| The Love-Health Relationship: | | | | scientific worldview itself, if that is the only way |
| Dr. Gray is the author of many books including | | | | to protect important spheres of experience that |
| the fabulously successful book Men are From | | | | have been ejected from science's confining Eden. |
| Mars, Women are From Venus. Another of his | | | | In response, scientists and philosophers who feel |
| books addresses how some people or one person | | | | strongly about the liberating potential of a spare, |
| in every group or organization including a family, | | | | materialistic worldview began to patrol the |
| will be what he calls a 'psychic drain'. There are | | | | borderlands between the high-grade knowledge |
| neurons that respond when a person acts a | | | | scientists have of natural systems and the |
| certain way and research on monkey brains in | | | | low-grade opinions that in the view of science's |
| 1996 showed some monkeys respond when they | | | | most ardent defenders, dominate other spheres |
| see another monkey doing something. This | | | | of culture and lead back toward the superstitious |
| empathic ability can be lost or damaged in human | | | | and authoritarian world of yester-year. |
| brains due to trauma such as lifelong or early life | | | | 'Demarcating' science from other, less cognitively |
| abuse. The loss of what can be called empathy | | | | worthwhile forms of understanding was already a |
| can also occur with lead poisoning and there are | | | | major feature of Darwin's world. A line beyond |
| researchers in medicine that some label | | | | which the Newtonian paradigm could not apply |
| 'environmental' medical practitioners while they | | | | was drawn at the boundary between physics and |
| emphasize the 'mental' part of the word, who say | | | | biology. We have seen how hesitant Darwin was |
| many if not most ailments are brought on or | | | | to cross that line and what happened when he did. |
| exacerbated through pollution and food additives | | | | Twentieth-century people are sometimes prone |
| or other things. Thus highly functional sociopaths | | | | to congratulate themselves for being above these |
| are often becoming our leaders while the decent | | | | quaint Victorian battles. They may have less |
| empaths become victims of society | | | | reason to do so, however, than they think, for |
| Education, Nutrition and A Personal LOVE of mine: | | | | the fact is that throughout our own century, the |
| Dave and I went together to T. G. I. Friday's at | | | | same sort of battles with emotional overtones no |
| Keystone at the Crossing on Indianapolis' north | | | | less charged, have been waged at the contested |
| side. I saw a beautiful blond woman across the | | | | line where biology meets psychology, and more |
| bar near the antique gas pump. It seemed that | | | | generally where the natural sciences confront the |
| she had a halo around her head. I saw no other | | | | human sciences. Dualisms between spirit and |
| woman and paid no attention to anything except | | | | matter, and even between the mind and body, |
| her. Dave and I went to stand near her and her | | | | may have been pushed to the margins of |
| friend. I was wearing my southern climate white | | | | respectable intellectual discourse. But |
| suit that women in Miami had thought I looked like | | | | methodological dualisms between what is covered |
| a member of the Miami Dolphins in after I had | | | | by laws and what is to be 'hermeneutically |
| bought it in Coral Gables. Sherry's sister had a | | | | appropriated' are still very much at the center of |
| friend named Rick Osney who years later said: | | | | our cultural, or rather 'two cultural', life. Cognitive |
| "So what do you do other than make cheap suits | | | | psychologists and neurophysiologists are even |
| look good?" He was a retail clothing specialist. | | | | now busy reducing mind-states to brain-states, |
| Sherry was most interested in Dave; she told me | | | | while interpretive or humanistic psychologists are |
| for months after, and the truth is Dave looked | | | | proclaiming how meaningless the world would be if |
| like a model and did some modeling and writing. I | | | | mind is nothing but brain. Interpretive |
| was so enchanted and enthusiastic that if it | | | | anthropologists are filled with horror at what |
| weren't for the fact that Sherry had just had a | | | | would disappear from the world if the rich cultural |
| partial mastectomy and needed a worshipful | | | | practices that seem to give meaning to our lives |
