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Old 11-12-2007, 04:53 PM   #66
Erick Mead
 
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Re: Ki and Remaining Grounded

Quote:
Matthew Bowen wrote: View Post
Gravity is hardly a fictitious force.
You may want to consult Dr. Einstein on that one. Proving that gravity was a fictitious force caused by the warping of spacetime by incident mass was the underlayment of general relativity and the equivalence of time with space. If space is considered as a field grid, mass warps it so that near a defined mass the shape of space changes and grid lines are farther apart than where mass is not. The effect is that the same spatial grid is traversed in the same time, but because the shape of space is skewed the nearer one gets to a mass, velocity apparently increases. Einstein's point is that gravity is an effect of 3d perception of a 4d reality. The same is seen in 2d projections of 3d phenomena -- the orbit of a planet at constant velocity viewed edge-on in 2d seems to undergo differential acceleration and deceleration when its angular velocity is in fact nearly constant when viewed from a perspective that is 90 degrees out of the orbital plane.

All that aside, MY POINT was that first approximation conventions have uses even when they are premised on a misunderstanding of some fundamentals that do not substantially affect the scale of observation. Having said that, physics is reductionist in its nature of operation, seeking to isolate a unitary cause of a unitary effect among many effects and possible causes. The Chinese system of understanding of which qi/ki is a part is also a description of physical reality, but holistic, seeking to describe the operation of a unitary cause flowing through multiple patterns of possible cause and effect.

It cannot be said at this time that the one is wrong and the other a convention of convenience, properly understood. In fact, it seems that as reductionist physics continues its enterprise it brings us progressively closer and closer to diverse circumstances in the operation of an ever-reducing number of fundamental causes, and which, in the limit, appears to be = 1. They are more akin than they are different. In the one case physics assumed multiplicity and has ended up refining its way toward unity. The Chinese system assumed unity and has haltingly worked it way toward describing the multiplicity of occasions of that unity in operation.
Quote:
Matthew Bowen wrote: View Post
Hold on one moment - let's get down the core of what you're saying here. You're trying to compare angular momentum with ki, but they're completely different. One is a supposed esoteric energy that can be controlled by the mind and the other is a well-documented phenomenon that stands on top of tested mathematical formulae.
If you believe that is what qi/ki is -- then you do not understand how the Chinese understand the concept. It is an empiric basis for noting observation. Move past the woo-woo sales brochures and look at how the three fundamentals yi 易, qi 氣 and li 理 actually are used to describe things. If you grasp this, then consider the way in which zero-point energy is described as the minimal energy state of the universe. (i.e. -- that below which no lower energy state is possible). Between the extremities of a black hole or vacuum energy (a sea of incessant oscillations of 0/+1/-1), are nodes of concentration of various collections of +1 and -1 in variously well-defined patterns in dimensions of scale running the spectrum between, but with a fundamental similarity and operation across all those scales.

Quote:
Matthew Bowen wrote: View Post
"Observer problems" are inherent in things that don't exist. There's no good evidence for ki's existence; all real effects attributed to ki can also be attributed to things that already have groundings in science ...
Observer problems are inherent in anything that has observers. As Bishop Berkeley once pointed out, it was not a trivial problem, and since confirming Bell's Theorem it has proven to be a hard-biting one.

Mind is the observer. Physics does not have means to incorporate the operation of mind into its system. It keeps running up against hard boundaries defined by it, both proximate and remote, and yet also cannot seem to find a way to do away with its naughty and scandalous effects.

Quote:
Matthew Bowen wrote: View Post
It's not disregarding coherent empirical observations; they're not coherent or empirical at all. Chinese practices like acupuncture have been around for hundreds of years, and they have a huge basis in theory about qi flowing down meridians and such, but at the end of the day, it's still placebo.
What was it again that causes the placebo effect (ie. -- a real effect)? -- I may have missed it. Though maybe I actually just mentioned it. Of course if it is not real, then we have no need to guard against it in making our physical observations, then do we? But if it is real and we have not accounted for it, how can we say that we are describing the reality in operation IN OUR OWN EXPERIMENTS?
Quote:
Matthew Bowen wrote: View Post
Of course it is, you're right, but it's not that anyone's dismissing it through lack of thought - it's that these theories are being dismissed because they don't have a solid grounding that fits in with what we already know.
Let me give you the basic epistemological equation:

[what I already know] + [what I already know] = 0

If you are intent on only ever knowing things in terms you already know you will never learn anything.

Quote:
Matthew Bowen wrote: View Post
... but only the ones that can be tested again and again whilst yielding the same results can ever have a hope of being universally accepted as science.
Of course, the Chinese system does not follow the scientific method of observation. That is the point, there is a method to any scheme of observation. You only find what the method is set up to seek. If there are things it is not finding but cannot be disregarded in its operation, you need a different method of observation to suplement the one you have. Because they are different the one cannot be judge of the validity of the other, until you have established common terms of correspondence, and there are limits even then, especially when the topic under consideration is one the other system cannot get its hands on.

The scientific method is not the only system of coherent empiric observation. As good as it is and for all its glories, there are admitted and profound limits to its powers of observation -- which science itself has confessed from empiric observations. To say that other systems of observation have NOTHING to say to supply the lack is called hubris.
The Chinese learned that lesson the hard way -- but we seem intent on forgetting it.

For those other observations to have explanatory power in scientific terms requires first that they be understood in their own terms. Only then can principles of operation can be mapped to see what correspondences exist. I have suggested a few here. Then one may begin to attempt translating observations and conclusions from those observations into the other system.

Last edited by Erick Mead : 11-12-2007 at 04:58 PM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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