ഇന്ത്യ
7 months ago
Saturday, October 11, 2008
World Mental Health Day observed at Calicut
Every year the 10th of October is observed as the World Mental Health Day as called for by the World Federation of Mental Health and the World health Organization. This years theme is "Making mental health a global priority; Scaling up services through citizen advocacy and action " The World Mental Health Day was observed at Calicut on 10tth October 2008 in a grand function organized at I M A Hall Calicut jointly by Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience (IMHANS) Calicut, Kerala State branch of the Indian Psychiatric Society ()IPS) and Arogyakeralam (National Rural Health Mission). The function was inaugurated by Worshipful Mayor of Calicut Shri M Bhaskaran in a function presided over by Mr A Pradeep Kumar, MLA. Shri Radhakrishnan Master, Chairman of the Health Standing Committee, Kozhikode District Panchayat, Dr A Baburaj District Medical Officer and District Program Manager of NRHM, and Dr Mathew Nambeli, Coordinator of Pain and Palliative Care Society Malappuram felicitated on the occasion. Dr. Harish M T Assistant Professor of Psychiaatry and Editor of Kerlaa Journal of Psychiatry of IPS welcomed the gathering. Dr Roshan Bijlee, Research Officer at IMHANS proposed vote of thanks. Dr K S Shaji President of Indian Psychiatric Society, Kerala state branch delivered the keynote address focusing on reducing the burden of care givers by using community volunteers of the Pain and Palliative Care Initiative. He stated that IPS Kerala is willing to associate with this project and also in the long term community care of geriatric persons. Different models of community care were presented in the seminar that followed. Shri Johny from Jyoti Nivas at Vazhavatta, Wayanad presented his efforts in organizing long stay and rehab facilities by individual effort alone with little charity contribution later. The Malappuram and Balussery models were presented next. Here community care and rehab are being organized by collective efforts of Local Self Governance bodies with technical support of the Pain and Palliative Care Society. The District Mental Health Program model of Wayanad and Kannur was presented by Dr Krishnakumar next. Both of these are top down models implemented with financial assistance of Central Government by tertiary care institutions. Department of Psychiatry, Medical College Calicut is implementing the program at Kannur (Dr Harish M T is the nodal officer) and IMHANS is implemnenting it in Wayanad. Dr Krishnakumar, Director of IMHANS is the nodal officer. Mr. Baby from IMHANS presented the story of how the note book manufacturing unit was started as part of the rehab initiative by IMHANS from 1989 onwards.
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29 comments:
thank you for the post.what are the features of balussery model and malappuram model?
I was busy with another similar program organized as part of DMHP at Kannur. This delayed my reply. Thank you for the query Vrajesh. Basically both are models of community based mental health care. At Balussery it started with the collaboration of IMHANS and the local Primary Health Centre. Later when there was difficulty to sustain it due to shortage of funds, local activists floated asn NGO called 'Swanthanam' which helped to get fund for buying medication, from the local self government bodies.
At Malappuram it started as a palliative care initiative. There is an excellent network of Pain and Palliateive Care society (PPCS) in many parts of the district. This is being implemented by the Neighborhood Network in Palliative Care (NNPC)for past several years. Recently the LSG institutions have started supporting their program for 'Home based care of bed ridden people' as a project called Pariraksha. Their volunteers are trained in visiting homes poor bed ridden people and do things like changing urinary catheters, dressing bed sores etc. It is now covering sevral village panchayats in the district. Now they get funds from the LSG bodies as well as from the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). NRHM does not fund any mental health programs any where in India. Recently IMHANS has succeeded in getting NRHM fund for community mental health program which is being implementd through the existing NNPC network as well as by LSG bodies (in places where NNPC is not very active). The difference from Balussery model is the wider support and coverage got due to involvement of LSG bodies from the start itself, in addition to NGO sector. Balussery was a small initiative, but Malappuram model can be replicated anywhere in India. The central funded DMHP is a 'top down model' whereas both of these are 'bottom to top' approaches with some difference in magnitude and participating agencies.
It is true that most of the psychiatrists and public health experts icluding docotrs are not aware of such initiative in their neighborhood. The slogan for morld mental health day "Scaling up of services through citizen advocacy and action" is very relevant in this context. IMHANS conducted the program and I wrote about it with this particular aim. I thank Vrajesh for the very pertinent query.
I agree with Sashi to some extent....sporadic lectures at some place/time , as such need not produce perceptible interest/changes in our society........
To some other realms OF Public Psychiatry( to which we should be interested).
Even Professionals are afraid of talking about/discussing some thing that can be used to change the mental health of our people especially females/chronic patients who are destined to suffer chronic depression...which is underulilised or misused....just because of the unfounded fear of public opinion.
I am talking about drugs.
Many advanced society uses them very liberaly....
It is well known that drugs have effects on human mind....But just because they have addiction as a side effect ,our society view them with atmost disrespect.....
What is the role of Psychiatric Health Professsionals in the optimum/liberal use of these useful psychomodulating drugs? ....I feel they are also afraid of public wrath,and at present is preoccupied with de-addiction programmes.
Our old society is gripped by the mortal fear of drug addictions and the prevailing public opinions...!
I invite your views..!
