--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, "Lynn Martin" <dayrain@...> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Paul Wakfer
> To: morelife@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 10:53 AM
> Subject: [morelife] Re: Blood donations for iron reduction and
> possible drawbacks
>
> On 11/29/2008 08:54 AM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:
>
> <snipped information relating to source of this dialog>
> > Hi Paul,
> >
> > I am working on my literature review for my organic chemistry
> > course, which is due this week. This literature review is
> > concerned with the possible negative health-consequences of high
> > iron status.
>
> <snip>
>
> If Steve Floyd, Jr. would be willing to post or forward his
> literature review when it's completed, I for one would appreciate
> it.

Hi Lynn,

Thanks for communicating your interest in my review. I will consider
uploading it after I am completed with it. I plan to be completed
with it in the next few weeks. However, at this time it will still
be "in-progress", as this section on iron accumulation will be only
one section of several in a paper I am doing on accumulation of
several metals. Therefore, I am hesitant to post it in "incomplete"
form, since at that time I will likely not have all of the grammar
corrections and organizational details completed.

I will keep it in mind. Again, thanks for communicating your
interest.

> Lynn
> dayrain@...
>
> [Moderator note: Steve is welcome to upload his review to the Files
> section of the group for access by members. **Kitty]

Kitty, I note that if I decide to upload my review, that I will add
it using the "Files" section of the group.

[Since the Files section of the group is only available to members and
is not therefore searchable through Google or others, perhaps a better
place (because more public) would be on the MoreLife website. After
you upload it to the Files section here, we will consider where on
MoreLife.org is the best place for it to go. --Paul]

---
Steve Floyd Jr

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
[big snip]
> 2) Any loss of essential body cells will require their progenitor cells
> to divide in order to replace those lost cells. While this is not going
> to be a problem acutely (if occurring only a few times or very
> infrequently), if done chronically (as some people are advising), it
> will, over time, deplete the division potential of the cells that
> produce the blood cellular components, and if done sufficiently often
> the doubling time potential of those cells (the Hayflick limit) may be
> reached and become a limiting factor to lifespan. (There is already
> good evidence that the Hayflick limit plays a part in the exhaustion
> of white cell division that occurs with AIDS.)

One thing to consider is that average blood loss during menstruation
is 35 ml with 10–80 ml considered normal (from Wikipedia on menstrual
cycle). Assuming 12 cycles, the total comes to 0.42 liter, or 0.89 US
pints per year lost to menstration, just a bit less than the typical
donation.

Perhaps donating once a year might affect the gap between average male
and female life expectancies, if the over-mineralization theory of
aging has some merit.

Speaking of the Hayflick limit, I was surprised that a search for
"astragalus" didn't turn up a match in this group's archives. I've
participated in discussions
(http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=19921) on using
astralagus extract along with a small dose (I use 250 mg) of chitosan
to increase its bioavailability (http://pmid.us/16715776 -- I don't
have the text, but the study apparently reports that 0.1% chitosan
increases absorption by over 60 fold).

Of course, does it really work to extend telomeres and in which
tissues are still open questions.

StephenB

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
>
> On 11/13/2008 01:19 PM, Dave Brett wrote:
> > I found this recent study of canines treated for hypertension.
> > http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/118/10/1002
> >
> > The authors comment, in the Clinical Perspective, "Thus, aortic size
> > should be monitored carefully in clinical trials of these agents."
> >
> > The comment was in view of their findings that "A highly significant
> > effect of ALT to increase aortic dimension was observed. This
> > occurred despite lower BP over the course of the model and was
> > independent of distending pressure or body size".
> >
> > I wonder if this is a significant cause for concern in those of us
> > taking ALT-711 on a chronic basis and would be interested to read
> > any comments.
>
> Unfortunately, the link above goes only to a page that requires a
> US$20 payment in order to access the full text of the paper and the
> abstract does not say anything related to your remarks above. In
> addition, my university access does not have that journal available.
> Without reading the full text any reasoned opinion about what you
> ask is impossible, but it seems to me if it were viewed as really
> important it would have been mentioned in the abstract. If you have
> the full text (pdf) and could send it to me by email attachment then
> I would be happy read it and comment further.

When I originally posted this message the full text was indeed
available at the link quoted - albeit in html form only. At the time
I noticed that a fee was required for the pdf version. I printed html
version for my records and if any interested group member would like
a copy I'm happy to scan and email it.

[Thanks to a member with access, I now have a pdf version (see my reply
to your earlier post in this thread, #1933), which, if anyone requests
a copy, it would be far easier to provide as well as easier for hir to
use. --Paul]


> > Coincidentally, I have a heart scan scheduled for next week and
> > will make a point of asking the radiographer if he/she can detect any
> > significant change in the size of my aorta since the last scan seven
> > years ago.
> >
> > I'll report my results back to the group in a couple of weeks, after
> > I receive the full report from the doctor who reviews my scan.
>
> I look forward to your report.


Unfortunately I'm still waiting for the report to arrive from the
consultant and the attending radiologist at the time was unable to
say whether the aorta appeared to be enlarged. It seems that the
heart scan doesn't pick this up. She suggested that an ultrasound
might be a more appropriate way of investigating the size of the
aorta. However, I asked her if she would mention my concerns to the
consultant anyway to see what he would suggest.

The radiologists initial comment to me was that, off the record,
everything looked fine with my heart and unchanged from my previous
scan seven years ago.

Should the consultant's report present any further relevant
information I'll post it.


Dave

On 11/22/2008 09:04 AM, Steve Floyd wrote:
> I agree with many of Paul's comments, including where he states:
>
>  > One that I must point out here will make any knowledgeable person
>  > shake hir head and immediately dismiss the intelligence of all
>  > cryonicists. It is the following:
>  >
>  > "[Some cryonicists] are environmentalists who ... are happy that no
>  > electricity is used to upkeep their preserved remains (only liquid
>  > nitrogen), and that their carbon footprint is only pennies each year."
>
> Upon reading the above, quoted statement of yours, Shannon, about
> cryonicists being environmentalists I became a bit concerned. I don't
> think that kind of generalization is appropriate. I think you may be
> using this statement as a way to appeal to as wide of an audience as
> possible (here, trying to appeal to environmentalists). Perhaps it is
> useful to "cut environmentalists off at the pass" with the statement
> about the upkeep of preservation being low. However, when I read it it
> seemed like a desperate attempt to appeal to more people. Perhaps it
> could be re-worded to show its benefits without sounding this way?

Since Shannon made it clear in her original that it was only some
cryoncists who were environmentally concerned, her environmentalist
argument was not out of place to me, but rather an initially good
move. When one is trying to "sell" something, it is perfect valid and
reasonable to make use of all possible honest and correct ways to make
any attribute of that thing appealing. Note that in your criticism of
Shannon in this regard, relying on my quote was not sufficient. In
order to properly make your case you should have quoted her "petition"
directly, particularly since your criticism was not the same as mine.

However, perhaps it is necessary to explain what I thought would be
obvious by my comment above:

"One [statement of Shannon's "petition"] that I must point out here
will make any knowledgeable person shake hir head and immediately
dismiss the intelligence of all cryonicists."

with which Steve said that he agreed, but gave no indication that he
understood its point.

Although nitrogen comprises about 80% of Earth's atmosphere and is
effectively a totally free resource, the only way to produce liquid
nitrogen is to expend an enormous amount of energy to cool it down to
its liquefaction temperature (about -196' C). The production of this
energy either directly or, as usually done, through the intermediary
of electricity, is therefore generating the same average "carbon
footprint" as other usages of that same amount of energy. In addition,
maintenance of cryonics patients requires the use of electricity for
monitoring and various other administrative needs. So, unfortunately,
Shannon's attempt to appeal to environmentalists using a low "carbon
footprint" argument, while well-meaning, ends up being a black mark
against her intelligence, or at least knowledge, and by implication
that of all cyronicists.

I have no comment on the rest and have snipped it.

--Paul

On 11/26/2008 04:06 PM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:
> In the message prior to this one (below) I discussed my arguments
> against the practice of anonymity. I recently read a great article
> that discusses some disadvantages of practicing anonymity.
>
> Here's the article: http://selfsip.org/focus/anonymity.html
>
> I really like this article because it is concise in communicating a
> very important, practical, *negative* implication of anonymity. I
> understood this point of the article as thus: when making any
> decision, one must have information upon which to base hir decision.
> This point applies to any decision, including what foods to eat, what
> types of exercise to engage in, what books to read, where to buy
> food, which car to buy, etc. This article points out very clearly,
> and accurately, that the decision regarding *who to interact with* is
> also based on information. That is, if I were considering striking up
> a conversation with someone, whether I do so is dependent on the
> information I have about that person. If I have *no* information
> about a person (i.e. that person *practices anonymity*) I will likely
> choose not to interact with hir. This is because I have no
> information on which to base a decision. But, if that person were to
> tell me something about hirself, I can then at least have *some*
> information upon which to make a decision about interacting with hir.
> Without such information I can make no decision. In contrast, the
> more information I am presented with, the more confident I can be in
> my decision. So, the person who practices anonymity has a much-
> reduced chance of garnering the interest of those who hold similar
> ideas.
>
> As a personal example, I have made a personal profile on several
> networking websites. When browsing these websites I often find
> numerous individuals who have submitted no personal picture and only
> a very, very brief personal introduction.

In my own experience, this is the vast majority of people, particularly
with Yahoo profiles. Generally only a small minority provide a fairly
complete profile. Although on LinkedIn it is a high majority because
that is its purpose. However even there, few people enable their profile
to be publicly accessible.

> I recall that I have
> instinctively ignored these people and decided not to interact with
> them.

Good, except you did not do that "instinctively", rather you did it
through a lifetime of experience, learning and thinking causing your
subconscious mind to be programmed to behave that way (the behavior
that you describe below).

> I now realize that I had made this decision because I have no
> idea who they are, what they look like, what their personal
> philosophies are, etc. The people that neglect to be more descriptive
> give me no information! I only have a limited amount of time - why
> would I decide to say hello to a person who has told me nothing about
> hirself? A person who registers at networking websites with the
> intent of meeting new people, and does a poor job of communicating
> characteristics about hirself, is simply wasting hir time.
>
> This article presents a strong argument for the practice of *at
> least* being open and communicative about *some* aspects of one's
> character, including interests, dislikes, hobbies, etc. How else does
> one get acquainted with others? And communicating this information to
> a large number of people is very convenient with the internet. I plan
> on making a personal website in the future for just this purpose.
> Finally, I think the best networking sites would be those that allow
> the largest number of methods by which a person can communicate
> personal information (personal videos, pictures, writings, etc.).
>
> I hope others will enjoy this article as much as I have!
>
> ---
> Steve Floyd


Thanks for your good description and arguments against anonymity. I
have a suggestion for a different word usage in your second to last
sentence. It is better to use "enable" than "allow" as:

"I think the best networking sites would be those that enable
the largest number of methods by which a person can communicate
personal information ..."

"Allow" always relates to a reduction of some restriction of liberty,
whereas to make some process or facility available is to enable it and
to enable a client to accomplish its purpose. A lot of people use
"allow" when they mean "enable" and I, too, have been guilty of this
in the past, but the two are really quite different in social intent
and should be kept quite separate in usage.

--Paul

Hello all,

I am a new member here - Brian Lennon from Melbourne, Australia. The
existence of this group is of great interest to me. I have enjoyed
good health for my 63 years, am still working full time etc., but
have my high blood pressure brought to my attention a few years ago.
The ALT-711 possibility of reversing that damage therefore has been
an exciting discovery. I appreciate the work that the members of this
group, particularly Paul and Kitty, have been doing together on this
and related issues. It's great to find you all.

It has been interesting to see how my personal perspectives have been
changing knowing that the ALT may be available. I find I am planning
to be more active and busier for the next 20 years since knowing that
I may indeed be able to do something effective about the artery-
hardening process. Given me some food for thought about what that
change in perspective may be like on a larger scale for many older
people as more information and effective approaches become available.
Quite a social experiment isn't it?

My question then. Do people here know more about good ways of
encouraging the cross-links to stay uncrossed once they are cut? The
cut molecules will after all still be in close proximity and it does
seem that they would have every chance of re-forming unless something
terminates the ends pretty much permanently?

Thanks for your joint work so far. I'm looking forward to getting to
know you, and perhaps contributing to the work done here when I am up
to speed.

Brian Lennon

Some others in the group have noticed, as I did a few days ago, that
the search tool at this group is not functioning. I thought it was
simply a temporary problem Yahoo was having and so did not send a
message to Yahoo Groups until today after noting that the search is
working for at least one other group of which I am a member.

In the mean time, searching at Google can be used. In order to
accomplish this do the following using the advanced search -
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
Enter the individual words or phrases you are looking for. (You can
also exclude items that contain other words if you want.)
The last entry line is the important one and is: "Search within a site
or domain:". At this point enter the URL for MoreLife Yahoo -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/

As an example, no returns in the group's search are obtained for
"crosslink": " We did not find results for "*crosslink*"."  But doing
the search at Google yields 7 results, which does not include the most
recent post by Brian Lennon showing that the search is only among
those items that have been indexed by Google's Internet crawler
mechanism, which has not yet found Brian's post.

[Note: Since 12/07/2003 I have been saving all MoreLife Yahoo messages
in an email folder, just in case they are lost or deleted by Yahoo
(which has happened on other groups because someone(s) has made
vociferous complaints to Yahoo about a group). I also saved all the
older messages but not in an email folder in the form in which I
received them. Searching for "crosslink" in the body of messages in
this saved email folder yielded 24 hits (and there might be more in the
other folder of messages previous to 12/07/2003). It therefore appears
that Google is not fully crawling the archives of this group and, thus
that even an advanced Google search will not provide all occurrences
of what is being searched. Still, for now Google advanced search is
the best that is available for that purpose (unless someone can find
some better results from another search engine). --Paul]


Attempting to use Yahoo's advanced search engine -
http://search.yahoo.com/web/advanced - was not helpful since it did not
restrict the search to just MoreLife Yahoo, despite the fact that I
indicated the search was to be done in only that one site/domain. At
that point I entered the http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/
(I did it a second time w/o the "http://", but no difference).

So until Yahoo Groups resolves this problem, using Google as I've
explained above should get the results needed by a reader/member of
the MoreLife Yahoo.


Later: I found at the Yahoo Groups Moderator group a message from
December 2007 explaining the problem some groups were then having with
searching within their group:

     "We have identified the root cause of this problem which is
     related to the indexing of messages. If you are currently
     experiencing this issue please contact Customer Care and we'll
     work to correct this on a case by case basis."

Apparently this problem is happening again, at least to this group.
I've received the automatic response from Yahoo and will likely hear
from them within the next day or two.

Later 2: Part of message received from Yahoo Groups! a few minutes ago:
"We understand that you are experiencing a message search issue within
your Yahoo! group "MoreLife". We apologize for the inconvenience this
may have caused you.

"We are aware of the situation and our Engineers are further
investigating the cause.

"We have escalated your case to the proper team and understand from them
that they should have a fix shortly."


Looks good for a resolution soon.


*Kitty

On 11/29/2008 10:51 PM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:
> The following is a dialogue between Paul Wakfer and I regarding
> insurance, responsibility, and my thoughts on so-called "universal
> health care". The first part of the message is Paul Wakfer, with my
> reply following after.
>
> ---
>
>> One only needs to have sufficient wealth for one's immediate needs
>> and for a future amount of time which might need to pass, if one's
>> ability to generate more wealth were curtailed temporarily. As far as
>> total disability, that is what insurance is for. Insurance is
>> entirely reasonable for those negative occurrences that only rarely
>> happen to individuals. And by rarely I mean, unlikely during one's
>> lifetime. The pooled risk of insurance is then a reasonable way for
>> each person to help the other *if* *(and only if) such rare negatives
>> are also truly unavoidable. However, since it is hard to tell whether
>> or not something is truly unavoidable (generally this is never the
>> case), I am negative on insurance altogether since it ends up
>> fostering irresponsibility. In this day and age it is also hard to
>> imagine a disability so bad that you would both want to continue to
>> live and yet still not be able to do *anything* to gain the necessary
>> money to support yourself.
>>
>
> I agree that insurance tends to foster irresponsibility, as does any
> circumstance where one does not have to pay attention to the outcome
> of hir action (or inaction), such as government or parents "taking
> care of everything". That's an interesting point you bring up about
> it not being likely that one suffers from a disability so bad that
> they'd still want to live, and yet not be able to do *anything* to
> make a living. It reminds me of a discussion I had with a group of ~8
> people about medical services and insurance. Most of the people in
> the room thought that so-called "universal health care" is desirable.

This is the same kind of inane babble that also "thinks" that everyone
should be well-fed and housed. Note that I put the word "thinks" in
quotes in the preceding sentence, because such people are not really
thinking at all but rather opining (stating an opinion). The same goes
for your use of the word "thought" above. One should not dignify such
nonsense statements with the use of the word think.

[I have found it more correct to say that certain others "made
statements". If one or more of them actually used the words "think"
then I think it best - in conveying who is attributing the function of
thinking to what took place - to use a quoted phrase. I'd then write
about the conversation like this: "Most of the people in the room
considered [or viewed] the so-called "universal health care" as
desirable." Or "Most of the people in the room actually stated 'I
think universal health care is desirable'".

If one had the opportunity in such an atmosphere to explore, with
those who made such statements, what it was that they concluded was
desirable and why, it would be quickly seen that for most (?all), they
had not really done very much thinking on the subject at all.  **Kitty]


> I was the only one to disagree, and I found it a little difficult to
> explain my position without getting upset at their position, which I
> see as amounting to stealing from me to pay for someone else's
> condition.
>
> During this discussion, my biggest contention was that I should not
> have to pay for someone else's expensive, catastrophic illness
> (through taxes or premiums I pay and don't use).

More strongly, you should not *have to* pay for someone else's anything!

> Several people in
> the group opined that everyone should have access to health care,
> regardless of illness.

An opinion that is effectively a wish for a different reality -
essentially not dissimilar from a wish for flying pigs, every person
well-fed and money growing on trees. Worse, it is not even a well-
defined wish. For example, what exactly do "access" and "health care"
actually mean in practical detail? And how can any such be applicable
to *everyone* when some are very remote from any health care facility?

> I explained that, from the standpoint of
> reality, this position made no sense. In reality, bad things happen
> to people, and in many instances these bad things can't be prevented
> or foreseen (this discussion regarded conditions such as a birth
> defects or spontaneous cancer). But, just because a bad thing happens
> to a person doesn't necessitate that person being entitled to medical
> assistance.

That is not quite the right way to say it. No one is entitled to force
anyone else to provide anything for hir. However, everyone should be
entitled to any goods or services for which s/he has contracted with
the provider and fulfilled the terms of that contract, including
provision of the funds being asked, whether such payment is from
hirself or some charitable third party.

> I gave them an example: assume I have a child, and my
> child has a birth defect that requires an expensive medical procedure
> to correct.

Often such an occurrence can be prevented by prior genetic testing
and/or excellent health and nutrition of the parents. After the fact
solutions are often impossible because the problem is not reversible,
so that, even where they can be done, such solutions generally do not
put the child/patient into the same state as if the problem had never
occurred.

> If I can't afford the transplant, what should I do? I
> said (a little sarcastically): "sure, all I have to do is break into
> your house and steal from each of you, and I'll be able to afford it!
> Yes, it's unfortunate that my child has a terrible birth defect, and
> will probably die. But that's reality, and I have no right to require
> the rest of you to pay for it."

You will see that the word "right" as used above is essentially vacuous
if you replace it with "ability". Then you will also see that only the
government has the "ability", through its enforcers, to require such
payments. Which in turn makes it clear that the government is the source
of all such rights, and furthermore, that such rights therefore cannot
exist as any kind of natural or inalienable attributes of humans.

> Most of the people in the room paused
> and considered this and I think I made them reconsider their
> position. This discussion went further, but I recall that I felt
> really great after it, feeling as though I expressed my thoughts
> about reality accurately and convinced others that my thoughts were
> accurate.

You did very well as far and as deep as you went.

> I have found that many people think this perspective of "withholding
> medical services" as being heartless or inhumane.

To counter this simply point out that "heartless" and "inhumane" are
human characteristics, so just who is being heartless or inhumane by
withholding medical services? And furthermore, just from where is the
money coming to pay for those services that some government paid
dispenser of stolen goods is heartfully and humanely handing out with
generally little care or responsibility either about the harm that was
done in acquiring those resources or seeing that they are efficiently
used because that person did not have to earn or beg for those funds.

> It seems as though
> the people who hold this view don't realize that medical services
> cost something - money, experience, education, time, etc. For
> everyone to have access to them means that these services are free
> (like air) - but they're not!
>
> Does anyone in the group have any thoughts about this? "Health care"
> seems to be a popular topic in the media relatively recently.

Judging by the silence, it appears that almost no one in this group
has any opinion on anything much. Of course I do know that the large
majority of readers of this group, even among those who are members,
are too timid (scared? cowardly? lazy? - I don't have a clue which of
these applies) to even fully identify themselves so that they can post.

Once I get the MoreLife wiki operating, I will almost certainly close
this group since I have no desire to have a bunch of people as members
who never say anything. Such exhibited numbers (of members) is far too
dishonest and unreflective of reality for my liking.

--Paul

[Earlier this year I became an associate member of the Association of
American Physicians and Surgeons. I have known of the group for many
years and had occasionally followed its activities. I greatly support
its mission to restore the patient-doctor relationship, which is
greatly interfered with by the actions of government directly and by
insurance companies, which are themselves highly government regulated.

Now as a member ($90 per year), I receive its newsletters (postal and
email, which are different). The latest one (received on 12/3 but
which I only just now opened to read due to being *very* busy) is
something far more people should read - "Massachusetts resorts to
group visits with the doctor". It starts off:
"Massachusetts, the proud model for likely Obama-Kennedy reform, is
trying a new answer for the problem of a severe doctor shortage: group
appointments.

