Notes on the Philosophy of Parasites, Once You Understand Parasites, You Understand Human Behavior

[Victoria "Stokastika"]

Now at Kinkos for a timed session.
Very bizarro rush of memories coming because I accidentally ran into
Ryan Hechinger and Armand Kuris. Not prepared. I felt ashamed. I
should do better than that. Would otherwise hide. I always want to be
prepared when I come speak with Armand, not in the middle of splitting
my mind open and putting it together again.

I spilled my idea to Ryan. I want to make a film about parasites.
There are a couple out there, but honestly I was 21 years old and
found out these organisms existed. I spent 21 years of life in
ignorance, and that is impressive that I met the most fascinating,
rule-breaking organisms of this planet at age 21. Same for being
exposed to the Qatsi Trilogy and the Powers of Ten. And Andrei Bejan's
research on non-linear systems dynamics. Mostly thermodynamics based.
Fluid mechanics? I mean, I have lived so long and somehow I have not
been exposed to such critical ideas, that I know if I were exposed as
a kid I would have been obsessed since the time of exposure. Oh well.
At least I know now.

I want to talk to Armand. I want to write a paper about Parasites and
Perception. Scale and Parasitology.

This film would be about parasites. Once you get to know parasites,
you really come to understand human behavior quite clearly, as well as
coming to view ecology and evolution in a whole light. Parasites are
the intersection of everything.

Ryan and I talked about Parasites and Perception. Why do people not
include parasites in terms of understanding ecosystems? They are only
obsessed in a medical sense. People hardly consider the role of
parasites and disease as an ecologically neutral sense. No value
system implemented in terms of "medical or veternarian treatment."
It's a human value system thing. It's also a scale problem. A
perceptual scale problem. "Parasites are small and you can't see them.
They invisible, like global warming. So people don't relate to them.
Just like T rex wouldn't eat a human. We are the size of ants compared
to them. We would be popcorn food. Parasites are so small (some of
them) that we probably wouldn't even know we are swallowing one,
though I am sure we do all the time." So, how do you get people
interested in parasites? Watch the movie Alien. And you ask yourself
how a film maker could be so sadistic to create a fast growing
vertebrate parasite that was at first an egg, then transformed into a
crab like thing that sticks to your face, and then reproduces in the
stomach of another human, and then explodes out of the stomach into a
fast-moving worm-like creature, that hides around the ship and emerges
as a giant, multi-scaled dinosaur-looking saliva covered vertebrate
free-living adult that then captures humans in order to implant more
eggs inside them, parasitic castrator type of thing (though they were
free living when first at the planet, skipped a level eh). It's all
very biologically incorrect and infeasible, but sure enough, the
clever film-makers of Hollywood were nevertheless inspired by the life
cycles of parasites. I watched Alien with my friends Seth and Bob in
the boonies of Nevada with a schizophrenic ranch hand named Skitz, and
we were foraging for trilobites and fossilized creatures of the past
in the Ordovician (for research) (and Silurian--for leisure) in the
boonies of Nevada. And because of Armand's parasite class, I didn't
get scared, nor did I have a nightmare that night. I was SOOO proud to
tell Seth the next day that I didn't have a nightmare. I slept like a
rock with the help of his miniaturized thermarest (miniature compared
to my lengthy body).

Parasites were an acquired taste. I took the class because I
Intellectually Adore Armand. One of the most liberal, free-thinking,
big picture biologist I know. But he is big picture by seeing the very
small. It's a mind-fxck of scale. It's about "Image is not everything.
You have to uncover the story behind the surface." It's about looking
closer and looking twice. And thinking twice about what is happening
and what you think is happening. Parasites are the magicians and back
stabbers and connectors and they are the true charismatic actors of
ecology and evolution. Pardon my anthropormophizing, but it's true.

By that time I decided to take Armand's class, in Winter of 2003, I
was getting very bored intellectually with ecology and evolution. And
boy I didn't know what I was in for. That whole class was a mind fxck.
Once you thought ecology and evolution was predictable, then
everything was turned upside down, inside out. Sadistic.