Thank you
Hi Devadas, I don't think that modern antidepressants like SSRIs cause any addiction. Dependency is another thing and that may be similar to beta blockers or steroids. It is possible to taper off antidepressants even after many years of continuous use. Lay people have limited awareness but there are psychiatrists also who advocate against the use of antidepressants. Do not try to cure depression but we should compare it to hypertension or diabetes where life long care is necessary. We need an awareness programme more than anything.
Thank you.
Hi Sashi and all,
I think Sashi needs to integrate the concept of 'risk-reward ratio' to his arguments. I will give some examples. We use many drugs to treat primary hypertension. All of these drugs need to be taken for a life time and the patient should keep an optimum level of drug in his blood or body. All of these drugs cause side effects and dependency. These drugs may also cause new problems like impotency, asthma, left ventricular dysfunction, edema, gastritis or type 2 diabetes. But the benefits of the drugs outweigh all of these risks as you know these problems are not worse than a stroke, myocardial infarction or death. Will you opt for death than a dependency of drugs? I think it is better to walk with a crutch rather than not walking at all. I can accept your argument of creating a new illness that was not present earlier but all people will opt for a small new problem to solve a big chronic problem.
There are some difference in the meaning of ‘addiction’ and ‘dependency’ though it is small. I think addiction is more related to ‘development of tolerance’ or ‘cravings for more’. We can say that the drug ‘Valium’ cause both addiction and dependency but it in the case of the drug ‘Prozac’ it is better to talk about dependency only. People who take Valium regularly will develop tolerance and they often show an interest to take more or increase the dose but this is not observed in people who take Prozac. Dr.Harish is more knowledgeable than me in this matter, he may comment.
Very bold comments form Davadas. Sorry to join late. If he means controlled use of dependence producing drugs, I do not see any such drug that can give sustained euphoria other than alcohol. But I dot think this is a solution. Antidepressants anr not addictive as Ajeesh rightly states. But theoritically we are taught that they cannot elevate the mood of a normal person. I am not sure whether they are tellling the truth or not. They could be trying to be moralisitc and paternalistic - to save 'poor and innocent public' from the 'harmful effects of drugs.' I do not think anybody has done a trial of antidepressants on people suffering from 'sadness due to normal day to day difficulties'. It may not get ethical clearance even.
Regaeding survey: We have planned this several times, but funds and the stigma are real issues. Many social workers fear that going to a house and asking whether anybody here has mental illness might have physically damaging consequences. There have been survey of 'Priority psychiatric disorders in rural Kerala which has been published in british journal of psychiatry.' In Public psychiatry we divide disorders into Priority disorders and Common mental disorders - CMD. Priority disorders include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression and dementia. CMDs include anxiety disorders, mild depression, somatoform and psychosomatic disorders etc. The general consensus is that prevalence of Priority diorders is fairly constant in most cultures including ours. This is because of underlying genetic risk being equal. There is an inverse relationship between Dwpression and somatization. Studies from Tamilnadu showas that the rate of depression is low and somatization is high in rural areas. But in urban and developed societies, depression is more common and somatization less. The term masked depression (depression masquarading as a more respectable bodily symptom) has empirical support.
Ajeesh is showing signs of 'creativity' and 'originality'in his neat dissection between dependecny and addiction. Excellent. I hope the makers of DSM 5 and ICD 11 look into his points. Unfortunately psychiatrists tend to clib together both. There may be merit in Ajeesh's distinction. Psychiatrists used to speak of physiological dependence (tolerance and craving) and psychologicl dependence. But later research showed that it may be more useful to clib the two. Hence the current criteria lists both types of behaviors and says any x number has to be present from the total list. I think it needs a relook.
Use of Opium.
I strongly feel the debate on drugs / alcohol and human life has to be continued.
I think Sashi is approaching it as a topic that has already been closed by 'experts'and there is no much scope for a fresh discussion!.
For those who believe in life after death or in a devine purpose for human life ,discussion on alcohol or Opium may be a horrible sin.
A life without a purpose(except living)is a free world where everything is possible and acceptable which can improve the quality of life of the individuals and the society.
With this background ,do you think the totally negative attitudes of the opinion-formers on the use of drugs and alcohol , justifiable?
The trajody of our generation is that ,to support/popularise such modalities (which can change the misery of life),we have nobody except few marginalised addicts...and 'descent fellows' will look down on these issues..as we see now!
thank you!
Hi Devadas,
We can say that our life has no purpose other than to pass genes from one generation to another. Life has only one purpose that is to sustain itself. Does this knowledge make anyone depressed? To be frank, I do not know. The only thing I know is that it entertains me. We can always wonder why there is a big bang at all. Why are we here? It's a big question that stares right into our face. I am not a philosopher to answer these big issues but I have something to say aloud. 'Why are we here?' is not a question. It is a statement that we are here. The question 'Why there is a big bang?' is asked only because there was a big bang. So there are no questions here, all are statements.
I do not believe in any life after death, or in any divine purpose. We can certainly open up a discussion on drugs, alcohol and human life. Let me present my views on alcohol or drugs.
An alcoholic is less likely to build up a good family life so that his children are less likely to survive than other’s children. It means that the genes that make up an alcoholic are not going to survive. My example may look silly because we are living in a small time frame. In a very large evolutionary time frame an alcoholic has less survival value. Evolution / natural selection are not going to support an alcoholic. So alcoholism is not an evolutionary stable system.
