The human being in the flow of transformation E-Book

Aleksandra Dimova

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 414

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Fear is seen as a generalized, successful survival strategy that warns us of danger. However, doesn't it often cause us to overlook relevant details of a situation or to act in a way that is prone to error, or even paralyze us altogether? Aleksandra Dimova discusses these and many other questions in her work "Der Mensch im Fluss der Verwandlung" (Man in the Flow of Transformation). In doing so, she gives the reader insight into complex biological and psychological (causal) mechanisms. So far, humans have managed to survive in the flow of countless events by means of finely tuned regulatory processes. But does this also help us in the face of the current flood of demands and information? And what can we do to improve our well-being? – A fascinating guide for all those hungry for knowledge!

Leseprobe

Dedicated to

the human being,

the Homo sapiens

Figure 1.

The interdisciplinary human-environment model: Flow of transformation (according to A. Dimova)

INTRODUCTION

The British author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake wrote:

"I wrote this book because I believe that science will be more exciting and engaging if it defies the dogmas that limit the inquiring mind and keep the imagination behind bars."

(Rupert Sheldrake, 2015)

About the human-environment interaction model: flow of transformation

Has the titleThe human being in the flow of transformationaroused your curiosity? Apparently so, as you have already turned the cover and are now reading these lines. I would like to make it clear right at the beginning: This book is not a story about a river. The river is a metaphor for a series of successive neurobiological and quantum physical processes that connect people to each other and to their environment. The story I am sharing here is about my personal journey of research and discovery. I began this journey spontaneously a few decades ago, and after several years, it led me to develop this model of human-environment interaction.

My journey of discovery

For me, this journey began completely unspectacularly and unexpectedly at the end of the 1990s, when I was doing my double specialist training as a neuropsychiatrist. At that time, lectures in the two specialties of neurology and psychiatry were held in parallel. Like everyone else who attended them, I found this exhausting. Later, during my research on the human-environment interaction model presented here, this training proved to be very helpful. My neuropsychiatry specialty training allowed me to gain a solid pool of knowledge from both specialties to draw upon. The two simultaneous specialist training courses also shaped my thinking. They led me to learn to think in terms of complementarities, namely to be able to view psychological and somatic, i.e. physical, forms of expression from a neurological and psychiatric perspective. This broadened my horizons: I asked myself many "how" and "why" questions, which made me curious to find answers and encouraged me to experiment with concepts.

When it came to finding cause-and-effect principles for certain neurological and psychiatric symptoms, the situation was clear. It was much easier for neurologists to find the origin of neurological symptoms. Based on the knowledge of neuroanatomy, neurologists gained a clear understanding of how electrical impulses propagate along neural pathways, connecting one brain region to another and forming neural circuits. This model makes it easier for neurologists to find their way around the human brain. In the event of a neurological failure, they can quickly find out where to look for lesions that could be responsible for the observed symptom. Meanwhile, increasingly powerful examination techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (or MRI) and positron emission tomography (or PET) make it possible to localize the site of the lesion and the mechanism behind the symptom more precisely.

In contrast, the cause-and-effect principles of psychological expressions were not entirely transparent. When, in the 1990s, at the beginning of my journey of discovery and research, the aim was to explore the biological basis for psychological expressions, no recognizable organic changes could be detected in the brains of patients. For example, the researchers did find asymmetries in brain structures or different values for certain biological markers, but only some of the sufferers showed these. From a scientific point of view, they are therefore not sufficient to be regarded as the neurobiological basis of mental symptoms or illnesses.

Despite the many individual connections that have been discovered, a holistic picture of psychological forms of expression seems to be lost. To stay with our metaphor of the river: By focusing on individual drops, the manifestation of an overall stream of events is not recognized. Despite the many advances that have been made in the field of biological psychiatry and psychology, the picture of the causes of psychic symptoms has hardly changed fundamentally to this day. It remains incomplete.

Without evidence of an organic basis for mental illness, medicine has long spoken of purely "psychologically caused" symptoms and illnesses. We now know that the individual genetic basis plays relevant role in the manifestation of these illnesses, as well as the interaction between people and their environment. Researchers are increasingly talking about epigenetics - which is regarded as the link between environmental influences and genes - without yet having identified the exact mechanism at the interface between humans and their environment.

However, when it comes to the neurobiological background to the development of different personality features, the situation is even more difficult in terms of their organic causes. For example, no differences could be found in the brain structures of people described as optimists or pessimists that would explain why an optimist looks at a glass half-filled with beer with joy ("Great, I've still got half to go") and a pessimist reacts with disappointment ("How come there's only half left?").

There is no shortage of attempts to explain these interactions between people and their environment on the respective biological, psychological and social levels. Every discipline tries to find an explanation from its pool of knowledge. Over time, however, it has become increasingly clear to researchers that one scientific discipline alone does not have sufficient knowledge resources at its disposal to provide an overarching overall theory of the interaction between humans and their environment. The scientists agreed to share the credit for explaining this.

