Abstract
Turing is the most renouned mathematician and considered as the pioneer of A.I. and computer of the previous century.The present computing society considering his mathematical model of computer (Turing machine) as the universal model of computer. The computer science community elevated him to the status of a god. Books are written, movies are made and statues are erected in his memory. Turing is so revered that the most coveted prize in computer science, the A. M. Turing Award, was named after him. Despite of the successfulness of TM till today, this the main realization standing today in the 21st century that all results are coming as negative regarding Turing. He became a dangarous genetic syndrome,that made computer society already paralyzed. In this paper, we present the new kind of disease named ”Turing-Sickness” of our society today, and will show why it is and how it affected the society.

1 Introduction
Early computer scientists of the twentieth century were all trained mathematicians. They viewed the computer primarily as a tool with which to solve mathematical problems written in an algorithmic format. Indeed, the very name computer implies the ability to perform a calculation with support of conditional expression and return a result. Soon after the introduction of electronic computers in the 1950s, scientists fell in love with the ideas of famed British computer and artificial intelligence pioneer, Alan Turing. According to Turing, to be computable, a problem has to be executable on an abstract computer called the universal Turing machine (UTM). As everyone knows, a UTM (an infinitely long tape with a movable read/write head) is the quintessential algorithmic computer, a direct descendent of Lovelace’s sequential stored program. It did not take long for the Turing computability model (TCM) to become the de facto religion of the entire computer industry.The computer society worked and still working taking this idea as oracle. But, the turing’s baby UTM is not became a solution to the society for solving problems, this became the source of problems. And, unfortunately in these 50years this became a genetic disease to the so called, computer scientists. “Beyond turing is impossible“, this got stuck to their subconscious level of mind. In this paper we giving an bio-medical name of this psycological imbalance of the present societies, Turing Sickness“. The effect of this disease is very common to observe. From your PC to supercomputers and assembly language programmers to high level language developers all are the affected by this disease today. Total academic society to industry is affected. This article is dedicated to highlight those critical points to the present society,where both man and machine are affected by a same disease.

2 Turing Sickness
A new kind of disease. In one word,an psyco-physiological disease. For the machine this is physiological disease and for man this is psycological disease. Whenever, the UTM has been accepted as a role model of the computer this sickness started slowly to grow up in the society. After the turing, there another person
came named ,Von Neumann with his architecture named as Von-neumann architechure. Eventually, the industry accepted this model as unique architeture whenever computer became in reality as a
semiconductor device.Today this affected both man-machine. Even this now looks like genetic level diesease. No one can able to think beyond them in computer. Over the decades ,all companies are now going to play with same strategy to dominate market,like AMD, Intel,Transmeta,NVidia,VIA everyone going to design x86 modeled microprocessor.This physical implementation of Turing-Neumann architecture now
common buisness strategy, reinventing the wheel to them. They have stopped to think even to design new architecture beyond UTM. Even, leaving manufacturing other processor families like PPC they all are going to compete with same product strategy. Actually, every computer will be UTM compatiable this idea got
stuck their mind. The turing sickness affected them psychologically totally.

2.1 UTM – Just Another Isolated Machine
The concept of the isolated machine came a long ago of turing, where the machine follows the first and second law of thermodynamics. The machines in a ideal situation gives the output in regards to the input to the system. This system is completely keep itself isolated from the environment during its operation. A.M.Turing was inspired by this analogy of machine consciously or unconsciously and designed this Turing machine. Where also the machine reads from and writes to the tape by isolatedly operating by the control head. The machine doesnot look into any changes to the outside when it doing the computation. It does not bother alsoAt a perticular time cycle it takes only one instruction and doing operation and giving the output. Then, take another input instruction again.Being an isolated machine the TM and Neumann architecture is following the Second law of thermodynamics very strictly. In the previous years the heating effect, no of the transistors, no of the clock pulses increased exponentially in the computers. That means, the complexity and entropy increased as the second law of thermodynamics said. Actually, this was written in the fate of Computer. Gordon E. Moore,the co-founder of Intel, a long ago suspected this. Moore described a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware. Actually, he figured out that this machines are all
UTM in their soul. And, in a turing machine as only instruction is able to execute at single clock pulse. Thus, to gain the performance and increasing the no of instructions to be executed in a unit time cycle the only way is to decrease the duration of the clock pulse, means giving more no of clock pulses to the circuit.
That is the basic philosophy, he figured out that time correctly. And, this makes his law so successful.