The risk reward ratio of drug or alcohol uses is not favourable. The risks always outweigh benefits. The pleasant effects of alcohol are immediate and it is an excellent example for classical conditioning. The immediate, pleasant, mildly analgesic, mood shifting properties of alcohol enhances the behavior of drinking alcohol. The risks or unpleasant effects are always delayed and it doesn’t affect the conditioning. A more complex system of reward gets triggered in the brain with alcohol use. That is a subject of Dr.Harish and I leave it to him.
The cost benefit ratio is also bad for drugs and alcohol. The same money you spent for alcohol or drugs can always be used in a more entertaining or pleasing way.
The drug or alcohol use can bring up a lot of legal issues. The judge won’t listen to the philosophy but will act according to written laws. We are expected to behave in a particular way by the society. This system is evolved as part of a mutual agreement between us though unconscious.
The financial and health problems raised by drug or alcohol uses affect all others too, directly or indirectly. Government is forced to spend money on these matters and this money is nothing but tax payer’s money. I do not want to spend my hard earned bucks for a heroine eater.
But I think nobody is going to object you in our country if you are using a controlled amount of alcohol or nicotine, both are psychoactive drugs. It is an ‘adjustment’ in life. A little bit of caffeine or alcohol may be useful in some way but not certain. I hope I have opened up something for a discussion.
Expecting replies, Thank you.
As an undergraduate medical student I had read in the then current edition of 'Bailey and Love' (A Short Practice of Surgery)
thus "Used in moderation, alcohol is a boon to humanity". But most of the users ignore the first part of this. It may be a property of alcohol (agent), the host (user) or due to the environmental factors, speaking in the language of epidemiologists. Pregnant ladies use alcohol without any concern for the fetus, giving riese to fetal alcohol syndrome. Most of the other substances are more problematic.
Therefore, there are social / health / economic variables to be considered apart from the moral reasons. We should not forgetthat alcohol industry may be worth several crores of rupees. There are people with vested interests and hidden agenda working on both sides of the divide.
From a psychological perspective, using chemicals to avoid reality is like the defence of Denial. It will worsen the probelem in the long run. Suicide also is an escapism. Psychologically healthy persons have to accept and fece reality and solve problems by action. Of coures any body is fee to hold his opinion or air it in public. We need not shudder as if it is blasphemy.
Hi Sashi,
We are the highest on the evolutionary ladder and human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe. The story ends there. Your fond hope of uniqueness, singular and random occurrence of human evolution is going to remain a hope for ever. Evolution is the most wrongly understood theory in the world. It is a non-random process. Natural selection is not the fuel behind the evolution but it actually slows down the evolution. It punishes deviations and mutations. You are surprised to see the rate of change happened in the cerebral area. You are making an unwanted dichotomy of cerebral sophistication versus physical sophistication. Where do you draw the line? The sophistication of cerebral area or brain did not happen in a day or month. It is extremely difficult for a human mind to imagine an evolutionary time frame. Do not forget that we were a bundle of symbiotic organisms rather than a single being long ago. It is even true now, taking any human being, you can find many symbiotic micro organisms in the human body. A human life is also a life of friendly bacteria residing in stomach or colon. When two organism’s exit route of genes becomes same it will merge or evolve as a single organism. Your body is nothing but a shell to hold a lot of different genes for a temporary period of time. 99 percentage of genetic code in your body is parasitic and you don't have any use of them. You carry it and pass it to next generation. A bacterium is better in this aspect and its genetic code is 100 percentages useful to it. Look at a human eye, the wiring is done in front of the retina, even a kid won't make such a stupid design. If it were in the back we would have a better vision, there was a possibility of avoiding the blind spot. The bat’s sonar vision is better than ours in some aspects. There is nothing special about a human being. The cerebral sophistication is a part of physical sophistication. You make the dichotomy and you feel the wonder. You compare the cerebral abilities of humans with other creatures. We are better because we are in the highest ladder. But that is not a singular marked occurrence in evolution and the concept of a singular marked occurrence is against the very basic nature of evolution. It is better you reject the theory all together than saying it. You go on saying that our cerebral advantage can not be explained by evolution and it is a random process. Evolution is not a random process and it can be used to explain any form of life in any universe at any instance of time.
Thank you all.
The concept of redundancy is important in understanding evolution. Randomness cannot explain the degree of specialization achieved in evolution. An experiment on randomness was done years ago. A monkey was taught to tyoe using a type writer. The aim was to make it type letters without any order, randomly and to see if it could result in sensible verses, like a line from Shakespear. Even after typing millions of pages, it ended in mere gibberish. The conclusion was that random events cannot explain evolution. Here the concept of redundancy is important. If a type 'to..o..r..w', you may fill in it as 'tomorrow' easliy. This is because these letters are redundant. They are not essential to produce meaning. This happens because letters can be combined only based on certain rules. tpy is not an english word, though this combination is possible. In english vowels are needed between consanants. So it has to be toy. But the combination tey, is again meanigless, though it obeys the previous rule. Some degree of arbitrariness is there in deciding what is sensible and not so.
In genetics we have a four letter language. Adenine, Guanine, thymine and cytosine are these letters. When combined correctly they denote one of the 20 amino acids. This is the basic building block of life. Other combinations are possible, but they are useless if they dont code for an amino acids. Thus only sensible mutations are carried forward. I read all this in a book on computer language, cybernetics and genetics. I remember it was written by an MIT (USA) faculty. I forgot the name of book and author. It is with the help of the rule of redundancy that evolution produced intelligent oragnism like us so fast. Random mutations would have taken several times the current age of man.
