I recently had an extended argument with someone who is pro-life/anti-abortion. The argument was not satisfactory, in part because of possibly irreconcilable starting assumptions about what constitutes a person1.) I was not able to convince this person to see the position in a new way, nor was I informed of any new arguments that could lead me to re-evaluate my own position, so I consider the discussion a failure. This does not, however, mean it was a waste of time - I will now use this material to state my case for why abortion is a morally acceptable choice for unwanted pregnancy. It involves a line of reasoning that is, to the best of my knowledge, relatively novel (certainly not one that exists in the popular debate about the subject.)
Let us start with the evidence. First, it is absolutely certain that a fetus is a human being. At the moment of conception, it is genetically a human organism, a member of our species. But does this mean that a fetus is automatically a person? Should we afford a fetus the same rights as we do an adult human (in particular, the mother)?
As far as personhood is concerned, I agree with Derek Parfit's modernization of Lock's definition of what it means to be a person: a thinking, rational being, capable of considering itself as such. In humans, this being appears to be a subset of the human animal, the functioning of the upper brain. This is the part of the brain that, as far as we know, has conscious experience, feels pain, and has all the characteristics we consider important in other people. This is also the part of the brain that is undeveloped in the first part of human development in the womb.
Does a fetus feel pain? A brief2 survey of the evidence suggests not. Those who are against abortion will often argue that this is the case, and point to evidence that a fetus will actively struggle for life during an abortion. However, this appears to me only to be evidence that a fetus can detect "noxious stimuli". It does not mean that a fetus feels pain - an emotional, subjective experience - the same way that an adult or even child human does. A fetus has this behavior in common with almost all life - humans, yes, but also insects, bacteria, trees, fish, etc. I want stress I am not saying that a fetus is no better than an ant, only that the fact that struggling for life is not unique to a fetus, and if it were grounds for moral consideration, we would have to apply the same to almost all living things or be grossly inconsistent.
One objection to this type of argument is that it resembles arguments made to perpetuate the idea of racial inferiority. After all, southern slave owners would probably have said that their slaves are not persons in the same way white persons are. If we find this reasoning unconvincing - nay, even abhorrent - why should we entertain a similar argument from pro-choice/pro-abortion groups?
First, this objection does not counter the central problem the argument raises. If all living things deserve life and protection, regardless of their capacity to feel emotional pain or be persons, we are grossly inconsistent in our treatment of other life. More importantly, the objection fails to account for the real problem with arguments for racial inferiority - such arguments rely on false evidence. We know that there is no significant difference in a human being's capacity to be a person based only on their skin color. Furthermore, even if that were the case, and slaves were not fully people, their position as slaves and their treatment would still be cruel - we would today consider treating certain species like that (such as dogs, cats, etc) as animal cruelty.
We very clearly treat individuals (humans and animals alike) differently according to their capacity to be a person. Children are not afforded the full rights of adults, for their own protection. The same is true for the elderly who have lost major brain functioning and those with developmental challenges. We treat them with compassion, we treat them kindly (or should anyway) but we do treat them differently.
One last objection, which I will not spend too much time on, is that the science we use to determine how capable an individual is of being a person is biased and unreliable. The Nazi's had their scientists, after all. I am going to guess that such claims do not usually come from those genuinely concerned about scientific methodology but are instead seeking a reason to discount evidence they disagree with. This is based on my informal observation that these objections are almost never followed with alternative scientific explanations. I do not believe that there is some conspiracy by scientists to encourage mothers to "murder their babies", as I do not see what anyone could gain by this (whereas, for example, Nazis and slave owners had much to gain). However, if you have any evidence regarding this I would entertain it.
In the next part I will address a much stronger objection to these arguments - that it is not life in general but human life specifically that ought to be protected, and thus the slippery slope to protecting all life does not follow.
1: And in part because I believe the other party did not wish to participate in a rational debate. I hate to sound so conceited, but in my defense I do not use the word "rational" when I merely mean "agrees with me."
