the contemporary scientific method is predicated on relative objectivity (e.g. - unconnected groups of researchers arriving at same data / conclusions from an experiment, or statistical significance in randomized double-blind clinical trails, etc.); hence, the experience of the individual is less relevant in terms of the overall system, and therefore any information gleaned in this approach is considered more universally reliable; because of the need for reproducibility in order for technology to be compatible on a large scale this is necessarily how the system needs must operate (for god or bad, that's another topic); "ancient" Chinese empiricism existed in a more subjective field, where the subjective experience of the observer was considered part of the phenomenon being observed; this leads to greater interpenetration of the individual and the environment, but it makes large-scale reproducibility nearly impossible; as such, as a technology per se, TCM is an artifact, as many here are aware, because of the push towards standardizing something that really not standardizable, one's personal experience!
as for "qi", to me it is a way of reconciling the subjective and objective into a system that while being grounded in persona experience, creates a framework of some sort - if it does not increase inter-examiner reliability, at least it may bolster intra-examiner; so is "qi" real? well, define real - if I have a subjective experience based on doing certain movements, or visualizations, or being the recipient of some sort of input from another person, if I experienced something "different" from my typical daily experience, I guess that's as real as anything - of course, if one lacks the technical capacity to look at the body at the cellular level, or the world at the atomic level, then I am likely to come up with some sort of explanation of that experience that fits into the context of my current word view - as there is no capacity to directly observe the actual physiological processes at a level smaller than the observable macro layer (e.g. - that which I can see, smell, touch, taste, hear or "feel"), then I will fill in the blanks based on those macro-observations to create a system that "works" for me in regards to what I do (astrology, medicine, military strategy, etc.)
so "qi" is real - it is an aggregate account of the many processes that occur in the human body and the environment within which that body exists: so it's heat, electricity, muscle tone, fluid movement (blood, lymph, etc.), respiration, digestion, etc.; these things which contemporary scientific knowledge has teased out over the last few centuries and viewed at finer and finer levels of detail (talk about internal!), encompass those macro-observations made centuries earlier; of course, many people, being unschooled in even basic physiology, still find it much easier to talk about "qi" when they subjectively experience things that do not make "sense" to them, and then blithely discount science as having no understanding of these experiences, when in fact, much of what people describe as "qi" phenomenon is well described in context of the function of the autonomic nervous system!
face it - current understanding of physiology is far beyond what was the case in 13th c. China; at the same time, from a systems-theory perspective, the framework within which the paradigm of "qi" came into ascendancy is obviously still of value, mainly because it's a relatively "easier" way of keeping in mind the various interconnections in the body when treating as a clinician - I mean, the body of knowledge is more readily encompassed by one person, because that's how it was designed initially - to be "stored" by one person and then passed on to another over time; those who think so-called "western" medicine isn't holistic are wrong - it's just that the knowledge base is so large because the info is so detailed, for one person to have all that info in their working memory and make all those interconnections without benefit of a mnemonic-style practice is very difficult
personally, I have had various "experiences" that have been verified as "authentic" by the sorts of "authorities" Hendrick is so fond of citing (
Daoist masters,
Cha'n and
Vajrayana monastics); personally, I don't get too hung up on this one way or another, although it is interesting to me the way in which certain reports are considered indicative of certain things; but whatever; that said, I still maintain that perceiving "qi" as a metaphor for aggregate function of the human organism in its environment will get one a lot ****her in general, or at least will stop one from searching out some sort of "other" force that exists independent of all those readily observed bodily emissions, such as heat, movement, bioelectricity, etc.;
11-18-2009, 08:12 AM
Linear Mode
