Personal Blogs

Is it just ME feeling a little overwhelmed by this module so far, or is anyone else in the SAME BOAT.

For clear use of language, informed by the chapter one glossary.

By ME, I am not referring my physical self, I am referring to my personal me, my conscious self. SAME BOAT is not used in the sense of an numerically identical boat, regardless of its state of continuum, as in the ship of Theseus. SAME BOAT implies a shared position of consciousness potentially shared by YOU*

. *YOU refers to my fellow students senses of self identify in consciousness, not their physical existence. (Which cannot be empirically proven until we have physically interacted with each other at tutorials).

So I have completed week 1's work, the study planner for week 1 is done.

Happy days, I think!

So I have looked at the ship of Theseus and john Locke's ideas about personal identity.

So Locke separate's the self, from the physical existence of a 'me', thats not relevant, to the idea that I am my self.

It is the continuity of memory and the persistence of self-consciousness that make me a self.

Okay I can get with that, no problem, week one done. Feel smug, happy its done, I can do this, no worries.

Then....................

I clicked the link to an article from the additional reading list:

Mind blown------ they were words, but I could not follow them,

temporal identity, empirical duality of purpose, four dimension definition of spatial existence.

There are even formula's !!!!

if a is to b as x is to y, across a continuum of t1 to t2, then t1a is the same as t2b if X(t1a) is spatially separate to Y(t2b).

MIND BLOWN !

This years blog posts might turn into a whinging set of 'I do not understand' entries.

Or I might get an handle on it all, after all my self now (OMFG1) might be temporally identical to my self in 9 months time (OMFG2). So (OMFG1)=(OMFG2) if I add the empirical factor of time (t). OMFG1 x (t) = (omfg2) / T.

This might be a very long nine months......

Such a serious situation in Spain at the moment.

Spain as we know it has only really exsisted since 1974. Just 43 years and now it faces instability and police ( and not the police from the region- police shipped in from outside the region) firing on its own people.

The central spanish government are on a hiding to nothing from here on in.

How much damage will it cause to a country still struggling with high unemployment, low growth and debt repayment?

So today we see a couple of political theories being put into sharp practice.

Politics as violence

And

The legitimste use of force by a central government against its citizens.

I wonder how much more pressure from, the Catalonia country trying to become the country of Catalonia, can the central spanish government can stand?.

Are you reading me?

Cause i am reading text books.

A222- philosophy contains so much reading.

This might be a long module.

So today I did a sponsored walk with my mate Steve.

1.5 miles along Southsea sea front.

1.5 miles or 2400 meters, the meters are important, I will come back to that later.

I was not sponsored, Steve was doing the fund raising himself, for the Solent MS Therapy Centre. I was along as his minder, OT, carer, how ever you want to frame it.

So what is the story behind my walk along the seafront with Steve?

Well 3 years ago Steve had a stroke, not a minor one, a full life changing and debilitating one.

Steve died three times in the first 24 hours following his stroke, but each time he was resuscitated he responded. Steve then spend 4 months in the ICU. At the end of the 4 months, Steve's consultant told Lin, his wife, that Steve had lost all use of his right side, lost complete use of his speech and would spend the rest of his life in the agonising neuropathic pain he was experiencing, all day, every day.

Steve was moved to a permanent residential care facility, where he could only lay in bed and cry with agony of the pain he was in. Steve was medicated, but that just meant he slept for 20 hours a day. Steve was there for 8 months, with a daily routine of 20 hours sleeping in bed, and four hours awake to eat and experience the agony of the neuropathic pain in his right side.

That was the first year after having his stroke. His consultant repeated the prognosis that Steve would never talk, move from his bed or be free of the pain again.

Lin was at the end of her wits end by then. I remember very well the day she phoned me at the Solent MS Therapy Centre and told me that she had been looking on the internet about Hyperbaric oxygen Treatment, that we did it at the Centre, and would we see Steve, even though he did not have MS (Multiple Sclerosis). That was the first time I had spoken to Lin, she did not know me and I think I threw her a bit when I said, 'yeah bring  him down, we can try'.

Bringing Steve down was not easy for his first 2 months of sessions, he had to come in an ambulance, on his medical bed and could only do external oxygen therapy ( not the Hyper baric part, that requires going into a pressure vessel, and Steve's bed would not fit through the pressure door).

But after a couple of months Steve did very well, Lin got to the point where he could come in a taxi, not the ambulance, and could sit outside in a chair for the hour session. Steve also started to become a lot more vocal, at first, from nothing, he progressed to yes,yes and no,no.

A couple of more months of oxygen, once a week, on the outside of the chamber and Steve started to weight bear on his right leg, more words entered back into his vocab and the pain was subsiding.

At that point Lin, Steve and I thought it would be good for him to try a session inside the Hyperbaric chamber. So Steve did a session inside, from that point he just shot along in leaps and bounds, he started to see Katie, one of the neurophysio's at the centre and Simon, the Centre's Shitatsuist. I was rather pleased the day he walked out of Katie's treatment room and walked 20 meters along the centre, so pleased was I that I did him a sticker for his fridge to celebrate walking 20 meters.

