EVERYONE is NON-BINARY

Professional intelligentsia are people whose work largely begins in words and ends in words. There is a major logical trap that anyone of the professional intelligentsia can fall into, as a tendency to get locked into a logical cycling related to unfounded premises, rather than explore external views, diverse sciences, or research via the question, “Is this true?”

There are two religious cases of how that can distort or stagnate the fundamental principles.

The first relates to the strange case of the Orthodox Jew who, on a sabbath, ran a few hundred metres to the house of a non-orthodox Jew to ask that man to come and put out a fire, but could not participate in putting out said fire themself. This non-orthodox Jew had the practice of leaving the front door open on the sabbath so an orthodox Jewish man could walk straight in because he couldn’t knock on the door. It was a simple practice of the non-orthodox Jew to contribute to these neighbours yet it could not be reciprocated on a sabbath. And that it is not held by an Orthodox Jew that the religious law, if designed for purification, is not equally relevant for non-orthodox jew, is also discordant although perhaps a function of believing that the non-orthodox Jew is impure already and can’t be made more impure. Of course Jesus tried to debunk this in his story of the Good Samaritan, but did not prevail with the Jewish teachers.

The second case relates to the fundamental Islamic schools of Iran and previously Persia. In such schools, the sciences are avoided, superstition prevails and the Koran, revealed in the pre-scientific era and which initially fostered the sciences well before the Europeans, now becomes bogged down in an anti-technological, extremely socially controlling structure. Eventually that bubble will burst as the desire of the people to extend their capabilities will add a pressure beyond the control of the Islamic Republican fascism.

Why is this related to the concept of a non-binary human being and the multiple genders theory of some of the western intelligentsia?

Firstly to show that possible serious even fascist-like or just stagnating impact of politically accepting the outcomes of intellectual work that begins and ends in words. Secondly to begin to unpack the absurdness of much of the argument for a multiple gender theory. Thirdly, to show that such multiple distinctions has only one real outcome, the distraction of people from realising their true selves and role in the world as given to service in the path of social unification and the advancement of civilisation as a whole. While the last requires a much more lengthy discussion, for purposes here, the importance of ‘given to service’ of humanity is the critical attribute through which active community engagement and conversation across diversity of thought, experience, and culture, without proselytising (demanding others align for fear of retribution), is essential.

I am using the term ‘non-binary’ as a focus of the discussion of absurdness of the multiple gender theory. Clarifying definitions, binary means requiring two different, opposing but synchronous elements that when operating together can create a novel outcome. Non-binary thereby means not having (all that). As individuals, human beings operate by internal binary systems that establish complex negative feedback loops that create everything from stabilising the sugar content in the blood to formulating theoretical mathematics. However, as individuals, human beings, themselves, are all non-binary. I am non-binary. There is just one of me, whole, complete and indivisible.

As non-binary, in gender terms I am male and masculine. When I get together with a procreation partner, we are binary and can and have created novel outcomes.

Now there are some pop psychologist types who have said to me, “but what about your feminine aspect?”. When I ask them what they mean, they have told me that things like nurturing, kindness, creativity, intuition, are feminine. And force, protection, labour and legal and technical thinking is masculine. This is just another absurdity avoiding that the reality is something more simple.

Taking the premise that there are human virtues or characteristics that make humans, human, such as loving kindness, courage, nurturing, protection, high-mindedness, patience, creativity, intuition, problem-solving, and empathy, then the simple reality is that both male and female genders, and masculine and feminine affects have all of the characteristics. Once we acknowledge that all of the human characteristics are present as both masculine and feminine affects then when we look we can see that the only difference is the manner and degree of expression of those characteristics. Most obviously, a female will mostly bond strongly with the growing foetus and neonatal child because of the upwelling of hormones such as oxytocin. Men often report a more significant bonding at the moment they first held their child. However, when we look at the issue of protection we see that the female is highly protective both through direct force, indirect force and negotiation just as males are with the variation relating to a stronger empathy on the part of females which causes a more defensive posture, and a stronger capability of males bringing personal force into negotiations which causes a proactive attacking posture but is a capability steadily loosing value.

The problem that many people have in relation to masculinity is in contextualising the male as controlling, aggressive, even murderous. It is difficult to come to terms with the naturality of masculinity through this contextual lense and so some have imagined that more feminine nature is required to dilute the masculine to make a peaceful world. While that is an applaudable goal, it is unnecessary and even further obscures the potential of the unmitigated masculine and feminine affects in the advancement of civilisation.

