Cell Phone and Medical Records

According to Science Daily, physicians can see patients 3D medical records on thier cell phone. As a nurse myself, reading this makes me think of how fast technology is changing the lanscape of our lives. All the phenomenon in Sci-Fi movies I saw, or I thought I saw are flashing in front of our eyes........ If I may zoom in and fast forward to 2050, I see a civilization where those who own technologies, whether the new skype, or the new facebook, or the new meta-iPad would increase in wealth, while the majority or humanity struggle ever harder to live comfortably.

The paradox: technology makes lives easy, but it gives control mostly to the top 3% in the economic pie.

Ancient Aliens

We were on the plane, some 3000 feet above Tennessee, on our way home from our vacation in the Caribbean sun, and this fellow passenger strike a conversation out of no where with me. I found out later he was an engineer. We talked about how technology was getting smaller and smaller; our cell phone for example. My response to the "fact" that things are getting smaller with, "that's good right" statement. He responded by saying, yes and no. Yes because, it saves space, and we have better tools for doing the same tasks; taking pictures, communicating, "yellow pages" amongst others, all in a tiny gadget called the cell phone. Fifty years ago, you need separate bulky tools just to do all the tasks..... ; but there are "negatives". The fact that things are so tiny, if something break downs, fixing the gadget won't be so easy; imagine the consequences, the engineer continued.

(Fast forward): Let say, in 2012, a giant rock 3 mile wide that eluded NASA detection, hits Earth and we are all wiped out from history, and nature starts from scratch. Imagine the future people found our cell phones and supercomputers under layers of sedimentation, would they believe that people actually made them, or would they postulate an alien intervention hypothesis; just like the way we doubt that people/human can build pyramids, and amazing structures in the Americas way back in time.....

Just think how little we know about our human past and how this "ignorance" colored our perception and reality..... Imagine, if we are not as advanced as our extinct forefathers..... all our Ohs and Ahhs with the latest iPads, "latest this and that" may be a testament of our ignorance.

Just think....

Time and Physics

The Mayan, the Jews, Bose-Einstein Condensate, and then MIT. I was enraptured when Dr. Hau at MIT was able to demonstrate how time decelerates considerably as it passes through BEC. As mortal, as intelligent as we are, time and space constantly a reminder of our "size" in the scheme of the universe.
The Mayans, in their eyes, time was a circle. The Jews, time was a line. But when I saw what BEC can do to a "particle" of light, time seems ........ more tangible and perhaps even applicable, not just in physics and philosophy, but also in our tangible, dizzying world of i Phone, iPad, Tianhe-1 supercomputer, MRI Scanners, and ever faster and numerous Gadgets.
I must bow my head at how long it takes many ingenious men (Bose, Einstein, et. al.) to wrestle with the angel of time, and finally catch a glimpse of his countenance.
While we progress in our small little earth, the angel of time looks on.

P.S.: Time, is not just the "toys" of physicists, they are also the stuffs of nursing, unless we forgot Erik Erikson. Imagine that fictitious old man lying there on his bed, wrestling with integrity or despair. Like Cher said, if I could turn back......!!!

The Three C's?

I saw on the History channel that there was once a preacher, who ventured to a poor African town said, that the three C's (Christianity, commerce, and civilization) would elevate the condition of the people.

Christianity, may be, as long as the religion does not erase the culture and traditions that make the people special. Consider the tragic lost of the wisdom and wealth of knowledge of the Mayan civilization; they conceived one of the most accurate calenders ever attained by mankind.

Civilization, again depends. In the Maker's anger, man has to earn his food by the sweat of his face (Genesis 3: 19). Even Gerry Spence spoke of the "curse" of work woven within the architecture of man's life. There is only one species on earth that is "civilized", man and look at how aggressive we are towards the environment and each other in terms of our feeding upon earth's resources. We took lands upon lands for our cultivation and development, and in the process, drive "animals' out of their homes. The list goes on and on, and on. We discover E=mc [2], and pharmacology, but who has to pay for our advancement.... just look at the white mouse in the labs of drugs company, and one will get some idea. If Siddhartha considers the tramping upon an ant as cruelty, imagine what happened to all the animals when US and other counties did when they test their atom bombs, nuclear bombs, precision weaponry, etcetera.

When we build roads, animals' habitat get segregated, and many of them get killed by cars as they tried to cross to the other side. So what if a mother deer got killed, or a young cougar got hit by a speeding car, right.

