Hume, Contrariety, and Proportion of the Human Being

Hume, Contrariety, and Proportion of the Human Being

In his Treatise On Human Nature, Hume attributes much of his philosophic productivity to the practical application of seven Ideas of Comparison that he believes are fundamental to the construct of philosophy.

The seven ideas of comparison related by Hume are as follows.

1. Identity: a measure of the extent of dissimilarity between

two entities.

2.Resemblance: a measure of the extent of similarity between

two identities.

3.Contiguity: of space and time, the source of an infinite number of comparisons such as above and below, before and after, apart and contiguous, etc.

1. Degrees of quality: for two objects the quality shared; i.e., of two

heavy objects, one is heavier.

5.Proportions of a quality: the mathematic correspondence among the

measures of the entire work, and of the whole to a certain part selected as a standard.

1. Cause and effect: an event is the cause of a subsequent event if and

only if events like the first are always (quantum: probably) followed by events like the second.

1. Contrariety: The correspondence between or among two or more fundamental identities mutually having least similarity (being maximally divergent) and yet each being necessary to complete the picture.

Most of these ideas, with the exception of proportion and contrariety, figure pivotally in physical science. Yet, until recently, one problem in medical science has escaped successful understanding and treatment in terms of causality; namely, the spontaneous onset and persistence of common, chronic pain that is without apparent cause. Alternative to causality, which presupposes a single cause for a given effect, the application of the concept of proportion and contrariety have proven successful in modeling the complex interactions of anatomy, physiology, and physics so as to permit the identification and successful manipulation of multiple, subtle factors that collectively play into the development of common, chronic pain, and an elegant, safe, and economic method of treatment that enduringly relieves same. The objective for this paper is to present for critical philosophic review this application of proportion and contrariety as regulating concepts for the modeling of the origin of common, chronic pain as a consequence of subtle imbalance of posture, normally present in the adult population.

I.Proportionality of the human being.

The sculptors of ancient Greece first evidenced that the anatomy of the human is regulated by proportionality in accord with a canon called the Golden Mean. This canon states that, for neighboring, linear, and unequal extents, that the smaller portion is to the larger portion as the larger portion is to the sum of them both (Fig. 1). This insight into the proportional nature of the human anatomy led to a unique advance in the sculpture of the human form, advancing from earlier and lifeless forms regulated by a concept of right-left equality of the human anatomy, to a lifelike and beautiful statuary regulated by the mathematics of proportionality (Fig. 2).

Figure 1. A line drawing of the interregional proportionality of the linear extents of neighboring portions of the upper extremity.

Interregional proportionality was demonstrated by the Greeks to extend throughout the

body, and reformed the previous style of right-left equivalence of statuary of the human

form.

Figure 2. Comparrison of the archaic style of statuary with right-left equivalence, the interregional proportionality that formed the basis for the reformation to classical style, and an example of this style.

By the regulating proportionality of the Golden Mean, and other canons since lost to modernity, a change of one part of the body, in terms of a dropped hip or a turned head, could be compensated for by proportional changes of the remainder of the form, rendering a lifelike figure in stark contrast to the prior figures with right-left equivalence.

1. Contrariety of an operational schema of the human being.

It was intuitively discovered by this investigator that there exists an operational schema for the musculoskeletal system that is comprised of triadic and branching groups of the fundamental constituents.[1] This discovery was later understood to be an expression of natural contrariety, as described by Aristotle.

“Everything that comes to be or perishes does so from one contrary

to another, or from one into the intermediate…All things that come

to be are either contraries or from contraries.”

Aristotle

Book I, Physics.

This prosaic statement can be abstracted to illustrate a broadening of contrariety from a one or two-dimensional model to a three-dimensional schema.

Figure 3. An abstract illustration of the three-dimensional grouping of fundamental and contrary aspects of nature, each branching to another contrary triad, in accord with Aristotle’s statement that "all things that come to be are either contraries or from contraries”.

By this conceptual lead, being an idea of comparison provided by Aristotle and affirmed by Hume, known fundamental aspects of the human system can be schematically organized into branching triads. Human anatomy and physiology, in the language of classical physics, 1) exists in a three-dimensional space and 2) moves in three ways: translation, rotation, and oscillation[2] (Fig. 4).

Figure 4. A Cartesian schematic of the triadic grouping and branching of the fundamental aspects of the musculoskeletal system: 1) 3 freedoms of space, 2) 3 freedoms of motion, and hypothetically, 3) three central boundaries within which structure function.

Importantly, while classical physics has well established the 6 freedoms, 3 of space and 3 of motion, contrariety implies that a third and fundamental group must exist. This group, contrary to freedoms is the boundary conditions within which structures exist in space and function in terms of translation, rotation, and oscillation.

