Microscope sculpture

By the way, I've only ever posted 4 blogs that I know of, all in the last week.  The other, more poetic-seeming, ones that appear under my name were not written by me.  I also want to upload a video demonstrating animal intelligence but I can't manage to do it now. 

The microscope sculpture above I photographed outside Rutgers University in New Jersey in October this year. 

Cancer

Cancer

Cancer, or what is said to be the proliferation of malignant or invasive ‘cells’, seems likely to be a fictitious disease that was invented for political reasons.  There is not an adequate account in the medical literature of what causes a cell to become harmful, nor a clear definition of malignancy, even if it were true that one could photograph inside the human body or view cells under a microscope, nor an adequate account of what it means for a cell or tumour to invade surrounding tissue or travel to distant organs, nor of how one cell would be able to alter another or otherwise cause harm.  

It is not clear how a cell would alter so that its behaviour became destructive to other cells or the mechanism by which it would be able to cause harm.  If the mechanism Is mutation, whether or not, or how, this occurs, it seems implausible that a cell would change, either as a result of loss of its normal control mechanisms or by design, such that it would proliferate and set out to destroy its host.   A knock or other injury, for instance, might lead to a growth of tissue around the site of injury.  But that the proliferation of cells would be caused or accompanied by an alteration in its genetic material, such that it no longer supported the body but set out to harm or kill it seems contrary to what we know about the behaviour of living things.   

First, the medical literature is not consistent as to whether cancer is diagnosed as a result of cell pathology or invasion of local tissue.   In terms of cell pathology, it is not clear how ‘cells’ can be viewed, since microscopes enlarge rather than see below to any underlying structure (where the various parts of the cell are said to lie, whether or not the cell is opaque).  Even if the magnifications claimed were possible to achieve (ie, in terms of lenses), the images one would see at such magnifications, from observation of camera lenses, would be too blurred to identify something the size of a cell.  From observation, the size of the image one sees most clearly under a microscope is the same as that of the object itself viewed at close range, such that any magnification blurs to some extent.  This is consistent with wht happens when one magnifies using a camera or with the blurring of larger letters at the periphery of one’s vision that can occur when one is reading. 

The image of a cancer cell could not be seen, to use Descartes’ phrase, clearly and distinctly.  From observation, first, of what one sees when squinting at a light or into sunshine, and, second, from the fact that if one looks into a window on a sunny day one sees more clearly what is reflected, what one is most likely to be seeing when viewing a ‘cell’ is an image, either projected or reflected, of the lens of the eye itself and perhaps its fluids.  The magnification of the lens of the eye is partly by the eye itself, which tends to magnify both what is beyond and what is before (ie, its own lenses) the object it is attempting to focus on (on the slide) as well as to exaggerate the distance (or extension) between itself and objects other than those it is focusing on.   The lenses may be adjusted to compensate for different focal ranges when using a microscope, but this is to clarify the image of objects at relatively low actual magnifications.

From observation, if one squints from a distance into the eyepiece, one sees the lenses of one’s eye but what is on the slide is not visible, as can be seen by there being no alteration in the image whether or not the slide is present.  If one holds one’s eye against the eyepiece and obtains light from a light source shining onto the mirror, a large opaque object on the slide blocks the light, whereas a relatively translucent material, such as a small drop of blood, is not visible, presumably because it is unable to be seen against the more vivid image of the reflected lens of the eye, in the same way that small marks on a window may not be visible when one is looking out of the window from a distance away from it on a sunny day. [i]  If the microscope is lit internally, given the construction of the microscope (ie, its shape and the position of lenses) and the size of the aperture above the slide (relative to that of the lenses of the eye and of the microscope and of what is on the slide and to those on a camera), it seems likely that there would not be sufficient light or the appropriate refraction to illuminate what is on the slide such that it can be seen clearly, and that if the mirror is also needed what will be seen is again an image of the lens of the eye. 

