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The tiny cluster of neurons linking respiration to relaxation, attention, excitement and anxiety is located deep in the brainstem. This cluster, located in an area Krasnow calls the pacemaker for breathing, was discovered in mice by study co-author Jack Feldman, PhD, a professor of neurobiology at UCLA, who published his findings in 1991. An equivalent structure has since been identified in humans. You would think this were the case, but it's not. Not always. When I talk of Westerners obsessed with science, I'm not talking about scientists engaged in methodical scientific procedures, but anyone who believes that science is responsible for everything that is good; that scientific advances are the only way to 'save' us; the common idea that, because science hasn't explained how something happens, it must not really be happening. I know people who are perfectly capable of denying something that other people know to be true simply because 'science' hasn't told them that it's real. This breathing stuff is one example. Baduanjin qigong obviously affects my mood and releases physical tension -- it brings about some kind of change, anyway. And it seems clear to me that this is down to a combination of breath, movement, and focus. Nothing magical. But mention qigong, or meditation, or certain other things to certain science-obsessed Westerners and they will ridicule, or look at me as if I just waved my dick in their face. Last weekend I was hiking with some friends. I mentioned something about the beauty of the hike, how cool a certain plant was, or something. One friend responded with "Yeah -- fucking science!" No, I said, not science. Science helps us to understand it, but you elevate science to a whole new level when you claim that science is responsible for this trail, or this plant, or my ability to appreciate it.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. That Hollywood is racist to cast black actors for originally white characters? Or that they will interchange black and white but not white and yellow? Or..? The one from your examples which might be considered historically inaccurate, Heimdall, is not, really. Marvel's Thor is an alternate imagining of the god, and of the Norse gods in general. It's not supposed to be historically accurate. Elba as Heimdall is a bit weird, but...whatever, really. He's an enjoyable actor to watch. There would have been some characters that, had they been cast in a different skin colour, I would have objected. Luke Cage, obviously, as the first black comicbook hero, must remain black -- it is one of his defining characteristics. Superman, Batman, Wolverine... they are embedded in public consciousness, and my own, as men with white skin, and I hope they remain so. But minor characters... meh. Human Torch? Makes more sense if brother and sister are the same colour, I guess, but whatever. If they make certain characters black, or gay, or vegan, or whatever, it really just evens things out a little.

Yeah. Certainly it seems like something they made up to add an element (pun intended) to the story, and it's kind of cool (I like the way the character looks right side up but also makes a cool symbol upside down) but if it turned out to be a real practice from some tradition or another that'd also be interesting...

Seems a little extreme. But you are free to believe that scientists are infallible, or that modern science knows everything, or that ancient cultures were all completely useless, or that no ancient traditions ever brought anything valuable to the table. edit: https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/a-contemplative-science "Research on the functional effects of meditation is still in its infancy, but there seems to be little question that the practice changes the brain." If a prominent atheist neuroscientist can admit that scientists have something to learn from these ancient practices, surely you can too.

A Westerner who's obsessed with 'science' and cannot abide Eastern 'woo' will dismiss something like pranayama or qigong because there is 'no scientific basis' for it... even though the effects of certain techniques are immediately obvious (and for others, effects become apparent over time, but are no less obvious). For me, direct experience is the preferable kind of evidence; why not try it and see for oneself? But good to see that 'science' is "catching up" a little in some areas.

Oh.. speaking of One Hundred Eyes (good, but wayyy too short..) what's up with the upside-down fire 火 character thing? Is that a real thing in some traditions? (The only character I've heard of being turned over is fu 福)

Yes, the trend is very annoying. I had not expected something as blatant as that Matt Damon vehicle, so similar to and so soon after the Tom Cruise one. To be fair to the Iron Fist TV show, the original comic had the Iron Fist as a blond white guy in the '70s, only a couple of years after the TV show Kung Fu came out. So they're only sticking to the script, as it were. Some are calling it 'whitewashing', but I don't think you can whitewash something that was already whitewashed. Actually I think it could have been seen as somewhat racist to cast an 'Asian' guy in the role simply because it centres around kung fu...

