What is qi?

[Happy Tiger]

A lot to think about. Ahm goin to train my ass off for a while.

[Paddington]

Originally Posted by taai gihk yahn

that's because people r still looking for a specific "thing" instead of understanding it from the perspective of it being a qualitative synthetic descriptor...

Originally Posted by guy b.

You are saying that you think qi is a synthetic grouping of unconnected physical feelings that people commonly experience when they perform qigong exercises?

Now we are getting somewhere! I believe there to be a number of measurable bodily processes involved that give rise to the 'feeling' of qi, and that they are not unconnected processes. Both process and feeling come about through physical gestures and 'right mind/mindfulness'. I think the process of learning, particularly physical skills, touches/initiates most of these processes giving rise to qi and is where people can develop and experience it.

[Vajramusti]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Siu

R.G. H. Siu in his MIT press book "Chi" discusses different meanings of Chi. He was educated in bio chemistry. He also wrote the Tao of Science.(MIT press)
His discussions do not displace western paradigms but suggests how understanding the chi paradigm can enrich understanding of nature- particularly the human connection to nature.
Chi is a Chinese approach whereas prana is an Indian approach. The Greek Stoics called it pneuma.

The Church rejected pneuma as a pagan and evil concept leading to witchcraft. Kant's bifurcation further separated pneumena from phenomena- and "science" since then primarily deals with the latter.

BTW if you get good wing chun instruction you dont have to worry about chi imo.. doing the forms well can be your chi gung-- no importation of other hei gung is necessary.

Chi.prana. pneuma can be said to be the life force- a non materialist approach to energy in living things.

[xinyidizi]

Originally Posted by guy b.

I answered what I think it is. I have no fear of my falsifiable theory being falsified because I have nothing personally invested in it, unlike most interested parties. Obviously it is beneficial to me if I rule out a theory that does not map adequately to reality

What is reality? The last time I checked mainstream science is baffled by what the universe is made of. They have theorized things like dark matter and the standard model to describe things that should be there but can not be detected. If the scientists don't know what most of the mass in the universe is made of then how can you scientifically rule out anything? What if what the advanced meditation practitioners from different cultures have all observed the same way as aura, qi, prana etc is one of those things?
And things like MRI machines are like childish toys comparing to what scientists have built in places like cern and if they can't properly detect most of the things that should be here I don't know how people can do it by showing us mri and brain scans.

[Paddington]

Originally Posted by Vajramusti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Siu

R.G. H. Siu in his MIT press book "Chi" discusses different meanings of Chi. He was educated in bio chemistry. He also wrote the Tao of Science.(MIT press)
His discussions do not displace western paradigms but suggests how understanding the chi paradigm can enrich understanding of nature- particularly the human connection to nature.
Chi is a Chinese approach whereas prana is an Indian approach. The Greek Stoics called it pneuma.

The Church rejected pneuma as a pagan and evil concept leading to witchcraft. Kant's bifurcation further separated pneumena from phenomena- and "science" since then primarily deals with the latter.

BTW if you get good wing chun instruction you dont have to worry about chi imo.. doing the forms well can be your chi gung-- no importation of other hei gung is necessary.

Chi.rana. pneuma can be said to be the life force- a non materialist approach to energy in living things.

I never thought I would see a nod to Kant's epistemological and ontological musings posted on a wing chun forum! And he, Kant, expects us to take it all on faith! More seriously, thanks for the reference joy, I will look it up.

I agree about your comment that good instruction and good form work is sufficient. For my part the people I train with often talk about qi as 'energy' that can be felt when training. I guess my concerns regarding what is qi, are more phenomenological and human biological than others' want for a totalizing grand narrative.

[Robinhood]

Qi is a life force, when your dead, your Qi is gone.

[SimonM]

Originally Posted by taai gihk yahn

not quite;

you are equating the physiological effects of acupuncture to "qi"; this is jumping the gun; acupuncture has physiological effects, that has been established; as far as health effects "beyond" placebo, that depends what you mean - if by placebo u mean that the effect occurs beyond that which would occur by random chance, yes; but as far as placebo in the sense of the patient's belief regarding the treatment, that will necessarily impact its effectiveness, given that the mechanism of acupuncture is to a large extent mediated by the autonomic nervous system, which is why it's utility is largely based on its effect as "constitutional medicine"; meaning that acupuncture stimulates the organism's drive towards homeostasis, as opposed to combating specific disease entities; belief has a huge influence on how well these sorts of modalities work, because belief mediates autonomic function to a large extent; although, it depends also on what u r treating with acupuncture: muscle spasm or TMC pattern? these two things differ greatly, and I think belief will modulate each in different ways;

