Our body uses heat to fight pathogens, but not heat alone, as heat alone is not enough. Elevated
heat increases chemical reactions which enhances induced oxygen deprivation, acidity, increase in
digestive enzymes, toxicity and nutrient deprivation. All this is used to subdue
pathogens, although it affects the body as well.
To increase body temperature, the part of the brain measuring and controlling body temperature
sends a false reading to the body. The body parts are informed that the temperature is lower
than normal so the body starts shaking (and we may even feel cold) to increase the
temperature. That's how fever starts.
That's one interpretation. In the other, the brain is not deceiving the body, rather the brain
simply sets the thermostat to new value and the body obeys. But if there's no deception, why do
we feel cold? Deception may be here not to confuse the body or ourselves but to confuse the
pathogen. This deception is probably reflected in one kind of hysteresis - where the temperature
effect on pathogens is delayed. The hysteresis is particularly effective against pathogens
operating on short-term interests as it decreases their awareness of immune response, imprinting
on them an illusion of control and invincibility.
Deception is probably very common, in both, pathogens and immune systems. The only difference
may be in how conscious it is.
What is interesting about fever is that it is not localized - it affects the whole body. This is
not the case in a typical inflammation, where the immune response is localized.
There are several possible reasons for a non-localized response:
- inability to locate the pathogen,
- global pathogen presence (metastasis) or effect, which itself may require a prior relatively
prolonged deception of the immune system,
- lack of highly targeting mechanisms that would be effective against the pathogen,
- corruption of the immune system.
A global response is a risk but worth trying if the risk is lower for the cells of the body than
it is for the pathogen. The self-regulation correlated with immune systems is present on Earth surface and probably deep
below it as well.
Animals on Earth (including people) are dying with rising temperatures, combined with increasing
acidity (in the oceans, rainwater, soil), increasingly anoxic conditions, toxicity and nutrient
deprivation (hunger). And there is a strong hysteresis in the system, eg. most of heat is
buffered in the oceans and a lot of response is baked in (eg. ice melt, sea level rise) - scheduled
to occur gradually over time with occasional regime shifts and accelerations due to positive
feedback effects.
We all know who the pathogen is here, but the buffering of heat in the oceans tells us
explicitly that the pathogen is not in the ocean.
Earthquakes would be a signal of fever and I do argue, in my works, that these are on the
increase. Established science claims that apparent increase in earthquakes is not real - it is
the effect of increase in seismometry and reporting. But that's probably an imprinted
illusion, as part of the deception in the Earth's immune system.
Humans still refuse to admit that Earth is alive (that's probably what defines a
pathogen - inability to discriminate between a living being and a resource for exploitation) which
means they still don't realize they're being deceived.
So the news today are full of people dying of high temperature and heat waves, but no, it's not
the heat alone that's killing them, just like the heat alone is not killing any pathogen.
This reductionism, or fixation to a single factor (temperature, CO
2, etc.) is also
typical for a pathogen. But this is just the beginning. At some point humans will have to
acknowledge (for real, not in empty words) that the exploitation of holism is in the long-term
suicidal for any reductionism.
Are humans inherently destructive?
J. Bendell is his book
Breaking together (which I highly recommend) argues that humans
are not inherently destructive. He argues that in human history people were often acting as a
part of Earth's immune system - helping it thrive, not as a pathogen - helping it die. He claims
that it is the monetary system in place which is forcing people to be destructive and he claims
that this system has been forced on them by the elite. This system is based on debts to private
banks, which requires unlimited growth of the economy in order not to collapse. He neglects the
fact that people evolve - people of today are not the same as people of yesterday. Just like
healthy cells become corrupt and turn into cancer cells, people, over time, got corrupt and
became cancer. It is with this corruption that they've installed a system that ensures their
unlimited growth. The system in place is thus coupled with people in place. Yes, there's inequality
but the majority wants growth, no matter how much they have. The majority of people want or even
need such system in place. They might say otherwise but try to remove the things provided to
them by this system and see what happens. In case of polarized people (the majority), nothing
nice. But that's the other problem Bendell is not immune to - treatment of the whole of humanity
as single species. He provides examples where people today work quite nicely supporting or even
enhancing the ecosystem, rather then being destructive. He seems to believe that if the current
monetary system is removed or transformed accordingly, the majority of humanity would behave in
such way. Most likely, however, that's not true. People today who effectively are a part
of Earth's immune system
chose to be that way. Some chose to be that way once they've
realized that being a part of the installed monetary system implies destruction of the
planet. But most people don't even want to know anything about it. By now they do know very well
about the destruction, but they just don't want to be aware of it. This is why they happily chose
censorship of uncomfortable truths over change. They will only change their behavior by
force. Either by an authoritarian regime or nature, or a combination of both. And with each shift
of climate to a new regime, the systems in power will shift even more toward authoritarian
regimes. Since the elite has the power to outsource their problems, it is the people, not the
elite, who will be forced to change their lifestyle for the worse (through increasing
taxes, high inflation, etc.). This will be highly correlated with increasing rebellion and
destabilization of systems, which will ultimately fully collapse. Removal of the system by
force, however, will not remove corruption present in majority of people and, without it, they
will probably quickly install another one, which may be different in the beginning, but will
over time corrupt (probably more quickly than the previous one). In other words, transformation
of systems must be coupled with transformation of people in order to represent a permanent and
real change, rather than a short-term illusion.
Transformation is correlated with the climax of trauma. The bigger the trauma the higher is the
probability for more permanent transformation. But the bigger the trauma the higher is the possibility
for death as well.
A major extinction may be interpreted then as a filter, or a natural selection for survival of
those fit for transformation. In that context, one could say that some of us are or will be
the chosen
ones. It is my belief that, the sooner you choose to live differently, the greater is the
probability you are or will be
the chosen one.