Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Definitions of Health and Wellness
Definitions of Health and Wellness
Traditional allopathic medicine has defined health as merely the absence of disease. This foundational definition has limited allopathy to limit its goals as the eradication of pathogens or the attainment of certain lab values. Present evidence has accumulated to show that the health state involves more than the lack of detectable pathogens in the body or attainment of certain lab value ranges. In the face of this information, the basic position of traditional allopathic medicine concerning the achievement of health has not changed. Medical schools and managed care organizations, with their emphasis on a diagnosis and rationed care, promulgate this traditional orientation by teaching that diagnosis and treatment of the named “disease” is the major pathway to health.
World Health Organization definition of health (1946): Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Halpert Dunn (1959) argued there were different levels of wellness. Some levels are depicted as states of passive adaptability to the environment and others, as a dynamic process in which the objective is the attainment of one’s optimal potential. High Level Wellness is an all-encompassing term focusing on a dynamic process toward optimal functioning of an individual, family or community.
Adaptation: Health depends on the ability to maintain a physiological, mental and social balance despite changes in the ever-changing external and internal environment through the use of regulatory mechanisms within oneself. The state of dynamic balance is called homeostasis.
All available history records suggest that many ideas of wellness and health developed long before the advent of modern allopathic medicine and chiropractic.
Health can thus be defined as a state of abtaptness which permits the person concerned to function as effectively as long as possible in the environment where chance and choice has placed him.
Holistic Health: holistic health is based on the idea that the “body-mind-spirit” trinity has the inherent capacity to heal and that the environment – air, food, water and space- have more influence on humans than anything else. The human being is an organized whole greater than the sum of its parts and the whole also determines the nature of its parts and the parts cannot be analyzed in isolation from the whole. They are dynamically interrelated and interdependent. The term “holism” also refers to the beliefs that all parts of a living organism work together to determine the health of the entire person.
Wellness : Wellness is a dynamic state, reflecting growth and change physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, vocationally and socially. It is not a STATIC state. Wellness is an active process through which an individual makes choices and adaptations passively and actively which result in a more successful existence.
High-level wellness is a life-style-focused approach, which allows the individual to personally design a way to achieve optimal wellness within the limits of his or her own capacity. Life-style-focused approach to wellness is an integrated, ever changing state, which focuses on self-responsibility, accountability, nutritional awareness, physical fitness, stress management and environmental sensitivity as critical components of optimal wellness.
Vitalism : The doctrine of vitalism holds that life processes are guided by non material vital principle and are, thus, unable to be fully explained as physical and chemical phenomena. Most vitalistic practitioners today use natural methods which ALLOW the body to change itself.
Vitalism maintains that;
"the organism is reactive, at all times coping with, and attempting to overcome, the stresses which impinge upon it from outside. It behaves purposively, the nature and form of its reaction being determined by the specific environmental stress encountered. It responds to challenge, which no aggregate or assembly of non-living substances can ever do". (Divided Legacy, Harris Counter, pg. xvii.)
Quantum Vitalism : The testable hypothesis that life is a process intimately linked to the fundamental level of the universe; particular biological systems (cells, tissues, organisms) have a "unitary oneness" based on macroscopic quantum coherence; the flow of Innate Intelligence/ ch'i energy/information through tissues is related to sequences of emergence/collapse of quantum status in biomolecular systems.
Mechanism: The doctrine of mechanism holds that ALL natural phenomena can be explained by material causes and mechanical principles. Most mechanistic practitioner today use drugs and surgery. These methods FORCE the body to change.
Reductionism: is a view that asserts that entities of a given kind are collections or combinations of entities of a simpler or more basic kind or that expressions denoting such entities are definable in terms of expressions denoting the more basic entities. Thus, the ideas that physical bodies are collections of atoms or that thoughts are combinations of sense impressions are forms of reductionism.
The traditional reductionist view ( known as traditional / orthodox scientific view in the popular culture) and the traditional medical (allopathic) view sees a person as a machine. The 'parts' of this machine are prone to 'breakdown' and need time to repair or replacement with 'spare parts'. Medicine intervenes to correct dysfunction and restore 'normality'. Emphasis is on the physical, reducing a human being to a collection of systems. In accordance with this approach, Allopaths and their health care colleagues engage in acquiring a basic knowledge, of various subjects. Biology, psychology, pharmocology, sociology, epidemiology and others disciplines. Ultimately, of course the focus on the patient is neglected by the constant focus on the parts of the patient as if they were unconnected and interdependent.
