essay on human body a wonderful machine

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Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Human Body: A Wonderful Machine” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Human Body: A Wonderful Machine

Human body is a wonderful machine. It performs several functions without rest from the birth. Our body continues to work, without stopping for a second. The main organs of the human body are lungs, heart, kidney, liver and brain. These organs work together which are controlled by the brain. Each system carries out a major function, digestive system, excretory system, circulatory system, endocrine system, nervous system, muscular system, etc. All are controlled by the brain. The brain gives us intelligence to use our physical and mental abilities. The body has more than 50,000 living cells of two hundred different types. These cells include neurons (nerve cells) and glands (specialized cells). The hormones and enzymes are produced and secreted by these glands. Various types of cells perform different functions. Cells doing similar job are grouped to form tissues. The tissues group together in a special manner to form organs.

The human body is covered by the skin. Skin is a flexible covering which protects the body. It keeps water and harmful germs out. It is war resistant. The body’s strong internal framework (skeleton) is made of 206 bones. These are connected at the joint, such as in legs. These joints help us to move. The backbone supports the head and limbs and protects the spinal cord. Between the skeleton and skin there are about 500 muscles. Nerves spread from the brain to all part of the body. They carry signals in the form of tiny electrical impulses, the sense organs, namely eyes, nose, ears, tongue and skin, pass the messages to brain through nerves. They take the instructions from brain to muscles. The brain automatically controls breathing, heart beat, digestion, etc. The body keeps on growing. The peak of physical growth is reached at about 18 to 25 years of age. When we grow old the skin becomes wrinkled and less elastic. The joints become inflexible, muscles loose, bones become weak. At the climax of life, the body gives up and death occurs.

Human body is the most valuable gift of God to human being. A healthy body contains a healthy brain. A healthy brain contains a healthy soul. As such, it is very important to take care of our body. For this regular exercise, control over eating habits, cleanliness of body and discipline are essential in daily life.

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It’s good,

As a 12th grade Syrian student, I must express my admiration for the written composition that has been presented to me, as it pertains to the intricate and complex subject matter of the human body. The author has skillfully crafted a paragraph that has captured my attention and piqued my interest in this fascinating topic. The level of detail and precision in the language used is commendable, and I find myself thoroughly engrossed in the content. It is with great pleasure that I declare my appreciation for this written work, and I eagerly anticipate further exploration of this subject matter. This is truly one of the best paragraphs written in our textbook.

Oh, honestly it’s a rich text to read, learn and know more about our body.

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Essay on Human Body

Students are often asked to write an essay on Human Body in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Human Body

The marvel of the human body.

The human body is a complex, wonderful machine. It consists of many parts, all working together.

Body Systems

There are many systems in our body, like the skeletal system that provides structure, and the muscular system that allows movement.

Organs and Cells

Organs like the heart and lungs perform vital functions. Our body is also made up of trillions of tiny cells.

Body’s Defenses

The immune system protects us from disease, while the skin serves as a barrier against the outside world.

In conclusion, the human body is a fascinating subject, full of wonder and complexity.

250 Words Essay on Human Body

Introduction.

The human body, a complex biological system, is a marvel of evolution. It comprises numerous organs, tissues, and cells, all working in harmony to maintain life. This essay delves into the intricacies of the human body, highlighting its major components and their functions.

Structural Organization

At the most basic level, cells form the building blocks of the human body. These cells group together to form tissues, which further combine to create organs. Each organ has a specific function, contributing to the body’s overall health and survival.

Systems of the Human Body

The body is divided into several systems, including the nervous, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, endocrine, and musculoskeletal systems. Each of these systems plays a crucial role. For instance, the nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord, controls body functions and enables cognition and consciousness.

Maintenance and Regulation

The human body’s homeostasis is fundamental to its functioning. This involves maintaining a constant internal environment, such as body temperature and pH balance. The endocrine system, with its hormones, and the nervous system play significant roles in this regulation.

In conclusion, the human body is an intricate and efficient system, a testament to the wonders of nature and evolution. Its complexity and functionality are a constant subject of study, offering endless possibilities for research and advancement in the field of medicine and biology.

