This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Virtue gives freedom; but cultivated humility is not virtue
by Krishnamurti
She said, under the trees after the talk, that she had come to listen in case the teacher of teachers spoke. She had been very earnest, but now that earnestness had become obstinacy. This obstinacy was covered over by smiles and by reasonable tolerance, a tolerance that had been very carefully thought out and cultivated; it was a thing of the mind and so could be inflamed into violent, angry intolerance. She was big and soft-spoken; but there lurked condemnation, nourished by her convictions and beliefs. She was suppressed and hard, but had given herself over to brotherhood and to its good cause. She added, after a pause, that she would know when the teacher spoke, for she and her group had some mysterious way of knowing it, which was not even to others. The pleasure of exclusive knowledge was so obvious in the way she said it, in the gesture and the tilt of the head. Exclusive, private knowledge offers deeply satisfying pleasure. To know something that others do not know is a constant source of satisfaction; it gives one the feeling of being in touch with deeper things which afford prestige and authority. You are directly in contact, you have something which others have not, and so you are important, not only to yourself, but to others. The others look up to you, a little apprehensively, because they want to share what you have; but you give, always knowing more. You are the leader, the authority; and this position comes easily, for people want to be told, to be led. The more we are aware that we are lost and confused, the more eager we are to be guided and told; so authority is built up in the name of the State, in the name of religion, in the name of a Master or a party leader. The worship of authority, whether in big or little things, is evil, the more so in religious matters. There is no intermediary between you and reality; and if there is one, he is a perverter, a mischief maker, it does not matter who he is, whether the highest saviour or your latest guru or teacher. The one who knows does not know; he can know only his own prejudices, his self-projected beliefs and sensory demands. He cannot know truth, the immeasurable. position and authority can be built up, cunningly cultivated, but not humility. Virtue gives freedom; but cultivated humility is not virtue, it is mere sensation and therefore harmful and destructive; it is a bondage, to be broken again and again. It is important to find out, not who is the Master, the saint, the leader, but why you follow. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 28 Authority
She said, under the trees after the talk, that she had come to listen in case the teacher of teachers spoke. She had been very earnest, but now that earnestness had become obstinacy. This obstinacy was covered over by smiles and by reasonable tolerance, a tolerance that had been very carefully thought out and cultivated; it was a thing of the mind and so could be inflamed into violent, angry intolerance. She was big and soft-spoken; but there lurked condemnation, nourished by her convictions and beliefs. She was suppressed and hard, but had given herself over to brotherhood and to its good cause. She added, after a pause, that she would know when the teacher spoke, for she and her group had some mysterious way of knowing it, which was not even to others. The pleasure of exclusive knowledge was so obvious in the way she said it, in the gesture and the tilt of the head. Exclusive, private knowledge offers deeply satisfying pleasure. To know something that others do not know is a constant source of satisfaction; it gives one the feeling of being in touch with deeper things which afford prestige and authority. You are directly in contact, you have something which others have not, and so you are important, not only to yourself, but to others. The others look up to you, a little apprehensively, because they want to share what you have; but you give, always knowing more. You are the leader, the authority; and this position comes easily, for people want to be told, to be led. The more we are aware that we are lost and confused, the more eager we are to be guided and told; so authority is built up in the name of the State, in the name of religion, in the name of a Master or a party leader. The worship of authority, whether in big or little things, is evil, the more so in religious matters. There is no intermediary between you and reality; and if there is one, he is a perverter, a mischief maker, it does not matter who he is, whether the highest saviour or your latest guru or teacher. The one who knows does not know; he can know only his own prejudices, his self-projected beliefs and sensory demands. He cannot know truth, the immeasurable. position and authority can be built up, cunningly cultivated, but not humility. Virtue gives freedom; but cultivated humility is not virtue, it is mere sensation and therefore harmful and destructive; it is a bondage, to be broken again and again. It is important to find out, not who is the Master, the saint, the leader, but why you follow. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 28 Authority
fate --- an economist's perspective
One of Caroline's friends W is an economist who is very good at rational choice theory, simultaneous equation, forcasting, and so on..
Caroline asked: How is your life now? What is your plan for the future?
W said: Depends on the fate...
Caroline asked: Can you make choices rationally?
W said: No, I can't.
Caroline asked: Can you use computers to run the simultaneous equation to find the answers?
W said: No, I can't.
Caroline asked: Can you use computers to forcast and predict?
W said: No, I can't.
Caroline asked: What does fate tell you?
W said: I don't know. I am unable to hear and understand the fate.
Caroline asked: How is your life now? What is your plan for the future?
W said: Depends on the fate...
Caroline asked: Can you make choices rationally?
W said: No, I can't.
Caroline asked: Can you use computers to run the simultaneous equation to find the answers?
W said: No, I can't.
Caroline asked: Can you use computers to forcast and predict?
W said: No, I can't.
Caroline asked: What does fate tell you?
W said: I don't know. I am unable to hear and understand the fate.
Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom
by Krishnamurti
Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. Self-knowledge is cultivated through the individual's search of himself. I am not putting the individual in opposition to the mass. They are not antithetical. You, the individual, are the mass, the result of the mass. In us, as you will discover if you go into it deeply, are both the many and the particular. It is as a stream that is constantly flowing, leaving little eddies and these eddies we call individuality but they are the result of this constant flow of water. Your thoughts-feelings, those mental-emotional activities, are they not the result of the past, of what we call the many? Have you not similar thoughts-feelings as your neighbour? So when I talk of the individual I am not putting him in opposition to the mass. On the contrary, I want to remove this antagonism This opposing antagonism between the mass and the you, the individual, creates confusion and conflict, ruthlessness and misery. But if we can understand how the individual, the you, is part of the whole, not only mystically but actually, then we shall free ourselves happily and spontaneously from the greater part of the desire to compete, to succeed, to deceive, to oppress, to be ruthless, or to become a follower or a leader. Then we will regard the problem of existence quite differently. And it is important to understand this deeply. As long as we regard ourselves as individuals apart from the whole, competing, obstructing, opposing, sacrificing the many for the particular or the particular for the many, all those problems that arise out of this conflicting antagonism will have no happy and enduring solution; for they are the result of wrong thinking-feeling. - Collected Works, Volume 3, Ojai 1st Public Talk 14th May, 1944
Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. Self-knowledge is cultivated through the individual's search of himself. I am not putting the individual in opposition to the mass. They are not antithetical. You, the individual, are the mass, the result of the mass. In us, as you will discover if you go into it deeply, are both the many and the particular. It is as a stream that is constantly flowing, leaving little eddies and these eddies we call individuality but they are the result of this constant flow of water. Your thoughts-feelings, those mental-emotional activities, are they not the result of the past, of what we call the many? Have you not similar thoughts-feelings as your neighbour? So when I talk of the individual I am not putting him in opposition to the mass. On the contrary, I want to remove this antagonism This opposing antagonism between the mass and the you, the individual, creates confusion and conflict, ruthlessness and misery. But if we can understand how the individual, the you, is part of the whole, not only mystically but actually, then we shall free ourselves happily and spontaneously from the greater part of the desire to compete, to succeed, to deceive, to oppress, to be ruthless, or to become a follower or a leader. Then we will regard the problem of existence quite differently. And it is important to understand this deeply. As long as we regard ourselves as individuals apart from the whole, competing, obstructing, opposing, sacrificing the many for the particular or the particular for the many, all those problems that arise out of this conflicting antagonism will have no happy and enduring solution; for they are the result of wrong thinking-feeling. - Collected Works, Volume 3, Ojai 1st Public Talk 14th May, 1944
Love never adjusts
by Krishnamurti
You may be treating the talks we have been having as an exchange of ideas, as a process of accepting new ideas and discarding old ones, or as a process of denying new ideas and holding on to the old. We are not dealing with ideas at all. We are dealing with facts. And when one is concerned with facts, there is no adjustment; you either accept it or you deny it. You can either say `I do not like those ideas, I prefer the old ones, I am going to live in my own stew', or you can go along with the fact. You cannot compromise, you cannot adjust. Destruction is not adjustment. To adjust, to say, `I must be less ambitious, not so envious', is not destruction. And one must, surely, see the truth that ambition, envy, is ugly, stupid, and one must destroy all these absurdities. Love never adjusts. It is only desire, fear, hope, that adjusts. That is why love is a destructive thing, because it refuses to adapt itself or conform to a pattern. So, we begin to discover that when there is the destruction of all the authority which man has created for himself in his desire to be secure inwardly, then there is creation. Destruction is creation. Then, if you have abandoned ideas, and are not adjusting yourself to your own pattern of existence or a new pattern which you think the speaker is creating - if you have gone that far - , you will find that the brain can and-must function only with regard to outward things, respond only to outward demands; therefore the brain becomes completely quiet. This means that the authority of its experiences has come to an end, and therefore it is incapable of creating illusion. And to find out what is true it is essential for the power to create illusion in any form to come to an end. And the power to create illusion is the power of desire, the power of ambition, of wanting to be this and not wanting to be that. So, the brain must function in this world with reason, with sanity, with clarity; but inwardly it must be completely quiet. We are told by the biologists that it has taken millions of years for the brain to develop to its present stage, and that it will take millions of years to develop further. Now, the religious mind does not depend on time for its development. I wish you could follow this. What I want to convey is that when the brain - which must function in its responses to the outward existence - becomes quiet inwardly, then there is no longer the machinery of accumulating experience and knowledge, and therefore inwardly it is completely quiet but fully alive, and then it can jump the million years. - Saanen 9th Public Talk 13th August 1961
You may be treating the talks we have been having as an exchange of ideas, as a process of accepting new ideas and discarding old ones, or as a process of denying new ideas and holding on to the old. We are not dealing with ideas at all. We are dealing with facts. And when one is concerned with facts, there is no adjustment; you either accept it or you deny it. You can either say `I do not like those ideas, I prefer the old ones, I am going to live in my own stew', or you can go along with the fact. You cannot compromise, you cannot adjust. Destruction is not adjustment. To adjust, to say, `I must be less ambitious, not so envious', is not destruction. And one must, surely, see the truth that ambition, envy, is ugly, stupid, and one must destroy all these absurdities. Love never adjusts. It is only desire, fear, hope, that adjusts. That is why love is a destructive thing, because it refuses to adapt itself or conform to a pattern. So, we begin to discover that when there is the destruction of all the authority which man has created for himself in his desire to be secure inwardly, then there is creation. Destruction is creation. Then, if you have abandoned ideas, and are not adjusting yourself to your own pattern of existence or a new pattern which you think the speaker is creating - if you have gone that far - , you will find that the brain can and-must function only with regard to outward things, respond only to outward demands; therefore the brain becomes completely quiet. This means that the authority of its experiences has come to an end, and therefore it is incapable of creating illusion. And to find out what is true it is essential for the power to create illusion in any form to come to an end. And the power to create illusion is the power of desire, the power of ambition, of wanting to be this and not wanting to be that. So, the brain must function in this world with reason, with sanity, with clarity; but inwardly it must be completely quiet. We are told by the biologists that it has taken millions of years for the brain to develop to its present stage, and that it will take millions of years to develop further. Now, the religious mind does not depend on time for its development. I wish you could follow this. What I want to convey is that when the brain - which must function in its responses to the outward existence - becomes quiet inwardly, then there is no longer the machinery of accumulating experience and knowledge, and therefore inwardly it is completely quiet but fully alive, and then it can jump the million years. - Saanen 9th Public Talk 13th August 1961
What do we mean by the problem of sex?
by Krishnamurti
What do we mean by the problem of sex? Is it the act, or is it a thought about the act? Surely it is not the act. The sexual act is no problem to you, any more than eating is a problem to you, but if you think about eating or anything else all day long because you have nothing else to think about, it becomes a problem to you. Is the sexual act the problem or is it the thought about the act? Why do you think about it? Why do you build it up, which you are obviously doing? The cinemas, the magazines, the stories, the way women dress, everything is building up your thought of sex. Why does the mind build it up, why does the mind think about sex at all? Why? Why has it become a central issue in your life? When there are so many things calling, demanding your attention, you give complete attention to the thought of sex. What happens, why are your minds so occupied with it? Because that is a way of ultimate escape, is it not? It is a way of complete self-forgetfulness. For the time being, at least for that moment, you can forget yourself - and there is no other way of forgetting yourself. Everything else you do in life gives emphasis to the `me', to the self. Your business, your religion, your gods, your leaders, your political and economic actions, your escapes, your social activities, your joining one party and rejecting another - all that is emphasizing and giving strength to the `me'. That is there is only one act in which there is no emphasis on the `me', so it becomes a problem, does it not? When there is only one thing in your life which is an avenue to ultimate escape to complete forgetfulness of yourself if only for a few seconds, you cling to it because that is the only moment in which you are happy. Every other issue you touch becomes a nightmare, a source of suffering and pain, so you cling to the one thing which gives complete self-forgetfulness, which you call happiness. But when you cling to it, it too becomes a nightmare, because then you want to be free from it, you do not want to be a slave to it. So you invent, again from the mind, the idea of chastity, of celibacy, and you try to be celibate, to be chaste, through suppression, all of which are operations of the mind to cut itself off from the fact. This again gives particular emphasis to the `me' who is trying to become something, so again you are caught in travail, in trouble, in effort, in pain. - The First and Last Freedom
What do we mean by the problem of sex? Is it the act, or is it a thought about the act? Surely it is not the act. The sexual act is no problem to you, any more than eating is a problem to you, but if you think about eating or anything else all day long because you have nothing else to think about, it becomes a problem to you. Is the sexual act the problem or is it the thought about the act? Why do you think about it? Why do you build it up, which you are obviously doing? The cinemas, the magazines, the stories, the way women dress, everything is building up your thought of sex. Why does the mind build it up, why does the mind think about sex at all? Why? Why has it become a central issue in your life? When there are so many things calling, demanding your attention, you give complete attention to the thought of sex. What happens, why are your minds so occupied with it? Because that is a way of ultimate escape, is it not? It is a way of complete self-forgetfulness. For the time being, at least for that moment, you can forget yourself - and there is no other way of forgetting yourself. Everything else you do in life gives emphasis to the `me', to the self. Your business, your religion, your gods, your leaders, your political and economic actions, your escapes, your social activities, your joining one party and rejecting another - all that is emphasizing and giving strength to the `me'. That is there is only one act in which there is no emphasis on the `me', so it becomes a problem, does it not? When there is only one thing in your life which is an avenue to ultimate escape to complete forgetfulness of yourself if only for a few seconds, you cling to it because that is the only moment in which you are happy. Every other issue you touch becomes a nightmare, a source of suffering and pain, so you cling to the one thing which gives complete self-forgetfulness, which you call happiness. But when you cling to it, it too becomes a nightmare, because then you want to be free from it, you do not want to be a slave to it. So you invent, again from the mind, the idea of chastity, of celibacy, and you try to be celibate, to be chaste, through suppression, all of which are operations of the mind to cut itself off from the fact. This again gives particular emphasis to the `me' who is trying to become something, so again you are caught in travail, in trouble, in effort, in pain. - The First and Last Freedom
So long as the animal is petted he reacts nicely
by Krishnamurti
You will be able to see for yourself how you are conditioned only when there is a conflict in the continuity of pleasure or the avoidance of pain. If everything is perfectly happy around you, your wife loves you, you love her, you have a nice house, nice children and plenty of money, then you are not aware of your conditioning at all. But when there is a disturbance - when your wife looks at someone else or you lose your money or are threatened with war or any other pain or anxiety - then you know you are conditioned. When you struggle against any kind of disturbance or defend yourself against any outer or inner threat, then you know you are conditioned. And as most of us are disturbed most of the time, either superficially or deeply, that very disturbance indicates that we are conditioned. So long as the animal is petted he reacts nicely, but the moment he is antagonized the whole violence of his nature comes out. - Freedom from the Known Chapter 2
This is human nature. We are just ordinary human beings............
You will be able to see for yourself how you are conditioned only when there is a conflict in the continuity of pleasure or the avoidance of pain. If everything is perfectly happy around you, your wife loves you, you love her, you have a nice house, nice children and plenty of money, then you are not aware of your conditioning at all. But when there is a disturbance - when your wife looks at someone else or you lose your money or are threatened with war or any other pain or anxiety - then you know you are conditioned. When you struggle against any kind of disturbance or defend yourself against any outer or inner threat, then you know you are conditioned. And as most of us are disturbed most of the time, either superficially or deeply, that very disturbance indicates that we are conditioned. So long as the animal is petted he reacts nicely, but the moment he is antagonized the whole violence of his nature comes out. - Freedom from the Known Chapter 2
This is human nature. We are just ordinary human beings............
From M.S. Patients, Outcry for Unproved Treatment
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/health/29vein.html?hpw
For her first appointment with Dr. Daniel Simon, Neelima Raval showed up with a rolling file cabinet full of documents. She had downloaded every word written by or about Dr. Paolo Zamboni, a vascular surgeon from Italy with a most unorthodox theory about multiple sclerosis.
Dr. Zamboni believes that the disease, which damages the nervous system, may be caused by narrowed veins in the neck and chest that block the drainage of blood from the brain. He has reported in medical journals that opening those veins with the kind of balloons used to treat blocked heart arteries—an experimental treatment he calls the “liberation procedure”— can relieve symptoms.
The idea is a radical departure from the conventional belief that multiple sclerosis is caused by a malfunctioning immune system and inflammation.
The new theory has taken off on the Internet, inspiring hope among patients, interest from some researchers and scorn from others. Supporters consider it an outside-the-box idea that could transform the treatment of the disease. Critics call it an outlandish notion that will probably waste time and money, and may harm patients.
These critics warn that multiple sclerosis has unpredictable attacks and remissions that make it devilishly hard to know whether treatments are working — leaving patients vulnerable to purported “cures” that do not work.