2: Very brief: please feel free to point me to more, supporting either position.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Physical 03: The Co-opting of Disgust
For a while now I have been plotting a blog post about my thoughts on the emotion of offense (that is, taking offense to something someone else says or does.) However, I realized that before I could do that, I would first need to lay some groundwork down about another, related emotion, disgust, and its psychological and cultural origins.
From psychology.wikia.com: "Disgust is an emotion that is typically associated with things that are unclean, inedible, or infectious." It is thought to be a uniquely human emotion - we are not aware of any other animals that feel revulsion in the same way we do.
Why might we develop such an unpleasant-feeling emotion? It seems common-sense enough: many of the things we find disgusting are quite harmful to us. Feces, mucus, blood, urine, vomit, raw and decomposing meats - all of these things can potentially carry infectious diseases or could otherwise make us ill. The feeling of disgust is akin to the feeling of nausea, and the facial expressions we make when we are extremely disgusted mimic those expressions we have if we are about to vomit. No coincidence there - getting sick by these things often leads us to feel sick and throw up!
Disgust is not just a genetic phenomenon, however. In one of my classes in which we talked about Freud, the teacher remarked that in infant's and toddler's "anal stage" they frequently play with their own feces. It is the parents that express their disgust at the child's action. The parent's disgust for the early child's natural body functions translates into a sense of shame on the part of the child, which as they grow older helps reinforces specific rituals for that body function. The child is potty trained.
You might be starting to see where I'm going here. So far, we've only talked about issues for which there is a clear health hazard. However, the fact that feelings of disgust are intertwined with some of our social norms leads us to ask what effect disgust plays with moral judgments. Psychological studies have shown there to be a strong connection between these - in "Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment," Schnall shows that inducing the feeling of disgust in participants lead them to make harsher moral judgments. People who claim that, for instance, sodomy or especially homosexuality is sinful frequently express themselves in terms of disgust towards the act, even though it has been scientifically established that these acts are not more intrinsically harmful than procreative heterosexual sex1.
The point I want to make here, and that I will make in my post about offense, is that while it is clear why disgust was a useful emotion in the development of our species, the fact is we have much better methods of determining what is and is not healthy. You might still rely on standard potty training techniques when the child is little, but you don't need to teach them that their bodies are inherently shameful when they come to the age of reason - simply explain that feces can carry infectious diseases, and that unprotected sex can lead to sexually transmitted diseases.
1: Actually, procreative sex can be a more risky proposition than sodomy. What if the parents do not have the resources to support a child at that point in their lives?
From psychology.wikia.com: "Disgust is an emotion that is typically associated with things that are unclean, inedible, or infectious." It is thought to be a uniquely human emotion - we are not aware of any other animals that feel revulsion in the same way we do.
Why might we develop such an unpleasant-feeling emotion? It seems common-sense enough: many of the things we find disgusting are quite harmful to us. Feces, mucus, blood, urine, vomit, raw and decomposing meats - all of these things can potentially carry infectious diseases or could otherwise make us ill. The feeling of disgust is akin to the feeling of nausea, and the facial expressions we make when we are extremely disgusted mimic those expressions we have if we are about to vomit. No coincidence there - getting sick by these things often leads us to feel sick and throw up!
Disgust is not just a genetic phenomenon, however. In one of my classes in which we talked about Freud, the teacher remarked that in infant's and toddler's "anal stage" they frequently play with their own feces. It is the parents that express their disgust at the child's action. The parent's disgust for the early child's natural body functions translates into a sense of shame on the part of the child, which as they grow older helps reinforces specific rituals for that body function. The child is potty trained.
