How do I know I am a living system?
This is a funny question to me, because I was once upon a time married to another Scorpio gothic magician, and one of our favorite things to say was, “Our love is dead already. We’re dead already,” in some pre-homage to the inevitable End. Since the End is Inevitable (in our lives, our love, or both), we celebrated our dead-ness atemporally! We found ourselves in a kind of liberative artistic bardo where “being” became more important than “doing.” The dead don’t have to do anything at all, and yet, in this state non-doing, everything necessary is done.
If physical matter is an illusion like the Buddhists say, and there exists more space between sub-atomic particles than matter, perhaps much more of what we see in this physical world is an illusion and we- unlike Schroedinger’s cat- are both alive and dead in the poetic dimension, biophysical functions aside. But is exactly our biophysical functions that let us know we’re alive!
Living people have so many requirements for what we must do to survive in the world, not to mention the social constrictions manipulated upon us by the expectation of the “Other,” debunkt authority, close-minded and loud-mouthed rednecks, and all the mundane practical activities to sustain a complex bio-physical human body miracle, etc. To be dead already is to have surrendered to ego-death before you die, and then you really realize that you are not your body, and other peoples’ opinions of you matter way less than your ability to own that moment in a small fraction of space and time that you will never see again. You are at peace with the constant change that is the death of every moment and every expectation of a predictable future.
Ego-death spiritual diatribes aside, unless I am naïve to the non-existent eating habits of certain exotic insects that live off air and fucking, I know I am a living being because I require a constant input of food to create energy to function. Corpses have the luxury of not needing 3 meals a day. I sometimes feel eating is such a waste of precious time I could be devoting to less mundane and more existentionally delicious matters.
But I digress, other laymen and scientists might say we know we are living systems because we move, have a carbon-based molecular chemical composition, are capable of reproducing. Sometimes when I menstruate, I feel like I am living and dying all at the same time.
Biophysics and Oriental Medicine
According to Wikipedia, “Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that uses the methods of physical science to study biological systems.” That is exactly what acupuncture is based upon: methods of physical science to study biological systems, with the addition of some mystical wisdom of sages who surmise the biological basis of your dreams. For instance, “When the heart is weak, one dreams of fires. If the dream takes place in summertime, one dreams of volcanic eruptions.” This is one of the mystical/psychological- even Jungian- sides of Oriental medicine that is not based on biophysics.
Most importantly, Chinese medicine looks at the physiological functions and interrelations between organs, meridians, points, etc., to gain a holistic view at how we biologically function. Research has been conducted as to the physical properties of points and channels and the cellular effects of acupuncture in an article called, “The Biophysics of Acupuncture: Emerging Patterns From Selected Studies.”
1. Richard F. Hobbs III. Medical Acupuncture. December 2009, 21(4): 251-256. doi:10.1089/acu.2009.0710.
like the menstral comment and there is alot of living and dying simultaneously going on here, whih is a way interesting concept to me, being alive, and going into the underworld to experience the Shaman s death, the death of the ego ~ Cool !
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