Proof that I am not crazy

Thinking about exercise 'can beef up biceps'

By Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent
(Filed: 22/11/2001)

A FITNESS regime that sounds like a couch potato's dream has been discovered by scientists.

Simply imagining exercising, they found, can significantly increase muscle strength.

Ten volunteers who took part in mental workouts five times a week, imagining lifting heavy weights with their arms, increased their bicep strength by 13.5 per cent on average.
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The gain in strength lasted for three months after they stopped the mental exercise regime, said Guang Yue, an exercise physiologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio.

His discovery could help patients too weak to exercise to start recuperating from stroke or other injuries. It could also help older people maintain strength.

Dr Yue said mentally envisaging exercise increased the strength of the command signal sent by the brain to the appropriate muscle.

Muscles are prompted to move by impulses from nearby motor neurons, and the firing of those nerve fibres depends on the strength of electrical impulses sent by the brain.

"That suggests you can increase muscle strength solely by sending a larger signal to motor neurons from the brain," Dr Yue said.

In his first experiment, Dr Yue found that visualising moving a little finger sideways was enough to increase strength in the appropriate muscle.

He then asked 10 volunteers aged 20 to 35 to imagine flexing one of their biceps as hard as possible in training sessions five times a week.

His team recorded the electrical brain activity during the sessions and also monitored electrical impulses at the motor neurons of their arm muscles to ensure the volunteers were not unintentionally tensing their biceps.

Rape: A crime against the mind?

Module 3: Assignment 2
“After reading the debate between Dibbel and Miller, present an argument about whether a person can or cannot be raped in cyberspace. How are sexually violent crimes like rape connected to a person’s identity beyond the physical body?”

A person can be raped in cyberspace; there should be no question about that. American Heritage Dictionary defines rape as an “abusive or improper treatment or violation.” Now, I believe this is a very broad definition that really includes so much more than sexual contact. If you talk to any rape victim, he/she is just as emotionally scarred as he/she is physically scarred. The mind is just as easy to violate as the body. Anyone can be raped in cyberspace via the “voodoo dolls” because a person is forced against his/her will to do things that he/she didn’t necessarily want to do. This is especially true on MUDs. It should not be a question of whether or not the First Amendment right of free speech or freedom of expression is being violated; it is a question of what is appropriate, and engaging the opposite (or same sex) into an unwilling situation is not right.
Julian Dibbell argues that we carry around the “bodylike self-representation (MUD characters)… in our heads.” He entertains the idea that “In MOO, the body IS the mind.” Therefore, when a person is violated online, they are directly damaged in the mind. He believes that a rape in cyberspace is definitely possible and that it is a serious crime. On the contrary, Laura Miller states that “... on line – where I have no body… - I consider rape to be impossible.” She claims that these occurrences online are more of a question of gender than a real crime. Women are more prone to feel violated online because of their “weak and fragile” minds. I disagree with Miller because thinking that online unwanted sex is wrong does not infer a “weak” mind. It is just wrong, and it leaves women (and many men) feeling violated and vulnerable. Even though she did make a good argument that many men rape victims online are actually laughed at, how is that any different than the real world? Men rape victims in the real world are not taken seriously either, so it is not whether or not women have weaker minds. Society just takes us more seriously because they believe we are weaker.
The mind affects are bodies in more ways than we even know. Through visualization, people can actually build their muscle mass by only IMAGINING working out! Many people have also been cured of various illnesses and injuries by meditation. When we are online and talking about not so civil subjects, our blood starts racing and our glands actually do engage “sometimes even more so... then a real-life assignation” (mentioned by Dibbell). If these descriptions make our bodies react, then why do people believe that rape is not possible? Dibbell suggested that rape is “a crime against the mind,” so even though no direct person to person contact is ever experienced, we do leave feeling hurt, sick, disturbed, etc. which are the same emotions that real life rape victims feel. I agree wholeheartedly with Dibbell in that rape in cyberspace is possible because rape of the mind is very possible, and it actually does affect us in some physical aspects as well.
Like I had previously mentioned, a rape victim’s emotional scares are visible long after his/her physical scares are healed. People never have the same personality after a rape as they had before. Rape is so ambiguous that we need to broaden our definition of what is truly a rape and associate it with different metaphors. The sexual act itself is a metaphor of unwanted force = rape. This metaphor highlights many of the same aspects as unwanted verbal abuse in cyberspace. They emotionally disturb their victims, are unnecessary and unwelcome, and have the potential of seriously altering a person’s personality in a negative way. When someone is raped in cyberspace (or in real life), he/she is more cautious and untrusting around people of the opposite sex. They hide their true selves behind a mask of caution because they do not want to be violated again.

