We are like cows to this virus. If we let it, its swarms will use up what vitality we have to recreate itself and leave many of us dead, with no prior defense of our own. It is heart-wrenching to hear the stories of health workers as they describe the rapid, vicious work of SARS-CoV-2 as it takes hold.
Ironically, as I learned from Rex Spendlove, we owe our lives and our prosperity to viruses. Although they are technically not alive, they are everywhere, engaged in a lively dance with all life forms. They encourage the life cycle -- often by extinguishing bacteria that would otherwise overwhelm us. Viruses are made of genetic material covered by protein, what has been called "a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein."
The point is that the common perspective of viruses is not entirely accurate with regard to our well-being. It was learned from 1939 on with the introduction of the electron microscope that there are far more forms of viruses on Earth than all other forms of life combined -- over 100 million different types. Please forgive the slip of the tongue there -- no, viruses are not alive, but they are made of the same stuff and they can seem alive when what they cannot do -- such as move -- is supplemented by actions of other agents and forces, like us. As Rex taught me, confirmed by additional study, if it weren't for one form of viruses -- phages, which consume bacteria -- we would be awash in dangerous bacteria. As bees distribute pollen, viruses distribute DNA material in vast networks, supporting propagation and growth everywhere. They vigorously degrade populations, which eliminates waste and infectious populations in ways that we never knew. We have come to understand that we know little of viral phenomena in the oceans, which trigger forms of life and cycles of life and regeneration at all levels of existence.
If we are planning to hide from viruses -- good luck with that. If we want to fear something, there is much more to worry about than a few degrees of separation between us and bats. Of course, bats are hosts of untold varieties of "massively undersampled" coronaviruses -- that alone can be fodder for nightmares. Just for the record, it is important to know that both SARS coronavirus and HIV virus strains were introduced into the human population when their natural hosts were hunted and killed for consumption. What's up with that? Animal transfers are called zoonotic transfers, which happen any and all times we interest with each other as well as all other animal species. Zoonitic transfers happen all the time; we could do with fewer exotic ones.
Now, to the meat of the matter: People do not understand that all is process. They are not taught this. There is a general understanding that the natural state is a static state. This is how we become cows to viruses -- as well as to malignancies, disabilities, and cruelties. We owe much to the two Alfreds in learning how to overcome our malaise and educate ourselves in the good life -- individually and severally. Alfred North Whitehead taught of the ubiquity of the process, which informs our understanding of data and is uses and the need to understand and systematically support chains of conditions -- the flow of events and affairs. As we come to learn the processes of the covonavirus, we come to understand our own processes, to and from this we must engage. We cannot continue to fly through time and space untethered, hopeful for some metaphysical, blissful state of nature that will just, simply, stay. We need to actively engage, not only at the macro level, where our senses work for us, but at all levels of existence. We need technology, infrastructure, to do this. We live at high risk due to density, complexity, diversity, mobility, and curiosity. All is process, and we need to embrace this and engage in the dance. The requirements of this are not entirely novel to society -- musicians do this all the time using music theory and notation, adapting to that realm of sound that is audible to us and satisfying.
The second Alfred was a Polish nobleman, Alfred Korzybski, who contributed to society in the first half of the 19th century by introducing the field of general semantics. His most significant enduring contribution was the publication of "Science and Sanity", which created a cult of understanding and admonition, which was not fully empowered by computation, which challenge awaits us still.
One of the problematic tells of our societal weakness is that health providers have a difficult time declaring people as having recovered from Covid-19 infections. This is a significant challenge in the United States. This is a sticky problem in that the virus has demonstrated a talent for identifying the weakest among us and the weaknesses within us. It exposes the jarring ineffectiveness of our social systems with respect to the most basic aspects of health. It exposes that scandalous fact of many market-driven, Western health systems: There is no system. As to our individual well-being, we are on our own. The medical community only interests itself in us when presented with advanced pathologies -- diseases and onerous conditions in later stages, where dramatic interventions can be staged. These provide environments for higher, fee-based costs, supplemented by passive pharmaceutical regimens -- increasingly and problematically called "cocktails", that do not imply intimacy in terms of health, understanding, and care.