Steve persisted, coming to the centre every week to do oxygen and physio. Lin also persisted, she got Steve a FES system to help trigger his right leg when walking, and Steve just got his head down, did his rehab and progressed. The Portsmouth stroke group got Steve some speech therapy, and Steve really started to get many more words back in his vocab.

Steve progressed beyond the walking 20 meters thing, I remember the first time he appeared at the front doors of the centre with a big grin, my first thought was 'crap Steve does not have appointment today, so I asked him where Lin was so I could tell her she must of got the treatment days mixed up, Steve had the last laugh, and the biggest laugh, when I asked him where Lin was, he replied, 'at home'. He had walked from his house to the centre, half a mile away, just because he wanted to do it. Lin appeared in floods of tears about 10 minutes later...Steve had not told Lin he was going for a walk!

Steve walked to the centre a lot during spring and summer, Lin would follow along 10 minutes behind him. He even walked home too.

Steve decided he wanted to do a sponsored walk, so I set it up, got him a tee-shirt and made all the arrangements. About six months ago Steve had a follow up with his consultant, the same one that had given the never walk talk or live without pain news a year before. I think the consultant got quite a shock when Steve walked into his office, sat down and told the consultant to 'fuck off'. As Lin tells it, the consultant was fine with Steve's little show of character, he was just delighted that Steve has done so well.

Steve had a party, which Lin organised fantastically, last month to 'celebrate' the third anniversary of his stroke. It was a lovely party on a Sunday afternoon, there was cake, songs and yes, Steve gave a speech.

And today Steve did his sponsored walk along Southsea Seafront to raise money for the Solent MS Therapy Centre. 2400 meters, I did not do him a sticker this time, it felt like it would have been patronising if I did. Steve has raised £1000, and has become an inspiration to me, his family, everyone who visits the Solent MS Therapy Centre and to all the service users of the Portsmouth Stroke group, many of who now also attend the Centre.

I took this picture half way along on our walk, behind Steve is the statue for the Marines who yomped (Marine speak for walked) across the Falkland islands. One inspirational man stood next to a statue remembering many inspirational men.

The most amazing part of the day was two fold, Steve walks with a FES sensor and control box, his gait can be a little slow, we set aside 2 hours to complete the 2400 meter walk, he stunned me by doing it in 45 minutes! We chatted the whole way along, talked about the cricket, the weather and the joys of a wind swept walk along the sea front, when Steve got to the finish line at the Rose Gardens (in 45 minutes), a tape was broken , fuss made and photo's taken. Steve didn't stop there though, he wanted to walk around the Rose gardens, so I walked around with him. He pointed out the red and orange roses and then stopped, Steve asked me 'what colour does red and orange make?' I knew better than to answer, Steve wanted to pull the answer out of his memory and say it. So I let him think for a minute and he told me:

'Red and orange make crimson'

I just said to Steve,

'yes, yes'

So here's to Steve, who made a journey today and has much more journey to come.

I give you Steve, an inspirational bloke of Portsmouth.

My new glasses came today.

I can finally see what i am doing now.

Last year i did DD211. A brand new module last year. Only 2 books, all the audio materials online, interactive puzzles and very good 

Now i am on A222. Which is a 8 year old course. 6 books, 1 set book and 7 audio cd's.

The module website does virtually nothing.

It feels like i am studying in the stone age...

My first book had some interesting reading in it last night.

The ship of Theseus.

Is it still the same ship if every plank of wood in the ship has been replaced because of decay?

The book talked about numerically indentical and quailitive indentical.

Looking very breifly at the philosophical arguements around if the Theseus would be the same ship or the restoration means she is not the same ship.

That made me think of the 3 ships just a couple of miles away from me, in Portsmouth dockyard.

The Mary Rose, 500 years old snd preserved. No replacement of any of the wood. Just preservation work rakes place.

The HMS Victory. A classic ship of Theseus. Virtually all the wood has been replaced over the last 275 years.

The HMS Warrior also has had much of her wood replaced. However as an iron clad hull, much of her metal work is orginal.

All very intetrsting stuff.

A222 philosophy.

It is all about the reading baby.

6 course books and 1 set book.

Thats alot of reading.

Does anyone reading this, have any advice about reading all that?

To quote whitesnake...

Here i go again out on my own...

The study planner is open, the books are with me,

Time to start the 9 month A222 philosophy adventure.

Happy days...

I completed the DD211 exam this morning. I thought it went well. Lets hope my confidence is reflected in the mark.

My wrist did not even hurt and the time just flew by. I might even say i enjoyed it.

So I have finished with revision, I will read through all the introductions and conclusions from the module books this afternoon, and then that's it.

The exam is tomorrow at 10 am in Southampton.

glasses, pens, watch and ID all prepared, and so it is time to mentally prepare for the 3 hour exam.

So i got all the way to the top of the Spinaker tower.

Harness and helmet on and ready to step out onto the platform at 105 meters up,

When the safety chap calls me back and tells me there is too much wind.

So we wait for one hour and the wind only gets worse.

So it was cancelled.

The next available date.. monday the 28th of august.

So i will try again in august..