The controversy has exposed the deep frustration of many people with this incurable, disabling disease, who feel that research has let them down. It is a case study in the power of the Internet to inform and unite angry patients—which may be a double-edged sword. Pressure from activists helped persuade the Multiple Sclerosis Society to pay for studies of Dr. Zamboni’s theory, but the Internet buzz has also created an avid market for a therapy that is still unproved.
“It’s eye-opening the way this group of patients has grabbed hold of the social-networking technology,” said Dr. Simon, an interventional radiologist at JFK Medical Center in Edison, N.J. “They’ve taken this to a level I’ve not seen in other patients. Patients used to read an article or two. Now, they’re actually seeing procedures on YouTube. Is this the future of medicine?”
Scientifically, the jury is out: Dr. Zamboni’s hypothesis is being studied. It is not known whether narrowed veins are more common in people with multiple sclerosis than in others, and even if they are, whether the narrowings are a cause, or an effect, of the disease. There is no solid proof that opening the veins can help. There have been no studies with control groups — the only way to find out whether a treatment works.
“In my view the evidence is quite scanty and the biological plausibility is low,” said Dr. Stephen L. Hauser, the chairman of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. Many neurologists agree. Dr. Hauser said there was much stronger evidence that the disease arose from genetic variations affecting the immune system.
But Dr. Adnan H. Siddiqui, part of a team at the University at Buffalo that has been studying Dr. Zamboni’s theory, said that it made sense and that the data from Italy was encouraging. Still, he emphasized that more study was needed, and that patients should not be treated until the research was done.
In Demand
Despite the lack of proof, many patients are captivated by the idea that multiple sclerosis might turn out to be a vascular disease. They want to believe it can fixed with a relatively simply procedure, and they want to be tested and treated. Now.
These patients say they cannot afford to wait for research results because they will wind up in wheelchairs before the studies are done. Their only option so far has been a lifelong course of drugs with limited benefits and harsh side effects. To some, balloon treatment seems no riskier than those drugs.
Dr. Zamboni himself has said that the procedure should not yet be done outside of studies. He said in an interview that he was conducting research only and had turned down thousands of requests from people wanting to go to his clinic at the University of Ferrara.
t other doctors have set up shop. A clinic in India with a toll-free American phone number has an online advertisement for a “liberation package.” Patients are posting testimonial videos and trading tips on clinics in Bulgaria, Poland and Jordan.
In the United States, where many hospitals forbid experimental treatments outside of studies, a “back alley” network of doctors willing to perform the procedure has begun to develop, said Dr. Salvatore J. A. Sclafani, chairman of radiology at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. He said he knew of about a dozen. The doctors try to stay under the radar, and patients quietly pass their names to one another.
“It reminds me of abortion in 1968,” Dr. Sclafani said.
He said he had treated about 20 patients at Kings County Hospital before the hospital ordered him to stop in early April. He said he had a waiting list of 300 to 400 patients..
Meanwhile, researchers are trying to answer basic questions. On June 29, the team in Buffalo is to begin the first treatment study to include a control group. The controls will be given a sham procedure, and compared with others who get the real thing. Initially, 30 patients — only those with an early form of the disease — will be enrolled. Thousands of people applied.
The Multiple Sclerosis Societies in the United States and Canada will spend $2.4 million over the next two years on studies at seven centers. Researchers will study veins in patients with different stages of multiple sclerosis, in healthy people and in those with other neurological diseases. The studies will not test the balloon treatment, but are meant only to find out if the narrowings really exist, if they are related to the disease and if they are a cause or an effect.
Some patients complain that the society has been too slow to consider the new idea. A splinter group — the Reformed Multiple Sclerosis Society — has formed to increase the availability of the vein treatment.
Joyce Nelson, the president of the Multiple Sclerosis Society in the United States, said, “I wasn’t aware how thin the veneer was and how close to the surface the frustration was.”
"We can’t wait’ has resounded,” Ms. Nelson said. But she added, “There isn’t a way to rush the work that needs to be done.”
As the procedure has caught on in some places, few serious complications have been reported. But at Stanford University, a woman, 50, treated with stents (wire-mesh tubes used to hold blood vessels open) and blood-thinning drugs, died of a brain hemorrhage after returning home, and another patient needed heart surgery after a stent placed in a neck vein came loose and was swept into the heart. The procedures were stopped.
Dr. Michael Dake, who treated the patients, declined several requests for an interview, but said by e-mail that he hoped to discuss “a number of exciting developments” about the procedure “in the near future.”
Dr. Philip Pizzo, the dean of Stanford’s medical school, said the vein theory “deserves to be explored” — but only in studies. A study with a control group is being planned.
About 400,000 people in the United States have multiple sclerosis; worldwide, there are 2.1 million. (The disease is more common in temperate zones than in the tropics, and affects more women than men and more Caucasians than members of other groups.) It usually begins in young adults, with fatigue, vision problems, numbness, bladder trouble and difficulty with walking, balance and coordination. The disease eats away a fatty substance, myelin, that coats nerves, and gradually scars the nerves. The damage is thought to occur because the immune system, for unknown reasons, mistakenly attacks myelin.
Most patients, 85 percent, start out with a form called relapsing-remitting. In about half of those the disease becomes progressive, harder to treat and more disabling. Ms. Raval, who is 38 and has had multiple sclerosis for 13 years, implored Dr. Simon to test her for narrowed veins and, if he found any, to open them.
Dr. Simon regularly uses balloons and stents to open bile ducts and blood vessels. He was impressed with Ms. Raval’s determination, her trove of information and her background. She has a degree in toxicology and works for a drug company. But he was also familiar with Dr. Zamboni’s work—and deeply skeptical of it.
“My initial take was, it doesn’t make any sense,” Dr. Simon said.
But Ms. Raval had high hopes. She said she believed that the balloon treatment would be “the next best thing to a cure.” The usual drugs have not worked for her. Her 5-year-old son is eagerly awaiting the day when she can run with him, but she is finding it harder and harder even to walk. Theory Born of Experience
Dr. Zamboni, 53, (no relation to the inventor of the ice-rink machine) began studying the medical literature on multiple sclerosis in 1995 when his wife learned she had the disease.
“What I found was like a detective story,” he said.
He discovered reports of vein abnormalities and of brain lesions forming around veins. But the research had been abandoned. Vein disorders are his specialty; he has been studying them for 25 years. He began using ultrasound and other imaging techniques to examine veins, and found narrowings in the neck and chest veins in people with the disease, but not in healthy ones. He suspected that abnormal blood flow and pressure in the veins— not just narrowing alone — might cause minute amounts of bleeding in the brain, leading to an immune reaction and inflammation that damaged myelin and nerves. Iron deposits could also form, and add to the damage. He wondered if opening the narrowed areas might help.
In 2006 he began using balloons to treat patients, including his wife, whose symptoms went away and, he says, have not come back. Other patients who, like his wife, had relapsing-remitting disease, also recovered fully, he said; but some did not respond at all. In those with progressive disease, fatigue improved, but not mobility problems, according to a pilot study he published in December in The Journal of Vascular Surgery. And in half the treated patients, the neck veins closed up again. The study did not have a control group, and the patients were also taking drugs to treat multiple sclerosis . More rigorous trials will start in Italy this summer, Dr. Zamboni said.
Another doctor, Marian Simka, who has been performing the procedure in Pszczyna, Poland, has reported that it has made symptoms worse in some patients..
Researchers in Buffalo have confirmed (but not yet published) that narrowed veins and abnormal blood flow are more common in people with multiple sclerosis. But, while Dr. Zamboni found them in all patients and no healthy people, the Buffalo team found them in about 60 percent of patients and 15 percent of healthy controls.
Granting a Patient’s Wish
Dr. Simon sensed that Ms. Raval would have no peace unless she could learn whether she had narrowed veins, and he wanted to help her.
So he offered to perform a test to find out, a venogram. It involves passing a tube into a vein in the groin and up to the neck and chest, and then injecting dye to take X-rays of the veins. He felt sure there would be no blockages.
“And then she would be able to stop obsessing over this and move on with her life and get some kind of conventional treatment,” he said.
But he was stunned to find narrowings, right where Dr. Zamboni’s theory predicted: in the jugular vein in the neck, and the azygous, a vein in the right side of the chest.
Ms. Raval was elated. She felt certain that opening up those veins would solve her problems. Dr. Simon agreed to try.
Although it was, technically, an experimental procedure, Dr. Simon said he did not have to ask his hospital for permission to perform it. The details were similar to other procedures that interventional radiologists do every day. It is not uncommon for them to take a device approved for one purpose and use it for another, like putting a bile-duct stent into a blood vessel — a practice called “off-label” use, which the Food and Drug Administration allows. Interventional radiology, Dr. Simon said, is an “off-label specialty” that depends on innovation and adaptability.
On March 24, as Ms. Raval lay on a padded table in a treatment room, Dr. Simon passed balloons to the pinched spots in her right jugular and azygous, and dilated them.
The procedure took less than an hour. In the recovery room, Ms. Raval said she felt better already.
Over the next days and weeks, she noticed remarkable improvements. Her fatigue went away. She walked and climbed stairs more easily, and the color in her face brightened. Her husband and co-workers saw the changes, too, she said.
Was it real, or just one giant, communal placebo effect? Ms. Raval posted exuberant Facebook messages naming her “most amazing doctor.” Other patients began calling Dr. Simon.
Within a month, Ms. Raval again had trouble walking. She felt sure her veins had closed again. Another venogram showed they had. Dr. Simon reopened them.
Ms. Raval felt better — and then deteriorated again. On June 18, another venogram, her fourth invasive procedure in three months, suggested that the narrowings had recurred. She struggled over what to do. She could not keep having balloon procedures again and again. Dr. Simon consulted Dr. Dake, his former mentor, who recommended stents.
Initially, Ms. Raval and Dr. Simon had thought stents too risky. Unlike balloons, which are inserted briefly and removed, stents are permanent. They can migrate to somewhere they do not belong, like the heart, as occurred in Dr. Dake’s patient. Or tissue growth can clog them.
But Dr. Simon and Ms. Raval could see no other option. On June 23, he implanted a stent in her two jugular veins.
“I really have a good feeling on this one,” Ms. Raval said a few hours after the procedure. “ I think this is the resolution, long-term. Let’s wait and see.”
In the meantime, Dr. Simon had conducted venograms on about 20 other patients with multiple sclerosis. He found narrowed veins in all but one. He said he was going to ask the hospital’s ethics panel for permission to perform balloon procedures in those patients. But the hospital would have to figure out how to get paid: insurance might cover venograms, but not an experimental treatment. The total charge for the procedure, including both hospital and doctor fees, would be about $10,000, Dr. Simon said.
He and his partner, Dr. Noam Eshkar, said they knew many researchers thought patients should not be given unproven treatments outside of clinical trials. They said they did not disagree. But they also sympathized with patients who had progressive diseases and who felt they did not have the time to wait. “In the real world,” Dr. Eshkar said, “things happen at the edge of scientific proof.”
For her first appointment with Dr. Daniel Simon, Neelima Raval showed up with a rolling file cabinet full of documents. She had downloaded every word written by or about Dr. Paolo Zamboni, a vascular surgeon from Italy with a most unorthodox theory about multiple sclerosis.
Dr. Zamboni believes that the disease, which damages the nervous system, may be caused by narrowed veins in the neck and chest that block the drainage of blood from the brain. He has reported in medical journals that opening those veins with the kind of balloons used to treat blocked heart arteries—an experimental treatment he calls the “liberation procedure”— can relieve symptoms.
The idea is a radical departure from the conventional belief that multiple sclerosis is caused by a malfunctioning immune system and inflammation.
The new theory has taken off on the Internet, inspiring hope among patients, interest from some researchers and scorn from others. Supporters consider it an outside-the-box idea that could transform the treatment of the disease. Critics call it an outlandish notion that will probably waste time and money, and may harm patients.
These critics warn that multiple sclerosis has unpredictable attacks and remissions that make it devilishly hard to know whether treatments are working — leaving patients vulnerable to purported “cures” that do not work.
The controversy has exposed the deep frustration of many people with this incurable, disabling disease, who feel that research has let them down. It is a case study in the power of the Internet to inform and unite angry patients—which may be a double-edged sword. Pressure from activists helped persuade the Multiple Sclerosis Society to pay for studies of Dr. Zamboni’s theory, but the Internet buzz has also created an avid market for a therapy that is still unproved.
“It’s eye-opening the way this group of patients has grabbed hold of the social-networking technology,” said Dr. Simon, an interventional radiologist at JFK Medical Center in Edison, N.J. “They’ve taken this to a level I’ve not seen in other patients. Patients used to read an article or two. Now, they’re actually seeing procedures on YouTube. Is this the future of medicine?”
Scientifically, the jury is out: Dr. Zamboni’s hypothesis is being studied. It is not known whether narrowed veins are more common in people with multiple sclerosis than in others, and even if they are, whether the narrowings are a cause, or an effect, of the disease. There is no solid proof that opening the veins can help. There have been no studies with control groups — the only way to find out whether a treatment works.
“In my view the evidence is quite scanty and the biological plausibility is low,” said Dr. Stephen L. Hauser, the chairman of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. Many neurologists agree. Dr. Hauser said there was much stronger evidence that the disease arose from genetic variations affecting the immune system.
But Dr. Adnan H. Siddiqui, part of a team at the University at Buffalo that has been studying Dr. Zamboni’s theory, said that it made sense and that the data from Italy was encouraging. Still, he emphasized that more study was needed, and that patients should not be treated until the research was done.
In Demand
Despite the lack of proof, many patients are captivated by the idea that multiple sclerosis might turn out to be a vascular disease. They want to believe it can fixed with a relatively simply procedure, and they want to be tested and treated. Now.
These patients say they cannot afford to wait for research results because they will wind up in wheelchairs before the studies are done. Their only option so far has been a lifelong course of drugs with limited benefits and harsh side effects. To some, balloon treatment seems no riskier than those drugs.
Dr. Zamboni himself has said that the procedure should not yet be done outside of studies. He said in an interview that he was conducting research only and had turned down thousands of requests from people wanting to go to his clinic at the University of Ferrara.
t other doctors have set up shop. A clinic in India with a toll-free American phone number has an online advertisement for a “liberation package.” Patients are posting testimonial videos and trading tips on clinics in Bulgaria, Poland and Jordan.
In the United States, where many hospitals forbid experimental treatments outside of studies, a “back alley” network of doctors willing to perform the procedure has begun to develop, said Dr. Salvatore J. A. Sclafani, chairman of radiology at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. He said he knew of about a dozen. The doctors try to stay under the radar, and patients quietly pass their names to one another.
“It reminds me of abortion in 1968,” Dr. Sclafani said.
He said he had treated about 20 patients at Kings County Hospital before the hospital ordered him to stop in early April. He said he had a waiting list of 300 to 400 patients..
Meanwhile, researchers are trying to answer basic questions. On June 29, the team in Buffalo is to begin the first treatment study to include a control group. The controls will be given a sham procedure, and compared with others who get the real thing. Initially, 30 patients — only those with an early form of the disease — will be enrolled. Thousands of people applied.
The Multiple Sclerosis Societies in the United States and Canada will spend $2.4 million over the next two years on studies at seven centers. Researchers will study veins in patients with different stages of multiple sclerosis, in healthy people and in those with other neurological diseases. The studies will not test the balloon treatment, but are meant only to find out if the narrowings really exist, if they are related to the disease and if they are a cause or an effect.
Some patients complain that the society has been too slow to consider the new idea. A splinter group — the Reformed Multiple Sclerosis Society — has formed to increase the availability of the vein treatment.
Joyce Nelson, the president of the Multiple Sclerosis Society in the United States, said, “I wasn’t aware how thin the veneer was and how close to the surface the frustration was.”
"We can’t wait’ has resounded,” Ms. Nelson said. But she added, “There isn’t a way to rush the work that needs to be done.”
As the procedure has caught on in some places, few serious complications have been reported. But at Stanford University, a woman, 50, treated with stents (wire-mesh tubes used to hold blood vessels open) and blood-thinning drugs, died of a brain hemorrhage after returning home, and another patient needed heart surgery after a stent placed in a neck vein came loose and was swept into the heart. The procedures were stopped.
Dr. Michael Dake, who treated the patients, declined several requests for an interview, but said by e-mail that he hoped to discuss “a number of exciting developments” about the procedure “in the near future.”
Dr. Philip Pizzo, the dean of Stanford’s medical school, said the vein theory “deserves to be explored” — but only in studies. A study with a control group is being planned.
About 400,000 people in the United States have multiple sclerosis; worldwide, there are 2.1 million. (The disease is more common in temperate zones than in the tropics, and affects more women than men and more Caucasians than members of other groups.) It usually begins in young adults, with fatigue, vision problems, numbness, bladder trouble and difficulty with walking, balance and coordination. The disease eats away a fatty substance, myelin, that coats nerves, and gradually scars the nerves. The damage is thought to occur because the immune system, for unknown reasons, mistakenly attacks myelin.
Most patients, 85 percent, start out with a form called relapsing-remitting. In about half of those the disease becomes progressive, harder to treat and more disabling. Ms. Raval, who is 38 and has had multiple sclerosis for 13 years, implored Dr. Simon to test her for narrowed veins and, if he found any, to open them.
Dr. Simon regularly uses balloons and stents to open bile ducts and blood vessels. He was impressed with Ms. Raval’s determination, her trove of information and her background. She has a degree in toxicology and works for a drug company. But he was also familiar with Dr. Zamboni’s work—and deeply skeptical of it.
“My initial take was, it doesn’t make any sense,” Dr. Simon said.
But Ms. Raval had high hopes. She said she believed that the balloon treatment would be “the next best thing to a cure.” The usual drugs have not worked for her. Her 5-year-old son is eagerly awaiting the day when she can run with him, but she is finding it harder and harder even to walk. Theory Born of Experience
Dr. Zamboni, 53, (no relation to the inventor of the ice-rink machine) began studying the medical literature on multiple sclerosis in 1995 when his wife learned she had the disease.
