Monday, November 11, 2013

The Fall of Man?


 "…but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."         ~Genesis 2:17

 Ok…I’m sure you guys have heard the story.
Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating an apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

(Although I read the other day there were no apples in the Middle East at that time, but, nonetheless, they had fallen…maybe I’m being too literal?)
As Christians come to interpret this “transgression,” it represents an “original sin” through which not only human beings, but all of Gods creations fall out of the right relationship with God. So, despite Gods creative grace, despite the work God does to draw us to him, we have separated ourselves and continue to resist God.

So…that’s the story.

Let me ask you a few questions…
~ Is the story about Adam and Eve a literal story about the “fall” of man?

~Is the fall about a moment of corruption that enslaves mankind into sin…forever?
Or

~ Is the Adam and Eve story poetic hyperbole about the “ascension” of human consciousness?
~ Could the fall represent the moment of enlightenment that man realized the conundrum of good and evil that presides within all of us?

Saint Paul once proposed that we are divided between what he calls “old man” and the “new man,” between the law of God and the law of sin.
This dilemma was eloquently expressed in Paul’s writing to the Romans…

“For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.” Romans 7:15-20
What if Paul’s dilemma could be explained?

 What if the fall and ascension… good and evil…God and Devil…Yin and Yang could be explained through the narrative of neurology?
Consider this…

What if the “old man” Paul speaks of is an ancient area of our brain (limbic system) that has ironically led to the successful evolution of our species. The “old man” is our instinctive emotions (i.e. sinful nature) that we have inherited from a much more dangerous world… a dangerous world which favored species that had a strong biological drive to procreate, murder, consume, and steal. These “sinful traits” were all essential in the harsh evolutionary world from which we arose.

The “new man” Paul speaks of is an area of our brain (neo-cortex “New Brain”) that has brought awareness and revealed the conscious creature that we have become today.
This merging of the “old man” and the “new man” brings forth an “anxious sense of self” that is forged by two opposed and irreconcilable forces.  

Sigmund Freud once referred to these two forces as the, “The blind drives of biology and the moral constraints of society.”
So, I guess we’re back to my original question…

Is the “fall of man” a story about the fall of humanity?
Or

Is the “fall of man” a story about the ascension of human consciousness?
For me it’s a beautiful story about humanities rise from an instinctual beast to a conscious creature which becomes aware of the dichotomies that exist within us all.  It’s an awareness and appreciation of our ancestor’s daunting task on its way to becoming fully human.

I believe it’s time to advance the “fall of man” narrative into the twenty first century.  We need a greater understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself.

With this understanding, we can become a responsible, productive species that does not blame external forces, but understands the full consequences of our actions through the neurological narrative of rational thought and honest discourse. 

“We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man ... far too little. His psyche should be studied — because we are the origin of all coming evil”

                                                                                                                 ~C.G. Jung   

 

 

 

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Kelly's Allegory of the Gym


                "The traditional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking"
                                                                                                 ~John Kenneth Galbraith

 
(This blog has been plagiarized…I mean borrowed from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave)

Let’s suppose for a moment that a group of gym people have been together in a gym from birth. They have access to scientific literature, but choose to go with the tradition view from within their cult…I mean group.  
The cultish group… I mean gym people, are positioned so they can only see what their group is pushing…I mean selling. The products they advocate are Herbalife, Advocare, HCG, B-12 injections, shake weights, gut-be-gone, butt blasters,  skin wraps, detox juicers, and many “special workout programs.”

The gym people engage in what appears to us to be a game…cheering wildly and regarding the ones who can explain the efficacy of their product the best as the most reliable. Some even quote scripture as to suggest that God had a hand in their products creation.
This perspective is the only reality that the gym people know… what they are seeing is merely shadows of testimonials that rouse their emotions and expose their ignorance. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of the product by the skill of the snake oil salesman…I mean orator  

The story continues with one gym person breaking free from the gym. His eyes require time to adjust to the outside light. Once his vision comes into focus he is able to see the numerous scientific texts available regarding nutrition and exercise.

This is a moment of enlightenment.
Once enlightenment occurs, the gym member feels compelled to lead the other members from ignorance toward wisdom.

The gym person would feel a huge responsibility to go back to the others and try to explain that what they were seeing were mere illusions.
Unfortunately….Due to the brain washing…I mean conditioning these people have experienced their whole life, it will be almost impossible to understand what the enlightened gym person is trying to tell them.

In the end…we would rather have comfort than truth.

 
Plato's Allegory of the Cave… “Our sensorial perception of the world creates a false notion of reality. We are tricked into constructing a worldview and believing it to be the real thing. When it comes to understanding the nature of reality we are all shortsighted."

 

 

Monday, June 24, 2013

The Irony of Evolution


“The anxious sense of self is forged by two opposed and irreconcilable forces. The blind drives of biology and the moral constraints of society.”

                                                                                    Freud

 
The evolution of our brains may have been selected for tribal violence, rape, selfishness, gluttony, and other unethical behaviors such as strategies to propagate one’s genes without accountability…but in modernity, our collective well-being clearly depends on our opposing such natural tendencies that nature has selected for.

