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20250112 – The Logic of Immunity
MAIN IDEA:
Here is Grok 2’s description:
“The main idea of this book is to demystify the complex workings of the human immune system. The book aims to provide a comprehensive yet accessible explanation of how the immune system functions, detailing the mechanisms of specialized cells and molecules that protect our health. It explores both the innate and adaptive aspects of immunity, explaining how these systems can malfunction and lead to disease. The author blends scientific knowledge with historical anecdotes to not only educate but also to introduce readers to the key scientists who have contributed to our understanding of immunology. The book also delves into strategies for harnessing the immune system’s potential to maintain good health, offering insights based on the latest research. “
MY TAKE ON IT:
From my point of view, the evolutionary developed immune system is by far superior to our contemporary medicine, which, in its most successful implementations, such as vaccination, does not do much more than priming the immune system to handle future encounters with known pathogens effectively. However, the logic of the immune system’s processing points to the direction that would probably be best for development. I think it should be able to decode the DNA of any harmful biological object rapidly and as rapidly produce something similar to T-cells and B-cells specific to both the organism that needs protection and pathogens that have to be eliminated combined with the delivery mechanism to the level of cells. By rapidly, I mean within hours of the problem recognition. The first and very crude attempts with mRNA were not that good. Still, nothing ever worked from the beginning, so with time and sufficient resource allocation, the problem of a universal external AI-based immune system will be resolved. Consequently, the very notion of being sick will move to the history of humanity somewhere next to the notion of being eaten by a sabretooth tiger.
20240623-The Cheating Cells
MAIN IDEA:
This book represents a very interesting approach to understanding the development processes of an organism during its existence as a system of semi-independent entities – cells that undergo a high-speed evolutionary selection process. From this approach comes a new understanding of cancer as the break in cooperation between cells when some cells start unstoppable resource acquisition at the expense of other cells:” cellular cheating.”. Here is the graphic representation:
MY TAKE ON IT:
To me, the evolutionary approach to cancer development seems potentially very productive for both understanding the nature of cancer and finding ways to avoid it and/or treat it. I would even expand and generalize these ideas to just about everything, from the development of technology to the functioning of human society. As long as key factors such as inheritance, variation, and selection are present, the process works similarly everywhere. When there is a necessity for group participation as a condition of survival, the multilevel selection inevitably kicks in. Correspondingly, it creates tension between individual and group selection within each individual that had to be resolved via cooperation in such a way that assures the survival of the group. Generally speaking, such cooperation could not possibly continue forever because any system would have some idiosyncrasies that violate the parameters of stability, leading to the system’s self-destruction. This book nicely describes how this process occurs in the human body when some of its cells become exceedingly selfish and, therefore, cancerous and kill the body. Similar processes occur at the level of human societies with similar results. We seem to be in the middle of this process, and it will be interesting to see how it works out.
Equal Rights Libertarian 