Dear Sashi,
The world of Opium(as a prototype)
The basic issue is mind versus brain, and you are preoccupied by the struggle for survival by the brain....I feel human mind/consciousness is a helpless slave of the sophisticated & cunning brain.Why do you so religiously try to protect and save the brain..are you going to sustain here for ever? What is the logic of your responsibility to the present social order which is destined to go on changing?
I agree with ajeesh's balanced view on alcohol and drugs.....provided his observation that the benefits do not outweigh the hazards, is evidence based.!
Hi Sashi and all,
It is your concept of randomness at micro level is what we call mutation. I think you understand the process well but use a different and may be a less appropriate word for mutation. But you have made a mistake when you assume that high mutation rate (your rate of randomness) leads to a faster evolution. Natural selection is nothing but a speed governor on mutation rate. Any mutation (randomness) that is so big will be punished by natural selection. A leap from a frog to a man is not possible and the man will be punished under the claws of natural selection. A very small improvement to a better frog is possible if allowed a sufficient time, sufficient time for a mutation to get selected and sustained will not fit into our imagination. It is clear from your own comment that a rapid change does not lead to faster evolution but may lead to extinction of a species and that is what happened in the case of dinosaurs. We have thousands of varieties of butterflies, frogs, leeches, fishes, birds etc because of mutation and nothing happened in rapid manner. I humbly request to not use the word rapid for such gigantic time frames. You can see similar counterparts among animals but not in humans. What do you mean by that? There are African elephants and Asian elephants and they look and behave in slightly different ways. Their physical sophistication also may be different. Do Asians, Africans and Americans look same to you? You can consider them as similar counter parts. Your wonder of not able to find less evolved human beings arises from a desire to see ourselves as a divine intervention. The modern man did not arise all of a sudden but evolved like all other animals and that is evident from the studies of fossils, ancient civilizations etc… Even pope does not hold these kinds of ideas these days. The question of where is the less evolved man evokes fun rather than wonder. I can’t find any less evolved dogs or cats if I look around my house only. Many have gone extinct under the love of more evolved humans but still you can find the so called less evolved human beings on the earth. There are still people living in deep forests. They have less life expectancy and any of their matured adult will perform less efficiently than a usual New York kid. Our observable time frame is extremely small compared to an evolutionary time frame and this difference of life expectancy is enough to show you the less evolved man. Do not attribute the extended qualities of modern men to medicine or technology because that is not different from evolution. Sashi’s desire to understand evolution and his observations are quite excellent.
Thank you.
It is not correct to say that cavemen are less evolved man. Or about racial difference. These are just variations within the species. Just like you can have black, brown or white cat or dog.
Man would not have evolved by random mutations in the time frame it has taken now. This is why other factors have to operate. Redundany is one such factor that eliminates meaningless or adverse combinations of genetic material.
Evolution or any other theory does not answer the most fundamental questions like
1) Where did the universe come from ? If it started with BIG BANGG, WHAT WAS THERE BEFORE IT ?. (change to caps not important). Why should there be a big bang or any such singularity (to use the word used by Stephen Hawking).
2) Why and how did elements (as given in the periodic table) originate ?
3) How did they start to organize as compound of increasing complexity ?
4) Of all these elements why did Carbon become the molecule responsible for life ? What makes it unique ?
5) Is life is based on some property of carbon ?
6) How did carbon atoms start combining to form proteisn, fats, carbohydrates etc?
7) When did DNA appear ? How did DNA start to code for individual amino acids ?
I think there is no end to such questions. I am not of the opinion that we should stop asking them. We should always ask them. Looking at the marvel that the universes is, that we and our mind/brain is, there can be no end to questions.
But if we look back in the history of science, we can see tombstones of several grand theories which started ambitiously to explain everything, but fell terribly off the mark and had a natural demise. Evolution or any currently fasionable theory is useful till new phenomena appear which it cannot explain. It is better not behave like converts to a new creed and fight with the belief that 'this thesy can explain everything'. Our dicsussions are quite healthy, balanced and motivates each one of us to learn and explore to gain more knowledge. This is the real aim, and what counts. I am not worried that it is out of the field of psychiatry as Sashi fears. Thank you all. Come up with new roadblocks.
