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Apoptosis and the Epstein Files |
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Hearing that the Department of Justice made a searchable data base of millions of “Epstein files” available on line, curiosity got the better of me, and I checked to see what (if anything) the files might contain regarding scientific or mathematical subjects, which were supposedly of particular interest to Epstein. Searching on “relativity” and “Einstein”, the first file I saw was an email from Epstein to Deepak Chopra (the latter described in Wikipedia as a “new age guru and alternative medicine advocate”). After commenting on what Einstein thought about Schrodinger’s cat, Epstein wrote |
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I’m curious why people need to feel validated. Cells in the body send signals to their neighbors, constantly asking if the cell is in the right place, if not it should kill itself. Apoptosis – It prevents a liver cell from invading your kidneys, and hence cancer. I wonder if it is the scaled up version of the individual cell… validate myself to know I am really here. |
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Epstein mis-spelled apoptosis as “apototis”, which may be because the second “p” is sometimes silent when spoken, so perhaps he became acquainted with it in a aural presentation rather than reading, but presumably he was referring to the phenomenon of programmed cell death, which has been described as “cellular suicide”. As summarized in a 2010 paper by Raychaudhuri, there are two varieties of this phenomenon. The cell kills itself (by activating caspases that degrade proteins) either because it senses cell stress, or because of signals from other cells. This is a programmed and regulated process that serves an important useful purpose in the life of multi-cell organisms. The word is related to the Greek word for the falling of leaves. |
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Without belaboring the pun with prison cells, it’s interesting to consider whether Epstein might have had this concept in mind as he ended his life. Coincidentally, the email was sent on August 10, 2016, which, though he didn’t know it, was his deathday -- he died in his New York prison cell exactly 3 years later on August 10, 2019. |
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It’s interesting that he was curious about why people need to feel validated, as if this feeling was foreign to him. Is this a characteristic of a narcissistic personality? Surely external validation is necessary for any normally functioning person, not to mention any kind of organism or non-trivial machine. Things do not operate for very long when they are “open loop”, with no feedback to steer them and ensure they are “in the right place”. It’s like trying to drive a car blind folded – even on a straight road the car will soon be in the ditch. |
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One might think that if Epstein had a genuine aptitude for science he would have left some writings about it, i.e., there would be some written record of his thoughts on scientific subjects, but in my (admittedly very brief) search of the files, I found only documents by others, such as extracts from books and articles, but no non-trivial writings by Epstein. Just a few stray comments, such as in the email to Chopra mentioned above: |
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The science is easier than you think. Einstein thought the cat ate, didn’t need to be watched, observed, etc. Didn’t change the fact. |
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Epstein seems to have had an explanation for why he didn’t write about science. In a video-taped interview he commented that the great thinkers (he emphasized Socrates) never wrote anything, and he went on to say that writing forces people into linear thinking, one word after another, which tends to limit and restrict their thinking into linear channels. In other words, he argued that it was a virtue to be someone who doesn’t write (at least about science). Maybe he imagined that a Plato (or Boswell) would come along and translate his non-linear wisdom into written form for posterity. The interviewer offered up Jesus as another example of someone who didn’t leave any writings, and Epstein looked surprised and said “Wasn’t he a carpenter?” |
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