500 Words Essay on Human Body

The human body is a complex and fascinating entity that is the epitome of biological engineering. It is a marvel of evolution, honed over millions of years to become a highly efficient machine capable of extraordinary feats. This essay delves into the intricacies of the human body, exploring its structure, function, and the symbiotic relationship between its various systems.

Structural Complexity

The human body is composed of several levels of structural organization. At the most basic level, we find cells – the building blocks of life. These cells group together to form tissues, which in turn combine to form organs. The organs then work together in organ systems to perform specific functions. The human body comprises eleven organ systems, each with its own unique role, yet they all work in unison to maintain homeostasis.

Functional Dynamics

The functionality of the human body is a testament to the intricate design and coordination of its systems. The circulatory system, for instance, is responsible for the transportation of nutrients, oxygen, and waste products around the body. The nervous system, on the other hand, acts as the body’s control center, sending and receiving signals to and from different parts of the body. The respiratory system facilitates the exchange of gases, while the digestive system breaks down food into nutrients that the body can use. These systems, among others, work in a coordinated fashion to ensure the smooth functioning of the body.

The Symbiotic Relationship

The relationship between the various systems of the human body is symbiotic in nature. Each system relies on the others to function optimally. For instance, the respiratory and circulatory systems work together to deliver oxygen to cells and remove carbon dioxide. The nervous system controls the rate of breathing and heart rate based on the body’s needs. The endocrine system, with its hormones, influences almost every other system, affecting growth, metabolism, mood, and more. This interdependence underscores the complexity and efficiency of the human body.

Adaptability and Resilience

One of the most remarkable characteristics of the human body is its adaptability and resilience. It can adapt to various environmental conditions, from the freezing temperatures of the Arctic to the scorching heat of the desert. The immune system, a complex network of cells, tissues, and organs, defends the body against harmful microorganisms, demonstrating the body’s resilience. Furthermore, the body has remarkable healing capabilities, with systems in place to repair damage and restore function.

In conclusion, the human body is an intricately designed system that showcases the marvels of evolution. Its structural complexity, functional dynamics, symbiotic relationship between systems, and adaptability and resilience are awe-inspiring. Understanding the human body not only allows us to appreciate the marvel that it is but also equips us with the knowledge to take better care of it. Indeed, the human body is a testament to the sophistication and beauty of biological engineering.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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On the Body as Machine

Thinking of our bodies as machines has led to widespread, unhelpful, and even militaristic approach to medicine..

Top: Imagining the body as a machine is a widespread but problematic metaphor. Visual: iStock.com

I t used to be that when I looked in the mirror, I saw many things: a body; a collection of cells; a fantastic kind of machinery. I didn’t see these things because they were a reflection of reality, or because the body and brain are, in fact, machines. I saw them because I was born in America, and that is my culture.

WHAT I LEFT OUT is a recurring feature in which book authors are invited to share anecdotes and narratives that, for whatever reason, did not make it into their final manuscripts. In this installment, writer Frank Bures shares a story that didn’t make it into his new book, “ The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World’s Strangest Syndromes .”

In our country, we have what’s known as a mechanistic understanding of our bodies. We imagine ourselves to be machines made of meat and bone. We see the doctor as a mechanic whose job is to find the broken parts and fix them. For at least a century this has been our primary metaphor for talking about sickness and health, about how our bodies work and break down. In its popular 1960s television special, National Geographic flatly described the human body as “The Incredible Machine.”

The body is incredible, but my view of it as a machine — the validity of that metaphor — started to break down in the process of researching my book, “The Geography of Madness,” about the so-called “cultural syndromes.”

“Of course, one cannot think without metaphors,” Susan Sontag wrote in her 1989 essay , “AIDS and its Metaphors,” “But that does not mean there aren’t some metaphors we might well abstain from or try to retire.”

Sontag was, at that time, on a crusade against the military metaphor that pervades medicine. Her initial wrath was centered on the “ War on Cancer ,” of which she was a part, having been diagnosed with (and recovered from) the disease herself. But she felt the military mindset introduced unhelpful meanings into our attempt to cure what was simply an illness. “We are not being invaded,” she wrote. “The body is not a battlefield. The ill are neither unavoidable casualties nor the enemy.”