Junk Science: is faulty scientific data and analysis used to further a special agenda.
As Australian philosopher Bernard Robertson-Dunn once wrote:
I am not a seeker after truth ... just evidence.
I will draw my own conclusions.
Cawadias (1953) has said that "the history of medicine has shown that, whenever medicine has strayed from clinical observation[ …read… Results…Fred], the result has been chaos, stagnation, and disaster."--British Medical Journal, Oct 8th, 1955, p.867 (Quoted in Clinical Medical Discoveries by Beddow Bayly)
Emergence: The vitalism/reductionism debate in the life sciences shows that the idea of emergence as something principally unexplainable will often be falsified by the development of science. Nevertheless, the concept of emergence keeps reappearing in various sciences, and cannot easily be dispensed with in an evolutionary world-view. We argue that what is needed is an ontological non-reductionist theory of levels of reality which includes a concept of emergence, and which can support an evolutionary account of the origin of levels.
Emergence is expressed as the concept that there are properties at a certain level of organization which can not be predicted from the properties found at lower levels. (Intelligent organization, coordination and adaptation towards full unlimited potential). Emergence does not exclude explanation, in some cases not even a deterministic one, and emergence is not an indeterministic process. Emergence in relation to levels can only be analyzed within the distinction between global/local perspective.
Dualism : contends you must have both of the two components in question, rather than one or the other. In contrast to dualism two other philosophical positions concerned with the number of substances: monism and pluralism. Monism is the view that there is one elemental whereas pluralism maintains that there are many things which constitute the world.
A major problem faced by dualists is the inability to resolve the rift created between the two opposing elements. Typically the motivation for resolving conflicts between these two realms is to make the world more understandable. For instance, how is the interaction between mind and body explained? Descartes, for example, claimed that the pineal gland is the point of contact between the bodily and spiritual realm. The inability to rectify these two realms has inclined some to adopt monism. Modern Allopathic/ Traditional/Orthodox Science, for example, offers a monistic account of reality (physicalism), which eliminates the mental altogether, removes any problems of relatedness between mind and body by eliminating the spiritual all together. Mental events are reduced to brain states, thus leaving only the bodily realm, thus monism.
Epiphenomenalism : The accepted extension of the allopathic, reductionist, mechanistic view of the mind/body concept. Epiphenomenalism contends there is only a one-way causal connection from the body to the mind, but none from the mind to the body. According to this idea, Consciousness is just a byproduct of the body, much like smoke from a steam engine train. Thus all value and attention is focused of the “chemical” physical processes of the body and thus; the mind, soul, spirit and “consciousness”, “Individual Human Awareness” of the patient is cheaped or minimized.
Pleomorphism : microbial genera and species are not fixed and rely on he host’s environment to determine it’s form and malevolence. A paradigm in which the host organism or patient was an active participant in infection and disease - in contrast to Koch and Pasteur and the monomorphists who held the microbe to be all-powerful, the host organism a passive victim.
Pleomorphism means downgrading the microbe, since the host, by resisting the latter's onslaught, could alter its characteristics and make it return to a normal form as again. The patient has control over the bacteria, not the other way around. The microbes are the result, not the cause of disease
Monomorphism - a dogma meaning again that microbial genera and species are fixed and eternal, that the form of each microorganism associated with a specific disease always stays the same and always causes that same disease.
"Accepting Pleomorphism meant acknowledging the host organism's, the patient's capacity to defend itself (him or her) against, and dominate, the microbe.
Monomorphism, on the contrary, enhanced the role of the microbe in disease, and consequently that of the physician who combats the microbe. This is the principal reason for the instinctive hostility of the majority of physicians to Pleomorphism and Holistic/Alternative Medicine in general."( Divided Legacy, Harris Counter . pg. 39)
Pleomorphism was a great threat to this "control" factor. This control factor means;
"control of the disease with poisons that need monitored and controlled, controlling therefore, the patient and their pocket book."(Ibid, pg.39)
The phenomena of life are forced into categories (disciples; i.e., cardiology, oncology, EENT, etc.), which can be manipulated to make a living from the practice of allopathic medicine. The monomorphists have identified their doctrine with science itself, as science itself, that Monomorphism is a law of nature, which it is not. This viewpoint has, through the years, taken on such an aspect of truth that to question it now seems a scientific sacrilege.
