Half a minute’s walk from home. Not quite Manhattan.

Another slice of life in the three-dimensional world of Earth! Well, mostly.

On Thursday and Friday after work I walked for half an hour. Saturday morning I took a walk for 45 minutes and another half hour in the afternoon. I could barely notice any pain in my foot even after that. So it seems my foot is almost fully restored. It seems to have been healing at almost supernatural speed from the day I decided to give in and move to this place rather than keep looking for a house. Hmm, that’s an awful lot of coincidence, seeing how it began to hurt only a few hours before I heard that I would have to leave Riverview. The “before” of the previous sentence implies that it is not something my subconscious could do without divine intervention, or at least telepathy. It is still kind of suspicious.

The last part of a long walk is the only time I stay warm lately. Well, except under my duvet. This has probably more to do with the weather than the location. It is around 16 degrees C / 61 F outside, and no sources of heat inside except me, my quad-core computer, my fridge and occasionally the stove or washing machine. Not a lot to heat a family apartment. Those on the second floor probably get a small boost of heat from below, as hot air rises to the ceiling. Given how rare rainy days are here on the south coast, I am not eager to swap with them.

The funny part is that in my home office, the electronic thermometer shows 22 degrees C, which is only about one degree less than when I was wearing boxers and still feeling hot back in Riverview.  (No pictures of that, for some reason.)

***

I guess the topic today is that the body and the soul are highly intertwined, like the spaghetti and the past sauce. Or, to use a more correct but less amusing symbol, like the metal of a coin and the pattern engraved on it.

New research has shown that the placebo effect – the ability of fake medicine to heal – works to some degree even if you know it is placebo. So if your doctor gives you calcium pills to reduce your pain, and tells you that they are actually not supposed to work except for your belief in them, they will still work to some degree. If he does not tell you, they will work better. If the doctor also thinks the pills are genuine painkillers, they will work even better again. I suspect this may be ramped up even more if a whole nation thinks a form of medication works, even if the laws of nature do not explain it.

The other day I had the amusement of meeting someone on Google+ who claimed that his mind did not exist. What was called mind, he insisted, was simply a function of the brain. In my brain, this was translated into the following:
“My computer does not need software! It comes with Windows built-in!”
“Bah, my Mac does not even need Windows! I just turn it on and it works!”

I’ve been working with software since I was a teenager, back in the 70es, and I think this may have influenced my view of the mind. The reality is probably a little different again. But I believe it is the closest metaphor we have right now, and also closer than any metaphor our ancestors ever had. When an atheist goes so far as to deny software, you know that their (un)belief is truly important to them. Whether it can also heal their foot, I do not know.