Taking this Parasite Course has REALLY left some huge lingering
questions in me. I graduated 2003 and now it's 2008. And I still can't
stop thinking about those things.

**Why was there complex evolution of parasite life cycles? Does it
have to do with host-parasite size and optimal habitat relationships.
Could only complete so much of the life cycle and have to host-hop to
complete the next
**What does the evolution of complex life cycles mean about the
evolution of ecosystems? I would assume to evolve such complex life
cycles requires lots of trial and error and implies relative stability
of an ecosystem. What about invasive species? Predator-parasite enemy
release hypothesis. So, a relatively stable ecosystem would be quite
saturated with parasites, and an unstable ecosystem would contain few
parasites. Ironic eh? Few parasites, lots of booms and busts in
populations of macro-organisms that humans can see with the naked eye.
This is another issue with parasitology. The logic of parasites is
COUNTER-INTUITIVE. A healthy ecosystem is full of parasites. Well,
I'll be dxmmed why there is no sustainability. Not enough parasites.
Too good to kill them with medicine. As Sam Sweet says, the most
unexploited resource of this planet is human flesh... and the very
small will get us... one day... when the arms race between human
medicine and bacteria/parasites/viruses occurs such that the small
will outsmart us. Hmmm....
**Succession of organisms in an ecosystem, r species, k species stuff,
r species are plant like things and herbivores and such, k species are
larger herbivores and carnivores, on principles of conditionality, and
the last to colonize and invade an island too much are parasites, or
at least the ones with multi-leveled life cycles, because they would
need a pre-conditioned biotic ecosystem to make their living. But
otherwise, disease could only exist at one trophic level from the very
beginning of an organism colonizing an island, like even a plant.
**Parasite and biological control. Using intermediate hosts form of
biocontrol to reduce disease vectors. Bub thinks about biocontrol and
enemy release hypothesis as well.
**Ghosts of evolution. Present is key to the past. Past is key to the
present. Gomphotheres. Dan Janzen. Certain phenomena occur today that
implies there was some kind of "ghost organism" involved. Like an
incomplete life cycle or an "awkward nontraditional life cycle" of
amphilina in sharks (swordfish). ECOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY GHOSTS.
**Parasites and Paleontology. Macro-evolution. The problem with
uniting the fields of neoecology and paleo-ecology, paleontology is
the fact that there is preferential selection for preservation of hard-
shelled creatures when the softy creatures transform to moosh and dust
and recycle into some other system after they croak. As Todd Huspeni
said, "It's really sad, when the dinosaurs went extinct, their
parasites went too." So, if you create a matrix of all possible data a
neontologist could get about an organism, the whole MALT profile and
list of TOOLS for the To-Do list for survival, you have all this data,
but when you rewind the clock, all you have left of this high
resolution world is just... fossilized bones, casts, little scruffs
and swiggles of rock. But given such modern high resolution of
operations in ecology, couldn't you project into the past? THE PROBLEM
IS THAT SCIENTISTS LOVE DATA. THEY NEED DATA. BUT SOMETIMES YOU CAN
ONLY KNOW WHAT LIFE IS, KNOWING WHAT LIFE CANNOT BE. SOMETIMES YOU
NEED THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS, BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE TANGIBLE DATA.
Thought experiments like Valentine's belt, beret, and measles worlds.
Thought experiments explaining why we don't have any Vertebrate
Parasites? Thought experiments on the operations of ecosystems in the
past even though we have no vertebrate fossils? The role of parasites
and disease in paleontology. I was so skeptical about Dolf Seilacher's
presentation, though I intellectually adore him every single cell in
my body, I thought this Prof needed a sincere chat with Armand Kuris
before he proceeded with his research in parasites in paleontology and
macro-evolution (co-evolution arms race between predator-prey,
parasites-host). Parasites in the end, make very good CONCEPTUAL AND
PHILOSOPHICAL STUFF. Total mind-fxck type of thinking to advance
philosophy of SCALE.
**Parasites and ecological linkages. Do we actually think that
ecosystems operate inefficiently? 10% energetic transfer from predator
to prey? Or is is way more efficient due to the presence of parasites?
70% efficiency--have to look more specifically for the information.
The degree of ecological relatedness and tightness of interactions is
much higher when accounting for the otherwise loose interactions in
the non-human world
**Other concepts parasitism: origins of multicellularity, is a fusion
of all possible interactions between a conglomeration of single cells.
Besides chemical evolution. Including parasitism. Armand talked about
evolution of ecological relationships, like from parasitism to
mutualism, parasitism, siamese twinning, clonalism, colonialism,
division of labor effects like the volvox, etcetera. work of Lyn
Margulis and micro-organisms. Bonner is also a micro-organism
ecologist and evolutionary biologist. I wished that I could take
courses from them. Oh well. Dxm east coast is so far from here. I wish
spacetime could bend such that two points on the west and east coast
could meet and I would go through the Event Horizon to meet Lyn
Margulis and Bonner.
**evolution of major phyla resulted from a series of ecological
interactions, certain organisms swallowing other organisms, and
instead of parasitizing, they became compatible, like origins of multi-
layered nuclear membranes, like the origins of the mitochondria and
chloroplast. Really messy ecological interactions gave rise to new
organisms, new phyla, new taxa essentially. The fusion of ecology and
evolution right there. (more so influenced in Invertebrate zoology)
**I will have to review developmental biology, evolutionary
developmental biology via invertebrate zoology, also as well as
through parasitology, through the lens of Armand and the Kuris lab