In any case, setting aside the fact that one is unlikely to be viewing biopsy cells under a microscope, if there appear to be regularities in terms of changes  (ie, if some people’s cells, but not others, appear to change in similar ways), these need not in any case indicate life-threatening changes to cells or tissue rather than the wear and tear associated with ageing.  Some terms used to denote pathology, such as ‘necrosis’,  ‘stroma’ and ‘cribriform’ and even ‘calcification’, are difficult to pin down in terms of why they are dangerous or by what mechanism.  For example, ‘necrosis’, associated with malignancy, refers to exaggerated cell death (as opposed to ‘apoptosis’, which is normal cell death) and is an indicator of uncontrolled proliferation, apparently because in an area where you have more cells, or tissue, you would be more likely to have increased cell or tissue death.  But increased cell death would suggest either a check on unnatural proliferation or would, in any case, also be associated with benign tumours or, if not, suggest that benign tumours are more likely to be invasive, in the sense of growing sufficiently to invade surrounding tissue, than malignant ones.

If cancer is not diagnosed according to particular features of the cell (nor by cell growth since this is also a feature of benign tumours) but by invasion of surrounding tissue, this would seem to imply producing changes in surrounding cells or tissue, since otherwise a benign tumour could also potentially obstruct surrounding tissue.     It is not clear by what mechanism one cell would invade another or what this would look like in cell cytology/histology.  If surrounding tissue also changes, other than because of force or obstruction, it is likely to be as a result of the same factor(s), including any viral agent, that caused the initial cell to change, rather than that the initial cell invaded the other, unless the process being described is reproduction, or replication, involving, as is said to be the case with viral cells, some sort of interaction between cancerous and non-cancerous cells. 

The presence (or spread) of tumours is usually detected, or confirmed in the case of those that can be felt by the hand, by x-rays or CT scans.  Again, no camera, whether or not it is said to emit ‘radiation’, can see beneath the surface of the human body, including in order to see a cell or ‘gland’ that has travelled from another part of the body.   The principle by which an MRI scan works seems more plausible, ie, that it produces images that reflect the attractions of different substances within the body to a magnet, but in practice it would not be sufficiently precise, given that the body has depth as well as area.    

If invasion is by the tumour itself, rather than by a single cell, setting aside by what process the tumour itself formed (ie, whether through invasion of one cell by another, including in order to replicate, in which case it would be difficult to distinguish between the formation of the tumour itself and invasion of adjacent tissue, or through a spontaneous proliferation of malignant cells), again, does it occupy the adjacent tissue or cause it to change?  If the tumour only moves, or displaces, adjacent tissue, this too would also be a feature of benign tumours. 

Second, the mechanism by which a cancer cell alters, harms or kills a host cell and ultimately its host seems to be asserted rather than explained, which would be consistent with the ambiguity as to whether cancer is diagnosed by malignancy or invasion of surrounding tissue.  If the mechanism is force, an obstructive tumour is as likely to be benign as malignant. If the mechanism is individual cell mutation, it is not clear why cell division would take place within the body, unless the body grows to adulthood in a way approximating cell growth, although the splitting of cells into identical ‘daughter’ cells would not in itself appear to account for either growth or differentiation within the body.  But neither is genetic mutation explained satisfactorily.

If environmental factors (or ageing) cause an alteration in RNA/DNA then it is not clear why these factors are not themselves the cause of ill health in that there appears to be no satisfactory account or description of the means by which alteration in information stored in the cells causes an alteration in bodily tissue. For instance, there is understanding of the link between inputting information into a calculator or adding computer software and the changes that appear on the screen. There is a plausible explanation of the changes to the body when a surgeon follows a particular set of instructions. In each case, there is an understanding of, first, the agency, in the sense of there being a person operating the calculator or computer or on the body, second, of the mechanical link, in the sense of what follows when one presses keys on the calculator or inserts software or makes an incision, and, third, of the force needed, either electrical or human. There is not a comparable explanation of the agency and mechanism of change within RNA/DNA. RNA/DNA, or the genetic information/instructions it contains, is said to have an independent existence and be capable of agency in the sense that it is present in the body and influences it either in the absence of environmental factors or because it alters the character of environmental consequences (since otherwise it would be unnecessary in the explanation of changes to the body). But if it does have agency, there is no adequate account of how a genetic code, an abstract entity, would have the capacity to produce changes in the body or through what mechanism (ie, what type of mechanical link). Nor can there be if, first, it is not possible to view the body clearly at the scale necessary to view changes and, second, if there is no satisfactory philosophical explanation of the link between, or ontological compatibility of, genetic information and bodily tissue.