Commerce, again, is a two edge sword. A very sharp sword. Capitalism though something enjoyed by the successful and the wealthy and the superwealthy, is more a curse to billions than a blessing; the well being of the planet aside.

The poor across the globe needs the three C's? May be we the in the "developed" nations need the three C's more than they, the "poor". I am quite sure the planet didn't need it in the first place.

Modernism, Revisited

What is Modernism. I think its a studied, measured, and disciplined rebellion. To me it means more than an architectural style, or break from the past, or culture; its the basic tendency in any conscious breathing human thinker of any time/era to question the status quo. Thus, if you question the way American children learn in schools, you are a modernist. If you question about the way the modern man lives, you are a modernist. If you question, the very act of questioning, about anything, in any setting, you are a modernist.

To me, modernism is the audacity and the will to question. Thus Prince Siddharta is a modernist when he questioned the human condition, a long time ago. A nurse, or one who practices nursing is a modernist if he/she question the way the modern society approach "healthcare".

Its much easier to go with the flow than to be a modernist, I would caution, but the good of overcoming the gravity of conventionalism can .........well, bring man to the moon and beyond!

But regardless of the outcome of being a modernist, I propose this humble question, can a human be principled in a chaotic world without the will to question?

Mental Instituion 3X, Imprisoned Once...

The journey of the soul.....in our world that is obsessed with success
and images of health and competence and unblemished resumes....the
trials of the soul in this terrestrial continuum has purpose only the
angels can fathom and appreciate....

I wrote this as response to P. Coehlo's remembrance of his youthful trials....

"Every day of my youth was very difficult. I was three times in a mental institution, I was arrested and tortured by the paramilitary in Brazil. And yet, when I remember it now, those were very interesting years. Because I was young, and I was overcoming all obstacles.", P. Coehlo.

Jewish have a saying that in order to rise to the top, one must descend to the bottom.....In his youthful trials, while his peers were riding the waves of success and functionality, being behind the walls of mental institution and prison, is a taboo to the secular gaze; I am "sure" even Paulo cursed himself..he might be profoundly sadden to feel that his mother is sadden by his lot.....

I remember a renowned christian author once wrote that "there is greatness in being, and there is success in doing"; the younger Coehlo, in retrospect was in the state of being....like Gandhi's journey of being....its never easy.....

The Heart and Our Future...

This is a little hard to write....have you seen some parents with children of special needs....whether its Down Syndrome, or autistism; how you seen how the parents love these children.....From nature-evolutionary angle, reason can make little sense out of this.....I remember in the Eskimo culture that the elders would sacrifice themselves for the survival of the young in times of scarcity. This particular altruistic example of [Love] makes sense; it satisfies the reason and heart of an observer, but sacrificing [Love] and resources for children of special needs, makes "no" sense....(don't get angry dear readers, wait til the end of this posting; like I said, this is not easy). Another example that makes "no" sense is sacrificing resources for people with terminal cancer....If you ask Deep Blue, the supercomputer to decide which ship to deliver given limited stocks of nails/hammers/paint/fuel: Ship A, an old old ship that is leaking in multiple places, or Ship B, a brand new ship with only one leak. Deep Blue would pick Ship B, I would guess.

But parents of "special" children, would save Ship A, even if resources were scarce. Mr. Reason and perhaps, just perhaps, Chief National Economic Adviser would scratch their heads;these parents wouldn't. The answer, as you already know before I even mention it, is the overused and abused word called [Love]. Its synonymous with the Heart.

From the biologist-scientist-philosopher standpoint, this is fascinating because, [Love] is something that can't be observed and quantified under a microscope, or within a particle collider. Its like the dark matter, it can be studied and "observed" only via its effects and consequences; like the studies advocated by Dr. Dean Ornish.

Perhaps, one can design a Love-particle-detector and discover its spin, angular momentum, and charge value.

But I digressed. The wonder and poignant beauty in the scenario of the loving parents is that, it tells me that the Heart is superior as compared to either Super-DeepBlue or the most powerful of electron microscope/Hubble telescope in reasoning power or visual capacity. Its superior because it sees a dimension that cannot be tapped by the strongest of instruments or brain power.

God bless these parents and their precious children....

P.S.: Imagine if all the powerful nations treat each other with the Heart rather than with Reason;.....Fear is what I suspect that led strong nations to prefer Reason over Heart...I mean the Heart wouldn't tell you to invest billions in nuclear arsenals over building more schools and paying teachers more.....right?...