You might be starting to see where I'm going here. So far, we've only talked about issues for which there is a clear health hazard. However, the fact that feelings of disgust are intertwined with some of our social norms leads us to ask what effect disgust plays with moral judgments. Psychological studies have shown there to be a strong connection between these - in "Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment," Schnall shows that inducing the feeling of disgust in participants lead them to make harsher moral judgments. People who claim that, for instance, sodomy or especially homosexuality is sinful frequently express themselves in terms of disgust towards the act, even though it has been scientifically established that these acts are not more intrinsically harmful than procreative heterosexual sex1.
The point I want to make here, and that I will make in my post about offense, is that while it is clear why disgust was a useful emotion in the development of our species, the fact is we have much better methods of determining what is and is not healthy. You might still rely on standard potty training techniques when the child is little, but you don't need to teach them that their bodies are inherently shameful when they come to the age of reason - simply explain that feces can carry infectious diseases, and that unprotected sex can lead to sexually transmitted diseases.
1: Actually, procreative sex can be a more risky proposition than sodomy. What if the parents do not have the resources to support a child at that point in their lives?
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Mental 05: What We Know about God through Evolution
I've had a number of conversations with a friend of mine (let's call him V) about the possible existence of a creator or god, and the evidence/lack thereof. I will frequently say, for instance, that vestigial body parts, harmful errors in duplicating the genetic code, natural disasters, and the like, would not be something we would expect from a beneficent or omniscient god. Similarly, since I am a computer programmer, I am used to working with artifacts created by intelligences (other programmers) and these artifacts tend to have certain properties in common (especially the ones by the most intelligent creators): clean interfaces and parts with readily distinguishable purposes, logically independent functions implemented independently of each other, etc. Biological life is not like this, and so I'm lead to conclude it was not created by an intelligent designer.
V's counter-argument is almost always a variant of "God works in mysterious ways." God, if it existed, would be so great and so intelligent that we would have no hope of being able to discern the thought patterns (if we could even say such existed) that went behind making the Universe, so I cannot, he claims, conjecture on what creating might be like by comparing it to artifacts of human intelligence. I find this rather line of reasoning rather irritating, since my friend only seems to apply this level of radical skepticism on claims others make.
One such of these claims is the possibility that the Universe is a simulation that god is running "for funzies", since it presumably knows what would happen anyway. I was going to ask him why he felt comfortable attributing a human psychological trait (doing something for fun), but I realized that was easily countered. No matter - a much more interesting line of approach opened for me.
As a programmer, I know a few things about evolutionary algorithms. Specifically, we most often use evolutionary algorithms for situations where we have only a vague idea of what the solution could be. For many problems, the evolutionary algorithm is inefficient and can be sub-optimal - we almost always prefer a direct calculation of the solution, if one is available (or tractable).
If the Universe is a simulation that some god programmed, the fact that this creator god is using an evolutionary algorithm tells us (if it tells us anything at all) that while god would have to be incredibly intelligent, such a god would not be omniscient, since otherwise it would not rely on an imperfect algorithm. The syllogism runs as follows.
1) God exists and the Universe is a computer simulation that it is running for some purpose, hyp
2) The processes governing the development of life are significant to the simulation in some way, hyp
3) The development of life is almost entirely governed by evolutionary algorithms, obs
4) When we solve a problem in computer science using an evolutionary algorithm, it usually means we don't know how to directly calculate the solution, obs
C) There is a significant possibility that god does not know the direct way to calculate whatever it has in mind by running this simulation, and is therefore not omniscient
Of course, if god were omniscient, it's possible it wouldn't need to run a simulation or calculation either way, so there'd be no reason to prefer one method of calculation over another. Or any reason to run the simulation at all (that we could discern). Sigh
V's counter-argument is almost always a variant of "God works in mysterious ways." God, if it existed, would be so great and so intelligent that we would have no hope of being able to discern the thought patterns (if we could even say such existed) that went behind making the Universe, so I cannot, he claims, conjecture on what creating might be like by comparing it to artifacts of human intelligence. I find this rather line of reasoning rather irritating, since my friend only seems to apply this level of radical skepticism on claims others make.