Sontag was right to challenge the metaphor. But the idea that illness is something that invades the body has deep roots in American thinking, as the American science writer Lynn Payer noted her in book , “Medicine and Culture.” Her chapter on America is titled, “The Virus in the Machine.”

Payer noted that technology-loving Americans have long seen the body in mechanical terms, citing metaphors back to the 1920s that cast it as a car needing a yearly tune up. When we think about our blood, we see plumbing: a pump (the heart) and pipes (the veins and arteries), which may explain our unusual penchant for bypass surgery and the reason the artificial heart was invented in America, not elsewhere. It might also explain why the vaunted artificial heart failed as an easy fix for a damaged human heart. In its way, it represented a failure of the metaphor. The heart is far complex more than just a pump pushing around blood.

Such mechanical imagery contrasts sharply with equally visual French metaphors, which Payer observes are rooted in the idea of the body as terrain, or the ground in which things grow. This notion evokes a vineyard, and French physicians tend to see illness as something that needs fertile ground in which to take root. As a result, much of French medicine is geared toward fortifying the terrain to make it more difficult for illness to thrive. In America, the terrain is carpet bombed.

Metaphors do not control our thoughts, but they can set boundaries around the way we think. The purpose of a metaphor is to take something we know and use it to explain something we don’t. The word has its roots in the Greek metapherein, meaning to transfer or carry. By linking two disparate things, a metaphor carries some quality from one to the other. It takes the concreteness of something we can imagine (like war) and carries it to something we can’t (like cancer).

The implications of our metaphors are real. America’s defensive, military metaphors have driven the aggressiveness of American medicine, pushing doctors and patients to over-treatment. They fuel our desire to always do something rather than nothing, even when there is nothing to be done. Our military mindset causes us to treat death as defeat and life as victory. It helps explain why billions of dollars are spent on keeping people alive in their last months, regardless of the quality of those lives. It is why we’ve been terrible at dealing with chronic conditions (which cannot be vanquished) and until recently have simply ignored them rather than help people live with them.

Nonetheless, metaphors are inevitable, as Sontag observed. For the last century our machine metaphor has been sufficient to deal with infectious diseases. But in other areas it is less useful. And in the realm of mental health, it is practically useless.

All of this began to bother me as I was researching syndromes in which our culture plays a strong role. I began to see how, in the same way we use machines to explain our body, we use them to explain the mind. As Rachel Aviv pointed out in her essay , “There is Only Awe,” science and technology has long given us our shorthand for our mental lives.

“In the 1600s, consciousness was like a clock, in perpetual and regular motion,” she writes. “Two hundred years later, when chemistry was the fashionable science, consciousness was a compound structure that could be broken down into its elements—individual sensations and thoughts. By the industrial era, when Freud was beginning to develop his theories of mind, consciousness functioned like a steam engine: when emotional pressure and strain became too great, secret underground forces were recklessly released.”

Today our metaphor of choice for the mind (and the brain) is the computer. We talk about our neurology in terms of hard drives and hard wiring and programming. We speak of the brain in terms of circuits and processing and input and output. We imagine it to be a kind of large gray calculator.

This line of thinking carries the mechanistic qualities of the computer over to the mind—qualities which it doesn’t actually have. Conversely, it also transfers the emergent qualities of the mind back to our computers, fueling our overblown fears about Artificial Intelligence.

The deeper I got into these questions, the clearer the limits of the computer metaphor became. There were so many qualities that it could not bear, including those identified in some of today’s most important discoveries in epigenetics, neuroplasticity, the placebo and nocebo effects, all of which involve recursive processes where an organism changes itself or where an organism’s beliefs and choices alter its physiology.

This is where the computer metaphor begins to crash. Many of us, even those who admire the metaphor, sense this at some level. “The brain’s a computer,” said science philosopher Daniel Dennett in a 2013 interview , “but it’s so different from any computer that you’re used to. It’s not like your desktop or your laptop at all, and it’s not like your iPhone except in some ways. It’s a much more interesting phenomenon.”