“What I found was like a detective story,” he said.
He discovered reports of vein abnormalities and of brain lesions forming around veins. But the research had been abandoned. Vein disorders are his specialty; he has been studying them for 25 years. He began using ultrasound and other imaging techniques to examine veins, and found narrowings in the neck and chest veins in people with the disease, but not in healthy ones. He suspected that abnormal blood flow and pressure in the veins— not just narrowing alone — might cause minute amounts of bleeding in the brain, leading to an immune reaction and inflammation that damaged myelin and nerves. Iron deposits could also form, and add to the damage. He wondered if opening the narrowed areas might help.
In 2006 he began using balloons to treat patients, including his wife, whose symptoms went away and, he says, have not come back. Other patients who, like his wife, had relapsing-remitting disease, also recovered fully, he said; but some did not respond at all. In those with progressive disease, fatigue improved, but not mobility problems, according to a pilot study he published in December in The Journal of Vascular Surgery. And in half the treated patients, the neck veins closed up again. The study did not have a control group, and the patients were also taking drugs to treat multiple sclerosis . More rigorous trials will start in Italy this summer, Dr. Zamboni said.
Another doctor, Marian Simka, who has been performing the procedure in Pszczyna, Poland, has reported that it has made symptoms worse in some patients..
Researchers in Buffalo have confirmed (but not yet published) that narrowed veins and abnormal blood flow are more common in people with multiple sclerosis. But, while Dr. Zamboni found them in all patients and no healthy people, the Buffalo team found them in about 60 percent of patients and 15 percent of healthy controls.
Granting a Patient’s Wish
Dr. Simon sensed that Ms. Raval would have no peace unless she could learn whether she had narrowed veins, and he wanted to help her.
So he offered to perform a test to find out, a venogram. It involves passing a tube into a vein in the groin and up to the neck and chest, and then injecting dye to take X-rays of the veins. He felt sure there would be no blockages.
“And then she would be able to stop obsessing over this and move on with her life and get some kind of conventional treatment,” he said.
But he was stunned to find narrowings, right where Dr. Zamboni’s theory predicted: in the jugular vein in the neck, and the azygous, a vein in the right side of the chest.
Ms. Raval was elated. She felt certain that opening up those veins would solve her problems. Dr. Simon agreed to try.
Although it was, technically, an experimental procedure, Dr. Simon said he did not have to ask his hospital for permission to perform it. The details were similar to other procedures that interventional radiologists do every day. It is not uncommon for them to take a device approved for one purpose and use it for another, like putting a bile-duct stent into a blood vessel — a practice called “off-label” use, which the Food and Drug Administration allows. Interventional radiology, Dr. Simon said, is an “off-label specialty” that depends on innovation and adaptability.
On March 24, as Ms. Raval lay on a padded table in a treatment room, Dr. Simon passed balloons to the pinched spots in her right jugular and azygous, and dilated them.
The procedure took less than an hour. In the recovery room, Ms. Raval said she felt better already.
Over the next days and weeks, she noticed remarkable improvements. Her fatigue went away. She walked and climbed stairs more easily, and the color in her face brightened. Her husband and co-workers saw the changes, too, she said.
Was it real, or just one giant, communal placebo effect? Ms. Raval posted exuberant Facebook messages naming her “most amazing doctor.” Other patients began calling Dr. Simon.
Within a month, Ms. Raval again had trouble walking. She felt sure her veins had closed again. Another venogram showed they had. Dr. Simon reopened them.
Ms. Raval felt better — and then deteriorated again. On June 18, another venogram, her fourth invasive procedure in three months, suggested that the narrowings had recurred. She struggled over what to do. She could not keep having balloon procedures again and again. Dr. Simon consulted Dr. Dake, his former mentor, who recommended stents.
Initially, Ms. Raval and Dr. Simon had thought stents too risky. Unlike balloons, which are inserted briefly and removed, stents are permanent. They can migrate to somewhere they do not belong, like the heart, as occurred in Dr. Dake’s patient. Or tissue growth can clog them.
But Dr. Simon and Ms. Raval could see no other option. On June 23, he implanted a stent in her two jugular veins.
“I really have a good feeling on this one,” Ms. Raval said a few hours after the procedure. “ I think this is the resolution, long-term. Let’s wait and see.”
In the meantime, Dr. Simon had conducted venograms on about 20 other patients with multiple sclerosis. He found narrowed veins in all but one. He said he was going to ask the hospital’s ethics panel for permission to perform balloon procedures in those patients. But the hospital would have to figure out how to get paid: insurance might cover venograms, but not an experimental treatment. The total charge for the procedure, including both hospital and doctor fees, would be about $10,000, Dr. Simon said.
He and his partner, Dr. Noam Eshkar, said they knew many researchers thought patients should not be given unproven treatments outside of clinical trials. They said they did not disagree. But they also sympathized with patients who had progressive diseases and who felt they did not have the time to wait. “In the real world,” Dr. Eshkar said, “things happen at the edge of scientific proof.”
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Self-knowledge cannot be gathered through anybody
by Krishnamurti
That is why it is important, as I said, to understand the process, the ways of our own thinking. Self-knowledge cannot be gathered through anybody, through any book, through any confession, psychology, or psychoanalyst. It has to be found by yourself, because it is your life; and without the widening and deepening of that knowledge of the self, do what you will, alter any outward or inward circumstances, influences - it will ever be a breeding ground of despair, pain, sorrow. To go beyond the self-enclosing activities of the mind, you must understand them; and to understand them is to be aware of action in relationship, relationship to things, to people, and to ideas. In that relationship, which is the mirror, we begin to see ourselves, without any justification or condemnation; and from that wider and deeper knowledge of the ways of our own mind, it is possible to proceed further; then it is possible for the mind to be quiet, to receive that which is real. - Ojai 4th Public Talk 24th July 1949 Collected Works, Volume 4
That is why it is important, as I said, to understand the process, the ways of our own thinking. Self-knowledge cannot be gathered through anybody, through any book, through any confession, psychology, or psychoanalyst. It has to be found by yourself, because it is your life; and without the widening and deepening of that knowledge of the self, do what you will, alter any outward or inward circumstances, influences - it will ever be a breeding ground of despair, pain, sorrow. To go beyond the self-enclosing activities of the mind, you must understand them; and to understand them is to be aware of action in relationship, relationship to things, to people, and to ideas. In that relationship, which is the mirror, we begin to see ourselves, without any justification or condemnation; and from that wider and deeper knowledge of the ways of our own mind, it is possible to proceed further; then it is possible for the mind to be quiet, to receive that which is real. - Ojai 4th Public Talk 24th July 1949 Collected Works, Volume 4
Knowledge is an impediment to experiencing
by Krishnamurti
It is odd what importance we give to the printed word, to so-called sacred books. The scholars, as the laymen, are gramophones; they go on repeating, however often the records may be changed. They are concerned with knowledge, and not with experiencing. Knowledge is an impediment to experiencing. But knowledge is a safe haven, the preserve of a few; and as the ignorant are impressed by knowledge, the knower is respected and honoured. Knowledge is an addiction, as drink; knowledge does not bring understanding. Knowledge can be taught, but not wisdom; there must be freedom from knowledge for the coming of wisdom. Knowledge is not the coin for the purchase of wisdom; but the man who has entered the refuge of knowledge does not venture out, for the word feeds his thought and he is gratified with thinking. Thinking is an impediment to experiencing; and there is no wisdom without experiencing. Knowledge, idea, belief, stand in the way of wisdom. An occupied mind is not free, spontaneous, and only in spontaneity can there be discovery. An occupied mind is self-enclosing; it is unapproachable, not vulnerable, and therein lies its security. Thought, by its very structure, is self-isolating; it cannot be made vulnerable. Thought cannot be spontaneous, it can never be free. Thought is the continuation of the past, and that which continues cannot be free. There is freedom only in ending. An occupied mind creates what it is working on. It can turn out the bullock cart or the jet plane. We can think we are stupid, and we are stupid. We can think we are God, and we are our own conception: "I am That." "But surely it is better to be occupied with the things of God than with the things of the world, is it not?" What we think, we are; but it is the understanding of the process of thought that is important. - Commentaries on Living Series I
It is odd what importance we give to the printed word, to so-called sacred books. The scholars, as the laymen, are gramophones; they go on repeating, however often the records may be changed. They are concerned with knowledge, and not with experiencing. Knowledge is an impediment to experiencing. But knowledge is a safe haven, the preserve of a few; and as the ignorant are impressed by knowledge, the knower is respected and honoured. Knowledge is an addiction, as drink; knowledge does not bring understanding. Knowledge can be taught, but not wisdom; there must be freedom from knowledge for the coming of wisdom. Knowledge is not the coin for the purchase of wisdom; but the man who has entered the refuge of knowledge does not venture out, for the word feeds his thought and he is gratified with thinking. Thinking is an impediment to experiencing; and there is no wisdom without experiencing. Knowledge, idea, belief, stand in the way of wisdom. An occupied mind is not free, spontaneous, and only in spontaneity can there be discovery. An occupied mind is self-enclosing; it is unapproachable, not vulnerable, and therein lies its security. Thought, by its very structure, is self-isolating; it cannot be made vulnerable. Thought cannot be spontaneous, it can never be free. Thought is the continuation of the past, and that which continues cannot be free. There is freedom only in ending. An occupied mind creates what it is working on. It can turn out the bullock cart or the jet plane. We can think we are stupid, and we are stupid. We can think we are God, and we are our own conception: "I am That." "But surely it is better to be occupied with the things of God than with the things of the world, is it not?" What we think, we are; but it is the understanding of the process of thought that is important. - Commentaries on Living Series I
Desire is always there like a flame, burning.
by Krishnamurti
Desire, which has been the driving force in man, has created a great many pleasant and useful things; desire also, in man's relationships, has created a great many problems and turmoil and misery - the desire for pleasure. The monks and the sannyasis of the world have tried to go beyond it, have forced themselves to worship an ideal, an image, a symbol. But desire is always there like a flame, burning. And to find out, to probe into the nature of desire, the complexity of desire, its activities, its demands, its fulfilments - ever more and more desire for power, position, prestige, status, the desire for the unnameable, that which is beyond all our daily life - has made man do all kinds of ugly and brutal things. Desire is the outcome of sensation the outcome with all the images that thought has built. And this desire not only breeds discontent but a sense of hopelessness. Never suppress it, never discipline it but probe into the nature of it - what is the origin, the purpose, the intricacies of it? To delve deep into it is not another desire, for it has no motive; it is like understanding the beauty of a flower, to sit down beside it and look at it. And as you look it begins to reveal itself as it actually is - the extraordinarily delicate colour, the perfume, the petals, the stem and the earth out of which it has grown. So look at this desire and its nature without thought which is always shaping sensations, pleasure and pain, reward and punishment. Then one understands, not verbally, nor intellectually, the whole causation of desire, the root of desire. The very perception of it, the subtle perception of it, that in itself is intelligence. And that intelligence will always act sanely and rationally in dealing with desire.
Desire, which has been the driving force in man, has created a great many pleasant and useful things; desire also, in man's relationships, has created a great many problems and turmoil and misery - the desire for pleasure. The monks and the sannyasis of the world have tried to go beyond it, have forced themselves to worship an ideal, an image, a symbol. But desire is always there like a flame, burning. And to find out, to probe into the nature of desire, the complexity of desire, its activities, its demands, its fulfilments - ever more and more desire for power, position, prestige, status, the desire for the unnameable, that which is beyond all our daily life - has made man do all kinds of ugly and brutal things. Desire is the outcome of sensation the outcome with all the images that thought has built. And this desire not only breeds discontent but a sense of hopelessness. Never suppress it, never discipline it but probe into the nature of it - what is the origin, the purpose, the intricacies of it? To delve deep into it is not another desire, for it has no motive; it is like understanding the beauty of a flower, to sit down beside it and look at it. And as you look it begins to reveal itself as it actually is - the extraordinarily delicate colour, the perfume, the petals, the stem and the earth out of which it has grown. So look at this desire and its nature without thought which is always shaping sensations, pleasure and pain, reward and punishment. Then one understands, not verbally, nor intellectually, the whole causation of desire, the root of desire. The very perception of it, the subtle perception of it, that in itself is intelligence. And that intelligence will always act sanely and rationally in dealing with desire.
What do we mean by freedom?
by Krishnamurti
Everywhere there is a compelling environmental influence. Newspapers tell us what to think, and there are so many five, ten or fifteen-year plans. Then there are these specialists at the economic, scientific and bureaucratic levels; there are all the traditions of everyday activity, what we must do and what we must not do; then there is the whole influence of the so-called sacred books; and there is the cinema, the radio, the newspaper; everything in the world is trying to tell us what to do, what to think and what not to think. I do not know if you have noticed how increasingly difficult it has become to think for oneself. We have become such experts in quoting what other people say, or have said, and in the midst of this authoritarian welter where is the freedom? And what do we mean by freedom? Is there such a thing? I am using that word freedom in its most simple sense in which is included liberation, the mind that is liberated, free. I want, if I may, to go into that. First, I think we must realize that our minds are really not free. Everything we see, every thought we have, shapes our mind; whatever you think now, whatever you have thought in the past and whatever you are going to think in the future, it all shapes the mind. You think what you have been told either by the religious person, or the politician, by the teacher in your school, or by books and newspapers. Everything about you influences what you think. What you eat, what you look at, what you listen to, your wife, your husband, your child, your neighbour, everything is shaping the mind. I think that is fairly obvious. Even when you think that there is a God or that there is no God, that also is the influence of tradition. So our mind is the field in which there are many contradictory influences which are in battle one against the other. - Poona 5th Public Talk 21st September 1958 The Krishnamurti Text Collection
Everywhere there is a compelling environmental influence. Newspapers tell us what to think, and there are so many five, ten or fifteen-year plans. Then there are these specialists at the economic, scientific and bureaucratic levels; there are all the traditions of everyday activity, what we must do and what we must not do; then there is the whole influence of the so-called sacred books; and there is the cinema, the radio, the newspaper; everything in the world is trying to tell us what to do, what to think and what not to think. I do not know if you have noticed how increasingly difficult it has become to think for oneself. We have become such experts in quoting what other people say, or have said, and in the midst of this authoritarian welter where is the freedom? And what do we mean by freedom? Is there such a thing? I am using that word freedom in its most simple sense in which is included liberation, the mind that is liberated, free. I want, if I may, to go into that. First, I think we must realize that our minds are really not free. Everything we see, every thought we have, shapes our mind; whatever you think now, whatever you have thought in the past and whatever you are going to think in the future, it all shapes the mind. You think what you have been told either by the religious person, or the politician, by the teacher in your school, or by books and newspapers. Everything about you influences what you think. What you eat, what you look at, what you listen to, your wife, your husband, your child, your neighbour, everything is shaping the mind. I think that is fairly obvious. Even when you think that there is a God or that there is no God, that also is the influence of tradition. So our mind is the field in which there are many contradictory influences which are in battle one against the other. - Poona 5th Public Talk 21st September 1958 The Krishnamurti Text Collection
What is Wisdom? Experts Define It
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/188170.php
Compassion. Self-understanding. Morality. Emotional stability. These words would seem to describe at least some of the universal traits attributed to wisdom, each of them broadly recognized and valued. In fact, there is no enduring, consistent definition of what it means exactly to be wise. It is a virtue widely treasured but essentially unexplained, a timeless subject only now attracting rigorous, scientific scrutiny.
In 2009, Dilip V. Jeste, MD, and Thomas W. Meeks, MD, both professors in the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego and researchers at the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, published a paper proposing that sagacity might have a neurobiological basis.
In other words, that wisdom is wired.
In the June issue of The Gerontologist and currently online, Jeste and Meeks go further, attempting to identify the central, unifying elements that define wisdom. With colleagues from four other universities, Jeste and Meeks asked a group of international experts to characterize the traits of wisdom, intelligence and spirituality - and measure how each trait is either similar to or different from the others.
"There are several major definitions of wisdom, but no single definition that is all-inclusive and embraces every important aspect of wisdom," said Jeste, who is the Estelle and Edgar Levi Chair in Aging, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience and chief of geriatric psychiatry at UC San Diego. "Intelligence and spirituality share features with wisdom, but they are not the same thing. One can be intelligent, yet lack practical knowledge. Spirituality is often associated with age, like wisdom, but most researchers tend to define wisdom in secular terms, not spiritual."
The research consisted of a two-part survey and a questionnaire comprised of 53 statements related to the concepts of wisdom, intelligence and spirituality. Fifty-seven experts were identified and contacted by email; 30 responded.
Phase 1 of the survey revealed significant group differences among the concepts on 49 of 53 statements. Wisdom differed from intelligence on 46 of 49 items, and from spirituality on 31 items.
In Phase 2, the definition of wisdom was further refined by focusing upon 12 items from the Phase 1 results. Most of the experts, Jeste and Meeks said, agreed that wisdom could be characterized thus:
It is uniquely human.
It is a form of advanced cognitive and emotional development that is experience-driven.
It is a personal quality, albeit rare.
It can be learned, increases with age and can be measured.
It is probably not enhanced by taking medication.
The survey was conducted using the Delphi method, developed by the RAND Corporation in the 1950s and based on the principle that forecasts from a structured group of experts are more accurate than those from unstructured groups or individuals. The paper's authors identified 60 recognized experts on wisdom in the world, focusing upon those outside their own institutions. The nominees were required to have at least two peer-reviewed publications on wisdom or spirituality, though the number of total publications was not the sole criterion for selection.
