What supernatural / alternative beliefs do you have and why?

[rickolasnice]

And I don't define supernatural beliefs as fictitious in my OP.. I save that for page two

 

[Mysterie]

well u would have to be a god to make such assumptions

 

[rickolasnice]

They're called beliefs.

I like how it's all good here when people say "this is real cos i know it is and tarot works and mediums really do talk to dead people" but when lil ol me with a bit of rational thinking comes along saying: "well.. no.. it's a lot more likely that this is the case" i get jumped on by the new age spiritualists.. Well screw you hippy!

Thought we were ying and yang, man? Thought we were two sides of the same coin :'(

And a GOD would never presume. And yes I am GOD.

 

[Mysterie]

well everything has god spirit imo

everyone sees the world differently so theres weight behind each perspective

u can be rational but open ness is why hippies are cool

4th dimension stuff is not really what is worth focusing on in life though, its kind of like the pretty visuals you get on some psychs, they add to the exp but its not the take home lesson

we are bread and butter, who has the jam?

 

[rickolasnice]

What 4th dimension stuff? Like how the faster you move through space the slower it goes. Come on man that's worth thinking about.

I'm open. I'm open to ideas that make sense.

 

[rickolasnice]

I'm starting meditation btw

 

[ebola?]

Meta-post:

I like how it's all good here when people say "this is real cos i know it is and tarot works and mediums really do talk to dead people" but when lil ol me with a bit of rational thinking comes along saying: "well.. no.. it's a lot more likely that this is the case" i get jumped on by the new age spiritualists..

You turned toward outright dismissal of the validity of your opposition's worldview early on in this discussion. This is a good way put people on the defensive, which is usually ill-conducive to fruitful exchange; we reap what we sow. And we* should be able to empathize with our 'opposition' here: I'm sure that a lot of discussants feel pounced upon by hard-nosed imposition of what 'objective reality' is and what views need be accordingly excluded a priori.

ebola
(yeah, I know how hypocritical I'm being )
*You and I really do agree on a lot, I think. I just like to prod to flesh out what it is being agreed upon, and this can take the apparent shape of disagreement.

ebola

 

[Mysterie]

I'm starting meditation btw

wonderful, dont be let down by bad days, its pushing through tough days that makes us stronger

try to do 10 mins morning and night at the same times every day if possible then work upon (increasing that time length) that once your comfortable

dont expect radical changes within less than a month of intelligent regular practice

 

[rickolasnice]

I'm also going to get back into lucid dreaming and as an experiment go from lucid dream to "astral projection"..

And yeah ebola? true say don't even know why i wrote that post.

 

[Foreigner]

This is a procedure that could be conducted (the 'null'/'placebo' condition being a needle suck in a random but non-dangerous or painful position). These types of experiments have been conducted and even rudimentarily establish the validity of qi meridians as roughly corresponding to neural circuits.

We are specifically trained to avoid major nerves. I've needled nerves by accident when I was a student and the sensation was very different.

If you're saying that regardless of where we put the needle we are somehow engaging with the nervous system, I guess that's possible. I've considered that maybe acupuncture is really just an advanced mapping technique of the nervous system that has figured out that a certain locus of stimulation can have a systemic effect.

On the other hand, there are aspects to acupuncture which make this seem implausible. Light needling (as in, superficial insertion) is more likely to affect consciousness, whereas deep needling is more likely to affect the dense physical body (i.e. pain).

After many years of careful observation, research, and consideration, I really wholeheartedly believe in qi as a separate and distinct phenomenon from things like nerves and other physical bodily aspects. I've been able to see auras since I was a kid and when I do the needle work the aura changes. Maybe the aura is just the bio-energetic field, I dunno... but it's so dynamic that it is surely part of our life force.

(note: I know this wasn't directed at me, but I consider the following pertinent) I do believe in many of your methods of practice, though I may interpret their meanings in a different way; I don't think spirituality and science need be set in opposition. At times they complement each other, answering different types of questions....ones which the other cannot ask. At other times, they appear to converge on a single, wider 'meta-worldview'.

ebola

I agree... which is why I would call myself a spiritual scientist. There are surely plenty of phenomena out there that work but science hasn't gotten to them yet. I think qi, or the bio-energetic field of the body and its various dynamics, is something that science hasn't gotten to yet... but I've seen it in action and I know it's real.