Third, metastasis is said to be the process whereby a cancer that starts in one part of the body kills, by spreading to distant, vital organs.  A cell from the primary tumour is said[ii]  to break loose when it loses its ability to stick to the initial tumour and then travels along the blood stream or via the lymph system.    In the distant organ, the cell would regain its ability to stick and then begin to proliferate.  The new mass of cells would be referred to as a secondary tumour – eg, a thyroid tumour in the lung, composed of thyroid cells rather than lung cells.  That different parts of the body begin to develop tumours spontaneously, or even that one part of the body would copy another, would seem more plausible than that there are secondary tumours consisting of cells that have travelled from the initial tumour. 

How would they travel? An apparently infinitesimally small ‘cell’ would be unlikely to be able to travel within the relatively thick blood or ‘lymph’, especially from a lower part of the body to a higher, or even if it were able to travel in any spaces between blood or lymph cells and upwards, be able then to enter distant organs, ie, penetrate, for example, the membranes of the brain or lungs.  (And why never the heart?)  From observation, larger, not smaller, animals have less difficulty surviving for any length of time in water, while smaller fish will have more difficulty with relatively viscous fluids, such as blood.    

CT scans apparently show single cells that have travelled to another organ but it seems unlikely according to common sense (which is an abstraction from observation of comparable sensory perceptions) that a scan would really be able to distinguish a single cell even if it were possible to photograph what is inside the body.   If, instead, a large number of cells broke away, what, setting aside their motive, would propel them to a distant organ?   The hypothetical force exerted by any number of cells that remain invisible to the eye would still seem likely to be insufficient even if each contained a motor of some sort, which they are not said to do.   Whatever the stated facts of the blood stream, it also seems unlikely that this alone would be able to carry cells, particularly from a lower part of the body to a higher. 

Fourth, what is usually said to kill in the case of cancer is a recurrence, because a recurring cancer is said to be more aggressive, which one assumes means it would either grow more quickly or show greater pathology and propensity to metastasise, although in either case it seems uncertain by what mechanism a cancer cell harms and ultimately kills.   If the cells, or tissue, are malignant, and become more malignant as they ‘mutate’, it is not clear in what sense this could be true - other than that they consisted of parts of cells that were said to indicate malignancy - if they do not themselves contain agents of harm or are not able to otherwise cause alteration to cells or tissue.

If recurrence and mutation mean they are able to proliferate more quickly, aside from the fact that this need not indicate malignancy it is not clear, why and how this could be true.   If one assumes agency of some sort, then why, after surviving an attempt to eradicate it, would it seek to destroy its host (and therefore itself) or otherwise draw attention to itself?   And if recurring cancers are more dangerous than the initial cancer, and often fatally so, then why do oncologists treat the less aggressive, indolent, cancers instead of monitoring them, when surgery and anaesthesia, and, apparently, ‘radiation’, are themselves dangerous.  It also seems unlikely that drugs would be able to target parts of the body as precisely as we are told they can, or that they would not all have some impact on both the stomach and the head.

Fifth, the benign growths, or lumps of altered, tissue, caused by such things as knocks, burns, and sun exposure, might cause obstruction if they become too large, but in most cases they do not seem to grow, so that more damage is likely to be done by attempting to remove them surgically than by leaving them.   They may even have grown, after an injury, to protect a part of the body from further damage.  The most likely causes of the growth are the hardening of tissue and the accumulation of fluids after injury.    However, it seems unlikely that tumours would grow and expand to a considerable size within the body, especially as we age and weaken, unless, again, their purpose is protective.   In any case, those growths we cannot see or feel, we have no certain means of knowing whether or not they exist.  Therefore symptoms such as a persistent cough are likely to indicate weakness or irritation rather than disease. (In the same way, a cold is a sign that one is weak.  You do not catch a cold, which is the body’s way of warming up or expelling liquid).   Similarly, a shadow on an x ray is only likely to be a lighter area on a photographic negative (unless a stock image is produced). 