One such of these claims is the possibility that the Universe is a simulation that god is running "for funzies", since it presumably knows what would happen anyway. I was going to ask him why he felt comfortable attributing a human psychological trait (doing something for fun), but I realized that was easily countered. No matter - a much more interesting line of approach opened for me.
As a programmer, I know a few things about evolutionary algorithms. Specifically, we most often use evolutionary algorithms for situations where we have only a vague idea of what the solution could be. For many problems, the evolutionary algorithm is inefficient and can be sub-optimal - we almost always prefer a direct calculation of the solution, if one is available (or tractable).
If the Universe is a simulation that some god programmed, the fact that this creator god is using an evolutionary algorithm tells us (if it tells us anything at all) that while god would have to be incredibly intelligent, such a god would not be omniscient, since otherwise it would not rely on an imperfect algorithm. The syllogism runs as follows.
1) God exists and the Universe is a computer simulation that it is running for some purpose, hyp
2) The processes governing the development of life are significant to the simulation in some way, hyp
3) The development of life is almost entirely governed by evolutionary algorithms, obs
4) When we solve a problem in computer science using an evolutionary algorithm, it usually means we don't know how to directly calculate the solution, obs
C) There is a significant possibility that god does not know the direct way to calculate whatever it has in mind by running this simulation, and is therefore not omniscient
Of course, if god were omniscient, it's possible it wouldn't need to run a simulation or calculation either way, so there'd be no reason to prefer one method of calculation over another. Or any reason to run the simulation at all (that we could discern). Sigh
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Meta 04: Introducing "Ego"; Where We've Been & Where We're Going
When I started this blog, I hadn't intended for it to be publicly viewable. Instead, I had planned on using it as alternative to journal writing to collect broad trends in my thinking and philosophy. When I journal, I tend to focus on sequences of events and my feelings in the moment, and I realized at some point that I would like to have another form of expression which had a broader and more synthetic focus.
There were however a few people whom I wanted to read this blog. When I showed it to one of them, they asked me why I had made it private. After some internal debate, I decided what I had to say might possibly be of benefit to others, so I made it publicly viewable.
My initial schema, and my early posts, don't really reflect this change of focus from the private to the more public, and so I've decided to rewrite some of the earlier posts and introduce a new tag, "Ego", to denote things that are just about myself, such as the posts about my resolutions. While I think these kinds of posts might still be useful for others to read, I am acutely aware that topics like the effects of sugar on the liver, or the problem of identity through time, are much more general than why I've decided to practice meditation three times a day. I'd like for people who don't really care about the later to be able to easily skip past it, if they so desire1.
So, what's next for this blog? There are a few topics that have been sitting on the back-burner for me for a while. For "Physical," I plan on writing about confirmation bias, and the effects that religion has on cognitive capacity (and vice-versa, what effect rational thought has on religious feeling). For "Mental" there is still the big one I haven't touched yet - the pre-suppositional "un-argument" - as well as summaries of a philosopher's critique of the New Atheist movement. For "Symbol", you can expect me to gush about "Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" as being one of the greatest pieces of interactive fiction of all time, as well as post some of my essay over Romantic literature that I wrote in University (when I'm not feeling lazy, I'll even try to address some issues the professor cited when she returned the work to me!). I will also want to write a review of the first "Neon Genesis: Evangelion" rebuild movie, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Hope I've given you something to look forward too!
1: Of course, it doesn't really matter, since as of this moment I could only say I have about 5 other people reading this blog, at maximum. In fact, humorously enough, one of my friends has even implied that he is more interested in a blog another of my friends has not written, and does not plan to, than he is in this blog. If I'm competing against all the non-existent blogs out there, then no wonder I have such a small readership!
There were however a few people whom I wanted to read this blog. When I showed it to one of them, they asked me why I had made it private. After some internal debate, I decided what I had to say might possibly be of benefit to others, so I made it publicly viewable.