| admirer she would have blown me off very early, | | | | were to be shown to be little more than |
| if not instantly. | | | | extremely sophisticated calculations on the part of |
| I nattered on about all the success we were on | | | | self-interested genes. Conflicts of this sort would |
| the verge of achieving and the triplex we owned | | | | have given Darwin stomachaches almost as bad |
| in Toronto as well as my travels. Sherry saw that | | | | as the ones he endured over earlier demarcation |
| her friend was interested in Dave. Her name was | | | | controversies." |
| Sue Ann Blackwell. Sherry wasn't impressed by | | | | Hermeneuts is a new epithet for alchemists such |
| money or power but I guess the fact that I | | | | as myself who OBSERVE and try to fit ALL the |
| thought she was the most beautiful woman I had | | | | facts together and don't eject anything 'from |
| ever met or close to it, was a deciding factor in | | | | science's confining Eden'. |
| her agreeing to see me again. I had a policy about | | | | "The rhetorical pattern of these battles is still |
| making love within three dates over the previous | | | | depressingly similar, in fact, to Huxley's |
| four years or I thought it wasn't likely to become | | | | confrontation with Wilberforce. Hermeneuts ridicule |
| a real relationship. What stupidity, eh? The limited | | | | scientists like Hamilton, Dawkins, and Wilson when |
| time available in every city made this a little more | | | | they suggest that nothing was ever known about |
| justifiable than it sounds however. I remember | | | | social cooperation until biologists discovered kin |
| she went to her parents in Bloomington for | | | | selection. Reductionists in turn criticize hermeneuts, |
| Thanksgiving and having her prepare a simple | | | | now transformed largely into 'culturists', for |
| dinner at her place during one of our early dates. | | | | bringing back ghosts and gods, just as their |
| She is a Libran and over six years older than me. | | | | nineteenth-century predecessors were taxed with |
| Libran's have the classic hourglass figure that I | | | | being 'vitalists' every time they said something |
| love and their sign is a good fit with me. I felt | | | | about the complexity of development. Humanists |
| willing to marry her even before we made love. It | | | | identify scientists with an outdated materialistic |
| was a totally ecstatic time and my infatuation | | | | reductionism. Scientists insist that hermeneutical |
| was complete. With 60 hours towards her | | | | intentionality is little more than disguised religion. |
| doctorate in education and a very loving family | | | | Perhaps, a way out of this fruitless dialectic |
| that had enabled a globally conscious person that | | | | between the 'two cultures', can be found if each |
| oozed class, Sherry was my ideal. | | | | party could give up at least one of its cherished |
| There was a lot of conversation and I enjoyed | | | | preconceptions. It would be a good thing, for |
| her insights even if she didn't agree with me | | | | example, if heirs of the Enlightenment {Credited |
| about whatever it was we were debating. She | | | | to Bacon, Shakespeare, Jonson and others with |
| was open enough to hear my stories of psychic | | | | an alchemical background.} would stop thinking |
| things and question the science behind them and | | | | that if cultural phenomena are not reduced to |
| see the possibilities. I told her that I was afraid of | | | | some sort of mechanism, religious authoritarianism |
| doing anything to cause us not to be friends but I | | | | will immediately flood into the breach. They should |
| still spoke my mind. There was no policy of three | | | | also stop assuming that nothing is really known |
| dates and I was on cloud nine. She had to make | | | | about human beings until the spirit of reductionism |
| the first sexual moves. Her simple hamburger | | | | gets to work. Students of the human sciences |
| dinner was a disaster that we later laughed about | | | | have, after all, been learning things alongside |
| for years. Yet, despite the fact that she saw I | | | | scientists ever since modernity began. Among |
| was a sweet person with all the right motivations | | | | other things they have learned that humans are |
| she also feared the salesman in me. The truth | | | | individuated as persons within the bonds of |
| became apparent in a couple of years as Dave | | | | cultures and cultural roles, they are bound |
