[QUOTE=guy b.;1176555]If you follow certain qi cultivation techniques you feel something. What are you feeling?[/QUOTE]
various aspects of autonomic function, either sympathetic or parasympathetic, depending on what u r doing
[QUOTE=imperialtaichi;1176573]I don’t think Chi/Qi is a single thing, but as a way to explain a variety of observable phenomenon. [/QUOTE]
pretty much: if u look at how TCM practitioners assess qi, they ask questions about energy level, sleep patterns, bowl function, etc.; they look at ur tongue, smell ur breath, listen to ur guts, read ur pulse; sum ask ooh at ur eyes; look at the color of / feel the quality of the skin; these r all macro-observable phenomena that correlate to physiological function in different ways; if u look at “old style” clinical medicine of German / Russian school, many of these sorts of techniques were used as well (this from my wife who was educated as physician in USSR back in late '80’s where they still used many things of this nature due to lack of technological availability; to wit, she can still “predict” things like pulmonary embolism days in advance of other docs educated here);
[QUOTE=imperialtaichi;1176573]And a lot of such observable phenomenon cannot be fully explained by contempary scientific models, yet. [/QUOTE]
really? please give one example of this;
[QUOTE=imperialtaichi;1176573]But NOTHING escapes the laws of physics/nature/biology.[/QUOTE]
yeah, so?
[QUOTE=imperialtaichi;1176573]Like how we laugh at medical science of the 18th century, future generations will also laugh at how little we know today.[/QUOTE]
as should be the case; by that logic, we should be rolling on the floor at TCM…
[QUOTE=nasmedicine;1176577]Nice post, you are correct chi is not just one thing but rather an amalgamation of many things. However what those things are is an extremely debatable topic.[/QUOTE]
yes; so anyway, once the TCM practitioner has looked all the above, they derive a pattern-diagnosis based on a synthetic process;
[QUOTE=imperialtaichi;1176584]
A lot of very experienced acupuncturists would tell you that they locate acupincture points not by sight or touch, but by “sensing” where there is a dip in Chi flow;[/QUOTE]
it’s no big mystery: from my training / practice in osteopathic manual therapy, I can palpate changes in tension / texture various different ways; nothing to do w acupuncture points per se; it’s just practicing over time, knowing what to look for;
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[QUOTE=xinyidizi;1176618]There are two types of people in a discussion like this:
- People who haven’t really practiced inner cultivation or are very low level at it
- People who have actually practiced qigong and have got to a reasonable level in it.
The first group would either deny the existence of qi and would say that it’s a superstition or would try to justify it by connecting it to modern scientific terms and would say that ancient people would use qi as a metaphor to explain the unknown energy that modern science can explain. [/QUOTE]
it is a metaphor; it’s a synthetic process that allows u to develop a descriptive / predictive model of the net effect of macro-observable processes in the body; it’s not a discreet “thing” that u measure directly; that’s why u have so many different types of “qi” in TCM; go read “Web That Has No Weaver”, it really answers the whole “debate” rather succinctly
[QUOTE=xinyidizi;1176618]Personally I like to follow the new advances of the modern day science in this field and there has certainly been some progress but I think most of it is just at hypothesis level and at best they can only explain the effects of qi on the matter not the qi itself.[/QUOTE]
this is if u hold the perspective of “qi” as “other”; but this is an a priori bias - u think “qi” is indescribable to begin with, so it’s self-fulfilling prophecy;
[QUOTE=xinyidizi;1176618]I am not high level at qigong but so far my limited personal experience is that while doing zhanzhuang or slow qigong/taiji moves you can gradually feel something like a magnetic field around everything and you can also feel that in doing something like taiji it will connect your body like elastic bands. After you progress in qigong and start doing the meridian circulations you will feel it as a an energy that moves the liquids and the blood in your body. [/QUOTE]
u do feel something, but the fact is that if u understand anatomy and physiology, u actually have a pretty good capacity to describe everything u r feeling;
[QUOTE=xinyidizi;1176618]It is also possible to learn seeing these energy fields though I didn’t actually learn this part in qigong. Many years ago I read a book about seeing auras and by some practice gradually learned to see them. At first you will start seeing colorful fields around everything which can be mistaken for eye errors but after you progress you will see these big colorful fields more clearly. Inside them there are a lot of small particles like shining dust making a very similar shape to metal powder in a magnetic field. It is not just limited to objects and there are clouds of this thing everywhere however it’s denser around objects and especially living bodies. [/QUOTE]
self-delusion is a wonderful thing…
[QUOTE=xinyidizi;1176618]Probably there are different types of these small particles but I am not sure. The reason that I am saying this is that I have seen one special type mostly around electrical devices
a few times but again I’m not sure.[/QUOTE]
so rather than go for the simple, accepted, verifiable explanations, u’d prefer to rely on something about which u r not even sure?
[QUOTE=nasmedicine;1176625]As I like to tell everyone, “What ever works for you.”. If it works for you then more power to you.[/QUOTE]
that’s a big mistake, and allows people with crazy subjective experiences as much credence as those who have done objective study of a given issue; the “it’s all good, whatever works for you” perspective is a huge impedance to generating a consensus of what’s what;
fact of the matter is this; if you haven’t practiced qigong in depth, u can’t say anything about the subjective experience; OTOH, if u have studied qigong in depth and have had certain experiences, if at the same time u haven’t studied anatomy / physiology in depth, u will be very quick to start talking about how “science” can’t describe adequately what is going on; the problem w that is what u shut b saying is "I am not aware of what “science’ has to say about what i am feeling” and leave it at that; in my case, I have done both; and as such, find very little difficulty relating the subjective experiences I have had doing qigong to descriptions of things like autonomic nervous system function as well as other phenomena - for example, the feeling of unimpeded ground reaction force acting on the postural system during standing practice: this is what gives u that feeling of "floating’ of the head on top of the body; the biomechanics make perfect sense, but u have to understand it in depth;
all he conjecture is just that - better to start w what is known about the body, which is a tremendous amount more than was known 100 yrs ago, and an infinitely greater amount that 1,000 years ago;
