chi

Discussion in 'Tai chi' started by old palden, Jun 25, 2011.

  1. CosmicFish

    CosmicFish Aleprechaunist

    I'm not picking on you specifically, Fred, but the accusation of bullying in these kinds of debates annoys me. Hannibal isn't bullying, he's asking for evidence and pointing out the flaws in Lou's reasoning. It's no more bullying to point out that Lou is using flawed reasoning than it is bullying to (hypothetically) tell a MA student that they are punching ineffectively and trying to correct what they are doing wrong.

    Lou is confusing personal subjective feelings with scientific data. If Lou were on here telling us that 7+3=4, it wouldn't be bullying if we had spent pages and pages telling him that he had confused addition and subtraction.
     
  2. LilBunnyRabbit

    LilBunnyRabbit Old One

    I didn't say it wasn't the real deal - just gave you a valid explanation that requires no mysterious magicks.

    I thought you were studying medicine? Do you have any idea of the power that the body's thermoregulation systems have? When they go even slightly out of kilter, they can kill us. We know which parts of the brain control these systems (they're separate from the parts of the brain that actually sense temperature), so is it so hard to believe that rather than learning wibbly wobbly magic these people have found a way to trigger an autonomic reflex?

    My attitude stinks? Quite possibly, yes. As to being combative all I've really done is just ask over, and over, and over for some sort of evidence to support your claims.

    Okay, if it's a fact then there must be evidence to support it. If you would care to put forwards your evidence...?

    It doesn't threaten me in the least if you disagree, however others may be taken in by your claims of magic who are less able to resist the offers of snake oil salesmen. Some of these people are harmless other than their con games to separate the gullible from their money, some are unintentionally hurting others (the acupuncturist who warns against using real medicine), and some are actively abusive. I would prefer people not be taken in by them.

    And the answer is no.

    Yet you can provide no details of these things, you can provide no evidence that they happened (not even anecdotal as you seem very reluctant to describe them in any detail). Since you have no evidence other than repeated claims that 'you experienced things' your argument rather falls flat.

    I enjoy push hands, being able to work with good biomechanics and psychology is always fun.

    Why wouldn't you have learned that without burning yourself? You can tell it's hot at a distance, hotter as you approach closer. Even then it could easily be delusion or hallucination. Anecdotal evidence is pretty much worthless as scientific evidence, and the reason measurements are taken rather than simply relying on sensory observation is because then they can be checked and confirmed by others.

    I am saying that most of them are snake oil salesmen (a few are well-intentioned but deluded instead).
     
  3. Great question...
    I don't know, I (and others) have simply observed that we, humans, do not learn well without sensorially experiencing things. To me, this is who we are and how we function.
    It is a little bit like wondering why we cannot learn Martial Arts in a book... We just can't because this is not how we learn well.

    Measure, repeat-ability & having your colleagues agree with you (peer review) might come after as a means to confirm/infirm/contradict/explain the first impressions.
    Science nearly always start with a postulate, a theory issued when sensorialy experienced phenomena met intuition, knowledge, foresight and bench marking... all the rest is merely explaining.

    The mind connects the dots faster than the brain can draw lines :)



    Osu!
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2011
  4. LilBunnyRabbit

    LilBunnyRabbit Old One

    We are perfectly capable of learning without such immediate sensory experience. For non-physical skills we have to learn them without such experience, as they are by definition abstract. Can you explain how integration of mathematical functions could be demonstrated in a way that allows direct sensory experience?

    No - we can't because it is a physical skill requiring a high degree of co-ordination and training. A book, being a static resource, is not able to transfer this amount of information in reaction to a student's needs. Someone could quite easily learn, say, carpentry from a book.

    Yes - and that does not make the first impression valid until it has been tested, preferably repeatedly by different observers.

    Nonsense. All of the rest is testing the proposal over and over again, trying to check each facet of it for accuracy. Explaining is just a side-line.

    Sadly that doesn't mean that it connects them in the right way.



    Osu![/QUOTE]
     
  5. Osu ComicFish,


    I understand and I agree with the annoyance. It is not my intent to call people names and there is no real instance of bullying in this thread - I must admit that.
    However, it has been my painful experience that MAP is openly supporting major bullying and shut down of people with good intentions wanting to explore some controversial subjects - Chi being one of these.

    Asking for proof in many cases has been used as a means to silence people attempting to explore uncharted territories and/or formulate hypothesis about phenomena that are either outside of mainstream thinking, or not understood or explained as yet.
    Science (as it was used to cover up the bullying) does not work with proof first: it works with people willing to observe and try to explain things with an open mind. Proof comes after.