The followers of Koch proclaimed Monomorphism with 'religious fanaticism', stated Max Gruber in 1885. F. Loehnis stated in 1922 that the intransigence and verbal violence displayed by the various factions in this conflict resembled certain historic theological quarrels.
For all these reasons, Monomorphism was at first excessively rigid, even dogmatic. Rene Dubious states that Koch and Pasteur; "overestablished" the doctrine of the specificity of disease causes and that blind acceptance by several generations of bacteriologist of the dogma of constancy of cell forms and immutability of cultural characteristics discouraged for many years the study of the problems of morphology, inheritance, and variation in bacteria and viruses.
Ontology : is a (Platonic) description of essential reality, i.e., what actually is, as opposed to what one can see (observation, accident), or what one can know (epistemiology) . The term ontology was coined by two German philosophers, Göckel and Lorhard, in 1613, and first appeared in English in 1721. Ontology as the metaphysical commitments or presuppositions embodied in the different natural sciences. For example, the belief that a cancer can metastasize would be an ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMENT. In the philosophy and the practice of science, ontology goes under various names: essence, reality, Mind of God, nature, gold standard, or mathiverse What actually is, human potential and the multiple random events both positive and negative (ie. The Bid Idea. Formal otology deals with the interconnections of things with objects and properties, parts and wholes, relations and collectives.
Epistemology : (Greek episteme,”knowledge”; logos,”theory”), branch of philosophy that addresses the philosophical problems surrounding the theory of knowledge. Epistemology is concerned with the definition of knowledge and related concepts, the sources and criteria of knowledge, the kinds of knowledge possible and the degree to which each is certain, and the exact relation between the one who knows and the object known. A critical study of method, knowledge, validity and scope. What you can see and measure. Lab Tests, Orthopedic , Neurological Tests.
Inductive Reasoning (Inductive Logic): According to the philosopher John Stuart Mill, it's chief proponent, we are using inductive reasoning when we conclude "that what is true of certain individuals of a class, is true of the whole class, or what is true at a certain time will be true in similar circumstances at all times."
"Take the example of appendectomies. Medical doctors had studied this curious organ for a long time and had never found a useful purpose for it. They concluded therefore, that it had no useful purpose. When it became inflamed or otherwise troublesome, they remove it. It took years for the medical profession to admit that its reasoning was incorrect, and to seek other means of treating appendicitis.
Medical science still stand by most of its other conclusions, however, even though they were arrived at by the same reliance on inductive reasoning. Moreover, it adheres to the "rules" with a rigidity that often does not allow for individual differences. Scientists discovered that the average temperature for a human being is 98.6 Fahrenheit. I f you have a 99.3 temperature, you're said to be "running a fever" and you're given medications to bring the temperature back to "normal."
The problem with this type of reasoning is obvious. No one perfectly fits the profile of the "average" human being -- not in height, weight, or even body temperature. It is incorrect to conclude that the correct temperature for all members of the human race is the same as the "average" temperature of a sample of individual members."
(Terry Rhondberg D.C)
Deductive reasoning : starts with major premises and, based on those ideas, deduces the truth about each individual part of the whole.
Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. Sometimes this is informally called a "top-down" approach. We begin with a theory about our topic of interest. We then narrow that down into more specific hypotheses that we can test. We narrow down even further when we collect observations to address the hypotheses. This ultimately leads us to be able to test the hypotheses with specific data -- a confirmation (or not) of our original theories.
Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference.
Critical thinking - in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes - is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.
Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior.
It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results.
Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one's own, or one's groups', vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fair-mindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use.
Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on , among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.
Chiropractic Wellness: Health or EASE is the coordination of matter through innate intelligence through out the body. Coordination is the harmonious action of all the parts of an organism in fulfilling their function and physiology. Dis –Ease is a deficiency or lack of ease. Wellness is the process of functioning at highest level of coordination and the body, mind and spirit operating at maximum efficiency. This process of functioning at high levels of organization allows for the unfolding of full physical, mental and spiritual potential of the human.