Hi friends,
Dear Dr.Harish, I did not say that the theory of evolution can answer anything. I said ‘any form of life’ anywhere can be explained with evolution. Life is a complex form of arrangements, of atoms or other basic elements. It can only move from a less complex state to a more complex state and that is initiated by mutation and guided by natural selection. Life is a more complex subject than the universe itself. The question of a singularity is not possible as all of these logics, questions, time, space and everything is a property of our universe. All these qualities of time and space only exist in the universe. A property that only exists in the universe can not be applied to beyond or before that. Even the words ‘beyond’ or ‘before’ do not make any sense unless we apply it in the universe. So I think your first question is not logically sound. It is a question that contradicts itself in logic. Your questions 2 to 7 can be answered with the theory of evolution, some technical details may miss but it is explainable. The divisions of living and non living organisms are arbitrary. Life evolved gradually and very slowly, at first there was no clear difference between them. You can say it is the mutation of substances, different combinations happened and natural selection favoured more sustainable models. New models arrived with mutation, models that can become bigger acquiring near by substances or models with replicating capabilities and it went like that. DNA or anything does not evolve all of a sudden. A substance gradually developed to a state that can be qualified by calling it a DNA. Carbon became the molecule for life because it could provide a better model of sustainable development. There are still a lot of questions remaining but that are of details only like we do not know how the nerve impulses are translated into pleasure or pain, or about protein synthesis. The incidence of life is not mysterious any more and clearly understood by theory of evolution. A better theory may or may not come but that doesn’t matter. We need to act according to our current knowledge. Waiting for an absolutely perfect theory is useless. A new form of better medical science may evolve but it is not a good idea to stop treatment till that happens. We are not fighting for any belief. I place my ideas in front of you and you evaluate, suggest correction or reject and finally I improve. I hope everybody take it as an intellectual stimulation and understand that people vary in their styles of explaining things. Do not take anything personal, sometimes language may become aggressive. I have a special love for people who disagree with me as they contribute to my knowledge. I am sorry if my use of words did hurt anyone.
More about alcohol and drugs:
Dear Devadas,
We have some sort of responsibility to our present or current social order. It changes from time to time on a slow scale. Our responsibility arose mainly from our desire to survive or live better. You can’t do everything yourself, somebody is farming for you, some others weaving clothes for you, and lot of others doing different things for you. You have to play your own role to help sustaining this system of collective survival otherwise you are thrown out of the game. A drug addict can not fulfill his responsibilities when he is always sitting a private room and smoking ganja. The very act of sitting idle is a threat. But the society will forgive you if you play it in limits. It is all relative.
Imagine you are driving a car and enjoying it very much. Now you are going at a speed of 60Km/hrs. You can try 80, 100 or 120 Km/hrs. It should feel good. But you can not increase speed beyond a limit. The risk benefit ratio will do an upside down dive at some critical point. Your chances of survival diminish with extremely higher speeds and you have to keep a limit to enjoy driving for a longer period. You can compare it to alcohol, usually a person feels good at 60ml or 120 ml. It can be increased according to an individuals tolerance levels. The pleasing effect will be replaced with irritation at some critical point and no use of consuming more. This example does well if the driving itself is healthy but that question is not answered yet. Using opium is a different thing, it’s like you replace your car’s engine with jet engine and try to start from 1000Km/hrs. It is like riding on a missile with heroine. Your chances of sustained entertainment are nil. Some psychoactive drugs like Caffeine or Alcohol are your pet dog, you can play with it and it is fun as long as you keep a limit. Do not poke in the dog’s ass with fire and it will bite you. But there are other psychoactive drugs like heroine, brown sugar or cocaine and they are not your pet dog, they are like lions or leopards, keep them out of the gate. Once you let them enter your territory they are going to rule you.
There are people around us who hate pet dogs or wild animals. They keep a distance and are much safer. Life is a splendid show but some guys get bad seats and they watch it from a worst angle. They don’t understand they can simply move to another seat and enjoy the show. You can use opium but there better ways around.
Thank you all.
Dear Ajeesh/Sashi,
Thank you for sharing your views/giving vivid examples for drugs/alcohol....
I can understand/appreciate the concerns shared by you all on the risks posed by them to the sacred human life and our social responsibilities.
I believe that we have not witnessed or experienced a bold/balaced/mature society which can handle everything judiciously and appropriatly....( I have to agree that human society will have people of extreme behaviours) , we (even the most liberal person here) ,view things which have been traditionally branded as bad as really BAD or some terrible demon somehow enclosed in a jar ;and hate/is afraid of people whoever goes near that dangerous jar,for fear of opening it!
I understand the unfortunate public mood/emotion...we have a long way to go! Goodbye
Thank you...
hello,
Let we share myown queries on evolution,...
what is the evidence that Human being occuppy the top post in the evolutionary ladder?
All surviving creatures can claim the same as they are surviving in the struggle for existance..
The newly acquired potential power to destroy all other life form will not give man this position ..as we dont know who is going to survive here more!
In many places/jungles man still faces the threat of extinction!
Regarding intellectual capability...what is the evidence that all other creatures are inferior to man in this aspect?
Not publishing a novel is not an evidence that a novelist has no imagination.
So we have no evidence that the intelligence of even a virus is inferior to that of human beings!
To my knowledge the current concepts in evolution give no special position for man ......and regards evolution as an ongoing process with multiple branches from a lost common trunk.!
thank you
Welcome Robert. You have a valid point in saying that man has no special position in nature. Like USA acts as the world police, we act as self proclaimed masters. If you go by numbers, insects are the most adapted class of organisms as they outnumber any others.
I agree with Sashi. Probably Ajeesh is quoting ideas of Hawking, when he says that we cannot look beyond the universe. But I think Hawking meaans that we cannot go beyond the universe as all the physical laws break down at that point. We do not know what theory or model applies beyond this point. This is what he calls a singularity. I amy be wrong as my knowledge in physics ic only of high school leve. I tried to understand Hawking from this level. But this question "what was there before big bang "is a very basic one.
I fully agre with Sashi that we have to answer the most fundamental questions. It is uncomfortable to stop short of this. Evolution is an excellent theory to explain the 'Origin of species' considering that it even antedated the discovery of genes, heredity etc. It is said that life originated when protein molecules (albumin ?) started to replicate. But why this happened ? I am not trying to bring in some divine interventions. The explanations given by all the religions are unsatisfactory. The question of 'Who created God and Why' will not be welcomed by any of them. But still the question arises.