Module 2: Assignment 2

I exhibit several different types of masks when I am around different people. I try to be the energetic crazy person when I am with my friends, and I am always ready to try anything that we decide to do that particular night. I talk loudly and sometimes just to add something into the conversation, and more often than not, I will agree with what they have to say because it is easier than being difficult. I love hanging out with my friends, but with a certain group of them, I feel like it’s just a big competition to see who can talk the most about themselves without seeming self-conceited. With my other groups of friends, I feel more comfortable to just be myself and speak what I believe. I use current slang words and the latest clichés when I am around my friends; however, I am careful about some of the things I say to them because gossip spreads like wildfire through peers.
I speak much differently when I am around my professors or other high authorities. I talk to them with the utmost respect, even if I don’t completely respect them. I use my most formal language, and even change my body language. I hold myself more upright and walk more gracefully (or try to) when I’m around my professors than when I am just hanging out with my friends. I try to speak to them like I am very interested in whatever they have to say to me, and I try to ask intelligent questions that they will appreciate.
When I volunteer at childhood events or take my little siblings anywhere with their friends, I try to be the “cool” big college student. Talking to them about subjects that they would not usually talk about amuses me because they are timid at first to talk about issues, and then they get more comfortable. I am very careful about the words I say around them, and the issues I bring up because I know they look up to me, and I don’t want to corrupt them. I also try to speak well to portray myself as a good person who never does anything bad because then that is what they will want to be.
When I am with my parents, I am their perfect little daughter, well sometimes. I strive to be what they and I both know I am capable of. I am also not afraid to speak my mind to them because, most of the time, they will not repeat anything I say. I am not afraid to tell them my accomplishments because they will never be jealous. I do refrain from saying everything I would love to say because my parents look down upon extremely harsh or even moderately harsh language.
So like America in “From American Dream to American Illusion,” I am struggling to portray that “perfect” image that would please everyone while actually hiding my true identities and ideas. I, like America, am starting to feel like I am losing the base fundamentals of myself. Society’s words and opinions are affecting me more and more each year. I am beginning to lose my morals and my ideas for fear that I will stray from that “perfect” image. After rereading through my different “languages,” I would say I am most sincerely myself when I am with my parents. There I am not afraid to feel stupid when I say what’s on my mind. I feel like I can truly express myself, and they will support me and encourage me to do better without feeling jealous of my accomplishments. All the other “languages” I speak have little parts of my true self in them, but not as much as my “language” with my parents. For example, I truly am a person who loves spontaneity and trying new things. I also enjoy speaking well and precisely to some of the most important people in our society. Of course I love being the role model in a person’s life, so I don’t mind speaking like one sometimes. So even though perfection is an impossible feat, I'm trying to attain it through my ideals rather than through my image.

