>Briefly: human dignity, rightly understood, is universal and impervious to the loss of capability. We should value capability as an instrumental good, for how it enables us to serve God and our neighbour. We should not view it as something valuable for its own sake.
Vanstone, W. H. (1982). The Stature of Waiting. Publisher. Pages 89-90, 150-151
"A bishop of the Church, a man of long and great achievement, became towards the end of his life totally blind and so much afflicted with a number of different illnesses and disabilities that he was confined to bed and almost deprived of the power of movement. He lay supine on the bed, his arms limp, the palms of his hands upwards, so that his very posture suggested his total exposure to whatever might be done to him, his total dependence and helplessness. As one stood beside him on a particular morning some weeks before his death, one had a sudden and overwhelming impression that something of extraordinary significance was going on before one’s eyes – something that even surpassed in its significance all that the bishop had done in his years of activity and achievement and service. This impression did not arise from the manner in which the patient reacted to his condition – from any obvious evidences of his cheerfulness or courage: for he spoke hardly at all, and there could be no other expression of his thoughts or feelings. The impression seemed to come, strangely, from the totality of his helplessness and exposure. He was now simply an object exposed to the world around him, receiving whatever the world might do to him; yet in his passion he seemed by no means diminished in human dignity but rather, if that were possible, enlarged. . . .
"We referred in an earlier chapter to an image stored in the memory: the image of a man of great achievement lying, at the end of his life, blind, immobile and almost totally helpless upon his bed. He was lying in the very room which he had planned and created to be his writing-room during his retirement. That he was not able to write and contribute to the world’s store of wisdom is loss to many; but the effect that his writing might have had was perhaps no greater thing than what was actually happening in the room in which he lay. The world might have been affected by his writings, changed in some degree for the better; but there in the room the world was being, in a profound sense of the word, understood. A man was there handed over to receive, without possibility of escape or evasion and scarcely any possibility of response, the impact of whatever features of the world might fall upon him – arthritic pain in its onset or easing, warmth or coolness as the sun shone through the window or passed behind a cloud, the sound of wind in the trees or voices from another room: food from his wife’s hands, her almost constant presence, her occasional absence: a visit from a friend and whatever the friend might say: the failure of another friend to come. ‘How much’, one would be inclined to say, ‘these things must have meant to him’; and in saying this one would put one’s finger rather precisely on the ‘greatness’ of what was happening in the room. Variations of sun and shade, voices and passing sounds, were raised to a kind of greatness in that room because they bore with unmitigated intensity upon a figure totally exposed to them. That figure was a point at which ordinary events became exceedingly important not for their material consequences but for the appearance in and to that figure of their power of meaning."
I have an alternate view on lung physiology that dismisses the notion of oxygen and carbon dioxide gaseous exchange
The article is titled
We breathe air not oxygen
I take you though all the steps that lead to this statement
Including how oxygen is manufactured
How oxygen is calibrated
Eg medical oxygen has 67parts per million of water contamination
Why oxygen is toxic, dehydrates and damages the alveoli
Lung physiology requires the air at the alveoli to reach 100% humidity
Can you see the problem?
The new take on lung physiology:
The lungs rehydrate the passing RBCs with iso tonic saline solution as they pass through the alveoli capillary beds
RBCs change from dark contracted dehydrated to plump bright hydrated form as they soak up the iso tonic saline solution the bursting alveoli bubbles throw upon the capillary sac
The airway mucosa conditions the breathe with salt and moisture
Seasonality of colds/flu is related to cold dry air and dehydration
>Briefly: human dignity, rightly understood, is universal and impervious to the loss of capability. We should value capability as an instrumental good, for how it enables us to serve God and our neighbour. We should not view it as something valuable for its own sake.
Vanstone, W. H. (1982). The Stature of Waiting. Publisher. Pages 89-90, 150-151
"A bishop of the Church, a man of long and great achievement, became towards the end of his life totally blind and so much afflicted with a number of different illnesses and disabilities that he was confined to bed and almost deprived of the power of movement. He lay supine on the bed, his arms limp, the palms of his hands upwards, so that his very posture suggested his total exposure to whatever might be done to him, his total dependence and helplessness. As one stood beside him on a particular morning some weeks before his death, one had a sudden and overwhelming impression that something of extraordinary significance was going on before one’s eyes – something that even surpassed in its significance all that the bishop had done in his years of activity and achievement and service. This impression did not arise from the manner in which the patient reacted to his condition – from any obvious evidences of his cheerfulness or courage: for he spoke hardly at all, and there could be no other expression of his thoughts or feelings. The impression seemed to come, strangely, from the totality of his helplessness and exposure. He was now simply an object exposed to the world around him, receiving whatever the world might do to him; yet in his passion he seemed by no means diminished in human dignity but rather, if that were possible, enlarged. . . .
"We referred in an earlier chapter to an image stored in the memory: the image of a man of great achievement lying, at the end of his life, blind, immobile and almost totally helpless upon his bed. He was lying in the very room which he had planned and created to be his writing-room during his retirement. That he was not able to write and contribute to the world’s store of wisdom is loss to many; but the effect that his writing might have had was perhaps no greater thing than what was actually happening in the room in which he lay. The world might have been affected by his writings, changed in some degree for the better; but there in the room the world was being, in a profound sense of the word, understood. A man was there handed over to receive, without possibility of escape or evasion and scarcely any possibility of response, the impact of whatever features of the world might fall upon him – arthritic pain in its onset or easing, warmth or coolness as the sun shone through the window or passed behind a cloud, the sound of wind in the trees or voices from another room: food from his wife’s hands, her almost constant presence, her occasional absence: a visit from a friend and whatever the friend might say: the failure of another friend to come. ‘How much’, one would be inclined to say, ‘these things must have meant to him’; and in saying this one would put one’s finger rather precisely on the ‘greatness’ of what was happening in the room. Variations of sun and shade, voices and passing sounds, were raised to a kind of greatness in that room because they bore with unmitigated intensity upon a figure totally exposed to them. That figure was a point at which ordinary events became exceedingly important not for their material consequences but for the appearance in and to that figure of their power of meaning."
I have an alternate view on lung physiology that dismisses the notion of oxygen and carbon dioxide gaseous exchange
The article is titled
We breathe air not oxygen
I take you though all the steps that lead to this statement
Including how oxygen is manufactured
How oxygen is calibrated
Eg medical oxygen has 67parts per million of water contamination
Why oxygen is toxic, dehydrates and damages the alveoli
Lung physiology requires the air at the alveoli to reach 100% humidity
Can you see the problem?
The new take on lung physiology:
The lungs rehydrate the passing RBCs with iso tonic saline solution as they pass through the alveoli capillary beds
RBCs change from dark contracted dehydrated to plump bright hydrated form as they soak up the iso tonic saline solution the bursting alveoli bubbles throw upon the capillary sac
The airway mucosa conditions the breathe with salt and moisture
Seasonality of colds/flu is related to cold dry air and dehydration
Dehydration is the point of susceptibility
Find the article
Jane333.Substack.com
I appreciate your thought-provoking essay and I agree with your assessment. Thanks.