2.2 Abuses of Cycles and Energy
The turing sickness helps to increase the no of clock pulses in the main processing circuits. But, that same not happened another part of the von-neuman architecture, memory part. If we look into the history of the computer architecture movement, the frequency of the processors only increased but that not happened for the memory part. As the processor is getting more hunger to take more insructions and datas over time, the memory became more weak to provide sufficient food to it. So, that when any programe is running in a present CPU,huge amount of clock cycles in the CPU is geting wasted to get informations from the memory and sending back to the memory. And, this down the performance of the CPUs. The CPUs (except AMULET) are basically works with global clock pulses concept. The global clock pulses is distributed throughout
the circuit by different techniques of clock distributed network in different case. Because, the inspiration behind the present model of processors are Turing-Neumann model, which must work global synchronously in each clock pulses. Due to design technique, in each clock cycle when the processor is executing one
instruction, the other circuits are completely sleeping. But, the clocks are also distribued to them also. Thats why the circuits are consuming huge amount of energy, and huge clocks are geting wasted.And,we cannot able to achieve the best level of performance what one circuit can have.Thats why, clock distribu-
tion network presents circuit-based fundamental limitation in high-speed digital synchronous circuits design. Though, great effect has been and will still be put into modeling and designing of clock distribution networks until we getting out from the UTM.

2.3 Thread – The play on trapiz
Software part of computing technology also not beyond the turing sickeness. Because, the programming languages, from assembly to higher level of languages all came from that root, UTM. Everyone of them are algorithmic. Normal programming language such as C, a single process is described that starts and
ends with the main function. As it executes, we expect the statements to be executed in the order written and for the values calculated and stored in a variable on one line to have the same value when used as sources on succeeding lines. Indeed, this is the case as long as there is only one process. But, as soon as this became a handheld-personal digital assistant, users started to do multiple works simultoniusly. The operating systems designers took threads as straightforward adaptation of the dominant sequential model of computation to concurrent systems. Without any synactic changes the developers started to support threads, and operating systems and architectures have evolved to efficiently support them.Many
technologists are pushing for increased use of multithreading in software in order to take advantage of the predicted increases in parallelism in computer architectures. But, in the real picture, the playing with threads became the playing on trapiz. The sense of threads are completely non-deterministic, and the job of the
programmer becomes one of pruning that nondeterminism. Whenever any threads got failure the total
sytem balance getting disturbed. Updatation by simple patch also breaksdown the system, we need to
reboot the system very frequently. The reliability went in a very low position. Once, the thesis by Joe
Amstrong was ”Making reliable distributed systems in the presence of software errors” but the effort on
Erlang became as many research techniques improve the threaded model by offering more effective
pruning. They are all only approaching the problem backwards, not giving any concrete solution. Rather
than pruning nondeterminism, we should build from essentially deterministic, composable components.

P.S. The next part will come with the more about some experimental benchmarks about the Turing Sickness more in the present computing architectures where, the Symmetric Multiprocessors how facing problems will explained. And, will say about the new Avatar.

You lecture notes are given below.  Click on the individual topic to download the notes and don’t forget to print a copy for the lecture.

1. Introduction
2. Pure Substances
3. First Law of Thermodynamics – Closed System
4. First Law of Thermodynamics – Closed System Tutorial
5. First Law of Thermodynamics Control Volume
6. Isentropic Efficiency
7. The Second Law of Thermodynamics
8. The Second Law of Thermodynamics Tutorial
9. Entropy
10. Entropy Tutorial
11. Carnot Cycle
12. Vapour Power Cycle
13. Gas Power Cycle
14. Refrigeration Cycle

The lecture notes are mostly based on your recommended text book, Thermodynamics An Engineering Approach by Y.A. Cengel and M.A. Boles.  I suggest you refer to the book to get a wider understanding of the subject.

Yajeta Jagadiswari

When you talk about literary study, a two-word phrase tends to surface: “closed system.” (See this archive). The speaker points out that scholarship in the humanities is a closed world, with academic idioms, academic questions, and academic parochialism.

Teachers trying to prevent digital technology from destroying the ability to think deeply need literature to be relevant. Those who pass through life without reading a book need good reasons why it is worth their time.

I believe it is our turn, the literati, to think deeply about why and how we study literature.