This was the point at which the scientific community began to speak of a bio-psycho-social model of mental illness and forms of expression. This model still shapes the thinking of neuroscientists. It is important to note that this was not a holistic model that depicts reality, but rather theoretical approaches that put together biological, psychological and social perspectives.

These different models coexist like parallel universes. In contrast to the coexistence of parallel universes in cosmology, which supposedly know nothing about each other, the biological, psychological and sociological universes know about the existence of each other and are "aware" of their overlaps.

Where the interfaces lie in these overlaps and how the transitions between biology, psychology and environment take place has not yet been explained. The common denominator has been missed.

The search for the common denominator

My search for such a possible denominator began during a rather boring lecture in the field of psychiatry. That day, the psychiatry professor, an inveterate psychoanalyst, lectured on adjustment disorders (a spectrum of symptoms consisting of anxiety, despair, hopelessness, isolation, sadness, and tension in the cervical spine muscles). Generally, this is a pessimistic attitude toward life combined with a lack of interest and joylessness.

The professor listed the symptoms: psychological abnormalities such as anxiety, depression, anger, bitterness, despair, aggression, but also physical symptoms such as tensed muscle. In his opinion, these physical symptomswere purely psychologically induced.Listing the symptoms of this disorder, he mentioned, vivid muscle stretch reflexes (hyperreflexia). These are reflexes that occur when a muscle is tensed and are triggered by the lengthening of a muscle during a rapid movement. An example of this is the knee joint extensor reflex (hamstring reflex) that can be achieved by striking under the kneecap with a reflex hammer, which causes an involuntary extension of the bent leg. The presence of this reflex would mean that the spectrum of symptoms of an adjustment disorder represents a coexistence of purely psychological and neurological symptoms.This made me sit up and take notice. Somewhere in my brain, the alarm bell rang. The question suddenly arose in my mind: what has an organically caused symptom got to do with a purely psychologically caused illness, an adjustment disorder? I realized that there was something wrong with the explanatory model for the development of mental illness. How could a mental illness be half fish (psychological) and half flesh (neurological)? I could not understand that. The convinced neurologist in me at the time knew that the neurological symptoms that can be observed in mental conditions, such as muscle tension and lively reflexes, must also hide an organic cause. The cause of manifestation of these reflexes needs to be sought always in the brain at the level of the so-called upper motor neurons, which connect the brain with the spinal cord.

From that reason, this coexistence of purely psychological and neurological symptoms could not be a coincidence. They could also be found in many other mental illnesses where tension is part of the symptom spectrum.(Urban, 2012), as well as in a mental condition that is widespread today, namely stress. At the time, I reached for my notebook and jotted down 2 mathematical equation:

Legend: The symbol "=" in the first equation denotes the connection to convey a hidden link between a purely psychological and a purely neurological state.

The use of such a "mathematical" form of representation of observed coincidences between phenomena that appear different at first glance entails the risk of being classified as very simplified and dubious by some scientists. This need not always be the case, as the historian Thomas Goldstein wrote in his bookDown of Modern Science:

"Mathematical relationships often show a surprising elementary simplicity, as if they imply that the infinite variety of observable details presented to our senses is based on relatively few fundamental laws or variants thereof."

(quoted from Calvin, 1997, 541)

Experience during my research work showed that such a form of representation served the function of a note on the pinboard of my attention, reminding me again and again to stay "on the ball" in the search for hidden connections It proved to be groundbreaking in the attempt to discover a principle, the common denominator that lies behind the transitions from one neurobiological process to another; or metaphorically, from one section of the flow of transformation to another. I speculated that there was a hidden connection behind this coincidence in the following way:

Caution is advised when interpreting this equation. It in no way implies that an adjustment disorder is the result of a lesion of the upper motor neuron. It merely indicates that in the case of co-existence between a purely psychological and a purely neurological condition, there must be a common denominator that should be sought at the level of neurobiological processes.What could this be? However, this question then moved to the periphery of my field of attention and at some point disappeared completely from my horizon of interest. Other priorities proved to be more relevant in my life. But as it turned out in retrospect, these equations were like seeds that sprouted very slowly but incessantly somewhere inside me. My curiosity left me no peace to search for this connection. The three equations kept attracting my attention. The question of which neuronal pathways could be responsible for muscle tension and lively reflexes in mental disorders left me no peace.