again, acupuncture clearly has an impact, altho there is a marked degree of variability in terms of its effects between practitioner skill and patient predisposition;

as to whether it 'proves" the existence of "qi", I don't think it does: if acupuncture works, and we can describe it in contemporary physiological terms, then a) it doesn't say anything about "qi" per se, and b) it in a way obviates the need for the term - suffice it to say, we can quantify / qualify the effects in contemporary terms; at most, what we can say about "qi" is that as a synthetic descriptor, it was a useful tool; that is, as a TCM practitioner 500 yrs ago, w/out the use of contemporary principles and technology, it was a way to describe the net interaction of physiological systems on a macro-observational level; as a TCM doc, when I questioned, looked, listened and smelled (I think those were the 4 pillars of diagnosis), I took into account the pt's reports, their energy level, their complaints, their tongue dx, pulse dx, breath smell, eye characteristics, bowel sounds, etc.; I then synthesized al of these signs and symptoms and derived a patter based on the unifying concept of "qi"; as such, "qi" is not a discreet separate "thing", but rather a method to synthesize all of this information and qualify it;

so that's why I think looking for "it" in the same way one looks for a Higgs boson is futile - there's nothing to find, per se - but if you look at all different aspects of body function, these are all aspects of "qi" - heat, electricity, magnetism, etc. - all are manifestation of biophysiological processes, and therefore aspects foo "qoi"

and therefore, why u get results from qigong is simple: it's a way of engaging processes in the body that also impact homeostasis: movement, breathing, etc.; qigong is "natural" movement that has been systematized - it's origin is Taoist shamanic practice, and this arose out of what people probably did naturally before they got to be too civilized: they yawned, starched, scratches, rubbed, slapped, etc. themselves; they breathed deeply or shallowy in an instinctive manner; in fact, some Taoist texts talk about qigong / Taoist practice as a "corruption"; meaning that in the absence of us moving in an instinctual manner, we have to artificially recreate the sorts of things that we did before we became too abstract in our thinking; I mean, my wife does yoga every day assiduously, and she will never do "downward dog" as well as our dumb Bernese mountain dog does it, because he doesn't even realize he's doing it;

so qigong is an attempt to recapture that "primitive" state of movement; even Chaung Tzu wrote that "the men of old breathed clear down to their heels" - that should say something right there...

also, I don't much buy the analogy of "qi" research being in the same vein as Newton or gravity, because there is a major difference: no one doubted / doubts the presence / effect of motion / gravity - Newton did not discover these things, nor did he reveal them - he came up with ways to describe and predict their function; we may not understand gravity fully, but no one is going to argue its baseline existence, or disagree on what it is when it is perceived; "qi" OTOH, because of how it's so wrapped up in subjective perspective, cannot even be agreed upon - so how are u going to even research that? again, I don't think it's a discreet thing as such - when u have freely flowing qi, it means that ur baseline physiological processes are functioning without impedance; when u practice qigong and start getting all those sensations, etc., these are ur autonomics responding to the sort of imp out that u r giving ur body (shaking, feeling of expansiveness, hands floating away from the body, etc.);

so we have to be a little more circumspect - we can't use the far or experience of "effect" from acupuncture / qigong as indicative of "qi" as something that exists as a separate force / entity - we can simply say that these practices have an effect, and we can consider them from a physiological perspective, in order to understand the various mechanisms underlying that effect, and go from there

Um... yeah... what he said.

[Happy Tiger]

Originally Posted by SimonM

Um... yeah... what he said.

That about wraps this one up. I would have gotten away with it too, if wern't for those meddling kids
What do you feel accounts for the apparant distance projection effects of qi?

[SimonM]

I think that there is no compelling evidence that such effects actually exist.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Originally Posted by Vajramusti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Siu

R.G. H. Siu in his MIT press book "Chi" discusses different meanings of Chi. He was educated in bio chemistry. He also wrote the Tao of Science.(MIT press)
His discussions do not displace western paradigms but suggests how understanding the chi paradigm can enrich understanding of nature- particularly the human connection to nature.
Chi is a Chinese approach whereas prana is an Indian approach. The Greek Stoics called it pneuma.

The Church rejected pneuma as a pagan and evil concept leading to witchcraft. Kant's bifurcation further separated pneumena from phenomena- and "science" since then primarily deals with the latter.

