Week Ten---Life and Living Systems ....

I know I'm a "living system" because ....As suggested by the assignment 'question', the criteria for discerning a living system from a non-living system is rather personal, on the ground anyway. Our individual ethics are a strong factor. We go beyond the considerations of "living" vs. "nonliving" into the arena of deciding what kinds of life are as valuable or less valuable than our own. (It is a given that human life, especially ones own, is most precious.) For example, vegetarians generally consider animal life as valuable as human life; but what of plant life? ....In theory, my criteria of a "living system" is more than less a system that we, as living beings, can find some sense of identity with as far as "growth." A constant, dynamic state of being and becoming. There is an exchange between a being and their environment, and when this exchange is severed, comes death or its likeness. Attempts to over-generalize the criteria of "living" vs. "non-living systems" will result in blurs---drawing definitive lines is a challenge, if not impossible, but try we will. And this trying is some-kind-of-necessary---how else would we make sense of ourselves and this thing that we feebly attempt to cage into meaning, this thing we call life?

Biophysics and Oriental Medicine ....I get the sense that Biophysics is hard to define, even for those who are engaged in its study. But (I think) it can be said that Biophysics is an interdisciplinary study of biological sciences and physical sciences that looks deeply at the processes of living systems in quantifiable terms (hence the "physical" aspect). Molecules and macromolecules. Strings of DNA and fatty acid chains. In the bit of reading that I have done on Biophysics, one aspect in particular stands out to me---the concept of 'bio-electricity'---how individual molecules work together to initiate and carry out specific biological functions. The concept of bio-electricity in Western science seems akin to the concept of qi in Oriental Medicine---Life-force. Perhaps a key difference between bio-electricity and qi is that Western Biophysics requires physical, concrete evidence of it existence; but in Oriental Medicine, it is enough to feel qi, possess qi, know that qi exists because if it did not, there would be no life. At the end of the day, we are all experiencing the same phenomena but because of our respective cultural influences, we have our own names, definitions and paths that we use to map Wholeness.