At some point, I had an impulse to reach for my old neurology and neuroanatomy books again to find out more about the neuronal pathways that could be responsible for muscle tension and vivid reflexes in mental disorders. But there I found no evidence that could suggest a common denominator between the neurological and psychological symptoms of an adjustment disorder. Searching for this hidden denominator, I was forced to leave the comfort zone of my two specialties, neurology and psychiatry, and enter other fields such as physiology and psychology. In physiology, I came across thermodynamics. As a branch of physics, thermodynamics deals with the transformation and change of energy within one or more systems. Neurobiological processes are also subject to their laws. Considering the 0th and 2nd law of thermodynamics according to Rudolf Clausius (see chapter "Human-environment interaction: the role of thermodynamics") proved to be helpful to a) better understand the interaction between humans as an entity and their environment, and b) explain important processes on the motor, physiological and psychological level of humans after contact with the environment.

In order to understand the interfaces where interaction between humans and their environment takes place, there was still a lack of explanatory approaches. As humans are part of a larger whole, the universe, it was obvious for me to look for an explanation for this in quantum physics. Exactly in this field, I found what I was looking for.

One day, I tried to represent all my collected equations in the form of a diagram. The result was not at all encouraging. It seemed very complex and convoluted. I could hardly do anything with it. Nevertheless, I fixed it on a pinboard and let it mature, so to speak. In the meantime, I navigated through the models used in different fields to find traces that could give me clear clues about the link between a mental illness and neurological symptoms.

I once came across the following quote from the American physicist Hans Christian von Baeyer:

"If you don't understand something, take it apart. Reduce it to its components. Since they are simpler than whole things, you have a much better chance of understanding them; and when you have succeeded, put the whole thing back together again."

(Baeyer, 2004, quoted from Bryson, 2011)

"That's easier said than done, Mr. von Baeyer," I thought. There was no shortage of details in my research work. The problem was that there were more and more of them. In sum, they reminded me of a colorblindness test, which consists of many dots of different sizes and colors from which you can make out a hidden number if you are not colorblind. As a colorblind person, I could not recognize anything. The search for conclusive connections between details that I have collected, which are based on scientific foundations, became my constant companion, or, I could say, my life partner: sometimes challenging me, sometimes driving me to despair. Especially when I found myself at a dead end in my research, when I lost track of the whole thing. A frustrating experience kept repeating itself. Nevertheless, I did not give up. I did not lack perseverance. However, the more I immersed myself in different areas over the following years, the more potential connections between details from these areas opened up to me. I wrote these down as further equations before they disappeared again alongside the demands of my everyday life.

As you will learn on this journey of discovery, the result of my research went far beyond my original intention. As already indicated, I originally only wanted to clarify what could be hidden behind the equal sign in the equations mentioned, i.e. what could connect adjustment disorders and lesions of the upper motor neuron. During the journey the hidden common denominator became clearer. Not only that, but as the journey of discovery progressed, outlines of something much more complex began to emerge, ultimately resulting in a model of human-environment interaction that I christenedthe Flow of Transformation.

The development of the model of human-environment interaction

At this point, I would like to emphasize that my work on this model would not have been possible without the work of extremely competent predecessors. I am very grateful to them for this. In developing this model, I have concentrated on those aspects that I considered necessary to put it on a firm scientific footing.Collected findings from various scientific disciplines fitted together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. According to my opinion, a more compact model started to form.

My preferences as well as my professional convictions and experiences from my private and professional life have also influenced the decision as to which of the theories available to me I would like to select. Therefore, some well-known theories have not been sufficiently considered. However, this should not be seen as a disregard for these theories.

My assumptions presented here are based on the findings of Nobel Prize winners such as physicists Max Planck, Richard Feynman, Frank Wilczek, Robert Brout, François Englert, Peter Higgs, physiologists Andrew Huxley and Alan Hodgkin as well as psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Moreover, not only that. The model is in line withancientandconsideredoutdatedtheories on information or immortality of the soul by Plato, Descartes, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. If you think, you know whatinformationis, wait and see. It is not what you think it is. If you are one of the determined ones who are suspicious of the existence of a soul, wait and see.

Do you believe that you are always capable ofconsciously deciding for or against something? That we humans are blessed withfree will, wait and see. The arguments in favor of the existence of a soul (chapterShaping information) or against free will (chapterAutomatic appraisal) are yet to come. Do not underestimate the importance of events or stimuli that you come into contact with (chapter:Events and stimuli). Knowledge of human paleontology and evolution helped me to understand a)which kind of change can we expect on the neurobiological level of Homo sapiens in the futureand b) what consequences these could have on his actions and behavior.

In this book, I have tried to simplify the findings in order to make the quantum mechanical and neurobiological processes more understandable for a broad audience. Some of the readers could perceive the presentation of human neurobiological processes as too simplified. The reason is that I wanted to focus their attention on essential aspects of neurobiology. Therefore, my focus in this model is on thesympathetic nervous system. This does not mean negating the role of its partner, the parasympathetic nervous system. For the same reason, I will therefore focus on four of more than 50 proven neurotransmitters:GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)as the main inhibitory neurotransmitter andserotonin, noradrenaline and dopamineas excitatory neurotransmitters. This does not mean that I do not recognize the complexity of the links and interactions between all the neurotransmitters. However, like an in a good movie that features several supporting actors and hundreds of extras, the stories themselves usually revolve around a handful of main characters, also on a neurotransmitter level, the mentioned neurotransmitters play the role of main move characters that "drive" our psychological life. The reason for this simplification was again to make the model as transparent as possible.