The problem with men, if there is one, is the cultural mode that has developed over the past 10,000 years of the male as soldier, fighter, and war fodder for alpha males, kings, emperors. Recontextualising ‘who men are’, we can view cultural history since homo-sapiens stepped out, as a slowly distorted system, boosted (as per the story of Cane and Able) with the development of agriculture and excess wealth over the last 10,000 years, and through the amplification of primate tribalism based on the command of the Alpha male. However there is historical evidence to suspect that this form of socio-political orientation was destructive both intra and inter tribally, preventing the stability of social groups necessary to develop technologies, and intellectual and spiritual pursuits, all necessary for an advanced civilisation.

It is religion that mitigated that amplification of the impact of the Alpha male and allowed stability for the development of civilisation and improving technologies. Nonetheless such masculinity continues to assert itself and we now know that these males have a particular brain structure that heightens control and manipulation and diminishes empathetic responses that we now call psychopathy. On the female side there is also a hierarchy with controlling matriarchs but these operate in a less forceful manner than the Alpha males. In general, subordinate males and females, the vast majority of the human population, are empathetic beings desiring belonging in family, community and a general social cohesion. These are they who are attracted to the notions of religion and spirituality, create new technologies and sciences, and master artisanships, and are the real heart and body and impetus of the advancement of civilisation.

The issue of masculinity and femininity lies only with the affect of the genderisation of male and female and not with any human characteristic as specific as either mascuiline and feminine.

Genderisation is the foetal developmental process of forming a male or female. This process relies on a sequence of biochemical developments with each phase of embryological development. And such biochemistry is formulated by the genetic combination that foetus has been given by the mother and father in.e the binary procreators. This cascade of biochemistry influences both the physical characteristics of the embryo, the phenotype, and the minute and generic structure of the brain. Both the brain and physical characteristics of each embryo is idiosyncratic to that individual. Evolutionary processes have, in the most minor animals, founded a contiguous neural to body sense, what can be called the embodiment of the individual. This embodiment that includes odours, sense of smell, visual range and colours, and physical format etc, has the value of even the most simple animals being able to distinguish between their own kind and others. For example some snakes are snake eaters. However snake eaters usually don’t eat their own kind of snake. Males of the salt water crocodiles that are 240 million years on the planet, will eat their own young that are protected by the female, suggesting that such primordial distinctions weren’t as consistent in the earlier phases of evolution. And perhaps indeed, these brain structures that offer protection and nurture for the juvenile, are primordial structures for empathy.

What we can see from evolution of animals is that there are only two successful ways to procreate: the most widespread is binary sex, and the other way is asexual and in animals like snails this means that they have both binary, male and female, reproductive organs and can engage in binary sex and asexual reproduction.

The embryological development of the brain and body is a synchronicity that creates, for the individual, an obvious sense, an embodiment, of gender. In language it is simple to term the individual with a penis, male; and the individual with a vagina, female. Such nomenclature is simple as it is accurate to the embodied state of the vast portion of the population. In a small number of cases, the brain development is out of affective synchrony with the reproductive organs such that the person grows feeling ‘wrong bodied’ rather than embodied. Indeed these cases prove the issue of the relevant brain structural development. When a male with dysmorphia say they are female, they are noting that there are two genders, the one defined by their body parts and the one defined by their brain structure but which there is a failure of the brain to embody the physical nature of the person. Brain structure wins over physicality in all cases as the brain, expecting to find for example, a female physicality and external sex characteristics will be forever discombobulated when finding these physical traits missing and even other traits not expected, insitu. Indeed, the only resolution for dysmorphia is to surgically correct the physicality as, while the female sense of the brain structure could, theoretically, be ablated, a male sense cannot be in any way transposed into a brain. The brain, itself, only has a structural qualia model for either male or female and never, so far as can be ascertained, both.

The case of homosexuality is quite different. Homosexuality is when the embodied brain appreciates its maleness or femaleness yet the erotic orientation of the brain has developed for the non binary rather than the binary procreator. This tells us only that the brain has structures and processes for distinct aspects of gender and erotic desire. So in the vast majority of people the structures and processes are contiguous and synchronous, creating an embodied effect that begins with admiration for the specific gendered self and later attraction from the binary procreator as an erotic orientation.