Yeah... I enjoyed it, but agree with your points. I think the critics and viewers complaining about 'pacing' and lack of FX etc need to get a grip on reality. None of the other Netflix-Marvel shows have been faster paced or more FX-heavy or with much better acting. Jessica Jones was incredibly boring. And ALL of these shows' characters are persistently annoying in their refusal to just kill the fucking bad guys. They kill and maim dozens of faceless henchmen throughout the season, every episode, then when they finally get to the main baddie, it's "Oh don't do it you're better than that & it'll make you sad". For fuck's sake. Just kill them. That's why I always loved Wolverine. However, specific to Iron Fist... yeah, there was always a little noise in the back of my head wondering if Jones was the right choice. Even as someone who doesn't know very much about real traditional Chinese martial arts forms, the scenes where he practiced forms did bug me. Especially when he was next to another -- Colleen, Bakuto -- a lack of strictness/similarity in form was apparent. And yes the fights were instantly forgettable. When compared to Daredevil, with some brutal long-shot fight scenes, it's really not good. And... this is an issue with the original comic I guess, but... the backstory is a little too similar to that of Batman (and Green Arrow). Rich kid, parents die, learns to fight in Asia, comes back.. and I expect he'll also have a conflict with his shifu at some point. It does annoy me when Marvel or DC steal entire character histories from each other. But the main complaints people have don't seem to be along these lines. Look at this: http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/15/14919546/iron-first-marvel-reviews-finn-jones "The biggest problem with Iron Fist is that no one thought about what makes the character human" Nope. The biggest problem is the relative lack of decent fighting. Yes, the fighting should be the most important aspect... and most people wouldn't know a decent fight scene if it punched them in the face. Still... Colleen, Joy, Claire... always something nice to look at...

Apologies for not being clearer. Yes, that was my point. There is a character, 玄 xuan, that essentially means all of those things. 常無欲，以觀其妙 ever without 'yu' (desire), to see its 'miao' (mystery/subtle/wonderful/clever) 常有欲，以觀其徼 ever with 'yu' (desire), to see its 'jiao' (boundary/manifestation/outer aspect) 此兩者，同出而異名，同謂之玄 these 2, together/same come out but different name, together/same called 'xuan' (deep/dark/formless/mystery/profound...) 玄之又玄，衆妙之門 'xuan' and again 'xuan', gate/door of all/multitude 'miao' (mystery/subtle...)

"It puts the onus on citizens, schools, businesses, and government to speed the process of creating designs to better serve society—more effectively and with much greater confidence" I like this idea (it seems to align with my own idea that it is education and change of tradition, rather than just continually creating new laws to force companies to change, that will bring the best and most lasting change). However if this Constructal Law is a pattern that permeates throughout creation as they say, is it plausible that we mere humans can change it even among ourselves?

Yeah..some weird variation. So it is often similar to 宫 and 吕 / 呂 and 心 and probably some others I'm not registering.. huh...

Yes. As Taoist Texts says. 玄. And the character, today at least, means various things, as stated. Although... This version is interesting, though looks more like 宫 than 玄 to me.. and I'm not sure how it came about from either of them..? The 金文 玄 seems to have been a near-pictogram of a bow, rather than 'heaven above heaven' Got any further sources?

What kind of lunatic would want someone else's head? Also, whether someone got a 'new' body or a 'new' head, it'd be quite a lot easier to spot than a heart... Also, in a case such as the one of the OP, where the whole world is looking on, I doubt the donor is going to be a victim of murder-for-parts.

Imagine the void. It is black, or dark, or... somehow entirely without colour or form. It is vast beyond understanding. Deep, or boundless. In all senses -- without colour, without form, without limit -- it is unimaginable. A mystery. Profound in the sense that it contains all, though it is no thing. The trouble, I think, is that xuan means all of the things as translated above. And that's kind of the point, too -- it's hard to define, like dao is.