    I understand there has been some rather foolish claims on MAP, and some rather tedious and ridiculous conversations, yet, it is disappointing that MAP allows these instances to be used as a cover up for systematic silencing of anything that does not fit within the rather narrow mindset of a few individuals.


    Osu
    Fred
     
  6. LilBunnyRabbit

    LilBunnyRabbit Old One

    Proof is a different thing from evidence - and evidence is what has been asked for. If that's being seen as a way of trying to shut down uncharted territories then it isn't being looked at correctly. Observation and evidence comes first in science, then theory, then testing of that theory.

    You have some strange ideas about science. Proof never comes into science, that's a mathematics thing. Evidence comes into it, and repeated testing of a theory based on observation. The mind needs to be open to and accepting of evidence of new theories - it does not need to be (nor should it be) accepting of an untested hypothesis with no supporting (and plenty of contradictory) evidence.

    My 'narrow' mindset as you call it will accept anything for which evidence can be put forwards. Chi is not one of those things, we have seen no evidence, no demonstration, nothing but claims and claims and claims. Even the practitioners cannot agree on a single proposal or claim to be tested.

    An open mind is a good thing, but it shouldn't be so open your brain falls out.
     
  7. Oh yes, no trouble here, thank you for asking:
    Take a potato, give it to a child and explain how you can calculate the surface of the skin, or the volume of the meat, and how these two integers are both different and valid.
    The next day, take an ice cube, and let it melt on the wooden floor; explain to the child how we got to the stain on the floor... Then, have the child work out the size and shape of the ice cube, integrated from the size and shape of the wet stain... you will have now made the child's mind sensorially experience what an integer is, what sort of integers there are, and why some are indefinite.

    You can do the same with derivatives.

    That child will understand integers at a deeper level than most mathematicians!

    Osu!


    Hummmmm, I beg to differ; and I will never hire you to do any sort of carpentry for me... :D

    OSu!


    Yes, I agree ------ that does not make it invalid either; ...and that is what you were suggesting! which is annoying.


    Nope, it is not nonsense, ALL science starts with an intuition.
    (at some level - usually very high - integer resolutions also start with intuition - that is accrued experience in that case - to get a direction to move towards a solution)


    I agree... but it is not sad, it is how human mind works... there are many things that it cannot see at first and it needs to elaborate explanations that fit with what it can see and comprehend... then adjustments are made as more and more things become visible.
    It also does not mean that it connects them the "wrong" way; and that is what you were suggesting! which is extremely annoying.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2011
  8. So?
    Does that mean that there are no evidence, nor demonstrations to be found?


    Osu!
     
  9. LilBunnyRabbit

    LilBunnyRabbit Old One

    Find me one. Just one which provides good evidence. Anyone?

    You seem to have the idea that this is a relatively recent thing - I personally have been involved in this (and other) debates for years. As yet in all those years not a single person has managed to put forwards even a shred of solid evidence - every test and study which I have seen has shown that there is no effect of using chi, or any other supernatural ability.

    The only thing new in this one is the unsubstantiated claims of weather magic.
     
  10. Deleted by mods - calm down please
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 20, 2011
  11. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Fred you have just crossed the line from chi advocate to offensive <removed>

    You must be damn proud
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 20, 2011
  12. Hummmmm, really...
    I am not a chi advocate - I am an advocate of exploring the concept of chi in order to see past pre & mis-conceptions, and maybe see new things from different angles.
    Obscurantists and pervasive debaters have a way of taxing my patience - that fool challenge me to explain something a certain way, hoping to make his point when I could not!
    Unfortunately I could, and he now has to change his own way or lose all credibility.


    Maybe your definition of offensive moron & proud doesn't match mine here?


    Osu!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 20, 2011
  13. robin101

    robin101 Working the always shift.

    wow this rant has turned me round on the whole subject, i now beleive in the allmighty chi, i will start meditating umpteen hours a day , to feel tingles and change the weather. I can't wait,

    Dude look at it simply. If i clao,ed Sickness was not caused by bacteria and the like, but by pixes making you sick by attacking your cells with eye beams, and cited personal experience, and heresay as my proof, and said it challenged the many experiments that proved the bacteria theory, you would call me a lunatic, but thats what you chi exponents want us to to do, just except this type of proof. No experimental proof means it makes more sense to beleive that your experiences and the heresay are stories, fraud, and self deception. I see these things everyday. Never seen anything to do with chi EVER.

    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. and i dont even see any average evidence for chi.
     

  14. Osu!
     
  15. LilBunnyRabbit

    LilBunnyRabbit Old One

    So...couldn't find a good demonstration then?
     