Dramatic acts are thus carried out with the idea that the patients in question can subsequently re-enter an amorphous pool of people with presumed general health -- or, at least not bad health -- or at least, not infectious conditions. Proven public health actions and policies are left to what are now called market forces. Such empty hopes are buoyed by inapt comparisons with commercial arenas -- such as Adam Smith's famous pins -- that have nothing to do with the fundamental well-being of the people and the groundswell of meanings, commitments, and requirements of the fundamental health of the people. Declarations of recovery resemble bills of good health, which are understandably very hard to come by in the current medical milieu. What are the health system's responsibilities with respect to the post-Covid-19 patient? These are unsettlingly unsettled.
There is a kind of willingness to declare people as cured of "that one thing." Hence, integrative aspects of our health that would bring adaptability and resilience are left hanging in the wind. Of course, that very wind introduces viruses to us in conceivable and inconceivable ways.
One example of the fallacy of passive health systems and the lack of a process orientation enlivened by constant flows of data was represented by the last events in the life of Senator Edward Kennedy, he of the famous war against cancer. Senator Kennedy was diagnosed in 2008 with brain cancer after several seizures -- a condition that we know from study of cancer pathologies had to have begun decades earlier, as his body had converted itself to actively manufacture the malady. The medical community had failed to detect what was obvious to his body. 'Body as factory' is a useful analogy -- we should say, example. This is no secret to the viruses that sneak in and hijack the production line, just as malignant cells do. How many medical checkups had this 'lion of society' and leader in health policy, Senator Kennedy, received? How many bills of good health had been given? His care obviously would have constituted the best of the best. What of the masses of people that cannot have hoped to enjoy the same. Covid-19 has rousted out myriad of these conditions that we have failed to deal with otherwise, but what will we do with the knowledge that we have gained? Paper over them as in the past?
So, we must live with viruses. We always have. Can we stop eating bats and otherwise engaging with the dangerous corners of the wild that brought on this disaster? That would be wise. We should reassess our relationships with animal species generally with regard to bacterial as well as viral risks. As to the next wave of viral combatants, we shouldn't be as cows to them, ready to be harvested.
As to the unanswered Covid-19 questions -- can they lead to rationality with regard to the public and private health of the people? We hint at interest in process when considering antibodies and infection rates. We need to map out the entire cycles, integrate and model them -- track their ebbs and flows. This needs to be done in all things.
One thing needs to be mentioned with regard to the technologies in question. I have in my possession a model that supports virtually every process step required to manufacture machinery out of metal. This is the result of years of effort by experts in that field. All of this fits in a tree, a family of processes and process steps, that is comprised of 102,000 branches. This involves two-and-a-half megabytes of data within a standard database. For perspective, the Android version of Facebook takes up 140 megabytes of data -- fifty-six times as large as the full metals manufacturing tree. In my experience, the Facebook app and dozens of others require fairly constant updates, which involves downloads of the entire applications, not just the changes, which are likely to have been minimal. This is waste beyond imagining. I know that I have to download about a gigabyte of such updates each week -- I just got caught up yesterday and a dozen big, fat apps are now in cue on my phone. That is a notable part of my day -- and yours, too, unless you have found a way to stop the parade. What of the 5 billion Facebook apps out there -- and the rest? This is waste that is unimaginable. It certainly stands in the way of efforts to use technology to match the ravages of the forces we must overcome and the steps that we need to take.
People complain about the complexity of health models -- 20,000 codes here, 30,000 codes there. These are nothing when compared to what complete models would require -- far more than the 102,000 manufacturing steps. With parsimony, following the direction of the two Alfreds, the task is more than daunting. With mind-numbing, breathtaking waste, as represented by prevalent applications of technology, we cannot win. On a positive note, what can happen when we convert even existing bandwidth over to the millions of process steps needed to support the health and well-being of the people?