Innate Intelligence: The localized or inborn intelligence of the body. Innate Intelligence’s function is to keep the matter in active organization. Chiropractic refers to the body’s organizational ability as its innate intelligence. Innate intelligence organized your body into a complicated, living, adapting, growing being – without it, the human body would be no more than a few dollars worth of chemicals.
There is Innate Intelligence within each of human body that is far superior to the intellect, which creates and recreates the body on a continual basis. In order for this process to occur, life force (mental impulse) must be flowing throughout the body to all cells and tissues. Its medium is the brain and nervous system. The Innate Intelligence directs this life force to every cell and tissue of the body.
"Chiropractors adjust subluxations, relieving pressure from the nerves so that they can perform their functions in a normal manner. The Innate can and will do the rest." -B.J. Palmer, D.C.
Coordination: is the principle of harmonious action of all the parts of an organism, in fulfilling their offices and purposes. "Coordinated function" supersedes the autonomy of a subsystem activity (The needs of the whole supercede the needs of the parts, i.e….as in scoliosis the nervous will sacrifice the spine in order to decrease dysponesis and correct gait and station, posture) . It can be accessible to examination by introducing coordination as an objective, tangible observation.
Mental Impulse: is a "thought" which may be expressed through a variety of neurobiological mechanisms. These mechanisms include synaptic and non-synaptic processes. But it is not synonymous with Innate Intelligence or the neurochemical action potential. Mental Impulse is the adaptive drive and communication for survival and maximum life potential. Mental Impulse is the initiation of the process that the Innate Intelligence uses for the Correct Coordination of the Organism.
Mental Impulse also encompasses the expanding science of the role of neuropeptidies in cellular communications for example there is bidirectional communication between the nervous system and immune system. Neuromodulators released by the nervous system influence immune function. Activated immune cells release an array of immunomodulators that influence the function of the nervous system. Thus, the nervous system and the immune system are not independent, but employ the common language of cytokines and neuroreceptors. The primary intend of a mental impulse is adaptive but the final outcome of a mental impulse depends on the complex inter-communication of the body systems and cells, tissues , their individual current physiological vs, pathological potentials and limitations of matter of the various cells, tissues and systems involved.
Tone: The harmonious synchronization of the body’s functions and potentials integrating all it’s systems, organs, tissues and cells. This harmonious synchronization is organized, controlled and maintained by the nervous system. There is a perceptible or theoretical “resonance” or tone caused by the harmonious interaction of all the body’s tissues. The goal of Coordination and coordinated function is normal tone.
“ Life is the expression of tone. In that sentence is the basic principle of chiropractic. Tone is the normal degree of nerve tension. Tone is expressed in functions by normal elasticity, activity, strength and excitability of various organs, as observed in a state of health. Consequently, the cause of disease is any variation of tone ”
D.D. Palmer
Dysponesis: Dysponesis is defined as a reversible physiological state consisting of unnoticed, misdirected neuro-physical reactions (e.g. abnormal muscle activity) to various agents (environmental events, bodily sensations, emotions, and thoughts) and the repercussions of these reactions throughout the organism. These errors in energy expenditure that are capable of producing functional disorders consist mainly of covert errors in action, potential output from the motor and pre-motor areas of the cortex, and consequences of that output.
The resulting aberrant muscle activity may be evaluated using surface electrode techniques. Typically, static SMEG with axial loading is used to evaluate innate responses to gravitational stress. Dysponesis may also be disclosed by postural analysis.
The early stages of the vertebral subluxation complex in children will exhibit dysponesis. This symptom-less states taxes energy from the body and cause abnormal muscle balance across motor units. This kinesopathology can lead to structure changes in the developing musculoskeltetal system and thus aberrant neurological input into the central nervous system. This aberrant input may lead to permanent changes in the developing central nervous system. (Sensory, Motor, Personality, Integration, Intellectual Processing)
Dysponesis clarifies the momentous consequences of prolonged VSC in children.