My initial schema, and my early posts, don't really reflect this change of focus from the private to the more public, and so I've decided to rewrite some of the earlier posts and introduce a new tag, "Ego", to denote things that are just about myself, such as the posts about my resolutions. While I think these kinds of posts might still be useful for others to read, I am acutely aware that topics like the effects of sugar on the liver, or the problem of identity through time, are much more general than why I've decided to practice meditation three times a day. I'd like for people who don't really care about the later to be able to easily skip past it, if they so desire1.
So, what's next for this blog? There are a few topics that have been sitting on the back-burner for me for a while. For "Physical," I plan on writing about confirmation bias, and the effects that religion has on cognitive capacity (and vice-versa, what effect rational thought has on religious feeling). For "Mental" there is still the big one I haven't touched yet - the pre-suppositional "un-argument" - as well as summaries of a philosopher's critique of the New Atheist movement. For "Symbol", you can expect me to gush about "Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" as being one of the greatest pieces of interactive fiction of all time, as well as post some of my essay over Romantic literature that I wrote in University (when I'm not feeling lazy, I'll even try to address some issues the professor cited when she returned the work to me!). I will also want to write a review of the first "Neon Genesis: Evangelion" rebuild movie, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Hope I've given you something to look forward too!
1: Of course, it doesn't really matter, since as of this moment I could only say I have about 5 other people reading this blog, at maximum. In fact, humorously enough, one of my friends has even implied that he is more interested in a blog another of my friends has not written, and does not plan to, than he is in this blog. If I'm competing against all the non-existent blogs out there, then no wonder I have such a small readership!
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Mental 04: Labels for Belief (and Lack thereof)
Around the time I began this blog, I was talking to a friend one evening about religion &tc when we got around to the topic of what it means to be an atheist. He, like many others I've talked to (and perhaps even myself, at one point) believed that an atheist was someone who believed God did not exist. I fear this misconception is rather widespread, and since I'm too lazy to write anything productive at the moment, I will address it in this blog post, starting with
Deism
Deism is a form of theism v1, but unlike v2, deism does holds neither that god is of a personal nature nor that god interferes with the natural world. Instead, this god could be known through reasoning about nature. Many Christina deists did not believe in the infallibility of the Bible. and most distrusted organized religion. Fun fact: the founding fathers of America were mostly deists!
Deism are also classified under a broader category of
Nontheism
Non-theism is specifically "not theism v2". So, while deists are a form of theism v1, they are also non-theists. There are plenty of other religious non-theists, but of course that's not why I'm writing this, so I'll move on to one that isn't inherently religious or nonreligious,
Agnosticism
Agnosticism, in regards to the existence of a deity, is the position of "not knowing." It can be weak, as in such a claim as "No one knows whether a god exists," or strong, in "It is impossible for us to know whether a god exists." Someone who holds this claim, however, can still be a theist (this is called agnostic theism). How is this possible?
We enter into an important distinction. Up until this point, we have been talking about belief in a god. Agnosticism, however, is a position about knowledge of god. The two are not the same, even though we often conflate them. Although this distinction deserves its own blog post, suffice it to say that no matter how much I believe something to be true, it is questionable for me to claim I know it if I can't provide reasons for my belief. An agnostic theist is just such a person - they believe a god exists, but they know they don't know this. While possible to do this, I think it's much more common for an agnosticism to coincide with
Atheism
That's right. Most people use the term agnostic to distinguish themselves from atheists, but in truth they are also atheists, because atheism is "without theism," or the lack of belief in a god. This confusion, I think, is largely due to extremists in both camps: evangelicals for making a false dichotomy of "you need just as much faith to think that God certainly does not exist", and atheists for claiming that they do in fact know a god doesn't exist. But note, you can be religious and also atheist. Ancestor worship, Shintoism, etc, are all religious even though they don't believe in a god. What most people think of as atheism, they are actually thinking of strong atheism, which is the positive claim that no gods exist (this is also contrasted to weak atheism, which is the previous, most-inclusive definition of atheism given). Finally, there's
Antitheism
This term has two very different meanings. If you're an antitheist atheist, you are against organized religion and/or any belief in a god at all. Many of the popular "New Atheists" are atheist anti-theists, whereas the Yawists of ancient Hebrew were more probably theist anti-theists. (They condemned the worship of Ba'al, one of the three Hebrew gods.)