Considering languages, history, philosophy, literature, and fine arts used to be a corequisite with civic participation because both were limited to the gentry, those with leisure time. It was a privilege. Engaging the “big ideas” of civilization broadened the mind and was thought to produce wisdom – here’s the significant point – that could be used for the benefit of the whole society. 

Is it right, then, for literary study to be a closed system?

Is it inevitable?  

Before creating another blogosphere, in which quantity renders everything common, burying the exceptional among the mundane, we should consider a few more questions. What has been lost in other systems that became more open? What has been gained?

And at last, how do you go about cracking a closed system? 

These are some of the questions I plan to consider in the next few weeks. I hope you will pass along your ideas as well.

A closed System is one which is self contained. It won’t interatct with the environment. No known system can continue to operate for a long period of time without interacting with its environment.

An open System continously interact with its environment. This type of system can adapt to changing internal and environment conditions. A business organisation is an excellent example of an open system.

Tom Levenson at the Inverse Square Blog posts a discussion of Olber’s Paradox. The gist is that if we lived in an infinite, static, homogeneous universe, there would be light everywhere. That empirical falsehood was tough on folks way back when, many of whom believed the universe subscribed neatly to Olber’s little enumeration.

I would rather not repeat what’s already been said on Wikipedia, so I’ll assume that you’re already mildly familiar with the argument. Also, I’m not especially concerned with what real cosmology has to say about things. I want to think about this under the same terms good ol’ Olber could have. Let’s hash out some implications of this static, infinite universe without worrying about all that Stephen Hawking shit.

The first thing to point out is that if the distribution of stars were inhomogeneous, we could avoid the problem. For example, if the density hot star matter went as , then we would have infinite flux of light received on Earth for and finite flux for . (Technically, it would produce infinite flux even in this second case due to the singularity at , but we’ll assume there is some small region near Earth for which the distribution no longer holds). We could even estimate the absolute size of the universe by sampling the density of stars at a few depths to obtain the power law, then finding the size the universe would need to yield the correct average brightness of the night sky.

One problem with this power-law crisis resolution is the creation of a center of the universe – the spot where . Historically, once we trashed geocentricism, we pretty much trashed inhomogeneity (on large scales only, since otherwise there would be no point in a PB&J sandwich, which under perfect homogeneity would become an abominable blenderized bastardization) at the same time. Even though this particular solution to Olber’s Paradox does not require the Earth to be at the center of the universe (the flux is finite there, but it is also finite everywhere else), it’s still rather philosophically unattractive. We’ll throw it out.

Instead, focus on the case , that is, the homogeneous universe. Many sources claim that in this universe, all points on the sky would be as bright as a star, because wherever you looked, there was sure to be a star in that direction some distance off. (Both Tom’s post and Wikipedia make this claim.)

That claim is wrong. You wouldn’t have every point in the sky as bright as a star. You would have every point in the sky as bright as infinitely many stars. That is, you would get infinite flux density from every single point on the sky. Even if you looked at a patch of sky one arcsecond on a side, you would get infinite light from that patch. Sure, when you look at any direction you’d see a star, but then if you looked further in that direction you’d see another star, and another, and another. The “anothers” never end in an infinite universe.

Let’s say we look at a patch of sky the size of the moon in our toy star density universe. If we only count the stars back to some finite depth , then the total amount of light we receive scales as . The exception is , in which case flux scales as , and hence still diverges. (Here I’m referring to the catastrophe cases . For we get some constant flux minus , so the total flux converges towards a constant value.)

That disagreement on the brightness of the sky is crucial. If every point on the sky were as bright as a star, it would get quite toasty around here. In fact, the second law of thermodynamics ensures that the Earth would heat up to the temperature of a star, until it (the Earth) also glowed star-hot, and hence lost heat as quickly as it came in.

This “constant light everywhere” situation is not really so far from the truth, since every direction in the sky does glow the same temperature. It’s just our luck that the temperature of the night sky (more commonly, the Cosmic Microwave Background) is two orders of magnitude colder than the Earth, and that the Earth is about an order of magnitude colder than a star. Nice place to be, thermodynamically, as Sean Carroll pointed out in a public lecture I previously wrote about.

However, if we have the situation predicted by the universe in Olber’s Paradox, we would actually have the Earth getting infinitely hot. For that matter, since the Earth is nowhere special in this model, there would be infinite energy density everywhere. That’s a bit stronger of a quandary than “why is the sky is dark?”.