| developed a relationship with Sue Ann that he | | | | together with others in ways no less meaningful |
| was the real 'operator' and Sherry still would keep | | | | and valuable than the ways promoted by strongly |
| me at arms length other than sex. I wrote | | | | dualistic religions. By the same token, it would be |
| poems and bought roses on may occasions. | | | | helpful if advocates of the interpretive disciplines |
| Before I left Indianapolis for Philadelphia I had | | | | would. abandon a tacit assumption sometimes |
| made it clear I wanted to marry her. | | | | found among them that nature is so constituted |
| I lost 20 pounds in 19 days while taking vitamins | | | | that it can never accommodate the rich and |
| and eating my 1000 calorie two peanut butter | | | | meaningful cultural phenomena humanists are |
| sandwich diet. I was proud of my body and went | | | | dedicated to protecting, and that therefore |
| back to see her. I remember meeting her at | | | | cultural 'ought never' to be allowed to slip |
| Subway Sam's and having lunch. She told me that | | | | comfortably into naturalism. Humanists seem to |
| she couldn't see me anymore if I was going to | | | | have internalized this belief from their reductionist |
| talk about marriage. Ours was to be an 'open | | | | enemies, whose commitment to materialism is |
| relationship' and I felt the pangs of what other | | | | generally inseparable from their resolve to show |
| women that I had known must have felt. I | | | | up large parts of culture, especially religion, as |
| adjusted and we soon were sharing talk about | | | | illusions. These opponents, we may safely say, |
| our other 'friends'. In a year or so, it seemed we | | | | take in each other's laundry." |
| were hurting each other. I was making more | | | | I wonder if these authors and their reductivist |
| money and the business was doing well. I guess | | | | buddies are aware that all humanists are not |
| you could say I was a prime target for a lot of | | | | without the ability to incorporate hard physical |
| women who wanted wealth as part of the | | | | science to an even higher factual degree than |
| package. It became increasingly superficial and I | | | | they do. The quantum physicists like Wigner |
| trusted fewer people the richer I got. | | | | (Nobel laureate), Schrödinger and Heisenberg |
| Sherry had a couple of problems of a medical | | | | think that humanistic richness is robbed by |
| nature. Her hypoglycemia had been | | | | reductionist unspiritual thinking. The global reifying |
| miss-diagnosed and she had been given massive | | | | thrust of materialism (Dr. Boddy of U of T, |
| cortisone shots that I believe had contributed to | | | | anthropology) is hopefully, in due course, going to |
| the cancer that resulted in the partial | | | | return to a global deifying thrust of spiritualism. |
| mastectomy. Women are not treated as men are | | | | The only REALITY is NATURE and it assuredly |
| when it comes to medical treatment; as well as | | | | includes ALL observable facts not just the 'Toilet |
| every other aspect of misogyny in society. My | | | | Philosophy'. |
| studies of wholistics and hermetics were | | | | If I may be allowed to quote someone who tries |
| becoming quite extensive. I am going to quote | | | | to keep an 'open mind' and use WHATEVER |
| authors from quite different sides of the fence. | | | | WORKS even if it isn't 'modernity'. I choose to |
| David Depew and Bruce Weber of MIT wrote | | | | quote a wholistic doctor by the name of Zoltan |
| 'Darwinism Evolving' in 1995 and it says on pages | | | | Rona who has his M.D. and M. Sc. He edited the |
| 492 & 493: | | | | 'Encyclopedia of Natural Healing' in 1997 which says |
| "They also made it harder for the scientific | | | | on pages 33 and 34: |
| worldview to be received with equanimity by | | | | "It is misleading to call the natural health |
| other sources of culture. Indeed, since the | | | | movement 'alternative medicine' as is often done. |
| reducing impulse undermines fairly huge tracts of | | | | Natural Medicine is considered the founder of |
| experience, people like Wallace, who feel deeply | | | | contemporary Western medicine. What we now |
| about protecting phenomena they regard as | | | | call modern medicine is actually an aberration, the |
| existentially important, frequently conclude that | | | | result of social change at the dawn of |
| they have no alternative except to embrace | | | | industrialization in the eighteenth century. |
| spiritualism, and sometimes even to attack the | | | | |