Further notes about the morphostasis concept – split files

(25) Prelude to thymic tolerance (next section)

There is a devastating "hidden" assumption in the formulation of the science of immunology that still pervades much accepted dogma. When we approach immunology from the point of view that "it is battling, aggressive system" that seeks out and destroys "invaders (pathogens)" then we miss the lion's share of what it is really concerning itself with.

There is a vast "tsunami" of dying self cells that are tidied away by the extended immune system (that includes innate immunity, inflammation and various phagocytes). The volume of this debris is enormous but it is silently removed because our immune system tolerates and encourages this form of disposal. This provokes adaptive immunity just as potently as foreign organisms but the actions taken on re–encounter are quite contrary to the accepted dogma of an immune system dominated by aggression – or, worse, one that is exclusively aggressive. In fact, there is good reason to suspect that the immune system is dominated by tolerant responses. The aggressive responses are clearly apparent to us but probably represent an iceberg tip of immune activity. The "iceberg base" (the majority) is "under water" and it consists of tolerant responses.

The insistence that the immune system is dominantly (even exclusively) a defence system colours all our subsequent interpretations of what the system concerns itself about.