Which is to say it’s not like a computer at all.

Using the mechanical model for the mind has long been known to be problematic. In 1977 the psychiatrist George Engel came up with the “ biopsychosocial model ” of mental health as an alternative to the mechanistic biomedical model. This did have some impact in steering American medicine toward patient-centered care (as opposed to doctor-centered care), and in the development of of psychoneuroendocrinology and psychoneuroimmunology.

Almost every year, someone tries to bring back the biopsychosocial model, citing new findings that don’t fit the old mold. But it has never really caught on. Accurate as it may be, it doesn’t make intuitive sense. It feels like a bunch of words crammed together. The real problem is not that it’s wrong. It’s that it has no metaphorical power, which ironically, is both its weakness and its strength.

Eventually I came across a similar idea, but one with more metaphorical heft. It came from the Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking . He called it the biolooping model, in which the body and mind affect each other in a feedback loop that is hard (though not always impossible) to disentangle. I believe this may be our best hope for a new medical model that can encompass the things we’re learning. It seems to capture the circle of causation that runs between our mind (not brain) and our body.

The image of a loop is better than no image at all, and a vast improvement on the old metaphor of a straight, mechanical line from body to mind. But useful as it is, there was another metaphor that kept coming into in my mind.

It was the image of water, of rivers, of waves, of currents. There was something about the way our stories and syndromes flow between us, how our beliefs run through us, that kept bring me back to these. Maybe it was the way flowing water is so powerful but also pliable, so unforgiving but also yielding. The way a river flows seemed best to reflect the way our convictions, our fears, our hopes, our microbes, our neurons moved through us. These are all fluid processes. In the same way water rises and falls, speeds and slows, so do they.

So today, that’s what I see when I look in the mirror. I don’t see a car or a computer or a machine of any kind. Instead I see a person, a swirling self, paddling madly down a stream, steering around rocks, and always struggling to manage the flow of everything, including himself.

Frank Bures is a Minneapolis-based writer whose work has appeared in Washington Post Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Outside, and New Republic, among other publications. “The Geography of Madness” is his first book.

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The body is not a machine.

the_principle_organs_and_vascular_and_urino-genital_systems_of_a_woman-1.jpg

The life force: a seductive idea 

When a living breathing body is transformed into a cold corpse, it seems obvious that something has gone missing. This mysterious substance has had many names. In 1907 the French philosopher Henri Bergson used the term élan vital , often translated as “vital force.” The idea has endured since the time of the ancient Greeks. Aristotle was preoccupied by the difference between inanimate and living things, perhaps because he was the son of the physician to the king of Macedon, the most influential Greek kingdom. The title of his book, De Anima , is usually translated as “On the Soul,” but he viewed the soul as the essence of living organisms, a life force.

A hundred years later, the great Greek physician Galen taught that the special life substance was pnuema , taken in via the lungs and spread throughout the body. He had evidence; when breathing stopped, life ended. For over a thousand years most people in the West went along with the idea that living things have some special life substance that makes them different from inanimate objects. A few pesky early Greek materialists like Democritus and Epicurus, thought no such special substance was needed to explain life. However, for most people, for most of human history, it has seemed obvious that living bodies are inhabited by some special life force. It persists today in talk of energy fields. At its root, this “vitalism” is the idea that some special nonmaterial energy or substance is required to explain life.

The origins of the machine metaphor

Once dissections became common and anatomical drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius began to circulate in the early 1500s, it became pretty obvious that bones and muscles were just fancy systems of levers, ropes and pulleys. Nothing mysterious, just things. But it was not until the early 1600’s that the French philosopher René Descartes replaced vitalism with scientific materialism.  Most people think, “Oh yeah, Descartes. He is the cogito ergo sum guy who created the big nuisance of the mind-body problem, isn’t he?”  Yes, that’s him. But give the guy a break! Convincing the world that the body is a machine was a very big deal. He got into plenty of trouble for proposing the radical concept of the body as a machine. Suggesting that the mind too was a machine would have been touching the third rail! 