So with all that, what am I? Definitely I am at least a weak atheist - I lack belief in every god of every religion I know of. For some specific gods - like the god of the Creationist movement - I am a gnostic atheist; we know that the Earth is older than 6,000 years old, and that there was never a global flood, so the god that caused all these could not exist3.
More generally, for claims about untestable supernatural phenomenon, I would most often consider myself a weak atheist. The difference is in degree, though, and not kind. I know very certainly that there is no shark in my room, because of the limited scope of my room and my ability to investigate large objects (like sharks) in it. With a god, it's more like looking for keys and only staring at one small corner of the room. I could say that "the keys are not in this room," only if I did not really know there was much more room to look in. But I would not believe that the keys were in this room unless I had good reason to - such as actually finding them.
1: All definitions from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Theology and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nontheism
2: I'm using this term interchangeably with deity, though some monotheists may object.
3: But the god who caused all these and then re-arranged all the evidence to make it look otherwise could possibly exist - I'm looking at you, Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Theism1
Broadly, "theism" is the belief in the existence of at least one or more god2 or goddess. A monotheist believes in one god; a polytheist believes in several, and an atheist believes in none. More recently (during the 17th century) the term came to mean something more specific: in the context of monotheism, being a theist meant you believed in a personal which you could come to know through divine revelation and which interacted with the natural world. I will refer to this distinction by calling the first "theism v1" and "theism v1". People developed theism v2 so that they could contrast their belief withDeism
Deism is a form of theism v1, but unlike v2, deism does holds neither that god is of a personal nature nor that god interferes with the natural world. Instead, this god could be known through reasoning about nature. Many Christina deists did not believe in the infallibility of the Bible. and most distrusted organized religion. Fun fact: the founding fathers of America were mostly deists!
Deism are also classified under a broader category of
Nontheism
Non-theism is specifically "not theism v2". So, while deists are a form of theism v1, they are also non-theists. There are plenty of other religious non-theists, but of course that's not why I'm writing this, so I'll move on to one that isn't inherently religious or nonreligious,
Agnosticism
Agnosticism, in regards to the existence of a deity, is the position of "not knowing." It can be weak, as in such a claim as "No one knows whether a god exists," or strong, in "It is impossible for us to know whether a god exists." Someone who holds this claim, however, can still be a theist (this is called agnostic theism). How is this possible?
We enter into an important distinction. Up until this point, we have been talking about belief in a god. Agnosticism, however, is a position about knowledge of god. The two are not the same, even though we often conflate them. Although this distinction deserves its own blog post, suffice it to say that no matter how much I believe something to be true, it is questionable for me to claim I know it if I can't provide reasons for my belief. An agnostic theist is just such a person - they believe a god exists, but they know they don't know this. While possible to do this, I think it's much more common for an agnosticism to coincide with
Atheism
That's right. Most people use the term agnostic to distinguish themselves from atheists, but in truth they are also atheists, because atheism is "without theism," or the lack of belief in a god. This confusion, I think, is largely due to extremists in both camps: evangelicals for making a false dichotomy of "you need just as much faith to think that God certainly does not exist", and atheists for claiming that they do in fact know a god doesn't exist. But note, you can be religious and also atheist. Ancestor worship, Shintoism, etc, are all religious even though they don't believe in a god. What most people think of as atheism, they are actually thinking of strong atheism, which is the positive claim that no gods exist (this is also contrasted to weak atheism, which is the previous, most-inclusive definition of atheism given). Finally, there's
Antitheism
This term has two very different meanings. If you're an antitheist atheist, you are against organized religion and/or any belief in a god at all. Many of the popular "New Atheists" are atheist anti-theists, whereas the Yawists of ancient Hebrew were more probably theist anti-theists. (They condemned the worship of Ba'al, one of the three Hebrew gods.)