Two regions of the body have been identified as having a strong and direct effect on the intensity and frequency of chronic pain: the shape of the feet and the attitude of the pelvis. Previous research had identified that minute manipulations of the shape of the feet by foot orthotics (Fig. 6), or the attitude of the pelvis by a heel lift (Fig. 7), is followed by strong changes in both the shape (Fig. 5)[3] and the intensity of chronic pain throughout the body (Fig. 8)[4].

Figure 5. An abstract drawing of the human in the upright stance, for which the feet and sacral base are deformed, and the rest of the body deforms correspondingly. Where the feet and sacral base are corrected, the body reforms overall.

Figure 6. A line drawing of common angularity of the ankle (pes valgus), corrected by a foot orthotic worn in the shoe.

Figure 7. A line drawing of common unlevelness of the pelvis, measured at the sacral base, corrected by a lift beneath the heel on the low side of the pelvis.

Figure 8. Graphic effect of optimization of posture on regional incidence of chronic and otherwise idiopathic pain.

Why this is the case was not understood until the concept of these regions serving as boundary conditions was articulated. What remained was to recognize that, in a geometric sense, the center of a body relates directly to all other portions, and thereby serves as a boundary condition for the entirety of the body.

Contrariety, where applied to a three dimensional situation, is completed where three contrarities are identified, each being least like the other, and yet sharing some quality in common. One can infer from this triadic archetypia that if a center exists as a class of contrariety, one should look for three centers, an improbable proposition at the outset. Reassuringly, three centers have been found. One center is the central nervous system that controls posture, contained in the head. A second and geometric center is the base of the sacrum that is the geometric center of the span from the sacram base to the outreached toes, and from the sacral base to the outreached fingers. A third and gravitational center are the feet that are central to vector of the weight above and the vector of support from below (Fig. 9).

Center of the Equal

And Opposing Vectors of Load and Support.

Figure 9. The feet are the gravitational center of the opposing

vectors of the load of weight from above and the vector of

support from below.

The proposition that the sacral base is the geometric center is arguable, for reason the drawing of the Universal Man by da Vinci depicts the navel as the center of man. This possible objection is refuted by considering the origin of da Vinci’s drawing.

Leonardo drew this drawing from the prose report by Vitruvius, a Roman architect and engineer, who was sent by the Emperor Constantine to analyze the architecture of ancient Greece for the purpose of Roman reproduction. Vitruvius gave evidence of the geometric proportionality of the human form, of importance for reason the architectural designs of these Greeks were in due proportion to the proportion of the human body.

Proportion (def. by Vitruvius): The correspondence among the measures of the members of an entire work, and of the whole to a certain part selected as a standard.

“Therefore, since nature has designed the body so that its members are duly proportioned to the frame as a whole, it appears that the ancients had good reason for their rule, that in perfect buildings the different members must be in exact symmetrical relations to the whole scheme.

...in the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described there from.”

-Vitruvius, De Architectura

This investigator notes that a puzzling contradistinction exists between the Vitruvian description and the da Vinci illustration of the geometric center of Man. Unlike the extended feet described by Vitruvius, Leonardo’s Man has feet that are not outstretched, thereby placing the navel as the approximate geometric center of this body. Note that were the feet and ankles extended, as described by Vitruvius, the approximate center of the outstretched body is the sacral base (Fig. 10).

Figure 10. A redrawing of the original Universal Man by da Vinci (left), and the corrected drawing in precise accord with Vitruvius (right).

While the navel is an attractive candidate for the biologic center of Man, the sacral base is in fact the approximate geometric center. Why or how did Vitruvius and Leonardo overlook this detail? The question of how posture relates to pain resonates with the classical topics of human proportion and to architectural esthetics. It’s as though structural beauty is the contrary to pain.

III. Conclusion

Hume’s assertion the seven ideas of comparison are fundamental to the construct of philosophy resonates both with the claims by Aristotle regarding the fundamentality of contrariety, and the practical applicability of both proportion and contrariety in medical science to better understand the clinical observations that precise optimization of the feet and pelvic level is followed by reformation of the body overall and pan corporeal reduction of the majority of chronic pain.

End.

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[1] Irvin, R.E.: Sub-optimal posture; the origin of the majority of musculoskeletal pain of the musculoskeletal system, in: Vleeming, et al; Movement, Instability and Low Back Pain. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingston, 1997:133-155

[2] Irvin, R.E.: The Structure as a vibratory form: a broadening of the model of somatic dysfunction, J. Amer, Osteo. Assoc. 86:608/125, 1986.

[3] Irvin, R.E.: Reduction of lumbar scoliosis by the use of heel lift to level the sacral base. J. Amer. Osteo. Assoc. Vol 91, No. 1, pp 34-44, January 1991.

[4] Irvin R.E., The origin and relief of common pain, Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation 11 (1998) 89-130.