Tradition: Ancestral Health Symposium and Johns Hopkins Medicine

Tradition.

The importance of tradition has grown on me (by osmosis, seemingly).

For instance, memorable traditions during my Jesuit education for high school shaped my personal development tremendously, thankfully.



Similarly, this past weekend, I attended Second Look Weekend at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. As part of this traditional celebration for admitted students, current medical students create a memorable video about Hopkins Medicine:



The Hopkins Medicine tradition of uniting the triad of Research, Teaching, and Patient Care serves as the model for modern medical investigating, training, and healing.

Hopkins Medicine: Research, Teaching, and Patient Care

Hopefully, the Ancestral Health Symposium will blossom into a new tradition based upon respect for old dynamics (to start, the term "paleo" translates as "older or ancient"):

Ancestral Health Symposium (graphic design credit to Sarah Rebich)

Cross-pollinating the Jesuit and Hopkins traditions, Dr. Ben Carson of Johns Hopkins delivered a memorable presentation to students at the Cristo Rey Jesuit high school in Baltimore (thx2BGeremia):



To good health (traditions),

Brent

Self-Experimentation with Story Systems

I am not you, and you are not me, but together we can self-experiment with shared stories in synergy.

And we can even self-experiment with non-shared stories and still stumble upon peace.

Self-experimentation with Story Systems is, I suspect, foundational to the process of deducing a m=1 personal my-thology. If we define a Story System (thx2DL) as the conjectures, thoughts, values, beliefs, et al. that guide our actions (of course, our actions feedback and also guide our reflections)--and a value is not a value unless it translates into real-world behaviors on the ground--then, at any given time, each person holds a portfolio of ideas about the human condition.

From this perspective emerges the following question: How should we invest our intellectual and spiritual energy and capacity?

To start, we don't have to believe in everything; we needn't spread ourselves too thin while thinkering.

We don't even need to study everything--that's impractical; it's simply not feasible.

Instead, perhaps we need to find peace with a finite number of conjectures (at any given point in time; this quantity will surely evolve across time) that we've tested in our lives; those threads of cognition and emotion that are yet-to-be-falsified. For instance, if I were a Christian--which I am--then I would evaluate the values presented in and the tenets communicated through Jesus' teachings--which I try my best to do. Christianity is part of me; it's part of my Ancestry; it's part of my family; it's foundational to my m=1 personal my-thology.

And that brings me peace.

Hopefully, the developing Ancestry mythology will be an ever-evolving Story System composed of a diversified portfolio of stories told by the voices of numerous folks. However, while participating in this community, each person, personally, does not need to subscribe to all other people's stories--our individualized Story Systems can work well with respect for limits and constraints; as long as those Systems are not dishonest, are not unjust.

Thus, self-experimentation with Story Systems might operate best under Nassim Taleb's asymmetric, non-linear Barbell model for portfolios: Hold tight to your yet-to-be-falsified my-thologies (which includes the principles of Christianity in my specific Patient of One case) with 80-90% of your spiritual and intellectual energy, and then diversify the remainder of your wisdom investment options into the tales that span space and time throughout human history.

Perhaps, even compose some new ones too.

That's the spirit of what I try to do.

Essays are the fruit.

But I seldom actually eat fruit.

I digest fructose poorly; I think.

And that's OK.

Because I'm at peace.

To good health,

Brent

Empirical Foundation: Digestion

I respect the complexities of human biochemistry; the intricacies of our diverse digestive processes.

Stephen Colbert trusts his gut principally; this seems wise to me, particularly when it comes to figuring out this business of eating and drinking--the craft of fueling our bodies with building block dietary pieces.

Personally, I suspect an empirical foundation built on digestion provides the safest approach to avoiding The Problem of Induction in nutritional affairs. If your body digests a food or a drink well, then I suspect this input will translate into healthy outputs in the form of functional organs and robust physiological systems. Conversely, if your body digests a food or a drink poorly, then I suspect this input will translate into unhealthy outputs in the form of malfunctioning organs and fragile physiological systems (gluten did this for me). Under this self-experimental model for nutritional bricolage, a Patient of One could monitor digestion closely to determine whether certain dietary inputs should be eliminated from his/her "Safe to Consume (and Enjoy)" list. This form of toxin avoidance would allow each individual to derive a personalized paradigm readily.

However, when it comes to conducting this type of negative empiricism thinkering, not all starting points are created equal in terms of strategy and safety. Thanks to evolutionary history, human digestive systems have falsified numerous dietary inputs already. Also, human digestive systems have changed over time in important ways. For instance, throughout human ancestry, an inverse relationship between cognitive neuronal processing ability and gut efficacy has played out: Human beings' cognitive processing ceilings have increased markedly as our digestive systems have become more effective thanks to adaptations involving meat eating, cooking, fermenting, and other technologies. As digestion has improved--as our bodies have become more adept at breaking down and then assimilating foods and drinks into the creation of cells and tissues--our abilities to process information and to think have advanced profoundly (though, we clearly are facing challenges collectively currently).

In this light, I hypothesize that we can protect the human condition in this manner by continuing to respect digestion empirically. When digestion runs well, our neurological systems can then outsource neuronal circuitry to other activities like the arts, the sciences, and the other creative behaviors that we find fulfilling, including engaging in interpersonal interactions with our families, friends, and colleagues.

Finally, given the fundamental reality that our digestive systems operate symbiotically with non-human micro-organisms, understanding how to establish gut flora harmony seems promising. On this front, I recently employed this approach by conducting a self experiment: I compared my body's responses to lactose-free cow milk kefir and goat milk kefir. Results: I responded best to goat milk kefir, suggesting that the protein and lipid composition differences between cow and goat milk might interact with my body differentially. Commonly, people who cannot digest cow milk products are able to do well on goat milk alternatives. Perhaps even more commonly, many people fail to digest any type of dairy properly, meaning they should eliminate these items from their dietary paradigms completely.

Our guts have lots to say; it's up to us to listen to them gracefully.

To good (gut) health,

Brent