Alpha Gal Syndrome (AGS) 👀
Out of the many diseases ticks cause, one of the weirdest disease is AGS which is allergy to red meat. Yes, you read that right ! Other mammals produce this alpha-gal sugar in their body, but humans don’t. So, when the “Lone Star” tick bites a human, it releases this alpha-gal sugar in the human body. Since human body is not producing it by itself, it treats the sugar as a foreign body and tries to get rid of it. As a result, people will have severe allergic reactions to red meat, and it may even be fatal!
As crazy as it may sound, it is true. Let’s see this in the light of free will. As trivial as it may seem at first, but this phenomenon challenges the fundamental notion of free will. The tick bit did not just cause a biological change, it caused a change in identity and definition of self ! So the real question is: If a seemingly trivial tick bite can rewire your system and cause something you loved your entire life to be the most hatest thing in the world, how much of our free will is truly ours and free from biological influences? 🤔