As the industrial revolution transformed society, the metaphor of body as machine became increasingly influential. By the start of the 20th century, the idea dominated thinking in biology and medicine, probably because it is so useful. It has improved our lives by encouraging detailed analysis of the body’s mechanisms at all levels, from the details of anatomy, to understanding how hormones like insulin regulate chemicals like glucose.  It encouraged reductionism, the idea that everything large could be explained by analysis of smaller things. We are now down to genes, molecules, and atomic forces.  What an extraordinary bounty we have reaped from a metaphor! The metaphor of body as a machine provided a ladder that allowed biology to bring phenomena up from a dark pit of mysterious forces into the light where organic mechanisms can be analyzed as if they are machines.

The body is not a machine

However, the body is not a machine. Machines are products of design, bodies are products of natural selection, and that makes them different in fundamental ways. The organic complexity of bodily mechanisms is qualitatively different from the mechanical complexities of machines. Machines have discrete parts with specific functions connected to each other in straightforward ways. Bodies have parts that may have blurry boundaries and many functions and the parts are often connected to each other in ways hard for human minds to fathom.  Bodies and machines fail for different reasons. Engineers can start from scratch if they need to in order to fix weak spot in the design of a machine. If only our human spine could be redesigned from scratch!  Its limits and compromises are the source of vast pain, but natural selection can’t start fresh, so we are stuck with a substandard design that can be improved only by small changes. The Table illustrates the substantial differences between machines and bodies.  These differences are, however, often ignored, in large part thanks to the power of the metaphor, and the fear that setting it aside will lead to the resurgence of vitalism.

[[{"attributes":{},"fields":{}}]] For many scientists, hearing the phrase “the body is not a machine“ arouses an attack on vitalism that is almost automatic. They assume that any derogation of the machine metaphor is an attempt to sneak in vitalism in a new vestige. Their wariness is understandable. Naïve talk about the life force or energy fields has to be weeded out of medicine as steadily as crab grass from a lawn. However, far from endorsing vitalism, my thesis is that the metaphor of body as machine is as pervasive and pernicious now as vitalism was in the Middle Ages. OK, that is an exaggeration. The metaphor is not AS bad as vitalism. It does, however, distort thinking in ways that slows progress.

One powerful example is how we teach biochemistry and physiology. We describe systems using idealized diagrams with boxes and arrows. For instance, every medical student memorizes (then forgets) the chain of chemical interactions that make blood clot. This knowledge is essential for understanding clotting disorders, but the diagram is distant from the reality. 

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Current research often relies on tacit models of body systems as if they were designed. A multi-billion dollar effort has been started to discover the “wiring diagram of the brain.” But is there a master wiring diagram? The White House Brain Initiative will be most effective when based on recognition that there is no one normal genome, no one normal brain, and no one wiring diagram. Similarly, huge efforts continue to discover the functions of each location in the brain. The amygdala, a tiny almond shaped area deep in the side of our brains, has often been described as the locus of fear learning. Yes, if the amygdala is damaged, fear learning suffers. However, many other regions are involved in regulating fear, and the amygdala serves many other functions including social responses, self-control, aggression, and learning to get positive rewards.

This is a serious business with major costs. In psychiatry, thinking about the mind as a machine has led to a debacle about diagnosis. Many neuroscientists want to abandon the standard system because they cannot find specific brain abnormalities for any of the major disorders. They are sure that for every disease there is some findable broken part. If only.  Many mental disorders are, like heart failure, failures of systems with multiple causes and diverse symptoms.

A soma is a soma is a soma

Metaphors are robust. Unless something better is at hand, criticizing the metaphor of the body as machine is a waste of energy. An alternative metaphor would be ideal, but every metaphor for the body distorts reality. Instead, we must embrace organic reality, with its blurry boundaries between bird’s nests of mechanisms. Instead of a metaphor, we must recognize the body as a soma shaped by selection. Soma just means body, so that only helps a little, until we turn for help to the poet Gertrude Stein. Remember her famous, “A rose is a rose is a rose.”  She meant it. Eschew metaphor, she said; see the rose as a rose, just the rose itself.