"Deluged with demand from newly insured patients, doctors have no room
on their appointment schedules for all the new patients. At Holyoke
Medical Center, it takes 4 months to get an appointment..."
Read the whole article with reader comments -
http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/00113

It's mind boggling that so many in Massachusetts couldn't read the
writing on the walls of UK with its NHS and Canada with its own
combination provincial/federal health care plans - the problems in
both locations are considerable in number and quantity. Simply read
BBCNews Health section regularly to be aware of what is going on in UK
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/default.stm
A very recent article is about the newest attempt to convince children
in the UK that the good health care they receive is because of the
wonderful system... "Poem published to mark NHS 60th".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7764884.stm  No mention that what
services individuals do receive always is done by individuals and that
government is but the (dis)organizer using funds taken from
citizens/residents. And of course no mention in this "ode" of what
individuals can and should do for themselves prior to consulting with
a physician.... It's a mentality of, if it were not for this marvelous
government creation - the health care system - people would be dying
like flies caught in a cloud of insecticide...

[This poem shows how much current society is already at the stage of
many of the things well dramatized in Orwell's must read social future
fiction novel "1984". Far too few people realize that many aspects of
current society are already at or past the stage described in that
prophetic novel. --Paul]

Doing a Google search using: "Canada health care plan problem" (no
quotes), brings up all sorts of websites and articles. This one is
well written and very interesting - "The Ugly Truth About Canadian
Health Care" by David Gatzer
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html

I encourage those who have been impressed with the polished political
speeches over the past many months that included promises of "health
care for all" to do some *real* study and thinking on the subject,
instead of simply nodding their heads like the old dashboard (or rear
window shelf) bobbing head figurines. (Look the last up on Google if
you have no remembrance of these.) **Kitty]

On 12/03/2008 11:18 AM, spboulet wrote:
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
> [big snip]
>
>> 2) Any loss of essential body cells will require their progenitor cells
>> to divide in order to replace those lost cells. While this is not going
>> to be a problem acutely (if occurring only a few times or very
>> infrequently), if done chronically (as some people are advising), it
>> will, over time, deplete the division potential of the cells that
>> produce the blood cellular components, and if done sufficiently often
>> the doubling time potential of those cells (the Hayflick limit) may be
>> reached and become a limiting factor to lifespan. (There is already
>> good evidence that the Hayflick limit plays a part in the exhaustion
>> of white cell division that occurs with AIDS.)
>>
>
> One thing to consider is that average blood loss during menstruation
> is 35 ml with 10–80 ml considered normal (from Wikipedia on menstrual
> cycle). Assuming 12 cycles, the total comes to 0.42 liter, or 0.89 US
> pints per year lost to menstration, just a bit less than the typical
> donation.

One argument in favor of men donating blood for health purposes is that
in human origins, the men went off to forage, hunt, fight to protect the
family, etc and were likely to naturally lose blood in such endeavors.
However, all that such an argument means it that this and female
menstruation are the evolutionary cause of human biology being so good
at sequestering iron from the diet and retaining it.

> Perhaps donating once a year might affect the gap between average male
> and female life expectancies, if the over-mineralization theory of
> aging has some merit.

The over-iron theory definitely has some merit.
If a man eats a standard North American diet and takes no other special
measures to extend lifespan, then it is very likely true that his life
will be extended by donating blood once per year, at least from puberty
to age 55. However, this does not imply that donating blood will
necessarily be part of a man's comprehensive plan to live as long as
possible.

> Speaking of the Hayflick limit, I was surprised that a search for
> "astragalus" didn't turn up a match in this group's archives.

That is because the group search is not working and hasn't been for some
time now. Using Google advanced search with URL:
groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife and search string "astragalus" shows its
occurrence in messages: 93, 856, 918, 1679 (and perhaps others since
Google crawling of Yahoo message seems to be never complete).

However, there has not been much discussion because until very recently
there has not been a single paper on PubMed that linked astragalus with
telomeres.
Even though it is not found with a PubMed search for astragalus,
http://pmid.us/18981163 does contain such information, which
definitely strengthens the case for astragalus as a "small molecule
telomerase activator, (TAT2)" . The full text states: "we identified
TAT2 (cycloastragenol) based on its ability to up-regulate the low,
basal level of telomerase in neonatal human keratinocytes (unpublished
data)". It is unfortunate that so much research, with critical findings,
remains unpublished. Here is the conclusion from the full text:

"In sum, our studies indicate that telomerase activators, such as
TAT2, may constitute a novel class of therapeutic agents which
improve immune function at a fundamental, cellular aging level,
thus complementing existing drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS
and a variety of age-related diseases associated with immune deficiency.
Indeed, the potential utility of TAT2 in treating HIV-1
infection is underscored by clinical studies documenting the association
of high constitutive telomerase activity and longer telomeres
in HIV-specific CD8+T lymphocytes in individuals with
greater control over the infection and slower disease progression.

It is also interesting that the research "was funded in part by Geron
and TA Therapeutics" and that "C. B. Harley is an employee and
shareholder of Geron and is working on the therapeutic development of
telomerase activators. A. C. Chin was an employee and shareholder of
Geron during the time this research was conducted". Note that Geron
holds the patent to which I refer below and the company marketing TA-65
is indirectly related to Geron.

> I've participated in discussions
> (http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=19921) on using
> astralagus extract along with a small dose (I use 250 mg) of chitosan
> to increase its bioavailability (http://pmid.us/16715776 -- I don't
> have the text, but the study apparently reports that 0.1% chitosan
> increases absorption by over 60 fold).

Thanks for the tip. I had never heard this, which seems strange because
chitosan is notorious for decreasing bioavailability of many nutrients,
particularly fats and minerals. However, on reading other abstracts I
see that chitosan generally increases bioavailability of hydrophilic and
lipophobic high molecular weight chemicals.
However a careful reading of the patents and the information available
on TA-65 had convinced me that the most important astragaloside was not
astragaloside IV, but rather the much more potent, but also more scarce,
cycloastragenol, even before the above cited paper confirmed that).
Whether chitosan would have the same effect on that, I don't know since
there is even less research on cycloastragenol than there is on
astragaloside IV. I cannot get the full paper of the PMID 16715776, but
perhaps someone else reading this group can supply it.

> Of course, does it really work to extend telomeres and in which
> tissues are still open questions.

Yes, and until there are published studies giving more information, it
is not worth spending a lot of money on it unless one is very wealthy. If
my total assets were $10M or more then I would definitely try TA-65 (or
get someone to produce it for me and possibly others). However, the lack
of research makes it not currently a widely salable product for this
purpose, even though it most likely could be marketed as a supplement.

--Paul

On 12/07/2008 04:43 AM, brianlennon2357 wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am a new member here - Brian Lennon from Melbourne, Australia. The
> existence of this group is of great interest to me. I have enjoyed
> good health for my 63 years, am still working full time etc., but
> have my high blood pressure brought to my attention a few years ago.
> The ALT-711 possibility of reversing that damage therefore has been
> an exciting discovery. I appreciate the work that the members of this
> group, particularly Paul and Kitty, have been doing together on this
> and related issues. It's great to find you all.

I and Kitty are pleased to have you on the group. I just hope that you
get enough out of it to keep you interested. Even though the group has a
reasonable number of members (and they are almost all "real" as opposed
to other groups that do not cull members who can no longer be reached),
relatively few of them are fully identified and therefore able to post,
and even fewer actually do post anything with any frequency.

> It has been interesting to see how my personal perspectives have been
> changing knowing that the ALT may be available. I find I am planning
> to be more active and busier for the next 20 years since knowing that
> I may indeed be able to do something effective about the artery-
> hardening process. Given me some food for thought about what that
> change in perspective may be like on a larger scale for many older
> people as more information and effective approaches become available.
> Quite a social experiment isn't it?

I like that you see this and responded in this manner. Yes, I think
that the entire life extension notion and its practical implementation
and effects will have enormously positive individual and social
consequences. That is one reason why I think the time is now ripe, as
never before, for a gradual transition of human thinking and social
practice towards something very much like the Freeman Society, the
foundations of which I describe on the Self-Sovereign Individual
Project - http://selfsip.org

> My question then. Do people here know more about good ways of
> encouraging the cross-links to stay uncrossed once they are cut? The
> cut molecules will after all still be in close proximity and it does
> seem that they would have every chance of re-forming unless something
> terminates the ends pretty much permanently?
>

These were exactly my thoughts when I first came upon ALT-711 many years
ago (which similarity in analytical thinking increases my expectation
for the overall wealth of your relationship with this group and myself).
There are several other members of this group who could have answered
your question very competently and I am dismayed that none of them have
done so.
The answer is to take the many chemicals that operate to reduce the
formation of crosslinks and AGEs, such as carnosine, pyridoxamine,
thiamine pyrophosphate, benfotiamine, aminoguanidine, aspirin,
metformin, penicillamine, N-acetyl-cysteine together with other
anti-oxidants and polyphenols, in general. That list was not intended to
be comprehensive, being mostly from memory. I expect other group members
could add more if they wish to do so.

> Thanks for your joint work so far. I'm looking forward to getting to
> know you, and perhaps contributing to the work done here when I am up
> to speed.
>

That would be very welcome indeed. I am getting along quite well at the
process of installing and configuring the MoreLife website (and
SelfSIP, as well as 2 other new sites) as wikis. This should make it
much easier and more attractive for others to contribute.

> Brian Lennon

--Paul

[As Paul has intimated, our computer oriented time since getting back to Arizona
(and the high speed Internet connection) has been heavily spent on the numerous
tasks associated with creation of the wikis. Most of my time has been related to
the graphics and one of the outputs can be seen in the favicons now appearing at
the start of the browser URL address for both MoreLife.org and SelfSIP.org (not
yet perfected). Learning just some of the numerous functions of Inkscape and
GIMP has kept me quite busy, but it is an area in which I get much satisfaction
and for a purpose I consider of extreme importance. **Kitty]

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
>
> On 12/03/2008 11:18 AM, spboulet wrote:
[snip]
> > Speaking of the Hayflick limit, I was surprised that a search for
> > "astragalus" didn't turn up a match in this group's archives.
>
> That is because the group search is not working and hasn't been for some
> time now. Using Google advanced search with URL:
> groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife and search string "astragalus" shows its
> occurrence in messages: 93, 856, 918, 1679 (and perhaps others since
> Google crawling of Yahoo message seems to be never complete).

Thanks.

> However, there has not been much discussion because until very recently
> there has not been a single paper on PubMed that linked astragalus with
> telomeres.
> Even though it is not found with a PubMed search for astragalus,
> http://pmid.us/18981163 does contain such information, which
> definitely strengthens the case for astragalus as a "small molecule
> telomerase activator, (TAT2)" . The full text states: "we identified
> TAT2 (cycloastragenol) based on its ability to up-regulate the low,
> basal level of telomerase in neonatal human keratinocytes (unpublished
> data)". It is unfortunate that so much research, with critical findings,
> remains unpublished.

I wrote in this thread
(http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=19921&view=findpost&p=259366):

"That study's abstract said 'Astragaloside IV is one of the main
active ingredients of Radix astragali'." It may also be useful to look
up studies of the Chinese herb Radix astragali to get insight into
astragaloside IV. PMID 18309905 found that radix astragali (RA)
"alleviates muscle atrophy under simulated weightlessness conditions".

> It is also interesting that the research "was funded in part by Geron
> and TA Therapeutics" and that "C. B. Harley is an employee and
> shareholder of Geron and is working on the therapeutic development of
> telomerase activators. A. C. Chin was an employee and shareholder of
> Geron during the time this research was conducted". Note that Geron
> holds the patent to which I refer below and the company marketing TA-65
> is indirectly related to Geron.

Oh, yes. TA Sciences has very close links with Geron. Good to keep in
mind.

> > I've participated in discussions
> > (http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=19921) on using
> > astralagus extract along with a small dose (I use 250 mg) of Chitosan
> > to increase its bioavailability (http://pmid.us/16715776 -- I don't
> > have the text, but the study apparently reports that 0.1% chitosan
> > increases absorption by over 60 fold).
>
> Thanks for the tip. I had never heard this, which seems strange because
> chitosan is notorious for decreasing bioavailability of many nutrients,
> particularly fats and minerals. However, on reading other abstracts I
> see that chitosan generally increases bioavailability of hydrophilic and
> lipophobic high molecular weight chemicals.
> However a careful reading of the patents and the information available
> on TA-65 had convinced me that the most important astragaloside was not
> astragaloside IV, but rather the much more potent, but also more scarce,
> cycloastragenol, even before the above cited paper confirmed that).
> Whether chitosan would have the same effect on that, I don't know since
> there is even less research on cycloastragenol than there is on
> astragaloside IV. I cannot get the full paper of the PMID 16715776, but
> perhaps someone else reading this group can supply it.

While it does look like cycloastragenol is the substance with the
strong telomerase activity, astrogaloside IV might also enhance
telomerase activity, though this hasn't been thoroughly proven yet. My
hope is that it's increased bioavailability with chitosan will result
in similar activity to cycloastragenol. Astralagus root has been used
for centuries, so hopefully the downsides are few.

There may be a formulation with cycloastragenol available for sale soon
(http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=19921&view=findpost&p=281974).
Should be much cheaper than what TA Science sells. ;)

Stephen

Might there be any concerns with taking a generic ALT-711 after surgery?
I had inguinal hernia surgery 8 days ago, and wanted to put the question
out there.

I read that some who have taken it have seen callouses shrink, for
example. I don't think that cross link formation plays a role in wound
healing, but collagen deposition does.

StephenB

I have been in a great mood in overcast Chicagoland this winter, and I
wanted to pass along a couple of supplement ideas that may be responsible.

1. Normalized vitamin D. With 2000 IU of vitamin D, I reached a
25-hydroxy level of 40 ng/mL, which I believe makes me a fairly low
responder. I've since increased that to 5000 IU/day.

2. Lithium orotate. For the past two weeks I've started on 120 mg of
lithium orotate daily, containing 5 mg elemental lithium, a
nutritional, not pharmacological, dosage. I've noticed a subtly more
balanced mood and more positive attitude, not that I've had much in
the way of mood swings in the past. Our water comes from Lake
Michigan, and contains no lithium.

From PMID 1699579, "Using data for 27 Texas counties from 1978-1987,
it is shown that the incidence rates of suicide, homicide, and rape
are significantly higher in counties whose drinking water supplies
contain little or no lithium...". PMID 18363457 is another study on
this topic, but without an abstract. Here's another good introductory
article: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_/ai_93736454.

Lithium orotate is claimed to avoid the liver toxicity issue seen with
other forms of lithium.

Any thoughts on the need for and efficacy of supplemental lithium?

StephenB

[This thread should have been renamed two posts back. Sorry for not
doing so earlier. --Paul]

On 12/23/2008 03:08 PM, spboulet wrote:
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
>
>> On 12/03/2008 11:18 AM, spboulet wrote:
>>
> [snip]
>
>>> Speaking of the Hayflick limit, I was surprised that a search for
>>> "astragalus" didn't turn up a match in this group's archives.
>>>
>> That is because the group search is not working and hasn't been for some
>> time now. Using Google advanced search with URL:
>> groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife and search string "astragalus" shows its
>> occurrence in messages: 93, 856, 918, 1679 (and perhaps others since
>> Google crawling of Yahoo message seems to be never complete).
>>
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>> However, there has not been much discussion because until very recently
>> there has not been a single paper on PubMed that linked astragalus with
>> telomeres.
>> Even though it is not found with a PubMed search for astragalus,
>> http://pmid.us/18981163 does contain such information, which
>> definitely strengthens the case for astragalus as a "small molecule
>> telomerase activator, (TAT2)" . The full text states: "we identified
>> TAT2 (cycloastragenol) based on its ability to up-regulate the low,
>> basal level of telomerase in neonatal human keratinocytes (unpublished
>> data)". It is unfortunate that so much research, with critical findings,
>> remains unpublished.
>>
>
> I wrote in this thread
>
(http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=19921&view=findpost&p=259366):
>
> "That study's abstract said 'Astragaloside IV is one of the main
> active ingredients of Radix astragali'."

That may be so, but astragaloside IV is still a very small portion of
any extract currently being marketed. So to get the amounts needed you
would need to either take very high amounts of those supplement extracts
or find a source of more purified astragaloside IV.

>  It may also be useful to look
> up studies of the Chinese herb Radix astragali to get insight into
> astragaloside IV. PMID 18309905 found that radix astragali (RA)
> "alleviates muscle atrophy under simulated weightlessness conditions".

There are many studies showing many different benefits of astragalus
(which all appear on PubMed by using "astragalus" in the search string,
since PubMed's search is "smart" enough to associate together different
phrases for the same compound). So the many benefits and safety of
supplementing astragalus extract is not in contention. However, none
until the one that I mentioned above had any direct relevance to
telomeres. This also applies to the new one you have cited above.

>> It is also interesting that the research "was funded in part by Geron
>> and TA Therapeutics" and that "C. B. Harley is an employee and
>> shareholder of Geron and is working on the therapeutic development of
>> telomerase activators. A. C. Chin was an employee and shareholder of
>> Geron during the time this research was conducted". Note that Geron
>> holds the patent to which I refer below and the company marketing TA-65
>> is indirectly related to Geron.
>>
>
> Oh, yes. TA Sciences has very close links with Geron. Good to keep in
> mind.

And unfortunately, Geron is not publishing their own research on TA-65,
preferring to keep it under wraps, except for what was stated in the
patent application.
The paper that I cited was the first on astragalus relating to Geron
and, strangely enough, it did not contain "astragalus" (or any associated
word) either in the abstract or as a keyword. This action prevented
PubMed's search from finding it with the string "astralagus AND
(telomere OR telomerase)", which still returns zero hits.

>>> I've participated in discussions
>>> (http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=19921) on using
>>> astralagus extract along with a small dose (I use 250 mg) of Chitosan
>>> to increase its bioavailability (http://pmid.us/16715776 -- I don't
>>> have the text, but the study apparently reports that 0.1% chitosan
>>> increases absorption by over 60 fold).
>>>
>> Thanks for the tip. I had never heard this, which seems strange because
>> chitosan is notorious for decreasing bioavailability of many nutrients,
>> particularly fats and minerals. However, on reading other abstracts I
>> see that chitosan generally increases bioavailability of hydrophilic and
>> lipophobic high molecular weight chemicals.
>> However a careful reading of the patents and the information available
>> on TA-65 had convinced me that the most important astragaloside was not
>> astragaloside IV, but rather the much more potent, but also more scarce,
>> cycloastragenol, even before the above cited paper confirmed that).
>> Whether chitosan would have the same effect on that, I don't know since
>> there is even less research on cycloastragenol than there is on
>> astragaloside IV. I cannot get the full paper of the PMID 16715776, but
>> perhaps someone else reading this group can supply it.
>>
>
> While it does look like cycloastragenol is the substance with the
> strong telomerase activity, astrogaloside IV might also enhance
> telomerase activity, though this hasn't been thoroughly proven yet.

As I recall from reading the patent, cycloastragenol is 20-50 times more
potent, which is why the active amount of TA-65 taken is only 5 mg. (One
of the members of this group is a client of TA Sciences and regularly
takes TA-65.)

Here is the patent: http://tinyurl.com/88j4fa

And here is the quote about the difference in activity between
cycloastragenol and astragaloside IV from pages 38-39:

"For treatment of a subject or patient, such as a mammal or a human
patient, dosages are determined based on factors such as the weight and
overall health of the subject, the condition treated, severity of
symptoms, etc. Dosages and concentrations are determined to produce the
desired benefit while avoiding any undesirable side effects. Typical
dosages of the subject compounds are in the range of about 0 5 to 500
mg/day for a human patient, preferably about 1-100 mg/day. For example,
higher dose regimens include e. g. 50-100,75-100, or 50-75 mg/day, and
lower dose regimens include e. g. 1-50, 25-50, or 1-25 mg/day. In
specific embodiments, for example, the compound designated herein as 2
(cycloastragenol) is administered at a level of at least 1 mg/day,
preferably at least 5 mg/day; or the compound designated herein as 1
(astragaloside IV) is administered at a level of at least 50 mg/day,
preferably at least 100 mg/day.

Studies in support of the invention indicate that the compounds of
formula I-m have excellent bioavailability and low toxicity. For
example, a representative compound, cycloastragenol (2), was negative
for reverse bacterial mutation potential in the Ames test, employing
Salmonella Typhimurium tester strains TA98, TA100, TA1535, TA 1537 and
E. coli tester strain WP2 uvrA, at levels up to 5000 LE/plate. It was
well-tolerated systemically in Sprague-Dawley rats, after single
intravenous injections up to 10 mg/kg.

No significant dose-dependent changes were observed for males or females
in behavior (eating, drinking), gross weight, organ weights (heart,
lung, liver, kidneys, adrenals and spleen), hematology or clinical
chemistry."

> My
> hope is that it's increased bioavailability with chitosan will result
> in similar activity to cycloastragenol.

This will not happen unless one takes large dosages of Astragaloside IV
- at least 100 mg of bioavailability, it appears. Therefore, I do not
think chitosan will help much with currently available astragalus
extracts, most of which do not even list the percentage of total
astragalosides, let alone specifically astragaloside IV.

[In May 2007 I requested of LEF "that LEF obtain from Nature's Plus the total
astragaloside content (range, if variation by batch occurs) of the astragalus
product LEF sells with its own product number #12024". After several exchanges I
received the answer, "They inform us that while astragalosides are known to be
present in the herb, they have not measured them. They only measured for the
chemical the product is standardized for, namely the 4'-hydroxy-3'
methoxyisoflavone 7-sug." **Kitty]


> Astralagus root has been used
> for centuries, so hopefully the downsides are few.

While it is true that astragalus root and its extracts have been taken
for centuries and are undoubtedly safe, no one has ever taken them at
the dosages required to have a telomerase promotion effect. Therefore,
at such a dose, safety and negative effects need to be fully researched.

