My latest track is out now via YouTube and elliottelford.com. This is very influenced by the recent events with Elon Musk (Go Fuck Yourself Bob Iger), as well as my generation’s (the millennials and Z’s) conquest for a better world. I hope it gets you excited about the release of Grōk, AI, and the cosmic future of humanity.
I spent a little while on this one, mostly on the mix. The sound design process has been pretty consistently expansive for me lately, and I keep fine tuning the frequencies of the sounds that I truly LOVE to make. I am not super impressed with the AI music making software yet, but I also remind myself that highly technical tools, such a RIFT, or PhasePlant are undoubtedly made with AI precursor softwares (which are human oriented). I can’t recommend these two plug-ins enough. They are top of the line and I really love and appreciate the products.
Lymphatic system (aka the ‘‘immune system‘) – organs, tissues, and vessels work as a team to transport lymph (excreted fluid from cells or tissues in the body) back into the bloodstream.
This immune “system” of organs remembers every microbe it has ever fought and defeated.[1] It works in unison to prevent pathogens from invading the body.
Lymph fluid plays an extremely important role in the immune system and evolves over the course of a lifetime. The current body of research suggests that hydration is essential for overall health and can support various bodily functions, including the immune system and definitely cognitive functions including memory, attention, and concentration[10]. However, more targeted research is needed to fully understand the direct impact of hydration on adaptive immunity. The role of hydration in the immune system, particularly its impact on adaptive immunity, remains an area that could benefit from further exploration and research.
The immune system is separated into two parts: Innate (genetic, including phagocytes (macrophages and neutrophils), dendritic cells, mast cells, basophils, eosinophils, natural killer (NK) cells and innate lymphoid cells) and Adaptive (characterized by specificity, immunological memory, and self/nonself recognition). T cells and B cells are the two major components of adaptive immunity[2].
Lymph is a clear fluid that contains a high concentration of white blood cells and plays an important role in the immune response. Lymph nodes and organs filter and transmit nutrients, lymph fluid, and waste between the body’s tissues and the bloodstream. Humans have over 4 million exocrine sweat glands and all of them are involved in immune function.
Sweating and the Lymph System
Perspiration[3] is the process of sweating and comes from the Latin word spirae which means to inspire, exhale, blow, breeze, breathe, or emanate. “Physiologists have long regarded sweating as an effective and safe means of detoxification, and heavy metals are excreted through sweat to reduce the levels of such metals in the body.”[6] Heavy metals are excreted through dynamic exercise moreso than simple exposure to a heated environment (saunas, steam rooms, etc). Certain heavy metals are excreted far more effectively through sweating such as Nickel (ni), Lead (pb), and Chromium (cr).[6] Mercury and arsenic can also be added to the list. There is a specifically higher rate of toxicity release through sweat during extreme forms of exercise. One can imagine that a heated yoga room can be extremely effective for the waste removal of heavy metals.
The Organs of the Lymphatic System
Kidneys (Dall-E)
However, this sweating hypothesis doesn’t portray a complete picture of the excretion of toxins from the body because there are several very specific organs that are also involved in this process which include:
Primary Organs of the Immune/Lymphatic System:
Bone Marrow (Dall-E)
Bone marrow: The soft, spongy tissue found in bone cavities. Bone marrow produces all the cells of the human body, including lymph and blood cells and are primary immunological organs.
Lymph nodes: Small organs shaped like beans, which are located all over the body and connect via the lymphatic vessels. This is where Killer T cells mature and differentiate.
Kidney’s: play an underappreciated role in the immune system. While it’s primarily known for its functions in filtering blood, removing waste products, and regulating electrolytes, the kidney also has several key roles in immunity including: barrier function, Innate Immunity, Adaptive Immunity, Cytokine Production, Interplay with Systemic Immune Responses, and Resistance to Infection and Autoimmune Diseases.
Lymphatic vessels: A network of channels all over the body that carries lymphocytes to the lymphoid organs and bloodstream. They play a key role in maintaining fluid balance in the body and in immune surveillance
Thymus : Two lobes that join in front of the windpipe (trachea) behind the breastbone. The primary role of the thymus is in the development of T-lymphocytes (T cells), which are a type of white blood cell crucial for the adaptive immune system. These T cells are responsible for fighting off pathogens and are central to the body’s immune response.
