One Thing Modern Medicine Got Wrong: The Human Body

By Srinivasan S. Pillay, M.D. and Deepak Chopra™, M.D.

A strange fact that nobody seems to act upon is this: The body you see in the mirror isn’t your real body. The image you see is of a solid physical object, stable and fixed like a table or chair. But in reality your body is fluid, constantly changing, filled with numerous spaces, and the host of trillions of bacteria. All of this is more you than the you see in the mirror.

The old saying, “What you see is what you get” doesn’t fit our bodies. Consider the billions of cells that die and are replaced every day. They are like the bricks in a house that vanish while building remains intact. If you accept this as the truth, modern medicine is challenged at the core, because medical students are taught to treat the body they see. You might even say that in most cases they are taught to treat only the body they see.

The model taught in medical school is common to all the sciences. It is known as naïve realism. What makes it naïve is the assumption that the world delivered by the five senses, but especially the visible world of objects, is enough to describe reality. In other words, “What you see is what you get.” Develop the most powerful microscope you can imagine, and you will see what Nature is all about.

Tiny bits of matter are assembled to produce the standard model of the human body, which can be broken down from cells to molecules, atoms, and beyond. This model of “the body as thing” has produced wave after wave of modern drug therapies and a minute understanding of anatomy. But there’s more than one fly in the ointment.

Here are the gaps in medical knowledge, the prevailing mysteries that the “body as thing” model fails to solve.

· Our genes evolved with the cooperation of bacterial and viral DNA, which means that to be human also means to be bacterial and viral. This relationship is fundamental to how we survive, but it has barely been studied for medical purposes. In the rare instances that it is studied, the human body is seen as separate from these organisms.

· Almost every trait a person has involves not just one gene but multiple genes interacting. This interaction is invisible, constant, but almost impossible to pin down.

· The brain is an organ where minute electrical charges and chemical reactions somehow apparently produce the sights and sounds of the physical world. This transformation is a total mystery when you come right down to it.

· The “glue” that holds the body together is more than chemical bonds, although the standard model only considers body chemistry. The body, like everything in the universe, is vibratory. Even bacteria give off high-frequency sounds. These vibrations are ripples in the quantum field. There is no doubt that the “glue” that holds us intact may be located there.

· Studying the matter that composes the body tells you little about consciousness.

· To the extent that people are their bodies, each person is radically individual. No two bodies react the same to drugs or indeed to the regular process of reacting to pain, pleasure, and the stimuli of the five senses. Medicine brushes off our radical individuality to pursue new drugs and treatments that will work the same for everyone. But what if being individual is the whole point, not simply a nuisance for drug makers?

This is a very long list of big-ticket mysteries. Yet they all fit under the rubric of “What you see isn’t what you get.” A model that isn’t based on reality needs to be changed, and without a doubt the material model of the human body, fantastic as its achievements have been, is quickly becoming outdated.

In a world where every new drug costs on average of $1.2 billion and eight years to gain approval, the prospect for a future world that is sustainable at the basic level of physical health is rapidly receding. The current pandemic offered a painful lesson in the reality that the planet is a single living organism, and that being human weaves us into that organism, like every other living creature.

What seems to set us apart is self-awareness. We seem to be the only creatures who want to understand who we are. Medicine is only one branch of self-exploration. It is a terrible mistake to assume that it is disconnected from all the other branches. Yet the “body as thing” model robs us not only of individuality. It robs us of wholeness by excluding the mind or any other dimensions that are not perceptible.

The biggest flaw in the current medical model is our sole commitment to what is visible only. You can’t see the mind in a mirror. You can’t see the invisible connections that keep you alive and are part of the living, breathing world. You can’t see your thoughts, feelings, wishes, hopes, dreams, and fears. Modern medicine continues to focus on the physical, and until we reinvent the body, giving due importance to its invisible reality, the medicine we get will be forever limited, insufficient, and egregiously slow in its evolution .

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a whole health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 90 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. For the last thirty years, Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution and his latest book, Total Meditation (Harmony Books) will help to achieve new dimensions of stress-free living and joyful living. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.” www.deepakchopra.com

SRINI PILLAY MD, is founder and CEO of NeuroBusiness Group, which is an organization that connects brain science to other aspects of science, art, technology and leadership development. He is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and biotechnology research analyst and brain imaging researcher who is also the founder of CIRCA, a technology company designed to reduce anxiety, as well as co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Reulay, a company that uses technology to enhance longevity and quality of life. He is also the award-winning author of Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear as well as Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind, among others. Dr. Pillay has recently completed writing a musical, and is leading efforts to design a fashion show that highlights the brain, as well as designing a Museum of Awakening. He was voted one of the top 20 movers and shakers in leadership development in the world by “Training Industry”, and is an invited member of the Transformational Leadership Council. He is currently on think tanks: The Consortium of Learning Innovation at McKinsey & Co., as well as a member of the Disasters, Trauma and Global Health committee at The Group for Advancement of Psychiatry. www.drsrinipillay.com