Module 4: Assignment 2

The two metaphors, strange actions = illness and strange actions = possession, highlight and hide many different aspects of a person’s strange behavior and how we conceive and react to each situation. The strange actions = illness metaphor highlights the fact that mentally sick people cannot control they way they act. It states that the strange actions these people do are just “side effects” of their advanced mental disease, which will take a long time and a great amount of drugs and therapy to heal. People react sympathetically to mentally ill patients because they know that their actions are justified by their illness. This metaphor hides how truly outrageous and disturbing some of these patients’ behaviors can be. Sometimes it becomes very difficult to explain some people’s actions by medical science alone.
The strange actions = possession metaphor highlights completely different aspects than the strange actions = illness metaphor. This possession metaphor infers that there is more to a person’s behavior than just mental difficulties. It suggests that a supernatural power is at work. This metaphor also highlights the truly outrageous and sometimes violent behavior these people experience. Even some doctors have trouble explaining these occurrences through their advanced medical terminology. For example, in “A True and Most Dreadful Discourse,” the family members in the room could smell an awful stench, and each of them saw a child illuminated in the bedroom window. Does that mean everyone in the room was mentally ill? Even though I suspect Margaret did have some mental condition, I believe that some supernatural power was at work that night. Scientists believe they can explain everything that happened that night, but a person needs to know how far “a coincidence” can go. When a roomful of people can attest to the same story, can all of them really be mentally ill or “mistaken?” The strange actions = possession metaphor hides the fact that some of the strange behavior might be justified by a mental illness. When many people see a person convulsing for the first time ever, their imagination runs away with them, and they actually believe this person is possessed by the devil. People are more wary of patients who are possessed than patients with a mental illness because the source of their strange behavior is not precisely known. People in general are afraid of what they don’t know, and no one (who’s still living) knows what happens in the afterlife. So through this assessment, strange actions thought to be possession of the devil or a demon are somehow more disturbing than those of an illness. Have people ever thought of that? Why are we more disturbed by individuals who are possessed than people who just have an advanced mental disease? Their actions are very similar, yet people react in different ways depending on which metaphor is derived.
The healing processes of strange actions = illness and strange actions = possession are also very different. In the mental illness cases we have seen over the years, the patient was admitted into an institution and expected to get better after a long time and a lot of drugs and therapy. The people who didn’t understand their loved one’s illness could just drop them off at one of these mental hospitals and visit every once in a while to observe his/her progress. People also expected professional doctors and therapists to treat their relatives or friends. If a person was to take his/her mentally sick relative to a priest for an exorcism today, he/she would be the gossip of the town. In the past when someone was though to be possessed, priests were the main “dictator” in the healing process. If a doctor was brought in, he/she would be expected to recite the chants to drive the devil out just like the rest of them. The victim’s family would summon the help of the entire community to help drive the demon out. So in the past, the patient had a ton of support to help them heal, and today we are finally starting to see that. Doctors and therapists cannot stress enough that family and friend support is as vital to the recovery of a patient as drugs and therapy are. The more and more comfortable society becomes with the idea of mental illness and how sick people can act, the bigger and bigger part it will play in the healing process.
Of course we perceive Eve differently than Margaret because we are living in the 21st century and the exorcisms are a little outdated. As far as treatment goes, I would treat the two just as they were treated. Eve obviously was not possessed by the devil, so she should receive gradual therapy to help her deal with her multiple personalities and in time, heal entirely. Like I stated earlier, I’m not sure if Margaret was actually possessed by the devil, but some higher power was at work. So even though exorcisms are not practical in this day in age, Margaret was treated correctly. She didn’t believe she was mentally ill. She believed that she was possessed, so she knew the only way to recover was to have an exorcism. If she was thrown into a mental institution, she may never have had a full recovery because she herself would not believe that she was healed. With the help of plenty of people and priests through the exorcism, she was able to achieve a quick full recovery. Mentally, she believed she was healed because she knew the “devil” was driven out of her, and that, perhaps, was the best medicine anyone could give her. As far as accountability, neither woman did anything to deserve what she got. People in the 1500-1700s believed that people who were possessed by the devil had sinned gravely so that the devil could come upon them. I don’t believe that those people sinned any more gravely than any other person during that time period.
Ian Hacking would say that the writer of “A True and Most Dreadful Discourse” is mistaken. He would research more into Margaret’s childhood to try to discover links between significant events in her childhood and her most recent “questionable” behavior. So he would agree more, but not entirely, with the diagnosis of Eve White in “The Three Faces of Eve.” Perhaps Eve was just reacting badly to her social circumstances. Maybe she had suppressed her intense dislike for her husband and her housewife role so long that she finally just let that side of her “emerge.” And with the help of her physiatrist, she really started to believe that she had multiple personalities. We may never know exactly.

Bats and all their complexities

Ellen Wetli
Module 5: Assignment 3
Laura Mandell
10-3-06

How has our understanding of bats changed since 1827 when Cuvier first wrote his animal textbook? Do scientists use metaphors / models based on technology to explain animal behavior? If technology changes, does or could that change affect the way we understand animal behavior that we don't understand?

