Chinkon Kishin

Erick Mead wrote: I find it a matter of no small irony that those whose incessant refrain is to say I have to "feel" to understand what they mean, can mysteriously reach through the data packets and feel me.

Ummmmmmm.... that's not an accurate picture, in reality. For instance when Rob John started discussing things on this forum, it was very obvious to me from the way he used terms and described things that he understood the basic idea of jin/kokyu. I went to meet him when he came to Virginia, not to see IF he knew, but to see how much he knew. I've never met Dan, but from his descriptions, etc., I'm very comfortable with the fact that he understands these things to some degree, too (although I wouldn't know his full grasp of things unless I met with him, of course). From the descriptions of what Ushiro Sensei said and did, I also knew that he had a certain grasp of the skills and I went and watched him briefly at a workshop so that I could get an idea of his skills and his approach to things.

On the other hand, it's obvious from your conversations that you don't understand these things. You cavil endlessly about simple concepts because they don't meet your guess. The idea that someone has to "feel" what you can do, when your discussions are clear that you don't know, makes no sense. This isn't a topic where everyone's guess gets to be weighted equally because "nobody knows for sure". A number of people already know the baseline for sure and your conversations obviously miss the baseline.

Don't get me wrong... I think you should do what you want to do. But in the context of making neutral and fair recommendations, I would think that you need to find someone who might still be willing to show you how to do these things. The years are going by.

Regards,

Mike Sigman

Mike Sigman wrote: The years are going by.

After which, all of the mysteries shall be made known.

Erick Mead wrote: Sagawa is wrong, then, about how intensely one should dwell on this?? Probably? Not so. They do not "average" -- there is no linear function on which an average would have any statistical meaning.The fact that the system has a dynamic control and a peak attractor does not make the concept of average useful. Chaotic systems break scaling laws, especially supercritical ones. Hurricanes and tornados are emergent structures, not "averages" of the system. Classical mechanics cannot trivially predict the path of a three pendulum harmonic system -- which is what we all work with to balance. Simple structure, complex behavior You did not even read what I gave you. Your assumption is not true. You are not in equilibrium, you are never in equilibrium -- you pass from greater to lesser imbalance and back incessantly and the physical locus of the "equilibrium" point also shifts with every adjustment. Literally, bipedal equilibrium is a moving target you approach but NEVER get to, and are always in the process of not falling away from. Any model that presumes equilibrium of human stability is NOT FACTUAL. It is very limited metaphor, nothing more. The fact that we get good at and have a remarkable illusion of stability by dynamic control does not change the nature of our supercritically, unstable structure, any more than a bike stays upright merely because it is balanced between two wheels. Chinkon kishin kokyu undo are, in my view, movements that bring that process to scales where we can access its rudiments to alter its use for martial purposes, or so I have learned. I will freely acknowledge that what Ark teaches may do something similar. With a system as complex as it is, I would be surprised if there were not many more ways to access it in addition. Yes. Just as noticeable as that he does little else in response. I find it a matter of no small irony that those whose incessant refrain is to say I have to "feel" to understand what they mean, can mysteriously reach through the data packets and feel me. I'm having none of it, one, because it is crass and rude, and more to the point because this is not the forum for it.

Mr Mead,

Are you a politician? Without fail, only politians spew as many words per minute without any real substance.

So, lets really get down to substance:

Can you demonstrate the push test? Not explain it, but demonstrate it?

Or maybe, Sigman's teacher test?

Tohei's static ki skills?

If yes, then please continue to explain your understanding. If no, then please be quiet and your "understanding".

Sometimes, the empty can rattles the loudest...

Mike Sigman wrote: Whoops. Where does this come from? Source? Speculation? Without going into a lot of details about Ki and it's fairly strict relationship to the body, I'd question this one, Dan. There is indeed a "cross", but it derives from the precursor to the current acupuncture meridians and it doesn't go like that. Regards, Mike Sigman

Mr. Sigman,

Could you explain more your contention with Dan Harden's pic?