So with all that, what am I? Definitely I am at least a weak atheist - I lack belief in every god of every religion I know of. For some specific gods - like the god of the Creationist movement - I am a gnostic atheist; we know that the Earth is older than 6,000 years old, and that there was never a global flood, so the god that caused all these could not exist3.
More generally, for claims about untestable supernatural phenomenon, I would most often consider myself a weak atheist. The difference is in degree, though, and not kind. I know very certainly that there is no shark in my room, because of the limited scope of my room and my ability to investigate large objects (like sharks) in it. With a god, it's more like looking for keys and only staring at one small corner of the room. I could say that "the keys are not in this room," only if I did not really know there was much more room to look in. But I would not believe that the keys were in this room unless I had good reason to - such as actually finding them.
1: All definitions from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Theology and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nontheism
2: I'm using this term interchangeably with deity, though some monotheists may object.
3: But the god who caused all these and then re-arranged all the evidence to make it look otherwise could possibly exist - I'm looking at you, Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Ego 02: New Year's Resolutions
It's that time of the year again. The end of the year serves as a little reminder for the end of our lives. We reflect over the time that has passed, and frequently decide we are not satisfied with what we have done: "I should exercise more"; "I should eat healthier"; etc. We look at the new year as an opportunity for self-betterment and transformation, and resolve to do the things we think we should have done...
...and then after maybe a month, give up. Why? My thoughts are that in these situations, we're just making a wishlist, much like the one you would make for family and friends for Christmas gifts. We want external changes, but we don't often know how to find the resources for the internal changes needed. You don't (usually) just exercise every day because you decide to. That happens because you really want to exercise, either because you are doing something you enjoy or because you really internalize the need to be healthy.
I am also making a list of resolutions, and the new year seems like a good time to implement them - after the holidays and the chaos of family, eating, and drinking that comes with it. As before, I list a brief justification of each.
Diet
Activity
Religious
Productivity
We'll see if I have what it takes to maintain this. I hope to have a more general post up soon!
...and then after maybe a month, give up. Why? My thoughts are that in these situations, we're just making a wishlist, much like the one you would make for family and friends for Christmas gifts. We want external changes, but we don't often know how to find the resources for the internal changes needed. You don't (usually) just exercise every day because you decide to. That happens because you really want to exercise, either because you are doing something you enjoy or because you really internalize the need to be healthy.
I am also making a list of resolutions, and the new year seems like a good time to implement them - after the holidays and the chaos of family, eating, and drinking that comes with it. As before, I list a brief justification of each.
Diet
- I will maintain a low-carbohydrate, adequate protein diet (that's less than 20% carbs, and +20% or at least 65 grams of protein, per day)
- Of the carbs I eat, almost all of them should be complex (dietary fiber)
- On the Sunday and Wednesday of each week, I will fast during the day (no more than 300 calories, mostly protein), and have a normal evening meal.
- I will consume +2000 calories per day when not fasting. I will do this by trying to eat at least 3 largish meals a day.
Activity
- On Tuesday and Friday afternoon, I will try to get about an hour of mixed cardio/calisthenics.
- On Monday and Thursday afternoon, I will try to get about an hour of running with some calisthenics.
- Everyday, I when I wake I will do 10 minutes of stretching, and after the exercises on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, I will do another 10 minutes of stretching.
- On Sunday and Wednesday afternoon, I will do at least 30 minutes of yoga.
- On Sunday, I will spend 30-60 minutes walking in nature.
Religious
- Every day, I will do three 15-minute meditations: when I rise in the morning (breathing), in the afternoon (attending to music), and before I go to bed (free association).
