questions

[zachsan]

but dao, you have called it something.

Originally posted by daodejing
As for the whole not doing qigong between 10 pm and 4 am thing, (which you ignore if you can do qigong at all times) its because you're opening up all the channels in your body at a time when spirits are most active in the environment. Mainly, its to avoid the risk of possession.

that certainly constitutes a theory. it's not really a question of being scientific, in this case, because science can't really deal with spirits and the like. it's just a matter of being up-front with people. you had an experience which you in some sense attributed to the presence of a spirit, when in reality, you can't really tell what it was. it happened to occur after midnight, but you have no way of knowing that it happened because it happened after midnight. in fact, you don't even know that it happened because you were doing qigong. it might have had to do with the color of shirt you were wearing at that particular place at that particular time. all we really know is that you had some kind of, uh, icky feeling.

now, let's say we're taking a lot of fundamental theories of qigong as a given (which i obviously don't, but let's just say that for the moment). there must be a lot to qigong that we can never quite understand. so why is it necessary to propose the presence of a spirit-or-something-like-it to explain what happened to you? and even once we do that, how does it follow that this was somehow contingent upon the time of day?

i'm not trying to single you out, i'm just shamelessly using you as an example of an idea that runs rampant throughout the practice of alternative medicine, an idea which i have a problem with. that is, as much as mystics glorify the great mysteries of the unknown, there is no room for the unknown in mysticism. everything under the sun is attributed a mystical explanation, and when harder questions are asked, more and more creative and important-sounding answers are given. it does a great deal for making a particular world view or therapy sound sexy, but it does nothing at all for providing real and useful explanations.

[daodejing]

Alls' I'm saying is, that my medical qigong teacher warned us against practicing late at night (after 10 pm, incidentally, I had that experience before her warning). And it was her explanation that such a thing could attract unwanted attention from spirits and ghosts. These explanations are reletively simple. I'm not saying their gospel truth, but the are explanations based in truth. Newton's laws of motion are not true, but have enough basis in truth that they allow us to make accurate calculations for forces on this planet.

"alternative" medicine has its own stuff to deal with, also I should probably mention that since TCM is a well established effective method of health care with several thousand years of experience behind it, I don't consider it to be "alternative" medicine. but we would do well to remember that TCM has its roots in shamanistic daoist medicine, and as such, you sometimes have to deal with issues like ghosts attacking people through that shamanistic tradition.

There are plenty of electromagnetic fields we encounter throughout our daily life which exert forces upon our body which we fail to percieve. This is easily proven through physics.

Now, I wouldn't limit the problem of proposition of increasingly complex theories to explain all the world's phenomenon to CAM methodoligies. It's rampant throughout the scientific and psuedo scientific communities as well. Not to mention the media. Obviously, this is the fault of terrorists. Terror terror terror........... Anyone who voted for Kerry hates freedom, right?

My apologies if this is a bit off topic, but how ****ed up is it that most of the country believes the term "god-fearing man" to be a virtue?

[zachsan]

Originally posted by daodejing
"alternative" medicine has its own stuff to deal with, also I should probably mention that since TCM is a well established effective method of health care with several thousand years of experience behind it, I don't consider it to be "alternative" medicine.

the phrase "alternative medicine" is usually used to describe treatments outside the realm of mainstream medical science, and that includes TCM, however popular it is or was or for how long.

There are plenty of electromagnetic fields we encounter throughout our daily life which exert forces upon our body which we fail to percieve. This is easily proven through physics.

pretty cool, isn't it?

Now, I wouldn't limit the problem of proposition of increasingly complex theories to explain all the world's phenomenon to CAM methodoligies. It's rampant throughout the scientific and psuedo scientific communities as well.

it's not really a matter of more or less complex. if the real explanation for something is complicated, let it be. a lot of people misinterpret occam's razor as dealing with how easy or difficult it is to understand a concept. that's not really what it's all about, since there's no scale for measuring how "complex" a given hypothesis is anyway. the problem is proposing an extraordinary explanation where an ordinary one will do. for instance, let's say we know that gravity is the reason a rock falls when i drop it. a penny also falls when i drop it. so instead of proposing a new force called "pennavity" to explain why the penny falls when i drop it, it makes a lot more sense just to use an explanation which involves a force we already know about, that is, gravity. until, of course, such an explanation is proven to be inadequate to explain the mysterious descent of the penny.

anyway, the gradual uncovering of more and more complex and specific information about the way our world works is the goal of science. we operate according to one theory until a better one is proposed and proven. that is entirely different from an ad hoc hypothesis, which is when you make a statement ("you are a socially successful person because you are a libra"), the statement is falsified ("i haven't had sex in 7 years!"), and then you come up with another layer of "fact" to explain the discrepancy away ("well being a libra can't make up for your homicidal tendencies!").

Not to mention the media. Obviously, this is the fault of terrorists. Terror terror terror........... Anyone who voted for Kerry hates freedom, right?

My apologies if this is a bit off topic, but how ****ed up is it that most of the country believes the term "god-fearing man" to be a virtue?

i think i'm probably approaching the one-hundred-mark of conversations i've had that start like this and eventually become bush-bashing.

[LeiYunFat]

Do the spirits obey daylight savings time?

[daodejing]

nope. they have no respect for daylight savings time. Silly spirits actually beleive noon is the time of the day when the sun is at its relative apex in the sky.

[LeiYunFat]

HAHAHHAHAHHA! Foolish ghosts.

I tricked them because when daylight savings time came about, I never cared to change my alarm clock time! AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!! That's what they get for trying to posess me! AHAHAAHHAHAHAHHA!