In doing so, I wanted to avoid a situation in which the entire course of the flow of transformation could no longer be seen because of all the knowledge, comparable to drops of water, and thus the interaction between man and his environment could not be recognized in its clarity.

Shortsummaries, may help those readers who skip some sections of the book to remain continuously in the "flow of transformation." I stick closely to key scientific concepts, while supplementing details from different disciplines with metaphors, analogies, illustrations, tables and stories from everyday life and psychiatric practice. The names of people have of course been changed. The book is intended for students, lovers of popular science books, and people in the field of stress and fear research and also for those readers who have knowledge of thermodynamic, psychology, psychiatry, psychopharmacology or quantum physics and collapse of the wave function. They should be interested enough in the wider context of human beings and their environment to be curious and willing to engage with complex concepts.

I dedicate this book to people, Homo sapiens, regardless of their skin color, gender identity, sexual orientation or faith. For this reason - out of respect - I deliberately refrain from using genders.

By reading the first chapter, you will embark on a voyage of discovery on a river: rapids of concentrated information, but also calm waters of reflection await you on this journey. You will look into the depths of physiological, physical and biochemical, psychological and social sources of this river until it reaches its delta and mouth. Along the way, you will you will come across ideas that may deviate from your familiar certainties. You will witness a paradigm shift that could expand your horizons into the incomprehensible.

In the mid-16th century, the English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), reflecting on the incomprehensibility of space at the time, formulated the expansion of human horizons through the inclusion of the - at first glance - incomprehensible as follows:

"We must not constrict the universe in order to adapt it to the limits of our imagination, as humans have tended to do in the past. Rather, we must expand our knowledge so that it is able to grasp the image of the universe."

(Vaas, 2023)

This applies to the idea of our interaction with the (surrounding) world. We must not restrict it in order to adapt it to the limits of our imagination, as we still tend to do. Rather, we must expand our knowledge so that it is able to capture the image of our interaction with the environment.

In the hope that this book can contribute to your knowledge of the interactions between you and your environment, change your perspective and bring about a new assessment of events, and help you with tips on how to control the flow rate of yourriver of transformation, I hope you enjoy this journey from its source to its mouth. Remember that this book describes the flow (or river) of transformation, you are currently experiencing.

Aleksandra Dimova

Graz, November 2024

CHAPTER 1

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT-INTERACTION

Setting off on a voyage of discovery

"Those who bring what has vanished back to life,

experience happiness as if they had made it."

German ancient historian Barthold Niebuhr (1776-1831) (from W. Calvin: Der Strom, der bergauf fließt, 18)

If you want to explore a flow, the most exciting thing to do is to simply step into the water at the point on the bank where you are, pause for a moment and then set off on a voyage of discovery. It would be ideally if you go towards thethe starting point

By continuing to read this book, you agree to leave the safe home of your worldview and embark on a thrilling expedition. I am now embarking on this journey with you again. In addition to the initial impulse to embark on my research trip, which I got during the psychiatry lecture, three events that happened to Lisa - I'll be talking about her again and again - a good friend of mine, were decisive.

The clumsy dip into the ice-cold water

On a warm, sunny day, Lisa went to Lake Weissensee with her boyfriend. The plan was to go diving. Very relaxed, she was looking forward to a new experience for her. It was to be her first dive in fresh water. She knew that the water was rather cold and quickly put on her thick diving suit. Then she was ready to go. In her excitement, she literally jumped off the platform into the cold water - without any preparation. She was immediately hit by a shock. All her muscles tensed up instantly. At the same moment, she felt how difficult it was to breathe in. Her chest seemed to be enclosed in a tight shell. She fought against the massive resistance of this armor to catch her breath. Every new attempt to breathe in was increasingly difficult and sapped her strength. She realized that she could not breathe freely. She was in respiratory distress. At the same time as this realization, she was overcome with fear. All her attention was focused on her breathing, nothing else. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She wriggled restlessly in the water. It was only thanks to the help of her friend that she managed to get back onto the platform and sit down with the last of her strength. Despite the bright sunshine, her whole body was shaken by strong tremors, her teeth chattered and she got goose bumps. Her body automatically curled up. She hugged her knees with her arms. The sun's rays slowly warmed her body up again. Her muscles gradually began to relax. Her posture opened up more and more, as did her chest - she was able to breathe in and out more easily and deeply. The trembling slowly subsided, as did her fear. Such a relieving feeling! The cold shock she had experienced was over. She was able to think rationally again. She immediately realized her mistake: she had rash and hasty exposed her body - and therefore herself - to a cold shock without first slowly preparing it for the cold water. She realized how unfair this was to her body. She let her body soak up the soothing warmth of the sun's rays for a while longer until she got hot in her diving suit and started to sweat. When the whole thing was over, Lisa's friend told her that her wide eyes clearly showed her fear.