Origin of universe and origin of life are not yet fully explained by Science even now. But we have theories explaining parts of it. We also have theories to explain many subsequent events like evolution used to explain origin of species. I hope the puzzle will be solved by science at some point in future, amy be beyond our life time.
I like to make two important points here.
The words ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ all refer to space-time. The universe is not a shell like object that holds everything. You must think of it as a ‘space-time’ existence. Our current knowledge states that this ‘space-time’ or the universe began from a big bang. The first and the most important point to note that we can’t ask ‘when’ where there is no time and we can’t ask ‘what’ where there is no space. It all began after the big bang, all of this ‘when’ or ‘what’ (space-time). I think Hawking was unaware of this problem and I wish to correct him here. It is not like a priest asking not to question anything.
You all wonder why some molecules started to replicate at some point in time. This question arises out of logical error. You throw a ball and it falls somewhere in the ground and you can ask why the ball fell at that exact place instead of other places. You forgot that it had to fall somewhere. The space-time started to evolve after the big bang. Many things happened here. We, human beings ask questions, made a language, have ideas and give names to objects and processes. We called a particular process ‘replicating’ and ask why some molecules started to replicate? There was no necessity in the universe to start a self replicating process at all. It happened and you are here and asking why it happened. You can call it an accident, mutation or random process, it doesn’t matter. It happened so you asked why it happened. If it didn’t happen then there is no question.
No animal makes tools other than men. The ‘human genes’ are working behind computers, cars or satellites. A tool is like an extended organ of a man. It is not necessary that evolution should only happen in the flesh. It can go on forward through ideas, consciousness, tools etc… It was true that evolution happened in the physical sophistication at first but later it led to extremely complex organisms and these organisms are human beings and their latest evolutionary advantages are called mind or consciousness and it is a part of physical sophistication too. Now we are evolving in more dimensions. Any complex objects made by human beings are a part of evolution. Faster computers or better cars mean nothing but the genetic make up of the organism that made it. Cumulative knowledge from books is also part of the evolution. Learnt or natural, a civilized city guy is more evolved than the forest man. My grand mother is less evolved than me as I am more skilled at using mobile phones or computers. Do not consider scientific knowledge religiously. It should be corrected, modified or expanded to accommodate the current forms. Our observable time frame is not enough to observe any significant change in the evolution. So I used the example of forest man and it is not the best example to put here. Fossils clearly show that human beings evolved like others and there is no marked occurrence as Sashi said.
We are not special from an evolutionary point of view but I hope that we are the only ‘substances’ that look for its own roots. Robert’s question of ‘who is superior’ may not be answered because it will take another great debate to define ‘superiority’. We say we have a top position in the evolutionary ladder because of increasing complexity of genetic make up. The number of possible brain states of a human being can have is greater than the total number of elementary particles in the whole universe. Robert may also note that we are the only ones who make tools. In this era of biological, chemical and nuclear warfare we are capable of wiping out every organism from this earth including ourselves. Who knows that this funny creature on the earth is not going to nuke the earth from space and move to a much better place?
Thank you all.
Dear ajeesh,
thank you for the brainstorming and thought provoking passage!
Evolution of thoughts/concepts are happening in the minds and it need not be related to the number of synapses that a brain posses.It is a fact that "The concept/idea" can exist outside human mind( example..books/cinema etc) and can be propagated at leat to other minds !How do we make sure that only human mind has this property AND this is the topmost form of property which you have made use to claim the uniqueness/superiority of human species?
What is the evidence that other species of animals or plants or inanimate objects do not have consciousness or some other form of quality which may be far superior to human beings?
As long as we are not able to make sure of this simple fact,how can we claim( using the informations gathered by just 5 simple sensors) ,to be on the top of the evolutionary ladder ,even without some primary knowledge about the universe ?
thank you
Dear Friends,
We have an Ex-priest(Father MAni) who left Christianity four years ago( for that matter all religions) and is very much intersted in continueing intellectual persuit.
Many years before his final resignation from job and religion he had been involved in many radical activities in different parts of India especially tribal regions.
Unlike many of us, he has experimented his life with his faiths and is now living in an agricultural farm at Attapady with his partner and a small group of people who do not uphold family form of traditional society....
He and his friends are very much intersted in the topics you discuss and will be happy to host you for a small get together....if you are intersted!
Thank you
RObert
Dear Ajeesh,
I do not agree with your calculation( or that of Dr.VSR) of the possible number of brain circuits(?states)through synapses of hundred million neurons with more than thousand dendrites of a human brain, is more than that of the total number of elementary particles in the universe.
just because of the simple fact that ,we dont know the total number of elementary particles in the universe.. but we can have an estimate of the possible number of circuits in the human brain!
Was it as unnecessary exageration?
Dear Anonymous,
Could you please take a look at the last paragraph of my last comment? I have already stated that we are not unique or special from an evolutionary point of view. I have discussed it with Sashi a lot and I do not hold any idea of uniqueness for human species. I didn’t really like to answer the question of Robert because of our difficulty defining ‘Superiority’. That is also clearly stated in my comment. Anyway I will try to answer you. Here we go.