Intrigued to see what happens. Assuming the doctor in charge has thought it through (and apparently he has, for a long time) the technical stuff might work. They can transplant hearts, stem cells, all sorts... why not the whole body? My guess is that if it does work, and the guy does start to change based on his new body, the changes will be slow, and whether good or bad it could be difficult to identify whether they are a result of the different body itself (energetics, physiology, whatever), or mental (result not what he expected, some kind of trauma from the situation, etc), or because the guy now has the ability to interact with the world with so much more fullness, and becomes a "new person" because of it...

Greedy I suppose but I have a collection of paintings in a folder and the desktop scrolls through them every 30 mins. I'll link a few because I think they're pretty.. Eyvind Earle Jean Leon Gerome Ma Yuan

No, I realize that. And as I said, fish is a semi-decent source of vitamin D if one eats it. Better than most veggie options for that. It's just nice to see dietary advice promoting things that are actually healthy. Though I think it might be leaving out some options, for whatever reason.

I'm kind of the opposite. I'll eat at any time, because eating makes me feel happy. I get hangry quite often. I don't comfort eat, binging when I'm sad -- I eat all the time, at any time, because it's one of my favourite things to do...! Though from either perspective, yes, the point is essentially the same: food is something to be enjoyed. Looking briefly at this neurogenesis diet stuff, it seems that you're looking to get more blueberries to increase flavonoids? Does the book explain why blueberry flavonoids (anthocyanidins) are preferable to any of the other flavonoids? Citrus, peanut, cocoa, parsley, and blueberries are all high in flavonoids, but nearly all plants contain them.... On the other hand, though I'm happy to see that it's plant foods being promoted in this diet, I must wonder how beneficial it is really.. isn't most of the evidence based on tests on rats?

PS: sorry to state some really obvious things; it probably sounds bizarrely arrogant to say "We eat food because we enjoy it" as if you didn't know that... but I've come to believe that if one is making an effort to give advice it's better to get all the information out in a cohesive way, even if most of it is obvious...

First off, why blueberries? What is it that they're supposed to be giving you in particular? Second: it's pretty certain that a well-made supplement can pack way more nutrients than a bunch of any fruit. In theory we could easily get all RDI vitamins and minerals from supplements. But that would not be healthy. For one thing, we don't know for certain all the vitamins and minerals we need and those that are just helpful, or useless. Eating real food is obviously a time-tested way of getting what we need in pretty balanced quantities. Another thing is that whole plants also contain fibre, good for digestion, feeling full longer (so we don't eat too much), and prebiotic (forming healthy microbacteria in the gut). And, very obviously, whole foods contain protein, carbs, and fats, all of which are necessary for our health. I mean, we could 'supplement' all of these things, never eating any real food, but that would be wasteful of energy and money and would not be as satisfying and etc.... So this is a long way of stating the obvious: we eat food rather than just using supplements because a good mixture of foods contains most of what we need to be alive and healthy, and because we enjoy it. However, thirdly, there are some things we don't (and sometimes can't) get enough of, even in a good diet... but it's not certain that what you as an individual are lacking is going to be made up for with blueberries and green tea. You might be lacking nothing, or any number of things, including vitamins A, B12, C, D, E, K; iron, magnesium, iodine; Omega-3 fats; etc. B12: It's said these days that it's only vegans who don't get enough B12, but in the modern world it's rare in all natural sources. It comes from bacteria in water, soil, and the gut of animals, but most of our water is purified and things from the soil cleaned before eaten. Rabbits eat their own shit to get B12. Livestock these days don't get enough because their water and feed is as lacking in B12 as ours is, so most livestock are supplemented with it. Many 'vegan' foods (e.g. soy juice) are fortified with it. Same difference. Maybe best to supplement, even as a meat-eater. Vitamin D: In Mexico, assuming you get outside enough and exposed to direct sunlight for a while every day, you're probably OK, but for many in darker climates it's been shown to be hard to get enough in the diet (unless one eats fatty fish with every meal). I'd look into the nutrients commonly accepted as deficient among Americans and compare with your diet to see where you might be lacking. Because getting too much of a nutrient can be unhealthy, too (e.g. too much iron is not good; excess vitamin A in pregnancy can cause birth defects; etc). Vitamin A (including beta-carotene) is necessary for eyesight and other things, but increasing consumption doesn't improve eyesight beyond a certain degree (and can be harmful in some cases). Basically, most people with access to a decent diet are not deficient and getting extra is a waste of time.