What kills in the case of apparently fatal illnesses such as those associated with cancer (and other diseases) is a cumulative weakening that may be partially caused by medication (prescription or otherwise), especially when there are initial unpleasant side effects, but is more likely to be caused by other factors, physical and psychological, in the environment of someone diagnosed with a viral infection (or other disease).   These include such things as alcohol, tobacco, and non-prescription medications and well as narcotics.  Other factors include surgery, which weakens, at least temporarily, so increasing the risk from other depressants, because of anaesthesia or blood loss; poor diet (bad or insufficient food); environmental factors, particularly inadequate heating, extreme heat, fluctuations in temperature, utility emissions; excessive physical exercise or overwork, or too little exercise; insomnia (eg, caused by stress or insufficient food), or too much sleep (which may cause headaches).  Perhaps decisive, for example, with respect to appetite, is the psychological stress and fatalism caused by the belief that one has a potentially fatal illness. 

It would strike most people as inconceivable that diseases such as cancer could be invented fictions, and so we have not thought about whether they are plausible according to observation, common sense or logic.   However, the term, the Final Solution (associated with the Wannsee Conference, which historians now say may have taken place in 1942, the year of the ‘Beveridge’ Report, which envisaged a health service that would deal with the five giants of disease, poverty, ignorance, squalor and idleness), might have implied the use of intravenous fluids and alcohol in order to reduce and control populations.

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[i] The writer’s knowledge of the stated principles of optics (Descartes also uses the term ‘dioptrics’) is relatively limited and their own microscope cannot currently be lit internally so that what follows is provisional. 

[ii] according to someone in the field I spoke to

Viral infection (HIV/Aids)

Science 2

It seems likely that HIV is a fictitious ‘viral infection’ that was invented for political reasons and that the illnesses associated with AIDS are either themselves fictitious (eg, cancer) or the result of treatment and other circumstantial factors.[1]  If we set aside, as Descartes asks us to, the foundational facts of science that we have been told[2], and instead rely on observation and reasoning to decide what is most likely to be true, it seems impossible that virus cells would damage, or kill, the person.  Even if one assumes that they are able to travel, despite their size, through liquids and tissues, or travel through membranes from spaces and cavities within the body, and thrive and multiply (by whatever means), and assuming that they have a motive for harming and killing the person, a virus cell that is initially imperceptible to the senses, and which remains invisible to the eye, will not possess the ability to inflict harm, whatever its number, ie, however many cells might theoretically inhabit the body at any one time (including those that may remain after their death).  This is because the capacity of a large number of individual cells to inflict harm may not be substantially greater than that of the individual cell and will not be of the same magnitude as that of a larger organism of a size corresponding to that of a large number of viral cells.  Even if the individual cells were able to join together to form a larger substance, as is the case, for example, with the constituent parts of a tumour or of an animal, or each produced the same toxic substance, the fact that the viral cell is invisibly small to the eye, even when a light is shone on it, implies that by whatever number it is multiplied, it will have no volume or weight and so not be capable of harm for the reason that it does not exist.   When a person is sickened by, for example, the flu or the common cold, this is because the body is weak, not because it has been infected by a virus of any kind.   Similarly, a person who falls ill or dies apparently of HIV infection does so because of a cumulative weakening caused by the treatment, perhaps including, but not restricted to, medication as well as other factors but  not because of HIV viral infection. 

First, the claim that viral cells can be viewed under a microscope needs to be treated with suspicion.  Although diagnosis is by a ‘colour’ test, which it is possible now to do in the home but which needs to be sent to a laboratory for analysis, it is said to be possible to view the HIV virus cells under a microscope, either within blood samples or where the cells have been partially, or completely, isolated from bodily fluids. If, as is claimed, the virus is approximately one times ten to the minus nine metres in diameter, and if, as is claimed, a magnification of around ten thousand is needed to view the cell, the image of the cell would be one hundredth of a millimetre in diameter, ie, too small to be viewed and smaller than the image of the cell apparently seen under a microscope.  In any case, it is not apparent that something as small as a virus cell would exist as a particular entity, nor that anything, whatever its size, would present a clear image with such a magnification.   

A thing can be divided, arithmetically, by one times ten to the negative nine, and living things and objects (such as the image on a computer screen) may be divided into very large numbers of constituent parts mathematically (geometrically), but that does not mean that anything so small that it cannot be seen by the eye exists as a complete entity.   Although particular – in the sense of whole - living things may exist at an extremely small size (even if some moving life forms appear to emerge, in some conditions, at a larger size from, for example, fruit fibres), it is likely to be possible to view them clearly only at the size at which it becomes possible to view them with the eye alone. 