As with most early discoveries in the fascinating world of technology, Cuvier’s theory of the sensory basis of obstacle avoidance by flying bats has evolved with time. In 1827, Georges Cuvier claimed that obstacles were detected by bats by “tactile receptors on the bat’s skin, especially the skin of the wing membranes.” Extensive testing has been done by Donald Griffin and Robert Galambos pertaining to how bats locate objects in flight. All of their research have proven that the “ear was the most important sense organ involved (in determining obstacles).” They even ran a couple tests proving that impairing the skin membrane on a bat’s wing does not affect is ability to locate obstacles in flight (as was assumed by Cuvier). So comparable to the world of technology, the world of science is always changing; theories are being hypothesized, tested, re-hypothesized, re-tested, etc. every day.
Today, we think of bats as creatures of the night that use a series of high-pitched supersonic sounds to determine the location and basic shape of an object. Scientists use several metaphors to better explain the complex process of how bats fly at night. I believe the only way to truly educate the public, who aren’t knowledgeable about the scientific jargon of the technical process, is through metaphors. People are more receptive to information that they can understand. This complex process has been most recently compared to sonar, radar, and echolocation. It has purposive properties of these three processes; however it is not any of these par excellence. It is described metaphorically through radar, and like all metaphors, it both hides and highlights aspects of the bat’s internal process. Saying bats literally have radar is not true because they do not. It hides the fact that some species of bats run into glass. Machines with radar can easily detect a glass object; therefore this aspect of a bat’s recognition of objects is not supported by the radar metaphor. In fact, Cuvier’s metaphor of impressions can actually highlight some aspects of a bat’s object location process which radar cannot. Perhaps, they do have some sensors in their skin which can receive air currents which would make an “impression” on them. This “impression” metaphor is comparable to print on a piece of paper. For example, when a typewriter slaps a letter on a piece of paper, it is leaving small dents or impressions on that piece of paper. Cuvier stated that the air currents undulating from an object leaves special “dents” in the bat’s sensitive membrane and therefore allows them to decipher what is in front of them. Cuvier explained that the reason some species of bats ran into glass was because they don’t have “as sensitive as membrane.” The radar metaphor also highlights many factors of the bat’s complex process. First, scientists describe how radar waves emit from a source, hit and object, and return to the source to inform it of the objects basic shape and size. Then, they state that “instead of..waves, he (the bat) sends out a staccato series of high-pitched cries.” As a person can see, the scientists are stating directly that a bat does not literally have radar, but they are highlighting the similarities, so we can better understand.
Even in general, scientists use metaphors and models based on technology to explain animal behavior. There are of course the well known metaphor of dolphins having “radars” to locate objects in the ocean. The chemical process required by lightening bugs to “light up” is often compared to the chemical process in a filament of a light bulb. Scientists refer to animals in a hot environment as having “internal air-conditioning” when they describe several methods that these animals use to keep cool. Even the “dancing” ritual of bees to communicate where pollen is to the rest of the hive can be metaphorically compared to the popular new technology of Dance Dance Revolution. In theory, the bees are watching a certain dance being done, then copying it to make sure they obtained the message correctly. We are doing the same thing when we copy the heart-racing moves of Dance Dance Revolution.
If technology changes (which of course it will we’re only in the 21st century) animal behavior that is misunderstood right now will be better understood through metaphors. Radar is a perfect example of this concept. It has not been around for very long, and just look at all the ways that scientists have explained complex processes by comparing them to radar. I believe animals are far more complicated than we actually think. Once we develop our technology further and understand concepts through machines, then we can use this information to discover whole new depths in the animal world.

Module 3: Assignment 1

Ellen Wetli
Module 3: Metaphor as Action
Assignment 1
Laura Mandell

In today’s society, we are all well aware of the prison overload problems. For example, in New Orleans during 2004, only 7% of the people arrested were sent to jail (From a NOPD survey in The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley). Hundreds of thousands of murderers every year are allowed to walk free due to the fact that there just isn’t enough room for everyone. The United States needs to develop alternative solutions. If we treat the war on drugs as an actual war, then we’ll be strategically hunting down drug lords and bombing meth labs. Even after we have successfully destroyed every ounce of drug in the United States, thousands will still be addicted. It’s just like taking a donut away from a hungry kid. Just because the donut is gone doesn’t mean his/her hunger is. The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, or Proposition 36 encourages us to treat drug addiction as a medical disease, which in fact it is. This act provides a drug rehabilitation alternative to convicted drug addicts who are destined to end up behind bars. Face it, drug addiction usually increases when a person is admitted into prison. Peer pressure for one; everyone is already doing it. Also there seems to be no reason not to. A person is on his/her own for what could be a very long time and a little snort can actually make the upcoming years more bearable. Eventually when these people get out, their drug addiction has not gone away, and it is quite likely that they will end up right back in prison for possession again. In California under the new act, “the population of drug users behind bars for possession diminished by 30%” (Bernstein, Nell. “The war off drugs”). So why not end this vicious cycle with Proposition 36?
Of course, for our money hungry government, this new act is saving millions of dollars each year. A war usually costs quite a bit and forces the government to reduce spending on programs that improve America. This act does not do that, so that provides another example of why the metaphor “war on drugs” is not the best choice. “California saved $95 million the first year it enforced Proposition 36” (Bernstein, Nell. “The war off drugs”). Just imagine how much money it would save if the entire United States adopted this proposition. Then the government could focus more on improving the nation rather than housing its criminals.
The war metaphor actually portrays drug addicts as enemies of the nation who need to be punished, when in reality, they need saved. We cannot treat these drug addicts as prisoners of war because they are our people. Their lives affect the lives of hundreds of other citizens of the United States, including thousands of young children; We need to improve society, not hinder it. Picture yourself back in grade school. The students who were the slowest in understanding a concept were always the ones that received the most help. They were not banished to the back of the room and forgotten. They were brought to the front and encouraged to keep trying. We need to treat the drug addicts of the nation like slow children rather than “hostel enemies”. To improve their lives, they need a little help from us. They need to be put in hospitals where they can get the assistance they need. Then they can eventually enter society again as productive, drug-free citizens.