The survey asked participating experts to rate the relevance and importance of six statements (i.e. "The concept can be applied to human beings."), based upon their knowledge of empirical evidence, to the concepts of intelligence, wisdom and spirituality. The rating scale ranged from 1 (definitely not) to 9 (definitely so). The experts were then asked to rate the importance of 47 components, such as altruism, practical life skills, sense of humor, realism, willingness to forgive others and self-esteem, to the concepts of wisdom, intelligence and spirituality.
"One survey, of course, cannot fully and completely define wisdom," said Jeste. "The value here is that there was considerable agreement among experts that wisdom is indeed a distinct entity with a number of characteristic qualities. The data from our research should help in designing future empirical studies on wisdom."
Co-authors of the paper, with Jeste and Meeks, were Monika Ardelt, PhD, of the department of sociology and criminology & law at the University of Florida, Gainesville; Dan Blazer, MD, PhD, MPH, of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University in Durham, N.C.; Helena C. Kraemer, PhD, of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Ca.; and George Vaillant, MD, of the department of psychiatry at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass.
Compassion. Self-understanding. Morality. Emotional stability. These words would seem to describe at least some of the universal traits attributed to wisdom, each of them broadly recognized and valued. In fact, there is no enduring, consistent definition of what it means exactly to be wise. It is a virtue widely treasured but essentially unexplained, a timeless subject only now attracting rigorous, scientific scrutiny.
In 2009, Dilip V. Jeste, MD, and Thomas W. Meeks, MD, both professors in the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego and researchers at the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, published a paper proposing that sagacity might have a neurobiological basis.
In other words, that wisdom is wired.
In the June issue of The Gerontologist and currently online, Jeste and Meeks go further, attempting to identify the central, unifying elements that define wisdom. With colleagues from four other universities, Jeste and Meeks asked a group of international experts to characterize the traits of wisdom, intelligence and spirituality - and measure how each trait is either similar to or different from the others.
"There are several major definitions of wisdom, but no single definition that is all-inclusive and embraces every important aspect of wisdom," said Jeste, who is the Estelle and Edgar Levi Chair in Aging, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience and chief of geriatric psychiatry at UC San Diego. "Intelligence and spirituality share features with wisdom, but they are not the same thing. One can be intelligent, yet lack practical knowledge. Spirituality is often associated with age, like wisdom, but most researchers tend to define wisdom in secular terms, not spiritual."
The research consisted of a two-part survey and a questionnaire comprised of 53 statements related to the concepts of wisdom, intelligence and spirituality. Fifty-seven experts were identified and contacted by email; 30 responded.
Phase 1 of the survey revealed significant group differences among the concepts on 49 of 53 statements. Wisdom differed from intelligence on 46 of 49 items, and from spirituality on 31 items.
In Phase 2, the definition of wisdom was further refined by focusing upon 12 items from the Phase 1 results. Most of the experts, Jeste and Meeks said, agreed that wisdom could be characterized thus:
It is uniquely human.
It is a form of advanced cognitive and emotional development that is experience-driven.
It is a personal quality, albeit rare.
It can be learned, increases with age and can be measured.
It is probably not enhanced by taking medication.
The survey was conducted using the Delphi method, developed by the RAND Corporation in the 1950s and based on the principle that forecasts from a structured group of experts are more accurate than those from unstructured groups or individuals. The paper's authors identified 60 recognized experts on wisdom in the world, focusing upon those outside their own institutions. The nominees were required to have at least two peer-reviewed publications on wisdom or spirituality, though the number of total publications was not the sole criterion for selection.
The survey asked participating experts to rate the relevance and importance of six statements (i.e. "The concept can be applied to human beings."), based upon their knowledge of empirical evidence, to the concepts of intelligence, wisdom and spirituality. The rating scale ranged from 1 (definitely not) to 9 (definitely so). The experts were then asked to rate the importance of 47 components, such as altruism, practical life skills, sense of humor, realism, willingness to forgive others and self-esteem, to the concepts of wisdom, intelligence and spirituality.
"One survey, of course, cannot fully and completely define wisdom," said Jeste. "The value here is that there was considerable agreement among experts that wisdom is indeed a distinct entity with a number of characteristic qualities. The data from our research should help in designing future empirical studies on wisdom."
Co-authors of the paper, with Jeste and Meeks, were Monika Ardelt, PhD, of the department of sociology and criminology & law at the University of Florida, Gainesville; Dan Blazer, MD, PhD, MPH, of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University in Durham, N.C.; Helena C. Kraemer, PhD, of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Ca.; and George Vaillant, MD, of the department of psychiatry at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass.
articles about wisdom, from wisdom research network
Do you have a peer reviewed publication that you would like to share with members of the Wisdom Research Network? Email it to wisdomwebsite@uchicago.edu.
Collective Wisdom and Individual Freedom (2010) by Christopher McMahon, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 44, Issue S1, pg. 168 - 176. [go to publication]
Genes, Memes, and the Chinese Concept of Wen: Toward a Nature/Culture Model of Genetics (2010) by Leon de Kock, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 60, No. 2, pg. 167-186. [go to publication]
The Rehabilitation of Spontaneity: A New Approach in Philosophy of Action (2010) by Nicholas W. Simon, Candi L. LaSarge, Karienn S. Montgomery, Matthew T. Williams, Ian A. Mendez, Barry Setlow, Jennifer L. Bizon, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 60, No. 2, pg. 207-250. [go to publication]
Keeping Faith: Evolution and Theology (2010) by Jayna L. Ditty and Philip A. Rolnick, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Vol. 13, No. 2, pg. 132-152. [go to publication]
From Executive Mechanisms Underlying Perception and Action to the Parallel Processing of Meaning (2010) by Avraham D. Tabbach, Current Anthropology, Vol. 51, No. S1. [go to publication]
A Perspective on Epistemology and Ontology of Indian Psychology (2010) by Dharm P. S. Bhawuk, Psychology & Developing Societies, Vol. 22, No. 1, 157-190. [go to publication]
Epistemological Beliefs and Theory of Planned Behavior: Examining Beliefs about Knowledge and Knowing as Distal Predictors of Indonesian Tertiary Students’ Intention to Study (2010) by Gregory Arief D. Liem, Allan B. I. Bernardo, The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, Vol. 19, No. 1. [go to publication]
Problems of Other Minds: Solutions and Dissolutions in Analytic and Continental Philosophy (2010) by Jack Reynolds, Philosophy Compass, Vol. 5, Issue 4, pg. 326 - 335. [go to publication]
Wisdom and Numbers (2010) by Eerik Lagerspetz, Social Science Information, Vol. 49, No. 1, pg. 29-59. [go to publication]
Educational Wisdom of African Oral Literature: African Proverbs as Vehicles for Enhancing Critical Thinking Skills in Social Studies Education (2010) by Hunt Allcott and Sendhil Mullainathan, International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning, Vol. 5, Issue 3, pg. 59-69. [go to publication]
Weatherwiser? (2010) by Deborah Coen, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Vol. 40 Issue 1, pg. 125-135. [go to publication]
Collective Wisdom and Decision Making in Surgical Oncology (2010) by N Robson and D Rew, European Journal of Surgical Oncology, Vol. 38, pg. 230-6. [go to publication]
Lab Experiments for the Study of Social-Ecological Systems (2010) by Marco A. Janssen, Robert Holahan, Allen Lee, and Elinor Ostrom, Science, Vol. 328. No. 5978, pg. 613 - 617. [go to publication]
The Wisdom 2.0 Conference: Merging Wisdom and Technology. The Wisdom 2.0 Conference brings Technology leaders as well as people from varying wisdom traditions together in order to discuss the intersection of wisdom and technology...[go to article]
The Examined Life, Age 8. Children at a charter school in Springfield, Mass., discuss philosophical questions raised by undergraduate students from a near by college. The goal of this exercise is to engage the student in doing philosophy, rather than teaching them about another persons own philosophies...[go to article]
George Whitesides: Toward a Science of Simplicity. Simplicity: Much like wisdom, we know it when we see it -- but what is it, exactly? In this funny, philosophical TED talk, George Whitesides chisels out an answer...[go to article]
Wisdom: An Endangered Natural Resource. Being wise does not necessarily mean being knowledgeable; knowledge entails the memorization of facts, while wisdom comes from reflecting on and internalizing experiences...[go to article]
Review - Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions. This is a review of a book that discusses life and death, focusing on the pros and cons of the way we think of each (specifically of death)...[go to article]
What Is Your Place In The World? Judith Rich presents her thoughts on wisdom, knowledge and technology after attending this Wisdom 2.0 conference...[go to article]
New Study: Some Sciences Really Are Better Than Others. Berreby discusses the theory that there is a hierarchy of sciences, which suggests some are harder than others. The goal of science is to define reality; how does this hierarchy affect that?...[go to article]
Neurocriticism and Neurocapitalism. Rob Horning opposes the idea that literary criticism should surrender its subjective interpretations and adopt a scientific approach...[go to article]
Free, Tolerant, and Happy. To what extent is economic freedom associated with tolerance and happiness? Are freer nations also more tolerant? Are their residents happier than those of other nations?...[go to article]
Europe, Know Thyself: Social Science Solutions to the Biggest Problems. Demand is growing for the discipline's insights, but what does it need to meet it? Roderick Floud calls for tools to finish the job...[go to article]
Collective Wisdom and Individual Freedom (2010) by Christopher McMahon, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 44, Issue S1, pg. 168 - 176. [go to publication]
Genes, Memes, and the Chinese Concept of Wen: Toward a Nature/Culture Model of Genetics (2010) by Leon de Kock, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 60, No. 2, pg. 167-186. [go to publication]
The Rehabilitation of Spontaneity: A New Approach in Philosophy of Action (2010) by Nicholas W. Simon, Candi L. LaSarge, Karienn S. Montgomery, Matthew T. Williams, Ian A. Mendez, Barry Setlow, Jennifer L. Bizon, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 60, No. 2, pg. 207-250. [go to publication]
Keeping Faith: Evolution and Theology (2010) by Jayna L. Ditty and Philip A. Rolnick, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Vol. 13, No. 2, pg. 132-152. [go to publication]
From Executive Mechanisms Underlying Perception and Action to the Parallel Processing of Meaning (2010) by Avraham D. Tabbach, Current Anthropology, Vol. 51, No. S1. [go to publication]
A Perspective on Epistemology and Ontology of Indian Psychology (2010) by Dharm P. S. Bhawuk, Psychology & Developing Societies, Vol. 22, No. 1, 157-190. [go to publication]
Epistemological Beliefs and Theory of Planned Behavior: Examining Beliefs about Knowledge and Knowing as Distal Predictors of Indonesian Tertiary Students’ Intention to Study (2010) by Gregory Arief D. Liem, Allan B. I. Bernardo, The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, Vol. 19, No. 1. [go to publication]
Problems of Other Minds: Solutions and Dissolutions in Analytic and Continental Philosophy (2010) by Jack Reynolds, Philosophy Compass, Vol. 5, Issue 4, pg. 326 - 335. [go to publication]
Wisdom and Numbers (2010) by Eerik Lagerspetz, Social Science Information, Vol. 49, No. 1, pg. 29-59. [go to publication]
Educational Wisdom of African Oral Literature: African Proverbs as Vehicles for Enhancing Critical Thinking Skills in Social Studies Education (2010) by Hunt Allcott and Sendhil Mullainathan, International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning, Vol. 5, Issue 3, pg. 59-69. [go to publication]
Weatherwiser? (2010) by Deborah Coen, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Vol. 40 Issue 1, pg. 125-135. [go to publication]
Collective Wisdom and Decision Making in Surgical Oncology (2010) by N Robson and D Rew, European Journal of Surgical Oncology, Vol. 38, pg. 230-6. [go to publication]
Lab Experiments for the Study of Social-Ecological Systems (2010) by Marco A. Janssen, Robert Holahan, Allen Lee, and Elinor Ostrom, Science, Vol. 328. No. 5978, pg. 613 - 617. [go to publication]
The Wisdom 2.0 Conference: Merging Wisdom and Technology. The Wisdom 2.0 Conference brings Technology leaders as well as people from varying wisdom traditions together in order to discuss the intersection of wisdom and technology...[go to article]
The Examined Life, Age 8. Children at a charter school in Springfield, Mass., discuss philosophical questions raised by undergraduate students from a near by college. The goal of this exercise is to engage the student in doing philosophy, rather than teaching them about another persons own philosophies...[go to article]
George Whitesides: Toward a Science of Simplicity. Simplicity: Much like wisdom, we know it when we see it -- but what is it, exactly? In this funny, philosophical TED talk, George Whitesides chisels out an answer...[go to article]
Wisdom: An Endangered Natural Resource. Being wise does not necessarily mean being knowledgeable; knowledge entails the memorization of facts, while wisdom comes from reflecting on and internalizing experiences...[go to article]
Review - Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions. This is a review of a book that discusses life and death, focusing on the pros and cons of the way we think of each (specifically of death)...[go to article]
What Is Your Place In The World? Judith Rich presents her thoughts on wisdom, knowledge and technology after attending this Wisdom 2.0 conference...[go to article]
New Study: Some Sciences Really Are Better Than Others. Berreby discusses the theory that there is a hierarchy of sciences, which suggests some are harder than others. The goal of science is to define reality; how does this hierarchy affect that?...[go to article]
Neurocriticism and Neurocapitalism. Rob Horning opposes the idea that literary criticism should surrender its subjective interpretations and adopt a scientific approach...[go to article]
Free, Tolerant, and Happy. To what extent is economic freedom associated with tolerance and happiness? Are freer nations also more tolerant? Are their residents happier than those of other nations?...[go to article]
Europe, Know Thyself: Social Science Solutions to the Biggest Problems. Demand is growing for the discipline's insights, but what does it need to meet it? Roderick Floud calls for tools to finish the job...[go to article]
Maturity comes with understanding
by Krishnamurti
There is no essential difference between the old and the young, for both are slaves to their own desires and gratifications. Maturity is not a matter of age, it comes with understanding. The ardent spirit of inquiry is perhaps easier for the young, because those who are older have been battered about by life, conflicts have worn them out and death in different forms awaits them. This does not mean that they are incapable of purposive inquiry, but only that it is more difficult for them. Many adults are immature and rather childish, and this is a contributing cause of the confusion and misery in the world. It is the older people who are responsible for the prevailing economic and moral crisis; and one of our unfortunate weaknesses is that we want someone else to act for us and change the course of our lives. We wait for others to revolt and build anew, and we remain inactive until we are assured of the outcome. It is security and success that most of us are after; and a mind that is seeking security, that craves success, is not intelligent, and is therefore incapable of integrated action. There can be integrated action only if one is aware of one's own conditioning, of one's racial, national, political and religious prejudices; that is, only if one realizes that the ways of the self are ever separative. Life is a well of deep waters. One can come to it with small buckets and draw only a little water, or one can come with large vessels, drawing plentiful waters that will nourish and sustain. While one is young is the time to investigate, to experiment with everything. The school should help its young people to discover their vocations and responsibilities, and not merely cram their minds with facts and technical knowledge; it should be the soil in which they can grow without fear, happily and integrally. - Education and the Significance of Life Chapter 2 The Right Kind of Education
There is no essential difference between the old and the young, for both are slaves to their own desires and gratifications. Maturity is not a matter of age, it comes with understanding. The ardent spirit of inquiry is perhaps easier for the young, because those who are older have been battered about by life, conflicts have worn them out and death in different forms awaits them. This does not mean that they are incapable of purposive inquiry, but only that it is more difficult for them. Many adults are immature and rather childish, and this is a contributing cause of the confusion and misery in the world. It is the older people who are responsible for the prevailing economic and moral crisis; and one of our unfortunate weaknesses is that we want someone else to act for us and change the course of our lives. We wait for others to revolt and build anew, and we remain inactive until we are assured of the outcome. It is security and success that most of us are after; and a mind that is seeking security, that craves success, is not intelligent, and is therefore incapable of integrated action. There can be integrated action only if one is aware of one's own conditioning, of one's racial, national, political and religious prejudices; that is, only if one realizes that the ways of the self are ever separative. Life is a well of deep waters. One can come to it with small buckets and draw only a little water, or one can come with large vessels, drawing plentiful waters that will nourish and sustain. While one is young is the time to investigate, to experiment with everything. The school should help its young people to discover their vocations and responsibilities, and not merely cram their minds with facts and technical knowledge; it should be the soil in which they can grow without fear, happily and integrally. - Education and the Significance of Life Chapter 2 The Right Kind of Education
Whole Genomes on the Rise
By Tracy Vence
http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/whole-genomes-rise
Lupski participated in the 1986 Molecular Biology of Homo sapiens meeting at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, during which the initial discussions arose over whether researchers should sequence the entire human genome. Twenty-two years later, he was part of the team that deciphered the first personal genome sequence, that of the CSHL meeting organizer — and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA — James Watson. And now Lupski is the lead author on the first study ever to use next-generation whole-genome sequencing to identify the cause of a Mendelian disease: his own.
Lupski, a geneticist and pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine, and his colleagues opted to use a whole-genome sequencing approach — rather than a more directed -method, like exome sequencing — in their examination of the molecular basis of Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy.
"When we're dealing with a discovery situation, what we need to do is capture all variation," he says. "That includes not just single-nucleotide variation — a lot of which the genetic code can help us determine — but also copy-number variation."
Using the SOLiD platform, the team sequenced Lupski's genome to 30-fold coverage for around $50,000; they identified compound, heterozygous, causative alleles in SH3TC2, which they validated by genotyping nine family members.
"For 24 years we've tried to find my cause of CMT disease, and [we] have discovered the first copy number variant in this way," Lupski says. "The remarkable feat here [is] that the sequencing technology is clearly robust enough that, from the 3.5 million single nucleotide variants each one of us has ... one could actually dissect out the signal from the noise and find the alterations that appear to be responsible for the disease."
