was the same hospital I had worked at eight months but had quit because I had gone back to school for massage therapy out of frustration with the general assembly line approach that I felt specialized healthcare had become? The director was a friend.) So we bathed him, changed his tubing, (during the bath we noticed a decub the size of a dime) and the director of nursing in the ICU assured me and his parents that his care would improve. During this time, my husband is still as lucid as one would could be on a fentanyl drip, but that weekend I noticed a definite deterioration in his mental state as well as a decrease in body temperature (some people may know where this is going.) I let the nurse know, who was one of the hospital's PRN floaters, and she said that she had just given him pain meds. I asked for a chest x-ray to be ordered, she said she would let the DOD know of my concern when they did their rounds in the morning and then I was hustled out because visiting hours were over even though visiting hours never applied to me before since I used to work there and a couple of the staff knew me. Frustrated, I managed to chase down one of the residents I had a good working relationship with (several hours later), who ordered a chest x-ray and yes he had pneumonia, he was in septic shock and he had lost his kidneys. When the pneumonia cleared up, he was diagnosed with ARDS. (And he was still classified as alert and oriented. He communicated through writing.) 5 months later, multiple nosocomial infections, a couple of surgeries, tearful consultations with the surgical attending, any DOD at the time his bowel finally died and the decision to take him of the vent was made. It was that or have him undergo another surgery that didn't look like it do much benefit. We opted for the former. The family was called, everyone said their good-byes, he was taken off of the ventilator, and DOD who had all of the personal warmth of a turnip (he was going into plastics) but had the good moral judgement to give the order for enough morphine to kill him. I am very grateful to that doctor for not dragging it out. So back to the Op I think that if you are going to make a case for the established presence of a medical ethicist than really it shouldn't just be there for the doctors but for the entire healthcare staff. I feel like I should also include that the hospital during this time was short staffed due to the high turnover after the staff's increase in co-payments and health insurance. And it was much cheaper to hire PRN nurses who wouldn't demand decent healthcare coverage. I also feel like I should mention that three years later there was a class action suit against the hospital by the employees, since the hospital had investments in the insurance company that we were forced to be provided. I had cobra-ed my insurance so we still had it at the time my late husband was hospitalized. So the medical bills that I couldn't afford to pay were settled out of court through the class action suit that I barely remembered signing during the second year that I worked their. I almost believed in the bastardized westernized version of karma on that day, I tell you; almost, but not quite. So I am really not sure what the benefit would be to have medical ethicists involved except to create more paperwork and to give someone a job who wanted to be a medical ethicist. I dunno? Maybe they could teach a continuing education class that healthcare workers would be required to take? But I think they have to do this already? Except the class would be led a medical ethicist rather than what someone could be classified as a peer. Anyway, I suspect the problem with healthcare has become systemic and so there no real one-size fits all solution. Just my 2¢.

Thank you CharonY, I am terrible at starting threads. But I found this article intriguing... I think that this is an expanding thesis based upon elementary school knowledge which makes it easy to follow [the cell is the building block of life]. This: ...became most relevant with this: ---> diffusion is the intermingling of substances by the natural movement of their particles. I guess I could stop here for a moment and go with Schrödinger's point...and expand, what would physical laws look like if we started from a living system? I would also like to zip ahead and go into the impact of water on cellular structure. No, I don't work for a water company! I find ground substance an incredibly over-looked area, when dealing with the human body.

Okay, I think that I am getting there with understanding. Are you saying that evolution is still happening to fit the golden ratio that already existed or that we humans have finally evolved to appreciate the golden ratio? (I am for the latter, personally.) Then I think maybe I can maybe make the jump to entropy and equilibrium. (Although I may need further information. Please bear with me.)

So I was looking up and cross-referencing articles on ground substance for an article that I am labouring over. I have never submitted an article before...trying to thoroughly do my research...but I stumbled across this amazing article via wiki, and really it made me fall in love with the cell all over again. I saw it presented in a way that I had not thought of before, so I wanted to hear the snf's community's thoughts. http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/206/12/1955

Thank you, for clarifying, Zolar...I have been following this thread with some interest and was very confused from where you were coming from in your original Op. I have always been fascinated with the golden ratio but I am not quite so sure I agree with the premise that it is a peak of evolutionary efficiency. Before I continue, is that what you are saying?

True, the Op conflated the topic with mysticism and physiological benefits...the two are not mutually exclusive or predominantly inclusive. I think that physiological functionality is indeed a science...the science of the body. Strip away the mysticism and it still leaves a conjoining force for overall bodily maintenance. That is all that I am saying.

I am bored, so I am going to take a stab at this... While the title of the thread is misleading ("ultimate" is a claim based upon a comparative value) there is some merit to yoga as a science for overall wellness. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/yoga/CM00004 I will respectfully follow the scientific method: Does yoga increase range of motion? (Takes yoga class for four weeks, twice a week) I think yoga will increase my ROM. I notice an increase ROM with my arms. I ask my classmates if they notice an increase ROM. They say, "yes". We do comparisons from whence we started and how far we can twirl our arms around. There is a noticeable wider swing. Yoga has proven to increase range of motion. If you want to refute this claim, then take a yoga class. (There are some obvious flaws within this argument, but hey! I am ready to take them on with no attachment to winning or losing.) Sometimes it is fun just to explore, you know?

I think the SFN speculations part of the forum will be comprised mostly of Princess Diana sightings. I dunno. I am just speculating. I think the next end of the world will happen in 2024, since that is the latest that some forums can ban people without actually deleting them.

Thank you! I will keep that in mind.