Dear friends,
All of the readers of this blog should note that our ‘Anonymous’ didn’t ask his question to a dog or a donkey. He claims that he doesn’t know who is superior, so he can simply ask this question to a dog, a worm or a snake. It shouldn’t matter to him. But he looked around and decided to ask the question to a human being. So he is well aware of the answer but asked this question just to annoy me and lied to all of you that he doesn’t know who is superior. He is expected to get the answer from a human being only. So he is here.
If you try to ask this question to a snake or a dog they will not even understand that you have asked a question. Questions and answers are for us. It doesn’t mean anything to them. It is not applicable to them. We, human beings have a tendency to see and discuss almost everything in terms of ‘absolute’ rather than ‘relative’. We ask these kinds of questions assuming that our reality, logic or language can be applied to anything or anywhere. Species have different ways of perceiving the world. They belong to their own reality. So we have to discuss in terms of ‘relative’ rather than ‘absolute’. I hope you have understood the uselessness of the question.
As he had asked the question to me I will try answering the question from my point of view, or in a human way. If he wants to get it from a different view he might visit a zoo and ask another species.
I like to define the superiority in terms of an organism’s ability to survive. If we define superiority in terms of size, elephants are superior to us. Cheetahs rule in case of speed. The dangers to survival do not come in a single dimensional way. It is neither speed nor size. Dinosaurs were not bad in both but they became extinct. The threat can be from anywhere. The Sun is not going to shine for ever. Earth may not be appropriate for life after a long time. There are issues with ozone layer or global warming. An object in the space may collide with the earth. In my knowledge, any distant hope for survival lies with human beings. They have already become capable of living in outer space at least for a limited period. They know how to make a new species, learnt to clone or how to correct the problems that threaten their survival. You know that we make tools, no other animals do that. A simple object made by human beings can lift an elephant and throw it away. No Cheetah will travel as fast as a supersonic jet. No wild animal know how to extinguish fire and they simply die. Food is necessary for survival. Some organisms are capable of farming but they are not skilled as humans, they don’t have any distant idea of vitamin tablets or synthetic foods. The human beings do not die of type 1 diabetes any more because we learnt to solve a problem that is necessary for survival. The worst or the best capability of human beings is its ability to destroy others, others with a different genetic make up. 99.99% organisms are not going to survive a nuclear explosion. There are enough examples to write down a heavy book and I do not want to put it all here. You can still argue that some other species or organism has better explanation than this and a superiority grading according to ‘survival quality’ is not necessarily the best way. You have asked the question to a human being and you are expected to get a human point of view. You have to ask a dog if you want to know what a dog’s opinion of this philosophical problem. We are really interested to hear from you if you some how achieve this. But we, human beings have something to celebrate that a human being has become capable of successfully communicating with another species.
Do not misunderstand that I have argued for a unique-special species called human beings. Natural selection is blind and it doesn’t have any social face. It is simply the survival of the fittest. The example of ‘possible brain states’ is used to show the complexity of the human brain. The brain states do not mean the number of synapses or neurons but it is the possibility of different action potentials a brain can have. Still it doesn’t matter because that these brain states are nothing but a part of the universe. Take it as an example to understand the complexity of the brain.
It is better people use pseudo names instead of ‘anonymous’. We will have difficulty communicating if more people write comments as anonymous. We will not know ‘who said what’. I really enjoyed writing this. Please come up with new issues.
Thank you very much.
Dear Ajeesh.
Thank you very much for the response to my post.
As I fully agree with your view on the use of the option Anonymous,this will be my last comment as anonymous.
I really dont understand how my comment on, the need not be impossible existence of consciousness/concepts/ideas etc.... outside human mind/brain lost it's intended meaning to you ...but it has annoyed you terribly!
I really regret and feel guilty of asking an unnecessary /inappropriate/silly question to you.As there is no point in saying sorry,I assure you not to irritate you anymore.(May be, My words/language would have carried some unintended meaning/message to you)
I fully agree with your views and Now I have understood all the achievements made by human beings.
Thank you.
Hi friends,
I can state that “my pen has a superior consciousness to human beings and human beings have no way of identifying it”. You can’t prove that my pen has not a superior consciousness and I can’t also prove the superior consciousness of my pen. So it seems that my statement being true is a 50% possibility. You can’t also prove it wrong if I say that you are a donkey’s dream. Nobody knows that it is a dream while they are dreaming. We can’t be sure of anything. We have to stop there and shut up our mouth. This is one of the ugly faces of philosophy that doesn’t contribute to any useful knowledge. It annoys me intellectually. I do not know exactly why this happens. Why there are circular arguments? Is logic applicable to everything we know?
‘Anonymous’ asked me in his first comment about the evidence of consciousness exists only in human beings. I think nobody ever reported the existence of consciousness among other species or inanimate objects. I really like to hear about it. Dr.Harish is able to give a detailed explanation of what is consciousness and which species or objects have it.
Please help me sharing your valuable knowledge. Thank you.