A soma is a soma is a soma, shaped by natural selection. If we can wrench ourselves away from metaphor and see the body as an evolved soma, we can put aside the debates that arise from assuming that its parts have nice crisp boundaries and specific functions. We can avoid further centuries of debates about exactly how many basic emotions they are. Our bodies have parts with blurry boundaries, multiple functions, unimaginably complex connections, and no designer’s purpose underlying the whole system.  We teach students distorted versions of biological systems that are simple enough to memorize, and to test! But our diagrams are idealized abstractions that misrepresent reality in fundamental ways. Many organic molecules influence many other kinds of molecules, not just the one to the left and the one to the right in an idealized diagram.

We are on the verge of a transformation. Giving up our idealized view body in the machine will be challenging, but worth it as we accept the reality that a soma is a soma is a soma. 

You can follow Professor Randy Nesse, MD on twitter @RandyNesse

Further Reading:

Nesse, Randolph M, and George Christopher Williams. Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine . Vintage, 1996.

Williams, George C. The Pony Fish’s Glow : And Other Clues to Plan and Purpose in Nature. 1st ed. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1997.

Balleine, B. W., & Killcross, S. (2006). Parallel incentive processing: an integrated view of amygdala function. Trends in Neurosciences, 29(5), 272–279. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2006.03.002

Nesse, Randolph M: Recognizing that the body is not a machine. EDGE annual question essay, 2009. https://edge.org/response-detail/11361

Image: The Principle Organs and Vascular and Urino-Genital Systems of a Woman c. 1507 Leonardo da Vinci; source: Wikimedia

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The body as machine: first imagined in 1927, now brought to new, animated life

Throughout history, the extraordinary complexities of the human body have frequently been expressed and interpreted through metaphor. In the early 20th century, the German physician and writer Fritz Kahn caught the attention of scientists and laypeople alike with his expressive illustrations pairing human physiology with the most advanced technology of the era: industrial systems. In his most famous illustration, Der Mensch als Industriepalast , or Man as Industrial Palace (1926), Kahn visualised the interior of the human body as a bustling chemical plant. Originally an interactive installation, this short video from the German animator Henning M Lederer breathes new life into Kahn’s illustration, augmenting the original image with mechanical movements and sounds. Lederer’s update offers a visually and conceptually rich melding of technology, biology and design, echoing a time when machinery permeated the collective consciousness in a manner quite similar to computing technology today.

Video by Henning M Lederer

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“The body made machine: On the history and applications of a metaphor”

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Dalia Judovitz

Andres Vaccari

I will offer a historical exploration of machine analogies as applied to the conceptualization and control of human bodies, focusing particularly on the body as a discursive object of science. My aim is to outline strong historical continuities that form the backbone of the prehistory of the cyborg, robotics and work-place management. During the seventeenth century, in the formative period of modern science, technology offered the rational study of nature not only new tools for measuring and observation, but also a source of analogies and metaphysical inspiration. Certain perceived features of machines (e.g., their physical structure, their internal processes) became the metaphorical basis for a new mechanical model of the world. The machine image neatly encapsulated a new ontology of matter, centered on the interaction of inert mechanisms acting according to laws of motion, force and figure (i.e., the spatial structure of the constituent elements of the universe). The machine was also an object of interest for the emerging class of merchant capitalists in early modern Europe. Descartes is the first philosopher to argue persuasively that the body is a machine, but the notion is also suggested by the ancient atomists. In particular, some strong continuities exist between the representation of machines in technological treatises and the representation of the human body in the works of Vesalius and Descartes. Later this tradition re-emerges with peculiar strength during the late industrial revolution, where the taming and control of bodies became an industrial prerogative. So, there has been a fruitful conceptual interaction between bodies and machines, organisms and technology. In medicine and physiology, the machine image has been central in the conceptualization of organic life as the concerted interaction of mechanical processes subject to physical laws. The nineteenth century sees the rise of models of industrial and managerial application, such as human-machine interaction, and the numerous successors of “efficiency engineering”. These reach a most sophisticated expression in the twentieth century, with the development of cybernetics and bionics, both of which depart from very close machine-organism analogies, and problematise the difference between organism and machine. Engineering systems can be made compatible with human characteristics and limitations only when the behavior of both man and machine can be described in comparable terms. The mechanistic paradigm has profoundly affected the attitudes and methods of the physical and life sciences, and has nowadays become a “dead metaphor” of wide-ranging reach. "