Where could this infinite energy come from? I have to admit, this “infinite universe” thing is pretty tricky to wrap your mind around. It’s clear that an infinite universe would have infinite total energy. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have finite energy density. We concluded, though, that it doesn’t. Something is wrong. Of course, that happens a lot, with infinity.

Energy is conserved, but only in a closed system. Something that’s infinite is not closed. Basically, the infinite universe has infinite energy the same way we Americans figured out how to get infinite money with Social Security – by borrowing it from our infinite future. (That does work, right? My current career plan is to go into stasis for forty years right after I graduate and then start collecting my dues first thing on thawing out.)

It is hard to imagine living in an infinite universe, especially a static one. If all times and all places are the same, then how did humans come to choose this time and this place to exist? In an infinite universe, wouldn’t it be true that anything that can happen already has happened, infinitely many times? Wouldn’t someone exactly like me have written this exact blog post over and over endlessly back into eternity? Far out, dude.

I simply cannot imagine an infinite universe. The finite speed of light effectively allows us to borrow energy from the past. But it’s an infinitely-large, infinitely-long past, and consequently we would have infinite energy. There’s no energy conservation paradox, because the universe never transitions from a starting point with finite energy density to an ending point with infinite energy. A infinite universe simply does not have that starting point to begin with. It’s all way too insane.

You could postulate an infinitely-large, infinitely-old universe with finite energy density everywhere, but you’d have to kill off this light-travel mechanism for borrowing energy from the past (which is also a mechanism from broadcasting energy into the future.) You’d have to keep things where they are. Which, with a universe like this, is in your imagination.

“These days we are surrounded by debate and discussion about climate change. It is a complex scientific problem which is still not completely understood, and its implications could have major implications for the human species and indeed the rest of the world. Moreover, humans actions to reduce climate change and adapt to its effects could also have major implications. Inevitably, then, the issue is the topic of heated debate.” Richard Betts, Human-Caused Climate Change in Earthy Realism edited by Mary Midgley

After reading the science behind climate change AND the alternatives, I still wonder how people don’t understand it. Either they deny it completely or take the parts that are theory and think that it is fact. So I thought that I should explain a few of the facts behind it and reveal the legitimate doubt there is behind all of the confusion. This is a very simple overview, and there is more to climate change than just what humans are doing to it, but it’s a place to start…

Simple Fact: Greenhouse gases (like methane and carbon dioxide) absorb heat.

Too little and our climate cools down. Too much and our climate heats up.  Extremes either way make the atmosphere uninhabitable for life.

Not-So-Simple Fact (but a fact nonetheless): The collective action of life on Earth regulates and is regulated by the atmosphere to keep the atmosphere inhabitable.

The Earth is a closed system, barring the constant supply of solar energy and occasional meteorite and perhaps other cosmic phenomena, so it has its limitations, such as how well it can cope with stress to its system and how well it can maintain balance (see homeostasis).

Fact: The Earth’s climate changes naturally, being maintained between livable extremes of glacials (ice ages) and warmer interglacials (like now).

Fact: Humans are also having an impact on global warming.

Humans are digging up and burning carbon, as fossil fuels, and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  The capacity for the atmosphere to absorb heat is increasing, so, yes, it is getting warmer.

Another Fact: Humans are destroying a lot of ecosystems which weakens the Earth’s capacity to maintain itself at habitable levels for life.

One such destructive action is deforestation, which weakens the Earth’s capacity to remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere. If we see the Earth like a body, we can say that humans are poisoning the Earth AND taking away the Earth’s ability to remove the poison, which, as the saying goes, adds insult to injury.

Legitimate Doubt: It is known that we are contributing to climate change but it is not known to what extent.

A spectrum between two possibilities exists, a best case scenario and a worst case scenario.

Best case scenario: We might only be warming things up a little more than usual, in which case the Earth will resume its usual climatic course and return to an Ice Age.

Worst case scenario:  That we reach some sort of tipping point where the Earth may not be able to recover sufficiently to return to an Ice Age and move into hotter climatic levels in which humans won’t be able to survive.

So, these things are not doubtful:

YES we can and do affect the planet.

YES we do have to be careful.

YES we can overpopulate the planet.

YES we can overuse resources.

YES nonbiodegradable matter can choke up the system if there is too much of it.

YES we can end up making our planet uninhabitable for ourselves.

And YES, we do have to review our effects on our planet’s capacity for life and effective changes in our ways to avoid potential climatic catastrophes.

