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What our cells can teach us

Comments

  • Wow that's honestly ridicoulsy interesting.

    Assuming his Research was all legit, he really just prooved the possibility of reincarnation.
  • wow, thankyou very much for this link @taiyaki. This has confirmed a few things for me at least, and it also shows how science and spirituality are coming together in some areas. Or shall I say, certain sciences are catching up with spirituality :p

    This guy has spent so many years with cells, he sounds a little obsessed but in a good way lol. It obviously has had a profound effect on his life. I also never considered cells in the way he has depicted, this truely has opened up my mind a little more.
  • No problem guys. Spread the word. Its truly mind opening.
  • personperson Don't believe everything you think The liminal space Veteran
    Very interesting perspective.

    His view is very profound in moving beyong materialism and in seeing the interconnectedness of the world and the beings in it.

    He does however reify his experience into a form of a self and as such isn't really the Buddhist view but none-the-less a positive one.
  • NomaDBuddhaNomaDBuddha Scalpel wielder :) Bucharest Veteran
    Wow...takes what I learned at histology this semester into another realm or so.
  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
    I love this guy! I have seen a few of his interviews and skimmed a few of his books. I think he is definitely onto something!:)
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited February 2012
    He says identity continues after the physical body is gone, but that's incorrect. Identity, by his description, is the result of the interaction of the physical and the field. So both need to be present: the physical receptor (the body) and the information field in order to create identity. If a tree falls in the forest and there's no eardrum to pick up the vibrations, there is no sound.

    I don't see how he gets spirituality out of the existence of various energy fields.
  • edited February 2012
    I don't see how he gets spirituality out of the existence of various energy fields.
    I don't either, but I like the fact that he discusses the importance of the existence of a variety of fields in the environment, and their influence on living organisms. IMO this is a neglected area of science, at least in terms of bringing it to public attention and teaching it in schools. Field theory will eventually bring us to an understanding of many paranormal experiences. If the speaker can be a cheerleader for field theory, more power to him.

  • @Dakini ”Ananda, consider, for example, a person who suddenly stops up his ears with two fingers. Because the sense organ of hearing has become fatigued, a sound is heard in his head. However, both the ears and the fatigue originate in Bodhi.
    Monotony will produce the characteristic
    of fatigue. 3:32
    ”Because a sense of hearing is stimulated
    in the midst of the two false, defiling
    objects of movement and stillness, defiling
    appearances are taken in; this is called the
    nature of hearing. Apart from the two
    defiling objects of movement and stillness,
    this hearing is ultimately without
    substance. 3:33
    ”Thus, Ananda, you should know that
    hearing does not come from movement
    and stillness; nor does it come from the
    sense organ, nor is it produced from
    emptiness. 3:35
    ”Why? If it came from stillness, it would be
    extinguished when there is movement,
    and you would not hear movement. If it
    came from movement, then it would be
    extinguished when there is stillness, and
    you would not be aware of the stillness.
    3:35
    ”Suppose it came from the sense organ,
    which is obviously devoid of movement
    and stillness: a nature of hearing such as
    this would have no self nature. 3:36
    ”Suppose it came from emptiness:
    emptiness would then become hearing
    and would no longer be emptiness.
    Moreover, if it were emptiness itself which
    hears, what connection would it have with
    your entrance? 3:36
    ”Therefore, you should know that the ear
    entrance is empty and false, since it
    neither depends upon causes and
    conditions for existence, nor is
    spontaneous in nature. 3:37
  • DandelionDandelion London Veteran
    "So what really was the bottom-line conclusion is then, the identity of a cell is nothing programmed into the cell. The identity of the cell is some information that is picked up from the environment via these antennas called self-receptors." - quote from the transcript. This interests me... this 'identity of a cell is nothing programmed into the cell', it makes sense (to me) in terms of Buddhism... everything in the field is what (can) cause suffering. We are inherently empty (the cell), but we react to what he talks about as the field, but what we more commonly think of as 'life'? Although I get that he isn't looking at it from this perspective.
    Really interesting.
    Thanks!
  • The "Immortal" Life of "Henrietta Lacks"

    IF you have not heard of Henrietta Lacks, you should have. She may have already have saved your life or could do so in the future. She has certainly contributed to your wellbeing and that of hundreds of millions of people.

    Henrietta Lacks is responsible for great advances in numerous fields, from cosmetics to DNA research to space travel. She has helped build multi-billion dollar industries and corporations. Because of her countless millions of us live happier, healthier lives.

    But not everyone has benefited. Not the people Henrietta loved the most.

    By all accounts, the person Henrietta was would have been thrilled to have made such a contribution to humankind. She would have also been heartbroken to see that the huge impact she made barely benefited her family. Many of this American woman’s siblings, cousins and descendants suffered and died unnecessarily early because they did not get reasonable education and could not afford proper healthcare.

    Now here is the stuff of science fiction. Henrietta herself died young, and yet part of her physical body survived and survives still. The cancer cells that killed her where the first – and for many years the only – immortal human cells. These cells lived, thrived and multiplied at astounding rates. For the first time it became possible for the scientists around the world to conduct experiments on the same “person” with almost perfect control. This meant that discoveries could be shared. Science sprang forward.


    The cells that changed the world were called HeLa cells after Henrietta Lacks. Not that many scientist wondered or cared about the human that once housed the cells. For decades, those who did bother trying to find out thought the cells belonged to a fictitious woman, Helen Lane.

    The cells were harvested from Henrietta without her knowledge or consent. To this day hospitals are not required to ask or notify patients if removed cells, organs or body parts are kept. Henrietta’s were taken when she was dying in the only hospital for miles around that accepted black patients. It is doubtful that even there she was given timely treatment.

    Henrietta died and only then were the miraculous properties of the HeLa cells discovered. Bits of Henrietta would travel around the world and into space. They would be nuked, treated with new medicines or poisoned. They would become perhaps the single most important contribution to science of the 20th century. And her children would only learn about this decades after her death.

    http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Henrietta-Lacks-Immortal-Cells.html
  • personperson Don't believe everything you think The liminal space Veteran
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