Pharmaceuticals

Figure 1

In a desperate attempt to lure more readers into my blog (There are three of them, with my current effort there might be three more), I will start some of my blog entries with pictures of women. For instance, Heidi Klum can be seen on Figure 1.

Now to more serious matters... Phenylephrine, the alleged decongestant, was found effective in an FDA study. Take it from me, this stuff does not work at all. After Pseudoephedrine was restricted because of its usage in meth production, this stuff was introduced. Of course, many people objected to it, citing its inadequate efficacy. Now FDA is saying that it is effective - so much for their common sense.

In another news, Pfizer announced Lyrica, which treats fibromyalgia (a fancy term for being achy all the time). The genius in this lies in the idea that if you don't have a drug to treat a condition, you create a condition instead. Like in the example below:

Suppose that you have SDD, Symptom Deficit Disorder. In this disorder, there is an eerie lack of symptoms, you are completely symptom-free. No sleep disturbances, no aches, feeling good all over. But you think that you should have some symptoms, after all, we all have ailments here and there, a perfectly healthy person is rare (and perhaps impossible) indeed. Why don't they show up in your body? Something is amiss in this picture - you have SDD, a rare condition among healthy adults. So what do you do? You start taking "Symptoma", which gives you dry mouth, dizziness, nausea, and some insomnia. You start feeling worse, successfully eliminating the underlying condition (which was a lack of symptoms). At your next doctor's appointment, if you are perfectly fine, talk to your doctor about "Symptoma," the only FDA approved drug for SDD treatment.

Positivism

Heisenberg, the 20th century physicist, once said if we listened to positivists, all we could talk about would be tautologies. Positivists' dogma is indeed such that it stifles the human thought severely and tries to make people who pander important questions like the meaning of life ashamed of themselves. On the contrary, I think that it is they who should be ashamed of themselves for bringing forth this insane and pointless effort.

What science discovers, science discovers. But it cannot suggest us how to live, what to do, when to do something, and so forth. What science cannot touch, philosophy does, and should. Is this effort non-sensical or meta-physical? Positivists, when offered a question whose answer is not apparent, choose to ignore it or label it non-sensical, as if labeling it will make the question go away and make us feel better (it doesn't).

Thus I say that whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must start questioning, and I do not feel the need to number this statement to make it look important, either.

French songs

The French is mostly ridiculed in the U.S., be it for their perceived weaknesses in military science or their supposedly bad hygiene. When reminded of Napoleon, Americans are quick to remind us that he is Corsican, not French. To counter this, I ask, since when have we been looking that closely at heritage? With the same line of thinking, is George Washington considered an American, or an Englishman? Can any person be American, then? If we accept the argument and say Corsicans are the tough ones, does the French not at least deserve a commendation for keeping them at bay for so many years?

One precious gift to us from the French is the unparalleled perfection of their songs. I am not only talking about the work of Bizet or Debussy here (Although, they would be further proof for their capabilities), I am talking about "L'ete Indien" from Joe Dassin, Dalida's "Parole Paroles", and even Desireless' "Voyage Voyage." In these songs, elaborate melodies accompany lyrics of broken dreams, with depth seldom seen in our rhythm-based contemporary/modern music. But, what accomplishes this effect?

I suspect that the frequent usage of (V-i) progressions in minor keys gives these songs an edge. French composers are also not afraid of using diminished (fully, not half) chords in musical phrases, either. We can see this effect most clearly in L'ete Indien, where (vii) dim. resolves onto (i). On the other hand, the lyrics of this particular song demonstrates how words and music can mesh together to explain the deepest emotions one cannot possibly express with words or poetry alone. Music is as powerful an art as it is abstract: This is why it is to evolutionary psychology what qualia is to materialism; an unwanted child to be ignored, or even worse, described, in the hopes that readers will confuse it with an explanation. But most of us do know better than that, don't we? More on that later...

On Nietzschean criticism of Schopenhauer's Will-to-live

Nietzsche criticizes the concept of will-to-live in Schopenhauer's philosophy by the following arguments:

1. If someone does not exist, s/he cannot will to live.

2. If someone exists, s/he exists already, so will-to-live is meaningless in that case.

The first argument is very straightforward and not in dispute in any meaningful way. The second argument sounds clever and profound at first sight, just like much of Nietzsche's works. On further analysis, however, this argument reaches a conclusion the likes of which can in fact only be found in mental institutions.

Can we stay alive if we don't do anything? Like the adage "Freedom isn't free" after 9/11, to be alive isn't free, either. One needs to eat, breathe, drink, etc. As one can see, a will-to-continue-to-live, or will-to-live in short, permeates through every single person's life. One just does not stop breathing or eating since "s/he is already alive anyhow." In short, the fact that will-to-live actually points at a real phenomenon in living people cannot be denied by clever word plays.