After such a terrifying experience, many people would probably not dare to make a second dive - but not Lisa. This time she prepared her body for contact with the cold water by first holding her legs in the cold water for a few minutes before the second dive. Smiling to herself, she remembered how her parents had taught her to do this when she was little. Then she slowly dived in. This time the immersion went perfectly. Relaxed, she was able to admire the underwater world in the Weißensee: the sunken tree trunks, the motionless pike, which then swam away from her elegantly, smoothly, with slow movements. A fascinating experience. When she looked back on her first diving attempt, she realized that there was no space for solution-oriented thinking in the situation of the cold shock she had experienced. At that moment, as she struggled for essential for survival air, her attention was focused on trying to refill her lungs with air so that she could breathe in and out freely. Sitting on the platform, she realized that in this situation, when she was overwhelmed by her fear, she would hardly have been able to get out of the water on her own and save herself under her own power without outside help. If she had been alone, the whole thing could have ended tragically, even though she was only 1.5 meters away from the lifesaving platform.

The collision on the highway

It happened the day Lisa was driving to work on the highway on a beautiful summer's day. She knew this road so well that she could almost drive it blindfolded, so to speak. Suddenly she was startled when she saw a huge stone fall from a truck in front of her into her lane. She immediately realized that a collision with the stone was unavoidable. In retrospect, she remembered how, in that brief moment before the collision, her brain assessed all the events around her with incredible speed. The fast-moving cars in the adjacent lanes blocked her every opportunity to take evasive action. She estimated that a swerving maneuver would lead to an unavoidable collision with other cars speeding past, which could put not only her life but others in danger. So the decision was made: she had to stay in her lane. A collision with the stone was unavoidable. The only question was: how serious would the consequences be? Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly and she felt all her muscles tense up. Then it happened. Her car hit the stone with full force, but continued to roll along the highway. There was a strong, unpleasant smell inside the car. The driver's cabin was filling with thick smoke. Lisa's brain registered a new, no less dangerous threat: her car could start to burn. The life-threatening situation was not over yet. Lisa feared for her life. Nevertheless, she managed to steer her car slowly to the side of the road, bring it to a halt and get out of it quickly. Only when she was outside did she realize that she was shivering and getting goose bumps. She felt like she was on a freezing cold winter's day, even though it was all happening on a warm summer's day.

Standing on the side of the highway, trembling but safe, without having been scratched in any way, was a completely new situation for her to find herself in. Lisa now reassessed the situation: she was safe, the danger was over. She felt her muscles slowly relax. With a deep breath, she sucked air into her lungs. She smiled inwardly. Relieved, Lisa thought: "That was a 'pure adrenaline' situation that I didn't need." She knew she had been very lucky, but also that she had handled it well. The whole thing lasted no longer than a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity to her.

The bad news

On a summer's Sunday, Lisa was enjoying the warm rays of sunshine in her garden, completely relaxed and carefree. She was in a state that physiologists call comfort. Then her cell phone rang. She picked it up. It was a good friend of hers, excitedly informing her that his wife, whom Lisa also knew well, had been diagnosed with advanced cancer. This news hit Lisa like a bolt of lightning. Within a very short time, her whole body tensed up and she was speechless. She was shocked. How could this have happened? How could this illness affect a cheerful, physically active woman who also lived a health-conscious life? Lisa couldn't find the words to console her friend. The only thing she could say at that moment was to wish his wife that everything would turn out well. Then Lisa hung up. She noticed how her whole body began to tremble. She could see the hairs on her body stand up, goose bumps all the way to her head. All her muscles were tense and her breathing was difficult. Her chest felt like it was encased in a tank. She found it difficult to breathe in. On this extremely warm day, she felt cold, freezing cold.

It is interesting to note that Lisa's body responded with identical physical and psychological reactions both, when she were exposed to the cold in Lake Weissensee and when she evaluated the event on the highway. The physical changes observed (muscle tension, trembling, shortness of breath, goose bumps) are part of the physiological protective mechanisms that are designed to protect the body from heat loss and hypothermia, and are therefore referred to as cold defense mechanisms. However, the fear she experienced is not one of them. Even if the activation of the cold defense mechanisms when jumping into cold water is easy to understand, how can we explain the activation of precisely these protective measures in the two other events that were assessed as - directly or indirectly - life-threatening? One important detailwe should not forget: Both the collision on the highway and the transmitted bad news about the dangerous illness of their acquaintance took place on a warm summer day. There can be no doubt about the observed physical and psychological changes that manifested themselves in connection with the events experienced. They are clear facts from everyday human life that cannot only be measured by laboratory tests, but are also visible or verifiable to the naked eye for each individual. These changes provide solid evidence: the assessment of events that are classified as (life) threatening must in some way have something in common with a real loss of heat (such as jumping into cold water), even if in the last example there was no real threat of heat loss due to the external heat. So the question that arises is: What is the common denominator of events of different nature that causes the body to react with the same spectrum of psychophysiological changes?