Charles Lowney

Metascience

Timothy J Reiss

British Journal for the History of Science, 36 (2), 2003, 233-235

John Sutton

The Mechanical Mind in History

Michael Wheeler

Miriam Aiello

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Allison Muri

Philosophies of Technology: Francis Bacon and his Contemporaries

""This paper examines the role of machine metaphors in the natural philosophy and metaphysics of René Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes was a key figure in the close alliance of systematic reason and technological practice that characterizes the technoscientific turn of the seventeenth century. I argue that for Descartes the machine was a metaphysical thesis and a heuristic device, and that these two aspects are closely interdependent in his philosophy. Descartes’ contribution was to ground the machine on an ontological and epistemological basis, exploring, among other things, the poetic and conceptual possibilities of a mechanical theory of life. The machine is, on one hand, a true expression of how the world really is, as well as the conceptual foundation for our understanding of this same world. I focus, then, on these two main aspects: how technical artifacts and processes enter Descartes’ philosophy of nature, and the role of analogy in his scientific method. I begin by situating Descartes in his historical, conceptual and technological milieu, pinpointing the material and cultural sources of natural-philosophical explanation. I move on to a broad outline of Descartes’ physics, which has a markedly metaphysical character. Then, to the heuristic machinery of epistemology: the apparatus of perception and how mechanics serves as the basis for clear and distinct knowledge. I argue that, for Descartes, science is about the creation of intermediary hypotheses, and situate this approach in the context of the Cartesian view of human knowledge in the larger scheme of things (i.e., the theological framework for Descartes’ philosophy of science and technology). In turn, Descartes’ perspective is informed by a ‘semiotics’ of non-resemblance (in which our impressions do not ‘resemble’ their referent or source). I then examine how the machine becomes the ‘master’ metaphor, constitutive and productive of knowledge. I hope this paper is a contribution to the historical understanding of the scientific revolution—in particular, as establishing one of the most influential paths through which technology and science entered in dialogue, and became productive of each other. More generally, it is a historical case study on the role of metaphors in scientific knowledge. ""

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The Human Body— an Incredible Machine

The automobile in which you ride is truly a magnificent machine. It has a fuel system that changes gasoline into energy, which allows the car to move down the road. Your car’s engine has powerful pistons that are almost like arms. These pistons supply the force that causes the car to roll. There is a wonderful gear system that allows your automobile to move effectively at different speeds. Most modern cars have an onboard computer system, which is the “brain” that instructs different parts of the car to operate together smoothly. The car is a great machine! But it did not invent itself. It had an intelligent designer. Any machine that shows design must have had a designer. Common sense tells us that.

Yet your body is a much more amazing “machine” than any automobile. Let us consider some of the ways it demonstrates design.

The body has been organized on four different levels: cells, tissues, organs, and systems. The  cell  is the smallest unit of life. You have about 100 trillion cells in your body. That is many, many more cells than all the people who live upon the Earth. Cells come in different shapes and sizes, depending on the job they perform. These cells are marvelously designed. For example, they contain tiny power plants that manufacture energy. They have little garbage disposal units. Cells even have an excellent “memory” system that allows them to let certain food products in, but keep harmful things out. Cells did not happen by accident!

Cells that work together to do the same kind of job are known as  tissue . For instance, you have “nerve” tissue that carries messages from the brain to all parts of your body. You have “skin” tissue that provides an excellent covering for your internal organs. Even blood is called a tissue.

When the different kinds of tissues work together for the good of your body, this arrangement is called an  organ . Organs come in many kinds—like the heart (the body’s “pump”), and the liver (that helps dispose of waste materials your body does not need). Isn’t this amazing?