- Every night, I will spend 30 minutes reading from a religious text (currently, Buddhism).
- Every Sunday, I will attend a Buddhist gathering.
- At least once a week, I will volunteer at least an hour of my time to service for the community.
Productivity
- I will keep a log hours I spend on certain activities
- I will keep a To-do list
- I will make and maintain an if-then list.
We'll see if I have what it takes to maintain this. I hope to have a more general post up soon!
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Physical 02: "Sugar: The Bitter Truth"
I came across this video about 3 years ago. I cannot remember what lead me to it, except for a general interest in health (at the time, I was most interested in radioactive heavy metals in tobacco). Now that I have begun experimenting with my diet (a low carbohydrate, high fat, adequate protein diet with intermittent fasting - more on that in future Physical posts) I would like to share some of the important pieces of information about diet and nutrition I've come across the way, and this video was what started me on my intellectual journey.
The conventional wisdom is that eating fat is bad for you, so if you want to lose weight, eat less of it. Even if you have never had this said to you, you are probably aware of it - on food packaging, "low fat" is marketed as if it were synonymous with "healthy," and the same is true on most restaurant menus. And vaguely, it makes some sense - if you have too much fat on you, you should put less fat in you, right?
How did this come to be? In the early ’70s, we discovered LDLs. In the mid ’70s, we learned that dietary fat raised your LDLs. In late ’70s, we learned that LDL correlated to CVD (Cardiovascular Disease). The thought process was that dietary fats led to heart disease, but this premise is incorrect. The logic is faulty.1
Dietary fats raises your large buoyant Pattern A LDL (VLDL) and carbs raise small, dense Pattern B LDL.2
Essentially, scientists made a mistake, and we haven't realized it yet. The result? An increase in obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other related diseases.2
It's not just increases in carbohydrates, however, which are contributing to these ill health effects. We've also all been told that we should eat more complex carbohydrates from whole grains and avoid simple ones like sugars. However, just like you you might be surprised to know that there are two types of LDL, with one of them being unhealthy and the other benign, there are also two types of sugars, and one of them is much worse than the other.
It's been two strikes against conventional wisdom, but it redeems itself here: HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) is bad for you, and the reason is for it's second term, "fructose." Food processing companies and the agricultural industry would have you believe HFCS is no worse for you than regular table sugar or cane sugar - and they're right! Both are bad for you! The reason is that whereas HFCS consists mostly of monosaccharides (little glucoses and fructoses floating around), sucrose consists of disaccharides (little glucoses and fructoses bonded together). The very first thing your body does to sucrose is to split the bond between the two sugar molecules, meaning the body perceives them as essentially the same thing.
The way your body metabolizes fructose is very different from what it does to glucose. It doesn't trigger the release of insulin, which means that leptin doesn't get released, either, and this is the body's "I've eaten enough" chemical. It also doesn't suppress grehlin, which is the body's "I'm hungry" chemical. It gets worse - when your body goes to store fructose as fat, it can only be metabolized in the liver, and in doing so the liver suffers several ill effects.
In comparing chronic ethanol exposure to chronic fructose consumption, they share 8 out of 12 phenomenon. Why? Because they do the same thing. They are metabolized the same way. They ARE the same because they come from the same place. Alcohol is made by fermenting sugar. They have all the same properties because it’s taken care of by the liver in exactly the same way and for the same reason because sugar and ethanol ARE the same.2
To wrap this up, it's worth mentioning that while HFCS and sucrose are about the same in terms of health impact, HFCS is much more insidious for economical reasons. Corn is subsidized by the America government, making corn products very cheap. As a consequence, HFCS is in a ridiculous number of processed foods, and so cheap that it's hard for families of lower incomes to avoid eating.
1: I'm not going to go through the details here. The video and the website do much better than I could.
2: http://www.live-pure.com/2012/01/sugar-the-bitter-truth-by-dr-lustig-a-summary/
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