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Pathophysiology as the Foundation of Medical Knowledge

Pathophysiology as the Foundation of Medical Knowledge: A Rehabilitation of Theoretical Reasoning in Medicine Claus D. Volko (Independent Scholar, Vienna, Austria) Abstract Pathophysiology, understood as the study of the mechanisms underlying disease, constitutes the true foundation of medical knowledge, yet it is often sidelined in contemporary medical systems in favor of diagnostic routines and evidence-based classification schemes. This essay argues that pathophysiology is more than a subdivision of theoretical medicine: it is the epistemological core of medical reasoning. Pathophysiology is a paradigm of medical thought. It enables an understanding of the dynamic processes that link health and disease, thereby fundamentally differing from diagnostic medicine, which primarily classifies and labels symptoms. Based on an analysis of current structures in teaching and clinical practice, the essay shows that medicine often operates nominalistically: it names disease entities instead of ...
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Childfree

I'm 42 years old. Most men my age have children of their own. I don't. For most men, the meaning of life is obvious: they work hard to earn money to support themselves and their children, and in the sparetime they take care of their children. People like me, childfree people, have to determine for themselves what they are striving for. We have more freedom, but potentially also more responsibility for society. If you are childfree yourself, you might be asking yourself whether you've made a mistake. I don't think so. Let me argue: Of course you might have valuable genes and think that it's a pity that you didn't pass them on. But: Humans have thousands of genes. The entire set of these thousands of genes is what makes up an individual. If you have a child, you pass on only half of your genes. Of course that doesn't mean that the child shares only half of his/her genes with you, after all your spouse certainly also shares some genes with you (at least the one...
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Egg Freezing

The Austrian Constitutional Court has now declared a law illegal that forbade egg freezing, also called social freezing, unless for a given medical indication. That's a great step into modernity in this Catholic, conservative country. Egg freezing is a technique that allows to save female ova for future use. Women are most reproductive in their 20s. At age 40, the ova are often already no longer suited for reproduction. By extracting an ovum at age 20 and re-inserting it at later age, chances are increased that conception happens. Thus women can focus on their education and career, and once they have reached their professional goals, they can still become mothers in later life. Austria was one of the few countries in which egg freezing used to be banned except for some special conditions. Now the Austrian parliament has time until 2027 to come up with a new legislation. Meanwhile it will be possible to use egg freezing. Austria is also one of the countries in which germ-line therap...
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On Libertarianism

The following article solely represents the author's opinion. I do not speak on behalf of Prudentia High IQ Society. When we are born into this world, we soon learn to obey. There are grown-ups who are supposed to be superior to us and we have to do what they want us to do. As grown-ups, we are ourselves usually members of some sort of hierarchy, be it at workplace or in society. We have limited rights to direct others, but we have to obey ourselves. This system of submission is additionally institutionalized in the form of the state. The state with its government departments and clerks exerts control over us. Either we comply, or we are punished. In the course of history, there has been a change regarding what parts of the populations have access to power. While in the past only members of particular families (aristocracy) were eligible for office, nowadays most of us live in republics or at least in constitutional monarchies where a larger part of the population can theoretically...
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Unsolved Medical Problems

In other high IQ societies, most members are ordinary people who have not excelled at school or in their careers, but are proud of having performed well in an intelligence test once in their lives. In contrast, Prudentia aims to attract innovative and ambitious high achievers who are willing to work for the good of humanity. As part of the Prudentia High IQ Society, I would like to launch an initiative to develop and publish your own hypotheses on unsolved scientific questions. This would be the ideal application of high intelligence and creativity for the benefit of humanity. It would be a good complement to research at universities and institutions, which tend to focus on the use of new methods and technologies.   Here is a list of unsolved scientific problems in medicine. I would be interested in your opinion on them!   Fundamentals of biomedicine Aging: Why do cells and organisms age? What molecular mechanisms control aging, and can the process be slowed down or ...
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Are Large Language Models Formalized Intuition?

Recently I've had the idea that what Large Language Models (LLMs) do is essentially a computational approach towards what psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung called intuition. I told ChatGPT about this idea, and a conversation ensued which resulted in the following article. Intuition is commonly defined as an unconscious, feeling-like apprehension of relationships. It enables humans to make quick judgments based on experience without consciously tracing every intermediate step. In cognitive psychology, it corresponds to what Daniel Kahneman calls “System 1”: a mode of thinking that is automatic, associative, and experience-based. Intuition as Implicit Pattern Recognition Intuitive decisions are not the product of some mystical instinct but rather the condensation of experience into implicit knowledge. Humans recognize patterns and probabilities without formulating them explicitly. These implicit representations arise through repeated perception and emotional evaluation of situ...
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How high intelligence influences scientific progress

In my last post, I wrote that people with very high intelligence often find themselves having to explain their thought processes, even when they seem completely clear to them. This is precisely where the challenge lies: making complex thought processes understandable, not only to the general public, but also within the scientific community. Intelligence as a driver of knowledge High intelligence promotes three skills in particular in science: Pattern recognition: Those who discover connections in complex data where others see only randomness lay the foundation for new theories. Abstraction: Complex phenomena can be translated into models that can be scientifically processed. Problem solving beyond the norm: New methods or theories emerge when one leaves familiar paths of thought – high cognitive flexibility and originality are crucial here. Where these talents are particularly needed Mathematics and theoretical physics: Abstraction and logical rigor are central here. Philosophy and log...
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