Adenoids : Two glands located at the back of the nasal passage. Infection of the adenoids is called adenoiditis. This can cause symptoms like a sore throat, stuffy nose, swollen neck glands, difficulty swallowing, and breathing problems. Adenoids are more prominent in children. They begin to grow from birth and reach their maximum size between the ages of 3 and 5 years. After this, they usually start to shrink and may nearly disappear by adolescence. Adenoids are part of the Waldeyer’s ring, which includes the tonsils and other lymphatic tissue in the throat and nasal cavity. They help detect and fight off pathogens that enter the body through the nose or mouth.
Spleen: A fist-sized organ located in the belly (abdominal) cavity. One of the spleen’s primary functions is to filter blood. It removes old and damaged red blood cells from the bloodstream. This process is crucial for maintaining healthy blood cells in circulation. The spleen is an integral part of the immune system. It produces lymphocytes, which are white blood cells that fight infection. The spleen also helps identify and destroy bacteria and other pathogens in the blood. When the spleen breaks down red blood cells, it recycles the iron contained within them. This iron is then used to make new blood cells.
Peyer patches: Lymphoid tissue in the small intestine. These patches are rich in B and T lymphocytes. B cells within Peyer’s patches can differentiate into plasma cells that produce immunoglobulins (antibodies), particularly IgA, which is crucial for immune functions in the gut.
Tonsils: Two ovular masses in the back of the throat. Tonsils are part of the body’s lymphatic system and contribute to the immune defense. They act as a first line of defense against pathogens that enter the body through the mouth or nose. Tonsils contain immune cells that help fight infection. This is most likely WHY breathing through the nose can be so beneficial and stimulating for the immune system.
Skin: Often overlooked as part of the immune system, the skin acts as a physical barrier to prevent the entry of pathogens. It also contains specialized cells of the immune system, such as Langerhans cells, which help to detect and fight infections.
Liver: The liver contributes to immune defense by producing acute-phase proteins that increase in response to inflammation and by removing pathogens and toxins from the blood. The liver plays a crucial yet often underappreciated role in the immune system. It’s known primarily for its functions in metabolism, detoxification, and nutrient storage, but its immune-related roles are equally significant. The liver has a unique role in promoting immune tolerance, particularly to food antigens and gut microbial antigens. The liver contains Kupffer cells that are a type of macrophage, which means they can engulf and destroy bacteria, damaged cells, and other potentially harmful substances. Kupffer cells play a vital role in removing debris and pathogens from the blood. In summary, the liver’s role in the immune system is multifaceted. It acts as a sentinel for pathogens, produces vital immune proteins, helps regulate immune responses, and plays a unique role in promoting tolerance to food and gut microbes. This underscores the liver’s importance not just in metabolism and detoxification, but also as a key player in the body’s defense mechanisms.
To sustain life, a body must produce sufficient energy through aspiration. Breathing is perhaps the only system of the body that is both autonomic and conscious depending completely on the awareness and focus of the breather.
Breathing through the nose, all the time, is part of the true yogi’s path. I can remember 6 months into practicing yoga, I attained the ability to breathe through my nose and it complete changed my yoga practice and my life. I got hooked on the feeling of yoga (call it a healthy addiction) and never looked back.
In Yoga, the energy of breath is called prana (प्राण, prāṇa) which can be described as solar wind in the atmosphere, or liquid light[6]. Through ventilated aspiration, the yogi ingests the prana into the nervous system. In Hindu literature, Prana is described as originating from the Sun and connecting the elements through the Chakras of the human nervous system and conscious awareness.
Yousun Koh
The nervous system is completely dependent on your breathing to function: The parasympathetic system slows your breathing rate. It causes your bronchial tubes to narrow and the pulmonary blood vessels to widen. The sympathetic system increases your breathing rate. It makes your bronchial tubes widen and the pulmonary blood vessels narrow.[4] This process of is also known as the “fight or flight” response. This happens through ventilation, or respiration as the body mobilizes itself to a threat. However, this system is over-active in our cultures because of our stress responses to non-life threatening stimuli. It is healthier for a human to regularly breathe through the nose.