In the end, it is our responsibility to transcend these hard-wired evolutionary drives that once were necessary for survival in a much different world…

It is only through awareness, logic, and reason that we may be able to overcome the irony of our evolutionary condition and possibly save ourselves… from ourselves.

 
“We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man ... far too little. His psyche should be studied — because we are the origin of all coming evil.”

                                                                                                                     —C.G. Jung

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Dunning-Kruger Effect


                                             
                   "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”

                                                                                                                      ~Darwin

 “The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

 Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University conclude, "The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others".

 Reasoning errors aside, we know that people often acquire their beliefs about the world for reasons that are more emotional and social rather than intellectual discernment. Wishful thinking, self-serving bias, in-group loyalties, and self-deception can lead to enormous departures from the norm of rationality.
Most beliefs are evaluated against a background of other beliefs and often in the context of an ideology that a person shares with others. Consequently, people are rarely as open to revising their views as reason would seem to dictate.

On this front, the internet has simultaneously enabled two opposing influences on belief…On one hand it has reduced intellectual isolation by making it more difficult for people to remain ignorant of the diversity of opinions on any given subject. But, it has allowed bad ideals to multiply… as anyone with a computer and too much time on his hands can broadcast his misguided beliefs and often enough find an audience.   
So while knowledge is increasingly open-source, ignorance is too (The irony of knowledge).

It is also true that the less competent a person is in a given domain, the more he will tend to overestimate his abilities. This often produces an ugly fusion of confidence and ignorance that is very difficult to correct for. 
Conversely, those who are more knowledgeable about a subject tend to be acutely aware of the greater expertise of others. This creates a rather disjointed dialogue in public discourse…one that is generally on display whenever an exercise physiologist speaks with appropriate cautiousness about controversies in his field, or about the limits of his own understanding…while his opponents (TV fitness experts, medical weight loss experts, internet weight loss gurus, and celebrities who have lost weight) will often make wildly unjustified assertions about which diet plan or exercise program can be inserted into the space provided.

Thus… one often finds people with no scientific nutritional training speaking with apparent certainty about the nutritional implications of specific diets and weight loss products.
So, the question becomes…  “What should I believe, and why should I believe it?”

Believe a proposition because it is well supported by theory and evidence…believe it because it has been experimentally verified…believe it because a generation of smart people have tried their best to falsify it and failed…believe it because it is true.
This is the normal cognition as well as the basis of any scientific mission statement. As far as our understanding of nutrition is concerned…there are no “true” nutritional facts without scientific verification.

 
“We must pursue knowledge without any interference of our emotions. Only then will true knowledge manifest itself in reality”.

                                                                        What the bleep do we know?

 

                                                                                                                         

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Honey Badger


                                                
                      "A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes."

                                                                            ~Mahatma Ghandi

 The NFL Network had a program on that featured Deion Sanders interviewing Tyrann Mathieu (a.k.a. Honey Badger). Sanders asked Mathieu some very interesting questions regarding his alter ego.
Sanders: “So, who is the Honey Badger?”

Mathieu: “The Honey Badger is that man on the field. He’s wild. He’s flying around hitting people.”
Sanders: “What about off the field?”

Mathieu: “Man…he’s that guy wanting to go to the clubs…hanging out with the ladies…driving fine cars.
Sanders: So who’s Tyrann?

Mathieu: Tyrann is quite…laid back. Tyrann is the guy that tells the Honey Badger no, I don’t need to go out to the club…but the Honey Badger says, come on, let’s go.”
Does this conflict sound familiar?

Just like Tyrann, we all have an ongoing conversation among the different areas in our brain, each competing to control the single output of our behavior. As a result, we can accomplish these strange feats of arguing with ourselves, cursing at ourselves, and cajoling yourself to do something that we should or should not do.
We can easily see this when it comes to food…

When the waitress at a restaurant offers chocolate cake, you find yourself on the edge of a dilemma…certain parts of your brain have evolved to crave the rich energy source of sugar, and the other parts care about the negative consequences, such as the health of your heart or the bulge of your butt.
Part of you (Honey Badger) wants to eat the cake, and part of you (Tyrann) tries to muster the discipline to forgo it. The final vote “to eat, or not to eat” determines which area of your brain controls your actions…that is, whether you put your hand out or up. In the end, you either eat the chocolate cake or you do not, but you cannot do both.

The Honey Badger is never gone.
Tyrann went on the say that the Honey Badger is gone…he’s no longer a part of him.

Make no mistake about it… The Honey Badger (a.k.a. Limbic area) is a part of all of us…it’s never gone.
The Honey Badger is our will…our drive…our desires. Ironically it brings the most pleasure, and unfortunately provides the most pain.

Tyrann is the executive director of our behavior…making decisions that are in our best interest.
Who’s in control in your life?

Honey Badger?
Tyrann?