I suggest you ask your homeopath what it is they give you and see if your depression may, in some part, be due to a certain mineral or vitamin deficiency found in things listed in that link.

This doesn't make sense. By your own admission there are no atoms of the original substance left in the formula. So why does homeopathic phosphorus work for anxiety/depression, rick? Are you just going to dismiss it entirely as placebo despite what I said? Because that's really all you can do in order to appear correct.

That would be all well in good if they didn't put the "essence" of it into a tank of water, then taking a drop out of that tank and putting into another tank of water, and so on, with the belief that this makes it stronger!? (they can do this up to 400x) to effectively sell people nothing but sugar pills (by the final treatment, most of the time, there wouldn't be a molecule left of the "healing product", making it; Water)..

It doesn't make sense to you because you don't believe in energetic medicine. You believe in the material level only and therefore homeopathic products have nothing in them... but in order for it to be an energetic medicine, it must necessarily be diluted to the point that it only has an energetic residue, with next to none of the physical substance left.

For example, you can use caffeine homeopathically to treat insomnia in certain individuals. Normally a material dose of caffeine would keep someone awake, but a homepathic dilution of it would make them sleepy because the energetic property of it coerces the body to move in the opposite direction (hence homeo) by introducing its essence, without physically stimulating the body. Therefore, on a physical level, caffeine is stimulating, but on an energetic level it's sedating. Different substances have different properties on the homeopathic level than they do the physical one. This was established as true before the American Civil War when homeopaths were prosperous in the United States.

They then try to sell this idea that water has a memory, which is how it passes on it's healing qualities (still not explaining why more dilution = better).. This is simply bollocks and has been proven to be bollocks. The final product in homeopathic strengthening of medicine is water.. Good ol H2O.

Again, on a physical level. But if you muscle test people using those different vials of water, you will get different results with each vial. You can even use plain distilled water as the control, if you like.

Did you know they did this to "strengthen" their medicine? Did you know that there is not a single atom left from the original product in the final product? I doubt they even bother with the original product.. they know it's just going to be lost and they're gonna end up selling water soaked sugar pills.

I recently took homeopathic arnica montana following a traumatic car accident. The less diluted it is, the more it works on the physical... so I took the most diluted dose and it helped me to feel like I was back in my body again. It's not just in my head rick, it has an impact. I'm really sensitive to energetic medicine.

Ask your homeopath where they studied medicine, or even biology.. Quacks.

I don't know, but there are entire materia medica on the effects of homeopathic preparations going all the way back to the 1850's, with entire institutions spending all their time and money researching which essence does what. Prior to the American Civil War, homeopathy was well established in the United States, along with the Ecclectic Herbalists. Once the AMA was established it went on a witch hunt, which was when homeopaths fled to Europe (and didn't come back until about 50 years ago). The Ecclectics were stamped out though because they had nowhere to go.

Anyway, it's kind of absurd to suggest that they spent the better half of 70 years cataloging the effects of essences because everyone who was into it was deluded or some quack.

 

[rickolasnice]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_effectiveness_of_homeopathy

Or are you gonna tell me that the physical well being of human beings, in the material world, is somehow untestable using materialistic methods?

(I suggest reading the water memory article it links to, too)

I don't know, but there are entire materia medica on the effects of homeopathic preparations going all the way back to the 1850's, with entire institutions spending all their time and money researching which essence does what. Prior to the American Civil War, homeopathy was well established in the United States, along with the Ecclectic Herbalists. Once the AMA was established it went on a witch hunt, which was when homeopaths fled to Europe (and didn't come back until about 50 years ago). The Ecclectics were stamped out though because they had nowhere to go.

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

You can write as many books as you want it doesn't make it real.

Are you just going to dismiss it entirely as placebo despite what I said? Because that's really all you can do in order to appear correct.

Yep.

 

[-=SS=-]

I can see there being something to acupuncture. Whether it has to do with qi/prana or not I don't know, it's possible it could actually be electrically related.. like in the same way we get knots or tension in our muscles that can be released with pressure, we could get electrical tensions in spots that need discharging. With homeopathy though I can't really see the potential for anything other than placebo or self-hypnosis.. even if there is an essence to substances, having more of a substance would mean more corresponding essence. Saying less is more just makes no sense at all.