> There may be a formulation with cycloastragenol available for sale soon
>
(http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=19921&view=findpost&p=281974).
> Should be much cheaper than what TA Science sells. ;)

I am hopeful that this latest research relating astragalus to telomerase
promotion will push some supplement manufacturers to bring out
astragalus extracts with a higher potency of astragaloside IV. It would
be difficult to produce any extract with any effective amount of
cyclostragenol because its concentration in the natural plant is
extremely minute. Geron produces cycloastragenol by chemically
processing astragaloside IV.

--Paul

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, "spboulet" <stephen@...> wrote:
>
> Might there be any concerns with taking a generic ALT-711 after surgery?
> I had inguinal hernia surgery 8 days ago, and wanted to put the question
> out there.
>
> I read that some who have taken it have seen callouses shrink, for
> example. I don't think that cross link formation plays a role in wound
> healing, but collagen deposition does.

That's a good question. Wound healing is a complex process, and yes,
cross-linking plays a role in it. But AFAIK except for the initial
stage, where a blood clot is formed, cross-linking plays only a minor
role in wound healing. In addition generic ALT-711 is very specific in
that it only breaks certain types of cross-links. It does not break
many of the most abundant cross links in the body such as glucosepane.
Also the main cross-links formed during the formation of a blood clot
are different from the cross-links formed randomly in the body in that
their formation is enzymatically driven causing the reaction to be
much faster. This is why a blood clot can form within a very short
time. Even if generic ALT-711 could break the cross-links formed
during blood clot formation it wouldn't happen fast enough to have any
significant effects on blood clot formation, at least not at any
reasonable concentration of ALT-711 obtainable by oral ingestion.
Generic ALT-711 is more likely to effect some of the later stages of
wound healing which occur much more slowly such as scar tissue
formation and maturation. Some people have reported fading of scars
from taking generic-AL-711 which may be attributed to this, but any
such changes if real are gradual and do not occur in a very short
time. So even if it does reduce scar tissue formation I wouldn't be
worried about taking it before surgery and and even less so after
surgery. Only if you are taking a very high dose of generic ALT-711
and are having a major surgery done would I suggest to stop taking it
prior to and shortly after the surgery just in case.

Cross-linking also plays some role in callus formation. But this is a
much slower process than that of blood clot formation. The slow
formation gives generic ALT-711 more time to break the cross-links and
cause significant effects. This may be the reason some people have
reported reduced callus formation when taking generic ALT-711.

[Many thanks to Olafur, for such an excellent detailed answer. --Paul]

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
> > On 11/05/2008 10:29 AM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:
> > Hello everyone,
> > As I described in my previous post, I will be sharing my thoughts and
> > experiences while studying Nathaniel Branden's works.
>
> And I first want to express my thanks and high esteem for your candid
> and fully identified expression of your thoughts on such personal matters.
>
> >  First, I
> > should point out that I have just completed his book "Breaking Free –
> > How to cut the bonds of childhood that are keeping you from reaching
> > your full adult potential".  This book as a whole was very
> > interesting because a theme throughout the book was Branden's
> > insistence that most parents, through action or inaction, do a great
> > deal of psychological harm to their children in one way or another.
> > This point was especially interesting to me because, while I consider
> > my childhood to have been "mediocre" as an environment that is
> > conducive for children to develop into independent, rational, well-
> > adjusted adults, I hadn't realized that the lack of a good home
> > environment was so prevalent.  Branden reiterates his conviction that
> > most home environments lack what he would consider a "healthy
> > environment".
>
> My own view is that this, "healthy environment" relative to growing
> children, is a deteriorating situation, in general even worse than when
> I was a child (and I do not consider my own growing-up environment
> particularly good but then neither was it highly negative). I think  this
> is entirely to be expected based on all other trends of society and is
> one of the reasons why I am concerned about the course of current
> civilization.
>
> >  In the context of this "healthy environment", the book
> > mainly focuses on the behavior of parents in that environment, and
> > how parental behavior can effect a child's (and the resulting
> > adult's) behavior.  A very important aspect of this interaction
> > between a parent's behavior and the child's behavior as an adult is
> > that when the child becomes an adult s/he *is often unaware that s/he
> > is behaving in a manner that is harmful to hirself*.
>
> What this means in practice is that the child has only nominally become
> an adult (age 21, out on one's own, earning one' living, etc). Full
> adulthood is a "becoming" process, something that is never completely
> attained (as with a mathematical curve that approaches a certain line
> asymptotically). Unfortunately few people continue with the "becoming"
> process, but rather remain as stunted children all their lives. Full
> human life must necessarily involve mental growth and development,
> which is why I often state that "Most people are dead by the time they
> are 30".

Is not "being an adult" the time after which a non-adult crosses a
social boundary by claiming full responsibility for hir actions,
therefore ceasing to be a child of other adult(s).  This is a social
expression, a way of reaching out to others who also claim self-
responsibility, and, when two or more such individuals intentionally
interface, a social contract is formed.

Paul explains both the individual's self responsibility in Social
Meta Needs and the individual's social responsibilities in the
Natural Social Contract, and I'm confident we agree, both childhood
and adulthood are defined, with the adults being the parties to the
contract and fully responsible for the social interactions of their
children.

The paragraph above by Paul can be misunderstood that adulthood is
defined as unreachable, that all humans are children-becoming-adults
that can be compared along a continuum from stunted to advanced
children.
Instead, I think it is important to define "adult" as the time period
that a human claims to have freed hirself from parent(s) and is
taking full responsibility for hir existence and activities.

There could instead be two becoming processes, one describing the
ascension from childhood to adulthood and another describing the
continued improvement vis-à-vis the rate of happiness achieved by the
adult.  (was this a good use of vis-à-vis?)

Here's a terrifying thought (similar disappointment expressed by
fictional character Cherryl Taggart, Atlas Shrugged: Part III, Ch 4.
Anti-Life): there is clear evidence that many Americans and probably
most of the world's 21+ (age group) individuals are de facto children
to their respective governments and insurance programs, hugging
tightly to the benefits handed to them through a convoluted maze (tax-
funded services) which binds superior producers to their respective
local governments of moochers, who in turn "milk the cow" and leave
leftover crumbs to the stunted children.

> >  Studying this
> > book has brought to my attention that some behaviors in which I
> > engage are not optimal for my long-term health and happiness.
>
> Actually that is and will always be true for everyone, me included. It
> is only the number of areas in which this occurs, their extent and
> degree, which hopefully gets reduced over time. Furthermore, even though
> one may do one's best possible to estimate those actions that will
> optimally increase one's lifetime happiness, even an effectively
> *perfect* job of such estimating, there is always the chance aspect of
> reality (the factors required for full analysis are essentially
> unbounded in number and inter-related complexity and one's estimation
> time is necessarily limited) which can completely destroy or reverse
> one's best possible estimation. Again having one's estimations actually
> work out is something that one ought to be able to get better at with
> experience and thought, but I, for one, find it very frustrating that I
> don't get better at this much faster than I do.

This last statement (in the context of this paragraph) is especially
apropos most of the concepts I consider daily, and in particular:
1) what personal characteristics can I change?
2) how fast will I change? and
3) how do changes fit in with or adversely affect other related
characteristics?

Naturally then, I must ask by what methods will the changes occur
most rapidly and completely, and how will I verify (measurement)?
I appreciate that Paul related this, if only to be reminded of how
important is improving one's estimations.

> > The book relates the question-and-answer sessions of some of
> > Branden's group therapy sessions (at the time of the book he was a
> > practicing psychologist).  This entire book is based off an epiphany
> > Branden had during one of his group sessions.  He asked the group a
> > series of questions about how their parents treated them when they
> > were children.  He found that when he asked an appropriate question
> > to a person to whom it applied, the person experienced a great deal
> > of enlightenment regarding certain important frustrations or
> > questions about hirself.
>
> This occurs to those who are really open and honest with themselves.
> Many (most?) people have a hard time doing that, at least not for every
> facet of their psyche. Many things remain hidden deeply, are never made
> conscious and are certainly not spoken of, often these are the things
> that are most important with respect to inhibiting/promoting their
> psychological development/growth.
>
> >  As is likely the purpose of the book, I, as
> > the reader, experienced a significant number of enlightening moments
> > with respect to questions about myself and my personality.
>
> That is an excellent sign that you have a healthy mind, still open and
> capable of growth.

I've found Branden's books to be useful in providing a large number
of questions to ask myself, and from there, I've developed more
appropriate questions to bring out underlying principles by which I
govern my actions.  I suggest doing the same, tailoring the questions
to aim deeply.

Most "dirt" that I find is related to emotions that are tied to
particularly complex concepts, such as money, fairness, justice,
happiness, leisure, trade, political thought, and economics.

> >  These experiences are what I want to share and will do so here.
> >
> > Below I describe my thoughts and experiences while reading this book
> > as it relates to a given category.  The two categories of thoughts
> > and experiences I will discuss are:  emotional withdrawal and sexual
> > roles.
> >
> > Emotional withdrawal
> >
> > I could really relate to the story of the first client, "Henry" (a
> > fake name), 24 years old, and his responses to the first question.
>
> Regarding the use of a fake name, this appears to be part of what is
> called patient confidentiality. If that patient wants it, while that is
> still irrational, I can respect the need to adhere to that desire, or
> even contractual obligation. However, what I have never understood is
> the refusal to use the names of people who specifically do not want
> confidentiality and even welcome their names being used and are fully
> willing to sign any necessary release (such as myself).
>
> [It is also possible that "Henry" is a composite of a number of
> Branden's clients rather than one single individual. A number of
> writer's, whether in the health care fields or not, use this
> technique for examples, rather than obtain permission to use that
> of a specific individual. These writers like this method also to
> combine the characteristics of several of their clients into one
> pseudo-person with the problems or situations they wish to discuss. **Kitty]
>
> [However, I consider such a technique to be invalid because the
> example is then not a *real* one in any fundamental sense, and, for
> any number of unforeseen reasons, may not be able to even occur in
> the reality of any single human. This is similar to using a unicorn
> or a truth machine within a philosophy example - totally unacceptable
> for discovering the truths of reality! --Paul]
>
> > The chapter is called "The Unknowable".  The question posed
> > to "Henry" in the book is as follows:
> >
> > "When you were a child, did your parents manner of behaving and
> > dealing with you give you the impression that you were living in a
> > world that was rational, predictable, intelligible?  Or a world that
> > was bewildering, contradictory, incomprehensible, unknowable?"
> >
> > In this chapter, Henry responded to the question by giving a story
> > about how his parents behaved toward him when he was a child. Henry
> > states that when he was a child he once used some matches to set a
> > few leaves on fire in the back yard.  His father discovered him and
> > told him that the police were going to take him to Juvenile Hall.
> > Then his mother came running up to Henry, hugging him, telling him it
> > was "OK", and telling him that he was her "darling angel".  Henry
> > then remembers his father screaming at his mother and forgot all
> > about Henry's careless burning of leaves.  Henry then states that
> > later that night, his father gave him a gift and seemed quite
> > cheerful.  Henry recalled that this experience was very bewildering
> > to him and he didn't know what to think of it.
> >
> > Henry then describes how his parents were always shouting, his mother
> > was often crying, holding Henry and saying that "everything will be
> > okay when we're with Jesus".  I agree with Henry: this is a confusing
> > situation for a child to grow up in.
>
> I was certainly fortunate in that my parents, while often having
> irrational ideas and actions that were negative for me and my
> thinking/growth, nevertheless practiced those ideas and actions
> reasonably consistently (even if such ideas and actions were not
> self-consistent as a whole). Although my parents thought of themselves
> as Christians, I also had none of this Jesus nonsense that is so
> prevalent in the US.
>
> [I on the other hand was raised in a home where my mother was a
> strongly adherent Catholic and my father was mostly so, keeping
> disagreements he had on the subject to himself, something I concluded
> when I was in my late 20s. When I voiced my very different ideas at
> age 16, the reaction however was not anger but rather more of
> confusion on their part. Also at that time, and even into my late 40s
> when they both died (less than a year apart), my ability to present
> my ideas in a cogent fashion was far less than it is now or was even
> 7 years ago. **Kitty]
>
> > Branden explains to Henry, on page 23, that Henry withdrew and
> > stopped trying to understand the world around him.  This random,
> > unintelligible environment constructed by his parents confused him as
> > a child and as a result, Henry stopped trying to make sense of the
> > world.  Henry had given up the hope of understanding.  When reading
> > this book, I remember the next phrase in the book, something Branden
> > says to Henry:
> >
> > "When you withdrew, you gave up hope of understanding.  You stopped
> > caring to understand.  That's when you gave up your self-esteem".
>
> Exactly! One cannot have high self-esteem unless one is and sees oneself
> as efficacious with respect to reality. And the first step to being
> efficacious is to understand that upon which one needs to act. The
> second is fully understanding the ultimate purpose and the immediate
> goal of one's action. Without both one has no basis for making a
> choice and certainly little chance that one's choice will be right
> (particularly since "right" would be yet to be defined in such a case).

This second step of understanding ultimate purpose has been my
largest obstacle to navigate and traverse.  I have trouble with
motivation mostly, not necessarily to stay on track, but to enjoy
what I'm doing.

For example, I conclude an ultimate purpose is to become a scientist
because this will best train my mind to systematically consider
reality, identify problems, obtain resources and apply them to the
problems, and most efficiently evaluate the outcomes.  However,
during my first 25 years (not including playing basketball and
volleyball) I routinely followed paths of least resistance.  In
addition, I learned to react with joy to all of my experiences; IOW,
I was and am today able to enjoy most situations as challenging,
enlightening, aesthetically pleasing, etc., especially if somewhat
unordinary (to me).  Even though I have discovered problems with my
surroundings, my "country", my peers, my parents, my self, and so on,
I am not discouraged about maintaining a pleasurable relationship
with the wacky world because I have always successfully made the best
of situations.  Further, as I perceive reality today, I still only
possess a romantic interest in becoming a scientist, one like movie
characters such as Tom Cruise's in Mission Impossible, who, it was
implied, was well-practiced as a systematic and precise judge of
reality as well a wise negotiator (of reality) to his benefit.
AFAIK, learning and practicing the skill-set of a scientist will not
be an action-packed lifestyle and may not offer enough subtle changes
to keep my interest, but I am attempting to overcome these personal
characteristics of mine by practicing despite the boredom, etc.

So, I struggle with enjoying this learning and practice in hopes that
my interests in the material and methods will grow.

I have decided that if I do enjoy being a scientist (in the purest
sense possible), I would like my economic impact to lead to
activities that improve my and my friends' chances of living
indefinitely.

Regarding the remainder of this message in response to Steve, Paul,
and Kitty, I have nothing to add.

David "Jack"emeyer
Tempe, AZ
BioTech Student, Arizona State U
Methuseluh Foundation student/lab rat
---------------------------------------

Hi Morelife community,

I confess, I have been lurking (read, as a twist on the
pronounciation: looking) at the messages since summer concluded,
hoping, wishing, trying to write a response -- joshing, because I
purposefully chose not to respond as I've been focusing most of my
attention on developing a knack for science, especially that of my
body.
However, I will be making a change beginning this winter and
continuing through Arizona State spring semester by reserving writing
and thinking time each day for Morelife Yahoo Group, that I might
participate with Paul, Kitty, Steve, and others.

That said, I have a personal concern for your consideration.

I would like to fast for extended periods, and one 2hr meal per day
has been working fine for me.  I would also like to exercise 45 min
per day.  BTW, I have completely cut out alcohol from my diet, in
response to the posts related to message 1809 on Morelife Yahoo Group
posted 06/04/08:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/1809

Question: If I finished my (one per day) meal by noon, to what extent
would exercising seven hours later disturb the important pathways
hypothesized to occur during a long fast period?

David "Jack"emeyer
BioTech student
Methuselah Foundation student/lab rat

Hi David,

I appreciate your comments to our discussion and I enjoyed them. I
responded to them below.

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, "David Thomas Jackemeyer"
<Olehenry1@...> wrote:
>
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@> wrote:
> > > On 11/05/2008 10:29 AM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:
> > > Hello everyone,
> > > As I described in my previous post, I will be sharing my thoughts
> > > and experiences while studying Nathaniel Branden's works.
> >
> > And I first want to express my thanks and high esteem for your candid
> > and fully identified expression of your thoughts on such personal matters.
> >
> > > First, I
> > > should point out that I have just completed his book "Breaking Free –
> > > How to cut the bonds of childhood that are keeping you from reaching
> > > your full adult potential". This book as a whole was very
> > > interesting because a theme throughout the book was Branden's
> > > insistence that most parents, through action or inaction, do a great
> > > deal of psychological harm to their children in one way or another.
> > > This point was especially interesting to me because, while I consider
> > > my childhood to have been "mediocre" as an environment that is
> > > conducive for children to develop into independent, rational, well-
> > > adjusted adults, I hadn't realized that the lack of a good home
> > > environment was so prevalent. Branden reiterates his conviction that
> > > most home environments lack what he would consider a "healthy
> > > environment".
> >
> > My own view is that this, "healthy environment" relative to growing
> > children, is a deteriorating situation, in general even worse than when
> > I was a child (and I do not consider my own growing-up environment
> > particularly good but then neither was it highly negative). I think this
> > is entirely to be expected based on all other trends of society and is
> > one of the reasons why I am concerned about the course of current
> > civilization.
> >
> > > In the context of this "healthy environment", the book
> > > mainly focuses on the behavior of parents in that environment, and
> > > how parental behavior can effect a child's (and the resulting
> > > adult's) behavior. A very important aspect of this interaction
> > > between a parent's behavior and the child's behavior as an adult is
> > > that when the child becomes an adult s/he *is often unaware that s/he
> > > is behaving in a manner that is harmful to hirself*.
> >
> > What this means in practice is that the child has only nominally become
> > an adult (age 21, out on one's own, earning one' living, etc). Full
> > adulthood is a "becoming" process, something that is never completely
> > attained (as with a mathematical curve that approaches a certain line
> > asymptotically). Unfortunately few people continue with the "becoming"
> > process, but rather remain as stunted children all their lives. Full
> > human life must necessarily involve mental growth and development,
> > which is why I often state that "Most people are dead by the time they
> > are 30".
>
> Is not "being an adult" the time after which a non-adult crosses a
> social boundary by claiming full responsibility for hir actions,
> therefore ceasing to be a child of other adult(s). This is a social
> expression, a way of reaching out to others who also claim self-
> responsibility, and, when two or more such individuals intentionally
> interface, a social contract is formed.

I think this is a great description of what might define an "adult" -
the social boundary one crosses that marks the time after which one is
expected to be fully responsible for hir actions. I find it
unfortunate that, while this "social boundary" is considered by many
to be after the attainment of age 18 or 21, the person achieving such
age is often not treated any differently. This was true in my
experience. For example, when one reaches the age of "adulthood", the
new "adult" should be treated as though they can make hir own
decisions - decisions which must be respected by others. I have
experienced that, after crossing both of these "adulthood thresholds",
many elders in in my family do not treat me as though I am capable of
making well-rationed decisions on my own. I wonder if this lack of
respect for the autonomy of a new adult has a negative impact on the
new adult's efficacy in dealing with reality. In other words, if mama
bird never lets the baby bird out of the nest, baby bird will never
fly on hir own. It may be difficult for mama bird to watch baby bird
fly away (and maybe run into a branch or fall), but mama bird has to
let baby bird make hir own decisions, learn, and grow into a bird that
can feed itself.

> Paul explains both the individual's self responsibility in Social
> Meta Needs and the individual's social responsibilities in the
> Natural Social Contract, and I'm confident we agree, both childhood
> and adulthood are defined, with the adults being the parties to the
> contract and fully responsible for the social interactions of their
> children.

I understand this to be true.

> The paragraph above by Paul can be misunderstood that adulthood is
> defined as unreachable, that all humans are children-becoming-adults
> that can be compared along a continuum from stunted to advanced
> children.
> Instead, I think it is important to define "adult" as the time period
> that a human claims to have freed hirself from parent(s) and is
> taking full responsibility for hir existence and activities.

Again, this is a good point to address. I admit that I have not read
all of the material regarding the NSC and selfsip documents (the issue
I discuss next may be discussed in parts of the material I have not
yet read). However, I think it is very important to determine when
"adult" status begins, especially because the new "adult" will be
expected to assume the accompanying responsibilities of being an
autonomous, self-sovereign individual. When a child understands that
there will come a time when s/he must be fully responsible for hir
actions, the child can better understand what is to be prepared for
prior to that time, what actions should be taken, which tasks s/he
should be capable of performing, etc.

OTOH (on the other hand), our discussion here is on an *age* at which
a child assumes *all* responsibilities of adulthood. Perhaps this
definition of adulthood is biased due to previous experiences or
"conventional wisdom". Perhaps there is an alternative. Perhaps a
child, throughout hir life, gradually assumes responsibility with
regard to an increasing number of issues related to hir existence.
Furthermore, the "schedule" upon which the child will assume these
responsibilities is decided by the parent. For example, a parent might
determine that age 6 hir children will assume the responsibility of
washing the dishes. At age 7 hir children must also be responsible for
cleaning hir room. At age 8, hir children become fully responsible for
cleaning the laundry the child uses. And so on. This is done by many
households currently, in the form of "chores". However, I think it may
go even further. Perhaps at age 16 the child might be required to
assume the responsibility to pay for hir own food, either by way of
work or through an employment contract with the parent(s). This
*gradual* assumption of increasingly important life responsibilities
would help the child to grow in a step-wise fashion, rather than
having *full* responsibility "dumped" on them at some predetermined
age. I think this gradual method may be especially useful because it
seems to me that very many young adults have had *very little*
responsibility up until age 18 and are *not* prepared to be fully
responsible for *everything* at that time. As an analogy, one is more
prepared to give a presentation when one spends a little bit of time
practicing it each day for a week prior, rather than spending 10 hours
preparing for it the night before.

> There could instead be two becoming processes, one describing the
> ascension from childhood to adulthood and another describing the
> continued improvement vis-à-vis the rate of happiness achieved by the
> adult. (was this a good use of vis-à-vis?)