Hi Sashi,
I really enjoy reading your comments and glad to see you back. I am not comfortable using the word ‘superiority’. It is very difficult to define superiority but still I feel that we, human beings are some way superior in the genetic make up that helps the organisms to survive. There may be better words to describe my ideas but I do not remember any, right now. Viruses are superior in another way, they replicate faster than us. Insects have outnumbered us. So they are superior in that aspect. But in a total sense I give more probability of survival to human beings. I came to this conclusion after considering some important capabilities of human beings. They include the ability to actively modify evolution, human genome project is going on and genetic engineering is developing fast. Human beings have extra ordinary skills to make and use tools and that should not be ignored. The ability to escape from the earth is also one important point. There are many points and it is not practical to describe everything here. I hope you remember that once you argued for a marked single occurrence in evolution. You were amazed at the cerebral sophistication of a human being. The possibility of a marked single occurrence is nil for me but I like to put us in the top ladder of evolution. And do you think that any other species or inanimate objects have a quality like consciousness? I like to know your opinion.
We can deny the big bang but we have no better alternatives. It is useless to wait for a perfect theory. Current theory and observations suggest that the age of our universe is between 13.5 and 14.0 billion years. It is not science fiction, there are scientific ways to determine this. They include the age of the chemical elements, the age of the oldest star clusters and the age of the oldest white dwarf stars. And there are also scientific observations to support the hypothesis of Big bang.
“After Edwin Hubble discovered in 1929 that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts, this observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point. The farther away, the higher the apparent velocity. If the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, everything must have been closer together in the past.”
Thank you.
Dear Ajeesh and other friends,
I shall add a post on 'consciousness' as early as possible. Thank you
Hi friends,
I do not think that ideas or consciousness exist outside human mind. You can encode your ideas into a book using language and future generations can extract knowledge from books. Different people decode ideas from the books in different ways that depends upon past knowledge and genetic make up. So it is possible that ideas can propagate like genes, it can passed from generations to generations. Variations in the decoding of ideas from past knowledge or books lead to diversification, complexity and there is a controlling factor from society also. In a way, ideas or cultures are evolving like organisms, they show almost all qualities of biological evolution. These processes or in my words, the extended arms of evolution is reaching to machines (tools) and art forms also. Current form of aero plane is not a single marked occurrence. It evolved gradually and attempts for a bigger a change (big mutations) failed. Better models sustained to form even better models. It is the accumulation of small changes. Dances, music or other art forms also can represent and encode ideas into them. They are ready to evolve like any biological organisms.
A distinct quality of human being is referred as consciousness. It may include awareness, cognition or memory. A perfect or conclusive definition for consciousness is not available though it is assumed that consciousness doesn’t exist in other organisms or inanimate objects. It is useless to compare human consciousness to other species as it is defined as a distinct quality of a human being.
Cause and effect is a physics law and it is observed in the universe and came into existence after big bang. It is not appropriate to ask the cause of Big bang. Some people think of this as a limit of knowledge and they are often called agnostics. I consider it in the opposite way as a perfection of knowledge because again it is observed that knowledge is an entity in the universe and specific to the human beings. We do not need to worry about lack of knowledge where there is nothing to know. Freudians may call it a displacement mechanism or repression of philosophy and I don’t care.
Thank you.
Hi friends,
The problem of the first replicator is an interesting subject. But I think it is better to ask How did it happen than Why did it happen. The second question is a logical error but the first one requires scientific explanation. There are many theories available for explaining Abiogenesis. None of them is perfect and most of them are fantasies. Still these theories provide a vague idea of how it happened. I will copy a theory from the internet here. It is not the most accepted theory but I really appreciate the imagination of the Cairns Smith, an organic chemist who developed this theory.
Clay theory
In simplified form, clay theory runs as follows: Clays form naturally from silicates in solution. Clay crystals, as other crystals, preserve their external formal arrangement as they grow, snap and grow further. Masses of clay crystals of a particular external form may happen to affect their environment in ways which affect their chances of further replication — for example, a 'stickier' clay crystal is more likely to silt a stream bed, creating an environment conducive to further sedimentation. It is conceivable that such effects could extend to the creation of flat areas likely to be exposed to air, dry and turn to wind-borne dust, which could fall at random in other streams. Thus by simple, inorganic, physical processes, a selection environment might exist for the reproduction of clay crystals of the 'stickier' shape.
There follows a process of natural selection for clay crystals which trap certain forms of molecules to their surfaces (those which enhance their replication potential). Quite complex proto-organic molecules can be catalysed by the surface properties of silicates. The final step occurs when these complex molecules perform a 'Genetic Takeover' from their clay 'vehicle', becoming an independent locus of replication - an evolutionary moment that might be understood as the first exaptation.
The question of the first DNA should be avoided because DNA is a comparatively complex and more evolved structure. There are some laboratory experiments showing the possibility of organic compounds originating from inorganic compounds. There was a question to me about the importance of carbon in life forms. Carbon is more able to form large stable molecules than other elements. Again the question of ‘Why there is a Carbon?’ is not logically sound as I have already pointed the problem in my earlier comments.
There are machine systems in big factories used to make other small machines. They are connected to big powerful computers with appropriate programs. Artificial intelligence is a fascinating dream and scientists are working hard to make it more like humans. Once it is in place with special robots capable of making tools, machines or other robots it is possible to have a significant change in the dimension of evolution, like it has once moved from non living objects to living organisms. There are possibilities of bugs in the robot program leading to copying errors and that is not different from mutation. A complete take over from human beings to artificial intelligence systems is not impossible. Many thinkers share this fantasy and it is adventurous to think of next generation species. A space shuttle was a bigger fantasy once.
Thank you.
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