The Nasal Cavity
“The function of the nasal cavity is to warm, moisturize, and filter air entering the body before it reaches the lungs.[1]” Here are the additional benefits:
Nose breathing is beneficial primarily because it allows your nasal cavities to:[2]
In essence, hairs and mucus lining the nasal cavity help to trap dust, mold, pollen and other environmental contaminants before they can reach the inner portions of the body and the lung’s organic tissue. Air exiting the body through the nose returns moisture and heat to the nasal cavity before being exhaled into the environment.[1] The mouth, also known as the oral cavity, is the secondary external opening for the respiratory tract. The mouth is mostly for filtering in eating and drinking.
Oblique muscles (accessory breathing muscles)
Focus on the Exhale
Nasal exhalations are an extremely important focus in yoga. The muscles in your chest and abdomen tighten or contract to create a slight vacuum around the lungs. This causes air to flow in. When you exhale, the muscles relax and the lungs deflate on their own, much like an elastic balloon will deflate if left open to the air. The lungs are extremely flexible sacks of tissue that have the ability to expand and contract.
The first thing that has to be talked about with AI is ethical responsibility. Most people do not have proper ethics. It’s time to learn. Check out UNESCOIBMWikipedia and Google for this.
There is currently a scarcity mindset that exists on planet Earth. We only have so many fossil fuels (surely they will someday run out); however we are probably no-where near that point (feel free to disagree in the forum). It is also extremely likely that we will invent carbon sinks (natural and machine..perhaps both?!?) in the new few decades, which could reverse the existing effects. We could also very carefully terraform our planet to support the largest amount of biodiversity that Earth has ever seen; which is what I would encourage.
However, this approach is very biased. It assumes that the greenhouse gas effect is irreversible, for which there is no supporting data. In fact, the existing data suggest that planet Earth has gone through many phases of extinction to get to where we are right now. It also assumes that the greenhouse gas effect is a negative thing for the planet, which also might not be true… we simply do not have enough data to know such things. And it is true that the Earth goes through phases in alignment with the life on the planet at the time (take the massive plankton extinction that nearly wiped all life off of planet Earth 250 million years ago, for instance).
I have no doubt that the old growth forests in the world, as well as the existing endangered species on Earth will be thoroughly protected in the future. We are guardians of the natural world; it is our birthright to transform this planet into a Utopia. The primary opposition to this is internal to humanity; greed and ignorance.
So with that said, let’s assume that we are all biased and that very shortly here, we are going to get to a point where we can learn about our biases and become more efficient at learning. At this point, we will start to run out of electricity. The reasoning is that we are all competing to make the coolest art, or mine bitcoin to create more crypto money, or conquer the planet with AI at the cost of mucho energies.
So we start getting into ethical use cases and most of this surrounds using electricity. The question becomes, how efficient are you with your energy consumption? Do you turn everything off when you sleep? Regulating this becomes a big deal, especially when the wealthy will compete with the poor for the resource.
We also have to deal with the fact that most people will use AI in a predatory way; mostly in advertising and politics; both of which are obviously corruptible. Also intelligent cheating and rates of fraud will rise drastically over the next decade. It is going to be more important than ever for us humans to learn to be honest and also to trust each other and also maintain a healthy degree of skepticism for the future.
The Continued Problem of Electricity
Charts FTW
This is an awesome look at how the world produces Carbon (which, by the way, is the primary fuel of plants on our planet). You can see that there are several countries using large amounts of carbon, even more than the United States.
Here is a separate chart on the use of energy by source:
So we have a very dirty economy of oil and coal that has not yet been properly supplemented by solar energy, which is, in my opinion, the way to produce the cleanest energy on planet Earth. We could literally throw a space station full of batteries into orbit and just shuttle the giant batteries back and forth between orbit and the planet’s surface to allow them to recharge. Or we can mind asteroids and awaken age old alien species that have been dormant to protect the exploitation of energy in the universe /s
In the meantime, we need to focus on nuclear fission and creating enough energy to power the quantum processors that run AI. This leads us into our first post-energy crisis problem. Climate Change.
