A gym in our neighborhood has a big sign that challenges the passerby to “Make your body your machine.” Another one a few blocks away entices potential customers with a poster that says “We don’t use machines. We build them.”
These are clever and funny points. There is certainly a sense in which bodies are like machines, with parts that work on each other to accomplish things. And, for all practical purposes, those parts can be described the same as engine parts: There is a fuel system (digestion and metabolism), a plumbing system with a pump (the heart and blood vessels), an electrical system (the nerves), a system of pulleys and joints (the muscular system), etc.
But the metaphor can go a little too far. Machines have a well-known blueprint, designed by an engineer. A machine performs one or a few pre-specified tasks, and we generally fuly understand the function of each part. Machines are usually operated by a separate operator who tells it what to do and who can turn it on or off.
Granted, in the age of self-driving cars, Alexa, and “artificial intelligence,” the distinction between a machine and a living body can be blurry. Modern vehicles are equipped with amazing sensors that make them react to the environment without any human input. Computers can “learn” to solve problems that humans cannot fully comprehend. And even home gadgets seem to have a mind of their own.
Nevertheless, there is a clear difference between a machine and a living body. In a living body, the whole and the parts are integrated intrinsically, or “from the inside,” so-to-speak. That’s not the case for the human-designed machine, where the parts are held together from the outside.
That means that in a living body, the parts of the body work for the good of the whole, and the whole body is also attentive to the good of the parts. For example, the heart pumps to distribute blood to the whole body, but the whole body also works to keep the heart healthy and provides it with fuel, oxygen, and repair mechanisms. In a machine, there is no “whole” that attends to the parts, but each part does its own specific thing.
And a further distinction is that when a machine breaks down, the parts of the machine may still be perfectly good: a wheel, a ball-bearing, or an electronic chip can be reused in another machine and may be as good as new. When a living body dies, however, the parts are no longer good for anything. In fact, they’re not strictly-speaking “parts” since there is no whole left for them to be a part of.
So, why do I mention all this in a blog concerned with heart health?
The reason is this. When you come to us to undergo a cardiac testing, it may feel like taking your car to the mechanic. We use the ultrasound to look “under the hood” of your chest and see how you heart looks and how well it’s beating; we check the pipes to see if they’re clogged; we apply the electrodes to check your cardiac electrical system, etc.
But we never lose sight of the fact that you are a whole person. We care about your cardiovascular parts, but also about who you are, where you’re going, what you want to do, and what your overall needs are. In other words, we care about your individual characteristics that make you you and not someone else with the same kind of body.
Your body may seem like a machine but, at Athletic Heart SF, we promise never to treat you like one.
Cheers!
–Dr. Accad
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