The good news: entrance exam passed!

Florian was waiting for the final result of his entrance exam. He knew that he hadn't answered a few questions because he didn't have enough time. He had simply misjudged his time during the exam. This did not give him any peace of mind; inwardly he prepared himself and his parents for the fact that he wouldn't pass the exam. With this expectation, he logged onto the university website to see the results. He realized how tense and shaky he was. Searching for his name, he scrolled down the list with the names of those candidates who had passed. Just before the end of the list, when he had already given up hope, he found his name. He could not believe his eyes. He had passed the exam. He thought to himself, "Wow, that's definitely good news; I wasn't expecting it at all!" Suddenly all the tension in his body was gone. His muscles relaxed. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and filled his lungs with air. An incredible joy filled him. A smile spread across his face. He knew it would also be a huge surprise for his parents. He reached for his cell phone and dialed his father's number.

What was happening inside Florian in this situation? In anticipation of a bad result, all his muscles were tense and he was trembling. When he received the good news about the successful entrance exam, his muscles relaxed, he was able to breathe freely again and his worries gave way to joy. He was overjoyed.A single but for him very important piece of good news changed Florian's entire psychophysiological processes.This is similar to what Lisa felt on the platform of the lake when she was safe again and the sun's rays warmed her body.

Summary:

Events that a person appraises as (life) threatening for himself or herself or for others, trigger the same psychophysiological changes in them that correspond to heat loss through cold.

Positively evaluated events trigger the same psychophysiological changes that correspond to an influx of warmth.

Laws of thermodynamics that guide the metaphorical flow

In order to understand what connects all these events, which could not be more different and yet each time triggered identical physical changes in Lisa, let's take a look at what exactly happened to and around Lisa's body in the cold water of Weissensee. By jumping into the cold water, Lisa brought her body with a temperature of around 37 °C into contact with the water of Lake Weissensee, which had a temperature value of only 9 °C.

When heat transfers from a body to a moving medium (water), the layer of water next to the skin begins to heat up first. This warming made the water molecules more mobile and the water layer more fluid. Thanks to the heat supplied by Lisa's body, this layer of water slid upwards. A new, cooler and denser layer of water took its place and clung to Lisa's skin. When this new layer of water warmed up, it also rose upwards and made room for a new, cooler layer. The warming made the water molecules more mobile and this layer of water more fluid. Lisa's released heat slid upwards with this layer of water. A new, cooler and denser layer of water that clung to Lisa’s skin replaced the heated layer of water. This procedure repeated, the warmth flowed rapidly out of Lisa's peripheral body layers.The heat was pulled out from the deeper and warmer layers of the body, to its surface. The cold began to penetrate into the interior of Lisa's body. As the cold reached the blood vessels, the heat left Lisa's body even faster via the bloodstream (convection), causing it to cool down even more rapidly.

Figure 2:

Zeroth law of thermodynamics: Thermal Equilibrium – Heat consistently flows toward the cooler object.

The zeroth and second law of thermodynamics and heat transfer

The heat transfer that took place from Lisa's body and the cold water was a scenario that was subject to the laws of thermodynamics. The warmer object, in this case Lisa's body, did not ask for "permission" as to whether and how much of "its" heat it wanted to release. No. Triggered by the temperature difference, a heat ran from thewarmer to the colderobject. (in the sense of the zeroth law of thermodynamicsor the law of heat equilibrium). The cold quickly reached her body core and her body temperature plummeted. Her body was "catapulted" into a state of cold shock. If it had not been possible for Lisa to escape the cold environment of the White Lake water, the heat from her body would have been transferred to the Weissensee until Lisa's body and the water reached a state of thermal equilibrium (described in the zeroth law of thermodynamics), which would have meant her death. To put it cynically, it could be described as a redistribution of a heat from "rich" (Lisa's body) in favor of a "needy" (the water of the Weissensee). This means that the cooler objects are not vampires that drain energy from us, but that they simply "wait" quietly to be charged with heat by the warmer objects until the temperatures of the two have beenequalized.Opposite way – heat topass froma body lower temperature to a higher body temperature - is according to the second law of thermodynamics not possible.

By contrast, what is considered a social utopia in modern society is a matter of course in nature.Heat, i.e. thermal energy,will be dividedfairlyin nature always.This rule will always remain so because this is thenature of nature. The transfer of energy is the path that connects all living beings and the environment.

If the second law of thermodynamics is taken into account, contact with cold becomes even more important becauseall processes that occur spontaneously in one direction (such as heat) are irreversible (cannot be reversed). Since the human body in most regions of the world has a much higher temperature (approx. 37 °C) than its surroundings, this would mean that there is always a spontaneous transfer (loss) of heat towards its colder surroundings. The laws of thermodynamics have been operating since the creation of the universe and will continue to determine processes in nature and in humans as a part of it takes place.

This is very relevant information for us humans: There is no way we can override the laws of nature, in the given case an automatic loss of heat. For this reason, it is clever,

get to know the process of heat loss and heat transfer,

recognize the situations in which our body loses heat - and as with Lisa, this happens not only in a cold environment, but also in negative appraisals of events, as well as

to look for effective strategies that successfully protect us from unnecessary heat loss.

One more information for you: The speed at which heat was transferred from our bodies to the cold surrounding is proportional to:

the temperature difference between the objects.

The greater the temperature difference, the faster cooling occurs. In Lisa's case, at 37 °C body temperature and 9 °C water temperature, there was a difference of around 28 °C.

the size of the contact surface.

The larger the contact surface between the solid object and a flowing fluid, the faster the heat will transfer from the warmer object to the colder one. So if a body is in the water, this body offers the maximum contact surface to the water; the drop in temperature is therefore abrupt.

the thermal conductivity of the contact material.

The greater the thermal conductivity of a contact material, the faster the heat dissipation. In the case of water, this conductivity is high, 25 times greater than that of air, so all the conditions were in place for Lisa's temperature to plummet.

Lisa's luck in misfortune

With the help of her friend, she managed to climb out of the water via a platform. On the ladder, her body rolled up automatically, making itself small, which reduced its surface-to-volume ratio to the maximum, minimizing further heat loss by dissipating heat into the environment. Over the course of millions of years of subtle evolutionary work, this automatically induced curling up developed a very sophisticated protective mechanism that served to protect their body from further heat loss.

At the platform, her body came into the contact with na environment with a higher temperature than Lisa's body. The direction of heat transfer reversed, now it was not Lisa's body – it was colder than the environment -that was providing the heat. The heat flowed from the air, into Lisa's hypothermic body. This circumstance led to a role reversal, now Lisa's body was the (heat) winner. Her body temperature began to rise.

Summary:

We humans should finally realize that our bodies cannot circumvent the laws of nature under any circumstances.

These laws have functioned since the creation of the universe and will continue to determine the processes in nature and in humans as a part of it.

CHAPTER 2

HOMEOSTASIS, THE MUST-HAVE PRINCIPLE

The fluctuations in body temperature caused by the back-and-forth heat transfer had a strong influence on Lisa's body, or more precisely on its internal milieu.

According to me, it is very important thing to understand how our bodies maintained their internal milieu is. The way they self-regulate its stability is calledhomeostasis. In the middle of the 19th century, Claude Bernard (1813-1878), a French physician, pharmacist and experimental physiologist, founded modern experimental physiology. He took nothing for granted in his scientific work. As he later explained, his aim was toestablish the use of scientific methods in medicine. He achieved his goal and was able to refute many traditional doctrines. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he insistedthat all living beings were subject to the same natural laws as inanimate matter.He put forward the idea that there are actually two environments for living things: a)an external environment, in which the organism is located, and b) an internal milieu, in which the components of living tissue are located. He considered that the existence of being does not take place in the external environment, but within a fluid medium - lymphatic or plasma fluid, the liquid components of the blood - which penetrate the tissues and form all the interstitial fluids. (Gross, 1998). He called this fluid medium"milieu intérieur" (the inner milieu).From a historical perspective, what has remained from this approach is that there is aneed for an organism to have a constant milieu. It means that an organism strives to maintain constant values of different parameters. All vegetative functions in the body are subordinatedto the purpose of maintaining predetermined values (target values), countless parameters of this milieu(such as the regulation of blood pressure and heart rate, ion regulation, i.e. electrolyte balance) and osmoregulation, the glucose concentration, etc.The most important parameter of these, however, is the body temperature. Every single cell, i.e. every single receptor cell, contributes to themaintenance of a stable internal environmentof the entire body andat the same time benefits from it itself.In 1860, Claude Bernard was the first to describe the importance of maintaining the stability of internal fluids (milieu intérieur) for the development of complex neuronal systems. According to him, the survival of living organisms depends on whether the stability of the internal milieu is guaranteed or not (Gross, 1998). In 1929 and 1932, the American physiologist and psychologist Walter Cannon and one of the most important biologists of the 20th century, Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy, coined the termhomeostasisbased on the principle ofmaintaining the stability of the internal environment(Flechtner, 1972). This is the fundamental functional principle (homeostasis principle) of all living organisms, including humans. As long as homeostasis is present, all cells and the body live and function optimally as a unit. If the functionality of one or more functional systems is impaired, all cells of the body are affected according to the principle of a butterfly effect. The extent of damage is determined by the intensity of the loss of function. Extreme failures can lead to the death of the individual, while milder impairments "only" lead to illness.