 

[Foreigner]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_effectiveness_of_homeopathy

Or are you gonna tell me that the physical well being of human beings, in the material world, is somehow untestable using materialistic methods?

(I suggest reading the water memory article it links to, too)



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

You can write as many books as you want it doesn't make it real.



Yep.

Just to let you know, bringing up something unrelated to homeopathy like trepanning doesn't strengthen your argument, it just weakens it.

And yes, there is a lot that's untestable in the material world. The qi dynamic is not testable, but it's real. There are thousands of years of Daoist practice based on qi flows in the body (which I am trained in also, btw). In China most colleges require students to take studies in qi gong or taiji... and all TCM universities convene in the morning to do qi gong or taiji. Not only is qi real, it's well mapped and its functions are well understood. Feel free to check out "A Manual Of Acupuncture" by Peter Deadman for a complete anatomical/physiological layout of the qi dynamic. It took me 5 years studying with masters to learn this shit. It's not just in our heads, it has real impacts beyond the physical body.

Homeopathy may be debatable but energetic medicine is not. The world is older than the past 200 years of material reductionism and there was science before there was science. If you think laboratory tests can detect everything, you're simply wrong I'm afraid.

Like I said... if you don't try things out for yourself and instead only believe what someone wrote about in some paper, then you're really missing out on a world of possibilities. I would respect your argument a lot more if you tried these things and said they didn't personally work for you. Pseudoskeptics just quote stuff incessantly but they have no personal relationship with the topic other than their co-dependence upon their epistemology being dominant.

 

[rickolasnice]

Agreed.. my referencing to trepanning was a result of misinterpreting your quote.

How much would a course of anti-anxiety homeopathic pills set me back (roughly?)

I won't comment on Qi as i know nothing about it but I will say I know meditation is extremely beneficial to health and yes it does have impacts on the physical body http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8rRzTtP7Tc .. This does not mean that Qi is real.

Just so you know.. Ignoring the main point of my post to respond only to an insignificant part, to then change the subject; doesn't strengthen your argument, it only weakens it.

 

[ebola?]

If you're saying that regardless of where we put the needle we are somehow engaging with the nervous system, I guess that's possible. I've considered that maybe acupuncture is really just an advanced mapping technique of the nervous system that has figured out that a certain locus of stimulation can have a systemic effect.

Yeah, this would have to be more the mechanism I'd need to point to. The points of evidence which i was thinking was were that the geometry of qi meridians appear isomorphic with neural circuits, with some overlap in function and effects of manipulation.

ebola

 

[pmoseman]

The explanation for the mechanisms of how these, if they do, work has not been proven. They are unfounded beliefs and from what I have seen are psychological. Practitioners need a mind to manipulate.

 

[ebola?]

The qi dynamic is not testable, but it's real.

I don't understand why this conceptual framework (or any other set of explanations for experiences) would prove unamenable to testing in principle.

ebola

 

[Foreigner]

I don't understand why this conceptual framework (or any other set of explanations for experiences) would prove unamenable to testing in principle.

ebola

TCM is an anomaly in the material world. During the SARS outbreak, TCM doctors in China were able to cure it using the TCM diagnostic and treatment system. A conference was held in Beijing between western medical doctors and TCM practitioners. The scientists wanted to know what TCM practitioners were using to target the disease in the body, and the TCM practitioners simply replied that they were targeting the disease, they were just bringing the body itself back into balance and then the body fought off the disease.

The TCM diagnostic and treatment system is conceptual, but it actually works in practice. It is its own complete system, even more so than ayurveda in India which is even older. The way I would diagnose you and write a prescription in TCM is completely different than how an MD would do it, but it works. Some of this is translatable to modern terms and we can see that an ancient equivalent of the modern practice was happening, but with a different epistemology; however, there is still a lot of content that is not translatable to modern medicine, which is either because modern medicine hasn't discovered it yet, or TCM is using a world view which includes aspects of physiology that MDs aren't yet aware of.

I believe it's a combo of both. I believe qi is real, beyond the nervous system. I've been treated by qi gong practitioners who can transfer intense energy to their hands that feels incredibly hot on your body, yet does not burn. It might just be some kind of bio-energetic field interaction, but I don't know. Modern medicine can't explain so it writes it off, because it's based on material reductionism which claims people can't do this kind of thing.