Disability: summarizes a great number of different functional limitations occurring in any population, in any country of the world. People may be disabled by physical, intellectual or sensory impairment, medical conditions or mental illness. Such impairments, conditions or illnesses may be permanent or transitory in nature. (United Nations Standard Rules on the equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities
Traditional allopathic medicine has defined health as merely the absence of disease. This foundational definition has limited allopathy to limit its goals as the eradication of pathogens or the attainment of certain lab values. Present evidence has accumulated to show that the health state involves more than the lack of detectable pathogens in the body or attainment of certain lab value ranges. In the face of this information, the basic position of traditional allopathic medicine concerning the achievement of health has not changed. Medical schools and managed care organizations, with their emphasis on a diagnosis and rationed care, promulgate this traditional orientation by teaching that diagnosis and treatment of the named “disease” is the major pathway to health.
World Health Organization definition of health (1946): Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Halpert Dunn (1959) argued there were different levels of wellness. Some levels are depicted as states of passive adaptability to the environment and others, as a dynamic process in which the objective is the attainment of one’s optimal potential. High Level Wellness is an all-encompassing term focusing on a dynamic process toward optimal functioning of an individual, family or community.
Adaptation: Health depends on the ability to maintain a physiological, mental and social balance despite changes in the ever-changing external and internal environment through the use of regulatory mechanisms within oneself. The state of dynamic balance is called homeostasis.
All available history records suggest that many ideas of wellness and health developed long before the advent of modern allopathic medicine and chiropractic.
Health can thus be defined as a state of abtaptness which permits the person concerned to function as effectively as long as possible in the environment where chance and choice has placed him.
Holistic Health: holistic health is based on the idea that the “body-mind-spirit” trinity has the inherent capacity to heal and that the environment – air, food, water and space- have more influence on humans than anything else. The human being is an organized whole greater than the sum of its parts and the whole also determines the nature of its parts and the parts cannot be analyzed in isolation from the whole. They are dynamically interrelated and interdependent. The term “holism” also refers to the beliefs that all parts of a living organism work together to determine the health of the entire person.
Wellness : Wellness is a dynamic state, reflecting growth and change physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, vocationally and socially. It is not a STATIC state. Wellness is an active process through which an individual makes choices and adaptations passively and actively which result in a more successful existence.
High-level wellness is a life-style-focused approach, which allows the individual to personally design a way to achieve optimal wellness within the limits of his or her own capacity. Life-style-focused approach to wellness is an integrated, ever changing state, which focuses on self-responsibility, accountability, nutritional awareness, physical fitness, stress management and environmental sensitivity as critical components of optimal wellness.
Vitalism : The doctrine of vitalism holds that life processes are guided by non material vital principle and are, thus, unable to be fully explained as physical and chemical phenomena. Most vitalistic practitioners today use natural methods which ALLOW the body to change itself.
Vitalism maintains that;
"the organism is reactive, at all times coping with, and attempting to overcome, the stresses which impinge upon it from outside. It behaves purposively, the nature and form of its reaction being determined by the specific environmental stress encountered. It responds to challenge, which no aggregate or assembly of non-living substances can ever do". (Divided Legacy, Harris Counter, pg. xvii.)
Quantum Vitalism : The testable hypothesis that life is a process intimately linked to the fundamental level of the universe; particular biological systems (cells, tissues, organisms) have a "unitary oneness" based on macroscopic quantum coherence; the flow of Innate Intelligence/ ch'i energy/information through tissues is related to sequences of emergence/collapse of quantum status in biomolecular systems.
Mechanism: The doctrine of mechanism holds that ALL natural phenomena can be explained by material causes and mechanical principles. Most mechanistic practitioner today use drugs and surgery. These methods FORCE the body to change.
Reductionism: is a view that asserts that entities of a given kind are collections or combinations of entities of a simpler or more basic kind or that expressions denoting such entities are definable in terms of expressions denoting the more basic entities. Thus, the ideas that physical bodies are collections of atoms or that thoughts are combinations of sense impressions are forms of reductionism.
The traditional reductionist view ( known as traditional / orthodox scientific view in the popular culture) and the traditional medical (allopathic) view sees a person as a machine. The 'parts' of this machine are prone to 'breakdown' and need time to repair or replacement with 'spare parts'. Medicine intervenes to correct dysfunction and restore 'normality'. Emphasis is on the physical, reducing a human being to a collection of systems. In accordance with this approach, Allopaths and their health care colleagues engage in acquiring a basic knowledge, of various subjects. Biology, psychology, pharmocology, sociology, epidemiology and others disciplines. Ultimately, of course the focus on the patient is neglected by the constant focus on the parts of the patient as if they were unconnected and interdependent.