Lupski's team suggests that, with sequencing costs on a rapid decline, whole-genome sequencing could revolutionize diagnostics and eventually become a cost-effective way to screen for mutant alleles. "We'll be seeing this applied as a research tool more and more, and probably in cases that are clinical conundrums," Lupski says. "Certainly if [whole-genome sequencing costs] get down to about $1,000, which is probably the cost of your average MRI or CT scan."
Lupski says that his training as a pediatrician has, in a sense, distinguished his patient care mentality from that of those trained in internal medicine. "All adults are treated the same way — they even use the same doses for all medications in adults — whereas with children, we base [dosages] on their weight, age, and other things; we individualize," he says. "Well, here you can individualize things right down to having some real knowledge of what your patient could be susceptible to."
Lupski concedes that it will take a lot of work to get to that point — "It's not going to happen overnight," he says — but suggests that a whole-genome sequencing approach could bring researchers closer to realizing the potential of personalized medicine. Though he doesn't think whole-genome sequencing will ever replace traditional diagnostics entirely, Lupski says that traditional and next-gen methodologies could be most effectively used in concert.
He adds that this study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, represents "the first time that whole-genome sequencing was used to really find the cause of a disease" and that "hopefully, we will see someday [that] we [can] go the other way around; we use whole-genome sequencing to see what you may be susceptible to ... to enable personalized genomic medicine to happen."
http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/whole-genomes-rise
Lupski participated in the 1986 Molecular Biology of Homo sapiens meeting at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, during which the initial discussions arose over whether researchers should sequence the entire human genome. Twenty-two years later, he was part of the team that deciphered the first personal genome sequence, that of the CSHL meeting organizer — and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA — James Watson. And now Lupski is the lead author on the first study ever to use next-generation whole-genome sequencing to identify the cause of a Mendelian disease: his own.
Lupski, a geneticist and pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine, and his colleagues opted to use a whole-genome sequencing approach — rather than a more directed -method, like exome sequencing — in their examination of the molecular basis of Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy.
"When we're dealing with a discovery situation, what we need to do is capture all variation," he says. "That includes not just single-nucleotide variation — a lot of which the genetic code can help us determine — but also copy-number variation."
Using the SOLiD platform, the team sequenced Lupski's genome to 30-fold coverage for around $50,000; they identified compound, heterozygous, causative alleles in SH3TC2, which they validated by genotyping nine family members.
"For 24 years we've tried to find my cause of CMT disease, and [we] have discovered the first copy number variant in this way," Lupski says. "The remarkable feat here [is] that the sequencing technology is clearly robust enough that, from the 3.5 million single nucleotide variants each one of us has ... one could actually dissect out the signal from the noise and find the alterations that appear to be responsible for the disease."
Lupski's team suggests that, with sequencing costs on a rapid decline, whole-genome sequencing could revolutionize diagnostics and eventually become a cost-effective way to screen for mutant alleles. "We'll be seeing this applied as a research tool more and more, and probably in cases that are clinical conundrums," Lupski says. "Certainly if [whole-genome sequencing costs] get down to about $1,000, which is probably the cost of your average MRI or CT scan."
Lupski says that his training as a pediatrician has, in a sense, distinguished his patient care mentality from that of those trained in internal medicine. "All adults are treated the same way — they even use the same doses for all medications in adults — whereas with children, we base [dosages] on their weight, age, and other things; we individualize," he says. "Well, here you can individualize things right down to having some real knowledge of what your patient could be susceptible to."
Lupski concedes that it will take a lot of work to get to that point — "It's not going to happen overnight," he says — but suggests that a whole-genome sequencing approach could bring researchers closer to realizing the potential of personalized medicine. Though he doesn't think whole-genome sequencing will ever replace traditional diagnostics entirely, Lupski says that traditional and next-gen methodologies could be most effectively used in concert.
He adds that this study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, represents "the first time that whole-genome sequencing was used to really find the cause of a disease" and that "hopefully, we will see someday [that] we [can] go the other way around; we use whole-genome sequencing to see what you may be susceptible to ... to enable personalized genomic medicine to happen."
Self-esteem by Krishnamurti
We all place ourselves at various levels, and we are constantly falling from these heights. It is the falls we are ashamed of. Self-esteem is the cause of our shame, of our fall. It is this self-esteem that must be understood, and not the fall. If there is no pedestal on which you have put yourself, how can there be any fall? Why have you put yourself on a pedestal called self-esteem, human dignity, the ideal, and so on? If you can understand this, then there will be no shame of the past; it will have completely gone. You will be what you are without the pedestal. If the pedestal is not there, the height that makes you look down or look up, then you are what you have always avoided. It is this avoidance of what is, of what you are, that brings about confusion and antagonism, shame and resentment. You do not have to tell me or another what you are, but be aware of what you are, whatever it is, pleasant or unpleasant: live with it without justifying or resisting it. Live with it without naming it; for the very term is a condemnation or an identification. Live with it without fear, for fear prevents communion, and without communion you cannot live with it. To be in communion is to love. Without love, you cannot wipe out the past; with love, there is no past. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 57, Self-Esteem
What is religion? from Dalai Lama
The best religion is the one that gets you closet to God. It is the one that makes you a better person.
whatever makes you
What really is important if your behavior in front of your peers, family, work, community, and in front of the world. The universe is the echo of our actions and our thoughts. The law of action and reaction is not exclusively for physics. It is also of human relations. If I act with goodness, I will receive goodness. If I act with evil, I will get evil. You will always have what you desire for others. Being happy is not a matter of destiny. It is a matter of options.
whatever makes you
- more compassionate
- more sensible
- more detached
- more loving
- more humanitarian
- more responsible
- more ethical
What really is important if your behavior in front of your peers, family, work, community, and in front of the world. The universe is the echo of our actions and our thoughts. The law of action and reaction is not exclusively for physics. It is also of human relations. If I act with goodness, I will receive goodness. If I act with evil, I will get evil. You will always have what you desire for others. Being happy is not a matter of destiny. It is a matter of options.
- Take care of your thoughts because they become words
- Take care of your words because they will become actions
- Take care of your actions because they will become habits
- Take care of your habits becasue they will form your character
- Take care of your character because it will form your destiny and your destiny will be your life
New educational resources on law against genetic discrimination now available
(from Genetics and Public Policy Center)
With genetic testing becoming increasingly pervasive in medical care and our daily lives, three of the most prominent organizations in genetics - the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University, the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics, and Genetic Alliance - have teamed up to produce educational materials about the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), a landmark federal law that protects individuals from the misuse of genetic information in health insurance and employment.
Enacted in 2008 after 13 years of debate in Congress, GINA limits health insurers from using a person's genetic information to set eligibility requirements, or establish premium or contribution amounts. The law also prohibits employers from using genetic information in decisions about hiring, firing, job assignments or promotions.
"Almost every day, our center is asked for more detailed information about what GINA means," said Joan Scott, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center. "These targeted materials will go a long way towards answering the questions that still exist, paving the way for successful, long-term implementation of this important law."
The user-friendly materials will help health-care providers and members of the public understand their rights and responsibilities under the law and provide essential information about its details. The documents are also clear about what GINA doesn't cover.
The public-oriented materials - including an interactive website, "GINA & You" information sheet, and slide set for advocacy organizations - are available, at http://www.GINAHelp. org, in the Genetic Alliance Resource Repository, and on Genetic Alliance's website, http://www.geneti calliance.org. The website also includes a history of GINA's long struggle and passage.
"The public has waited a long time for these protections, and by providing this information as a resource we are helping individuals become informed consumers of genetic services," said Sharon Terry, president and CEO of Genetic Alliance.
The materials for health-care providers include background documents, a discussion guide suggesting how and when to talk about GINA with patients, a teaching slide set, and case studies that describe how the law works in a variety of real-world, clinical settings. These materials are available on the website for the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (NCHPEG), at http://www.nchpeg.org.
"We've heard many questions already from health- care providers about the specifics of GINA," said Joseph McInerney, NCHPEG's executive director. "Especially as genetic testing becomes more common and the value of family history more apparent, there's a real need for these materials to reassure providers and patients alike that GINA supports excellent clinical care."
The Genetics and Public Policy Center (GPPC), part of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, will have all of the materials on its website, at http://www.dnapolicy.o rg. The GPPC's site also includes FAQs and other fact sheets about GINA aimed at a general audience.
Development of the materials was supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Additional information:
Genetic Alliance: http://www.geneti calliance.org
Genetic Alliance is a national, nonprofit health dvocacy organization based in Washington, DC committed to transforming health through genetics and promoting an environment of openness centered on the health of individuals, families, and communities. When GINA was signed into law, the Alliance chaired the Coalition for Genetic Fairness, a multi-stakeholder coalition of over 500 organizations committed to passing federal genetic nondiscrimination legislation.
National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics: http://www.nchpeg.org NCHPEG is a Maryland-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote genetics education for all health professionals. NCHPEG's membership represents a broad range of professional societies, advocacy groups, corporate entities, and government agencies dedicated to the integration of genetically based health care into mainstream practice.
Genetics and Public Policy Center: http://www.dnapolicy.o rg
The Genetics and Public Policy Center in the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University was created to help policymakers, the press, and the public understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities of genetic medicine and it potential to transform global public health.
Media contacts:
Genetic Alliance - Molly Brenner, mbrenner@geneticalliance.org
NCHPEG - Joe McInerney, jdmcinerney@nchpeg.org
GPPC - Susannah Baruch, ginainfo@jhu.edu
Contact Information
email: ginainfo@jhu.edu
phone: (202) 663-5971
Web: http://www.DNApolicy.org
With genetic testing becoming increasingly pervasive in medical care and our daily lives, three of the most prominent organizations in genetics - the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University, the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics, and Genetic Alliance - have teamed up to produce educational materials about the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), a landmark federal law that protects individuals from the misuse of genetic information in health insurance and employment.
Enacted in 2008 after 13 years of debate in Congress, GINA limits health insurers from using a person's genetic information to set eligibility requirements, or establish premium or contribution amounts. The law also prohibits employers from using genetic information in decisions about hiring, firing, job assignments or promotions.
"Almost every day, our center is asked for more detailed information about what GINA means," said Joan Scott, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center. "These targeted materials will go a long way towards answering the questions that still exist, paving the way for successful, long-term implementation of this important law."
The user-friendly materials will help health-care providers and members of the public understand their rights and responsibilities under the law and provide essential information about its details. The documents are also clear about what GINA doesn't cover.
The public-oriented materials - including an interactive website, "GINA & You" information sheet, and slide set for advocacy organizations - are available, at http://www.GINAHelp. org, in the Genetic Alliance Resource Repository, and on Genetic Alliance's website, http://www.geneti calliance.org. The website also includes a history of GINA's long struggle and passage.
"The public has waited a long time for these protections, and by providing this information as a resource we are helping individuals become informed consumers of genetic services," said Sharon Terry, president and CEO of Genetic Alliance.
The materials for health-care providers include background documents, a discussion guide suggesting how and when to talk about GINA with patients, a teaching slide set, and case studies that describe how the law works in a variety of real-world, clinical settings. These materials are available on the website for the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (NCHPEG), at http://www.nchpeg.org.
"We've heard many questions already from health- care providers about the specifics of GINA," said Joseph McInerney, NCHPEG's executive director. "Especially as genetic testing becomes more common and the value of family history more apparent, there's a real need for these materials to reassure providers and patients alike that GINA supports excellent clinical care."
The Genetics and Public Policy Center (GPPC), part of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, will have all of the materials on its website, at http://www.dnapolicy.o rg. The GPPC's site also includes FAQs and other fact sheets about GINA aimed at a general audience.
Development of the materials was supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Additional information:
Genetic Alliance: http://www.geneti calliance.org
Genetic Alliance is a national, nonprofit health dvocacy organization based in Washington, DC committed to transforming health through genetics and promoting an environment of openness centered on the health of individuals, families, and communities. When GINA was signed into law, the Alliance chaired the Coalition for Genetic Fairness, a multi-stakeholder coalition of over 500 organizations committed to passing federal genetic nondiscrimination legislation.
National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics: http://www.nchpeg.org NCHPEG is a Maryland-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote genetics education for all health professionals. NCHPEG's membership represents a broad range of professional societies, advocacy groups, corporate entities, and government agencies dedicated to the integration of genetically based health care into mainstream practice.
Genetics and Public Policy Center: http://www.dnapolicy.o rg
The Genetics and Public Policy Center in the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University was created to help policymakers, the press, and the public understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities of genetic medicine and it potential to transform global public health.
Media contacts:
Genetic Alliance - Molly Brenner, mbrenner@geneticalliance.org
NCHPEG - Joe McInerney, jdmcinerney@nchpeg.org
GPPC - Susannah Baruch, ginainfo@jhu.edu
Contact Information
email: ginainfo@jhu.edu
phone: (202) 663-5971
Web: http://www.DNApolicy.org
Being aware of conditioning
by Krishnamurti
Now, can the mind be aware of its own conditioning and not try to battle against it? When the mind is aware that it is conditioned and does not battle against it, only then is the mind free to give its complete attention to this conditioning. The difficulty is to be aware of conditioning without the distraction of trying to do something about it. But if the mind is constantly aware of the known, that is, of the prejudices, the assumptions, the beliefs, the desires, the illusory thinking of our daily life, if it is aware of all this without trying to be free, then that very awareness brings its own freedom. Then perhaps it is possible for the mind to be really still, not just still at a certain level of consciousness and frightfully agitated below. There can be total stillness of the mind only when the mind understands the whole problem of conditioning, how it is conditioned, which means watching, off and on, every movement of thought, being aware of the assumptions, the beliefs, the fears. Then perhaps there is a total stillness of the mind in which something beyond the mind can come into being. - Sydney 5th Public Talk 23rd November, 1955 The Collected Works
Now, can the mind be aware of its own conditioning and not try to battle against it? When the mind is aware that it is conditioned and does not battle against it, only then is the mind free to give its complete attention to this conditioning. The difficulty is to be aware of conditioning without the distraction of trying to do something about it. But if the mind is constantly aware of the known, that is, of the prejudices, the assumptions, the beliefs, the desires, the illusory thinking of our daily life, if it is aware of all this without trying to be free, then that very awareness brings its own freedom. Then perhaps it is possible for the mind to be really still, not just still at a certain level of consciousness and frightfully agitated below. There can be total stillness of the mind only when the mind understands the whole problem of conditioning, how it is conditioned, which means watching, off and on, every movement of thought, being aware of the assumptions, the beliefs, the fears. Then perhaps there is a total stillness of the mind in which something beyond the mind can come into being. - Sydney 5th Public Talk 23rd November, 1955 The Collected Works
I want to understand myself
by Krishnamurti
Questioner: I want to understand myself, I want to put an end to my stupid struggles and make a definite effort to live fully and truly.
Krishnamurti: What do you mean when you use the term 'myself'? As you are many and ever changing is there an enduring moment when you can say that this is the ever me? It is the multiple entity, the bundle of memories that must be understood and not seemingly the one entity that calls itself the me. We are everchanging contradictory thoughts-feelings: love and hate, peace and passion, intelligence and ignorance. Now which is the me in all of this? Shall I choose what is most pleasing and discard the rest? Who is it that must understand these contradictory and conflicting selves? Is there a permanent self, a spiritual entity apart from these? Is not that self also the continuing result of the conflict of many entities? Is there a self that is above and beyond all contradictory selves? The truth of it can be experienced only when the contradictory selves are understood and transcended. All the conflicting entities which make up the me have also brought into being the other me, the observer, the analyser. To understand myself I must understand the many parts of myself including the I who has become the watcher, the I who understands. The thinker must not only understand his many contradictory thoughts but he must understand himself as the creator of these many entities. The I, the thinker, the observer watches his opposing and conflicting thoughts-feelings as though he were not part of them, as though he were above and beyond them, controlling, guiding, shaping. But is not the I, the thinker, also these conflicts? Has he not created them? Whatever the level, is the thinker separate from his thoughts? The thinker is the creator of opposing urges, assuming different roles at different times according to his pleasure and pain. To comprehend himself the thinker must come upon himself through his many aspects. A tree is not just the flower and the fruit but is the total process. Similarly to understand myself I must without identification and choice be aware of the total process that is the me. - The Collected Works Ojai California 3rd Public Talk 1945
Questioner: I want to understand myself, I want to put an end to my stupid struggles and make a definite effort to live fully and truly.
Krishnamurti: What do you mean when you use the term 'myself'? As you are many and ever changing is there an enduring moment when you can say that this is the ever me? It is the multiple entity, the bundle of memories that must be understood and not seemingly the one entity that calls itself the me. We are everchanging contradictory thoughts-feelings: love and hate, peace and passion, intelligence and ignorance. Now which is the me in all of this? Shall I choose what is most pleasing and discard the rest? Who is it that must understand these contradictory and conflicting selves? Is there a permanent self, a spiritual entity apart from these? Is not that self also the continuing result of the conflict of many entities? Is there a self that is above and beyond all contradictory selves? The truth of it can be experienced only when the contradictory selves are understood and transcended. All the conflicting entities which make up the me have also brought into being the other me, the observer, the analyser. To understand myself I must understand the many parts of myself including the I who has become the watcher, the I who understands. The thinker must not only understand his many contradictory thoughts but he must understand himself as the creator of these many entities. The I, the thinker, the observer watches his opposing and conflicting thoughts-feelings as though he were not part of them, as though he were above and beyond them, controlling, guiding, shaping. But is not the I, the thinker, also these conflicts? Has he not created them? Whatever the level, is the thinker separate from his thoughts? The thinker is the creator of opposing urges, assuming different roles at different times according to his pleasure and pain. To comprehend himself the thinker must come upon himself through his many aspects. A tree is not just the flower and the fruit but is the total process. Similarly to understand myself I must without identification and choice be aware of the total process that is the me. - The Collected Works Ojai California 3rd Public Talk 1945
Journal for the Study of Spirituality
Editor: Cheryl Hunt
University of Exeter, UK
Book Reviews Editor: Josie Gregory
Foundation for Workplace Spirituality, UK
Journal for the Study of Spirituality is an exciting new international peer-reviewed journal. Its intention is to create a unique interdisciplinary, inter-professional and cross-cultural forum where researchers, scholars and others engaged in the study and practices of spirituality can share and debate the research, knowledge, wisdom and insight associated with spirituality and contemporary spirituality studies. The Journal is affiliated to the British Association for the Study of Spirituality (BASS). BASS organises a biennial international conference and welcomes enquiries about membership from those interested in the study of spirituality in the UK and worldwide.