**Scale-based reasoning is emerging "quantitatively" from scaling laws
in biology West, Brown, Enquist, etcetera, as well as Bejan, but more
significantly, scale-based reasonin in ecology is emerging in terms of
strenght of LOGIC, qualitatively in the field of parasitology (Kuris)
and fire ecology (Bub) (what about Jean Carleson) (Bonner) (Sweet)
(allometry) or individuals who take more of a biomass-based approach
and mass-accumulation effect approach to ecology, rather than a
species-based approach, frame of reference, individual organisms. I am
sure that there are other disciplines out there, but I am only one
person and do not have the capacity to know everything. Qualitative
and visual reasoning.

**In terms of continuing my shifts of perception and scale, here are
some other big picture issues. Comparing parasite and free-living
hosts. Size range, body plans, ecological roles. Parasite-host
relationships are intimate and durable. Chance encounter. Developing
compatibility. Follows the adaptive grid model contingency effect of
ecology. Consider this: THE HABITAT OF THE PARASITE IS THE BODY OF
ANOTHER ORGANISM. A body is a "habitat." The whole concept of
"environment" has shifted. Internal Environment and External
Environment. I was writing earlier about how my own body is like a
landscape of its own. Internal and external landscape feedback
effects. You DEFINE ECOLOGICAL ROLES BASED ON RELATIVE SIZE OF THE
ORGANISM. Oh my gawdzeeks. Circularity in definitions here.
**My father and Armand think alike. They think in terms of biomass.
Theyalso think as such: "You don't need to know physics and chemistry
in order to do ecology." That is a strange and intriguing comment and
I am very interested in further pursuing its meaning. Ecology as an
ancient science you know. We have to be ecological thinkers, have
value systems tied to the land just to survive, right? Dur. Wish most
scientists would remember we are still part of an ecosystem, and we
have value systems that are derived from very basal biological needs.
Sheesh!
**Another big idea: parasite and behavior modification in trophic
transmission. This is just sick-cool. So sick, my god. This is just
ecological soap opera right here.
**unexpected perception of reality. Positive, neutral, and negative
value systems perceived in parasites. Positive. Parasites and
ecosystem health. Neutral. Study parasite systems as is. No imposed
intention to fix. "What is versus what ought to be." For example, my
lab partner (Dana the octopus girl now at Stanford) and I dissected a
shark and found a rosid (sorry if mispelled) tapeworm. We discovered
it. But as a veternarian hat, I would say, oh poor shark. Now we will
have to treat the shark. Take it to the vet. But as Armand's hat. No,
it's part of the ecosystem. This is the natural life cycle. So, for
veternarian medicine and human medicine, they are motivated to know
about parasites for human and pet and livestock survival. Study what
is to modify to what should be. Such that humans can survive and
increase quality of life. But Armand takes a step back and says "What
is." Not what should be. And he even uses parasite research for
biocontrol as well as conservation and ecosystem health, a positive
way. This is just brilliant stuff in terms of science and value
systems.