The FACT that humanity can contribute to climate change ought to tell us that we are capable of reaching tipping point. Its happened to local civilisations that misused the environment, but now it could happen on a global scale. Considering all of the carbon that can be dug up and burnt and all the forests we are capable of cutting down, it’s not hard to imagine the Earth heading into the Worst Case Scenario, it is not impossible.

Here’s three books that I recomment reading;

Healing Gaia by James Lovelock- This is a more up to date and clarified overview of his Gaia Hypothesis, as it has since been revised, put under testing and shows its successful predictions. It also integrates some of the criticisms leveled at it and works to resolve and include these arguments within it, such as biological evolution and defining life.

Earthy Realism edited by Mary Midgely- With articles written by several people this includes explanations about Gaian or Earth Systems science but also looks at its implications for it in several aspects of human existence, political, social, economical, philosophical, ethical and spiritual.

Collapse: How societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared M.Diamond- I haven’t read it yet, but from what I’ve found on the internet of it, it shows some good examples of environmental collapse that causes the collapse of civilisations. In my “to read” list.

Let’s get into something a little different, that being open versus closed systems.  A lot of the big money games are closed systems such that once a number is picked, it is out of the pool.  And, they are usually order independent for their main string of numbers and paired up with a power ball or bonus ball to get the game’s odds up to the level where mathematical models show it will be profitable.

If you were to play a closed Daily 3 your odds would be better since the pool is getting smaller with each draw.  First number is 1/10, or 10%.  Second number is 1/9, and third is 1/8.  If we multiply those together, we get almost a 1.4 out of 1000 chance to win, which of course is 1.4 times better than the open pool of Daily 3.

Open, Closed, open, closed, OPEN, CLOSED!  Vote for Jesus Christ, He will lead us down the right path.  Oh wait He was here and was beaten and hung on a cross.  Not just for me but for everyone, even the liars that are trying to be elected into the whitehouse.  Just a tought.

Monday

PRaP 10-27-2008

“Upcoming Election Day Food For Thought”

Early voting has been going on here in Texas for a couple weeks now and will end on Friday.  We are not voting for just a president this time around we are voting for our very freedoms as Americans.  We will be voting for either an Open System or a Closed System.  I will try and keep this short, blunt and to the point.  The Open System is based upon Christian beliefs and is the system this country was founded.  The Closed System is a system that believes that ALL the problems of the world are because of Jews and Christians of the world and they need to be removed.  The Open System allows private property ownership and the Closed System all property belongs to the government.  In an Open System all companies are based upon ownership by individuals or companies in a Closed System all businesses are owned by the government.  In an Open System you can earn as much or as little as you want based upon performance and knowledge.  In a Closed System the government takes all money and divides it among the people as THEY see fit to meet your needs.  My friends this is socialism.  In an Open System abortion and infanticide is not tolerated and is challenged and in the Closed system not only is abortion and infanticide legal they also see the old as a burden on society and remove them as well.  You cannot agree with both sides there is a wall between the two.  As much as people would like to take a little from one and not the other it will cause a calamity never before seen in America.  Keep these things in mind and listen for keys words spoken by the candidates.  A Closed System candidate will use words like “For the good of the people” and will mock and demean Christians and Jews alike.  They will say that the government should take care of the health care and remove the private health insurance companies and companies will no longer be able to be self insured.  The Bible has much to say about our system of government.  I recommend that before you pull a lever or push a button you seek out God’s guidance.  This is the most important election of U.S. history.  Will you vote the Jesus ticket or the Satan ticket?  Lies and deceit have taken over the political system of this country but one candidate will guide us to open system and the other closed.  And watch out.  Some change is not good.

Proverbs 11

Key Verse:

Proverbs 11:24
One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.
Proverbs 11:23-25 (in Context) Proverbs 11 (Whole Chapter)

‘Think of it as seed money; use it to set up your software development business.’

‘Right, so let me get this straight, you’re one of the big companies as far as security software goes and you’re paying me to create rogue programs that may outsmart your programs?’

‘Yep. It keeps big business ticking over if there is some kind of threat that it is working to deal with. If we can appear to be saving your personal liberty by selling you a program then we’re heroes and you don’t mind giving us your hard-earned money.’

‘Strange business plan. Or at least it seems so to me.’