Journal for the Study of Spirituality will include:
• Research papers based on completed research or substantial work-in-progress (epistemological and methodological approaches should be clarified for the benefit of readers from different disciplines and cultures)
• Scholarly articles exploring understandings of spirituality, including within professional practice settings
• Critically reflexive and/or autoethnographic accounts of the experience or practice of spirituality
• Critique/discussion papers designed to generate debate from one issue to the next
• Book reviews of recent publications
• Occasional review essays focussing on established texts in the field
• Reports of recent relevant conferences
Call for Papers
Journal for the Study of Spirituality is concerned with what spirituality means, and how it is expressed, in individuals’ lives and communities and in professional practice settings; and with the impact and implications of spirituality in, and on, social policy, organizational practices and personal and professional development. The journal recognises that spirituality and spiritual values can be expressed and studied in secular contexts, including in scientific and professional practice settings, as well as within faith and wisdom traditions. Thus,
Journal for the Study of Spirituality particularly welcomes contributions that:
• identify new agendas for research into spirituality within and across subject disciplines and professions
• explore different epistemological and methodological approaches to the study of spirituality
• introduce comparative perspectives and insights drawn from different cultures and/or professional practice settings
• aim to apply and develop sustained reflection, investigation and critique in relation to spirituality and spiritual practices
• critically examine the values and presuppositions underpinning different forms of spirituality and spiritual practices
• incorporate different forms of writing and expressions of spirituality.
Editor-in-Chief
Cheryl Hunt, University of Exeter, UK
Executive Editors
Linda Ross, University of Glamorgan, UK
Josie Gregory, Foundation for Workplace Spirituality,UK
Margaret Holloway, University of Hull, UK
John Swinton, University of Aberdeen, UK
Peter Gilbert, Staffordshire University, UK
Editorial Board
Cecilia Chan, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Paul Dearey, University of Hull, UK
Leola Furman, Augsburg College, USA
David Hay, University of Aberdeen, UK
Peter Jarvis, University of Surrey, UK
Ewan Kelly, NHS Education for Scotland, UK
Ursula King, University of Bristol, UK
David Lorimer, Wrekin Trust, UK
Wilfred McSherry, Staffordshire University, UK
Harriet Mowat, Mowat Research, UK
Aru Narayanasamy, University of Nottingham, UK
Martyn Percy, Ripon College Cuddesdon, UK
Barbara Pesut, University of British Columbia, Canada
Christina Puchalski, George Washington University, USA
Julian Stern, York St. John University, UK
David Tacey, La Trobe University, Australia
Elizabeth J. Tisdell, Penn State University, USA
Harald Walach, European University Viadrina, Germany
John Watters, Living Leadership, UK
Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University, UK
University of Exeter, UK
Book Reviews Editor: Josie Gregory
Foundation for Workplace Spirituality, UK
Journal for the Study of Spirituality is an exciting new international peer-reviewed journal. Its intention is to create a unique interdisciplinary, inter-professional and cross-cultural forum where researchers, scholars and others engaged in the study and practices of spirituality can share and debate the research, knowledge, wisdom and insight associated with spirituality and contemporary spirituality studies. The Journal is affiliated to the British Association for the Study of Spirituality (BASS). BASS organises a biennial international conference and welcomes enquiries about membership from those interested in the study of spirituality in the UK and worldwide.
Journal for the Study of Spirituality will include:
• Research papers based on completed research or substantial work-in-progress (epistemological and methodological approaches should be clarified for the benefit of readers from different disciplines and cultures)
• Scholarly articles exploring understandings of spirituality, including within professional practice settings
• Critically reflexive and/or autoethnographic accounts of the experience or practice of spirituality
• Critique/discussion papers designed to generate debate from one issue to the next
• Book reviews of recent publications
• Occasional review essays focussing on established texts in the field
• Reports of recent relevant conferences
Call for Papers
Journal for the Study of Spirituality is concerned with what spirituality means, and how it is expressed, in individuals’ lives and communities and in professional practice settings; and with the impact and implications of spirituality in, and on, social policy, organizational practices and personal and professional development. The journal recognises that spirituality and spiritual values can be expressed and studied in secular contexts, including in scientific and professional practice settings, as well as within faith and wisdom traditions. Thus,
Journal for the Study of Spirituality particularly welcomes contributions that:
• identify new agendas for research into spirituality within and across subject disciplines and professions
• explore different epistemological and methodological approaches to the study of spirituality
• introduce comparative perspectives and insights drawn from different cultures and/or professional practice settings
• aim to apply and develop sustained reflection, investigation and critique in relation to spirituality and spiritual practices
• critically examine the values and presuppositions underpinning different forms of spirituality and spiritual practices
• incorporate different forms of writing and expressions of spirituality.
Editor-in-Chief
Cheryl Hunt, University of Exeter, UK
Executive Editors
Linda Ross, University of Glamorgan, UK
Josie Gregory, Foundation for Workplace Spirituality,UK
Margaret Holloway, University of Hull, UK
John Swinton, University of Aberdeen, UK
Peter Gilbert, Staffordshire University, UK
Editorial Board
Cecilia Chan, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Paul Dearey, University of Hull, UK
Leola Furman, Augsburg College, USA
David Hay, University of Aberdeen, UK
Peter Jarvis, University of Surrey, UK
Ewan Kelly, NHS Education for Scotland, UK
Ursula King, University of Bristol, UK
David Lorimer, Wrekin Trust, UK
Wilfred McSherry, Staffordshire University, UK
Harriet Mowat, Mowat Research, UK
Aru Narayanasamy, University of Nottingham, UK
Martyn Percy, Ripon College Cuddesdon, UK
Barbara Pesut, University of British Columbia, Canada
Christina Puchalski, George Washington University, USA
Julian Stern, York St. John University, UK
David Tacey, La Trobe University, Australia
Elizabeth J. Tisdell, Penn State University, USA
Harald Walach, European University Viadrina, Germany
John Watters, Living Leadership, UK
Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University, UK
measure Team Mental Model
a summary of the references provided on this topic.
1. Marks, Zaccaro, and Mathieu (2000). in JAP. They use concept mapping to measure mental models, and I believe they describe the process in detail.
2. Mohammed, S & Hamilton, K (Forthcoming) Studying Team Cognition: The Good, the bad and the Practical. In AB Hollingshead & M.S. Poole (Eds.) Research Methods for Studying Groups: A Behind- the-Scenes Guide. Taylor & Francis/Routledge
3. Mohammed, S., Ferzandi, L., & Hamilton, K. (2010). Metaphor No More: A 15-Year Review of the Team Mental Model Construct. Journal of Management, 36(4), 876-910.
4. Smith-Jentsch, K.A., Cannon-Bowers, J.A., Tannenbaum, S.I., & Salas, E. (2008). Guided team self correction: Impact on team mental models, processes, and outcomes. Small Group Research, 3, 303-327.
5. Mathieu, J.E., Heffner, T.S., Goodwin, G.F., Cannon-Bowers, J.A., & Salas, E. (2005). Scaling the quality of teammates’ mental models: Equifinality and normative comparisons. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26, 37-56.
6. Mathieu, J.E., Heffner, T.S., Goodwin, G.F., Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J.A. (2000). The influence of shared mental models on team process and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 273-283.
7. Cannon-Bowers, J.A., Salas, E. & Converse, S. (1993). Shared mental models in expert team decision-making. In N.J. Castellan, Jr. (Ed.) Current issues in individual and group decision-making (pp. 221-246).Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
8. Cooke, N. J., Salas, E., Kiekel, P. A., & Bell, B. (2004). Advances in measuring team cognition. In E. Salas & S. M. Fiore (Eds.), Team cognition (pp. 83-106). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
9. Lim, B. C. & Klein, K. J. (2006). Team mental models and team performance: A field study of the effects of team mental model similarity and accuracy. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 403-418.
10. Another method for assessing team mental models was developed by Webber, Chen, Payne, Marsh & Zaccaro - they used the scenario method that I based my methods on. Maybe worthwhile to have a look also at this article: Webber, SS, Chen, G, Payne, SC, Marsh, SM & Zaccaro, SJ 2000, 'Enhancing team mental model measurement with performance appraisal practices', Organization Research Methods, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 307 - 22.
1. Marks, Zaccaro, and Mathieu (2000). in JAP. They use concept mapping to measure mental models, and I believe they describe the process in detail.
2. Mohammed, S & Hamilton, K (Forthcoming) Studying Team Cognition: The Good, the bad and the Practical. In AB Hollingshead & M.S. Poole (Eds.) Research Methods for Studying Groups: A Behind- the-Scenes Guide. Taylor & Francis/Routledge
3. Mohammed, S., Ferzandi, L., & Hamilton, K. (2010). Metaphor No More: A 15-Year Review of the Team Mental Model Construct. Journal of Management, 36(4), 876-910.
4. Smith-Jentsch, K.A., Cannon-Bowers, J.A., Tannenbaum, S.I., & Salas, E. (2008). Guided team self correction: Impact on team mental models, processes, and outcomes. Small Group Research, 3, 303-327.
5. Mathieu, J.E., Heffner, T.S., Goodwin, G.F., Cannon-Bowers, J.A., & Salas, E. (2005). Scaling the quality of teammates’ mental models: Equifinality and normative comparisons. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26, 37-56.
6. Mathieu, J.E., Heffner, T.S., Goodwin, G.F., Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J.A. (2000). The influence of shared mental models on team process and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 273-283.
7. Cannon-Bowers, J.A., Salas, E. & Converse, S. (1993). Shared mental models in expert team decision-making. In N.J. Castellan, Jr. (Ed.) Current issues in individual and group decision-making (pp. 221-246).Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
8. Cooke, N. J., Salas, E., Kiekel, P. A., & Bell, B. (2004). Advances in measuring team cognition. In E. Salas & S. M. Fiore (Eds.), Team cognition (pp. 83-106). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
9. Lim, B. C. & Klein, K. J. (2006). Team mental models and team performance: A field study of the effects of team mental model similarity and accuracy. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 403-418.
10. Another method for assessing team mental models was developed by Webber, Chen, Payne, Marsh & Zaccaro - they used the scenario method that I based my methods on. Maybe worthwhile to have a look also at this article: Webber, SS, Chen, G, Payne, SC, Marsh, SM & Zaccaro, SJ 2000, 'Enhancing team mental model measurement with performance appraisal practices', Organization Research Methods, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 307 - 22.
To be open is to listen
by Krishnamurti
Who cares to listen to the troubles of another? We have so many problems of our own that we have no time for those of others. To make another listen you have to pay either in coin, in prayer, or in belief. The professional will listen, it is his job, but in that there is no lasting release. We want to unburden ourselves freely, spontaneously, without any regrets afterwards. The purification of confusion does not depend on the one who listens, but on him who desires to open his heart. To open one's heart is important, and it will find someone, a beggar perhaps, to whom it can pour itself out. Introspective talk can never open the heart; it is enclosing, depressing and utterly useless. To be open is to listen, not only to yourself, but to every influence, to every movement about you. It may or may not be possible to do something tangibly about what you hear, but the very fact of being open brings about its own action. Such hearing purifies your own heart, cleansing it of the things of the mind. Hearing with the mind is gossip, and in it there is no release either for you or for the other; it is merely a continuation of pain, which is stupidity. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 56 Possessiveness
Who cares to listen to the troubles of another? We have so many problems of our own that we have no time for those of others. To make another listen you have to pay either in coin, in prayer, or in belief. The professional will listen, it is his job, but in that there is no lasting release. We want to unburden ourselves freely, spontaneously, without any regrets afterwards. The purification of confusion does not depend on the one who listens, but on him who desires to open his heart. To open one's heart is important, and it will find someone, a beggar perhaps, to whom it can pour itself out. Introspective talk can never open the heart; it is enclosing, depressing and utterly useless. To be open is to listen, not only to yourself, but to every influence, to every movement about you. It may or may not be possible to do something tangibly about what you hear, but the very fact of being open brings about its own action. Such hearing purifies your own heart, cleansing it of the things of the mind. Hearing with the mind is gossip, and in it there is no release either for you or for the other; it is merely a continuation of pain, which is stupidity. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 56 Possessiveness
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Awareness is not the outcome of practice
by Krishnamurti
Problems will always exist where the activities of the self are dominant. To be aware which are and which are not the activities of the self needs constant vigilance. This vigilance is not disciplined attention, but an extensive awareness which is choiceless. Disciplined attention gives strength to the self; it becomes a substitute and a dependence. Awareness, on the other hand, is not self-induced, nor is it the outcome of practice; it is understanding the whole content of the problem, the hidden as well as the superficial. The surface must be understood for the hidden to show itself; the hidden cannot be exposed if the surface mind is not quiet. This whole process is not verbal, nor is it a matter of mere experience. Verbalization indicates dullness of mind; and experience, being cumulative, makes for repetitiousness. Awareness is not a matter of determination, for purposive direction is resistance, which tends towards exclusiveness. Awareness is the silent and choiceless observation of what is; in this awareness the problem unrolls itself, and thus it is fully and completely understood. A problem is never solved on its own level; being complex, it must be understood in its total process. To try to solve a problem on only one level, physical or psychological, leads to further conflict and confusion. For the resolution of a problem, there must be this awareness, this passive alertness which reveals its total process. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 41 Awareness
Problems will always exist where the activities of the self are dominant. To be aware which are and which are not the activities of the self needs constant vigilance. This vigilance is not disciplined attention, but an extensive awareness which is choiceless. Disciplined attention gives strength to the self; it becomes a substitute and a dependence. Awareness, on the other hand, is not self-induced, nor is it the outcome of practice; it is understanding the whole content of the problem, the hidden as well as the superficial. The surface must be understood for the hidden to show itself; the hidden cannot be exposed if the surface mind is not quiet. This whole process is not verbal, nor is it a matter of mere experience. Verbalization indicates dullness of mind; and experience, being cumulative, makes for repetitiousness. Awareness is not a matter of determination, for purposive direction is resistance, which tends towards exclusiveness. Awareness is the silent and choiceless observation of what is; in this awareness the problem unrolls itself, and thus it is fully and completely understood. A problem is never solved on its own level; being complex, it must be understood in its total process. To try to solve a problem on only one level, physical or psychological, leads to further conflict and confusion. For the resolution of a problem, there must be this awareness, this passive alertness which reveals its total process. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 41 Awareness
Genetically Altered Salmon Get Closer to the Table
I prefer not to eat this kind of salmon. Without salmon's permissons, it is unfair for human beings to make salmon grow at twice the normal rate. What salmon might miss in its life?? childhood? adolescence? adulthood?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/business/26salmon.html?hpw
The Food and Drug Administration is seriously considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal rate.
The developer of the salmon has been trying to get approval for a decade. But the company now seems to have submitted most or all of the data the F.D.A. needs to analyze whether the salmon are safe to eat, nutritionally equivalent to other salmon and safe for the environment, according to government and biotechnology industry officials. A public meeting to discuss the salmon may be held as early as this fall.
Some consumer and environmental groups are likely to raise objections to approval. Even within the F.D.A., there has been a debate about whether the salmon should be labeled as genetically engineered (genetically engineered crops are not labeled).
The salmon’s approval would help open a path for companies and academic scientists developing other genetically engineered animals, like cattle resistant to mad cow disease or pigs that could supply healthier bacon. Next in line behind the salmon for possible approval would probably be the “enviropig,” developed at a Canadian university, which has less phosphorus pollution in its manure.
The salmon was developed by a company called AquaBounty Technologies and would be raised in fish farms. It is an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon as well as a genetic on-switch from the ocean pout, a distant relative of the salmon.
Normally, salmon do not make growth hormone in cold weather. But the pout’s on-switch keeps production of the hormone going year round. The result is salmon that can grow to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of three years, though the company says the modified salmon will not end up any bigger than a conventional fish.
“You don’t get salmon the size of the Hindenburg,” said Ronald L. Stotish, the chief executive of AquaBounty. “You can get to those target weights in a shorter time.”
AquaBounty, which is based in Waltham, Mass., and publicly traded in London, said last week that the F.D.A. had signed off on five of the seven sets of data required to demonstrate that the fish was safe for consumption and for the environment. It said it demonstrated, for instance, that the inserted gene did not change through multiple generations and that the genetic engineering did not harm the animals.
“Perhaps in the next few months, we expect to see a final approval,” Mr. Stotish said.
But the company has been overly optimistic before.
He said it would take two or three years after approval for the salmon to reach supermarkets.
The F.D.A. confirmed it was reviewing the salmon but, because of confidentiality rules, would not comment further.
Under a policy announced in 2008, the F.D.A. is regulating genetically engineered animals as if they were veterinary drugs and using the rules for those drugs. And applications for approval of new drugs must be kept confidential by the agency.
Critics say the drug evaluation process does not allow full assessment of the possible environmental impacts of genetically altered animals and also blocks public input.
“There is no opportunity for anyone from the outside to see the data or criticize it,” said Margaret Mellon, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. When consumer groups were invited to discuss biotechnology policy with top F.D.A. officials last month, Ms. Mellon said she warned the officials that approval of the salmon would generate “a firestorm of negative response.”