All of the mysteries and miracles of qi gong, TCM and Daoism can be witnessed in Asia if you connect with the right people, but they are not dog and pony shows for western scientists. Most of the time they refuse to demonstrate in order to protect the secrets. You have to be incredibly lucky to be taken in by a qi gong master who can do this stuff *and* is willing to teach you. Although I am not happy that the western world is so brainwashed to reject this stuff, I am happy that a sufficient number of westerners are ignorant so that the ancient practice does not become stolen, corrupted, or destroyed in the usual colonial way.

I mean... I'm a westerner who learned Mandarin, studied with a couple of masters, but I'm not the king shit of acupuncture; and even I can tell that there is something more going on here than simple material physiology. There is another level, and I'll take that assertion to my grave.

 

[ebola?]

TCM is an anomaly in the material world. During the SARS outbreak, TCM doctors in China were able to cure it using the TCM diagnostic and treatment system. A conference was held in Beijing between western medical doctors and TCM practitioners. The scientists wanted to know what TCM practitioners were using to target the disease in the body, and the TCM practitioners simply replied that they were targeting the disease, they were just bringing the body itself back into balance and then the body fought off the disease.

The TCM diagnostic and treatment system is conceptual, but it actually works in practice. It is its own complete system, even more so than ayurveda in India which is even older. The way I would diagnose you and write a prescription in TCM is completely different than how an MD would do it, but it works. Some of this is translatable to modern terms and we can see that an ancient equivalent of the modern practice was happening, but with a different epistemology; however, there is still a lot of content that is not translatable to modern medicine, which is either because modern medicine hasn't discovered it yet, or TCM is using a world view which includes aspects of physiology that MDs aren't yet aware of.

Okay. This example still seems like a setup where you could test TCM for efficacy scientifically: given a particular malady, you could set up randomized trials, ideally comparing application of the usual Western medical treatment, the an appropriate traditional Chinese treatment, an active pharmaceutical placebo (something that causes dry mouth, maybe), and an active placebo for TCM (would this be the application of known inert herbs and performing random, meaningless rituals? ). Really, all that you'd strictly need would be data showing TCM to afford rates of efficacy statistically similar to those of known effective 'Western' treatments.

however, there is still a lot of content that is not translatable to modern medicine, which is either because modern medicine hasn't discovered it yet, or TCM is using a world view which includes aspects of physiology that MDs aren't yet aware of.

I don't see how this is an issue though. Just because Western medicine is understood in terms of biochemistry (hell, there are plenty of treatments with unknown mechanisms) doesn't entail that TCM would be required to do so in order to establish its validity as effective. Similarly, it would be comical for a physicist to demand that a sociologist explain application of social stigma in terms of the activity of gravitational and electromagnetic fields, yet both are scientists.

Also, the two scenarios of epistemological unification that you outline above are really functionally equivalent, as our pursuit of a theory of everything comes to encompass the phenomena we encounter more and more widely and adequately (that is, unless we reject that a unified epistemology is impossible in principle).

The question of assessing the wider theoretical framework through which TCM explains its efficacy is a thornier issue. Basically, one would need establish experimental methods in principle capable of falsifying the particular body of theory. So we'd need to use the theory underlying TCM to make predictions about the application of TCM that could be shown to be either congruent or at odds with the theory.

Modern medicine can't explain so it writes it off, because it's based on material reductionism which claims people can't do this kind of thing.

I don't think that this contention is at odds with science or even material reductionism* but rather with how the wider body of scientific practice seems to be ignoring assessment of traditional techniques. One could easily establish a blind study functionally similar to the one described above.

All of the mysteries and miracles of qi gong, TCM and Daoism can be witnessed in Asia if you connect with the right people, but they are not dog and pony shows for western scientists. Most of the time they refuse to demonstrate in order to protect the secrets. You have to be incredibly lucky to be taken in by a qi gong master who can do this stuff *and* is willing to teach you. Although I am not happy that the western world is so brainwashed to reject this stuff, I am happy that a sufficient number of westerners are ignorant so that the ancient practice does not become stolen, corrupted, or destroyed in the usual colonial way.

This I find problematic, as it specifically precludes the type of investigation that could yield more adequately unified theory--in the sense you describe, then, practitioners of TCM are playing as large a role in maintaining Western ignorance of these practices as the wider frame of Western science; I tend to ....view claims of truth that demand secrecy of their bases with extreme skepticism. Also, why would these practices be in danger of theft or corruption (other than what we usually see with creativity commodified under capitalist practices)? Couldn't there be an exchange of information that is not imperialist in its effects?