‘Ah, but it’s a very effective one. We call it The Foundation and we are built on a very solid foundation of viral programmers. The idea comes from Asimov and the head of the country used it more than once. You know Al Quaeda means the base, or the foundation? That’s where it derives from: CIA seed money. Al Quaeda has franchises all over – it’s very successful doing what it was supposed to – which is creating a situation where we have to produce weapons and police the world with our soldiers. War is profitable.’

‘You want me to become a terrorist?’

‘There are no terrorists – there are people that work for us in the open and there are people that work for us undercover. You would be what we think of as a closed system: a circuit if you will.’

‘Interesting.’

‘It’s ok, you can have some time to think about it if you need to.’

‘What if I were to take what I know to someone who could do something with the information?’

‘Son, you think we don’t have people out there at this very moment telling people who we are and what we’re doing? If people think that there is a threat of our nature they spend in countless ways, they believe that they must vote for someone else – that they must vote for one of the other parties that we fund. Someone who can stamp this kind of shit out. Or they get disbelieved – generally they get disbelieved and that makes it easier for us to exist. It’s a win win situation for us. We want people scared. You do what you think is best – you’re just us useful to us if you are on our side as you are if you’re against us – for your part though you’re gonna be doing a lot less well for yourself if you go against us. No salary and certain avenues of approach to certain kinds of success are shut down. You think you understand?’

‘Yeah. I think so. I’ll be in touch – let you know what I decide.’

‘Good.’

‘Mr Spay?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Don’t you ever feel bad about what you’re doing?’

‘Sometimes, but the wage is a pretty good buffer zone to keep morals away from me. See you later, Chuck.’

The living entity breathes, inhaling oxygen from the atmosphere and exhaling carbon dioxide. Fluid circulates throughout the whole organism, replenishing it with nourishment and collecting and removing wastes, toxins and unhealthy substances. The framework protects the interior and supports all the mass within and without. The entity is continually producting elements that sustain its own life and well-being.

The passage describes the human body, an exquisite design of interrelated systems, all of which depend on the other to flawless function and perfect performance. The entity is an open system, requiring a number of environmental elements to sustain life, with air, water and food being essential.

The passage also describes another entity: planet Earth, another exquisite design of interrelated systems. Earth flourishes in a closed system. Given its exact location in the solar system, along with its exact size, all it needs from the outside is a little engery from the sun. From that it creates its own life from the stardust of its soil, practicing near-total recycling for eons. For example, it transforms its respiratory waste into the element it needs to keep breathing using plant life. Its lifeblood — water — feeds and cleans it in a perpetual cycle of alternating as a liquid, rising into the atmosphere as a gas, then returning as a liquid again.

Except for water, the elements making up  the Earth’s natural resources are lost when they’re consumed. They do not revert to their natural state and are, for all intents and purposes, irreplaceable. An even greater downside is much of the consumed substance of natural resources like oil and natural gas is trapped in the atmosphere, which in turn traps too much of the sun’s radiation in the atmosphere. The term used to describe that is so intimidating to some people that they refuse to accept it as a fact: “Greenhouse Effect.”

System thinking about the Earth offers the perspective that there is a finite limit  to the seemingly unlimited resources of this closed system.

What is novel about modern rationalism is its increasingly insistent claim that it has discovered the principle which connects up all phenomena which in nature and society are found to confront mankind. Compared with this, every previous type of rationalism is no more than a partial system. (HCC, The Antinomies of Bourgeois Thought)

Lukacs distinguishes between other kinds of systems in addition to the (ir)rational. The idea of “total” and “partial” systems also plays an important role in his analysis. I think the following tentative definitions reflect his use of the terms fairly well:

(DFN-TOTAL-SYSTEM-v.1.0) A total system is a system that connects up all phenomena.

(DFN-PARTIAL-SYSTEM-v.1.0) A partial system is a system that is not a total system, in the sense of (DFN-TOTAL-SYSTEM-v.1.0).

We have also discussed before, without adding a definition to our list, the concept of a closed system. We can try to sketch this out here:

(DFN-CLOSED-SYSTEM-v.1.0) A closed system is a system whose content does not depend on any variables exogenous to it.

Last July, Lance appeared on the cover of a large newspaper, asking the community to help him find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes.

After the story ran, I was delighted to receive a forwarded email from the journalist. It was from a recently diagnosed teen who was looking for a local support network. I immediately contacted then 15yo Chelsea, who was juggling senior studies, Type 1 Diabetes as well as attending a boarding school 2 hours away from her family.

It was a pleasure to catch up with Chelsea again to find out how her impressive juggling act was going!