How consumers will react is not entirely clear. Some public opinion surveys have shown that Americans are more wary about genetically engineered animals than about the genetically engineered crops now used in a huge number of foods. But other polls suggest that many Americans would accept the animals if they offered environmental or nutritional benefits.
Mr. Stotish said the benefit of the fast-growing salmon would be to help supply the world’s food needs using fewer resources.
Government officials and industry executives say the F.D.A. is moving cautiously on the salmon. “It’s going to be a P. R. issue,” said one government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the issue.
Some of these government officials and executives said that F.D.A. officials had discussed internally whether the salmon could be labeled to give consumers the choice of avoiding them.
The government has in the past opposed mandatory labeling of foods from genetically engineered crops and animals merely because genetic engineering was used. Foods must be labeled, it says, only if they are different in their nutritional properties or other characteristics.
It would seem difficult for the government to change that policy. And experts say the administration may not have the legal authority to do so.
One possibility could be voluntary labeling by those who sell the fish.
Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the principal deputy commissioner of the F.D.A., said in a statement: “Labeling is one of many issues involved with the review of genetically engineered animals for use in food. As has been publicly reported, the AquAdvantage Salmon is under review by the agency, and as we move forward, we will share information with the public.”
Mr. Stotish of AquaBounty said his company was not against voluntary labeling, but the matter was not in its hands because it would only be selling fish eggs to fish farms, not grown salmon to the supermarket.
He said the company had submitted data to the F.D.A. showing that its salmon was indistinguishable from nonengineered Atlantic salmon in terms of taste, color, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, proteins and other nutrients.
“Our fish is identical in every measurable way to the traditional food Atlantic salmon,” Mr. Stotish said. “If there’s no material difference, then it would be misleading to require labeling.”
Virtually all Atlantic salmon now comes from fish farms, not the wild.
The F.D.A. must also decide on the environmental risks from the salmon. Some experts have speculated that fast-growing fish could out-compete wild fish for food or mates.
Mr. Stotish said the salmon would be grown only in inland tanks or other contained facilities, not in ocean pens where they might escape into the wild. And the fish would all be female and sterile, making it impossible for them to mate.
The F.D.A. is expected to hold a public meeting of an advisory committee before deciding whether to approve the salmon. Typically at such advisory committee meetings, much of the data in support of the drug application is made public and there is some time allotted for public comment.
But Gregory Jaffe, biotechnology project director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said such meetings often do not give the public enough time to analyze the data.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/business/26salmon.html?hpw
The Food and Drug Administration is seriously considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal rate.
The developer of the salmon has been trying to get approval for a decade. But the company now seems to have submitted most or all of the data the F.D.A. needs to analyze whether the salmon are safe to eat, nutritionally equivalent to other salmon and safe for the environment, according to government and biotechnology industry officials. A public meeting to discuss the salmon may be held as early as this fall.
Some consumer and environmental groups are likely to raise objections to approval. Even within the F.D.A., there has been a debate about whether the salmon should be labeled as genetically engineered (genetically engineered crops are not labeled).
The salmon’s approval would help open a path for companies and academic scientists developing other genetically engineered animals, like cattle resistant to mad cow disease or pigs that could supply healthier bacon. Next in line behind the salmon for possible approval would probably be the “enviropig,” developed at a Canadian university, which has less phosphorus pollution in its manure.
The salmon was developed by a company called AquaBounty Technologies and would be raised in fish farms. It is an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon as well as a genetic on-switch from the ocean pout, a distant relative of the salmon.
Normally, salmon do not make growth hormone in cold weather. But the pout’s on-switch keeps production of the hormone going year round. The result is salmon that can grow to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of three years, though the company says the modified salmon will not end up any bigger than a conventional fish.
“You don’t get salmon the size of the Hindenburg,” said Ronald L. Stotish, the chief executive of AquaBounty. “You can get to those target weights in a shorter time.”
AquaBounty, which is based in Waltham, Mass., and publicly traded in London, said last week that the F.D.A. had signed off on five of the seven sets of data required to demonstrate that the fish was safe for consumption and for the environment. It said it demonstrated, for instance, that the inserted gene did not change through multiple generations and that the genetic engineering did not harm the animals.
“Perhaps in the next few months, we expect to see a final approval,” Mr. Stotish said.
But the company has been overly optimistic before.
He said it would take two or three years after approval for the salmon to reach supermarkets.
The F.D.A. confirmed it was reviewing the salmon but, because of confidentiality rules, would not comment further.
Under a policy announced in 2008, the F.D.A. is regulating genetically engineered animals as if they were veterinary drugs and using the rules for those drugs. And applications for approval of new drugs must be kept confidential by the agency.
Critics say the drug evaluation process does not allow full assessment of the possible environmental impacts of genetically altered animals and also blocks public input.
“There is no opportunity for anyone from the outside to see the data or criticize it,” said Margaret Mellon, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. When consumer groups were invited to discuss biotechnology policy with top F.D.A. officials last month, Ms. Mellon said she warned the officials that approval of the salmon would generate “a firestorm of negative response.”
How consumers will react is not entirely clear. Some public opinion surveys have shown that Americans are more wary about genetically engineered animals than about the genetically engineered crops now used in a huge number of foods. But other polls suggest that many Americans would accept the animals if they offered environmental or nutritional benefits.
Mr. Stotish said the benefit of the fast-growing salmon would be to help supply the world’s food needs using fewer resources.
Government officials and industry executives say the F.D.A. is moving cautiously on the salmon. “It’s going to be a P. R. issue,” said one government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the issue.
Some of these government officials and executives said that F.D.A. officials had discussed internally whether the salmon could be labeled to give consumers the choice of avoiding them.
The government has in the past opposed mandatory labeling of foods from genetically engineered crops and animals merely because genetic engineering was used. Foods must be labeled, it says, only if they are different in their nutritional properties or other characteristics.
It would seem difficult for the government to change that policy. And experts say the administration may not have the legal authority to do so.
One possibility could be voluntary labeling by those who sell the fish.
Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the principal deputy commissioner of the F.D.A., said in a statement: “Labeling is one of many issues involved with the review of genetically engineered animals for use in food. As has been publicly reported, the AquAdvantage Salmon is under review by the agency, and as we move forward, we will share information with the public.”
Mr. Stotish of AquaBounty said his company was not against voluntary labeling, but the matter was not in its hands because it would only be selling fish eggs to fish farms, not grown salmon to the supermarket.
He said the company had submitted data to the F.D.A. showing that its salmon was indistinguishable from nonengineered Atlantic salmon in terms of taste, color, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, proteins and other nutrients.
“Our fish is identical in every measurable way to the traditional food Atlantic salmon,” Mr. Stotish said. “If there’s no material difference, then it would be misleading to require labeling.”
Virtually all Atlantic salmon now comes from fish farms, not the wild.
The F.D.A. must also decide on the environmental risks from the salmon. Some experts have speculated that fast-growing fish could out-compete wild fish for food or mates.
Mr. Stotish said the salmon would be grown only in inland tanks or other contained facilities, not in ocean pens where they might escape into the wild. And the fish would all be female and sterile, making it impossible for them to mate.
The F.D.A. is expected to hold a public meeting of an advisory committee before deciding whether to approve the salmon. Typically at such advisory committee meetings, much of the data in support of the drug application is made public and there is some time allotted for public comment.
But Gregory Jaffe, biotechnology project director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said such meetings often do not give the public enough time to analyze the data.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Sensitivity in its highest form is intelligence
by Krishnamurti
Sensitivity in its highest form is intelligence. Without sensitivity to everything - to one's own sorrows; to the sorrow of a group of people, of a race; to the sorrow of everything that is - , unless one feels and has the feeling highly sensitivized, one cannot possibly solve any problem. And we have many problems, not only at the physical level, the economic level, the social level, but also at the deeper levels of one's own being - problems that apparently we are not capable of solving. I am not talking of the mathematical problems, or the problems of mechanical inventions, but of human problems: of our sorrows, of despair, of the narrow spirit of the mind, of the shallowness of one's thinking, of the constant repetitive boredom of life, the routine of going to office every day for forty or thirty years. And the many problems that exist, both consciously and unconsciously, make the mind dull, and therefore the mind loses this extraordinary sensitivity. And when we lose sensitivity, we lose intelligence. - Madras 2nd Public Talk 20th December 1964, Collected Works Volume 15
Sensitivity in its highest form is intelligence. Without sensitivity to everything - to one's own sorrows; to the sorrow of a group of people, of a race; to the sorrow of everything that is - , unless one feels and has the feeling highly sensitivized, one cannot possibly solve any problem. And we have many problems, not only at the physical level, the economic level, the social level, but also at the deeper levels of one's own being - problems that apparently we are not capable of solving. I am not talking of the mathematical problems, or the problems of mechanical inventions, but of human problems: of our sorrows, of despair, of the narrow spirit of the mind, of the shallowness of one's thinking, of the constant repetitive boredom of life, the routine of going to office every day for forty or thirty years. And the many problems that exist, both consciously and unconsciously, make the mind dull, and therefore the mind loses this extraordinary sensitivity. And when we lose sensitivity, we lose intelligence. - Madras 2nd Public Talk 20th December 1964, Collected Works Volume 15
Sorrow is the result of a shock
by Krishnamurti
Sorrow is the result of a shock, it is the temporary shaking up of a mind that has settled down, that has accepted the routine of life. Something happens - a death, the loss of a job, the questioning of a cherished belief - and the mind is disturbed. But what does a disturbed mind do? It finds a way to be undisturbed again; it takes refuge in another belief, in a more secure job, in a new relationship. Again the wave of life comes along and shatters its safeguards, but the mind soon finds still further defence; and so it goes on. This is not the way of intelligence, is it? - Commentaries On Living, Series 3, Chapter 36
Sorrow is the result of a shock, it is the temporary shaking up of a mind that has settled down, that has accepted the routine of life. Something happens - a death, the loss of a job, the questioning of a cherished belief - and the mind is disturbed. But what does a disturbed mind do? It finds a way to be undisturbed again; it takes refuge in another belief, in a more secure job, in a new relationship. Again the wave of life comes along and shatters its safeguards, but the mind soon finds still further defence; and so it goes on. This is not the way of intelligence, is it? - Commentaries On Living, Series 3, Chapter 36
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Extraordinary Measures
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1244659/
Don't hope for a miracle. Make one
A drama centered on the efforts of John and Aileen Crowley to find a researcher who might have a cure for their two children's rare genetic disorder.
Don't hope for a miracle. Make one
A drama centered on the efforts of John and Aileen Crowley to find a researcher who might have a cure for their two children's rare genetic disorder.
Queueing theory and Ice Cream in Los Angeles
Queueing theory is the mathematical study of waiting lines, or queues. The theory enables mathematical analysis of several related processes, including arriving at the (back of the) queue, waiting in the queue (essentially a storage process), and being served at the front of the queue. The theory permits the derivation and calculation of several performance measures including the average waiting time in the queue or the system, the expected number waiting or receiving service, and the probability of encountering the system in certain states, such as empty, full, having an available server or having to wait a certain time to be served.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory
Caroline and her friends finished the Turkish food nearby campus. They were discussing to figure out what kind of dessert to eat to feel happy. The waiter of the Turkish restaurant heard their discussions and joined their discussions.
Waiter said: Our restaurant has the best dessert in Los Angesles. You guys should try our dessert. I believe you will love our dessert very much. We can serve you dessert right away. You don't have to wait.
Jack (Caroline's friend) said: But we see the ice cream store across the street.
Waiter said: Well, I don't think you want to waste your time to stand in line to eat the ice cream. So many students are there.
Caroline replied: Well, that is the reason we want to go there............ why so many students are there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory
Caroline and her friends finished the Turkish food nearby campus. They were discussing to figure out what kind of dessert to eat to feel happy. The waiter of the Turkish restaurant heard their discussions and joined their discussions.
Waiter said: Our restaurant has the best dessert in Los Angesles. You guys should try our dessert. I believe you will love our dessert very much. We can serve you dessert right away. You don't have to wait.
Jack (Caroline's friend) said: But we see the ice cream store across the street.
Waiter said: Well, I don't think you want to waste your time to stand in line to eat the ice cream. So many students are there.
Caroline replied: Well, that is the reason we want to go there............ why so many students are there?
the kind of life Caroline dreamed of during her master program
Caroline works full time in government and also studies as a full time student in her master program. She goes to work everyday at 7:00 am and come back to her apartment at 8:00 pm and start to read and write papers. Whevenever she has classes during daytime, she rushes to campus to take the classes and rushes back to the government office right after the classes finish.
One night, she was completely exhausted and fell asleep on the bed right after opened the apartment door after she came from work.
Denise (Caroline's roommate said): Wake up, you need to finish a paper which will be due this midnight. If you can't submit the paper by this midnight, you might fail the class.
Caroline replied: No, I can't wake up. I want to sleep. I hope I may have a kind of life that someone can write papers for me. All I need to do is lying on the bed. I don't have to write papers by myself.
Denise replied: That sounds great.
5 minutes later Denise said: Wake up, you need to eat dinner. You didn't eat anything the whole day.
Caroline replied: No, I can't wake up. I want to sleep. I hope I may have a kind of life that someone can feed me. All I need to do is lying one the bed. I don't have to eat by myself.
Denise replied: That sounds great.
5 minutes later Denise said: Wake up, you need to take a shower and change your clothes. You can't wear the same clothes to go to work tomorrow morning. You might get fired for not having a professional look.
Caroline replied: No, I can't wake up. I want to sleep. I hope I may have a kind of life that someone can take shower for me. All I need to do is lying on the bed. I don't have to take showers by myself.
Denise replied: That sound great.
10 minutes later Denise yelled: Wake up. Are you going to become a vegetable woman?? ！！
Mysteriously, Caroline suddently woke up................
One night, she was completely exhausted and fell asleep on the bed right after opened the apartment door after she came from work.
Denise (Caroline's roommate said): Wake up, you need to finish a paper which will be due this midnight. If you can't submit the paper by this midnight, you might fail the class.
Caroline replied: No, I can't wake up. I want to sleep. I hope I may have a kind of life that someone can write papers for me. All I need to do is lying on the bed. I don't have to write papers by myself.
Denise replied: That sounds great.
5 minutes later Denise said: Wake up, you need to eat dinner. You didn't eat anything the whole day.
Caroline replied: No, I can't wake up. I want to sleep. I hope I may have a kind of life that someone can feed me. All I need to do is lying one the bed. I don't have to eat by myself.
Denise replied: That sounds great.
5 minutes later Denise said: Wake up, you need to take a shower and change your clothes. You can't wear the same clothes to go to work tomorrow morning. You might get fired for not having a professional look.
Caroline replied: No, I can't wake up. I want to sleep. I hope I may have a kind of life that someone can take shower for me. All I need to do is lying on the bed. I don't have to take showers by myself.
Denise replied: That sound great.
10 minutes later Denise yelled: Wake up. Are you going to become a vegetable woman?? ！！
Mysteriously, Caroline suddently woke up................