I agree that it seems to be two separate processes at work: (1) the
process that a child increases hir responsibility for hirself,
eventually resulting in the child's assumption of full-responsibility
and (2) the constant improvement and development processes that take
place during one's life.

I am not familiar with the use of the phrase "vis-a-vis".

> Here's a terrifying thought (similar disappointment expressed by
> fictional character Cherryl Taggart, Atlas Shrugged: Part III, Ch 4.
> Anti-Life): there is clear evidence that many Americans and probably
> most of the world's 21+ (age group) individuals are de facto children
> to their respective governments and insurance programs, hugging
> tightly to the benefits handed to them through a convoluted maze (tax-
> funded services) which binds superior producers to their respective
> local governments of moochers, who in turn "milk the cow" and leave
> leftover crumbs to the stunted children.

That is a terrifying thought, more terrifying in that it accurately
illustrates many situations in reality. Just tonight I discussed with
family and acquaintances how it is counter-intuitive to have a higher
tax rate for those people who make the most money. Their argument (I
was the only one on "my" side) was that the wealthiest person has the
most money, and therefore would miss it the least. I implored them to
think of it from another perspective: those who make the most money
are those who create the most value for other people. So, by taking a
larger percentage of profits from the most profitable people, you are
actually *restricting the most productive members of society*, by way
of removing resources that might be used for productive purposes. I
also pointed out to them that taking money (in the form of taxes) from
*anyone* is exactly the same as stealing. I was a little surprised by
how violently I was disagreed with. They stated that, since someone as
wealthy as Bill Gates didn't need all the money he had, he should give
it to others. And I stated that their example of Bill Gates is the
exact same thing as a poor beggar coming into your house with a gun
stating: "you have more money than you need, give me $100 - I need it
more than you". It is surprising (and depressing) to see that so many
of my elders have not thought deeply about these important subjects
that affect every day of every person's life.

> > > Studying this
> > > book has brought to my attention that some behaviors in which I
> > > engage are not optimal for my long-term health and happiness.
> >
> > Actually that is and will always be true for everyone, me included.
> > It is only the number of areas in which this occurs, their extent nd
> > degree, which hopefully gets reduced over time. Furthermore, even though
> > one may do one's best possible to estimate those actions that will
> > optimally increase one's lifetime happiness, even an effectively
> > *perfect* job of such estimating, there is always the chance aspect
> > of reality (the factors required for full analysis are essentially
> > unbounded in number and inter-related complexity and one's estimation
> > time is necessarily limited) which can completely destroy or reverse
> > one's best possible estimation. Again having one's estimations actually
> > work out is something that one ought to be able to get better at with
> > experience and thought, but I, for one, find it very frustrating that
> > I don't get better at this much faster than I do.
>
> This last statement (in the context of this paragraph) is especially
> apropos most of the concepts I consider daily, and in particular:
> 1) what personal characteristics can I change?
> 2) how fast will I change? and
> 3) how do changes fit in with or adversely affect other related
> characteristics?
>
> Naturally then, I must ask by what methods will the changes occur
> most rapidly and completely, and how will I verify (measurement)?
> I appreciate that Paul related this, if only to be reminded of how
> important is improving one's estimations.
>
> > > The book relates the question-and-answer sessions of some of
> > > Branden's group therapy sessions (at the time of the book he was a
> > > practicing psychologist). This entire book is based off an epiphany
> > > Branden had during one of his group sessions. He asked the group a
> > > series of questions about how their parents treated them when they
> > > were children. He found that when he asked an appropriate question
> > > to a person to whom it applied, the person experienced a great deal
> > > of enlightenment regarding certain important frustrations or
> > > questions about hirself.
> >
> > This occurs to those who are really open and honest with themselves.
> > Many (most?) people have a hard time doing that, at least not for every
> > facet of their psyche. Many things remain hidden deeply, are never made
> > conscious and are certainly not spoken of, often these are the things
> > that are most important with respect to inhibiting/promoting their
> > psychological development/growth.
> >
> > > As is likely the purpose of the book, I, as
> > > the reader, experienced a significant number of enlightening moments
> > > with respect to questions about myself and my personality.
> >
> > That is an excellent sign that you have a healthy mind, still open and
> > capable of growth.
>
> I've found Branden's books to be useful in providing a large number
> of questions to ask myself, and from there, I've developed more
> appropriate questions to bring out underlying principles by which I
> govern my actions. I suggest doing the same, tailoring the questions
> to aim deeply.

I have also found this to be true of Branden's books. His books seem
to ask very important questions of myself. I often find that it will
take me an hour to read only a few pages, because frequently a
question is presented that strikes me as one that I should answer
immediately. So I take the time to consider the question and find the
answer.

> Most "dirt" that I find is related to emotions that are tied to
> particularly complex concepts, such as money, fairness, justice,
> happiness, leisure, trade, political thought, and economics.

I have had particular difficulty with happiness and leisure, as I had
spent a large proportion of my time in the past in leisure and
avoiding responsibility. In the process of correcting this issue I
have "swung too far the other way", and now I have a difficult time
enjoying leisure time, since I have so strongly enforced the values of
"productivity" and "industriousness" in myself. I'm currently trying
to find how to balance the two: leisure and productivity.

> > > These experiences are what I want to share and will do so here.
> > >
> > > Below I describe my thoughts and experiences while reading this book
> > > as it relates to a given category. The two categories of thoughts
> > > and experiences I will discuss are: emotional withdrawal and sexual
> > > roles.
> > >
> > > Emotional withdrawal
> > >
> > > I could really relate to the story of the first client, "Henry" (a
> > > fake name), 24 years old, and his responses to the first question.
> >
> > Regarding the use of a fake name, this appears to be part of what is
> > called patient confidentiality. If that patient wants it, while that is
> > still irrational, I can respect the need to adhere to that desire, or
> > even contractual obligation. However, what I have never understood is
> > the refusal to use the names of people who specifically do not want
> > confidentiality and even welcome their names being used and are fully
> > willing to sign any necessary release (such as myself).
> >
> > [It is also possible that "Henry" is a composite of a number of
> > Branden's clients rather than one single individual. A number of
> > writer's, whether in the health care fields or not, use this
> > technique for examples, rather than obtain permission to use that
> > of a specific individual. These writers like this method also to
> > combine the characteristics of several of their clients into one
> > pseudo-person with the problems or situations they wish to discuss. **Kitty]
> >
> > [However, I consider such a technique to be invalid because the
> > example is then not a *real* one in any fundamental sense, and, for
> > any number of unforeseen reasons, may not be able to even occur in
> > the reality of any single human. This is similar to using a unicorn
> > or a truth machine within a philosophy example - totally unacceptable
> > for discovering the truths of reality! --Paul]
> >
> > > The chapter is called "The Unknowable". The question posed
> > > to "Henry" in the book is as follows:
> > >
> > > "When you were a child, did your parents manner of behaving and
> > > dealing with you give you the impression that you were living in a
> > > world that was rational, predictable, intelligible? Or a world that
> > > was bewildering, contradictory, incomprehensible, unknowable?"
> > >
> > > In this chapter, Henry responded to the question by giving a story
> > > about how his parents behaved toward him when he was a child. Henry
> > > states that when he was a child he once used some matches to set a
> > > few leaves on fire in the back yard. His father discovered him and
> > > told him that the police were going to take him to Juvenile Hall.
> > > Then his mother came running up to Henry, hugging him, telling him it
> > > was "OK", and telling him that he was her "darling angel". Henry
> > > then remembers his father screaming at his mother and forgot all
> > > about Henry's careless burning of leaves. Henry then states that
> > > later that night, his father gave him a gift and seemed quite
> > > cheerful. Henry recalled that this experience was very bewildering
> > > to him and he didn't know what to think of it.
> > >
> > > Henry then describes how his parents were always shouting, his mother
> > > was often crying, holding Henry and saying that "everything will be
> > > okay when we're with Jesus". I agree with Henry: this is a confusing
> > > situation for a child to grow up in.
> >
> > I was certainly fortunate in that my parents, while often having
> > irrational ideas and actions that were negative for me and my
> > thinking/growth, nevertheless practiced those ideas and actions
> > reasonably consistently (even if such ideas and actions were not
> > self-consistent as a whole). Although my parents thought of themselves
> > as Christians, I also had none of this Jesus nonsense that is so
> > prevalent in the US.
> >
> > [I on the other hand was raised in a home where my mother was a
> > strongly adherent Catholic and my father was mostly so, keeping
> > disagreements he had on the subject to himself, something I concluded
> > when I was in my late 20s. When I voiced my very different ideas at
> > age 16, the reaction however was not anger but rather more of
> > confusion on their part. Also at that time, and even into my late 40s
> > when they both died (less than a year apart), my ability to present
> > my ideas in a cogent fashion was far less than it is now or was even
> > 7 years ago. **Kitty]
> >
> > > Branden explains to Henry, on page 23, that Henry withdrew and
> > > stopped trying to understand the world around him. This random,
> > > unintelligible environment constructed by his parents confused him as
> > > a child and as a result, Henry stopped trying to make sense of the
> > > world. Henry had given up the hope of understanding. When reading
> > > this book, I remember the next phrase in the book, something Branden
> > > says to Henry:
> > >
> > > "When you withdrew, you gave up hope of understanding. You stopped
> > > caring to understand. That's when you gave up your self-esteem".
> >
> > Exactly! One cannot have high self-esteem unless one is and sees oneself
> > as efficacious with respect to reality. And the first step to being
> > efficacious is to understand that upon which one needs to act. The
> > second is fully understanding the ultimate purpose and the immediate
> > goal of one's action. Without both one has no basis for making a
> > choice and certainly little chance that one's choice will be right
> > (particularly since "right" would be yet to be defined in such a case).
>
> This second step of understanding ultimate purpose has been my
> largest obstacle to navigate and traverse. I have trouble with
> motivation mostly, not necessarily to stay on track, but to enjoy
> what I'm doing.

I think I can identify with this David, as I described above.

> For example, I conclude an ultimate purpose is to become a scientist
> because this will best train my mind to systematically consider
> reality, identify problems, obtain resources and apply them to the
> problems, and most efficiently evaluate the outcomes.

This is similar to my own interest in becoming a scientist,
specifically of biochemistry (I state this because I understand that
you have similar interests and perhaps we share many scientific
interests and goals).

> However,
> during my first 25 years (not including playing basketball and
> volleyball) I routinely followed paths of least resistance.

I have also done this, as I described briefly above.

> In
> addition, I learned to react with joy to all of my experiences; IOW,
> I was and am today able to enjoy most situations as challenging,
> enlightening, aesthetically pleasing, etc., especially if somewhat
> unordinary (to me). Even though I have discovered problems with my
> surroundings, my "country", my peers, my parents, my self, and so on,
> I am not discouraged about maintaining a pleasurable relationship
> with the wacky world because I have always successfully made the best
> of situations.

I have found that, upon discovering some aspect of my surroundings
that I disagree with, I will avoid interacting with it whenever
possible (i.e. avoid interacting with family members that hold
philosophies that are highly-incompatible with mine). Since I have
adopted this practice of withdrawing from things I disagree with, I
have found myself feeling lonely more often (I did not always avoid
such situations, and began doing so when I found myself wasting an
excessive amount of time in the presence of others with no interesting
or useful qualities). One thing that I have thought about
considerably, recently, is whether it will make me happier to spend
time (perhaps "waste" time) with people I disagree with to avoid
loneliness. I don't much mind the loneliness, but ceasing to meet new
people in an effort to find others I agree with *would* be unhealthy,
from the standpoints of human interaction requirements and of total
possible future happiness.

> Further, as I perceive reality today, I still only
> possess a romantic interest in becoming a scientist, one like movie
> characters such as Tom Cruise's in Mission Impossible, who, it was
> implied, was well-practiced as a systematic and precise judge of
> reality as well a wise negotiator (of reality) to his benefit.
> AFAIK, learning and practicing the skill-set of a scientist will not
> be an action-packed lifestyle and may not offer enough subtle changes
> to keep my interest, but I am attempting to overcome these personal
> characteristics of mine by practicing despite the boredom, etc.

I find myself to be bored - not yet with the science - but with life
experiences. I think that, in my effort to be as frugal and efficient
as possible with my time and money, I put unnecessary restrictions on
the use of my time and money. That is, since I have encouraged very
frugal habits in myself, these habits have also caused me to have the
habit of not "exploring" and experiencing new things, since such
exploration also requires the use of ones funds and time. However, I
am realizing now that there is no point to accumulating wealth if it
is never to be used for my enjoyment. I am currently trying to find
new and interesting activities to experience, including meeting new
people, as I change my perspective on the use of my time and money.

> So, I struggle with enjoying this learning and practice in hopes that
> my interests in the material and methods will grow.

Participating in research seems to be a task that would be difficult
to "stick with" unless one really enjoys the everyday work. I think
this may be true because the greatest rewards from the work, in the
form of an interesting or useful discovery, may take years or even
decades of effort. I have not studied chemistry for very long (only
since July 2008), but I have a strategy to keep me motivated. Because
I am young, I have a lot of time to invest in high-risk, high-reward
activities, such as scientific research. I am very interested in the
"high-reward" of drastically-increased lifespan, which is my goal
while engaging in research. Simply put, I try to "work with the goal
in mind", knowing that the goal will never be reached unless someone
works at it.

I have also found that, as one knowledge grows, one find the
possession of that knowledge more useful and applicable in one's life.
I recall that during this past semester I have learned about quite a
few topics that I have found (or expect to find) useful to me, such as
pH, voltaic cells, spectrophotometry, spectroscopy, and others. For
example, I have applied many aspects of my recently-acquired chemistry
knowledge in my new hobby of hydroponic horticulture. I have to manage
pH, total dissolved solids (TDS) and nutrient levels, among other
things, to be successful at this. The application of this knowledge is
very enjoyable to me -- I wish my plant sprouts (kale, spinach, and
tomatoes) would grow faster! *big smiles*.

---
Steve Floyd

> I have decided that if I do enjoy being a scientist (in the purest
> sense possible), I would like my economic impact to lead to
> activities that improve my and my friends' chances of living
> indefinitely.
>
> Regarding the remainder of this message in response to Steve, Paul,
> and Kitty, I have nothing to add.
>
> David "Jack"emeyer
> Tempe, AZ
> BioTech Student, Arizona State U
> Methuseluh Foundation student/lab rat
> ---------------------------------------

On 12/23/2008 03:32 PM, spboulet wrote:
> I have been in a great mood in overcast Chicagoland this winter, and I
> wanted to pass along a couple of supplement ideas that may be responsible.
>
> 1. Normalized vitamin D. With 2000 IU of vitamin D, I reached a
> 25-hydroxy level of 40 ng/mL, which I believe makes me a fairly low
> responder. I've since increased that to 5000 IU/day.

I and Kitty have not wanted to spend the extra money to get our levels
tested (things are very tight for us these days), but after being at an
intake of about 2500 IU nominal daily for a couple of years (1200 IU
daily for many years prior to that), we recently increased our nominal
dosage to about 5000 IU daily. The term "nominal" is included because
the actual amount we each take of all nutrients is based on our non-fat
body weights and their ratio to each other - in this respect our ratios
are about 3/2 for me and Kitty respectively. I am assuming that will
get us above a 60 ng/ml blood level, which my research suggests is
necessary for good health according to the latest evidence. Being in
AZ we do also get some from the sunshine, evening during the winter
months.

For comparison with different measurement systems note that 25 mcg =
1000 IU and 40 ng/mL = 100 nmol/L.

> 2. Lithium orotate. For the past two weeks I've started on 120 mg of
> lithium orotate daily, containing 5 mg elemental lithium, a
> nutritional, not pharmacological, dosage. I've noticed a subtly more
> balanced mood and more positive attitude, not that I've had much in
> the way of mood swings in the past. Our water comes from Lake
> Michigan, and contains no lithium.

I and Kitty take the standard lithium carbonate, since it is very cheap
in Canada and she has a prescription based on her tendency to bi-polar
mania (normally totally controlled and having no effect on her
functioning). She then takes less than the prescribed dosage, which
leaves some for me to take. Our dosage is 100 mg daily for each (no
modification here for non-fat weight ratios), which amounts to about 19
mg of elemental lithium daily. I also think that my mood has changed for
the better and I more easily overcome depressing adversities since I
started taking it a few years back.

> From PMID 1699579, "Using data for 27 Texas counties from 1978-1987,
> it is shown that the incidence rates of suicide, homicide, and rape
> are significantly higher in counties whose drinking water supplies
> contain little or no lithium...". PMID 18363457 is another study on
> this topic, but without an abstract. Here's another good introductory
> article: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_/ai_93736454.
>
> Lithium orotate is claimed to avoid the liver toxicity issue seen
> with other forms of lithium.

But there is no evidence of any toxicity at the small dosages adequate
for promoting brain health in healthy individuals and recently it has
been shown that supplemental zinc reduces and liver toxicity.

> Any thoughts on the need for and efficacy of supplemental lithium?

There is good evidence that a small dosage is positive for brain health
and brain antiaging in general apart from any mood balancing effects, so
I think that it would benefit most people.

--Paul

["Municipal water supplies commonly contain 2 ppb of lithium, but elevated
levels of lithium in ground water are found downstream from areas having high
lithium content in rock and soil, particularly in the Southwestern states, South
Dakota, and Florida (levels up to 380 ppb have been reported in water in the
Pima Indian Reservation in Arizona)."

The above quote is from _Environmental Goitrogenesis_ by Eduardo Gaitan - I
found it doing search with: lithium level water Arizona.  Preview of the book is
available via Google:  http://tinyurl.com/9coo56

(We are approximately 25 miles from the geographical center of the Gila River
Indian Reservation, which is south of Phoenix and north of Casa Grande; the
closest boundary is actually just about 1 mile north from our house. This may be
the "Pima Indian Reservation" referred to but 2 other reservations within 50
miles, and in the valleys of the Gila and Salt Rivers where the Pimas have
historically been located, also have/had the name Pima associated with the
native Americans there. But without a town mentioned, the exact location
referenced in the book can not be determined by this brief phrase alone.)

Another slightly more technical source of information on lithium is a paper,
"Lithium: Occurrence, Dietary Intakes, Nutritional Essentiality" in Journal of
the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 21, No. 1 14-21 (2002) which is
available full online - http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/21/1/14#SEC1  The
author of this paper, Gerhard N Schrauzer, wrote two earlier ones that were
sources for the article, "The effects of dietary lithium upon mood and behavior
- Nutritional Influences on Illness", for which Stephen provided the link.
**Kitty]

On 12/31/2008 11:21 AM, David Thomas Jackemeyer wrote:
> Hi Morelife community,
>
> I confess, I have been lurking (read, as a twist on the
> pronounciation: looking) at the messages since summer concluded,
> hoping, wishing, trying to write a response -- joshing, because I
> purposefully chose not to respond as I've been focusing most of my
> attention on developing a knack for science, especially that of my
> body.

It took me many decades to learn that my happiness and overall
productivity are higher when I do not forsake things that I really
*would like* to be doing, because of some misguided idea of what I
really *ought" to be doing. I think that you have not learned that yet.

WRT a "knack for science", there is a major difference between gaining
scientific knowledge and understanding the scientific method as
opposed to actually enjoying the practice of some science. And note
that no one practices any large part of the sciences (at least not at
one time), but rather practices in an extremely narrow area of some
science - this is particularly true for the experimental sciences.
Furthermore, not everyone does or needs to have a "knack for science".
Instead what is necessary in order to be effective in dealing with
reality is adequate knowledge about the findings of those who do have
a "knack for science" and about the logical methodology behind how
such  findings are determined. The latter is both necessary in order
to evaluate for oneself the validity of the claimed findings, and to
apply to one's investigation of any aspect of reality.

> However, I will be making a change beginning this winter and
> continuing through Arizona State spring semester by reserving writing
> and thinking time each day for Morelife Yahoo Group, that I might
> participate with Paul, Kitty, Steve, and others.

Good to hear. And I think that you will find that making the time for
diversions into other interesting/enjoyable activities will enable you
to focus and accomplish better in your studies.

> That said, I have a personal concern for your consideration.
>
> I would like to fast for extended periods, and one 2hr meal per day
> has been working fine for me.  I would also like to exercise 45 min
> per day.  BTW, I have completely cut out alcohol from my diet, in
> response to the posts related to message 1809 on Morelife Yahoo Group
> posted 06/04/08:
> http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/1809
>
> Question: If I finished my (one per day) meal by noon, to what extent
> would exercising seven hours later disturb the important pathways
> hypothesized to occur during a long fast period?

Exercise will always enhance the beneficial biochemical activities of
the fasting state. The time you give appears to be quite ideal.
Exercise is best in relation to fasting if done as long as possible
after eating, but not so close to sleeping that it will interfere with
that important activity - ie it is probably best to end exercise by at
least 2 hours before sleep so that the body can wind down and get into
a very relaxed state by sleep time.

--Paul

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
>
> On 12/31/2008 11:21 AM, David Thomas Jackemeyer wrote:
> > Hi Morelife community,
> >
> > I confess, I have been lurking (read, as a twist on the
> > pronunciation: looking) at the messages since summer concluded,
> > hoping, wishing, trying to write a response -- joshing, because I
> > purposefully chose not to respond as I've been focusing most of my
> > attention on developing a knack for science, especially that of my
> > body.
>
> It took me many decades to learn that my happiness and overall
> productivity are higher when I do not forsake things that I really
> *would like* to be doing, because of some misguided idea of what I
> really *ought" to be doing. I think that you have not learned that yet.

You suggest that I am not striking a good balance between practicing
what I like to do and what I ought to do.

I have witnessed others (you and Kitty, e.g.) enjoy both the
processes and outcomes inherent with the scientific method, so I
would like to also gain such reward.  I realize that doing so can
also lead to indirect rewards such as improved ability to predict,
wisdom regarding creative problem solving, and an accumulation of
useful knowledge.  I want to get on that path as quickly as possible.