Hello Chelsea! Thank you so much for agreeing to be the subject of our first interview!

“Thanks, Kate. I am currently on school holidays and trying to fit in some quiet time as well as working a few hours, and also sorting out a few health issues. It seems I have become insulin resistant which has caused me to have had a tough Term 3 at school.”

That must be causing havoc with your readings and general wellbeing!

“Yes, I have been waking up feeling like I haven’t been to sleep at all. I am always really high after breakfast and insulin. I’m going to have to wait until November to see an endocrinologist who will hopefully be able to sort things out so I can get my life back! That’s the deal in Queensland at the moment; private or public patients who need to see a specialist simply have to wait their turn, no matter how urgent their situation is!”

So you are 16 now and in Grade 11 in South East Queensland! Are you still using the” old school” injections with insulin pens, or have you upgraded to the insulin pump?

“Not as yet! I am still using Novorapid and Levemir in the pen form. My last HBA1C blood test was 6.7, which according to the doctors’ is fantastic, therefore I am having a battle to get them to understand that I’m feeling terrible a lot of the time! My levels are swinging from high down to low, which isn’t good for the body long term either, and insulin pump therapy has proven to be highly successful in keeping levels as close to normal as you can get. I am counting down the days until my my appointment in late November.”

So you have just passed your two year milestone!

“Yes, I was diagnosed in April/May 2005.”

Have you introduced your glucometer to your friends at school?

“I sure have! It was christened at school and it’s name is ‘Betsy the Beast.’ It even has it’s own name tag.”

So, despite feeling unwell regarding what is going on with insulin, tell me some adjectives that desribe you at this point in your life?

“curious….content….independent….fortunate….active…”

What’s your favourite charity?

“The Starlight Foundation.”

Each person with Type 1 has their own unique complaints, or foods that don’t agree with them. Is there any foods that you have had to give up because it’s not worth the discomfort or nasty reading later??

“Breakfast cereals, and yogurt.”

When was the last time having Diabetes made you feel frustrated or angry in a social situation?

“Yesterday! I was at work and a staff member said in passing.. ‘My Mum said I’m going to get Diabetes because I have waaaaaaaaay too much sugar’. There has also been occasions where people at school will say, ‘Gee, I wish I had Diabetes, you can eat whatever you like!! ‘ It really gets to me.

Oh I know! I’m not even a person with Type 1 Diabetes, but from time to time, people direct their ignorance at me, not Lance, and I often leave situations battered emotionally…

“People don’t understand that this condition affects us in everyway.. sport, school, concentrating, emotionally, socially, eating…you are constantly having to make smart decisions and there is never a moment where you can relax..”

Ok, so what about laugh-out-loud Diabetes moments? We have plenty of them as Lance is six going on forty five, and he is a naturally humorous person anyway… ,

“Well, when I am sleeping and go hypo, I often have totally weird dreams. I remember clearly one time I was dreaming I was on the school oval at our athletics day, and I was about do the 1500 m . I just happened to look towards my left, and as the gun went off, i realised that I was was racing with a huge apple juice popper!!!”

Chelsea, imagine in ten years time there is still no cure.. what would you be content with in terms of how you get your insulin administered to you?

“I think for me, one needs to be realistic here. So, if great advancements could go ahead with the pump, like the introduction of a ‘closed system/loop’ consisting of a pump reading bsl’s from a continuous bsl monitor (a more advanced model of the one available with the Medtronic pump) and then adjusting my insulin accordingly..well that would be awesome…something a bit more reliable and advanced than the pumping systems available at the moment.”

Your dear Dad had Type 2 Diabetes. Any auto immune-y type conditions in your immediate paternal and maternal families?

“No..not that I know of..”

So are you of the opinion that pumpers have things a whole lot easier than “old schoolers?”

“Well if you are prepared to put the effort into having a pump, then you could say that pumpers are indeed very lucky. However, pumps don’t eliminate the fact that you have Diabetes, so they aren’t without negative aspects.”

What would be your celebratory feast if by magic, your pancreas started to produce insulin again?

“Indian food..with lots and lots of rice!”

Where is your first port of call when you finish Year 12? Any countries you have a passion to see?

“My friend and I are heading off to England to become boarding school supervisors at a boarding school for a year, and during school holidays (when we are free!!) we plan to head to head to France to better our fluency of the language, and also indulge in some snowboarding. When I return, I’d like to go to the Northern Territory for a few months on a cattle station, before heading off to commence University studies.”