Module 1: Assignment 2

Ellen Wetli
H101-F
Laura Mandell
Module 1-Assignment 2

Many aspects of anger are concealed when we limit its meaning to fire or dynamite. Even though fire refers to heat and the ‘anger is heat’ metaphor covers a vast majority of the facets of anger, it still hides some other characteristics of anger. Anger can be an internal struggle. When a person “explodes with rage,” he/she is no longer “wrestling with his/ her anger.” Another example of a characteristic of anger which is concealed by the metaphoric fire and heat analogy is insanity, such as “If he yells at me one more time, I’m going to go crazy.” Both of these examples are metaphoric characteristics of anger that are concealed when we automatically assign anger to relate to fire or dynamite. However, William Blake offered the metaphor anger is an apple tree in “A Poison Tree.” He states that with each passing day his anger “grows” such as a tree maturing to eventually bear fruit. Establishing this connection opens many doors to what aspects of anger this metaphor pertains to. For starters, the metaphor anger is internal pressure can apply to this poem. Instead of telling his enemy that the narrator is angry with him, the narrator held it in and his “wrath did grow,” as would a gas pocket in someone’s intestines or another medical phenomenon that would put a great amount of internal pressure on the rest of our organs. Another example of a metaphor that is now highlighted by Blake’s new definition is anger is fluid in a container. Blake is “filled with anger” because he cannot “spill it” to his enemy. These metaphors are similar to how fluid in a container is characterized, and many more metaphors about fluid in a container can apply to this situation. Yet another example of a highlighted metaphor is anger is a burden. He narrated how his anger grew and grew with his tears and how it consumed him. He “carried” his anger around with him everywhere, similar to any sort of burden one would carry with him/her. Similar to this metaphor, another, anger is a presence, could also be highlighted in this situation. Because he didn’t tell his enemy about his anger, it “lingered on” for days. This characteristic is similar to any sort of presence in our life. These presences can be another emotion such as misery lingering in our bodies after a loved one has died or even a tangible sensation such as the warmth lingering on one’s lips after a lover’s kiss. Anger can also linger in one’s thoughts and actions. Blake’s metaphor, anger is an apple tree, can also hide some aspects of anger. Primarily, fire and an explosion are two of the most common aspects of anger. Another metaphor hidden by Blake’s new definition is anger being a dangerous animal. Blake’s metaphor does not focus on the dynamic force of what anger can become. He focuses more on how bottling the anger inside us slowly leads to the destruction of ourselves and others.
Ordinarily, we would say sentences pertaining to plants and fruit when we would use Blake’s definition of anger metaphorically being an apple tree. For example, we might say “Jericho’s lashing words were sprouting from her intense anger,” or “ His intense anger absorbed every lie his cheating girlfriend said and stored it.” ‘Stored,’ in this text, would actually be the metaphoric anger as a container. William Blake actually used on of these metaphoric statements in his poem when he said that his fears watered his anger. Some other sentences we might say pertaining primarily to the apple would be “His anger tasted the sweet taste of revenge when he went out and cheated on his cheating girlfriend,” or “Her annoyance ripened into full blown rage when her brother continued to pester her all afternoon then steal her favorite movie.” We can us many different metaphoric characteristics of anger to portray the exact emotion we want the reader to feel or we want to feel ourselves.