Would not the aiki cross correlate to the general path of chi in Chen style silk-reeling? I would like to hear more.

Thanks

-Blake

I'm with Blake.

B,
R

Erick,

I've said it before and I'll say it again-- until you collect data and perform instrumented tests, all you have is hypotheticals. Just because you can cite to some papers and make an argument, doesn't really matter. That's not how you use empirical tools to measure/test math models. If you don't understand how to even do a simple vector analysis, and you don't have access (physical access) to someone that can do the things we're talking about, then you're wasting your time and the time of others. Period. You've raised interesting points, but again, without experiments to back it up, there's nothing there.

"It has to be felt," is a short hand way of saying "until you can gather some data and begin to develop your own personal training method, you're wasting your time."

Remember, the tools of textual analysis are not the same tools you need to develop an iterative training methodology. I've noticed that on a lot of internet forums people tend to think they can 'solve' their martial arts training issues through definitional debates. You can't. What you can do is figure out how to improve-- find training partners, compare training notes, and track down potential missed avenues of skills.

You really don't do this-- since you have steadfastly refused to meet with other forum participants to see *if everyone is talking about the same thing*. I'm not talking about some kind of silly challenge match. Just a meetup and exchange. I have a hard time understanding how/why you can devote so much verbiage and time to this debate, without being able to buy a plane ticket and check it out for yourself, or get in touch with some trusted friends and have *them* go check it out.

The funny thing is that I don't particularly like the Chinkon Kishin exercises, for a variety of philosophical reasons. However, I'm certainly interested in the discussion insofar as it illuminates other aspects of my training.. When you post individual responses to everyone who has addressed you (rather than consolidating into one post) you essentially dominate the discussion and drown out the rest of the discourse. That's pretty unfair to the rest of the posters and readers, and I think you should stop for a moment and think about it.

Ron Tisdale wrote: I'm with Blake. B, R

You mean we have to pick teams???

Oh crap, nobody told me that, this is gonna be just like gradeschool when I was the last kid standing for kickball...

/I keed, I keed...

Mike and Dan, the text that Dan is citing was essentially mokuroku that Ueshiba was handing out back in the DR days. It was approved by him, but was not illustrated or written by him. My understanding is that it was Tomiki Sensei who wrote much of the text. That's not to say that it isn't how OSensei would have described the techniques, just throwing out some info about the text in question. Unfortunately, there's not an accompanying diagram for what he meant by the cross of Aiki. I noticed that same passage a few months back and thought it was quite interesting.

Erick, to clarify what you are saying (wrt the hara and the limbs).

Are you saying that the lesson was that:

- for small movements of the arms, the hara makes large movements?
or
- for small movements of the hara, the arms make large movements?
or
- the limbs move first and this movement then creates the movement of the hara?
or
- the hara moves first and that movement drives the movement of the limbs?

I couldn't follow you.

Blake Holtzen wrote: Would not the aiki cross correlate to the general path of chi in Chen style silk-reeling? I would like to hear more.

Hi Blake:

Actually, the silk-reeling stuff is a slightly different play on the basic principles (although the basic principles are the same), so I'd prefer not to clutter up the discussion with silk-reeling (six-harmonies movement).

The Douka Dan cites is fine, IMO, but it's fairly ambiguous. It's one of those "I know the secrets and you can tell by my correctly-worded hints" sort of things that is common in a lot of Asian writings. But then the drawing and the description/translation Dan shows are not correct, so I asked for an explanation.

The theory of the "cross" has to do with actual connections in the body. Those connections are coordinations between certain of the muscle-tendon connections. Without trying to develop the theory and how it works (it's very practical), I'll just say that if you misunderstand how this part of it works, then you're headed down a cul de sac. All of this stuff fits together into one very logical development of body skills. There is no "here's my take on it" to it.