When organs of the same kind operate together to help keep your body going, this cooperation is called a system . Did you realize that you have  ten  major systems working together to keep your body living day and night? Think about just a few of these for a moment.

The  skin system  covers the body and protects it. The skeletal system  provides a strong inner framework, like the steel structure in a building. The  muscle system contains the “engines” that power your movements. The nervous system  is the “computer” network that gives the body its instructions. The  digestive system  changes your food into power that helps you run fast, study hard, and do many other tasks. Men and women even have reproductive systems  by which new human beings come into the world. No machine that man has ever invented can do this!

The body could never have come together one system at a time. The systems have to work together or the body cannot survive. Surely every thoughtful person has wondered: Who organized the human body in such an amazing way? The answer is very clear. It took a great and wise “Mind” to do it. The Bible reveals that this wonderful “Mind” is  GOD !

David, the great king of Israel, once wrote a beautiful song that contained these words: “…I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” (Psalm 139:14). Paul, one of Christ’s apostles, said: “God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as it pleased Him” (1 Corinthians 12:18). The human body is no accident!

Let us thank our Creator for the body He has given us. Let us promise Him that we will use our minds to study His Word, the Bible, and that we will use our bodies to serve Him each day.

Published August 10, 2010

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Man vs. Machine for Students and Children

500+ words essay on man vs. machine.

Human beings and machines work differently as machines are the creation of Human. Machines were created to make human life easier. A machine is only a motorized gadget consisting of different parts. When it comes to artificial intelligence vs human brain then there are some people who believe artificial intelligence is more efficient than the human brain. As time passed by humans became dependent on machines. Humans have a need to interact with each other because communication is not possible with machines. We feel comfortable in expressing, probing and getting our problems solved with humans.

Machines are a Creation of Mankind

Humans are created of flesh and blood, they have a life. Humans have emotions and feelings, they express different emotions at different times. Machines work with their mechanical brain which is programmed by humans. Humans understand the situation and respond accordingly whereas machines do not have the capability of understanding.

Humans are creative and imaginative. They can create and invent new things but machines cannot do such types of work because they use artificial intelligence. Machines are operated and guided by humans. Humans are blessed with intelligence and emotions while machines have artificial intelligence. Humans have many diverse abilities in several things such as language, pattern recognition, and creative thinking.

Impact of technology on Human Life

Machines and technology are replacing manpower for certain jobs and this is the big reason for unemployment and which is also a drawback of the machines. As humans are being replaced by machine hence certain jobs are disappearing. The industrial revolution has also led to unemployment, as a result, there is a loss of medium skill jobs in various sectors.

Some effects of a machine on humans are competency, wars, and destruction, The radiation released from smartphones is absorbed by human bodies which can cause tumor, and also the power consumption has increased.

Increasing use of vehicles has increased air pollution that is damaging the environment. The effect of technology on our environment is severe and is responsible for drastic climate changes such as Global warming which leads to several diseases in humans. Machines are also responsible for the extinction of several birds, plant and animal species due to the changes in climate.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Use of Machines

We are surrounded by different machines like televisions , refrigerators, music systems, home theatres, washing machines for many uses. With the use of these machines, our life has become much simpler. Machines are much faster than humans when it comes to processing information and performing calculations with accuracy and speed.

Computers have better memory can be fed with a large amount of information as compared to humans. Machines work effortlessly and more efficiently than humans. The products can be produced in larger quantities at much greater speed with the help of machines.

Easy communication is possible from anywhere in the world with cell phones. One can travel at super fast speed anywhere in the world with the help of transport facilities. Research and sharing opinions from anywhere in the world has become much easier. Moreover, machines are not influenced by feelings or emotions, unlike humans.

Machines have become a very important part of our lives and are helpful in many ways. Though it also has a negative impact on our lives as well. There is no competition between humans and machines because humans are the creators of the machine. Humans have created machines for various purposes and it is also important to know the purpose of developing artificial intelligence and its impact on human life. Machines are used for creation as well as destruction by the power of human intelligence.

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