#1497, Wednesday, August 26: Thinking about germs and consciousness

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Post 1497, Day 238 of 2015
- 1,699 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

I've been saying here, for a while, that consciousness is over-rated, and not even what we think it is. We (humans) do not seem to have self-awareness, at least not an accurate concept, of what we are.

This incomplete awareness is full of self-denial, in the sense that we have a limited view of what our selves are. We believe our selves are the individual thinking units that make up our life stories.

That is wrong, and the scientific evidence that it is wrong is mounting. Our selves are comprised not just of the parts our self-awareness tells us are there - our bodies and their constituent parts, and our thoughts/beliefs/feelings - but all the things we are not aware of, which are vastly greater than those we are.

A good example of this is the microbes we host - not just the gut bacteria, but the whole cellular structure that makes up our organs and biosystems, the tiny organic life our bodies are host to. We think of them as 'other', but they are an integral and influential part of what makes up a human being.

We are no more aware of this bacterial mass and its influence than we are of the complex electrical and biochemical signals and reactions, all the autonomic functions that are called into play whenever we move. Impossible for us to consciously coordinate all the activities that are involved in raising a hand, for instance (over two hundred and fifty muscles involved in doing that).

There are more different types (species?) of bacteria in every human (all plant and animal life, too) than that human has cells, and some multiple in numbers of bacteria. And we are influenced by them. Physical conditions and behavior patterns we thought were hereditary we now know are functions of the human biome.

Bacteria, have large, in some cases controlling, influence in the human biome (the entire mass of systems, organs and organisms that make up a human being). They seem to have particular influence on cell function, and have been implicated in immune function, digestive function and even - which shocked me - in our psychological and social functions.

And we are no more aware of them than we are of the electrical and biochemical processes that permit us to wave hello to someone.

They are also, very likely, important in defining what it is to be human. We are not 'just' what we perceive ourselves to be. We don't have the sense (multiply meanings) that lets us see the whole picture. We lack a wholistic view of the self.

So, we're bags of meat walking around with limited self-awareness, unaware of how we function in the larger picture, of our role in the terrestrial and extra-terrestrial ecology. Our consciousness isn't in complete control, and may not even have the majority vote in how and what we do.

That's just the 'ego' with a conceited idea of its role in our lives, because that is the part we use to describe our lives.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   207.2 lbs

Previous Weight (8/25):           206.8 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                + 0.4 lbs

Diet Comment

There is definitely some water weight contributing to today's weight gain. Yesterday I had the least water consumption in all the time I've been keeping track.

Food Log

Breakfast
A Quest bar.

Lunch
At Core:

Chicken Cobb salad (shredded kale and romaine, grilled chicken, avocado, bacon, hard-cooked egg, broccoli, cauliflower and bleu cheese dressing).

Snack 
A couple of Quest bars.

Dinner 
London broil with Pommery whole-seed mustard, and a Quest bar.

Snack 
A medium dish of soft-serve, twist.

Liquid Intake
   Espressos: 2;  Coffee: 24 oz.;  Water: 86+ oz.

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