An example involving a physical-psychological phenomenon: I have
never enjoyed drawing blood, even for a small sample used for
determining my blood content and their respective concentrations.  I
would like to respond differently, more focused on the benefits
(rather than the sickening feeling of being sucked dry) and less
likely to steer away from opportunities to learn more about my body.
Instead of comfortably avoiding blood drawings, I ought to seek them,
possibly even participate in training to learn to safely and
effectively draw from myself.
With the right schedule and attitude, I think I could eventually lean
toward drawing blood rather than avoiding it.

The same with being more scientific, both on a daily basis as well as
during times of acute concentration: I think I can eventually lean
toward this mindset rather than shrugging it off repeatedly for an
easier path, and I think the quicker I advance in that direction, the
better.

> WRT a "knack for science", there is a major difference between gaining
> scientific knowledge and understanding the scientific method as
> opposed to actually enjoying the practice of some science. And note
> that no one practices any large part of the sciences (at least not t
> one time), but rather practices in an extremely narrow area of some
> science - this is particularly true for the experimental sciences.
> Furthermore, not everyone does or needs to have a "knack for science".
> Instead what is necessary in order to be effective in dealing with
> reality is adequate knowledge about the findings of those who do have
> a "knack for science" and about the logical methodology behind how
> such  findings are determined. The latter is both necessary in order
> to evaluate for oneself the validity of the claimed findings, and to
> apply to one's investigation of any aspect of reality.

I agree that one does not need to practice in an area of science in
order to evaluate for oneself the validity of claims.  I suspect you
agree then that some, if not many of the skills developed by
practicing the scientific method are also developed outside of
science-based inquiry, and further, that some of those non-specific-
to-science skills may be useful to enable scientists to improve their
processes.
My assessment of my overall success is that I do not attempt many
difficult ventures, thus do not provide myself many opportunities to
succeed (or fail).  My assessment of my scientific skill set is that
I am grossly lacking in integrity to scientific thought and that I
could certainly improve by learning and practicing skills that I am
currently studying.  I want to "get cranking" in this area to bring
it up to speed, to round myself a bit w/ the skills of a scientist,
which I predict will both enhance my confidence WRT difficult
ventures and widen my view (as well as deepen my interest) regarding
serious problems that I could solve.

Even though I could (and sometimes, but not often do) comfortably
ignore these self-assessments by failing to get started in the
morning, and instead decide "to hell with it all" which is currently
my default reaction when overwhelmingly depressed, I prefer to remind
myself in the morning of what I ought to do because I predict these
activities will lead to much improved happiness for me, and
indirectly, those with whom I choose to engage.

> > However, I will be making a change beginning this winter and
> > continuing through Arizona State spring semester by reserving writing
> > and thinking time each day for Morelife Yahoo Group, that I might
> > participate with Paul, Kitty, Steve, and others.
>
> Good to hear. And I think that you will find that making the time for
> diversions into other interesting/enjoyable activities will enable you
> to focus and accomplish better in your studies.
>
> > That said, I have a personal concern for your consideration.
> >
> > I would like to fast for extended periods, and one 2hr meal per day
> > has been working fine for me.  I would also like to exercise 45 min
> > per day.  BTW, I have completely cut out alcohol from my diet, in
> > response to the posts related to message 1809 on Morelife Yahoo Group
> > posted 06/04/08:
> > http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/1809
> >
> > Question: If I finished my (one per day) meal by noon, to what extent
> > would exercising seven hours later disturb the important pathways
> > hypothesized to occur during a long fast period?
>
> Exercise will always enhance the beneficial biochemical activities of
> the fasting state. The time you give appears to be quite ideal.
> Exercise is best in relation to fasting if done as long as possible
> after eating, but not so close to sleeping that it will interfere with
> that important activity - ie it is probably best to end exercise by at
> least 2 hours before sleep so that the body can wind down and get into
> a very relaxed state by sleep time.

I was concerned that when exercising, my body might retard autophagic
response to fasting because of the increased liberation of energy
stored in liver, muscles, fat, and ingested ingredients (whey
protein, e.g.).  Is this a concern?

If this is viable, are these concerns mitigated if exercise instead
immediately precedes the 2hr large meal?

Jack

> --Paul

Hello all,

My focus in this response is related to returning value to those who
invested in our upbringing.  For example, our guardians did provide
shelter, food, some good education, and many other valuable
conditions that contributed to who we are today.  How does one go
about evaluating what was received and further return value to those
we no longer value much?

[In the above you are using the collective and ambiguous "we" and "our"
far too much. I suggest that the following rewrite would be less groupist
and much clearer:

"My focus in this response is related to a person's returning value
to those who invested in hir upbringing.  For example, one's guardians
did provide shelter, food, some good education, and many other
valuable conditions that contributed to who one is today.  How does
one go about evaluating what was received and further return value to
those one no longer values much?"

--Paul]

[I have changed the subject title to reflect the current direction of the
message content. This is a practice we encourage of all posters. **Kitty]


More far below:

[Note that I have snipped a huge amount that Jack (David) left in, which was
unnecessary as background for his comments. The rationale about when and how
much to snip is as follows:
1) If the poster is not responding to anything that was posted in response to a
previous post of hirs, then s/he should snip out everything except that which is
directly pertinent to hir comments.
2) If the poster is responding to a message that is in response to a previous
message of hirs, then s/he should not snip any of the previous message text
except older text unresponded to by the poster to whom s/he is now responding.
All other comments of the previous poster should be addressed in some manner if
only to say "read" or "agreed".
3) When a message gets very long (as was this one) it is better to snip more
rather than less, in order to shorten the message to manageable length.
--Paul]


--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
> In morelife@yahoogroups.com, "Steve Floyd Jr" <fallaxus@> wrote:
> > --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@> wrote:
> >> On 11/05/2008 10:29 AM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:

<large snip here by Paul>

> >>> Since some
> >>> things my parents did could be hurtful, or (in contrast) caring,
> >>> or irrational, I began to tune them out and to stop emotionally
> >>> responding to them.
> >>>
> >>> I still do this today. For example, I don't like a number of traits
> >>> about my mother and I am not very close to her, intellectually or
> >>> emotionally. However, on the rare occasions I see her or talk to her
> >>> on the phone, she will try to hug me or tell me she loves me. My
> >>> first response to these expressions of "love" is to ignore them or
> >>> tune them out. I don't want to respond to her, probably because my
> >>> response would be: "no you don't Mom, or you would act differently
> >>> than you do".
> >>>
> >> What this means is that she does not really know what love means.
> >> She merely thinks of it as a duty that she owes to a son and can be
> >> accomplished simply buy using the word and taking the standard actions.
> >> She probably very deeply wants to love you but she does not know what
> >> love really entails nor how to actually do it.
> >
> > What you describe above seems to accurately describe most people in my
> > family. I wonder how many other people think the same thing about the
> > actions of each of their family members.
>
> Likely few, I suspect (it sure seems that way from all my experience).
> Most people merely accept the cultural norm that one has some kind of
> duty to love or at least continue cordial relations with one's
> relatives even if deep inside you can't stand them.

My grandmother, mother, father, aunts, uncles, and cousins all
contributed value to my life in the past, but no longer do and I
predict will not in the near-future, so I invest little-to-zero
time/resources with them.  But for their past investments in me, I
think I am indebted, and more-so to my parents, for example; yet I
also know that my judgment is of value received, a subjective
perception of the total transaction, whereas each of them has
received value and may still anticipate returns.  But this part is
confusing to me because I was a child (and therefore, was technically
owned by them) when they were planning how to invest in me, so it was
not an adult-adult contract as depicted in the context of the Natural
Social Contract -- written by Paul.

Without them 1) displaying an understanding of value-for-value trade,
2) discarding the erroneous proclamations of selfless parenting (and
therefore valueless, thus anti-human, thus contradictory to reality
or wrong), I think I'm stuck!

*All* of them (except my grandmother, who, ironically, I happen to
respect more than the others) have communicated their desire and
expectation that I continue investing in them.  Time and again, they
each explain that they simply want my love, much like the love of
Steve's mother, which is described above.

Any suggestions for other ways of viewing this?

> >>> But, rather than say that (which, in fact, I have on
> >>> occasion), I mute my emotional response. So one might say that I'm
> >>> emotionally withdrawn. Rather than express my true emotions and
> >>> thoughts and create conflict (since she will get angry with me and we
> >>> will get into an argument – it's happened many times before), I
> >>> ignore my feelings and even encourage myself to be non-responsive.
> >>> This "ignoring of feelings just to get through the situation" seems
> >>> exceedingly prevalent in my life.
> >>>
> >> Far better would be to greatly reduce the likelihood of encountering
> >> such situations and instead seek emotional situations with people who
> >> understand them and act consistently with that understanding. The fact
> >> that she (and perhaps other people that are negative to your well-being)
> >> are biologically related should have no bearing on this decision.
> >>
> >
> > I strongly agree that biological relation has no bearing on my decision
> > to interact with people, and have begun to apply this perspective in
> > my life.
> > Since I understand this philosophy to be highly rational, I find it
> > surprising
> > that so few people agree with it. Perhaps this is because so many people
> > have been indoctrinated by religion or family pride (or something else)
> > that they experience strong guilt if they refuse to interact with people
> > biologically related to themselves.

Echoing what I wrote above: What about returning value for value
received when we were children?  Don't we owe them?

<another large snip by Paul>

> >>> I have a difficult time expressing
> >>> my thoughts or feelings about a number of things, especially in my
> >>> employment setting, because I'd rather not "rock the boat" by
> >>> exclaiming, for example, that I really hate wearing a tie!
> >>>
> >> One solution is to clearly make that statement by the simple action of
> >> acting differently ("actions speak louder than words"), and let the
> >> other person "rock the boat" by raising the issue.
> >>
> >
> > I did try this, and was promptly requested to wear a tie next time.
> > I should have raised the issue.
>
> Yes. You could have challenged back by simply asking "Why should I?"
> Not with a challenging tone, but rather one sincerely wanting reasons.

Do you have a dress code that is overseen by a manager or regional
director?  Find out who makes that "call" and ask for an appointment
to discuss the options.  You may be influencial in changing that code
for the improvement of the company as well as yourself.  Easily could
be a win-win.

<the remainder snipped by Paul>

I have enjoyed thinking about these topics all semester and thank
you, Paul, and Kitty for sharing your relevant experiences.  To
sharing and growing :)

Jack

This thread has now branched off into two unrelated areas:
1) Child/adult responsibility and rationality comparisons (to which I
respond here)
and
2) Balancing productive endeavors and leisure (to which I respond in a
separate message with that subject title).

On 01/02/2009 09:28 AM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:
>
> --- In morelife@yahoogroup s.com <mailto:morelife%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "David Thomas Jackemeyer"
> <Olehenry1@. ..> wrote:
> >
> > --- In morelife@yahoogroup s.com <mailto:morelife%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Paul Wakfer <paul@> wrote:
> > > > On 11/05/2008 10:29 AM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> > > > In the context of this "healthy environment" , the book
> > > > mainly focuses on the behavior of parents in that environment, and
> > > > how parental behavior can effect a child's (and the resulting
> > > > adult's) behavior. A very important aspect of this interaction
> > > > between a parent's behavior and the child's behavior as an adult is
> > > > that when the child becomes an adult s/he *is often unaware that s/he
> > > > is behaving in a manner that is harmful to hirself*.
> > >
> > > What this means in practice is that the child has only nominally become
> > > an adult (age 21, out on one's own, earning one' living, etc). Full
> > > adulthood is a "becoming" process, something that is never completely
> > > attained (as with a mathematical curve that approaches a certain line
> > > asymptotically) . Unfortunately few people continue with the "becoming"
> > > process, but rather remain as stunted children all their lives. Full
> > > human life must necessarily involve mental growth and development,
> > > which is why I often state that "Most people are dead by the time they
> > > are 30".
> >
> > Is not "being an adult" the time after which a non-adult crosses a
> > social boundary by claiming full responsibility for hir actions,
> > therefore ceasing to be a child of other adult(s). This is a social
> > expression, a way of reaching out to others who also claim self-
> > responsibility, and, when two or more such individuals intentionally
> > interface, a social contract is formed.
>
> I think this is a great description of what might define an "adult" -
> the social boundary one crosses that marks the time after which one is
> expected to be fully responsible for hir actions.

The problem with the given description is that in the current society a
person is *never* expected to be fully responsible for hir actions.
When I was writing the NSC, I first used the term "adult", to me a fully
responsible human individual (essentially what I now mean by "Freeman"),
but I soon realized that this attempt to reclaim the word "adult" would
be fraught with too many problems (relating to the fact about its
meanings in current society). Furthermore, in the current society there
is no such thing or even understanding of a social contract being formed
between two interacting individuals whether adult or not. David's
description is attempting to apply the ideas of the Freeman Society,
about a child becoming fully independent from hir parents and fully
responsible for all hir actions, to the current society. But that simply
won't work, mainly because it is neither enabled nor allowed to work by
all the institutional interferences of the current society, but also
because the thinking of those who are supposedly becoming adults is not
adequate for the purpose.

> I find it
> unfortunate that, while this "social boundary" is considered by many
> to be after the attainment of age 18 or 21, the person achieving such
> age is often not treated any differently.

This is because most such new "adults" have shown that they are not
capable of behaving any differently - so why should they be treated
differently? Granted that such an approach is another kind of groupism
and each person should be assessed individually for his own particular
capabilities. However, since most people have neither the time nor the
ability to make such assessments, it is reasonable that from their
experience they simply choose to treat a new "adult" as little different
than a slightly more capable and knowledgeable larger child.

> This was true in my
> experience. For example, when one reaches the age of "adulthood", the
> new "adult" should be treated as though they can make hir own
> decisions - decisions which must be respected by others.

Your "should" and "must" are an example of wrong thinking.
Instead it will be best for your lifetime happiness if you don't go
around telling people what they should and should not do (and even less
so must and must not do), but simply socially preference against those
who do not treat you as you want to be treated and socially preference
for those who do - and be sure to tell both groups why you are doing
this. The first step in such social preferencing is to ignore as much
as possible those in the first category and deal almost exclusively with
those in the second category. Not only does this approach provide the
feedback necessary for those others to better understand you, but even
more importantly it optimizes the use of your time and mental energy by
applying them to people with whom you will be more likely to profit from
interacting.

In addition, no decisions of anyone "must be respected by" anyone else.
You are confusing "respect" - which means that the decision is estimated
to be beneficial to lifetime happiness of the person making it - with
"allow" - which simply means that the person will leave the decision
maker completely at liberty to act on hir decision. Thus, while it is
certainly true that everyone should be entitled (or at liberty) to make
their own decisions and take their own actions, as long as such actions
are not the effective cause of harm to others, it is also certainly true
that any other person is entitled to think and say what s/he thinks
about such an action (including strong condemnation) and, finally, to
socially preference according to such thoughts.

> I have
> experienced that, after crossing both of these "adulthood thresholds",
> many elders in in my family do not treat me as though I am capable of
> making well-rationed decisions on my own.

There are at least three reasons for the prevalence of this attitude in
current society:
1) Most people know that they themselves were not "capable of making
well-rationed decisions" at that age.
2) Most people are not "capable of making well-rationed decisions" at
any age and are therefore, not capable of evaluating such decisions of
others.
3) Most people want to be and are determined to act "superior" in most
ways to anyone who is younger - "when you're as old and wise as me you
will know better".
OTOH, many children and young adults rebel against the ideas of elders
when they clearly see the personal and social mess to which such elders
has been party to.

> I wonder if this lack of
> respect for the autonomy of a new adult has a negative impact on the
> new adult's efficacy in dealing with reality. In other words, if mama
> bird never lets the baby bird out of the nest, baby bird will never
> fly on hir own.

"Never lets the baby bird out of the nest" is an example of disallow to
leave (or force to stay), rather than of respect (meaning positive
evaluation or esteem). Disallow will have the greatest possible negative
effect, by not actually letting it take place at all.

> It may be difficult for mama bird to watch baby bird
> fly away (and maybe run into a branch or fall), but mama bird has to
> let baby bird make hir own decisions, learn, and grow into a bird that
> can feed itself.

No mama bird does not "have to". She can continue to feed and care for
baby bird until she (mama) dies. The phrase "has to" is meaningless in this
regard, since mama bird is the de facto owner of baby bird. All that can
be done is to try to convince mama bird that she is harming herself by
not allowing and encouraging baby bird to be independent of her at the
earliest possible age. That and socially preferencing against any mama
birds that to not allow, teach and encourage responsible  decisions and
behavior. As a baby bird your best action is to simply ignore mama bird
and get out of the nest whenever you can in order to stretch and flap
you wings and look for food.

[It has been my observations of the many doves who nest on our
property that there always comes a time when the parents stop
"babying" their offspring. They simply stop bringing food to the nest.
The young birds vary in the time before they venture out but it's not
more than a couple days. Most youngun's appear to have little trouble
in learning how to fly. However, two consecutive years I observed a
pair of fledglings and parents where a parent hovered nearby as the 2
made their attempts. In both cases, one youngster got the knack that
first day, but the second was still hesitant the second morning. The
parent wandered off for awhile but soon came back, but never got very
close. Eventually that same day the second took off for a sustained
flight - I couldn't then distinguish that one from any other young
dove (mostly of the mourning variety) on our property.

I seriously doubt that there are any examples in nature where the
parent restrains, for any lengthy period, hir offspring from venturing
on hir own. Once a parent "assesses" the offspring's ability to
"perform" that species' survival requirements, s/he is on hir own.
Many animal species of course provide no parental care to their young
- they are on their own immediately.  **Kitty]

> > Paul explains both the individual's self responsibility in Social
> > Meta Needs and the individual's social responsibilities in the
> > Natural Social Contract, and I'm confident we agree, both childhood
> > and adulthood are defined, with the adults being the parties to the
> > contract and fully responsible for the social interactions of their
> > children.
>
> I understand this to be true.

However, as I have explained many times, the definitions, statements,
actions and behavioral standards of the NSC are not applicable to
current society, where, in fact, there is no reasonably defined
separation between childhood and adulthood, much less any actually clear
difference in the behaviors of individuals in each category. Rather the
NSC is applicable to what people could and ought to become (where
"ought" means only that doing so will be most likely to enable each of
them to maximally increase hir lifetime happiness).

> > The paragraph above by Paul can be misunderstood that adulthood is
> > defined as unreachable, that all humans are children-becoming- adults
> > that can be compared along a continuum from stunted to advanced
> > children.
> > Instead, I think it is important to define "adult" as the time period
> > that a human claims to have freed hirself from parent(s) and is
> > taking full responsibility for hir existence and activities.
>
> Again, this is a good point to address.

As I stated before, I considered the term "adult" to use in the NSC for
a person who had signed it and become a Freeman, but as explained above
I abandoned that word, at least partly because in the current society
there does not exist any such clearly defined transition point from
childhood dependency to adult full independency and responsibility. My
current view is that the state of being adult, in the sense of "fully
developed intellectually and evidencing intellectual maturity" (these
are an essential part of the dictionary definition of the current usage
of this word), is always one of becoming rather than something that is
ever fully attained. That is what I meant when I described it as an
ideal state to which one attempts to approach asymptotically as time
progresses and one's knowledge and experience increases. This
terminology will apply to the Freeman Society under the NSC in the sense
that a child will first become a freeman by simply declaring hir
independence from parents/guardians and signing the NSC. Such a person
will certainly not be expected to yet be fully adult or even as adult as
those who have been Freeman for a longer period of time, but rather will
be merely expected and required to adhere to the standards of the NSC.
However, with increasing time since becoming a Freeman such person will
be expected to learn to act in an increasingly adult manner and will be
socially preferenced accordingly.

> I admit that I have not read
> all of the material regarding the NSC and selfsip documents (the issue
> I discuss next may be discussed in parts of the material I have not
> yet read). However, I think it is very important to determine when
> "adult" status begins, especially because the new "adult" will be
> expected to assume the accompanying responsibilities of being an
> autonomous, self-sovereign individual.

I agree such a clear distinction would be good to have in the current
society and in a self-ordering society it is even mandatory. That is why
there is a clear distinction between a Freeman and any other human who
is either a dependent or an alien of some kind (outside the society
altogether). Within the Freeman Society per se, there can only be two
states for humans - either a dependent state (effectively "owned"by some
Freeman - although I appreciate that notion is highly repugnant to most
people in current society) or a Freeman state. Under the NSC all Freemen
are treated identically. All distinctions between Freemen are moderated
and differentiated only by the social preferencing actions of other Freemen.

> When a child understands that
> there will come a time when s/he must be fully responsible for hir
> actions, the child can better understand what is to be prepared for
> prior to that time, what actions should be taken, which tasks s/he
> should be capable of performing, etc.

Once again the current society does not adequately enable this kind of
realization and preparation, mainly because it allows and enable
children to not prepare and to not be fully responsible for their actions.
It is only in some major social change such as the Freemen Society
arrangement that such a transition point will be clearly defined and made.

[Keep in mind that many of the tasks that children performed 50 and
100 years ago in the US as part of growing up and gaining experience,
sometimes being paid for them, are no longer permitted by governments.
This is supposedly to "ensure safety" or "preserve childhood", but
both being to deny children the opportunities to learn how to function
in the world. And many in the industrialized worlds seek to impose
this "improved" childhood on those in less developed countries. There
is a marked difference between children being kidnapped and kept as
slaves and those who voluntarily support their family income and learn
trades at the same time, thereby improving their own future and that
of their families. Without productivity opportunities, such children
are destined for short miserable lives.

In addition to the above is the fact that minimum wage laws throughout
the US make it unprofitable for an employer to employ a minimally or
most often non-experienced teenager. Therefore it is not at all
surprising that vast numbers of teenagers and even young adults spend
enormous amounts of their awake time in virtual reality - Internet and
local computer games. A few of these individuals may learn to create
more games. But to what *real* production of value for the world and
in their widest viewed long range evaluation for lifetime happiness
maximization?