Junk Science: is faulty scientific data and analysis used to further a special agenda.
As Australian philosopher Bernard Robertson-Dunn once wrote:
I am not a seeker after truth ... just evidence.
I will draw my own conclusions.
Cawadias (1953) has said that "the history of medicine has shown that, whenever medicine has strayed from clinical observation[ …read… Results…Fred], the result has been chaos, stagnation, and disaster."--British Medical Journal, Oct 8th, 1955, p.867 (Quoted in Clinical Medical Discoveries by Beddow Bayly)
Emergence: The vitalism/reductionism debate in the life sciences shows that the idea of emergence as something principally unexplainable will often be falsified by the development of science. Nevertheless, the concept of emergence keeps reappearing in various sciences, and cannot easily be dispensed with in an evolutionary world-view. We argue that what is needed is an ontological non-reductionist theory of levels of reality which includes a concept of emergence, and which can support an evolutionary account of the origin of levels.
Emergence is expressed as the concept that there are properties at a certain level of organization which can not be predicted from the properties found at lower levels. (Intelligent organization, coordination and adaptation towards full unlimited potential). Emergence does not exclude explanation, in some cases not even a deterministic one, and emergence is not an indeterministic process. Emergence in relation to levels can only be analyzed within the distinction between global/local perspective.
Dualism : contends you must have both of the two components in question, rather than one or the other. In contrast to dualism two other philosophical positions concerned with the number of substances: monism and pluralism. Monism is the view that there is one elemental whereas pluralism maintains that there are many things which constitute the world.
A major problem faced by dualists is the inability to resolve the rift created between the two opposing elements. Typically the motivation for resolving conflicts between these two realms is to make the world more understandable. For instance, how is the interaction between mind and body explained? Descartes, for example, claimed that the pineal gland is the point of contact between the bodily and spiritual realm. The inability to rectify these two realms has inclined some to adopt monism. Modern Allopathic/ Traditional/Orthodox Science, for example, offers a monistic account of reality (physicalism), which eliminates the mental altogether, removes any problems of relatedness between mind and body by eliminating the spiritual all together. Mental events are reduced to brain states, thus leaving only the bodily realm, thus monism.
Epiphenomenalism : The accepted extension of the allopathic, reductionist, mechanistic view of the mind/body concept. Epiphenomenalism contends there is only a one-way causal connection from the body to the mind, but none from the mind to the body. According to this idea, Consciousness is just a byproduct of the body, much like smoke from a steam engine train. Thus all value and attention is focused of the “chemical” physical processes of the body and thus; the mind, soul, spirit and “consciousness”, “Individual Human Awareness” of the patient is cheaped or minimized.
Pleomorphism : microbial genera and species are not fixed and rely on he host’s environment to determine it’s form and malevolence. A paradigm in which the host organism or patient was an active participant in infection and disease - in contrast to Koch and Pasteur and the monomorphists who held the microbe to be all-powerful, the host organism a passive victim.
Pleomorphism means downgrading the microbe, since the host, by resisting the latter's onslaught, could alter its characteristics and make it return to a normal form as again. The patient has control over the bacteria, not the other way around. The microbes are the result, not the cause of disease
Monomorphism - a dogma meaning again that microbial genera and species are fixed and eternal, that the form of each microorganism associated with a specific disease always stays the same and always causes that same disease.
"Accepting Pleomorphism meant acknowledging the host organism's, the patient's capacity to defend itself (him or her) against, and dominate, the microbe.
Monomorphism, on the contrary, enhanced the role of the microbe in disease, and consequently that of the physician who combats the microbe. This is the principal reason for the instinctive hostility of the majority of physicians to Pleomorphism and Holistic/Alternative Medicine in general."( Divided Legacy, Harris Counter . pg. 39)
Pleomorphism was a great threat to this "control" factor. This control factor means;
"control of the disease with poisons that need monitored and controlled, controlling therefore, the patient and their pocket book."(Ibid, pg.39)
The phenomena of life are forced into categories (disciples; i.e., cardiology, oncology, EENT, etc.), which can be manipulated to make a living from the practice of allopathic medicine. The monomorphists have identified their doctrine with science itself, as science itself, that Monomorphism is a law of nature, which it is not. This viewpoint has, through the years, taken on such an aspect of truth that to question it now seems a scientific sacrilege.
