{"id":2167,"date":"2011-06-14T21:03:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T02:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2167"},"modified":"2011-06-15T19:15:37","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T00:15:37","slug":"quandaries-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2167","title":{"rendered":"Quandaries of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago I wrote an entry here about \u201csocio-Aspergers Syndrome\u201d, using Wittgenstein’s concept of \u201cfamily resemblance\u201d as used to describe the approximate way that most words are defined in our language. I contrasted this to \u201cclinical autism\u201d (the classical \u201cKanner Syndrome\u201d version of autism, with its effects on communication skills, learning achievement, socialization, etc.). I believed that \u201ccore autism\u201d had a more strict, scientific definition.<\/p>\n

But a few days later I read an article on the Scientific American<\/a> web site about continuing research into autism and its genetic markers. Well, it turns out that there is no one \u201csmoking gun\u201d in the genes that determines autism. The genetic factors are in fact all over the place, with certain overlapping trends that cover maybe 20 to 30% of all autistics, but never a definitive set of genetic conditions common to all autistic people. So, even in the DNA realm, autism is a mixed-up fruit salad, a \u201cfamily resemblance\u201d thing. Oh well, just shows how wrong we all can be!<\/p>\n

[Unless the study was \u201cpolluted\u201d by the \u201cspectrum\u201d concept \u2013 i.e., if the researchers are not focusing on the \u201cclear cut\u201d cases, but instead are embracing the mish-mosh that autism has become under the spectrum ideal. If that is the case . . . then perhaps this just shows that I was correct!! I.e., that even on the genetic level, Aspergers Syndrome has a tenuous relationship to those \u201ccore autistics\u201d who cannot sustain themselves because of under-developed communication, intellectual and social coping skills. Maybe the geneticists need to stop listening to the therapists who want to sell the world on the notion that they can help every child with social interaction handicaps. I suspect that’s where all the fashionable \u201cspectrum\u201d thinking has come from.] <\/p>\n

NEXT OBSERVATION: I also read an article<\/a> the other day about rapamycin, the drug that is being hailed as the basis for a possible fountain of youth, a pill to slow the aging process. There have been animal studies that show that regular doses of rapamycin extend the average life-span of various critters. Some writers anticipate that this research will lead to drugs allowing us humans to live longer without all the fuss and bother of diet and exercise regimens. <\/p>\n

Well, I have my doubts. Rapamycin is used to suppress the body’s immune response in situations like organ transplants or autoimmune conditions. It makes sense that there would be less wear and tear on the body by turning down the immune system, which uses a lot of energy and does some damage to the cells in trying to protect the overall organism from external threats (and internal ones too, like mutations leading to cancer). The problem is, what happens when you need the immune system to stop a nasty virus or bacteria or a carcinogenic mutating chemical in your body. Those animals in the studies lived in clean labs, not out in the wild. I don’t think that rapamycin will lead to a fountain of youth after all; germs and other bad stuff running unchecked would most likely rob us of the extra years that an immuno-suppressant would otherwise allow. Can rapamycin research lead to a life-extending drug without the side-effect? Take away the immune suppression effect, and I’ll bet that you also take away the life-extension effect.<\/p>\n

There’s one other option being talked up for long life; but once again, there are undesirable consequences. That option is the near-starvation diet (or eventually, a pill that nearly starves the cells even if you gobble food down like a pig). Again, animal studies prove that eating just the bare minimum necessary for survival does something to the cells in the body that extends life span. The cost is the obvious need to severely discipline your eating habits; but again, maybe a pill will come along to make the cells believe they are short of nutrients even on a full stomach. Nonetheless, I suspect there would be another side-effect. When the body experiences food shortages, it would be trained by evolutionary programming to reduce its reproduction activity and increase cell maintenance, as to survive the bad times and have babies later on. If you do this all your life, you may live into your 90’s or whatever. But guess what? You probably won’t have the energy or desire to have sex. Bye bye, libido.<\/p>\n

And if the converse holds true \u2013 then living a life with much sexual gratification might encourage the cells to decay faster. Now that would be an interesting quandary, if it turned out to be true; lots of sexual pleasure tends to shortens your life, while going without sex helps to lengthen your life. So what will it be? Live longer or live sexier?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago I wrote an entry here about \u201csocio-Aspergers Syndrome\u201d, using Wittgenstein’s concept of \u201cfamily resemblance\u201d as used to describe the approximate way that most words are defined in our language. I contrasted this to \u201cclinical autism\u201d (the classical \u201cKanner Syndrome\u201d version of autism, with its effects on communication skills, learning achievement, socialization, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2167"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2169,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions\/2169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}