The eye is able to see very small things clearly at close range.   For example, it is possible to see with the eye alone tiny spores of mould and also tiny insects in motion.  However, the eye blurs, and also seems to magnify, objects that are at either a greater or lesser focal length (as, for example, when a page is brought too close to the eye the letters can appear larger, as can letters at the periphery of what we are reading).

A camera lens (or telescope) can allow us to see things beyond our normal range of vision relatively clearly and distinctly. Objects beyond or closer than the object we are focusing on will blur and be disproportionately magnified.  Also, the object viewed becomes blurred if it is magnified, so that its image is larger than the size it would appear if viewed only by the eye at the appropriate distance.  More to the point, from observation, the image of objects, such as tiny insects, will be blurred when the image viewed is larger than the size the objects appear when viewed by the eye alone.

This suggests that the nature of microscopy is such that one can only view a clear and distinct image at a size corresponding to that which could be viewed by the eye alone at the appropriate distance, so that at best a microscope may be training the eye to focus on very small objects at no, or relatively limited, magnification. The magnification needed to produce a visible image of a viral cell of one times ten to the negative nine metres would, even if it were technologically possible to achieve, be such as to make the image impossible to identify as a ‘cell’.  

However, even if it were possible to obtain a clear image at the magnifications claimed, the difficulty would remain, even if it claimed that cells can be ‘sliced’, of obtaining a clear and accurate two dimensional image of three dimensional constituents of a three dimensional cell, in which some parts of the cell did not appear clearer than others, in which relative sizes were not distorted, and in which some parts of the cell were not hidden.    A ‘powerful’ microscope, such as an electron microscope, which apparently presents clear images of the parts of cells, more plausibly, and from observation (of what one sometimes sees in the middle distance when looking, for example, at a spotlight) presents an image of the ‘fingerprint’ of the eye.  This is because the amount of light from the microscope, or reflected from its mirror, is such as to obscure what is on the microscope slide (as one sees ones reflection in a window on a sunny day, rather than what is in the room behind the window) while highlighting what is behind it, the eye.   The fainter image of what is being viewed may become apparent only when magnification is increased or decreased. 

Second, it seems odd that HIV ‘cells’ cannot survive for long outside the human body.  Why would they not, in the potentially more hospitable, and autonomous, environment (in terms of temperature, hydration, available nutrition, rest) outside the body?  From observation, mould, for instance, appears to thrive in certain conditions but not noticeably within the human body, and this is true of most, if not all, living things, apart from the body’s constituent parts. What is it about virus cells that make the human body an inhospitable environment for most living organisms but the only environment hospitable to HIV virus cells?  And would this not make the virus cells especially careful not to destroy their host by virtue of their number or any other means, or to alter the body significantly?

If it is because the viral cell can only live at human body temperature (although other relatively small organisms, such as fleas, can live at relatively cold temperatures, and smaller organisms seem better able to regulate their body temperature than larger ones) why would it not survive outside the body (or in other species) if the temperature approximated body temperature?   And why would the temperature be correct in all climates and all physical states and throughout the body, given that body temperature can appear to vary significantly even without there necessarily being a significant change in measured temperature? And what is the body temperature of the virus?

Third, the nature of transmission seems unlikely.  Why would the virus cells enter a part of the body, in the case of sexual activity, from which they might be expelled before they were able to travel, and where they would be likely to receive less in the way of nourishment perhaps (ie, where waste is about to be expelled)?  If it is because they can only survive and spread by coming into contact with blood, why would this be so, given the size of the viral cell, and what would this imply about their movement within the body?   If the body is able to prevent the absorption of harmful virus cells from the digestive system, despite, or because of,  the small size of the virus cells, how is the virus able to leave the body of one person, enter another, survive, apparently multiply, and then travel to other parts of the body after coming into contact only with blood at, or near, the surface of the body?   

For example, during sexual intercourse, the HIV cells are said to travel from the semen, blood, or vaginal discharge of one person into the blood stream of another.  In the case of uncircumcised males, transmission would seem to be more likely from semen into the blood stream.  How is something as small as an apparently invisible virus cell able to travel out of the semen?  In the case of blood to blood transmission, how plausible is it that virus cells are able to move in blood in order, first, to leave the body of one person and, second, to multiply, remain dormant (without necessarily presenting more than ‘transient’ symptoms at the site of entry or the rest of the body), and then travel and cause harm?