I can tell that there is something more going on here than simple material physiology. There is another level, and I'll take that assertion to my grave.

Right, so why not establish the conditions to demonstrate such (or expand our conception of what the material is)?

ebola
*I don't mean to imply that I'm a material reductionist, but neither do I find a duality between the immaterial and material adequate.

 

[Foreigner]

Okay. This example still seems like a setup where you could test TCM for efficacy scientifically: given a particular malady, you could set up randomized trials, ideally comparing application of the usual Western medical treatment, the an appropriate traditional Chinese treatment, an active pharmaceutical placebo (something that causes dry mouth, maybe), and an active placebo for TCM (would this be the application of known inert herbs and performing random, meaningless rituals? ). Really, all that you'd strictly need would be data showing TCM to afford rates of efficacy statistically similar to those of known effective 'Western' treatments.

To explain why this would be difficult, I would have to give you lessons in TCM diagnostics. There isn't one herb for dry mouth. Dry mouth has many etiologies in TCM. In western medicine, "dry mouth" is a disease name, just like heart burn. In TCM, there are many reasons for heartburn. There's a proverb that goes: “Same disease different treatment, different treatment same disease”. Three people could all have heartburn and receive different treatments; likewise, three people with totally different diseases could receive the same treatment because the underlying etiology is the same.

Western medicine wants to know why TCM can treat SARS but the answer is that TCM is not treating "SARS", it is treating the body based on syndrome differentiation. The specific pathology is irrelevant. The syndrome is assessed on an individual basis, based on what each body needs. Correct the bodily imbalance and SARS goes away without even having to understand what SARS is.

In order to create a placebo, western medicine would have to compromise. i.e. let's do a placebo test for heart burn. Ok, what kind of heart burn? Liver fire attacking the stomach heartburn? Stomach yin deficiency heartburn? Food stagnation heartburn? There are different treatment protocols (herbs and acupuncture) for each of these. Not to mention TCM uses different investigation methods, like tongue and pulse analysis. Use the wrong protocol and either nothing happens or the situation gets worse. If western medicine is willing to understand some TCM differentiation, then we can test the remedies in the lab... which is exactly what they have done in China by combining westernized hospitals with TCM practices.

Western medicine treats heart burn with antacids because it's a symptom/pathology based system. It targets the pathology only, it has no mechanism by which to influence healthy tissues, or even related ones. It needs to know the virus, its RNA, its mechanism for infecting cells, and then it has to create an antivirus or vaccine. TCM deals with the body, not the invading pathology.

But you know... even western herbalists are aware of differentiating heartburn, without needing to know TCM. Western medicine is intentionally obfuscating the cure in order to justify interventions and symptom management. A lot of people with heart burn have liver issues... give them bitters to clear the liver and the heart burn goes away. Why is this simple fact, known for hundreds of years, deliberately "unknown" to western medicine. Could it be that bitters cost $5 or less, and actually fix it?

I don't see how this is an issue though. Just because Western medicine is understood in terms of biochemistry (hell, there are plenty of treatments with unknown mechanisms) doesn't entail that TCM would be required to do so in order to establish its validity as effective. Similarly, it would be comical for a physicist to demand that a sociologist explain application of social stigma in terms of the activity of gravitational and electromagnetic fields, yet both are scientists.

The issue is that TCM formulations are developed using their syndrome differentiation system. We already know that TCM herbs, for example, can treat a number of modern western diseases, but there is a conflict in how the medicines are applied. Western researchers look at a patient whose heartburn was cured by TCM and ask the patient the name of the remedy. They then go and give that remedy to 100 patients who have heart burn, WITHOUT applying TCM differentiation, and the experiment fails. So they conclude TCM is a placebo, but it's because western medicine does not differentiate heartburn types.

The problem is western medicine. It deals with pathology only, and in a very limited way. i.e. if you have heartburn it must be a stomach problem, so it isolates the stomach. Meanwhile there is a holistic relationship between other organs, like the liver and gallbladder, the pancreas, etc. In TCM, heartburn is a symptom linked to a collection of other symptoms which imply an underlying bodily problem. In WM heartburn is a complete disease, no other connections needed. See the issue here?