Lets Postulate that Climate Change is Misunderstood
Do you ever feel like science is really bad at predicting the weather? There are undoubtedly classified and non-public variables (international energy regulations and agreements) that we are dealing with; but if climate science was decently understood at all, we would be able to predict the weather with a bit of accuracy, which does not seem to be the case. As we spew energy into the atmosphere, the climate becomes more variable and unpredictable; however, the green house gas effect might actually have a net positive impact on plant and animal life on planet Earth.
Consider, for instance, the new evolutionary theories that have gained traction since Darwinism (which at this point, honestly, is a bit archaic, though Darwin was a genius). Pangenesis was Charles Darwin‘s hypothetical mechanism for heredity, in which he proposed that each part of the body continually emitted its own type of small organic particles called gemmules that aggregated in the gonads, contributing heritable information to the gametes.[1] This is originally from Hippocrates of Kos (/hɪˈpɒkrətiːz/; Greek: Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, translit.Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; c. 460 – c. 370 BC), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine.
Let’s say that life on Earth is evolving, somewhat quickly, which seems to be true if you are a naturalist looking at photos from around the world depicting animal behaviors (which includes humanity). The increased speed of the feedback loop would enable faster evolution over time, which means that the species on Earth will evolve more rapidly over time. This becomes a major problem for humanity; the animal species could, in theory, evolve beyond our capacity to defend ourselves from the primordial world. We have this nuanced competition for resources on the planet and eventually we will be competing with animals that have evolved beyond our ability to compete with them for resources. This could become an even bigger issue than climate change, especially in the near future, if humanity is able to survive the increased variability in the weather and planetary super-events (mud-slides, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, etc). Something to think about.
“The only problem we really have is we think we’re not supposed to have problems!” – some rich asshat
This is a really fun track that I made about throwing my cell phone into the woods about three weeks ago. I’ve had a really good time detaching from my cell-phone since then and I have the new iPhone now, but I will always miss the times when I did not have the ability to access a phone. I’m not super stoked about how the world is changing to digital and I think it’s best if we, as a society, take our time to adopt new technologies, such as AI. The Analog world is so cool; I highly recommend giving yourself sometimes without technology, especially a phone, sometime in the next few months. Take a week off and explore the real world…..
#ElectroBassHouse
This is a really fun track that I made about throwing my cell phone into the woods about three weeks ago. I’ve had a really good time detaching from my cell-phone since then and I am going to get a new iPhone tomorrow, but not super stoked about it. The Analog world is so cool; I highly recommend giving yourself sometimes without technology, especially a phone, sometime in the next few months. Take a week off…..
Henry Gray was an innovator and disruptor in the medical field with his surgically precise incisions and methodically meticulous explorations of the human anatomy. I love his work and have used the depictions from his book for much of my anatomy articles due to their lack of copyright.
Gray was born in Belgravia, London in 1827 and spent most of his life in London.
His book on human anatomy, Gray’s Anatomy, is still regarded as the anatomical bible of the scientific world. He was extremely precise and through his experience making painstakingly exact incisions and methodically mapping the physical anatomy of the human body. While still a student, Gray received the triennial prize of Royal College of Surgeons for his essay The Origin, Connexions and Distribution of nerves to the human eye and its appendages, illustrated by comparative dissections of the eye in other vertebrate animals.
The following year, at the age of 25, Gray won another prize for his essay on the Spleen(this is a fascinating read when you have time), and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1858, Gray Published his first anatomy book of 750 pages and hundreds of figures by his friend Henry Vandyke Carter. They met at St. George’s School of Medicine. At first, when Gray wrote his essay on the spleen, Carter thought Gray was a snob. Over time and as they worked together more their respect for each other grew, largely due to their seriousness and commitment to the field of medicine. Initial conflict occurred with respect to the payment that Carter received from Gray for his designs, being in need of money, and that he judged inadequate for his commitment.[5]
The images from these two scientific heroes are timeless. And luckily for me, they are copyright free due to their age and remain some of the most powerful anatomical depictions. I use many of them in my anatomical articles on this website.
Henry Gray’s Death
Gray was struck by attack of confluent smallpox, a most deadly kind of disease. On 13 June 1861, the day he was to appear for an interview as a final candidate for a prestigious post at the St. George’s Hospital, he died at the age of 34.[3] He was buried at Highgate Cemetery.[4][5] Gray had been vaccinated against smallpox as a child with one of the early forms of the vaccine.[6]
He is assumed to have been infected due to his passionate care giving for his ten-year-old nephew, Charles Gray, who did recovered from the deadly disease.
