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Old 08-13-2013, 10:05 PM   #95
Keith Larman
Dojo: AIA, Los Angeles, CA
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 1,604
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Re: Ki energy defined

Quote:
Hilary Heinmets wrote: View Post
On the proving the negative. Bertrand Russell once wrote...
Hey, I used Russell's teapot in another thread similar to this recently. Stealing my perfectly good philosophical debate point... Can't you scientists leave us philosophers with a few good arguments?

Quote:
Hilary Heinmets wrote: View Post
A good debate was had by all until a few years ago it was put to rest by Dr. Carolyn Porco imaging team leader of the Cassini Probe...
Coincidentally regarding our conversations last weekend, Cassini was (I think) the last major project my dad worked on at JPL before he left to go to Carnegie Melon... Actually I think it was called CRAF-Cassini at the time, but I'm not sure.

Oh, sorry, carry on with the teapots and spaghetti monsters...

On ki... The philosophy dude in me wants to ack that "existence" is a remarkably complex concept in practice. There are "modes" that we do tend to acknowledge such as the existence (in a sense) of the number 2, the idea of love, emotions, etc. Abstractions, explanation, higher order concepts, etc. and on and on. The problem is reification of an abstraction. Once you take an abstract concept but start to treat it as a "thing", as something more concrete, well, you open yourself to all sorts of logical problems. For further reference simply read some of the posts in this very thread.

And what I find astounding is that some seem to feel that saying "ki doesn't exist" as a material thing, as a fundamental particle, or even as anything else relatively familiar somehow detracts from the concept of ki as being valuable, useful, and loaded with useful meaning. It doesn't. Reification can be an ugly thing and it sinks many a philosophical argument. You don't have to make it "something", reify it, to discuss it and for it to have some value on some level or another. Even just as an abstraction of something larger and complex mixing together physical force, mental intent, and even dancing unicorns. Okay, not that last part... Although I am reminded of a video on Planet Unicorn, but that is just way too left field for this conversation...

But please, carry on. The logic guy in me has loved the various straw man arguments to go along with various ontological confusions interspersed with what is at best simplistic technology babble mixed with pseudo-science.

Just to make a plug for those reading this thread scratching their heads, new to all this -- Dr. Goldsbury has written some fantastic articles on history of Aikido available right here on this site. And of course Ellis Amdur's work "Hidden in Plain Sight" (available at Amazon now if I'm not mistaken) deals quite directly with the question of what this stuff is all about, at least in his opinion. And I don't recall reading any quantum physics in either source... And those articles have actual footnotes and stuff. You know, real academic rigor and all that...

Last edited by Keith Larman : 08-13-2013 at 10:09 PM. Reason: Really poorly written joycian sentences...