From observation, a flea, larger than an apparently invisibly small 'virus cell', cannot move within even a fairly thin liquid once it has got into it without getting stuck or appearing to drown.   How would a virus cell, or a number of virus cells, be able to swim within blood and discharges in order to enter the ‘lymph’, and from the lymph enter other parts of the body, especially as the spaces between ‘cells’ and cavities within the body are not said to constitute a hospitable environment, and cells would in any case at some stage need to leave the spaces or cavities in order to enter the body itself?  On the other hand, if they could travel with ease within all bodily fluids, why can they not enter the body via mucous or saliva?  Whatever the consistency, or viscosity, of different bodily fluids in different environments (eg, blood can vary in thickness, and colour), it seems implausible that an invisibly small virus cell, or its descendants, would be able to leave the area they have inhabited and travel within the body. 

Fourth, the process of replication seems unclear.  The virus is said to replicate within the human body, since the spaces between ‘cells’ and cavities within the body are not said to constitute a hospitable environment for reproduction (which is consistent with the stated fact that they cannot live outside the body and makes the explanation of cell alteration more coherent, if not more plausible).   It is said to replicate by first binding to, and then entering, the host cell, and injecting its DNA (said to be converted into DNA from RNA by an agent within the host cell) into the nucleus of the host cell.   It is not clear, first, how it would be able to enter the cell.  The fusing of membranes would be more plausible if the viral cell and host cell were of a similar size, or the viral cell were larger, but a blood cell is said to be sixty times larger than the viral ‘capsid’.   Nor is it clear why the injection of ‘DNA’ , which is information, or contains information/instructions, would lead to the creation of new life, as the two have a different ontological status: ie, one is abstract (whether or not it is ‘embedded’) and one is concrete, in the sense of being living matter. Whether or not living tissue is conscious, and so would be able to ‘read’ the code, this is not asserted.  Also, the explanation of replication suggests that the creation of the new viral cell is dependent upon interaction with the host cell, rather than simply finding the host a hospitable environment, even if it does not actually blur the distinction between reproduction of viral cells and alteration of host cells.  That a decaying life form, including a viral cell, might produce a new organism seems possible from observation of nature.  But there is no satisfactory explanation of why a viral cell, imperceptible to the senses, is able to reproduce with and otherwise alter the host cell, only an assertion that this is the case.  Also, whether or not the literature attempts to explain this, it also seems implausible that either the initial cell or its offspring would be able to leave the host cell with ease in order to continue the process of reproduction and alteration of cells elsewhere in the body. 

Fifth, it seems unlikely that cells would be able to replicate in sufficient numbers in areas such as lymph nodes in order later to cause harm throughout the body.  If they have not been perceptible at the site of entry, how likely are they, according to common sense (which is based on our experience and memory of comparable events), to pose a threat to the rest of the body?   On the other hand, if they need to alter cells in other parts of the body in order to do harm, and there also does not appear to be a clear distinction between replication and alteration of cells, is it likely that they would remain at the site of entry for up to several years, rather than travel earlier, also to make their possible eradication (for example, through surgery) less likely?   

Sixth, a virus cell, if such a thing existed, would not be able to cause harm.  If it can only survive in the human body, if this is the only environment in which it can obtain nourishment and which is not dangerous to it, how would destroying its host create a better environment?  If the reason is that it does not expect to survive its host and gains an advantage in the short term, then, setting aside the question of whether this is how nature, as opposed to humanity, behaves, how would any number of virus cells be able to do damage to a living being?  Although not said to be the case with HIV infection, one would think that subsequent exposure would be of relevance if harm increases with the number of cells present, and especially if the body becomes to any extent resistant to an earlier version of the virus . (And that the initial exposure would need to contain above a minimum number of viral cells such that below that number would pose no risk, either immediately or as a result of reproduction if introduced in a hypothetical AIDS vaccine).[3]