  16. CosmicFish

    CosmicFish Aleprechaunist

    As I explained in the other chi thread, no one is being shut down. They are being criticised fairly. You even admit that there is no real bullying in the thread. I agree - there are just strongly worded assertions and criticisms going back and forth. That is an example of a good and open debate. Lou isn't being told he can't post, he's being asked to evaluate his beliefs with a higher standard than he currently is.

    Asking for evidence is in no way an attempt to silence people. It's an attempt to move the discussion forward in a direction where the claims could be considered using the best tools we currently have for eliminating things like confirmation bias and the whole host of problems that come with us humans have with unreliable memories and selective attention. Things that science recognises that we all suffer from.

    If I wanted to explore the concept of chi I could open a thread along the lines of "I want to explore how chi may work". In it I would (hopefully) be honest enough to admit that it remains, as yet, unproven, and ask people to help me to discuss the topic from a hypothetical perspective. What we have in this thread is people asserting that it is true, stating it as a fact, and claiming that their own, frankly fallible, subjective experiences and anecdotes are all that's needed.

    Again, there is nothing narrow about asking for a reasonable standard of evidence, and there is no silencing going on.
     
  17. Taiji_Lou

    Taiji_Lou Banned Banned

    To reiterate:

    If you want to experience the paranormal events associated with ch'i then you MUST put forth the effort and cultivate! It's as simple as that.

    If I had evidence to bear proof of strange events past you still would not believe. If I pulled a thunderstorm down out of a clear sky, you would not believe. If I taught you every qigong exercise and breathing technique I knew, or explained the irrationality (predictable but paradoxical) behind the behavior of the energies that comprise particle activity in physics. If I showed you Neils Bohrs Coat of Arms, you would not believe me.

    Oh, and I don't condone the usage of LSD or any drug for any purpose other than a migrane.

    Everybody calm down. We'll be dead soon enough, let's not hasten the approach!!! :hat:
     
  18. CosmicFish

    CosmicFish Aleprechaunist

    I posted a rebuttal to that on the other thread, it's worth copying here as well since this has come up again . . .


    The problem with that is it's used as a distraction technique:

    * Don't believe in chi? Well, go away and meditate until you experience it for yourself. Oh and by the way, it might take you years to master it.

    * Meditated for years and never found anything? Well you clearly haven't done it properly, or hard enough, or spend enough hours at it per day. Or you didn't "sublimate your sexual energy", etc. ad nauseam.

    It also ignores the fact that there are people in the world who already claim to have mastered their chi to the point that they can do things that others can't. (e.g. change the weather, etc.) Wouldn't it make more sense to study them? I'll give an example: If you are a pilot and meet someone who does not believe that metal aeroplanes are able to fly all you need to do is show them one that has already built, and let them see it flying. What you wouldn't do is tell them that they need to go and assemble their own aeroplane from scratch. And if you did, they'd be well within their rights to be more sceptical as a result.
     
  19. Putrid

    Putrid Moved on

    Whilst I accept the sensations associated with chi seem to be very real I also feel that if they had anything to do with particle physics then scientists would have been onto it by now.

    I have been around this game for decades and have never witnessed any paranormal activity associated with qigong.Look at it logically.In the fifties A-bombs were detonated on a regular basis but they had little effect on the weather.Krakatoa had an effect on the weather but it released a large volume of ash and that was the cause of strange weather patterns.
     
  20. Taiji_Lou

    Taiji_Lou Banned Banned

    Please understand that I absolutely understand and support your arguement. From a logical and commonsense perspective, of course you make perfect sense. However, you just can't call a turtle a duck. My personal experiences are all I need to know for a fact that this stuff is the real deal.

    If you haven't walked a mile in taiji_lou's taiji shoes, than of course I sound like a silly prat. I'm aware of it. What I'm telling you now, at THIS point, is that I've seen enough. I have truely been there and done that as far as this subject is concerned. I'm terribly, terribly sorry that I just can't offer tangible evidence to support my claims. What I'm telling you is that with similar effort you will also come to the same experiences, I'm sure.

    To have "been around the game" is to have acknowledged the ego as a seperate part of the game, making rational sense of the surroundings. You must trancend "game" and just "be". If you "follow" "me". but now I'm just kidding around, of course.

    I'm not a particle physicist, or a high energy physicist, or a quantum physicist, or a relative physicist, or a astro physicist. I'm a tai chi guy and I don't give a good god damn if there's evidence or not! Once you see an enormous man "cold read" you like he was hanging out with you on your days off and then straight up pull a rainstorm out of a clear sky, you're gonna think this stuff is bunk, straight crap. But that's what happened to me. I didn't KNOW this guy, hadn't SEEN this guy, and this guy knew ME. AND he made the weather act funky.

    The point of the story is, who cares? Let's chi sao....
     

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