So, here is just a sample. My brain is riddled and centralized with
big questions through the medium of PARASITOLOGY. It's beautiful.
Armand and the Kuris Kult research keeps my mind cranking with the big
questions. Bunch of existentialist stuff. Ya man. So it goes.

And? Parasites to me are at the intersection of everything. How to
define self. How to define environment. How to unite concepts in
ecology, evolution, and paleontology? Becaue there has been relative
divorce and ecology and evolution thought and even paleontology, as my
grad student friend Dan Luna is struggling as we speak to
compatibilitify his knowledge of ecology, evolution, and geology in
his head. As I have struggled for years in order to marry these
concepts into a continuum and smooth logic in space and time. The
feedbacks of ecology and evolution are heavily intertwined now. But it
was a very long battle to weave together a continuum of logic in space
and time.

Dr. Nagy mentioned that there is an ecological battle between ecto and
endotherms, evolutionary trait provides ecological advantage.
Differential motion and ability. Shifting gears to a higher metabolic
rate, could be sustained, outcompetes what is? Fuzzy on the memory on
this one. Ecological cannibalism on the less efficient design. Kind of
like displacement of human societies due to technologies of
differential capacities in operation in space and time. Land bridge,
the displacement of the northern fauna with the southern fauna
differential intelligence. Other way around?

In the end, can only know what life is, given that I know what life
cannot be. And parasites have stretched expanded my horizons in terms
of what life can be. It seems like the smaller you are, the greatest
degree of freedom to do things in terms of morphological and
ecological and evolutionary change, but the larger you are, there are
more rigid patterns in design, ecology,and evolution. Almost like
small versus large institutions/organizations. Smaller organizations
and groups are more plastic and can change more swiftly, and large
systems are more rigid, inert, accumulation of mass and energy, that
it is more difficult to make a major change and for it to work and the
whole unit to keep functioning. Weird stuff huh? Why do smaller
organisms survive mass extinctions over large ones? Eh? Hmmm.

So, in my desperate attempt to develop compatibility of thought in
space and time among different disciplines, I return to Parasites and
Perception, and it's a Wickedly Beautiful Place to Return for the Most
Bazackwards of Ecological and Evolutionary logic. It's a lesson to
show that sometimes the small things can tell a really big story. And
parasites are one of the few things that have achieved that.
Physiologists tend to be really conceptual people, understanding
individual properties scaling to the larger picture--mass accumulation
effects of sorts.

Hand in the Puppet. You think you are in control of your life? Think
again. Hechinger's title for his Ph.D. dissertation. He's a soft money
researcher now, just like Milton Love. I want to be like that. So
cool!

**Armand and my dad and Ryan think alike. They have more of a size and
energetics and biomass view of ecology rather than a species view of
ecology and evolution, which biomass and energetics makes a lot more
sense to me... especially after viewing the passing of my grandfather.
But Heck! Dr. House said "Death would be a bad symptom, and We're All
Dying." If you are in pain and dying, and need technological and human
crutches, that is when you go to the hospital. But anyhow.

**So, I will talk to Mike Osborne and see what can be done.
**What about the elephant and the oak tree? I ask to look at the big
picture. It has happened to the Kuris Kult. First you rediscover who
you are. And then through this rediscovery. You rediscover the big
picture. Armand's work is a paradigm shift indeed.