The followers of Koch proclaimed Monomorphism with 'religious fanaticism', stated Max Gruber in 1885. F. Loehnis stated in 1922 that the intransigence and verbal violence displayed by the various factions in this conflict resembled certain historic theological quarrels.
For all these reasons, Monomorphism was at first excessively rigid, even dogmatic. Rene Dubious states that Koch and Pasteur; "overestablished" the doctrine of the specificity of disease causes and that blind acceptance by several generations of bacteriologist of the dogma of constancy of cell forms and immutability of cultural characteristics discouraged for many years the study of the problems of morphology, inheritance, and variation in bacteria and viruses.
Ontology : is a (Platonic) description of essential reality, i.e., what actually is, as opposed to what one can see (observation, accident), or what one can know (epistemiology) . The term ontology was coined by two German philosophers, Göckel and Lorhard, in 1613, and first appeared in English in 1721. Ontology as the metaphysical commitments or presuppositions embodied in the different natural sciences. For example, the belief that a cancer can metastasize would be an ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMENT. In the philosophy and the practice of science, ontology goes under various names: essence, reality, Mind of God, nature, gold standard, or mathiverse What actually is, human potential and the multiple random events both positive and negative (ie. The Bid Idea. Formal otology deals with the interconnections of things with objects and properties, parts and wholes, relations and collectives.
Epistemology : (Greek episteme,”knowledge”; logos,”theory”), branch of philosophy that addresses the philosophical problems surrounding the theory of knowledge. Epistemology is concerned with the definition of knowledge and related concepts, the sources and criteria of knowledge, the kinds of knowledge possible and the degree to which each is certain, and the exact relation between the one who knows and the object known. A critical study of method, knowledge, validity and scope. What you can see and measure. Lab Tests, Orthopedic , Neurological Tests.
Inductive Reasoning (Inductive Logic): According to the philosopher John Stuart Mill, it's chief proponent, we are using inductive reasoning when we conclude "that what is true of certain individuals of a class, is true of the whole class, or what is true at a certain time will be true in similar circumstances at all times."
"Take the example of appendectomies. Medical doctors had studied this curious organ for a long time and had never found a useful purpose for it. They concluded therefore, that it had no useful purpose. When it became inflamed or otherwise troublesome, they remove it. It took years for the medical profession to admit that its reasoning was incorrect, and to seek other means of treating appendicitis.
Medical science still stand by most of its other conclusions, however, even though they were arrived at by the same reliance on inductive reasoning. Moreover, it adheres to the "rules" with a rigidity that often does not allow for individual differences. Scientists discovered that the average temperature for a human being is 98.6 Fahrenheit. I f you have a 99.3 temperature, you're said to be "running a fever" and you're given medications to bring the temperature back to "normal."
The problem with this type of reasoning is obvious. No one perfectly fits the profile of the "average" human being -- not in height, weight, or even body temperature. It is incorrect to conclude that the correct temperature for all members of the human race is the same as the "average" temperature of a sample of individual members."
(Terry Rhondberg D.C)
Deductive reasoning : starts with major premises and, based on those ideas, deduces the truth about each individual part of the whole.
Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. Sometimes this is informally called a "top-down" approach. We begin with a theory about our topic of interest. We then narrow that down into more specific hypotheses that we can test. We narrow down even further when we collect observations to address the hypotheses. This ultimately leads us to be able to test the hypotheses with specific data -- a confirmation (or not) of our original theories.
Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference.
Critical thinking - in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes - is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.
Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior.
It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results.
Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one's own, or one's groups', vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fair-mindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use.
Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on , among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.
Chiropractic Wellness: Health or EASE is the coordination of matter through innate intelligence through out the body. Coordination is the harmonious action of all the parts of an organism in fulfilling their function and physiology. Dis –Ease is a deficiency or lack of ease. Wellness is the process of functioning at highest level of coordination and the body, mind and spirit operating at maximum efficiency. This process of functioning at high levels of organization allows for the unfolding of full physical, mental and spiritual potential of the human.
