Listening to a podcast the other day between a spiritual teacher Rupert Spiro and an older astronaut Ron Garan who had been in one of the early space craft's together with a couple of Russian astronauts. He had an epiphany in looking back at the earth from hundreds of km away and was 'broken open' by seeing this astonishing planet shining in all its colors within the vastness of space. His comments where ' how could anyone not be awed by planet earth' and why are we not seeing that we are all in this together...one planet and one species with many presentations but nevertheless all one together. His mission has been to spread this news of working together to make earth a more beautiful place to live on.
Makes wars sound pretty stupid doesn't it.
Why do experts see different realities
Each expert has a 'mind' set, a way of approaching reality, a different participation and focus. A conventional medical scientist uses reductionistic thinking (machine model) and has a deep background of biochemistry with which they approach reality of health and ill health. While they are not creating reality they nevertheless are steering their ship to highlight a particular corner of reality and at the same time with awareness or the light of consciousness bringing that particular aspect of reality into greater focus so that others can also begin to bring their awareness (light) to add to the presence of that particular viewpoint.
Doctors that believe that cholesterol is an important cause of heart disease and that statins are absolutely necessary to manage the cholesterol levels will keep adding to the narrative and highlighting this effect. Protocols are developed around this understanding and these become maps to guide doctors in the management of cardiovascular disease. The problem is that these are maps and not the territory.
Other doctors such as Integrative doctors bring the light of their awareness to focus on functional disturbances in the body such as mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, life style factors. They will tend to see things differently and focus on different aspects of the health-ill health reality. They create different maps.
Maps are incredibly useful. To drive a car one must first learn the technique and knowhow from books, then pass the test of your knowledge before even being allowed to drive. Going into a city for the first time, it is a good idea to examine the map first to get a feel of direction and where you want to go. In medicine potential doctors must first go to medical school and learn the maps of medicine. But as mentioned already, the map is not the territory. Young doctors after qualifying follow maps and protocols mapped out for them. New drivers follow what they have learnt but after some time just allow a deeper intelligence to drive for them ....that's working in the territory. Same with older doctors who have followed protocols and what they have learnt...over time they begin to trust their experience. That is the territory.
Protocols are maps and meant to be guidance only, when they become rules and regulations then they take away the freedom of doctors with experience to practice medicine in a creative way for that particular client. This is how AI becomes appealing for some doctors who love the maps and are a serious problem for other doctors who love the edge, the creative edge where the individual is recognized as a unique being without the box needs and expectations.
So here is key to understanding why even specialists in aspects of medicine can have such different views. Science does not reveal reality directly -- it creates maps based on how it measures and interacts with reality. Different maps show up as different realities. The tools one uses are 'filters' and can only measure part of reality which is reality filtered and therefore not reality as such. Different tools ...different faces of reality. Just as our own senses (eyes, ears, touch ect) are filters and can only see, hear ... parts of the whole within a certain specific range so all scientific tools do the same. Specialists 'decide' which tools they use and what 'evidence' they want to use. The narrower the range of their investigation the easier it is to find relevance that support their own hidden agenda. The broader their scope of reference the more relevant their findings are but also it can be more confusing. Statistics become a way of trying to make sense of the relevance of all the mapping.
Measurement reveal one aspect, never the whole. There is a kind of continuum in every situation such as the cholesterol controversy. The narrower the field of investigation the easier it is to make dogmatic statements. The more inclusive one goes to try and be more accurate the more diverse and even humble one becomes at the remarkable way the human being responds to a situation. This is why there is often such a disagreement amongst specialist.
As pointed out earlier, maps are fixed and protocols are for these fixed maps. Human beings are as varied as can possibly be. This is the territory and quantum science has explored this edge establishing consciousness as the ground of being, that the act of observation is a participation event and can influence outcomes. That understanding places the doctor-patient relationship right into the centre of healing. The territory is the reality and the participatory relationship is where the healing process is often initiated.
Conclusion
Living systems are not machine like at all. They are not even close to machines. The tools we use to investigate living systems reduce the system to what the limited tools can measure. Any decision based on these measurement will be limited. Not a waste of time or wrong but limited. Living systems have different 'layers' in which they function... matter-energy-information and body-emotions-mind-spirit. The conventional medical scientific model focuses on the matter level and even a very limited matter level focused mainly on physiology, leaving out most of the energetic aspects. This approach does not cover most of the 'greater anatomy' of what it means to be human.
It should be obvious from these ideas why it is that specialists can have such diverse views around what seems to be good science. That 'good' science is extremely limited when it comes to living systems. They are maps and not the territory which is rich in diversity, sacred in its depth and awesome in its responses to life.
Every diagnosis carries assumptions. Every prognosis carries probabilities. Every prediction carries limitations and within this space practitioners have to function, make a diagnosis and even prognosis. An enormous amount of humility is called for and yet arrogance often becomes the bypass. Scientific progress should increase our humility, not diminish it.
Practitioners are not merely applying techniques to a passive body, but participating in a living, responsive field. It is perhaps here that healing begins to move beyond purely mechanical models and into something that, while still lawful, can evoke a sense of awe at the depth of what we do not fully understand.
Late night musings
Nice to hear that the war between the USA and Iran are over for the moment anyway. Not really sure what the USA got out of it for starting the war. Feels like back to square one and no one is any richer. Just the ego's involved on both sides can make a story that works for them despite the fact that many people died along the way and life was made much more difficult for thousands of other.
For some reason it reminds me of diseases like cancer, which eventually destroys the body and the cancer is destroyed as well. Autoimmune diseases are also self destructive. Why would the body destroy itself. Is it a kind of suicide. People feel sorry for you rather than angry.
All wars whether inside the body or outside in the world are destructive and may have the same underlying cause.....an ego that loses contact with the whole and ends up destroying itself.