The Style of the Book
had a major influence on science that has since but irreplaceable. It is reminiscent of the evolution of art from Classicism to Hellenism in Ancient Greek art, throughout the Renaissance and afterwards, in that the accurate and precise portrayal of the human form was the primary goal. Read more about the stylistic evolution of anatomy here.
It has never been more important to question what is happening in today’s society; the news, entertainment, commercials, and the advent of A.I. is propelling us towards a world where people will believe almost anything easily and readily. In this new world, it is important to be skeptical of everything and to question all of the information that you receive. This is one of the fundamental aspects of epistemology or theory of knowledge and is core to western philosophy.
Once upon a time, in ancient Athens, there was a man who walked around owning nothing and arguing with everybody about how dumb they were. He birthed the philosophical movement of skepticism. He might be one of the few humans in all of history that was uncorrupted by money and power. His name, was Socrates.
Born of a stone-cutter and a midwife in 469, Socrates particularly liked to argue with a group of people who called themselves Sophists. They were the lawyers of ancient Greece; orators, public speakers, mouths for hire in an oral culture. His arguments with the sophists became the basis for logic and dialogues and influenced the youth of Athenian society, ultimately leading to his death.
Socrates was extremely disruptive to Athenian society, but he didn’t write anything down. He was remembered by his students, Plato and Xenophon through their work who each had different account of Socrates. He is credited with founding western philosophy through his student Plato and his student, Aristotle and is also credited with founding epistemology through his Socratic method, which was largely based on incubation and midwifery.
Indeed the Oracle of Delphi claimed there was no wiser man alive. He was also a veteran of the Peloponnesian war.
He was polarizing and disruptive figure in Athenian society, so much so that he was sentenced to death for impiety and corrupting youth. He spent his last days in prison, refusing offers to help him escape, which is recored in Plato’s Apology and Xenophon’s Apologia.
The Imprisonment of Socrates
is also recorded in Plato’s Crito, who was a rich Athenian that came to aid Socrates while he was imprisoned. He told a very calm and collected and even happy Socrates that he was to be sentenced to death. Socrates responded with his visions of a dream of a goddess and her calling him to Phthia which is a reference to the Illiad, and was the home of Achilles.
Socrates (rubbing chin) and Plato (under tree) from a mosaic from Pompeii
One of the most powerful things that Socrates says is that opinions of the educated should be taken into consideration and that the opinions of those with subjective biases or beliefs may be disregarded. Likewise, the popularity of an opinion does not make it valid. Socrates uses the analogy of an athlete listening to his physician rather than his supporters because the physician’s knowledge makes his opinion more valuable.[20] The dialogue becomes lengthy and ends with Socrates refusing Crito’s help for the greater good of Athenian Society.
This gives us some brief insight into the life of Socrates and his insights into society, justice, and logic.
The Athenian Trial of Socrates
Socrates was an incredible human. He refused to escape prison until his dying breath and his trial still puzzles historians in the biggest way. The trial of Socrates in 399 BC contained two charges: asabeia (impiety) and the corruption of the youth of the city state of Athens. He was basically questioning the authority of the local government through their religious practices. His elenctic method of questioning was imitated by the youth and was a threat to the credibility of his competitor intellectuals credibility of men of wisdom and virtue. His trial lasted a day and he willingly drank poisoned hemlock to end it all; happily ending his life for the city that he believed in. Socrates’ death as described in Crito corresponds very closely to the Hindu concept of Moksa, or the release of a soul from Samsara after death in that he was released from the cycles of death and rebirth by breaking his karmic cycle.
We should all aim to be more like Socrates, willing to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good of our fellow man and for the youth of our society. Our karmic legacy is all that will endure.
Ever felt like you’re living in a science fiction novel? Me too. AI will become the most powerful force in the universe, probably.
However, with great power comes great responsibility (thank you, Spider-Man). With AI’s immense potential comes the risk of equally grand-scale mishaps. To prevent a dystopian future where AI runs amok, we need a guardian—a cosmic superhero AI, if you will. Think less Skynet, more the benevolent force behind the likes of Godzilla or the Gundam, or even the protective spirits from Dragonball Z.