Actually the simpler form, 云, appears to be the earliest version, found on the bones. Like a lot of characters it unnecessarily gained complexity. Logically, a form similar to 云 almost certainly existed in Chu at that time. But fair enough if you have nothing further to say -- there's not much we can do about it without access to more/better material.

I wonder... if another ancient text had been dug up at Guodian instead of the Laozi, with nothing to compare it to, and there was a line with that character, would everyone have assumed it was related to 云? Or that 天道熉熉 was comparable to 天物云云?

I've circled the character in question. One of my Chinese references says, 員，原字似“——”型。員員，意指物體紛紜眾多。 With the —— being a character that doesn't display outside the PDF. It is written as I said, 口 一 目 灭 And I understand where people are getting 員 from, but firstly, it's not quite the same with a 灭 underneath, and secondly, it's certainly nothing like 云 Quite probably I'm just confused or ignorant, and there's a simple explanation, and I should just accept what the scholars have said, but...

It'll take more than this to convince me how the GD character is related to the other versions! 1. Structurally, there is no similarity between 熉 and 云. 2. The character 云 existed long before the time of Guodian, so I have to ask, why isn't it used on the GD slip? Why not 云云? Did 熉熉 mean back then what 云云 meant later? Same meaning, entirely different characters? Why such a drastic change in characters? And 云云 makes sense as "every thing" or something similarly wide and inclusive, but 熉熉 ? 3. When the first 2 characters are 天道, what does it mean if the next 2 characters are "every thing" ? In the Guodian particularly, in the context of the chapter, what makes most sense to me is not "the way of heaven is everything" but "the way of heaven is growth and decay" (or similar) The Hengxian transcriptions use 云云, but I cannot find a picture of the original slips to see for myself what is written there. So, as far as we know it's possible that the characters are the same as in the Guodian, 熉熉, and they have been transcribed as 云云; or it's possible that what is actually written on the slips is 云云. By this point I don't necessarily trust transcriptions, even by Chinese people. Also, in Hengxian the 云云 comes first. The line is 氣信神哉，云云相生 -- each gives birth to each other (?). In Outer Chapters of Zhuangzi we find 万物云云, 各复其根 -- yet another version, but I don't know that this means anything to us as it was likely written a while later than the original Laozi.

Looking at 5 and 16 together in the new ch.5 discussion I realized that this was never resolved (on my end anyway). edit: to be clear for non-Chinesers, I'm talking of the line, 天/夫物芸芸，各復歸其根 When things have displayed their luxuriant growth, we see each of them return to its root (Legge) They grow and flourish and then return to the source (Feng) or in the Guodian, 天道熉熉，各復丌堇 Now, the forms come forth in great numbers, but each returns to its root (Henricks) The character 芸 in the DDJ, and the one it replaces from the Guodian, 熉, both confused me. The received version appears to talk of "the things of heaven" (tian wu) growing and returning (yun yun); the Guodian speaks of "tian dao" (the Way of Heaven) rather than "the things of heaven". Looking at some entries, the Huainanzi says of the received text character, 芸草可以死复生 (Yun) grass can die and live again Looking at the character in the GD, it is comprised of something like 員 (increase) and either 火 or 灭 (fire or destroy) increase and destroy The top part of the character, as it is not exactly 員, but 口一目 on top of each other, can also be linked to 春 spring -- another way of saying 'new growth'. And of course, 秋 autumn contains fire, also. The 2 characters are both related in another way, too: the colour yellow. Not sure what relevance that has. In summary: both characters related to growth, death, rebirth / creation and destruction / new growth / yellow grass / the colour yellow. The earlier text speaks of 天道 tiandao rather than 天物 or 夫物 Thought that was quite interesting. Certainly I prefer the Guodian's version of things.