Monday, June 21, 2010
The walls of self protection
by Krishnamurti
It is only when the mind, which has taken shelter behind the walls of self-protection, frees itself from its own creations that there can be that exquisite reality. After all, these walls of self-protection are the creations of the mind which, conscious of its insufficiency, builds these walls of protection, and behind them takes shelter. One has built up these barriers unconsciously or consciously, and one's mind is so crippled, bound, held, that action brings greater conflict, further disturbances. So the mere search for the solution of your problems is not going to free the mind from creating further problems. As long as this centre of self-protectiveness, born of insufficiency, exists, there must be disturbances, tremendous sorrow and pain; and you cannot free the mind of sorrow by disciplining it not to be insufficient. That is, you cannot discipline yourself, or be influenced by conditions and environment, in order not to be shallow. You say to yourself, "I am shallow; I recognize the fact, and how am I going to get rid of it?" I say, do not seek to get rid of it, which is merely a process of substitution, but become conscious, become aware of what is causing this insufficiency. You cannot compel it; you cannot force it; it cannot be influenced by an ideal, by a fear, by the pursuit of enjoyment and powers. You can find out the cause of insufficiency only through awareness. That is, by looking into environment and piercing into its significance there will be revealed the cunning subtleties of self protection. - Ojai 12th Public Talk 1st July, 1934 Commentaries On Living Series 1
It is only when the mind, which has taken shelter behind the walls of self-protection, frees itself from its own creations that there can be that exquisite reality. After all, these walls of self-protection are the creations of the mind which, conscious of its insufficiency, builds these walls of protection, and behind them takes shelter. One has built up these barriers unconsciously or consciously, and one's mind is so crippled, bound, held, that action brings greater conflict, further disturbances. So the mere search for the solution of your problems is not going to free the mind from creating further problems. As long as this centre of self-protectiveness, born of insufficiency, exists, there must be disturbances, tremendous sorrow and pain; and you cannot free the mind of sorrow by disciplining it not to be insufficient. That is, you cannot discipline yourself, or be influenced by conditions and environment, in order not to be shallow. You say to yourself, "I am shallow; I recognize the fact, and how am I going to get rid of it?" I say, do not seek to get rid of it, which is merely a process of substitution, but become conscious, become aware of what is causing this insufficiency. You cannot compel it; you cannot force it; it cannot be influenced by an ideal, by a fear, by the pursuit of enjoyment and powers. You can find out the cause of insufficiency only through awareness. That is, by looking into environment and piercing into its significance there will be revealed the cunning subtleties of self protection. - Ojai 12th Public Talk 1st July, 1934 Commentaries On Living Series 1
The unknown does not incite fear
by Krishnamurti
The daily pattern of life was repeating itself around the only water tap in the village; the water was running slowly, and a group of women were awaiting their turn. Three of them were noisily and bitterly quarrelling; they were completely absorbed in their anger and paid not the slightest attention to anyone else,nor was anyone paying attention to them. It must have been a ritual. Like all rituals, it was stimulating, and these women were enjoying the stimulation. An old woman helped a young one to lift a big, brightly polished brass pot onto her head. She had a little pad of cloth to bear the weight of the pot, which she held lightly with one hand. Her walk was superb, and she had great dignity. A little girl came quietly, slipped her pot under the tap, and carried it away without saying a word. Other women came and went, but the quarrel went on, and it seemed as though it would never end. Suddenly the three stopped filled their vessels with water, and went away as though nothing had happened. By now the sun was getting strong, and smoke was rising above the thatched roofs of the village. The day's first meal was being cooked. How suddenly peaceful it was! Except for the crows, almost everything was quiet. Once the vociferous quarrel was over, one could hear the roar of the sea beyond the houses, the gardens and the palm groves. We carry on like machines with our tiresome daily routine. How eagerly the mind accepts a pattern of existence, and how tenaciously it clings to it! As by a driven nail, the mind is held together by idea, and around the idea it lives and has its being. The mind is never free, pliable, for it is always anchored; it moves within the radius, narrow or wide, of its own centre. From its centre it dare not wander; and when it does, it is lost in fear. Fear is not of the unknown, but of the loss of the known. The unknown does not incite fear, but dependence on the known does. Fear is always with desire, the desire for the more or for the less. The mind, with its incessant weaving of patterns, is the maker of time. - Commentaries On Living Series II Chapter 22 The Mind And The Known
The daily pattern of life was repeating itself around the only water tap in the village; the water was running slowly, and a group of women were awaiting their turn. Three of them were noisily and bitterly quarrelling; they were completely absorbed in their anger and paid not the slightest attention to anyone else,nor was anyone paying attention to them. It must have been a ritual. Like all rituals, it was stimulating, and these women were enjoying the stimulation. An old woman helped a young one to lift a big, brightly polished brass pot onto her head. She had a little pad of cloth to bear the weight of the pot, which she held lightly with one hand. Her walk was superb, and she had great dignity. A little girl came quietly, slipped her pot under the tap, and carried it away without saying a word. Other women came and went, but the quarrel went on, and it seemed as though it would never end. Suddenly the three stopped filled their vessels with water, and went away as though nothing had happened. By now the sun was getting strong, and smoke was rising above the thatched roofs of the village. The day's first meal was being cooked. How suddenly peaceful it was! Except for the crows, almost everything was quiet. Once the vociferous quarrel was over, one could hear the roar of the sea beyond the houses, the gardens and the palm groves. We carry on like machines with our tiresome daily routine. How eagerly the mind accepts a pattern of existence, and how tenaciously it clings to it! As by a driven nail, the mind is held together by idea, and around the idea it lives and has its being. The mind is never free, pliable, for it is always anchored; it moves within the radius, narrow or wide, of its own centre. From its centre it dare not wander; and when it does, it is lost in fear. Fear is not of the unknown, but of the loss of the known. The unknown does not incite fear, but dependence on the known does. Fear is always with desire, the desire for the more or for the less. The mind, with its incessant weaving of patterns, is the maker of time. - Commentaries On Living Series II Chapter 22 The Mind And The Known
Find out for yourself
Questioner: Why are some people born in poor circumstances, while others are rich and well-to-do?
Krishnamurti: What do you think? Instead of asking me and waiting for my answer, why do you not find out what you feel about it? Do you think it is some mysterious process which you call karma? In a former life you lived nobly and therefore you are now being rewarded with wealth and position! Is that it? Or, having acted very badly in a former life, you are paying for it in this life! You see, this is really a very complex problem. Poverty is the fault of society - a society in which the greedy and the cunning exploit and rise to the top. We want the same thing, we also want to climb the ladder and get to the top. And when all of us want to get to the top, what happens? We tread on somebody; and the man who is trodden on, who is destroyed, asks, "Why is life so unfair? You have everything and I have no capacity, I have nothing". As long as we go on climbing the ladder of success, there will always be the sick and the unfed. It is the desire for success that has to be understood, and not why there are the rich and the poor, or why some have talent and others have none. What has to be changed is our own desire to climb, our desire to be great, to be a success. We all aspire to succeed, do we not? There lies the fault, and not in karma or any other explanation. The actual fact is that we all want to be at the top - perhaps not right at the top, but at least as high up the ladder as we can climb. As long as there is this drive to be great, to be somebody in the world, we are going to have the rich and the poor, the exploiter and those who are exploited. - Life Ahead Part One Chapter 4
Krishnamurti: What do you think? Instead of asking me and waiting for my answer, why do you not find out what you feel about it? Do you think it is some mysterious process which you call karma? In a former life you lived nobly and therefore you are now being rewarded with wealth and position! Is that it? Or, having acted very badly in a former life, you are paying for it in this life! You see, this is really a very complex problem. Poverty is the fault of society - a society in which the greedy and the cunning exploit and rise to the top. We want the same thing, we also want to climb the ladder and get to the top. And when all of us want to get to the top, what happens? We tread on somebody; and the man who is trodden on, who is destroyed, asks, "Why is life so unfair? You have everything and I have no capacity, I have nothing". As long as we go on climbing the ladder of success, there will always be the sick and the unfed. It is the desire for success that has to be understood, and not why there are the rich and the poor, or why some have talent and others have none. What has to be changed is our own desire to climb, our desire to be great, to be a success. We all aspire to succeed, do we not? There lies the fault, and not in karma or any other explanation. The actual fact is that we all want to be at the top - perhaps not right at the top, but at least as high up the ladder as we can climb. As long as there is this drive to be great, to be somebody in the world, we are going to have the rich and the poor, the exploiter and those who are exploited. - Life Ahead Part One Chapter 4
You are nothing
by Krishnamurti
So the nature, the inmost nature of the self, when you have gone through all the layers of the self, the essence is nothing. You are nothing. Right? On that nothingness thought has imposed the super structure of consciousness. Consciousness being the content, without the content there is no consciousness - the content being you are a Hindu, Buddhist, your religion, your particular god, your puja, your anxiety, your sorrow, your pain, your hate, your love, all that is the content of your consciousness. Obviously. And the idea that you are super atman, or super, super consciousness is part of that content. You understand what thought has done. We are absolutely nothing. All this super structure has been built by thought. And thought is the response of registration. Of course. You understand registration, like a tape. See what thought has done. - The Text Collection Madras 5th Public Talk 7th January 1978
So the nature, the inmost nature of the self, when you have gone through all the layers of the self, the essence is nothing. You are nothing. Right? On that nothingness thought has imposed the super structure of consciousness. Consciousness being the content, without the content there is no consciousness - the content being you are a Hindu, Buddhist, your religion, your particular god, your puja, your anxiety, your sorrow, your pain, your hate, your love, all that is the content of your consciousness. Obviously. And the idea that you are super atman, or super, super consciousness is part of that content. You understand what thought has done. We are absolutely nothing. All this super structure has been built by thought. And thought is the response of registration. Of course. You understand registration, like a tape. See what thought has done. - The Text Collection Madras 5th Public Talk 7th January 1978
When you love, you love, you do not ask
by Krishnamurti
Questioner: Sir, can love have an object?
Krishnamurti: Who is asking the question? Thought or love? Love is not asking this question. When you love, you love! - you do not ask, `Is there an object, or no object, is it personal or impersonal?'. Oh, you do not know what is means, the beauty of it! Our love, as it is, is such a trial; our relationship with each other is such a conflict. Our love is based on your image of me and my image of you. Look at it very carefully, at the relationship between these two isolated images which say to each other, `We love'. The images are the product of the past, of memories, memories of what you said to me and I said to you; and this relationship between the two images must inevitably be an isolating process. That is what we call relationship. To be related means to be in contact not merely physically which is not possible when there is an image, when there is the self-isolating process of thought, which is the `me', and the`you'. We say: `Has love an object? Or is love divine or profane?, - you follow? Sir, when you love, you are neither giving nor receiving. - 6th Public Talk Saanen 28th July 1970
Questioner: Sir, can love have an object?
Krishnamurti: Who is asking the question? Thought or love? Love is not asking this question. When you love, you love! - you do not ask, `Is there an object, or no object, is it personal or impersonal?'. Oh, you do not know what is means, the beauty of it! Our love, as it is, is such a trial; our relationship with each other is such a conflict. Our love is based on your image of me and my image of you. Look at it very carefully, at the relationship between these two isolated images which say to each other, `We love'. The images are the product of the past, of memories, memories of what you said to me and I said to you; and this relationship between the two images must inevitably be an isolating process. That is what we call relationship. To be related means to be in contact not merely physically which is not possible when there is an image, when there is the self-isolating process of thought, which is the `me', and the`you'. We say: `Has love an object? Or is love divine or profane?, - you follow? Sir, when you love, you are neither giving nor receiving. - 6th Public Talk Saanen 28th July 1970
Saturday, June 19, 2010
An ugly thing cannot be made beautiful
by Krishnamurti
She was among a group of people who had come to discuss some serious matter. She must have come out of curiosity, or was brought along by a friend. Well dressed, she held herself with some dignity, and she evidently considered herself very good looking. She was completely self-conscious: conscious of her body, of her looks, of her hair and the impression she was making on others. Her gestures were studied, and from time to time she took different attitudes which she must have thought out with great care. Her whole appearance had about it the air of a long cultivated pose into which she was determined to fit, whatever might happen. The others began to talk of serious things, and during the whole hour or more she maintained her pose. One saw among all those serious and intent faces this self-conscious girl, trying to follow what was being said and to join in the discussion; but no words came out of her. She wanted to show that she too was aware of the problem that was being discussed; but there was bewilderment in her eyes, for she was incapable of taking part in the serious conversation. One saw her quickly withdraw into herself, still maintaining the long-cultivated pose. All spontaneity was being sedulously destroyed. Each one cultivates a pose. There is the walk and the pose of a prosperous business man, the smile of one who has arrived; there is the look and the pose of an artist; there is the pose of a respectful disciple, and the pose of a disciplined ascetic. Like that self-conscious girl, the so-called religious man assumes a pose, the pose of selfdiscipline which he has sedulously cultivated through denials and sacrifices. She sacrifices spontaneity for effect, and he immolates himself to achieve an end. Both are concerned with a result, though at different levels; and while his result may be considered socially more beneficial than hers, fundamentally they are similar, one is not superior to the other. Both are unintelligent, for both indicate pettiness of mind. A petty mind is always petty; it cannot be made rich, abundant. Though such a mind may adorn itself or seek to acquire virtue, it remains what it is, a petty, shallow thing, and through so-called growth, experience, it can only be enriched in its own pettiness. An ugly thing cannot be made beautiful. The god of a petty mind is a petty god. A shallow mind does not become fathomless by adorning itself with knowledge and clever phrases, by quoting words of wisdom, or by decorating its outward appearance. Adornments, whether inward or outward, do not make a fathomless mind; and it is this fathomlessness of the mind that gives beauty, not the jewel or the acquired virtue. For beauty to come into being, the mind must be choicelessly aware of its own pettiness; there must be an awareness in which comparison has wholly ceased. - . Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 53, Spontaneity
She was among a group of people who had come to discuss some serious matter. She must have come out of curiosity, or was brought along by a friend. Well dressed, she held herself with some dignity, and she evidently considered herself very good looking. She was completely self-conscious: conscious of her body, of her looks, of her hair and the impression she was making on others. Her gestures were studied, and from time to time she took different attitudes which she must have thought out with great care. Her whole appearance had about it the air of a long cultivated pose into which she was determined to fit, whatever might happen. The others began to talk of serious things, and during the whole hour or more she maintained her pose. One saw among all those serious and intent faces this self-conscious girl, trying to follow what was being said and to join in the discussion; but no words came out of her. She wanted to show that she too was aware of the problem that was being discussed; but there was bewilderment in her eyes, for she was incapable of taking part in the serious conversation. One saw her quickly withdraw into herself, still maintaining the long-cultivated pose. All spontaneity was being sedulously destroyed. Each one cultivates a pose. There is the walk and the pose of a prosperous business man, the smile of one who has arrived; there is the look and the pose of an artist; there is the pose of a respectful disciple, and the pose of a disciplined ascetic. Like that self-conscious girl, the so-called religious man assumes a pose, the pose of selfdiscipline which he has sedulously cultivated through denials and sacrifices. She sacrifices spontaneity for effect, and he immolates himself to achieve an end. Both are concerned with a result, though at different levels; and while his result may be considered socially more beneficial than hers, fundamentally they are similar, one is not superior to the other. Both are unintelligent, for both indicate pettiness of mind. A petty mind is always petty; it cannot be made rich, abundant. Though such a mind may adorn itself or seek to acquire virtue, it remains what it is, a petty, shallow thing, and through so-called growth, experience, it can only be enriched in its own pettiness. An ugly thing cannot be made beautiful. The god of a petty mind is a petty god. A shallow mind does not become fathomless by adorning itself with knowledge and clever phrases, by quoting words of wisdom, or by decorating its outward appearance. Adornments, whether inward or outward, do not make a fathomless mind; and it is this fathomlessness of the mind that gives beauty, not the jewel or the acquired virtue. For beauty to come into being, the mind must be choicelessly aware of its own pettiness; there must be an awareness in which comparison has wholly ceased. - . Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 53, Spontaneity
wher is the demon in your paper?
Caroline presented her study about spirituality at a conference somewhere.
Dr. A asked: I have questions about your theories........
Caroline answered questions about the theories.
Dr. B asked: I have questions about your methodologies.
Caroline answered questions about the methodologies.
Dr. C asked: I think your study has a serious weakness. Where is the demon in your paper?
Caroline replied: ??? sorry, I foget this time. Next time, I promise that I will add demon into my papers.
Dr. A asked: I have questions about your theories........
Caroline answered questions about the theories.
Dr. B asked: I have questions about your methodologies.
Caroline answered questions about the methodologies.
Dr. C asked: I think your study has a serious weakness. Where is the demon in your paper?
Caroline replied: ??? sorry, I foget this time. Next time, I promise that I will add demon into my papers.
CMT 1A + NT-3: TrkB and TrkC agonist antibodies improve function, electrophysiol
Exp Neurol. 2010 May 26
TrkB and TrkC agonist antibodies improve function, electrophysiologic and pathologic features in trembler(j) mice.
Sahenk Z, Galloway G, Edwards C, Malik V, Kaspar BK, Eagle A, Yetter B, Forgie A, Tsao D, Lin JC.
Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, The Ohio State University, Columbus.
Abstract
Neurotrophic factors have been considered as potential therapeutics for peripheral neuropathies. Previously, we showed that neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) promotes nerve regeneration in trembler(J) (Tr(J)) mice and in sural nerves from patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth 1A (CMT1A).
The relatively short plasma half-life of NT-3 and other neurotrophins, however, pose a practical difficulty in their clinical application. Therapeutic agonist antibodies (AAb) targeting the neurotrophic receptors may circumvent this obstacle due to their high specificity and long half-life.
Using morphological, electrophysiological studies and functional motor testing, we assessed the efficacy of monoclonal TrkC AAb and TrkB AAb in the Tr(J) mice. Treatments of these AAbs individually or in combination over 20weeks increased compound muscle action potential (CMAP) amplitude, which correlated with improved grip strength, as compared to the PBS-control group. Improvements in CMAP amplitude were most prominent with TrkC AAb treatment.
In all treatment groups, distal to the crush site of the sciatic nerves exhibited a significantly greater number of myelinated fibers (MFs) indicating improved regenerative response to injury. In the contralateral intact sciatic nerves, the number of MFs as well as the myelin thickness was also increased significantly by the AAb treatments, suggesting that the hypomyelination/amyelination state of the peripheral nerves in Tr(J) improved.
Therapeutic response to AAb combination was often, albeit not always, the most prominent, indicating a non-redundant effect of TrkB and TrkC AAbs. An early functional recovery and the correlative morphological changes of enhanced regeneration were seen with TrkC AAb treatment.
These results provide evidence for potential therapeutic use of monoclonal agonist antibodies for neurotrophin receptors in CMT1A and other neuropathies.
TrkB and TrkC agonist antibodies improve function, electrophysiologic and pathologic features in trembler(j) mice.
Sahenk Z, Galloway G, Edwards C, Malik V, Kaspar BK, Eagle A, Yetter B, Forgie A, Tsao D, Lin JC.
Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, The Ohio State University, Columbus.
Abstract
Neurotrophic factors have been considered as potential therapeutics for peripheral neuropathies. Previously, we showed that neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) promotes nerve regeneration in trembler(J) (Tr(J)) mice and in sural nerves from patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth 1A (CMT1A).
The relatively short plasma half-life of NT-3 and other neurotrophins, however, pose a practical difficulty in their clinical application. Therapeutic agonist antibodies (AAb) targeting the neurotrophic receptors may circumvent this obstacle due to their high specificity and long half-life.
Using morphological, electrophysiological studies and functional motor testing, we assessed the efficacy of monoclonal TrkC AAb and TrkB AAb in the Tr(J) mice. Treatments of these AAbs individually or in combination over 20weeks increased compound muscle action potential (CMAP) amplitude, which correlated with improved grip strength, as compared to the PBS-control group. Improvements in CMAP amplitude were most prominent with TrkC AAb treatment.
In all treatment groups, distal to the crush site of the sciatic nerves exhibited a significantly greater number of myelinated fibers (MFs) indicating improved regenerative response to injury. In the contralateral intact sciatic nerves, the number of MFs as well as the myelin thickness was also increased significantly by the AAb treatments, suggesting that the hypomyelination/amyelination state of the peripheral nerves in Tr(J) improved.
Therapeutic response to AAb combination was often, albeit not always, the most prominent, indicating a non-redundant effect of TrkB and TrkC AAbs. An early functional recovery and the correlative morphological changes of enhanced regeneration were seen with TrkC AAb treatment.
These results provide evidence for potential therapeutic use of monoclonal agonist antibodies for neurotrophin receptors in CMT1A and other neuropathies.
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