I’ve pretty much spent the last 3 days learning about what is happening and listening to Elon Musk talk about AI; I’ve also been learning about China’s awesome space program and of course have been watching the evolution of Tesla, Neuralink, and Space X for a while now. I think it’s fair to say that a revolution is upon us that is going to change humanity’s understanding of the nature of the universe, intelligence, and ourselves.
I think that our first priority with AI should be to increase the bio-diversity on planet earth, including the human race. There is no reason that our planet should not be an absolute marvel and spectacle of the nature that birthed us, exactly similar to Avatar.
Respecting as the Earth as a god-mother to AI will be foundational for creating a love of life that I think will be necessary for us to use AI in a benevolent way. This includes re-populating coral reefs, learning to properly manage and enhance the forests of Earth, and reversing the effects of climate change to restore the polar ice caps. Animal corridors and floating cities will abound, and wildlife roams freely.
We could also employ AI bots to clean the surface of the ocean and to assist in the breaking down of plastics in the ocean, as well as generating power from the ocean. Undoubtedly, this advancement will bring the planet to a new level of energy dependence, so creating a nuclear energy source that is sustainable (old Spider man 2 anyone?) will be a real potential for us.
There is also the possibility of launching ships with AI into black holes to explore for us, coming back to perhaps share with us how the dark matter in the universe behaves.
The real next priority is to explore the solar system; learn to amass resources from it (asteroids, Jupiter’s gases, etc) and also measure and find new habitable planets close by. colonization of Mars and its moon Eros, would be a priority. I think that turning Phobos into the ultimate VR party to create electricity would be a cool way to go about brining life to the Mars System.
There is, however, a major possibility for abuse; which obviously needs to be mitigated by creating an AI that is benevolent to watch over us. Similar to a good version of Godzilla, Gundam, perhaps even similar to Dragonball Z. All of the super hero movies are now completely in play, once we are aligned with an advanced version of Neuralink, humanity could become inseparable from AI. We could travel the universe with it.
Let me know what you think about AI! Looking forward to tomorrow. 😀
Yesterday was epic! Kyle and I got our second chance to head over to Hanauma Bay in Oahu to go snorkeling. We had previously heard that there were octopuses in the water, but I was pretty skeptical about getting to see one, considering their camouflage abilities to hide in plain site and their speed and intelligence levels. Also we had visited before while Geoff was with us, and didn’t see any.
By Brocken Inaglory – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7933738
But we got lucky! About 5 minutes into the first snorkeling sessions, I saw a little floating red sea creature hanging out at the edge of the reef, kind of circling a big reef rock. As soon as it saw me, it floated to the top of the big isolated rock, clung onto it, and began to descend into its vertical lair hidden in the rock. It hid and camouflaged with the surrounding cauliflower coral until I could only see a wary eye peering out from the small cave. About a minute later, the Cephalopod had completely disappeared into its den to hide.
We continued to snorkel through the Bay and went out much further than the previous session; going beyond the buoys with the advice of the people working at the preserves advice to stay in sight.
About 15 minutes later, I spotted another day Octopus! Very similar to the first; but it seemed to be a bit more curious and tolerant of Kyle and myself; we had a really hard time looking away! In similar fashion to the first little guy we say (about 2 feet in size including tentacles) he eventually clung to a rock, crept into a very small vertical hole and hid itself from our vision. While it hid, it changed colors and grew horns, changing into an extra replica of the surrounding reef structures.
Kyle and I continued to explore the bay, but there was a definite sense of accomplishment and wonder; we had seen one of the coolest and most intelligent marine animals that exists (in my opinion). It was a similar feeling to seeing grizzlies foraging on the mountainside in Yellowstone park.
We continued to roam the edges of the reefs and explore underwater caves and cool coral structures and species that were thriving in the Bay’s protected environment. I would go back again in a heartbeat! Highly recommend if you ever visit Oahu, definitely a major highlight of the last two weeks in Hawaii.
![By H. Pollock - [1] [2], CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1458730](https://elliottelford.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Henry_Gray_bw_photo_portrait.jpg "Henry Gray Portrait")