BTW if you get good wing chun instruction you dont have to worry about chi imo.. doing the forms well can be your chi gung-- no importation of other hei gung is necessary.

Chi.prana. pneuma can be said to be the life force- a non materialist approach to energy in living things.

Not sure where you got the idea that the church rejected "pnuema" ( which also means breathe). The Spirit (pneuma ie: breath of God, ie: the Holy spirit) is widely accepted in Christianity as to what makes a believer believe.
One can't be a Christian without believing in Christ as Saviour and one can only believe that if they are "annointed" with the Holy Spirit.
What the church rejected is "spiritualism".

[Vajramusti]

Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin

Not sure where you got the idea that the church rejected "pnuema" ( which also means breathe). The Spirit (pneuma ie: breath of God, ie: the Holy spirit) is widely accepted in Christianity as to what makes a believer believe.
One can't be a Christian without believing in Christ as Saviour and one can only believe that if they are "annointed" with the Holy Spirit.
What the church rejected is "spiritualism".

---------------------------------------------
Sanjuro- I do not wish to go too far in a wing chun section of a kung fu forum. The church Christianized pneuma inro the Holy Spirit- cutting out the secular science implications.
They opted for St. Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelian classificatory concept of nature- which became
the main dogma.There pneuma becomes spirit- from God on high- moving away from the pneuma
which the Greek stoics (Chrysippus inter alia)regarded as energy in natural entities-the internal fire fed by the air around.
You might check- Sambursky's The Physics of the Stoics.
You can also read Bertrand Russell on how the domination of the Aristotelian Thomas slowed the growth of science.

Even in sex- in Augustine and Thomas- sex is for creating babies not for enjoyment and feeling.
The devil lurks around the corner.
In Kant you never know an entity completely because the pneuma is beyond the "constructions"
of science and accept as true- on faith.

It's a long story from Chrysippus to Schrodinger and Bose.
Enough noise on this list so I pass.

joy chaudhuri

PS You flow and feel in good kung fu - don't you? (NOT the hokey empty force projection stuff)

[Scott R. Brown]

Originally Posted by Vajramusti

You flow and feel in good kung fu - don't you?

As all people do when they exercise!

[sanjuro_ronin]

Originally Posted by Vajramusti

---------------------------------------------
Sanjuro- I do not wish to go too far in a wing chun section of a kung fu forum. The church Christianized pneuma inro the Holy Spirit- cutting out the secular science implications.
They opted for St. Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelian classificatory concept of nature- which became
the main dogma.There pneuma becomes spirit- from God on high- moving away from the pneuma
which the Greek stoics (Chrysippus inter alia)regarded as energy in natural entities-the internal fire fed by the air around.
You might check- Sambursky's The Physics of the Stoics.
You can also read Bertrand Russell on how the domination of the Aristotelian Thomas slowed the growth of science.

Even in sex- in Augustine and Thomas- sex is for creating babies not for enjoyment and feeling.
The devil lurks around the corner.
In Kant you never know an entity completely because the pneuma is beyond the "constructions"
of science and accept as true- on faith.

It's a long story from Chrysippus to Schrodinger and Bose.
Enough noise on this list so I pass.

joy chaudhuri

PS You flow and feel in good kung fu - don't you? (NOT the hokey empty force projection stuff)

Have read and disagree with their conclusions, even before I was a Christian.
But like you said, nothing to do with the WC forum
And yes, I feel the "force" () when my kung fu hits that "groove".

[taai gihk yahn]

Originally Posted by Hendrik

The following view is very logical and reasonable for those who have not develop and grow qi in their own body. In fact the following describes the view of those doesn't have the qi development experience. I really doubt this type or norm can have any healing, martial art , and health result.

lol - u hav no idea what I had done an the results I've had - like others here, it is just inconceivable to you that someone can hav developed and grown qi according to classical practice, had experienced healing / health and martial effect and then had these views;

btw Hendrick, speaking of "qi" in martial art - when was the last time you applied you "qi development" against a resisting opponent in a martial context? what was that? did you say "never"? yeah, that's pretty much what I thought you said

to coin a phrase, "You know nothing, Jon Snow..."

[Brule]

Sometimes, when i'm off my meds, i venture into the wing chun forum to see what's up. Expecting to find discussions on bong sau this, tan sau that, wing chun - vs- ving tsun etc.... today i jump in and see that the infamous qi discussion has crept up in here, this discussion is like a virus, spreading to all parts of the forum. Good bye.....