Very few children in North America and Europe learn ways to be
productive at an early age (before their teens); many never learn any
until well beyond age 20 and some never at all. **Kitty]

[Having a good sized paper route during two Canadian winters at ages
8-9 with all the management, accounting and customer interface
activities was hard work, good exercise, excellent experience and
highly enjoyable (particularly because I was making my own money!!). --Paul

> OTOH (on the other hand), our discussion here is on an *age* at which
> a child assumes *all* responsibilities of adulthood. Perhaps this
> definition of adulthood is biased due to previous experiences or
> "conventional wisdom". Perhaps there is an alternative. Perhaps a
> child, throughout hir life, gradually assumes responsibility with
> regard to an increasing number of issues related to hir existence.
> Furthermore, the "schedule" upon which the child will assume these
> responsibilities is decided by the parent.

And, hopefully, by the child as well, particularly if s/he wishes to
progress to full independence and responsibility faster than the parent
is planning. But yes, any reasonable parent will want to as quickly as
possible guide hir child to Freeman status so that s/he will be able to
be relieved of the burden and cost of care and responsibility, and so
that s/he will sooner have a more interesting and valuable social friend.

> For example, a parent might
> determine that age 6 hir children will assume the responsibility of
> washing the dishes. At age 7 hir children must also be responsible for
> cleaning hir room. At age 8, hir children become fully responsible for
> cleaning the laundry the child uses. And so on.

While this all sounds reasonable, in practice it is fraught with
problems for many reasons:
1) By whose evaluation is the cleanliness of the dishes, the room and
the clothes to be determined?
2) To what standards of usage of the equipment and supplies is the child
to adhere?

The only way that I can see this responsibility being gained is by a
slow process of training begun at an early age when the child is very
naturally keen and eager to help and to learn how to do so effectively.
My point is that "determining" that a child will (must) assume a given
responsibility is impossible without the necessary concomitant fostering
of the ability to be adequately responsible. Unfortunately, most parents
in current society are too busy and too short-sighted to take/make the
necessary time to foster and guide such responsibility enablement and
growth.

> This is done by many
> households currently, in the form of "chores". However, I think it may
> go even further. Perhaps at age 16 the child might be required to
> assume the responsibility to pay for hir own food, either by way of
> work or through an employment contract with the parent(s).

Again the word "required" is misplaced, since particularly in the
current society it is legally impossible - the child can simply refuse
and the parent is still legally compelled to clothe and feed hir and not
unduly restrict hir liberty. In a Freeman Society the usage of
"required" would be more reasonable since there, the child is
essentially the property of the parents, until the child declares hir
emancipation by becoming a Freeman. However, that would still be a
vernacular meaning of "required" rather than the meaning of "Required"
as defined in the NSC (those actions that must be done if one is to
remain a Freeman).

> This
> *gradual* assumption of increasingly important life responsibilities
> would help the child to grow in a step-wise fashion, rather than
> having *full* responsibility "dumped" on them at some predetermined
> age. I think this gradual method may be especially useful because it
> seems to me that very many young adults have had *very little*
> responsibility up until age 18 and are *not* prepared to be fully
> responsible for *everything* at that time. As an analogy, one is more
> prepared to give a presentation when one spends a little bit of time
> practicing it each day for a week prior, rather than spending 10 hours
> preparing for it the night before.

"Gradual" is extremely important both in terms of type of responsibility
by also in terms of degree of responsibility and the ability to
effectively take the actions involved. What is missed by most parents
today is that the gradual should begin at the earliest age when the
child shows an interest in helping with activities of the parents (as
all children very naturally do - their who mode of learning at that age
is to mimic).

[I strongly recommend the writings of John Holt, who really created an
uproar in the mid-60s with his book, _Why Children Fail_, and then a
few years later, _How Children Learn_. While in these 2 books he is
focusing on the compulsory/forced educational system as the antithesis
of a true learning situation for children, the concepts apply to the
total environments of children. (John Holt was the the major spearhead
in the homeschooling movement, increasingly favored by many parents as
just recently reported by the US Dept of Education - http://tinyurl.com/7wa96g
Another excellent book by Holt is _Instead of Education; Ways to Help
People Do Things Better_, which emphasizes the enormous number of ways
learning and growing can (and very often do) take place outside the
education system - the government decreed method for becoming educated
and thereby authorized to perform in certain manners. **Kitty]

> > There could instead be two becoming processes, one describing the
> > ascension from childhood to adulthood and another describing the
> > continued improvement vis-à-vis the rate of happiness achieved by the
> > adult. (was this a good use of vis-à-vis?)
>
> I agree that it seems to be two separate processes at work: (1) the
> process that a child increases hir responsibility for hirself,
> eventually resulting in the child's assumption of full-responsibility
> and (2) the constant improvement and development processes that take
> place during one's life.

As I described before, the dilemma with this approach is that
almost no one in current society ever assumes full responsibility for
hirself. Therefore everyone effectively remains a child and never
reaches the stage of adulthood, whichever way you define it.

> I am not familiar with the use of the phrase "vis-a-vis".

"Vis-a-vis" is of French origin meaning literally "face-to-face". Its
English meaning as preposition (as used above) is close to the meaning
of "opposite" or "as opposed to".
So the above usage was incorrect. It appears to me that a better phrase
would have been "in terms of" as: "another describing the continued
improvement [in terms of] the rate of happiness achieved by the adult".

> > Here's a terrifying thought (similar disappointment expressed by
> > fictional character Cherryl Taggart, Atlas Shrugged: Part III, Ch 4.
> > Anti-Life): there is clear evidence that many Americans and probably
> > most of the world's 21+ (age group) individuals are de facto children
> > to their respective governments and insurance programs, hugging
> > tightly to the benefits handed to them through a convoluted maze (tax-
> > funded services) which binds superior producers to their respective
> > local governments of moochers, who in turn "milk the cow" and leave
> > leftover crumbs to the stunted children.

Now David (Jack) has seen what I described above.

[I very recently had an exchange on another Yahoo group centered on
the writings of Thomaz Szaz, in which I (and some others) emphasized
the responsibility of the individual. I found though that it was
necessary to make a strong point of how when individuals request or
positively respond to government "offerings" to "pay" for services,
they are in fact abdicating their entitlement to be a full party to
the contract conditions of the relationship they have with a service
provider. They have instead elected to be children, to be "cared for"
as though they were mentally deficient.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/thomasszaszdiscussion/message/1851
(My first post is poorly formatted; later ones are better but as of
this writing the last, 3rd, is still in the moderation queue. **Kitty]

> That is a terrifying thought, more terrifying in that it accurately
> illustrates many situations in reality. Just tonight I discussed with
> family and acquaintances how it is counter-intuitive to have a higher
> tax rate for those people who make the most money. Their argument (I
> was the only one on "my" side) was that the wealthiest person has the
> most money, and therefore would miss it the least. I implored them to
> think of it from another perspective: those who make the most money
> are those who create the most value for other people. So, by taking a
> larger percentage of profits from the most profitable people, you are
> actually *restricting the most productive members of society*, by way
> of removing resources that might be used for productive purposes. I
> also pointed out to them that taking money (in the form of taxes) from
> *anyone* is exactly the same as stealing. I was a little surprised by
> how violently I was disagreed with. They stated that, since someone as
> wealthy as Bill Gates didn't need all the money he had, he should give
> it to others. And I stated that their example of Bill Gates is the
> exact same thing as a poor beggar coming into your house with a gun
> stating: "you have more money than you need, give me $100 - I need it
> more than you". It is surprising (and depressing) to see that so many
> of my elders have not thought deeply about these important subjects
> that affect every day of every person's life.

Welcome to the real and actual world of the current society in which all
of us are embedded!
Not only have I been fully aware of this for over 40 years, but having
thought about such problems, the detailed way that social interactions
should and could work, and how much better would be so many wasteful
activities in this society if such solutions were implemented (for
example all the time and resources spent on security, spam protection,
privacy, etc would be saved for actual happiness producing purposes),
is it any wonder that I sometimes feel enormous depression, particularly
having no one else but Kitty who really understands my viewpoints and
solutions?

<snipped the rest - responded to in message with subject: Balancing
productive endeavors and leisure>

--Paul

This thread has now branched off into two unrelated areas:
1) Child/adult responsibility and rationality comparisons (to which I
respond in a separate message with that subject)
and
2) Balancing productive endeavors and leisure (to which I respond here).

On 01/02/2009 09:28 AM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:
>
> --- In morelife@yahoogroup s.com <mailto:morelife%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "David Thomas Jackemeyer"
> <Olehenry1@. ..> wrote:
> >
> > --- In morelife@yahoogroup s.com <mailto:morelife%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Paul Wakfer <paul@> wrote:
> > > > On 11/05/2008 10:29 AM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:

<snip of first half of original message responded to in other message>

> > I've found Branden's books to be useful in providing a large number
> > of questions to ask myself, and from there, I've developed more
> > appropriate questions to bring out underlying principles by which I
> > govern my actions. I suggest doing the same, tailoring the questions
> > to aim deeply.
>
> I have also found this to be true of Branden's books. His books seem
> to ask very important questions of myself. I often find that it will
> take me an hour to read only a few pages, because frequently a
> question is presented that strikes me as one that I should answer
> immediately. So I take the time to consider the question and find the
> answer.

Any book really worth reading (except perhaps most fiction) should
require such time taking and focused thinking.

> > Most "dirt" that I find is related to emotions that are tied to
> > particularly complex concepts, such as money, fairness, justice,
> > happiness, leisure, trade, political thought, and economics.
>
> I have had particular difficulty with happiness and leisure, as I had
> spent a large proportion of my time in the past in leisure and
> avoiding responsibility. In the process of correcting this issue I
> have "swung too far the other way", and now I have a difficult time
> enjoying leisure time, since I have so strongly enforced the values of
> "productivity" and "industriousness" in myself. I'm currently trying
> to find how to balance the two: leisure and productivity.

Your "balance" problem is shown by the use of the phrase "I have so
strongly enforced". It is always going to be problematic and ultimately
impossible to "enforce" anything on oneself (just as it is ultimate
folly to enforce anything on others). Rather, the only way that it will
work is if you learn to *enjoy* "productivity and industriousness in
[your]self" even more than you enjoy leisure activities. Even so all
enjoyments (and concomitantly efficiency) of activities wane as the
activity is prolonged and a change to another enjoyable activity,
various leisure activities being among those, can be an important
diversion. In addition, one should always analyze one's leisure
activities to try to eschew those that have no productive value at all
(why would you even like them, in that case?) in favor of those that
have some side benefits (such as physical or mental exercise, or other
health value).

<big snip>

> > > > Branden explains to Henry, on page 23, that Henry withdrew and
> > > > stopped trying to understand the world around him. This random,
> > > > unintelligible environment constructed by his parents confused him as
> > > > a child and as a result, Henry stopped trying to make sense of the
> > > > world. Henry had given up the hope of understanding. When reading
> > > > this book, I remember the next phrase in the book, something Branden
> > > > says to Henry:
> > > >
> > > > "When you withdrew, you gave up hope of understanding. You stopped
> > > > caring to understand. That's when you gave up your self-esteem" .
> > >
> > > Exactly! One cannot have high self-esteem unless one is and sees
> > > oneself as efficacious with respect to reality. And the first step
> > > to being efficacious is to understand that upon which one needs to act.
> > > The second is fully understanding the ultimate purpose and the immediate
> > > goal of one's action. Without both one has no basis for making a
> > > choice and certainly little chance that one's choice will be right
> > > (particularly since "right" would be yet to be defined in such a case).
> >
> > This second step of understanding ultimate purpose has been my
> > largest obstacle to navigate and traverse. I have trouble with
> > motivation mostly, not necessarily to stay on track, but to enjoy
> > what I'm doing.
>
> I think I can identify with this David, as I described above.

This shows for both of you that you have not yet reprogrammed your
emotions to be consistent with your conscious rational thoughts. To do
so you must analyze both all the things that you enjoy and the
productive work that you want to enjoy, not in terms of any social or
personal "oughts", but for the personal benefits and disbenefits of
both. Once you have made an evaluative decision on these activities
and how much time each is worth spending time on in order to maximally
increase your lifetime happiness, if you then *feel* differently toward
some activities, you gently but strongly chide yourself about that
feeling, tell it to go away, recall why you have that evaluation and
direct yourself with appreciation toward one of your more valued
activities. In time, doing this squelching of your emotions will cause
them to change so that their type and degree will then be consistent
with your rational evaluations. But do realize that the amount of time
spent on various activity types is not a totally static things but can
reasonably change because of a host of external conditions.

> > For example, I conclude an ultimate purpose is to become a scientist
> > because this will best train my mind to systematically consider
> > reality, identify problems, obtain resources and apply them to the
> > problems, and most efficiently evaluate the outcomes.
>
> This is similar to my own interest in becoming a scientist,
> specifically of biochemistry (I state this because I understand that
> you have similar interests and perhaps we share many scientific
> interests and goals).

As I stated in another post, to accomplish what David (Jack) described
above, one does not need to actually (become a scientist) and one should
not aim to do so if one does not have the necessary aptitude for it. One
only needs to do enough in science to understand what science is and
what its methods are. In fact, it should be understood at the outset
that science is not anything special and different than taking a fully
rational and analytical approach to reality. The only advantage of the
sciences is that such an approach is easier to learn, particularly to
get results and feedback from, in the sciences than in the realm of
social interactions.

> > However,
> > during my first 25 years (not including playing basketball and
> > volleyball) I routinely followed paths of least resistance.
>
> I have also done this, as I described briefly above.
>
> > In
> > addition, I learned to react with joy to all of my experiences; IOW,
> > I was and am today able to enjoy most situations as challenging,
> > enlightening, aesthetically pleasing, etc., especially if somewhat
> > unordinary (to me). Even though I have discovered problems with my
> > surroundings, my "country", my peers, my parents, my self, and so on,
> > I am not discouraged about maintaining a pleasurable relationship
> > with the wacky world because I have always successfully made the best
> > of situations.
>
> I have found that, upon discovering some aspect of my surroundings
> that I disagree with, I will avoid interacting with it whenever
> possible (i.e. avoid interacting with family members that hold
> philosophies that are highly-incompatible with mine). Since I have
> adopted this practice of withdrawing from things I disagree with, I
> have found myself feeling lonely more often (I did not always avoid
> such situations, and began doing so when I found myself wasting an
> excessive amount of time in the presence of others with no interesting
> or useful qualities). One thing that I have thought about
> considerably, recently, is whether it will make me happier to spend
> time (perhaps "waste" time) with people I disagree with to avoid
> loneliness. I don't much mind the loneliness, but ceasing to meet new
> people in an effort to find others I agree with *would* be unhealthy,
> from the standpoints of human interaction requirements and of total
> possible future happiness.

I think the answer to this is to constantly seek new people and only
spend time with them until you find out that you are in fundamental
disagreement with them, that they have nothing of value to exchange with
you and are unamenable to philosophical change. They have then filtered
themselves out of your life and you go on to find others. There are
always new people in the world whom you have not yet encountered.

> > Further, as I perceive reality today, I still only
> > possess a romantic interest in becoming a scientist, one like movie
> > characters such as Tom Cruise's in Mission Impossible, who, it was
> > implied, was well-practiced as a systematic and precise judge of
> > reality as well a wise negotiator (of reality) to his benefit.
> > AFAIK, learning and practicing the skill-set of a scientist will not
> > be an action-packed lifestyle and may not offer enough subtle changes
> > to keep my interest, but I am attempting to overcome these personal
> > characteristics of mine by practicing despite the boredom, etc.
>
> I find myself to be bored - not yet with the science - but with life
> experiences. I think that, in my effort to be as frugal and efficient
> as possible with my time and money, I put unnecessary restrictions on
> the use of my time and money. That is, since I have encouraged very
> frugal habits in myself, these habits have also caused me to have the
> habit of not "exploring" and experiencing new things, since such
> exploration also requires the use of ones funds and time. However, I
> am realizing now that there is no point to accumulating wealth if it
> is never to be used for my enjoyment. I am currently trying to find
> new and interesting activities to experience, including meeting new
> people, as I change my perspective on the use of my time and money.

I am always astonished at anyone who says that they are or have ever
been bored. I have always had so many desirable and enjoyable activities
on my plate that I have often wished that there were 10 (at least) of
me since that is at the least how many it would take to accomplish all
that I wish to do.

[This is actually the case now as Paul is up to his eyeballs in
wiki-related tasks, many of which are extremely convoluted - or so it
seems to me who is limited in programming logic. **Kitty]

Still the last of what you write above shows that you are on the right
track.

> > So, I struggle with enjoying this learning and practice in hopes that
> > my interests in the material and methods will grow.
>
> Participating in research seems to be a task that would be difficult
> to "stick with" unless one really enjoys the everyday work. I think
> this may be true because the greatest rewards from the work, in the
> form of an interesting or useful discovery, may take years or even
> decades of effort. I have not studied chemistry for very long (only
> since July 2008), but I have a strategy to keep me motivated. Because
> I am young, I have a lot of time to invest in high-risk, high-reward
> activities, such as scientific research. I am very interested in the
> "high-reward" of drastically- increased lifespan, which is my goal
> while engaging in research. Simply put, I try to "work with the goal
> in mind", knowing that the goal will never be reached unless someone
> works at it.

This is the right approach. One must always have some important end goal
for one's learning task to which all learning activities are related,
rather than the simple idea that more knowledge is good for me.

> I have also found that, as one knowledge grows, one find the
> possession of that knowledge more useful and applicable in one's life.

At first, learning the fundamentals of a new subject is a lot of work
and little enjoyment, until one gets far enough that the parts of it
start to fit together and then relate to the goal of one's learning.

[I think that if one becomes strongly interested in a subject area as
a child and is not stifled in hir initiative to learn in hir own
manner, then the acquisition of the necessary understanding of complex
subjects will not be viewed as a "chore" even if it does require a
considerable amount of time expenditure. And the manner of acquiring
skill in a particular subject area does not necessarily require
discomfort - often it depends greatly on the methods being chosen by
the learner and/or the teacher/guide (this last not required at all,
and often best not, to be an actual employee of a formal school).
Again, this is very well described in the John Holt book _Instead of
Education_, that I described in the other branch of this thread. **Kitty]

<snipped the rest after reading>

--Paul

Note: Once again this message has become split into two quite separate
issues. I have therefore responded separately to these. This is the first
such response.

On 01/07/2009 11:30 PM, David Thomas Jackemeyer wrote:
>
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
> >
> > On 12/31/2008 11:21 AM, David Thomas Jackemeyer wrote:
> > > Hi Morelife community,
> > >
> > > I confess, I have been lurking (read, as a twist on the
> > > pronunciation: looking) at the messages since summer concluded,
> > > hoping, wishing, trying to write a response -- joshing, because I
> > > purposefully chose not to respond as I've been focusing most of my
> > > attention on developing a knack for science, especially that of my
> > > body.
> >
> > It took me many decades to learn that my happiness and overall
> > productivity are higher when I do not forsake things that I really
> > *would like* to be doing, because of some misguided idea of what I
> > really *ought" to be doing. I think that you have not learned that yet.
>
> You suggest that I am not striking a good balance between practicing
> what I like to do and what I ought to do.
>

When I use an expression like the above, "I think that ..." it should
not be taken to mean that I am positive, but rather that I think that
there is a reasonable possibility. It appears that it would be better if
I more explicitly state my degree of uncertainty by changing the words
to something like "I think that perhaps...". But, yes, I was suggesting
that perhaps you have not yet learned that getting more immediate
benefits from quickly rewarding activities each day is necessary in
order to persevere at activities that will only result in a net positive
benefit after a much longer time. One should never do anything merely
because one "ought to" do it. In fact, the whole idea of "ought" is out
of place in the context of rational thinking and evaluating. One simply
performs any given activity because one's best estimate is that doing so
will optimally increase one's lifetime happiness. So if "ought" is ever
used, then that is all that it should ever mean, and since "ought" has
so much emotional and cultural baggage associated with it, I am
beginning to think that the word should be completely abandoned. I
personally feel sad about that decision, because "what could be and ought
to be" was a favorite expression of Ayn Rand, and particularly one
which meant a lot to me in decades past. What makes the word "ought" no
longer tenable is that its meaning, and particularly its content (those
things that one ought to do or that ought to be done), depend so
strongly on individual opinions and assessments.


> I have witnessed others (you and Kitty, e.g.) enjoy both the
> processes and outcomes inherent with the scientific method, so I
> would like to also gain such reward. I realize that doing so can
> also lead to indirect rewards such as improved ability to predict,
> wisdom regarding creative problem solving, and an accumulation of
> useful knowledge. I want to get on that path as quickly as possible.

What you have missed above (and the most important aspect for me) is the
pure enjoyment that one can get from thinking, analyzing, creating and
actually effecting a practical solution. Often the method and practice
of the process, far from being an odious task whose only benefit is the
result, is more enjoyable than the result obtained. I think that perhaps
you also do not realize that the so-called "scientific method" is merely
a portion of rational analysis and logical thought applied to the
physical world.

[This is a good point at which to mention the availability, after many
years out of print, of Henry Hazlitt's fantastic book, _Thinking as a
Science_. I only recently learned that it was published in paperback
in 2005; the copy we have is one Paul acquired back in the late 1970s.
Hazlitt wrote this book in 1916 - 93 years ago, when he was but 21
years old! (The 1969 edition received scant changes as Hazlitt
explains in his forward, which I hope is retained in this new 2005
edition. Instead he wrote a fairly short epilogue for those items
that he would have done differently if he were writing on the subject
for the first time, or it could be considered an addendum.) It was
really done as a way of teaching himself how to be an effective
thinker. The wisdom (as well as errors) from some of his
contemporaries and predecessors, his own observations and methods are
fascinating for their keen discernment and are not outdated by recent
neuroscience findings and are ones I found to be presented in a most
interesting and helpful manner.

How to think in an analytical evaluative manner is something that very
few people learn in their youth and large numbers never learn, to any
significant degree. It is an area of study not included in grade
schools and high schools. And educators beyond that level assume that
their students have learned how to think or they would not be there.
Too often a student finds understanding complex subjects highly
difficult because s/he does not know how to *really* think. The first
two chapters of Hazlitt's book are an excellent non-technical
description of what thinking is and how it is most effectively used.
(Several times I found myself amazed at the depth of understanding
coming from someone only 21 years old.)

