8/2/01
Somewhere back in May when I started the glossary for MoreLife, I thought the whole job would only take a few months and come the end of summer it would be complete and online. Boy was I naive - both as to the coding problems I would encounter and the content convolutions and controversies that would arise. Regarding this last, I have found myself "taking a course" in Philosophy of Life Extension 101.
I inherited a list of words created by a young friend of Tom's who had selected them based on his review of Tom's work for the LE Product Directory, choosing those which appeared to need defining. Initially some words were dropped since they appeared to be simple and in common usage. But it was soon realized that a great number of words relating to health have a standard medical viewpoint (SMV) that aging, commonly considered as deteriorating, is normal. But there too, arose a difficulty - what is "normal"?
You are probably getting the picture here that large numbers of commonly used words have required enhanced definitions based on the view that deterioration of the body processes with ensuing years should not be considered "normal" although it may be typical in today's societies.
Tom and I have been nearing the end of letters A through C of the Glossary for the past 2 weeks. At that time I thought it was done except for a final review by Tom. (Finally I'd solved the technical hangups, thanks to a very helpful young man through the website of the HTML book I'd used.) Hah! A few enhancements soon became numerous additions with their own enhancements. I could see Tom's point quite easily, that the MoreLife Glossary needs to reflect the view that deterioration with advancing years should not be viewed as a normal process of the body despite the fact that it occurs almost invariably. The bias towards deterioration currently in the SMV will be identified in this Glossary wherever found. (Tom now plans to write an essay on how philosophy biases language specifically in the medical sciences.) As a result of this additional work, the debut of successive pages will be considerably slower than originally thought by either of us, and additions and modifications of existing pages will be frequent. As written at the bottom of each MoreLife page: "MoreLife is always under construction". ;>)
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