Innate Intelligence: The localized or inborn intelligence of the body. Innate Intelligence’s function is to keep the matter in active organization. Chiropractic refers to the body’s organizational ability as its innate intelligence. Innate intelligence organized your body into a complicated, living, adapting, growing being – without it, the human body would be no more than a few dollars worth of chemicals.
There is Innate Intelligence within each of human body that is far superior to the intellect, which creates and recreates the body on a continual basis. In order for this process to occur, life force (mental impulse) must be flowing throughout the body to all cells and tissues. Its medium is the brain and nervous system. The Innate Intelligence directs this life force to every cell and tissue of the body.
"Chiropractors adjust subluxations, relieving pressure from the nerves so that they can perform their functions in a normal manner. The Innate can and will do the rest." -B.J. Palmer, D.C.
Coordination: is the principle of harmonious action of all the parts of an organism, in fulfilling their offices and purposes. "Coordinated function" supersedes the autonomy of a subsystem activity (The needs of the whole supercede the needs of the parts, i.e….as in scoliosis the nervous will sacrifice the spine in order to decrease dysponesis and correct gait and station, posture) . It can be accessible to examination by introducing coordination as an objective, tangible observation.
Mental Impulse: is a "thought" which may be expressed through a variety of neurobiological mechanisms. These mechanisms include synaptic and non-synaptic processes. But it is not synonymous with Innate Intelligence or the neurochemical action potential. Mental Impulse is the adaptive drive and communication for survival and maximum life potential. Mental Impulse is the initiation of the process that the Innate Intelligence uses for the Correct Coordination of the Organism.
Mental Impulse also encompasses the expanding science of the role of neuropeptidies in cellular communications for example there is bidirectional communication between the nervous system and immune system. Neuromodulators released by the nervous system influence immune function. Activated immune cells release an array of immunomodulators that influence the function of the nervous system. Thus, the nervous system and the immune system are not independent, but employ the common language of cytokines and neuroreceptors. The primary intend of a mental impulse is adaptive but the final outcome of a mental impulse depends on the complex inter-communication of the body systems and cells, tissues , their individual current physiological vs, pathological potentials and limitations of matter of the various cells, tissues and systems involved.
Tone: The harmonious synchronization of the body’s functions and potentials integrating all it’s systems, organs, tissues and cells. This harmonious synchronization is organized, controlled and maintained by the nervous system. There is a perceptible or theoretical “resonance” or tone caused by the harmonious interaction of all the body’s tissues. The goal of Coordination and coordinated function is normal tone.
“ Life is the expression of tone. In that sentence is the basic principle of chiropractic. Tone is the normal degree of nerve tension. Tone is expressed in functions by normal elasticity, activity, strength and excitability of various organs, as observed in a state of health. Consequently, the cause of disease is any variation of tone ”
D.D. Palmer
Dysponesis: Dysponesis is defined as a reversible physiological state consisting of unnoticed, misdirected neuro-physical reactions (e.g. abnormal muscle activity) to various agents (environmental events, bodily sensations, emotions, and thoughts) and the repercussions of these reactions throughout the organism. These errors in energy expenditure that are capable of producing functional disorders consist mainly of covert errors in action, potential output from the motor and pre-motor areas of the cortex, and consequences of that output.
The resulting aberrant muscle activity may be evaluated using surface electrode techniques. Typically, static SMEG with axial loading is used to evaluate innate responses to gravitational stress. Dysponesis may also be disclosed by postural analysis.
The early stages of the vertebral subluxation complex in children will exhibit dysponesis. This symptom-less states taxes energy from the body and cause abnormal muscle balance across motor units. This kinesopathology can lead to structure changes in the developing musculoskeltetal system and thus aberrant neurological input into the central nervous system. This aberrant input may lead to permanent changes in the developing central nervous system. (Sensory, Motor, Personality, Integration, Intellectual Processing)
Dysponesis clarifies the momentous consequences of prolonged VSC in children.
Disability: summarizes a great number of different functional limitations occurring in any population, in any country of the world. People may be disabled by physical, intellectual or sensory impairment, medical conditions or mental illness. Such impairments, conditions or illnesses may be permanent or transitory in nature. (United Nations Standard Rules on the equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities
