Arquivo para a ‘Information Science’ Categoria
Doctors are for the sick
12
Sep
Number of cases and studies of studies falling for a perception
that the pandemic would have come to an end, it is from a certain number of studies as in cases, but as much as studies of studies scientists continue to advance in future treatments
Diseases were little known and medicine at the time was too expensive to have no purchasing power, even the fact that a paralytic was placed in the presence of Jesus descending through the ceiling, has a mistaken interpretation, they would not let him pass.
It is a fact that we already have chairs and seats in the queues for elders, pregnant women and the sick, but there is still a mentality of the community of the pure, the saints or the perfect, after all, efficiency cannot come from those who are not physically prepared for it.
This was how the pandemic was dealt with, many said that the sick isolate themselves and society will continue its rhythm, but what we saw was society as a whole losing its rhythm, and the result of this pressure gradually turned into many psychic diseases. , even for those who made them.
Treating and working with imperfection, illness and purity is only to promote the social integration of people, the idea of being a “model” for others is a Kantian idea of ethics, which can lead to an ethics and a partial view of sociability and what is imperfect.
In terms of religious culture, it leads to isolation, the formation of a bubble in which values are reaffirmed, but many are excluded and are not invited to participate and live with differences, this is one of the main religious paradigms that Jesus broke in his time.
Talking to women, leaving space for children, healing lepers and cripples broke the Pharisaic concept of what was considered “unclean”, went against sinners and the sick.
It is true that the blind cannot guide the blind, but doctors are for the sick, says the biblical passage (Lk 15:1-3): “At that time, publicans and sinners came to Jesus to listen to him. The Pharisees, however, and the teachers of the Law criticized Jesus. “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” , then Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep and then the prodigal son.
The Pharisaic mentality not only does not cure the sick, it becomes a social disease itself.
The Einstein Ring and the Spheres
08
Sep
It was the philosopher Sloterdijk who was the first to create the
relationship between man and his spheres, from the maternal womb to the planet, he is largely right, also in criticizing cynical reason, the one that justifies spherical reality is largely correct, it is a metaphor, but very good.
Let us think of the fetus, which remains within the sphere of the uterus until it leaves and looks at its ex-sphere, the mother, will still feel her dependence for a long time, it happens that this sociological, anthropological, semiotic reality has its own topological properties that are hidden in the cynical reason.
One of them is to understand that there is an immunological relationship whose primary purpose is to protect, nourish, train and immunize homo from an unknown sapiens exterior, like the baby who at birth depends on the mother, he needs her immunological protection.
The search for other spaces, inhabiting the moon (the new mission finds it difficult) and mars (astronauts think it would be horrible to live there) does not resolve the planetary spherical relationship, in crisis, it is necessary to open up to the other and leave of the hut, some psychologists speculate about the hut syndrome, which the pandemic has accelerated, not wanting to leave a sheltered, spherical environment.
The super telescope James Webb photographs Einstein’s ring in a place far away and physically unreachable by man (the image), at least under current technological conditions, and the physicist’s prediction was “photographed” (actually the instruments are of frequencies and not of “photos”) with formidable precision, one can extend Sloterdijk’s metaphor.
Gerald’s 1916 theory of Gravity revolutionized physics by creating a physics that claimed that gravity is a curvature of the space-time continuum caused by the mass of objects, almost two massive objects were perfectly aligned with the Earth this space-time would deflect the photons forming rings around the alignment of these two objects.
An English physicist named Sir Oliver Lodge suggested that this phenomenon of a massive gravitational field would not only deflect light from an object behind it, but also magnify it forming a gravitational lens, and the recent James Webb photo confirms this phenomenon.
What is the metaphor, massive immunological spheres, cultures, religions or ideologies whose purpose is to protect themselves when close (or on a collision course which makes the metaphor more complicated) not only form a strong gravitational field that draws bodies around, they do not they only distort space-time, but they are also lenses that, if carefully observed, allow us to see what is behind.
So it is time to look beyond the differences, the imperfections of the spherological models and enable a gravitational attraction that helps to better understand the civilizing process.
The idolatry of perfection
07
Sep
Myths and idols were created precisely to divert the understanding
of human nature, they change according to the contexts and the evolution of languages, but they have always been present in the history of humanity and thus they themselves must have human considerations.
Nietzsche warned us about the risks of living fed by idols (or ideas, which for him were synonymous), showed that by dominating our mind and conditioning our thinking, feeling and acting in the world, we become strict with our life and that of others, claimed to be a monstrous force, as a myth it can be said that its maximum expression is Narcissus (image) and this led to sameness, the lack of originality and diversity, the demand for the same.
In the name of some idealism, and in modernity it itself became a philosophy after Kant, people are capable of hurting and reaching the other who is outside their model, and even not allowing to build in life what they allowed themselves to be conquered by Is it over there.
The model of efficiency, productivity and social rigor is also a model of perfection.
This happens because the idealist model formulates that there is an ideal model to follow and reality is always imperfect and thus they prefer to follow the perfection of ideas and reach the absurdity of submitting others to their model of perfection, they believe that there is a top to be hit.
So it is not possible to formulate a human model to be followed, of course it is possible if we understand human imperfection as part of a process of hominization and civilization in which all other humans must have the same possibility of living and sharing the common environment.
Edgar Morin called this “planetary citizenship”, many political and religious models speak of solidarity, of rejection of hatred, but it is necessary to observe if they do not build something that excludes.
Today is the day of the Brazilian nation, so diverse and rich in races and ethnicities, any model that does not support the other is the type of idolatry of perfection that must be rejected, does not lead to solidarity.
Spinozian Ethics, a strong counterpoint to idealist ethics, formulated that reality is always equal to perfection, because perfection only makes sense when it is reality not something imagined or thought, so perfection is reality to the same extent that reality is perfect.
Without love and respect for the Other, for diversity and tolerance, every ideal model is imperfect.
Between affliction and peace, the infinite and the eternal
01
Sep
Many seek happiness at any price, so we reflect 
empathy early in the week, then reflect on the anguish and distress that are axes of growth and suffering, but it is they that understandably lead us to real happiness, built peace.
Kierkegaard’s “Concept of Anguish” (1884) shows multiple forms: the anguish of freedom or nothingness, there is a personal choice of this that the author calls the choice of oneself, the anguish of goodness and obstinacy, the anguish of sexuality, that of tomorrow and that of the finite, it is prior to faith.
At this point it is possible to link to a phenomenological view, and still to link it to the interpretation of the biblical passage of man’s fall into sin (Genesis 3), ignoring the Enlightenment / Idealist culture, which is the anguish of freedom or choice that occupies a essential role for the Self.
According to Kierkegaard man is called, as spirit (addition and mind), to place the relation between the elements that characterize him structurally, likewise those that can conflict with each other (body and soul, temporality and eternity), choosing a form of existence among the innumerable ones historically presented to him, here the phenomenology.
Although innumerable, Kierkegaard pedagogically lists some choices that are choices in three life styles (or “stages”): the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious, is reductive but interesting.
The openness I see (in it is only existence but could be essence as Being) is that anguish is therefore “nothingness” that each person in his indeterminacy “is” at the moment of establishing synthesis to the point of being. give yourself an “identity”, a controversial theme in idealism, here that I think is possible to connect it to Heidegger’s “being in the world”, although different concepts.
Contrary to the fall the biblical passages of the New Testament could be placed on the beatitudes in Mt 5: 1-12, we highlight two that were dealt with in these days, verses 4 and 5: “Blessed are the afflicted, for they shall be comforted, blessed. the meek, for they shall possess the earth, ”and verse 9,” Blessed are they that bring peace, for they shall be called the children of God.”
But Kierkegaard’s fundamental help is on the question of identity, definitions as being-in-itself and being-in-the-world, and the concept of the eternal which is a launch into the “infinite.”
Libraries and Wars
31
Aug
In the 1950s, shortly after the Second World War, the Brazilian
documentation magazine translated and published an article by Carl Hastings Milan on the Wars and the loss of documents and libraries.
He had been director of the Birmingham Public Library, where he opened the first branch of services for African American authors and readers, the article is available online and shows a face of the war for libraries in reference to the previous post we made on this blog.
The transcriptions into Portuguese were made by Sylvio do Valle Amaral and the original article follows the war in September 1944, published in The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science in Philadelphia.
The article begins by indicating the interruption and discontinuity of journals and publications during wartime, in addition to the material loss and lack of exchange of many documents.
The author emphasizes this loss where: “London publishers and booksellers lost millions of volumes in 1940-41. Several famous British scholarly libraries, and dozens of public ones, were damaged or destroyed. Several European countries, Russia, China, in addition to the Philippines, have suffered or are now experiencing a similar fate, but the saddest is yet to come” (MILAN, 1950, p. 50).
In advance many works were taken or hidden from German libraries, but the destruction and looting represent a cultural attack according to the “infamous” author who was credited to Hitler, it is important to look at this for history so that it does not repeat itself now.
Among the author’s denunciations is that also in the defeat: “Newspapers recently reported the burning of books in Naples, before the withdrawal of the Nazi army” (idem, p. 50), and thus a part of history is erased, regardless of of what those documents represent, they are an important cultural testimony of a time, which, because it is outdated, is subject to criticism, but there is no right to erase it, they are cultural documents.
It reestablishes the role of libraries, now also in crisis due to a distorted view of digital technology that we also post here, but the author says for that time: “Basic to the reestablishment of intellectual activity throughout the universe, is the reorganization of libraries” and ignoring this is a crime against the cultural preservation and memory of the people.
After emphasizing cooperation and support for libraries in Latin America and elsewhere, countries discuss the training of librarians:
“Despite the common recognition, in the United States and abroad, of the imperfections of our methods in preparing young men and women for library work, a surprisingly large number of students from abroad come to this country at normal times to obtain what schools of this specialty can offer” (MILAN, 1950, p. 53)
Milan, C. H. As bibliotecas, os intelectuais e a Guerra, trad. Sylvio do Valle Amaral. Rio de Janeiro: REVISTA DO SERVIÇO PUBLICO, AGOSTO DE 1950 (original in 1944).
War and peace
30
Aug
I read a recent commentary on Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) that another Russian
writer Ivan Turgenev claimed that knowing and reading Tolstoy is better than reading hundreds of works of ethnography and history” to know the character and temperament of the Russian people, conservatives such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) who came to be considered his successor, and Vladimir Lenin leader of the Soviet revolution who considered him one of the greatest Russian writers.
Many of his books were for the cinema, recently (2012) Anna Karenina was rewritten for the cinema, under the direction of Joe Wright, and was nominated for an Oscar and won the best costume design, but a masterpiece by Tolstoy is the book War and Peace.
From War and Peace I remember impressions and some loose phrases, and the context of the book that talks about the tsarist wars of their context and time, but which is revealing of Russian thinking about war, and that its scourges are not ignored.
The book deals with the lives of 5 aristocratic families, in the period from 1805 to 1820, in the midst of the march of Napoleonic troops and their brutal impact on the lives of hundreds of characters.
There are figures such as the brothers Natasha and Nikolai Rostóv, Prince Andrei Bolkónsky and Pierre Bezúkhov, the illegitimate son of a count whose spiritual quest serves as a kind of thread in the novel and transforms him into a complex and intriguing character of the 20th century. XIX, and whose pursuit will be a complement to peace in the midst of war.
A kind of refuge similar to the book-stealing Girl, which in this case is in the context of Nazi Germany and she will find in the books a refuge for the dark environment of the rise of Nazism in Germany.
I see a common feature in these two books, which is this “refuge”, something between the spiritual and the reader, but both manage to create, in a suffocatingly hateful environment, gaps and spaces of peace and spiritual elevation.
If war comes, what will be our refuge, at what level of spiritual life and knowledge do we want to put our lives that will be at risk, I believe these are contemporary readings.
TOLSTOI, L. (1889) WAR AND PEACE, transl. Nathan Hskell Dole, NY: Ed. Thomas V. Crowell & Co.
Covid-19 and future care
29
Aug
Covid 19 leaves some lessons, one of them is not to underestimate viruses, they
can have a greater mutation capacity than expected and can complicate immunity results, in the field of social policy, governments and administrative bodies need to respect life and sometimes you have to sacrifice efficiency and performance for the greater good.
Aspects of social life, there is still a lot to learn and even the results in a near end of covid, are still to be evaluated: anxieties, depressions and irritations are aspects that should not be underestimated and also need to be seen as public health.
In the field of viruses, there is now a debate about an immunity deficit” caused by the period of social isolation, in all age groups, but especially in children, this has favored diseases such as hepatitis and other viruses more intensely.
Last week we said studies that indicate a possibility of pandemic “evolution” for bacteria and fungi, I looked for some reports and studies about it and found that there is indeed a possibility.
According to a French study, in which one of the co-authors is a French doctor François Angouvalnt, the fact that some people did not catch so many viruses in the months of the pandemic was a relief on average from the tragedies of Covid-19 peaks, but it left the immune systems without training to face common pathologies and created population groups more vulnerable to some viruses and bacteria that are normally treated and resolved as simple cases.
The study followed some evolutions of these diseases since 2020 and observed the evolution in the population of Paris and caused apprehension a greater vulnerability.
Particularly in Brazil, the number of deaths from covid is around 70 daily deaths and falling, while the number of infections below 10 thousand, everything indicates an end of the pandemic by the end of the year, but with a new wave of cold in the country. south and southeast care must be maintained.
The position of power and symmetry
25
Aug
As we elaborated in the previous post, power is always a hierarchical
position and so the final decision and the instruments of oppression are the positions only of those who occupy the highest positions in the hierarchy and what remains at the base of the pyramid is rebellion or resignation.
If power is necessary, it is up to those in the post to exercise it with discernment and generosity, the ideal would be that they were in fact at the service, but with rare exceptions, most use the post, and in general all those who who sophism with power.
The Platonic and Aristotelian model assumed that the polis could be governed by those who were well prepared and for this they created instruments for the formation of the citizen of the polis, the politician par excellence.
The evolution of this model reached the Enlightenment, and practically all current models (there are some exceptions in Africa and in Asian countries) this is the model of power of most nations, by force, by vote or by what Byung Chul Han called psychopolitics, deceiving peoples.
But it is important to remember that there is power disseminated throughout the social structure, and also that there are networks (they may or may not use media) and through them each one can exercise their action for a better, more symmetrical world with greater reciprocity between co-citizens.
Sloterdijk created the model of co-immunity, but they presuppose that some “evil” always prevails, something like the “discontent of humanity”, what we call here the civilizational crisis, the absence of a real model to oppose the prevailing dictatorial models. or on an increasing scale, there is a return to the crises of the beginning of the century, precisely because there was no opposition to the root of the model: the Enlightenment and the idealist.
The economic reasons are consequences and not the root of these models, as Edgar Morin intended when emphasizing that there is no way to change without changing the roots of thought, Heidegger also says that abandoning the revolution in thought is not allowing real change in society, and that it is basically the reason why we reverted to the theses before the first war, that is, we repeated history.
Symmetry, reciprocity, understanding of human diversity and respect for it are almost always ignored by the models of the beginning of the last century, returning to them is nothing but a foreshadowing of a greater tragedy: the civilizational crisis with deeper roots than the previous ones. .
Who will suffer the most will be the base of the pyramid of power, but the volume of military power can lead to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, only solidarity, fraternity and reciprocity can avoid and redirect this crisis.
Power and violence
24
Aug
Historically, peaceful peoples or peoples with little defense 
structure were dominated by imperialist peoples, often justified by social values or noble causes, but the practice in the end is domination, developed by Max Weber.
In recent history, the ideas of the “sovereign” by Hobbes and the “prince” by Machiavelli started the idea of the State even in the period when there were kings (in England and other countries there are still), and later they were reworked by Kant and Hegel, where the concepts of city-state and citizenship from classical antiquity have been recovered and updated, but this is the idea of modern power.
The idea of democracy in the American sense of the word was developed by Alexis de Tocqueville, which is at the same time a compliment to the American model, but has gaps in interpretation that allow for a critical analysis.
The idea that all power emanates from the people, despite being an ideal model in the broadest sense of the word, is really the final project of idealism, but Sloterdijk notes that the model of “human domestication” has failed, there are two wars in the so-called “advanced” countries. ” and one lurking.
The most recent analyses, which deal with the “de facto” power present in forms of domination and ideological control of populations (ideology here in a broad sense) depart from Michel Foucault’s analysis that there are disparate, heterogeneous and constantly changing forms of how this power is exercised, so it is everywhere and not in an institution or in someone, where it develops the concepts of biopower and micropower.
Byung Chul Han, disciple and in line with Peter Sloterdijk, develops the most advanced form that we have today, which is psychopower, not only through the control of news and fake news, but especially through the relationships that develop socially where there is no reciprocity, what what Chul Han calls “symmetry”.
He says there is no symmetry in any form of power or in communication (so all communication is a form of domination and power), there is only symmetry where there is “respect”. and so the most “violent” form of politics today is to disrespect the adversary in various ways.
This is everyday violence, that it advances to its cruelest form which is war is nothing but a consequence, so violence begins in the actions of psychic violence in everyday life.
As Chul-Han establishes: “power is an asymmetrical relationship. It grounds a hierarchical relationship” (HAN, 2019, p. 18) and it is the basis of all social and political violence, a power that is truly democratic must re-elaborate the symmetry or reciprocity between citizens and the state.
Han, Byung Chul. (2019) No enxame (In the swarm). Brazil, Petrópolis: Ed. Vozes.
Falling pandemic, there could be another
22
Aug
The pandemic continues to fall, slowly due to both the vaccination
rate and the relaxation of protocol measures, in Brazil 144 deaths and 15 thousand infections were recorded, it is the lowest rate since May.
The question is whether new pandemics can arise and what precautions to take for prevention, which is much better than letting it happen and then sounding the alarm.
In China some serious viruses are monitored, in general they come from animals to humans, that of the shrew, a small rodent is one of them, a study released on August 4th detected the Langya henipavirus (LayV) that caused infections in 35 people, among 2018 and 2021 in Shandong and Henan provinces causes symptoms such as fever, fatigue, anorexia, myalgia and nausea.
However, the forecast in the medium and long term is that there will be an “evolutionary” process for fungi and bacteria, this is because pesticides and medicines for bacteria cause an evolution in organisms, and in the case of fungi there are not many studies and the use of defensive is increasingly intensive.
In the United States, a rare bacterium called Burlkolderia pseudomallei has been found, which can make some people extremely sick, especially patients with diabetes and kidney problems, doctors are on alert, but there are still no reported cases.
The fungus alert was made by a report by National Geographic, which says that we know little about these organisms and they are very resistant to treatments and with this, in the event of a pandemic, it could get out of control.
Studies for prevention must also have funding, they are the basis for avoiding pandemics along with the immediate disclosure of cases that can be chronic.
