Homeostasis- just another name for balance.

I’ve had a lot of responses to my article on death, most of them going to my e-mail rather than the comment section.

Most of them have been questions like- is this fiction? No
Are you kidding? No

And I've had a bunch of comments like this: I thought you were so healthy!
Well I am! If I wasn’t we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.
I know you are brain washed by the medical profession, but really guys, what do you think being healthy is?

Don’t kid yourself- You have 9 gazillion cells in your body ( actually, it's aprox. 70 trillion cells). It’s a very complex system. Do you think it’s always running perfectly in a ”healthy” person? Nope, it's not. At any moment there are dozens of things going wrong.

To begin with, Your cells are constantly dieing, and your body replaces them. In fact, 98% of the atoms in your body are replaced each year, the stomach lining replaces its cells every 15 minutes, the heart replaces its cells every 120 days and 8 million red blood cells are produced by the bone marrow every second.

Add to that the fact that invading bacteria and viruses are constantly replicating, and your cells are killing them in a never ending battle. Cells are mutating constantly and your body is destroying them. Your blood pressure and temperature are fluctuating and your system brings them back to normal. You add to much acid to your stomach, and your body neutralizes it. Your genetic code predisposes you to all kinda health problems, and , as you age, more genes are damaged. It never ends, something is always going wrong in your body.

IF your body is achieving balance or homeostasis, it does so because it’s healthy. A healthy body is one that takes cues from it's environment, adapts to stress (biological stress is called illness or injury), and returns to normal. If your body is healthy you do not need to add chemicals (drugs) to achieve this return to homeostasis.

At this point, my mind meandered on to artificial intelligence, and the similarities.

We started thinking of AI as a model of biological systems, but, because most people now days understand computers better than their own body, we can turn it around and look at the way biological systems (our bodies) are like AI.

AI was meant to be a “thinking machine”. It would be able to take a certain amount of information from it's memory and from the environment and calculate from there. This process meant that the AI would learn and grow on its own, and remain in balance.

Now, the thing is, it seems to me that AI is modeled not so much after the human mind, but after the body. The body is constantly taking information from the environment, processing it and making adaptations with in its self to achieve balance, or homeostasis.

If your body is healthy, it does this, even in the most stressful situations. With out the use of chemicals. Take the common cold for example. You have a response to invading bacteria that includes a fever, runny nose, coughing and sneezing. All of these symptoms are ways that the body fights bacteria. If you are healthy your body exhibits all these symptoms, overcomes the bacteria, then returns to normal in a day or two. Or, if you are not healthy, you have to dose yourself with lots of over the counter drugs, you suppress the symptoms, and it takes you forever to get well.

When I was in the hospital, I refused all drugs. My body had a serious malfunction, and it regained balance on its own. That’s what I call very healthy. Health doesn't mean never being sick. Health means being able to regain homeostasis, even after incredible stress, with out outside intervention.

Now, I'm going to take even better care ( more exercise, more rest) of my body, so it remains healthy. I hope you do the same, so when a serious malfunction in your biological system occurs, you are healthy enough to regain homeostasis, just like I did.