LOST, healing, and Jeremy Bentham
Monday 4 August 2008 - Filed under Life Outside Work
The name “Jeremy Bentham” must ring a bell for two very different, almost certainly mutually-exclusive groups of people: ones who remember the English philosopher and social reformer of the early 19th century; and the other group being hardcore fans of LOST, a 21st century American drama TV series. I, of course, belong to the latter.
The Jeremy Bentham I know is Jonathan “John” Locke, played by Terry O’Quinn, who is one of the pivotal figures of the 90-plus LOST characters whose names in the show have been made known. Being one of the plane crash survivors stranded on an unknown South Pacific island, John Locke is portrayed as a man of faith, who believes that he is destined to stay on the island, stubbornly refusing to seek rescue; understandably so, because the unexplained powers of the island at the moment of the crash healed him of his waist-down paralysis.
By the end of the fourth season of the series, John Locke parts with the rest of the survivors some of whom subsequently get rescued at last. He, on the other hand, chooses to remain on the island and becomes the new leader of the “Others”, a shady bunch of people who have lived there for reasons to do with the scientific experiments in medicine and human behaviour covertly conducted in the 1960′s by the Dharma Initiative. In a last-minute flash-forward, we also learn that John Locke, under the alias of Jeremy Bentham, eventually came back to the outside world three (or four?) years after the initial rescue of 2004. But all that’s revealed to the viewers is his dead body. Why he got out of the island, what happened on the island under his leadership after the survivors left, and how the producers of the show will bring “John Locke a.k.a. Jeremy Bentham” back to life (since he is one of the pivotal characters), are just some of the 2342 mysteries and 4815 riddles that will need to be solved or settled by the remaining 32 episodes of the series.
Recently, a dear engineer-turned-priest friend of mine kindly lent me this book by Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan. It contains a wealth of philosophical and historical insights into the broad aspects of statistics, the science of uncertainty. I haven’t gone through the entire book yet but have read some of the bits that interest me the most. While flicking through the book at first glance, I unexpectedly came across the name “Jeremy Bentham” in the chapter titled “Healing.” Naturally, I decided to read that chapter first.
As it turns out, the book does not reveal any of the secrets of LOST (duh), other than hinting where the Jeremy Bentham name came from, to enlighten the rest of us who didn’t know. But Bentham is not the only name from history that’s been given to the characters of LOST. In the show, there is also a “Dr Daniel Faraday,” an Oxford physicist who knows a lot about electromagnetism, a subject which appears to hold the key to unlocking the many secrets of the island. That instantly reminded me of Michael Faraday of 19th century England, the very scientist who pioneered the studies of electromagnetism and lived a truly humble, respectful life while making invaluable contributions to science. Hmmm… England? 19th century? Philosopher and scientist? Are these dots to be connected, or is there an English historian among the writers of LOST?
Anyway, the “Healing” chapter of the book talks about what role statistics and scientific advancement play in the field of medicine. The authors, in connection with Jeremy Bentham, touch on the topic of finding cures to illnesses:
Jeremy Bentham described the role of society as providing the greatest good for the greatest number – a difficult ratio to maximise. The “good” of medical science, based on experiment and statistics, consists of matching potential cures to existing illnesses. This model worked well when the bully diseases were still in charge: the constant threats that filled up the middle of our normal curve of deaths. Now, smallpox is gone, polio almost gone, TB generally under control, measles manageable. We are increasingly faced with diseases that conceal huge variety under a single name, like cancer – or mass illnesses caused, on average, by our own choices, like obesity, diabetes, or heart disease. The problem with these isn’t finding a cure – if ever there were a magic bullet, vigourous exercise would be it – it’s being willing to take it.
The authors also argue that medicine is a different kind of science, “a profession long held in honour because it averts fate.” They maintain that medicine cannot be called scientific the way other fields of science are. Although it can and should be helped by numbers, doctors at the end of the day cannot scientifically decide what is actually wrong with each individual patient and what is ultimately right for them.
Improved statistical evaluation may sharpen prognosis, however. Instead of being told that half the people with your disease die within a year, leaving you to wonder which half you are in, more sophisticated computer algorithms take account of several variables about your disease and give a more specific estimate. Dr Gilligan elaborates: “You’re an individual with this type of lung cancer and this was the size of your tumour and this is where the metastases are located, and this is how fit you are right now, and if we plug all those numbers into our computer we can say not just what everyone with lung cancer does, but what people like YOU do. Again, though, you end up with a percentage: it may be you have a 75 percent chance of living a year – but we still can’t tell you whether you are in that 75 percent or the 25 percent who don’t. We’re a long way from the 100 percent or 0 percent that tells you you’re going to be cured or you’re not going to be cured.”
Indeed, medicine is a long way from 100 percent or 0 percent. And that’s why it always makes room for miracle – just as the 21st century Jeremy Bentham, a man of faith, could stand up on his two feet.
2008-08-04 » JK