Since being diagnosed, have you found that paediatricians, diabetic educators and your endocronologist have provided you with enough support and advice with how to cope with being away from the comfort zone of home, and helped you understand your condition well?

“No, not really! If it wasn’t for forums and internet support groups, I would be in a dangerous situation. I am also a member of JDRF , their quarterly magazines are great as they give me an insight as to what is happening in terms of progress towards a cure in other parts of the world. Being the only person with Type 1 Diabetes at my school makes me want to keep a low profile. My friends and teachers know I have Diabetes, but they have no idea how much my day entails. I have the ability to vent through the JDRF Mentor Program about my frustrations, but really, when I go to school each day, I honestly can say that I walk out of the boarding house knowing how incredibly lucky I am to have to health that I do. I keep inside how I am feeling because most days I am feeling pretty tired because of the problems I am having with oscillating blood sugar levels after breakfast due to insulin resistance. I feel incredibly lethargic but go to school and go along with my day as if nothing is wrong.”

Chelsea, you are incredibly mature, wise and have a fantastic outlook about type 1 Diabetes, which, let’s admit can be straight out annoying to incredibly frightening. You are definitely an inspiration for others who are diagnosed in their early teens to keep on living and fighting.

“Thank you, Kate!”

Well, on that note, I’d like to thank you on behalf of Lance and myself for sharing really personal information about a lonely and difficult condition. It would be great if we could catch up with you again in November to see how your appointment went, to keep track of how you are feeling, and to see if you get the go ahead to be a pumper! Thanks again, Chelsea!!

(If you were touched in anyway by Chelsea’s story, it would by super if you could leave a comment or words of inspiration in the space below! It would be very special for her to read them!)

If I leave my home alone, untouched, it soon descends into disorder: dust collects, paint peals off, wood rots, and leaks form. To prevent this degradation I need to periodically dust, vacuum, paint, replace boards, and fix leaks.

Another way to phrase this is: I must put energy and materials into my home to create order.

Still another way of stating it is: when my home is a “closed system” disorder increases. By making my home an “open system” I can import energy and matter into it to add order.

These ideas of closed/open systems and order/disorder are very important.

Here’s an excellent description of these ideas from the book The Origin of Wealth by Eric D. Beinhocker:

The universe itself is a system, and within that largest of all systems, one can define any number of smaller systems. For example, our planet is a system, as is your body, your house, or a bathtub full of water. A closed system is a system having no information flowing into or out of it. The universe itself is a closed system.

Energy might be converted into matter, and vice versa, and energy might be converted into different forms within the system, but the total amount is constant. In addition, the total disorder (entropy) in a closed system is always increasing to its maximum level, as order decays into disorder and the system eventually comes to rest.

The second type of system is an open system, with energy and matter flowing into and out of it. Such a system can use the energy and matter flowing through it to temporarily fight entropy and create order, structure, and patterns. Our planet, for example, is an open system; it sits in the middle of a river of energy streaming out from the sun. This flow of energy enables the creation of large, complex molecules, which in turn have enabled life, thus creating a biosphere that is teaming with order and complexity. Entropy has not gone away; things on the earth do break down and decay and all organisms eventually die. But the energy from the sun is constantly powering the creation of new order. In open systems, there is a never-ending battle between energy-powered order creation and entropy-driven order destruction.

Nature’s accounting rules are very strict, and there is a price to be paid when order is created in an open system. For order to be created in one part of the universe, order must be destroyed somewhere else, because the net effect must always be increasing entropy (decreasing order). Thus, as the sun powers order creation on earth, all of that life and activity creates heat, which is radiated back into space. The heat has a randomizing effect wherever it ends up, thereby increasing entropy. The earth thus imports energy and exports entropy.

Closed systems always have a predictable end state. Although they might do unpredictable things along the way, they always, eventually, head toward maximum entropy equilibrium (at rest, unchanging). Open systems are much more complicated. Sometimes they can be in a stable, equilibrium-like state, or they can exhibit very complex and unpredictable behavior patterns that are far from equilibrium. [Example, sometimes my home is in a steady, unchanging condition. Sometimes I let it go and it becomes very messy. Sometimes I get motivated and get it in spotless shape.] In an open system there may be patterns such as exponential growth, radical collapse, or oscillations. As long as an open system has free energy, it may be impossible to predict its ultimate end state or whether it will ever reach an end state.