Here's the pertinent diagram:

http://www.neijia.com/FrontConnect.jpg

When you talk about "ki" in the martial arts and "ki" in traditional medicine, it's the same basic "ki/qi". The paths and connections that it works in are set in stone and they represent the way the body is hooked up, both physically and "energetically".

FWIW

Mike

Erick Mead wrote: Thanks, Tom. Please see the link and quote I gave Mike S. Their assumptions are not empirically valid, regardless of their performance, which I have no prejudicial reasons to doubt, the lack of like courtesy notwithstanding. 1) nage is critically not in equilibrium before the push, nor during nor after; and 2) no push can be meaningfully concentric, where the balance system is actively imparting moments and counter moments both laterally and torsionally. i.e. - departing the center and returning again in unpredictable ways.

Wow, it's a wonder we even make it to practice

Erick, you're being pedantic. Since this phenomena occurs uniformly across the human race (or at least all ten test subjects), we can, for all intents and purposes, call this equilibrium. We can also assume the that the effects of this phenomena to be uniform on the outcome of the test from person to person and can ignore it. Further, since the paper measured the muscle contractions in micrometers (one millionth of a meter), the eccentricity's created can reasonably be assumed to be less then the width of the average palm in either direction (so better push with both hands), and again, can be ignored.

Erick Mead wrote: It doesn't fit the evidence, and my paradigm is irrelevant to that.

It doesn't fit your evidence, Erick, not the evidence.

BTW, just to save time (and in response to an offline question), here's a clearer idea of why the "X" idea doesn't work. The "cross" is at the nexus of the chest dantien... it doesn't feed down directly to the main/central dantien in the manner of an "X". And these aren't comments about esoteric "rituals"... it's how the actual connections of the body work.

http://www.neijia.com/FrontConnectDantien.jpg

FWIW

Mike

Tim Fong wrote: I've said it before and I'll say it again-- until you collect data and perform instrumented tests, all you have is hypotheticals.

Peer reviewed physiology just doesn't make your cut, eh? I was going a way down that road for some EMG work with my friendly neighborhood neurologist -- and then that 2005 EMG study came up in the literature review. It kind of ended the need on confirming the basics of the balance process suggested by earlier studies. We've been pondering some other thoughts on aiki-type movement with that study as a foundation instead, but we haven't settled on anything. I am open to suggestions, but they have to be well-defined to be of any use, which is, by the way, one of my issues on the lack of defining "not moving" with the pernicious "Can you do the push, can ya, huh? Huh? Huh?" chest-beating meme.

Tim Fong wrote: I have a hard time understanding how/why you can devote so much verbiage and time to this debate, without being able to buy a plane ticket and check it out for yourself ---

You do not understand because you fundamentally mistake my purpose and methods. I am fully aware that there is an adversarial view among the usual suspects here. Not only do I have no wish to convert them to my way of thinking, I welcome their adversarial posture. THAT IS WHY I expound -- to see if a known and motivated opposition to my views comes up with something objective to rebut any points I have posited. That is the only test I am interested in here, and it routinely satisfies the need. By saying this plainly, of course, some may likely ignore me completely out of some misguided spite ("Shun! Shun the non-believer! Shuuuuun!) , but I do not take you, Tim, as that kind of adversary.

Tim Fong wrote: The funny thing is that I don't particularly like the Chinkon Kishin exercises, for a variety of philosophical reasons.

I would hope you would expound on that. It is the actual topic. I am not surprised, though. I had a working hypothesis that most of you who are looking for something "missed" have had no experience or bad experience with it or the related kokyu undo. Most of the negative responses here seem tentative confirmation of that supposition.

Tim Fong wrote: When you post individual responses to everyone who has addressed you (rather than consolidating into one post) you essentially dominate the discussion and drown out the rest of the discourse.

I respond to points given. Many of my responses the past day or so have been trying to drag the discussion back on topic -- chinkon kishin. Not that the remainder isn't interesting.

Tom Wharton wrote: Since this phenomena occurs uniformly across the human race (or at least all ten test subjects), we can, for all intents and purposes, call this equilibrium.

We can also call the sea dry, but that doesn't make it so. You mean to say that the small degree of non-equilibirum in normal functions can be discounted. In a nonlinear system we are expressly training to drive outside the "normal" parameters it cannot be discounted without some significant evidence of no effect. Differences in initial conditions far too small for trivial measurement can have hugely disproportionate results.

Tom Wharton wrote: We can also assume the that the effects of this phenomena to be uniform on the outcome of the test from person to person and can ignore it.

Really? Then why train at all?

Tom Wharton wrote: Further, since the paper measured the muscle contractions in micrometers (one millionth of a meter), the eccentricity's created can reasonably be assumed to be less then the width of the average palm in either direction (so better push with both hands), and again, can be ignored.

Micrometers in the soleus and gastrocnemius still allow for hip sways the width of the space between the hip joints or better. The sways are only partially damped by ankle stiffness, and the micrometer movements of the soleus, for example, merely initiates the sagittal sway/countersway, it does not actuate it through the entire range of motion like a hydraulic piston -- never mind the torso core controlling the other major pendulum attached to the top of the hips.

Tom Wharton wrote: It doesn't fit your evidence, Erick, not the evidence.

Not mine. In this case, that would be Loram, Magnaris, et al.

Christian Moses wrote: Erick, to clarify what you are saying (wrt the hara and the limbs) .. ... - for small movements of the hara, the arms make large movements? - the hara moves first and that movement drives the movement of the limbs?

Yes to those as regards your earlier comment. I took your meaning in describing your prior practice to be the other, the limbs adding to or controlling the motion of the hara, vice the hara directing the motion of the limbs. My caveat is that in addition to sequenced motion from the hara to the limbs, I would add that the hara and the limbs can also move together in unit, but the principle by which they do that is the same as when the hara drives the limbs in sequence outward. I would also add that the sequenced motion inward when feeling an opponent is a inverse function of feedback in the same channel.

Erick Mead wrote: Yes to those as regards your earlier comment. I took your meaning in describing your prior practice to be the other, the limbs adding to or controlling the motion of the hara, vice the hara directing the motion of the limbs. My caveat is that in addition to sequenced motion from the hara to the limbs, I would add that the hara and the limbs can also move together in unit, but the principle by which they do that is the same as when the hara drives the limbs in sequence outward. I would also add that the sequenced motion inward when feeling an opponent is a inverse function of feedback in the same channel.

Speak English... Are you a lawyer or something?

By 'arms amplifying the motion of the hara' I meant that movement originates at the hara and propogates out through the limbs, further, small movements of the hara amount to larger movements of the limbs, due to simple geometry really. I think that should have been pretty clear. Small hara movement (by definition the origin of the movement) is amplified (made bigger) by subsequent movements of the arms. Still opposite to your take?

Interestingly, while that was my take away from Chinkon Kishin, it's not really in my current paradigm, at least not quite the same way.

Tim Fong wrote: If you don't understand how to even do a simple vector analysis, and you don't have access (physical access) to someone that can do the things we're talking about, then you're wasting your time and the time of others. Period.

Is http://www.neijia.com/FrontConnectDantien.jpg

what you'd call a "vector analysis"?

Just wondering what you are looking for when you mention that.

Christian Moses wrote: Are you a lawyer or something?

As it happens -- yes. I like precision as much as I like the chaos of conflict. It is my trade to resolve conflict using precise meaning. People often misinterpret what we do, but then, people often misinterpret what budoka do as well.

Christian Moses wrote: By 'arms amplifying the motion of the hara' I meant that movement originates at the hara and propogates out through the limbs, further, small movements of the hara amount to larger movements of the limbs, due to simple geometry really. I think that should have been pretty clear.

From its plain language your statement led to the opposite conclusion. Normally, the subject acts to produce an effect on the object. "Arms - amplify - motion of hara." So my reading of your statement in plain English, is, I hope, understandable.

Christian Moses wrote: Small hara movement (by definition the origin of the movement) is amplified (made bigger) by subsequent movements of the arms. Still opposite to your take?

Actually yes. Phrased passively that way, the subject receives the action of the object. "Hara movement -- is amplified -- by arms." If instead you intended "motion" to be the subject regardless of its location ("hara movement" makes it, at best, ambiguous), then we are not disagreeing, although your statement is still not clear as it was given. It still implies the arms are acting in their own way -- vice being impelled in a form created by the hara motion. "Motion transmitted from the hara to the arms" would be my description of funekogi.

Erick Mead wrote: As it happens -- yes. I like precision as much as I like the chaos of conflict. <snip> From its plain language your statement led to the opposite conclusion. Normally, the subject acts to produce an effect on the object. "Arms - amplify - motion of hara." So my reading of your statement in plain English, is, I hope, understandable.

I'm going to jump in here before this gets out of hand -- not to imply that this will prevent that. I don't have a bias for or against either of you (I've clashed and agreed on occasion with you both), so please just take this as a neutral third-party reading of the plain English in context. I offer it just because this quibble is so off-topic I would hate to see it go much further. If it's going to become the main topic of discussion though, I want in.

Amplify, when used as a transitive verb, has an obvious and normal meaning which implies signal processing. When X amplifies Y, it produces Z, which has the 'shape' of X only with a larger amplitude. For example, if you plug an electric guitar into an amplifier, the result is a stronger signal than what comes in on the wire. The total result is that the speakers emit a sound which is louder than the original vibrating string emits. (Real amplifier/speaker combinations happen to introduce some amount of distortion, which has happened to become a desirable artifact of the amplification. Perhaps consider that throw-away comment the on-topic portion of my post as an oblique reference to koto dama.)

My initial reading of Chris' usage was that the 'signal' correlating to the movement of the hara is amplified by the arms such that a larger but corresponding movement is experienced at the end of the arms. The image which sprung to mind was one of those old-school picture-tracing devices which use a set of linkages to control a drawing instrument in such a way that the movement of the control pen can be made larger or smaller at the drawing site. That's a form of mechanical amplification akin to what I pictured in my mind when I read Chris' sentence.

So I think it's entirely plausible that a normal English speaker could read his sentence as having the meaning he claimed to have for it. Not that this nit-picking side dispute has anything to do with the topic. The meaning of the sentence is relevant. However, the bickering over whether or not the original wording can be construed as meaning what the original author says he meant by it is silly. The burden of proof is on the objector, the more so when he invokes a legalistic precision other participants specifically reject as distracting. I wouldn't jump in otherwise -- since I am certainly not the 'judge' here. However, Erick seems to hold the position that unless his statements are directly challenged no-one objects to them and they therefore carry some kind of *de facto* correctness.

In fact, Erick, many people see the quibbles you introduce (both linguistically and 'mathematically') as bringing an inappropriate level of precision *relative to their accuracy*. It would be one thing if your observations were so dead-on and dialed-in that picking apart how other people construct their own sentences, describe their own practices, etc. were helpful -- but they often are not. Most people (myself included) do not aspire to being or behaving like lawyers, so they let these things go rather than become embroiled in the tar pit of writs, briefs, suits, counter-suits, torts, signing statements, and whatever else might eventually come into a discussion.

I seize on this linguistic example because all readers here can be presumed to speak English and therefore follow it. When you use the same mode of argument in the Math/Physics domain you lose those folk who cannot follow what you are saying and therefore cannot judge whether your quibbles even make sense in their own terms. They often do not in a way which is analogous to the present example. You make mistakes like anyone else, but you often doggedly insist on emerging victorious from them, and as often as others pick on you they also often just let you have the bone of 'the last word'. This is not a criticism of your 'model/paradigm' -- because we all understand it to be a work in prgoress. It is a criticism of your discussion style, which actually detracts from any serious discussion of the ideas involved. This is because you have no problem filing motion after motion to tie up the court on technicalities as a tactic in shutting down your opposition, yet you prove ultimately uninterested in entertaining even the most straightforward and sincere examination of your actual position, choosing instead to defend it come what may. You frequently allude to your experiences as an aviator and attorney as directly relevant to the manner in which you execute and investigate these topics. It is for this reason and no other that I point out that your discussion style is, despite your explicit assertions, incompatible with the scientific ideal you suggest underlies it. The strength of a theory does not lie in its advocates' ability to defend it from challenges. To authentically advocate for a theory you should seek to uncover its actual flaws -- rather than dodge every bullet aimed at real mistakes you may be making (or in some cases undoubtedly are). You say you specifically want challenge, but it seems you want it only to notionally vanquish it. This apparent sincerity actually makes a mockery of the kind of investigation you purport to pursue. This causes potential challengers to prefer to leave you with your ideas rather than participate as 'uke' in the choreographed 'randori' in which you take all comers and toss them deftly -- hoist on the petards of their own incomprehension.

Finally, since the above no doubt comes off as harsh, I mention for the sake of other readers that Erick and I have corresponded privately; we know each other to some small extent. I respect his general approach, his intellect, even the general style of his communication. Nevertheless, there is an aspect of how he pursues his discussions which I find counter-productive. I would be happier if he would stop doing it, so I offer this in response to his explicit request for critique of his investigative method -- in the same way I might critique the laboratory methods of someone reporting a discovery in chemistry. The methods taint the results, whatever those might be. Erick, if you genuinely want to use these discussions to examine the substance of your theories, please stop taking critique personally and wrapping your defensive responses in layers of legalistic conversation-killing. Leave that to me.

Chhi'mèd

Chhi'mèd Künzang wrote: So I think it's entirely plausible that a normal English speaker could read his sentence as having the meaning he claimed to have for it. ... The meaning of the sentence is relevant.

Which is why the statement needed to be clarified. While the reading you find plausible is so, if read loosely and in a larger conversation where his referents were clearer, Chris did not seem to making an off-hand comment but rather a considered one, and his referents were not clear. So I ASKED if that was what he meant, and we clarified it. I do not take that as needless argument-mongering, but relevant discussion.

Chhi'mèd Künzang wrote: However, Erick seems to hold the position that unless his statements are directly challenged no-one objects to them and they therefore carry some kind of *de facto* correctness.

Not so. They are true or false regardless what I think or anyone thinks of them. I could of course remain silent in my own thoughts and avoid the frequent criticism this forum brings. Yet I do not, even knowing that.

Chhi'mèd Künzang wrote: I seize on this linguistic example because all readers here can be presumed to speak English and therefore follow it.

Churchill that said that Americans and Britons are a people divided by a common language. The same can be said for aikido, and a bit more care in terms and their underlying assumptions should not be amiss, to my mind. While I respect your stylistic criticism as potentially leading to useless discussions, the more useless discussion is one that debates a conflict of assumptions using related or differently understood terms -- the Emily Latella arguments.

Chhi'mèd Künzang wrote: Finally, since the above no doubt comes off as harsh, I mention for the sake of other readers that Erick and I have corresponded privately; we know each other to some small extent. ... Erick, if you genuinely want to use these discussions to examine the substance of your theories, please stop taking critique personally and wrapping your defensive responses in layers of legalistic conversation-killing. Leave that to me.

And let you have all the fun? If I minded criticisms I'd be in the wrong field. Points taken, but when a statement is fairly read in a way that suggests a key difference of approach, and is offered in that running point of debate, it needs examining to be sure that we don't have the Emily Latella arguments (which I think are very common in this area, actually). In point of fact, the working out of the explanation has suggested other points of difference in approach in what Chris did, or understood he was doing in chinkon kishin -- and the ways in which I understood it, and have come to understand it since.

I could elaborate, but this margin is too small for such a wonderful argument.

Thank you Chhi'mèd.

Chhi'mèd Künzang wrote: Amplify, when used as a transitive verb, has an obvious and normal meaning which implies signal processing. When X amplifies Y, it produces Z, which has the 'shape' of X only with a larger amplitude. For example, if you plug an electric guitar into an amplifier, the result is a stronger signal than what comes in on the wire. The total result is that the speakers emit a sound which is louder than the original vibrating string emits. (Real amplifier/speaker combinations happen to introduce some amount of distortion, which has happened to become a desirable artifact of the amplification. Perhaps consider that throw-away comment the on-topic portion of my post as an oblique reference to koto dama.)

This is exactly the context I was hoping to convey. I'm also an electric guitarist, so your comments are perfectly in line with how I intended them to be read. I specifically said, amplified, not augmented or any other word. As you point out, any amplified system introduces distortions, some desirable, others less so. I think the analogy of a guitar sting being amplified is quite good for this discussion. Depending on one's skills, the distortion introduced into the amplification of the hara's movements is quite variable.

This kind of 'discussion' reminds me a lot of when I did LD debate. It was called 'flow'. If I state something, and it is not rebutted by my adversary, it 'flows' and is therefore accepted basically as fact. I hated LD debate, and only did it for a few months. Why? Because the dialectic style it advances is in stark contrast to the true nature of a dialectic (to strive through discourse to some greater knowledge) or even scientific dialectic (which I think of as a kind of subset of Aristotelian dialectic.

The difference (as I see it) is that while LD/legal/adversarial debate attempts to use obscure definitions and complicated linguistics to trick the opponent into confusion or erroneous agreement, scientific dialectic puts the emphasis on clear, simple *reproducable* concepts, in the simplest language possible. Certainly sometimes (often/always?) that language becomes very complicated, and often it becomes the language of Mathematics. That is done out of an attempt at clarity, rather than obfuscation.

Interestingly, my Physics professors were almost always better at putting difficult concepts into plain terms than my philosophy or theology teachers.

Anyway, thanks for the post, I hope this doesn't come off to much of a bandwagon jump, I really appreciate your attempt to walk the line.

So for us dummies following along . . . is the gist that maybe it's more important for some to appear to be right or correct that to actually find out if they are right or correct?

Chhi'mèd Künzang wrote: When X amplifies Y, it produces Z, which has the 'shape' of X only with a larger amplitude.

For the record, I need to quibble with myself here. That should read: "has the 'shape' of Y . . ."

Chhi'mèd

Chhi'mèd Künzang wrote: For the record, I need to quibble with myself here. That should read: "has the 'shape' of Y . . ."

I really am a bad influence -- I've got you arguing with yourself.

Erick Enablers, the lot of you.

Budd Yuhasz wrote: So for us dummies following along . . . is the gist that maybe it's more important for some to appear to be right or correct that to actually find out if they are right or correct?

For me it is important to know not merely what seems a plausible explanation of what works but to explore what is really true about it. If I just wanted to persuade people to agree with me, that's trivial -- you simply play along appealing to their prejudices and vanities. And I can pick any number of good intellectual fights any day of the week -- and I get paid well for the privilege -- win or lose. So you just might consider the possibility that what I am about doing has little to do with how I appear to anyone.

Christian Moses wrote: Interestingly, my Physics professors were almost always better at putting difficult concepts into plain terms than my philosophy or theology teachers.

My physics professor was the only one who could explain calculus and diffy-q to me. With a due nod to Chhi'med's intervention, I will simply ask some questions and quit with exposition.

Christian Moses wrote: I think the analogy of a guitar sting being amplified is quite good for this discussion. Depending on one's skills, the distortion introduced into the amplification of the hara's movements is quite variable.

Would you consider distortion and damping to be analogous between the two cases?