Assuming its motive was to obtain nourishment from the host, including from feeding on it and its nutrients, how would something as small as a virus cell be able to cause harm.   From observation, fruit flies may cover the skin of, for example, an apple, but cannot penetrate it in order to gain the nourishment within it.  Could any number of virus cells pass through any skin, or membrane, within the body, in order to harm its tissues or organs?   Small flies may enter relatively solid fruits that have had their skins removed, but they do not appear to alter the fruit’s shape substantially or cause it to decay or dry any faster than if they were not present, and, in fact, seem to feed less on the fruit itself than the mould that appears on it as it decays, so that the flies’ effect appears to be, in some way, beneficial.  But if the virus’s intention was to consume a part of the body, in which case the HIV virus is essentially the flesh eating bug that was discovered some time after the discovery of the HIV virus, how could something invisibly small erode the human body?  How much damage can something invisibly small do over whatever length of time and by whatever number it is multiplied?  Common sense suggests that a virus cell that cannot live outside the human body would not live for a long time or multiply rapidly and in great numbers inside it.   In any case, would the virus cells not seek to regulate their number so as to maintain a hospitable environment?  But, however long they lived, and however rapidly and by whatever number they multiplied, something that is initially invisible will not multiply to something with mass. 

Given the size of the virus cell, the mechanism of harm could not be physical force: no matter how great their number, something as small as a virus cell – even if it existed - would not be able to overpower a host.   The ‘cells’ of the body are apparently invisible to the eye but, when multiplied, make up tissue and organs, whereas HIV virus cells cannot be seen by the eye (as, for example, one sees particles of dust when a light is shone on them), whatever their number.  However, even if something invisible to the eye did exist, which is unlikely, something that is so small that it is invisible would not be able to harm the body, no matter how many were present.  This is because the capacity of a large number of cells to inflict harm, including as they die, is not substantially greater than that of the individual cell (as, for example, a number of very small simultaneous stings will not hurt significantly more than one sting, and as the sound of several birds singing will not be significantly louder than that of the song of one bird).  A very large number of very small viral cells would therefore not be able to overwhelm the body by force, including through obstruction. 

But nor would it possible for the mechanism of harm to be toxicity.  Usually something toxic has a taste or a smell, for example, a food that is no longer fresh or a product that contains dead organisms (eg, ammonia), especially if it contains water.  But the HIV virus is said to be a living organism that has no smell or taste, for example, when isolated in numbers on a slide.    A toxin that enters the body will harm it according to the nature and amount of the toxin, usually initially, and the body will generally recover.[4]    Examples of toxins include those medicines that cause unpleasant side effects and rotten food (which is likely to make the person feel unwell and which is usually expelled).  From observation, it seems impossible that, since they appear to have no toxic qualities, including smell, when isolated, including after they have died, that viral cells would become so toxic within the body as to cause symptoms or kill the person. 

Although the virus is said to weaken and kill cells (for example, the ‘T cells’ that normally fight infection), if the mechanism is alteration rather than cell death (which would be the case, for instance, with cancer, where the virus would presumably become an agent or catalyst, or the initial one, of cell proliferation), how would it be able to do so?  How would a virus cell, or a part of it, be able to cause a harmful alteration in the tissues or organs of the human body if not by force or through some toxic quality?  The process is sometimes asserted and sometimes explained in terms such that it appears to be coherent but which is either not consistent with observation of nature or seems to contradict common sense, which is an abstraction from observation[5].   Where the process is said to be mutation of host cells, there is no adequate explanation of how this happens, of the mechanism by which the viral cell is able to alter the genetic code of host cells, in the sense either of the nature of the mechanical link between either the viral cell and host cell or the host cell and disease-causing mutation or the agent of change if it is not physical force or toxicity.  But nor could there be since the link between information, contained in DNA, and living matter is not explained, in the sense of overcoming the duality between abstract and concrete, or at least of explaining how an abstract entity can act as an agent of alteration, whether or not the RNA/DNA is said to be embedded in proteins and whether or not it is itself said to be altered by environmental factors and over time (ie, ageing).    

In any case, the diseases that viral cells are said to cause are themselves likely to be fictitious.  For example, there is not a consistent account of what a cancerous cell looks like, i.e., of what distinguishes it from non- malignant cells or from the tissue of benign tumours (so that a diagnosis of malignancy may be made according to invasion of surrounding tissue rather than by cell pathology), but nor is it clear how a cancerous cell can invade, or otherwise affect, surrounding cells and tissue, nor how it could break away and travel to distant organs, nor how it would ultimately kill, i.e., whether it is through the alteration, destruction, denial of nutrients, or obstruction of vital organs.   It seems likely that lumps in the body, including those that we know to be present near its surface, are the result of such things as knocks, and reflect injury of some sort, such as knocks, and it is possible that some might even have a protective purpose (ie, to protect against further injury).  Finally, whether or not there is an attempt to explain, rather than assert, it in the literature, nor is it clear why or how, in the sense of through what mechanism or mechanisms of causation, a viral cell would be able to cause a ‘cluster’ of different illnesses.   