Within the human population, the expression of gender and sexual orientation is essentially idiosyncratic to each person. In otherwords, I am a specific male unlike all other males and my sexual proclivity is specific to me and none other. Even an effete male will be unlike all other males and females and not at all like any females. Likewise transgender women are unlike all embodied females and often evince an uncanniness of masculine affect. Similarly, eunuchs are unlike all mature males and females, yet are proclaimed males. In practice the expression of gender is either male or female. In sexual orientation the expression for humans is limited by erogenous organs (physical attribute), and erotic desire (brain attribute). Erotic desire is impacted by libido with a consistent variation between genetical males and females. Erotic desire is also impacted by the desire for novelty, also an idiosyncratic aspect of brain structure. Libido can also be quite low in otherwise physically robust, sexually intake people, creating a non-sexual affect.

Sexual expression is also mediated by social moral education and this is a necessary education in the cohesion of society, albeit in the past often imparted with little finesse. Nonetheless this cultural modeling about sexual expression should not be confused with anything to do with modeling gender. The inverse is actually true, that embodied gender is one of the most significant drivers of cultural formation. In the main, how culture deals with asynchronous behaviours to the vast consistency of men and women, such as homosexuality, transgender and any number of erotic variations, is a distinguishing feature between cultures as determined by the story of successful social life that each culutre formulates. In any case, gender itself remains consistently male or female, each individual non-binary and each procreator couple, binary. Homoerotic sexual partners are also technically binary just as a binary computer code might have two zeros or two ones adjacent. But as such, this sexual connection is non-procreative.

Some intelligentsia assert that gender is a cultural expression. Although there is vague hypothesis for this, there is no scientific evidence for this. Gender is, perhaps, the primary embodied aspect of a human life as founded in embryological development. There are only two genders. While gender predicts sexual desire, and drives reproduction and the survival of the species, it is by no means an absolute control, and this can also be seen in other animals. These variations are part of the nature of evolution itself and do not need to be particularly successful, and, so long as they are not particularly unsuccessful, the variations will continue to be expressed from generation to generation. Culture is mainly an expression of the embodied genderisation of human beings and how we come to deal with our binary procreating nature.

SCIENCE STUFF

GLOVE CONTROLLER

 In the world of Harry Potter, lights, machines and even castles are controlled by a flick of the wrist. Forget wands and wizards, soon you too could control the world around you.

 Jake Coppinger, from Gungahlin College in Canberra, has designed a glove that could change the way we use technology – and it is as easy as lifting a finger.

 The glove, branded ‘Swirlesque’, allows a person to control technology from a distance.  The master mitt can recognise hand gestures and control internet-connected devices such as computers, smart phones and music players. A small computer sewn into the glove – called a microcontroller – receives data from a motion sensor. The computer looks for specific patterns in the data. When it recognises a pattern, it sends instructions to the required device using wireless Bluetooth signals.

Glove Jake believes that while technology is becoming more powerful, keyboards, remotes, and other controllers have not changed much. The tech-savvy sixteen year old used his idea in a project for the CSIRO CREativity in Science and Technology (CREST) awards program. After spending 140 hours to design and program the glove, he won third place at the 2014 BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards.

 Jake hopes to develop his design further to make it smaller and more user friendly. He is looking forward to completing Year 11 and meeting like-minded people in his upcoming trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in California.

 From an early age, Jake has been interested in mechatronics and filmmaking. He has taught himself programming and design skills which have been very useful in the design of Swirlesque. Once a keen Science by Email reader, Jake’s mantra is: “Don’t be afraid to reach for your dreams!”

 INDIA’S THIRST FOR WATER

 97 million people in India do not have easy access to clean and safe water – that is more than four times the population of Australia. 

 Many water sources in India are heavily contaminated or impure. A number of diseases can be carried in the water, making it very unsafe to drink. Untreated sewage is one of the main sources of water pollution in India. Sewage seeps into rivers as there are not enough treatment facilities available. The build up of impurities in waterways can affect fish and food crops such as rice. People can become very sick from drinking water and eating food from polluted rivers.

 Having a safe water supply and understanding water sustainability is everyone’s business in a country where only 31% of rural households have access to tap water. But many children in India don’t get the chance to learn as they must help their parents earn money.

 CSIRO’s Dr Anu Kumar travelled to India with a team of researchers to help scientists develop ways to control the effect of contaminants, including sewage and industrial chemicals, on the environment. As an extension of the project, she organised a field trip for a group of rural children to the Ganga Aquarium in Lucknow. The children learnt about fish diversity and the effects of water pollution on fish and the environment. They also learnt about keeping clean and investigated ways to conserve water. Students were encouraged to share their experiences with their families when they went home.