 
“Some pleasures are not worth having because they lead to greater pains, and some pains are worthwhile when they lead to greater pleasures. The best strategy for attaining a maximal amount of pleasure overall is not to seek instant gratification but to work out a sensible long term policy”

                                                                                    ~Epicurus

Friday, April 19, 2013

Post Workout Nutrition



                 “Why we do what we do is speculative. How we get in shape is science”

                                                                                                ~Me J

Replenishing muscle glycogen stores after exercise is beneficial for recovery and enhancing the effects of resistance training for all athletes… male or female. Glycogen repletion occurs faster after immediately after exercise because of the elevation of insulin, testosterone, and growth hormone in the blood stream.  

The muscle cells are more likely to uptake glucose and are more sensitive to the effects of insulin (the hormone that takes sugar out of the blood and into muscle), which promotes glycogen synthesis. With this in mind, its best to drink a shake within 30-45 minutes post-workout window to maximize glycogen storage.   

Carbohydrates are a must as well…you should have 0.5 grams of carbohydrates per lb. of body weight. An athlete who weighs 150 pounds, for example, should eat 75 grams of carbs right after training…this should be a shake composed of 1 banana in addition to the carbs within the meal replacement/protein type shake.

Proteins can also enhance glycogen replacement after hard exercise and promoting muscle synthesis. The elevation of testosterone and Growth hormone will provide a faster transportation of protein to the damage tissue to aid in the repairing process.

A winning combination should include 1 gram of protein for every three grams of carbohydrates. Remember…it’s also beneficial to eat well throughout the day, but post-exercise refueling is a crucial for muscle recovery, growth and repair.

Monday, January 14, 2013

New Year...Same Strategy


“The world we have made as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them” ~ Einstein

 Eat less…workout more.
How many times will we attempt this misguided formula? It didn’t work in the past, why would you think this time would be different?

Let’s look at “eating less and exercising more” in the context of food as fuel.  If food fuels the body, can you see how “eating less and exercising more” presents a problem?
(Decreasing the fuel supply while increasing the demand creates a deficit)

You put in less fuel, and drive the motor harder than ever. That’s like running your car twice as fast, twice as hard and expecting to put in less gasoline. It doesn’t make much sense, does it?
What American dieters have always assumed is that fat will conveniently and completely fill in that gap. You deprive your body of fuel with the thought that if you create a void, the body will automatically choose fat to fill it. Then, according to this reasoning, you’ll lose “pounds”…right?

There’s just one problem with that…it’s not what happens. Fat can’t pay back the deficit you create by “eating less and exercising more,” because the body doesn’t run on fat alone. Carbohydrates are the human body’s primary source of fuel…the immediate source of energy we use to fuel our activities and most of the work of our cells. The body must always have glucose…the carbohydrate found in your bloodstream at all times, and virtually no fat can be turned into glucose.
Ideally, your body makes glucose out of food…carbohydrate food. But it’s common to cut out food, thinking that’s the key to “thin.” Perhaps you’re on a weight loss diet that restricts carbohydrates (as most do). Or else you’re too busy. You don’t have time for food, you forget.

So where does your body get glucose if you’re not providing it? If you don’t eat enough carbs-whether purposely or thoughtlessly-your body manufactures carbs for fuel by using existing materials…but not the materials you may have always assumed.
While your body cannot turn any significant amount of fat into glucose if you come up short, the system can make glucose by grabbing protein from your lean muscle tissue and converting it to carbohydrate (Gluconeogenesis). Your own muscle tissue is destroyed in order to replenish the too-low glucose supply.

This is a survival mechanism which is efficiently geared with numerous safety features to ensure that you stay alive. And since we’re designed to use glucose at all times, this is your body’s way of making glucose when you don’t keep it well supplied with the food to do it.
Now I can hear you say, “So what, I just want to lose weight. I don’t care if its muscle”

Destroying your own muscle for the purpose of creating glucose during a shortage is dangerous for several reasons…
~ One, your muscle obviously has a purpose. Your muscle mass is your strength…it supports your skeletal structure and protects your bones.

~ Two, burning muscle for fuel is inefficient and wasteful… It’s very toxic to your insides.  Because protein is nitrogen based, nitrogen is given off when muscle protein “burns,” leaving your body an unpleasant mess to deal with. Organs such as the kidneys and liver are unduly stressed as they are saddled with the task of safely processing and excreting these by-products.
~ Three, the heart is a muscle. You might hope your body has the good sense to save that muscle for last-and in fact it does, attacking the muscle tissue of the larger extremities first. However, people can do damage to heart-“muscle tissue” through constant dieting.

~ Four, along with loss of muscle comes the loss of other important body proteins. The antibodies that defend you against illness are proteins. Muscle contains enzymes designed to metabolize fats, which are lost when muscle is lost.
~ Five, it is impossible to break down fat without carbs-which diets usually restrict. Fat that breaks down without fuel from carbs does so incompletely, leaving more harmful by-products to join the poisonous leftovers of muscle/protein breakdown.

~ Six, if more than about one-fourth of weight is lost is muscle, and/or if the loss is very rapid, serious protein deficiency and electrolyte imbalances can create heart irregularities that could result in death.
Make sense? And to think…you could have avoided this entire process by including carbohydrates in your diet.

 "You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better” ~ Maya Angelou