What kills in the case of apparently fatal illnesses such as those associated with AIDS is a cumulative weakening that may be partially caused by medication (prescription or otherwise), especially when there are initial unpleasant side effects, but which may be as likely to be caused by other factors, physical and psychological, in the environment of someone diagnosed with a viral infection (or other disease).   These include such things as alcohol, tobacco, and non-prescription medications and well as narcotics, which either weaken or else stimulate and then weaken, introduce toxins into the body, cause diarrhoea[6] or constipation (which can cause headaches and occasionally fainting), encourage anorexia, depress or confuse and cause poor decision making, make one more susceptible to colds and respiratory illnesses (especially if one believes one ‘catches’ them from others), and as well to night sweats, rashes and spots, which are the body’s response to fatigue, cold, heat, dehydration or over hydration, and malnourishment, which, at the same time, the body may be less able to recognise and to respond to).  Other factors include surgery, which weakens, at least temporarily, so increasing the risk from other depressants, because of anaesthesia or blood loss; poor diet (insufficient calories, food that is not fresh or rotten or includes ingredients derived from toxins); environmental factors, particularly inadequate heating, extreme heat, fluctuations in temperature, and gas emissions; excessive physical exercise or overwork, or too little exercise; insomnia, or too much sleep.  In addition, and perhaps decisive, is the psychological stress and fatalism caused by the belief that one has a potentially fatal illness.  As you do not need gravity to explain why things fall to earth, you do not need cancer and HIV/AIDS to explain why people who have received a diagnosis of either might eventually fall ill.

In 1985, HIV infection was reported to be the cause of a group of illnesses affecting homosexuals, heroin users, and Haitians (hhh).  Although there is now a test for HIV infection that can be carried out in the home, the results still need to be obtained from a laboratory.  Whether or not a vaccine would be safe and effective, apparently promising trials, for example, in Thailand ten years ago, have come to nothing.  Although life expectancies for those testing ‘HIV positive’ are now said to be near normal, a diagnosis will narrow life choices and create fear.  Although there is said to be a global food crisis, it seems unlikely that nature would present insurmountable problems such that humanity’s survival would depend on inventing and treating fictitious illnesses, while intended rational decisions about the targeting of individuals and populations will have been made, even on their own terms (for example, the economic and environmental consequences), in error. 

 

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[1] Thabo Mbeke, after becoming president of South Africa in 1999, changed his mind about the causes of illnesses associated with AIDS, arguing that they were not caused by HIV infection but that poverty was the main ‘co-factor’ in diagnosis. 

[2]For example, that the earth travels around the sun at 66,600 miles per hour (Hutchinson and Britannica encyclopedias). 

[3]If a vaccine contains a live virus cell, it is not clear why it would not itself cause harm or how if it is weakened or dead it could produce ‘antibodies’ that would be effective against subsequent exposure to the virus.?

[4]A person may become ‘used’ to a toxic substance that enters the body repeatedly.  This would suggest either a purely psychological adaptation, or that the person’s physical state had changed, most plausibly that the body has weakened such that it is less responsive to the toxic nature of the substance, even if a lower exposure to a toxin does appear to confer some protection when one is exposed subsequently to larger amount.  

[5]It may seem a reasonable hypothesis, for example, that every person has something within them, either an innate quality or a code (although you need to distinguish between the thing and the information, so that, for instance, injecting the code into the nucleus of a host cell would not explain replication), but how likely, or efficient, would it be for an identical code to be present in most cells of the organism?

[6]Diarrhoea is beneficial in the sense, for example, that it rids the bodies of toxins or liquid (which the body needs less of, for instance, in very hot weather).  What would be the benefit to either the body or the virus of diarrhoea when both are competing for nutrients if the virus is not itself toxic (and there is no suggestion that the virus is expelled from the body)?