Dr David McGrath

Spine Physician

MB BS (Hons) FAFOM, RACP, FAFMM
Master of Pain Medicine

Language and social behaviour have produced great benefits to mankind in general. There is a negative side however.
Being part of a social grouping, imposes a social behaviour, which is stable and reinforcing. Once established,it can be difficult to change,even when,it is negative to individuals and society.
There are many examples from history,when the herd behaviour, has been totally destructive. But first, what are the positives?
In simple terms,
1.It is often easier to copy or learn from others,than be creative
2.It is often advantageous, to have others do things for us, rather than do it ourselves.
We could summarise the situation as follows:

BehaviourOutcome	Positive Result	Negative Result
Social Derived Behaviour	a	b
Individual Creative Behaviour	c	d

Cell "a" is successful beviour,having their origin in social interaction
Cell "b" is unsucessful behaviour,having its origin in social interaction
Cell "c" is successful behaviour, having its origin in creative behaviour
Cell "d" is unsuccessful behaviour,having its origin in creative behaviour

Given the extent of knowledge in our "global village", it is much more probable,that knowledge exists which would be superior, to anything we could create. Hence the value of education.
On the other hand, without creative individuals, there is nothing new, and we continue along the same pathway, with a/(a+b) less than 100%.
As individuals, we have to make a judgement,about the state of current knowledge in some area of interest, ie a/(a+b) versus our capacity to creatively construct, a better c/(c+d).

In some areas of spinal knowledge, we may well be better off,by listening to our spine, creating our own safe series of movements, rather than deferring to outside authority.

In recursive neuromodulation, I encourage individual experiments, to creatively change spinal behaviour. With respect to inner world of musculoskeletal inputs, social knowledge, may leave you worse off.