It is clear to me that going through the process of discovery and
practice that Hazlitt explains in this, his first book, went a very long
way towards enabling him to later understand and explain economics as
skillfully as he did in numerous articles and several books - writings
that are timeless in their assessment of common ideas and actions that
fall under the classification of economics for their consequences.

Hazlitt's books at mises.org -
http://www.mises.org/store/Hazlitt-Collection-C37.aspx
Hazlitt's books at Amazon.com - http://tinyurl.com/73vqe7

**Kitty]

> An example involving a physical-psychological phenomenon: I have
> never enjoyed drawing blood, even for a small sample used for
> determining my blood content and their respective concentrations. I
> would like to respond differently, more focused on the benefits
> (rather than the sickening feeling of being sucked dry) and less
> likely to steer away from opportunities to learn more about my body.

I think it is unlikely that *anyone* actually enjoys the direct process
of having blood taken from hir body. It is slightly painful (as is any
puncture wound), but that should be all the harm that you
physiologically receive. It the phlebotomist is competent, then that
should be the only negative of the process. Any "sickening feeling of
being sucked dry" is merely your own emotional (psychological) baggage
(it is a very tiny amount of your total blood, so the whole idea of
being "sucked dry" is simply nonsense) which you can and would best work
to eliminate. As with any other irrational emotion, you work to
reprogram yourself so that it no longer occurs. You do this by first
having at your mind's edge, all the positive reasons why getting blood
drawn is beneficial to you and even the benefits of the process itself
(enjoying the interesting mechanics of it: the competence of your body
pumping out the blood to fill the tubes, the competent work of the
phlebotomist and the technically neat way that such a blood draw can be
accomplished, the friendly chatting with hir, particularly if s/he is
someone who you see regularly, the way your own competent body
quickly seals and heals the puncture). So as soon as this "sickening
feeling" occurs you tell yourself what an idiot you are to feel this
way, you strongly squelch and deny the feeling (effectively tell it to
"get lost and do not bother me any more"), you then concentrate on all the
short and long range positives of the procedure and its end results. If
you keep doing this, then in time the emotion will be eradicated and you
will be *free* of it (similar to the way your immune system rids your
body of a pathogen - an inconsistent emotion is a pathogen of the mind).
Actually, I have been through all this before in past posts on the
subject of changing emotional habits, so I am surprised that you did not
realize that those posts about other emotions and emotions in general
apply to this one also. You must sometime get to the point where you
fully understand that your emotions do not come out of nowhere and are
not in control of you, but rather they are products of your values and
rational thoughts and are totally under your control with respect to
making them consistent with those values and thoughts.

[I was a person who for many years dreaded venipunctures and even
fingersticks  - to the point that I actually felt faint when they took
place. (Having been a nurse for 16 years didn't change this.) I knew
that this was a psychological reaction but also knew no way to really
get rid of the awful emotional reaction/physiological sensations that
occurred. I went through the process because I was well aware of the
importance and physical benefit to me; I just tried to not look or
even think about it and hope that I wouldn't pass out.

It wasn't too long after joining Paul that the periodic fingersticks
for fasting blood glucose started - he'd been doing it for years. I
couldn't bring myself to prick my own finger but let Paul do it to me
- while I was lying in bed because the first couple times I felt
faint. With explanation by Paul as to how to take control of these
(and other) emotions (and Paul has improved his explanation since
then), I began to do just that. Within a couple weeks I was sticking
myself with the automatic gadget without any sickening fear. (Changing
the lancet at the first indication that it's beginning to get dull -
it then starts to hurt - makes a big difference.)

I still don't watch the phlebotomist do the actual draw on me - though
I don't mind watching Paul get stuck and had little problem doing
numerous venipunctures on others for starting infusions when I was a
nurse. But I no longer get faint, even when the phlebotomist is not
the very best and misses my excellent veins.

I know from personal experience that ridding oneself of these
pathogenic emotional responses (as Paul has newly named them) can be
done - this experience above is just one where I've succeeded. Maybe
some others on the group will share their experiences. **Kitty]


> Instead of comfortably avoiding blood drawings, I ought to seek them,
> possibly even participate in training to learn to safely and
> effectively draw from myself.

Any puncture to the body is a chance for infection and should never be
done intentionally unless there is a good overall benefit from its
occurrence. With respect to doing it to yourself, while it would always
be beneficial to learn such a technique, and you could perhaps draw
your own blood from a leg vein, it would be both difficult and possibly
error prone (harmful to yourself) to draw blood from your own arm
(injecting a fluid is far easier than drawing/removing blood).

> With the right schedule and attitude, I think I could eventually lean
> toward drawing blood rather than avoiding it.

You will never do so without conscious action to eliminate your
irrational negative emotions (not to say that negative emotions are
always irrational or that positive ones are always rational) about it
and replace them with positive ones. You will never succeed for very
long at any attempt to act counter to your emotions. Rather you will
only succeed in such action if you eliminate the negative emotion and
replace it with a positive one. Put another way, you cannot for long
make yourself do anything that you do not feel good about, and it is
folly to try, because the ultimate result will only be a feeling of
failure and a resultant loss of self-esteem.

> The same with being more scientific, both on a daily basis as well as
> during times of acute concentration: I think I can eventually lean
> toward this mindset rather than shrugging it off repeatedly for an
> easier path,

While the phrase next below is certainly true, you will not succeed at
"being more scientific" until you enumerate and identify your negative
emotions about it, analyze them and determine that they are not
consistent with your consciously held values and then act to replace
them with positive emotions in the manner described above for blood draw
negativity.

> and I think the quicker I advance in that direction, the
> better.
>
> > WRT a "knack for science", there is a major difference between gaining
> > scientific knowledge and understanding the scientific method as
> > opposed to actually enjoying the practice of some science. And note
> > that no one practices any large part of the sciences (at least not t
> > one time), but rather practices in an extremely narrow area of some
> > science - this is particularly true for the experimental sciences.
> > Furthermore, not everyone does or needs to have a "knack for science".
> > Instead what is necessary in order to be effective in dealing with
> > reality is adequate knowledge about the findings of those who do have
> > a "knack for science" and about the logical methodology behind how
> > such findings are determined. The latter is both necessary in order
> > to evaluate for oneself the validity of the claimed findings, and to
> > apply to one's investigation of any aspect of reality.
>
> I agree that one does not need to practice in an area of science in
> order to evaluate for oneself the validity of claims. I suspect you
> agree then that some, if not many of the skills developed by
> practicing the scientific method are also developed outside of
> science-based inquiry, and further, that some of those non-specific-
> to-science skills may be useful to enable scientists to improve their
> processes.

I think that perhaps you think it is a fact that knowledge of and
practice of some area of science is automatically also a practice of the
scientific method. If so I want to make it clear that this is totally
false. While it is true that no one has really understood a science nor
can they hope to achieve much of any real value from experimenting in an
area of science unless they also have a good understanding of the
scientific method, there are many so-called scientists (far too many)
who are precisely in that category of not achieving much of any real
value because they do not understand the basis of what they are trying
to do. Once again I want to emphasize that the so-called scientific
method is merely the method of sound analysis and logical reasoning
applied to reality. Yes, there are some specific formal procedures for
certain sciences, but very few such procedures are applicable in the
same way to all areas of science. Only the general principles of
analysis and logic are applicable everywhere.

> My assessment of my overall success is that I do not attempt many
> difficult ventures, thus do not provide myself many opportunities to
> succeed (or fail).

I think that perhaps this is because you have never learned to enjoy the
mental process of studying, analyzing and achieving the solution of a
problem, rather than merely the end result of that mental effort. One
has to enjoy the means and methods of any action rather than merely the
results or else one will not be able to persevere at it for long and one
will never achieve any great competence at it.

[Much of this lack may come from the way learning is approached in
schools - the vast majority of them and the teachers employed do not
encourage real learning and understanding but merely the successful
passing of tests for scoring purposes. However, an individual has the
capability of correcting this deficiency once s/he comes to realize or
even suspect that it is there. **Kitty]


> My assessment of my scientific skill set is that
> I am grossly lacking in integrity to scientific thought and that I
> could certainly improve by learning and practicing skills that I am
> currently studying.

I think that perhaps you need first to learn to enjoy thinking for its
own sake, regardless of the end result. For this I think you need to
return to your childhood, where you apparently never learned this mental
enjoyment, and do rather simply mental problems that give you immediate
enjoyment from accomplishment and the clear illustration of the efficacy
of your mind. One type of such that I sometimes use as a mental
diversion from longer term activities, and which I find particularly
relaxing before going to sleep, is to play logical computer games such
as sudoku, free cell and spider. These are excellent for helping to
quickly gain the enjoyment of mental efficacy.

> I want to "get cranking" in this area to bring
> it up to speed, to round myself a bit w/ the skills of a scientist,
> which I predict will both enhance my confidence WRT difficult
> ventures and widen my view (as well as deepen my interest) regarding
> serious problems that I could solve.

This is all good and important, but it appears to me that you do not yet
know how to enjoy thinking at all (and that is why you are not much good
at it). You must first learn to enjoy simple thinking activities before
you attempt more complex ones. Taking an online course in logic and
doing all the exercises would both help this and give you more
experience with logic.

META: I had never before heard the expression "get cranking", but having
googled it, I find that it is a variant of the more common expression
"get cracking" ("more common" being derived from the number of examples
of each shown by Google).

> Even though I could (and sometimes, but not often do) comfortably
> ignore these self-assessments by failing to get started in the
> morning, and instead decide "to hell with it all" which is currently
> my default reaction when overwhelmingly depressed, I prefer to remind
> myself in the morning of what I ought to do because I predict these
> activities will lead to much improved happiness for me, and
> indirectly, those with whom I choose to engage.

After lengthy observation, I have come to the conclusion that your
problems are deeper and more fundamental. With respect to the enjoyment
of using your mind for logical, purposeful, rational activity you are
still at the crawling stage. Unless and until you learn to enjoy such
mental activity (even to find it exciting and thrilling - as Kitty said
to me the other day over my enormous enjoyment at successfully making a
very difficult programming change to the wiki software on which I am
working (needing to learn linux shell commands, PHP programming and
mySQL database commands as well as understanding the general structure
of the wiki software), it felt as good as a great orgasm - actually very
different, but overall better in many ways since it was more promotional
to my self-esteem and feeling of efficacy wrt to reality.

--Paul

[The old saying, "All work and no play will make Jack a dull boy" came
to mind. It is a mistake to very severely reduce short term pleasures,
especially those one finds particularly enjoyable in doing, as part of
one's efforts to gain longer term benefits. Such a reduction will have
the same effects as do crash diets for those who love the taste of
food. For me and Paul, dancing energetically to melodic house, trance
and especially eurodance music is just great. We really enjoy being
skillful and improvisational to these types of music; our only
disappointment is the low frequency of the really high energy
offerings from the first two genres in clubs and the absence entirely
in AZ of the last. (There's still a bit in the Toronto area from what
I learn online but there is nothing of any of our favored genres in
rural Ontario where we are 6 months of the year.) But occasional
events of high energy trance are super (Aura in Tempe by Overmindworks
is up next on Saturday 1/24/09 - highly recommended!) And most
Wednesdays we get some good higher energy house at Switch Wednesdays
in Scottsdale after an almost guaranteed high energy 30 to 45min dance
workout at Karamba in Phoenix. (Oops! I got carried away here about
the dance/music environment.)

Now energetic dancing is not everyone's fare - though I can't imagine
why not ;>) - but plenty of other physical activities can provide
someone with much enjoyment. Having at least one physical activity
that is engaged in at least once weekly is highly recommended for the
pure enjoyment experience. And the physiological health aspects are
there too of course. Lots of people simply enjoy the feel of the air
against their body when they run or ride a bicycle. Maybe it's the
pleasurable sensation of the water gliding over the body when swimming
or diving into water. Maybe it's the pleasure associated with
succeeding to reach the top of a hill and gazing out on the view
below. Maybe it is one of the many martial arts. Perhaps it's
participating in a pair or group sport - tennis, soccer, basketball,
volleyball, etc.

The same also applies to stimulating mental activities which provide
one with enjoyment after a relatively short time (as Paul has
described above). Also there are those which require a combination of
mental and physical skills coordinated together (actually best of
all).

The pleasure associated with using one's body (extremities and mind)
skillfully alone, or in voluntary activities with others, is always
beneficial. Such an activity must be maintained even while one
attempts to work toward longer term goals and it can not be avoided if
one wants to maximize hir lifetime happiness. **Kitty]

This is my response to the second part of the original for which the
subject title is still appropriate.

On 01/07/2009 11:30 PM, David Thomas Jackemeyer wrote:
>
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
> >
> > On 12/31/2008 11:21 AM, David Thomas Jackemeyer wrote:

<big snip of what was previously responded to>

> > > I would like to fast for extended periods, and one 2hr meal per day
> > > has been working fine for me. I would also like to exercise 45 min
> > > per day. BTW, I have completely cut out alcohol from my diet, in
> > > response to the posts related to message 1809 on Morelife Yahoo Group
> > > posted 06/04/08:
> > > http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/1809
> > >
> > > Question: If I finished my (one per day) meal by noon, to what extent
> > > would exercising seven hours later disturb the important pathways
> > > hypothesized to occur during a long fast period?
> >
> > Exercise will always enhance the beneficial biochemical activities of
> > the fasting state. The time you give appears to be quite ideal.
> > Exercise is best in relation to fasting if done as long as possible
> > after eating, but not so close to sleeping that it will interfere with
> > that important activity - ie it is probably best to end exercise by at
> > least 2 hours before sleep so that the body can wind down and get into
> > a very relaxed state by sleep time.
>
> I was concerned that when exercising, my body might retard autophagic
> response to fasting because of the increased liberation of energy
> stored in liver, muscles, fat, and ingested ingredients (whey
> protein, e.g.). Is this a concern?

I don't think so. If there is a great deal of stored energy, the
autophagic effects of recycling proteins will not be high anyway,
since the energy stores of carbohydrates (and fats, but to a lesser
extent because they are harder to liberate) will tend to be used first
for fuel as they are more easily converted to fuel. WRT, ingested
ingredients, the whole purpose of fasting and exercising in a fasted
state is precisely because there are no longer any ingested
ingredients available - they have all gone past the point where they
can be absorbed.

META: I had hoped that Olafur would respond to this part since he
certainly knows the area.

> If this is viable, are these concerns mitigated if exercise instead
> immediately precedes the 2hr large meal?

That would be an even better time for it. The more deeply fasted state,
the better effect of the exercise on promotion of autophagy. And 2 hrs
should give your body sufficient time to recover before the large meal.

--Paul

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
>
> This is my response to the second part of the original for which the
> subject title is still appropriate.
>
> On 01/07/2009 11:30 PM, David Thomas Jackemeyer wrote:
> >
> > --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 12/31/2008 11:21 AM, David Thomas Jackemeyer wrote:
>
> <big snip of what was previously responded to>
>
> > > > I would like to fast for extended periods, and one 2hr meal
per day
> > > > has been working fine for me. I would also like to exercise 45 min
> > > > per day. BTW, I have completely cut out alcohol from my diet, in
> > > > response to the posts related to message 1809 on Morelife
Yahoo Group
> > > > posted 06/04/08:
> > > > http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/1809
> > > >
> > > > Question: If I finished my (one per day) meal by noon, to what
extent
> > > > would exercising seven hours later disturb the important pathways
> > > > hypothesized to occur during a long fast period?
> > >
> > > Exercise will always enhance the beneficial biochemical
activities of
> > > the fasting state. The time you give appears to be quite ideal.
> > > Exercise is best in relation to fasting if done as long as possible
> > > after eating, but not so close to sleeping that it will
interfere with
> > > that important activity - ie it is probably best to end exercise
by at
> > > least 2 hours before sleep so that the body can wind down and
get into
> > > a very relaxed state by sleep time.
> >
> > I was concerned that when exercising, my body might retard autophagic
> > response to fasting because of the increased liberation of energy
> > stored in liver, muscles, fat, and ingested ingredients (whey
> > protein, e.g.). Is this a concern?
>
> I don't think so. If there is a great deal of stored energy, the
> autophagic effects of recycling proteins will not be high anyway,
> since the energy stores of carbohydrates (and fats, but to a lesser
> extent because they are harder to liberate) will tend to be used first
> for fuel as they are more easily converted to fuel. WRT, ingested
> ingredients, the whole purpose of fasting and exercising in a fasted
> state is precisely because there are no longer any ingested
> ingredients available - they have all gone past the point where they
> can be absorbed.

I agree with Paul here. Jack, I don't know how familiar you are with
autophagy, but autophagy is basically a process whereby the body eats
itself because it is lacking energy stores and the building blocks
required to support anabolism. Now here is a logical exercise for you
Jack (This relates to the use of logic Paul spoke about in your last
post). The question you have to ask yourself here is *why* is there an
increase in the liberation of energy stores during exercise? Why does
your body start liberating fat and increasing glucose output from the
liver when you exercise, and how does that relate to autophagy?

If you think about the answer you can come to realize that it doesn't
make sense that exercise would cause autophagy to decrease. The answer
is that energy stores are being liberated because the muscle tissue is
burning up so much energy and it needs more of it to keep the exercise
going. The energy stores thus are being liberated in order for the
muscles to take up the energy they need (glucose and fat) to keep
functioning at high efficiency. Now this energy has to come from
somewhere and since you have not eaten for a long time it makes sense
that the body has to turn to itself by both breaking down stored
energy (glycogen and fat) as well as by eating itself through
autophagy. Note that the liver can not store much glycogen and as it
starts to empty it will have to increase gluconeogenesis (the
synthesis of glucose from noncarbohydrate precursors such as amino
acids). Now where do the amino acids required for gluconeogenesis come
from? Again the answer is from autophagy, if you haven't eaten for a
while that is.

Energy depleting exercise increases insulin sensitivity in the muscle
tissue being exercised, which increases uptake of nutrients such as fat
and glucose into the muscle tissue being exercised. The muscles are
basically creating a funnel for nutrients. This increased insulin
sensitivity in the muscle tissue being exercised also lasts a while
after the exercise is over causing increased nutrient uptake into the
exercised muscle for a while after the exercise. But this effect is
strongest right after exercising and fades somewhat afterwards which
is one reason it is beneficial to eat immediately after exercising as
opposed to eating later on. If you eat right after exercising more of
the nutrients will be taken up by the muscle tissue. Much of the
glucose f.ex. will go towards filling the muscles glycogen stores
leaving less of it left to cause harmful elevation of blood glucose.

> META: I had hoped that Olafur would respond to this part since he
> certainly knows the area.

Paul I am familiar with the noun "meta" which you have used a lot in
your writings, but I can't figure out what the term "META" means. I
did not find it in any dictionary (including the unabridged Merriam
Webster dictionary). Is it an abbreviation for something? Please explain.

> > If this is viable, are these concerns mitigated if exercise instead
> > immediately precedes the 2hr large meal?
>
> That would be an even better time for it. The more deeply fasted state,
> the better effect of the exercise on promotion of autophagy. And 2 hrs
> should give your body sufficient time to recover before the large meal.

Since he wrote "immediately precedes" I think Jack was speaking of
exercising immediately prior to eating the meal not 2 hrs before
eating it as you appear to have understood it. Anyways your point
still stands, that the more deeply fasted state, the better effect of
the exercise on promotion of autophagy.

BTW in case anyone is wondering which is better I think it would be
better to exercise immediately prior to eating the single meal rather
than 2 hours before eating it (I know Jack didn't ask this question
but I'm on a roll here:-). There a few reasons I think this is the case:

1) If you exercise immediately prior to eating there will be longer
since you last ate when you exercise compared to if you exercise an
hour or two before eating. Not having eaten for so long will increase
the demand for autophagy to provide the energy required for the
exercise, not to mention that autophagy will already have been
increased considerably if it is so long since you last ate. Exercising
at this time should strongly induce autophagy.
2) As I mentioned above exercise increases insulin sensitivity in the
muscle tissue being exercised. The action of contracting your muscles
causes translocation of GLUT-4 to the cell surface of the skeletal
muscle cells. GLUT-4 is the main glucose transporter in human muscle
tissue. This consequently leads to increased uptake of glucose into
the exercised muscle tissue. This will in turn cause more of any
ingested glucose to be taken up by muscle tissue rather than
contributing to harmful elevation of blood glucose levels. And this is
an effect that is generally strongest right after exercising.
3) During exercise blood flow to the muscle tissue being exercised is
increased considerably. This fades quickly when the exercise is
stopped but lasts for a while after the exercise. This contributes to
increased nutrient delivery to the muscle tissue during and right
after the exercise. The effect again is that more of any ingested
nutrients will be taken up by the muscle tissue. The benefits of this
include a lower blood glucose spike from a meal that is eaten after
exercising compared to if it were eaten later. Also since the
increased blood flow to the working muscle fades fairly quickly after
the exercise it is important to eat right after the exercise if one
wants to take advantage of the increased nutrient delivery and the
potential benefits it has.

BTW to take advantage of some of the benefits I mentioned above I
myself try to always eat my biggest meal of the day right after
exercising. I also partition a large share of my daily carbohydrate
intake during this meal knowing it will likely cause less of a rise in
my blood sugar than if I were to consume them at other times.

Hi Paul and Kitty

I hope you are both well

Regarding Hazlitt's books and especially "Thinking as a science",
it seems that they can be read online here:

http://mises.org/books/thinking.pdf   for thinking as a science
http://mises.org/literature.aspx?action=author&Id=170 for many of
his other books.

Thanks for your work

François Rose

[Thank you very much, François, for these links. Although I receive
the daily article from mises.org and often go into their archives of
articles, I did not realize that there were actual books by Hazlitt
and other writers (besides Mises himself) available online there.
Great find and a wealth of information and much wisdom available to
all. Spread the word!