 Projects like this help people to help themselves build a healthier life. Anu believes that “education and awareness is the key to improving conditions in India”. 

SPINELESS ORIGINS

 To be called faceless or lacking a backbone is a bit insulting, however, it might now be time to face up to our simple origins. 

 Scientists have known that jawed vertebrates evolved from ‘jaw-less’ ones, but just when and how it happened has remained a mystery until recently.

 A fossil fish discovery in China indicates that placoderms gave rise to all modern fishes and vertebrates, including us. Placoderms are an extinct group of armoured fish and are thought to be the first early vertebrates to develop a jaw. The fossil uncovered new clues that challenge the current theories about the origin of the vertebrate face.

 A team of French and Swedish researchers have built upon this discovery when they studied the skull of a fossilised Romundina – an ancient placoderm that lived over 400 million years ago.

Fossil Romundina The researchers were able to trace the development from ‘jaw-less’ to jawed vertebrates with the help of high energy x-rays. The images show that the ancient fish developed two nostrils and a very big upper lip that extended in front of the nose. Over time, this upper lip disappeared and gave way to the nose. The forehead began to grow and the face lengthened.

 The arrangement of facial features in Romundina appears to be very similar to that of a human face – suggesting that our face hasn’t changed all that much over time! Fossil findings reveal fascinating results. This discovery shows that vertebrate evolution is a little fishy and we should dig deeper!

DEEP SEA RESEARCH ROBOTS

 Is it a fish? Is it a boat? No, it’s a robotic float – ready to dive deep and collect information about the ocean!

 The ocean covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface and plays a big part in controlling global weather. The Indian Ocean is one of the main pathways by which warm water returns to the Northern hemisphere. It is also home to huge fisheries and mineral resources.

 Ocean-diving robots – known as Argo floats – have been plunging to the depths of the ocean to provide scientists with important data on underwater salinity and temperatures. Now, CSIRO scientists have teamed with leading marine scientists in India to take a closer look at the Indian Ocean climate and ecosystems. To do this, the team extended the robots’ capabilities – developing new ‘Bio Argo’ floats.

 These clever floats will collect data to help scientists understand what factors keep the Indian Ocean healthy. Over the next few years, dozens of floats will be released into the depths of the Indian Ocean.

 Tiny sensors on the floats measure a range of factors like ocean temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, and dissolved organic material. The floats will also collect information on phytoplankton cells – underwater ‘plants’ that fuel the ocean food web. This data will ultimately help scientists better understand and predict how carbon dioxide is processed by the ocean and how much food the Indian Ocean can produce.

 The floats will free drift in the ocean from anywhere between the surface and 1000m depth, collecting data along the way. When each robot’s memory is full, it will emerge at the surface and send data to scientists via satellites. The floats will then dive back down into the ocean, continuing their mission for months or even years at a time.

 With a new set of senses, these underwater allies are ready to embark on an exciting mission. We wish them the best of luck with their journey and hope they have a whale of a time!

PENGUINS SUIT UP

 Life has never been easy for penguins, and changing weather patterns are creating more challenges for some colonies.

 The coast of Argentina is home to the world’s largest breeding colony of Magellanic penguins. Scientists from the University of Washington have found that downy chicks are struggling to cope with increasing storm activity and rainfall in the region.  

 Downy chicks haven’t yet developed waterproof feathers and are too big to snuggle under their parents for warmth. Without this protection, water can easily seep into their down – or immature feathers – during periods of heavy rainfall. The wet down makes chicks very cold and sometimes leads to death.

 Further south on Ross Island in the Antarctic, Adelie penguin survival depends on the form and amount of sea ice. Over recent years, sea ice in the Ross Sea has become less predictable with more ice in some years and less in others. An international team found that it is easier for Adelie penguins to forage when sea ice is low. When sea ice is high, penguins are restricted from accessing prime foraging areas. Starvation and exposure are real dangers for chicks as the adult penguins must leave the colony for longer foraging trips.

 While coping with change is a challenge for some penguins, researchers from the University of Minnesota discovered that some Adelie penguin colonies may actually benefit. With increasing temperatures, glaciers melt and retreat – opening up new nesting sites for some populations.

 Environmental change offers both challenges and opportunities for species, especially for those living in extreme climates. Scientific monitoring can help to ensure these seabirds continue to waddle on.