About the term: Homeostasis

The term homeostasis (ancient Greekὁμοιοστάσιςhomoiostásis, German "Gleichstand", also homoiostasis, homeostasis, homeostasis, homeodynamics) as an interdisciplinary model to explain behavior is used in numerous disciplines, such as physics, biology, economics, sociology, psychology or law. In physiology, this term refers to themaintenance of the equilibrium state of an open, dynamic system, i.e. the body itself,which isbrought aboutbyan internal regulating process (regulation).As a result,an organism's need for a stable internal environment, a target state, is ensured.The basic principle of regulation (in comparison to control) is based on constantfeedbackas to whether the actual value of a parameter deviates from its target value. This enables the system to achieve the controlled target values. The way it functions can be illustrated most easily with the following example: steering a ship on a river. A captainsteershis ship bymaneuveringit in the direction in which the destination lies. This is comparable to sailing on calm waters towards the port of destination. However, if disruptive obstacles, currents or changes in wind direction occur during the journey that could cause the ship to deviate from its route. In this case the captain must then repeatedly compare the actual position (actual value) of his ship with the desired direction (target value), make appropriate corrections like changing the direction of the rudder, and thus finely correct the course throughout. This addition to the control system by means of continuous feedback as to where the ship is currently located is calledregulation.

Regulation of homeostasis

The best example of how the self-regulation of a predetermined value (setpoint) of a parameter works is the regulation of body temperature: the main pillar on which the stability of the internal environment, homeostasis, is based. The regulation of homeostasis takes place continuously and mostly unnoticed in all living systems.

About the term: Self-regulation

This term itself describes processes in which a system iscapable of learning to adapt to changing conditions. It means that in cases of disturbances (deviations between target and actual values), homeostatic systems such as the human body are able to achieve their goal (target value) through self-regulation (Karoly, 2010). This definition states that the human body automatically adapts itself to changing conditions without "asking permission" from its owner, the human being.

Principles of self-regulation

What are the requirements that a system must fulfill in order to be able to act in a self-regulating manner? Applied to the human being, "self-regulation" is thought to have very complex capabilities:

to set goals independently,

to be able to determine the difference between 2 different values, the so-called target and actual values,

to plan, select and carry out suitable actions

to bring the changed value (actual value) back to the desired, function-promoting target value,

to provide appropriate "rewards",

to provide the system with the energy (heat)

it

needs

to maintain a setpoint without interruption. (Karoly, 2010)

Seen in this light, self-regulation obviously requires sophisticated cognitive functions that only a personhigher intelligence quotient is able to perform it.How can a body that is a collection of billions and billions of cells get to grips with all these tasks? Who or what sets the goals that cause 1014 or 100 trillion or 100,000,000,000,000 individual cells that an adult counts to pursue them? What is capable of determining the difference between set point and actual value and orchestrating the activity level of myriad physiological processes to restore the set point of body temperature or any other parameter to maintain homeostasis?

Summary:

The need of every organism is to maintain a stable internal milieu.

Every single cell of the living organism contributes to the maintenance of a stable internal milieu (homeostasis) and at the same time benefits from it itself.

Maintaining the equilibrium state of an open, dynamic system, such as the body itself, is achieved automatically by an internal regulating process (self-regulation).

Key principles of homeostasis

The 2 most important principles that maintain a stable internal milieu (i.e. homeostasis) are:

1. negative feedback (negative feedback) and

2. control systems that are responsible for maintaining a target value (setpoint) of the parameters of the inner milieu.

1. Negative feedback

This principle of maintaining the homeostasis means that any deviation from the target value of a parameter of internal milieu alters the activity level of the body's control systems (biochemical and physiological processes) to counteract the deviation accordingly (Hall, 2016). An example of this is the recovery of the body temperature set point after a drop (hypothermia) or a rise (hyperthermia). In case of hypothermia, body's control systems increase the heat production and minimize the heat release; for hyperthermia, the control systems function in reverse.

2. Setpoint and its control systems

The target value of a parameter of the internal milieu (there are many of these) denotes a desired, ideal value from which the actual value should deviate as little as possible.

Control systems, i.e. the physiological processes responsible for maintaining the target value, differ in their effectiveness in keeping it constant. In physiology, their effectiveness or the so-called "gain of the negative feedback" is calculated using the following formula:

The higher this "feedback gain" value means that the particular control system is more effective in maintaining the target value of "its" parameter.

To make it easier to understand this, let's take the control system that maintains the setpoint forbody temperature