Link for all books online at mises.org -
http://mises.org/literature.aspx?action=subject&Id=117

The big drawbacks to online books at this stage in technology for me
is that I must read them on my computer at my desk (or laptop set up
somewhere) and I can't make the notes I typically do in the margins.
Yes, I know Kindle by Amazon looks promising, but it's not yet as good
as having the text on paper in front of me. On the other hand, one can
do a word or phrase text search with the online version - a real plus
sometimes.

**Kitty]

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:

> What you have missed above (and the most important aspect for me) is
> the pure enjoyment that one can get from thinking, analyzing,
> creating and actually effecting a practical solution. Often the
> method and practice of the process, far from being an odious task
> whose only benefit is the result, is more enjoyable than the result
> obtained. I think that perhaps you also do not realize that the
> so-called "scientific method" is merely a portion of rational
> analysis and logical thought applied to the physical world.
>
> [This is a good point at which to mention the availability, after
> many years out of print, of Henry Hazlitt's fantastic book,
> _Thinking as a Science_. I only recently learned that it was
> published in paperback in 2005; the copy we have is one Paul
> acquired back in the late 1970s.
> Hazlitt wrote this book in 1916 - 93 years ago, when he was but 21
> years old! (The 1969 edition received scant changes as Hazlitt
> explains in his forward, which I hope is retained in this new 2005
> edition. Instead he wrote a fairly short epilogue for those items
> that he would have done differently if he were writing on the
> subject for the first time, or it could be considered an addendum.)
> It was really done as a way of teaching himself how to be an
> effective thinker. The wisdom (as well as errors) from some of his
> contemporaries and predecessors, his own observations and methods
> are fascinating for their keen discernment and are not outdated by
> recent neuroscience findings and are ones I found to be presented in
> a most interesting and helpful manner.
>
> How to think in an analytical evaluative manner is something that
> very few people learn in their youth and large numbers never learn,
> to any significant degree. It is an area of study not included in
> grade schools and high schools. And educators beyond that level
> assume that their students have learned how to think or they would
> not be there.
> Too often a student finds understanding complex subjects highly
> difficult because s/he does not know how to *really* think. The
> first
> two chapters of Hazlitt's book are an excellent non-technical
> description of what thinking is and how it is most effectively
> used. (Several times I found myself amazed at the depth of
> understanding coming from someone only 21 years old.)
>
> It is clear to me that going through the process of discovery and
> practice that Hazlitt explains in this, his first book, went a
> very long way towards enabling him to later understand and explain
> economics as skillfully as he did in numerous articles and several
> books - writings that are timeless in their assessment of common
> ideas and actions that fall under the classification of economics
> for their consequences.
>
> Hazlitt's books at mises.org - http://www.mises.org/store/Hazlitt-
Collection-C37.aspx
> Hazlitt's books at Amazon.com - http://tinyurl.com/73vqe7
>
> **Kitty]

META: Again my response to the original message will be in two parts
since the original has two unrelated content portions. This message is
a response to the content portion that diverges from the original
subject because it stems from a meta-comment in the message previous
to that. My response to the other content portion of the original,
which continues the same subject, will be delayed for a week in accord
with the group policy concerning moderator response.

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Ólafur Páll Ólafsson <olafurpall@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@> wrote:

[snip of text related to the message subject - response separated]

> > META: I had hoped that Olafur would respond to this part since he
> > certainly knows the area.
>
> Paul I am familiar with the noun "meta" which you have used a lot in
> your writings, but I can't figure out what the term "META" means. I
> did not find it in any dictionary (including the unabridged Merriam
> Webster dictionary). Is it an abbreviation for something? Please
explain.

I am not sure about your meaning in the first sentence above, partly
because I don't understand how you can be familiar with the usage of
"meta" (which is always an adjective and never a noun, as far as I am
aware) and yet not understand why I had prefixed my statement with
"META:". Therefore, I will take some time to explain the usages of
"meta", in general, and, specifically, why I chose to prefix my
statement with  "META:", have done so again related to the note at the
start of this message and plan to continue using for this purpose.

What Olafur appears to have missed is that the major use of "meta" in
English is as a "combining form", specifically as a prefixed modifying
adjective to other words such as with "metaphysics", "metamorphosis"
and "meta-analysis" (sometimes written without the hyphen) to name
three of the most commonly known ones. However, as with so many words
in the English language its meaning becomes somewhat ambiguous because,
over time, its meaning has been multiplied into variations, some of
which are quite distinct from the original.

Below are the pertinent (for my purposes) parts of the current
Merriam-Webster Online Unabridged Dictionary entry for "meta-".

Function: prefix
1 a : occurring later : in succession to : after <metachronism>
<metabiosis> <metagenesis> <metainfective> b : situated behind :
posterior <metapore> <metanephron> c : later or more highly organized
or specialized form of <Metazoa> <metaphyte> d : with : occurring with
<metacinnabar>
2 a [Middle French & Latin; Middle French, from Latin, from Greek,
from meta] : change in : transformation of <metamorphosis>
<metaplasia> b : produced by metamorphism <metadiorite> <metasediment>
3 a [Middle English, from Medieval Latin, from Greek meta after, as
used in ta meta ta physika the (works) after the physics -- more at
METAPHYSICS] : beyond : transcending <metaphysics> <metapsychosis>
<metageometry> <metabiological> <metempirics> b : of a higher logical
type -- in nouns formed from names of disciplines and designating new
but related disciplines such as can deal critically with the nature,
structure, or behavior of the original ones <metalanguage>
<metatheory> <metasystem>

My preferred meaning of "meta-" and the meaning that I always intend
when I use the term, either as a prefix modifier (as in "Social
Meta-Needs") or as a prefix to a set of remarks and to clearly
separate them from the content (as with "META:"), is mostly related
to the meanings given in 3 above, but also includes the meaning given
in 1.a. above, as I will explain. In particular, the meaning 3.b. -
"of a higher logical type", is a major part of the meaning that I use
for "meta-" at the start of the Natural Social Contract definitions
(see: http://selfsip.org/solutions/NSC.html#existent).

With respect to my usage "META:", the capitalization was for emphasis
(as I have previously done with "NOTE:") and the colon was to signify
that the description (adjective) applied to the entire following set
of statements. Technically the META tag should have had a closing tag
(perhaps "/META" as with text markup commands) to show clearly where
the meta text ended and non-meta text (directly relating to the
message content) began. I will do this in future so that things are
clearer.

[Perhaps there would have been no confusion for Olafur (or at least
none after researching in MW unabridged) had Paul's comment, unrelated
to the message content, started like this "[META-TEXT: ....]" or
"[META-COMMENT:...]". Simply leaving out the word "text" or "comment"
was a short form, since "meta-" - outside of, with a step away from,
the original content  was the important aspect. **Kitty]


Clearly, the meanings of "beyond" and "transcending" are closely
related to that of "of a higher logical type" and all those are also
related to "above" or "outside of", which I also think of when I use
the term "meta-". Note also the description "of a higher logical
type", as dealing "critically (and analytically) with the nature,
structure, or behavior of the original" - "the original" being the
subject matter described by the noun that is prefixed with "meta-"
(generally a hyphen after a prefixed modifier gets dropped once the
word combination has been in usage for a long enough time). So in that
sense one can think of "form" being "meta-" with respect to "content"
- ie. form = meta-content. Similarly in describing language one could
(and should) think of syntax (with grammar as a subset) as being a
meta-language concept - it describes and enables analysis of the
structure of the language elements. This is just as metamathematics is
the study of the form and structure of mathematics - a branch of the
philosophy of mathematics. Actually, meta subjects are generally
always part of the philosophy ("study of") the respective subject from
an outside, "distanced" and logically separated position.

Alright then, so how does the meaning "occurring later" relate to what
I have just described? The answer is that one cannot study the form
and structure of subject A unless subject A already exists! Thus,
meta-subjects must come after (wrt time) the subjects they study. Even
from a logical point of view, A must exist at some logical level,
before one can even imagine looking at A from outside or above at a
"higher" logical level.

However, I regard the meanings of 1.b., 1.c. (the later with the
meaning of "more highly organized") and 1.d. as distortions and I do
not use them except if I need to use a word that has already
incorporated them. OTOH, even though I don't use the meanings given in
2.a. and 2.b. above, I can understand how they came about since change
and transformation can only come *after* the initial existence of what
is changing or transforming. Also since some metamorphoses (as a
caterpillar to a moth) are so total in character, it is reasonable
that the originators of that usage thought of it as an above and
beyond, change of state, type of situation.

I will now examine and analyze some usages of the meta prefix.

At the beginning of the NSC, I define: "Meta-Realities are disjoint
sets of Elements that are necessary in order to describe, communicate,
Control and alter the Elements of Reality." This usage is taken
directly from that of "metaphysics" meaning "analysis of the relations
obtaining between the underlying reality and its manifestations" (here
"physics" is used in the original meaning of everything relating to
reality, rather than meaning a specific branch of the sciences) and
"metamathematics" meaning "the analysis of the meaning and
relationship of such mathematical concepts as "function", "variable",
"real number, etc, which form the elements of all mathematics".

In the paragraph at:
http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.html#ref14 of the
essay on Social Meta-Needs, is the sentence:
"I define the term Meta-Needs as the class of those Environmental
conditions without which it is impossible to obtain the more direct
and immediate requirements for the normal functioning of the life-form
- ie. they are above and prior to (Meta) direct and immediate life needs."
My use of the word "prior" in the above may have been confusing to
some because it appears to be in direct conflict with the meaning of
meta as "occurring later". The confusion arises because, while the
"occurring later" relates to time, the usages of "prior" or "before"
relates more to understanding, logical analysis and fundamental
nature. In that sense metaphysics can be seen as prior to any attempt
to operate in reality because one cannot do well that of which one
does not understand the fundamentals. And similarly with
metamathematics - if one does not understand the meaning and
relationship of the elements of mathematics, then one will not be very
good at mathematics. It should be seen that this is true of any
subject - if you don't understand what you are talking about, then
your talking is of little value. So in that sense, meta-needs form the
grounding upon which any understanding of obtaining more direct needs
must rely.

With regard to the field of medical sciences one finds many "meta-analyses"
of previously conducted clinical trials. Clearly these analyses come
later and are "above" in the sense of being an overviewing and combining
of data and/or results from the whole set of specific trials that fall
into the category being analyzed.

Well, I think that is enough for now. If anyone has other usages of
"meta", that they would like me to help them analyze, then please bring
them up here.

One last thought. The prefix "meta" should not be confused with the
phrase "a priori", which has the following meanings given in the
Merriam-Webster Online Unabridged Dictionary:

Function: adverb
Etymology: Latin, literally, from the former
1 : by reasoning from definitions formed or principles assumed : DEDUCTIVELY
2 : without examination or analysis : PRESUMPTIVELY
3 : independently or[sic] experience : INTUITIVELY

META: As written the above meaning, 3, makes no sense. I have
contacted Merriam-Webster to suggest that it should read
"independently of experience". /META

It should be clear that meanings 2 and 3 are useless activities and
should never be pursued. However, even meaning 1 cannot stand in a
vacuum before anything else. Rather, there must be some abstraction of
properties, characteristics or essences from some other domain about
which one is then making definitions and stating principles relating
those definitions, all for the purpose of reasoning about those
abstractions within a realm absent and devoid from all their
potentially confusing and distracting other characteristics left
behind. This is precisely what is done in mathematics.

Think of simple arithmetic. One examines reality and sees that, while
no two elements of reality are ever identical, nevertheless, one can
see that such things as apples have certain common characteristics and
they can then reasonably be thought of a equivalent to one another
with respect to those characteristics - the wholeness of each being
the simplest characteristic of the individual apple and the number of
apples sitting in a group being the simplest possible characteristic
of that group. So one abstracts this idea of number from the reality
of just what things are being enumerated and, behold! - one gets the
metalanguage called arithmetic!

It is at this point that one can apply the term "a priori" to
something that is a definition of "number", some methods of operating
with numbers and relating them to each other; the principles (or
axioms) that govern these definitions and manipulations; and the
results obtained from them. Once that is done, the deductive method may
produce some result that was not apparent from a direct examination of
the underlying reality of the abstraction and such a result (prediction)
can then be tested for its validity in the underlying reality. If it
fails then the principles applied to the abstracted entities simply do
not apply to the underlying reality (the model is not valid). If it
succeeds then something important and beneficial has been achieved.
Such testing must continually be done in order to revalidate the model
as more information about reality is discovered. This is precisely how
the Newtonian model of physical reality was shown to be not valid in
certain areas of values of the underlying variables and was replaced
by relativity theory on the one hand and quantum theory on the other.

[snip of additional text related to the message subject - response
separated]

--Paul

[Reading through parts of Paul's explanation above may require more
than 1 reading for understanding - it did for me with the very last,
but now it is clear. But making it simpler - "dumbing it down" - will
eliminate the essentials for true understanding of the concept. It is
"dumbing down" that occurs in virtually all educational institutions
rather than assistance for individuals in expanding their mental
abilities, learning how to assess from their observations and
experiences. Prior to university, the main reason is the compulsion
factor (attendance laws); at the university it is generally either
assumed that this skill has been learned or that it is unnecessary.

All too often students in S-chools (as John Holt refers to formal,
compulsory schools) are taught primarily by way of examples and
analogies, never learning to generalize. It is like learning only that
2+2=4 and 10+10=20 and 500+500=1000 but never understanding that
a+a=2a.

At MoreLife Yahoo, readers are challenged to think by me and Paul, and
indirectly also by some of the posts from others. I and Paul do not
think that "dumbing down" material is helpful in the wide view long
term. This does not mean that we use jargon or phrasing to confuse or
impress. So if something either of us has written still does not
become clear after 2 or 3 readings, and possibly some reference to
another item we've written and/or a good dictionary, feel free to post
a message asking for clarification. **Kitty]

Referring to Hoodia Gordonii Paul emailed me the following question
the other day:


"Hi Olafur,

This is available from LEF and I was thinking of taking it on at least
the afternoon of our fasting day to prevent mental fatigue.
See http://pmid.us/15312781 for its likely method of action.
I would appreciate your work to help me decide whether this would be
negative in any important manner, particularly whether it might simply
act to reduce some of the benefits that I am hoping to gain from the
fasting (like for example, autophagy).

--Paul

PS. If you do this work, then of course you are free to post the
results along with my question to any place you want."


I told Paul I would look into it. For others to benefit (also for me
actually since I learn from writing things down and teaching others) I
have decided to post a summary of my research here along with some
additional information. So here goes.

Hoodia gordonii is a supplement that is claimed to have appetite
suppressing properties. A steroidal glycoside has been isolated from
Hoodia Gordonii that is proposed to be the active compound responsible
for the anorectic effects. This compound has been termed P57AS3 or
P57. When injected intracerebroventrically in rats it has been shown
to result in considerable reduction in food intake
http://pmid.us/15312781 . In that same study incubation of p57 in
vitro was shown to result in increased ATP content in the hypothalamic
brain culture of rats. Furthermore in rats maintained on an ad libidum
diet intracerebroventricular injection of P57 increased ATP content in
the hypothalamus. In rats maintained on a hypocaloric diet for 4 days
hypothalamic ATP levels were found to be reduced, which is to be
expected, but the effect was reversed with intracerebroventricular
injection of P57. It is worth mentioning that in contrast to the
hypothalamus, ATP content in the cortex and cerebellum was not reduced
by the 4 day hypocaloric diet.

Now it is clear from the above that P57 may possibly increase ATP
levels in the hypothalamus. Whether this occurs in humans upon
ingestion of Hoodia has yet to be determined for sure. IMO it is
likely that this occurs in humans upon ingestion of Hoodia since this
would provide a reasonable explanation for the appetite suppressing
effects reported from Hoodia ingestion. It is well known that the
hypothalamus plays a large role in regulation of appetite in humans.
Hypothalamic AMPK in particular has been shown to play a role in
appetite regulation http://pmid.us/18725075 . AMPK acts as a fuel
sensor in cells. It is activated by a fall in the ATP:AMP ratio within
the cell. A decrease in cellular ATP levels will reasonably decrease
the ATP:AMP ratio in the cell causing an increase in cellular AMPK.
This signals a shortage of energy in the cell, in this case a shortage
of ATP the main energy currency in cells. Conversely anything that
increases cellular ATP will generally cause a reduction in AMPK,
signaling that energy in the cell is abundant. Ingestion of food f.ex.
causes increased production of ATP in hypothalamic cells, as does
insulin, glucose and leptin all of which generally increase upon
ingestion of food http://pmid.us/15806319 . This increase in ATP
increases the ATP:AMP ratio causing a reduction AMPK. Such a reduction
in hypothalamic cells provides a signal to the brain that food is
abundant and causes suppression of appetite. Hoodia, if it does indeed
increase hypothalamic ATP levels in humans should send the same
satiating signal to the brain. Assuming Hoodia actually increases
hypothalamic ATP in humans upon ingestion the question becomes, is
this beneficial? Obviously if the person is having trouble losing
weight the appetite suppressing effect can prove to be very
beneficial, but is there any harm involved? I don't have a clear
answer either way but here are some potential ways Hoodia might be
harmful.

1) The reduction in AMPK caused by Hoodia might reduce some of the
benefits of calorie restriction. AMPK is generally activated by
calorie restriction and probably plays a role in some of the benefits
of calorie restriction. Activation of AMPK also has several benefits
for life extension. Among others it is required for autophagy (it
inhibits mTOR) http://pmid.us/16990266 , it has even been proposed to
be a strategy for slowing aging http://pmid.us/17307971 . Thus Hoodia
might negate some of the benefits of calorie restriction and fasting.
However any negative effects attributed to decreased AMPK levels upon
Hoodia ingestion are likely to be mostly confined to the hypothalamus.
As the authors of http://pmid.us715312781 propose, the effect of
Hoodia is likely to be local. Furthermore in that study, while 4 day
food restriction in rats reduced ATP content in the hypothalamus ATP
content in the cortex and cerebellum was not reduced by the
hypocaloric diet. Unfortunately the authors of that study did not
check whether Hoodia increased ATP content in the cortex and
cerebellum nor whether it did so in any other parts of the body. More
research needs to be done here.

2) Hoodia might cause harm by increasing energy expenditure. The
hypothalamus not only plays a major role in appetite regulation but
also in regulation of energy expenditure http://pmid.us715806319 .
Higher ATP levels in the hypothalamus, by reducing AMPK, can act as a
signal to the brain that the body has abundant energy stores and can
afford to increase energy expenditure. Intraperitoneal injection of
alpha lipoic acid to rats has been shown to decrease hypothalamic AMPK
phosphorylation http://pmid.us/15195087 . In that same study alpha
lipoic acid added to the diet of rats resulted in reduced food intake
and increased energy expenditure. Such an increase in energy
expenditure might cause an increase in free radical generation and
oxidative stress and by doing so have negative effects for life
extension. However the increase in energy expenditure was accompanied
with a significant upregulation of UCP-1 in brown adipose tissue,
indicating that the increased energy expenditure may have been in
large part caused by increased uncoupling. (It should be noted that
increased uncoupling increases energy expenditure "without* causing
free radical generation and oxidative stress.) If that is the case,
depending on how much of the increased energy expenditure was caused
by the increased UCP-1 expression, this might not be harmful at all.
First of all because, in contrast to rats, adult humans almost
completely lack brown adipose tissue so any increase in UCP-1 in brown
adipose tissue would have virtually no effect on the energy
expenditure in humans. Second of all because any increased energy
expenditure caused by increased uncoupling of oxidative
phosphorylation normally causes a reduction rather than an increase in
free radical generation. Based on this I don't think there is much
cause for concern with respect to Hoodia increasing energy expenditure
and oxidative stress, but obviously this needs to be researched more
before a definite conclusion can be drawn.

These are the main negative effects I could think of. On the other
hand Hoodia potentially also has one positive effect that bears
mentioning. As I mentioned before, AMPK acts as an energy sensor in
the hypothalamus. Apparently it plays a large role in glucose sensing
in the hypothalamus. Selective downregulation of AMPK in the
hypothalamus of rats has been shown to result in a reduction in the
glucagon and epinephrine response to acute hypoglycemia. This resulted
in a significant reduction in endogenous glucose production
http://pmid.us/17977955 . These results suggest that Hoodia might
potentially reduce blood glucose in the fasting state where
gluconeogenesis is a main source of blood glucose. Paul, based on this
Hoodia might very well reduce your moderately high fasting blood
glucose causing reduction in glycation. At least I think it's worth a
try to see if it has any effect.

In conclusion I think it is difficult to give an answer either way on
whether Hoodia will cause any harm. There are some ways in which
Hoodia might be harmful for life extension but more research needs to
be done to be sure. In any case my research suggests that most of the
potential negative effects, if confirmed, will be confined to the
hypothalamus. The rest of the brain and the body is less likely to be
negatively effected by Hoodia.

Paul, I am not sure where you got the idea that Hoodia might help
prevent mental fatigue, I did not come across any research suggesting
it helps in that respect. However it is reasonable that it could help
reduce mental fatigue by increasing ATP levels in the brain. But it
has only been shown to do so in the hypothalamus not the cortex where
logical thinking takes place. My suggestion to you is that you try it
out and if you notice a significant decrease in mental fatigue I would
keep taking it. My reasoning here is that in the long run keeping your
mental abilities in top shape is more important for life extension
than the minor negative effects Hoodia might have. I also think it's a
good idea to try and see if it causes any reduction in your fasting
blood glucose. But if you don't notice any mental benefits from taking
it and it has no noticeable effects on your fasting blood glucose I
would not take it because of the potential negative effects it may have.

[Thanks for your response. The "mental fatigue" that I referred to was
related less to thinking than to ability to focus and concentrate,
which tends to wane a little for me on the evening of our fasting
days. I figured that anything that increases ATP anywhere in brain
might help. But since I have now just begun to use Hoodia, I will soon
see if there is a difference. BTW, the use of a large dose of creatine
with our no-food supplements at about 6pm on that fasting day, did not
seem to help my loss of ability to concentrate and focus later in the
evening. --Paul]