Also, the two scenarios of epistemological unification that you outline above are really functionally equivalent, as our pursuit of a theory of everything comes to encompass the phenomena we encounter more and more widely and adequately (that is, unless we reject that a unified epistemology is impossible in principle).

AFAIK the two epistemologies cannot be unified. They can only be roughly translated. The reason is two-fold. One is that WM is pathology based whereas TCM is syndrome based. TCM can look at a healthy body and balance it further. WM needs pathology in order to do anything meaningful. The second reason is that WM is non-holistic. It looks at dysfunction in vacuo without making any attempt to draw inter-bodily relationships.

A unified epistemology is not impossible in principle. There are plenty of combined MD/TCM practitioners out there with a lot of education who are unifying the systems. Unfortunately there are staunch traditionalists on both sides, combined with major corporate interests that do not want to see TCM influence the western market. Those same interests control the research, all the way up to the UN. It's not just honest science, ebola?. You are dealing with a western institution that DELIBERATELY destroyed other institutions which could cure many diseases, permanently... which is what herbal medicine is capable of. But it's not profitable so it's not the hegemony.

We are not living in an era where honest-to-god research is possible anymore. Even in western pharmacology, most of the discoveries and independent research pre-1980's are superior to the crap coming out now... because it's all private interests now. Do you expect those private interests to invest in honestly interrogating useful, curative systems when it won't give them anything they can patent?

The question of assessing the wider theoretical framework through which TCM explains its efficacy is a thornier issue. Basically, one would need establish experimental methods in principle capable of falsifying the particular body of theory. So we'd need to use the theory underlying TCM to make predictions about the application of TCM that could be shown to be either congruent or at odds with the theory.

The theoretical framework is only necessary from a modern medical perspective. In China, the two systems work together seamlessly. They are constantly researching the biochemical makeups of ancient herbs, and introducing that knowledge into TCM innovations. TCM is always evolving. You can trace the innovations with each century back to the Han Dynasty. It's a science different than western science that is still being experimented upon.

I don't think that this contention is at odds with science or even material reductionism* but rather with how the wider body of scientific practice seems to be ignoring assessment of traditional techniques. One could easily establish a blind study functionally similar to the one described above.

The epistemologies are incompatible. Western science can individually analyze each herb to understand the "active ingredient" and invent its own way of using the medicine, but its employment of these medicines is sloppy at best because it has a compartmentalized view of the medicine and the human body. Western herbalists are now appropriating TCM herbs in their practices with no understanding of how they work, all because they are reading pubmed explanations of what the herbs do. I'm sorry, but TCM has way more experience with these materials, and the knowledge can only be found in their 3000+ years of clinical experience in THEIR epistemology. If you want to really know the depth of knowledge, you have to learn their way. It's really that simple. European colonialism has propagated the idea that their science is the most advanced and complete system and is therefore capable of deconstructing and integrating all other systems, but it isn't. Assimilation is not integration. It's like trying to explain a foreign culture in English and claim that you've captured it all, when that culture has an inherent essence and world view which sees things in a way you will never be able to express in English. You can try to make TCM speak WM all you want but a great volume of knowledge will be lost in that cultural exchange.

This I find problematic, as it specifically precludes the type of investigation that could yield more adequately unified theory--in the sense you describe, then, practitioners of TCM are playing as large a role in maintaining Western ignorance of these practices as the wider frame of Western science; I tend to ....view claims of truth that demand secrecy of their bases with extreme skepticism. Also, why would these practices be in danger of theft or corruption (other than what we usually see with creativity commodified under capitalist practices)? Couldn't there be an exchange of information that is not imperialist in its effects?

It's cultural protectionism. The real solution here is to create a third system that is based on a combo of both TCM and WM, which is what some practitioners are now starting to do. Problem is, western science will never make this leap because it has to give up material reductionism. TCM understands the energetic basis of the body factually and uses it in ways that western science will not experiment on because it has already determined that the phenomenon is "not real". The traditionalists are tired of being ridiculed by western science which makes little attempt to bridge the gap with mutual cooperation. It's always about TCM coming to meet WM and that's not how it works. Western imperialism needs to stop expecting other cultures and their traditions to throw themselves at its feet so that it can steal their knowledge and profit from it. The fact that modern pharmaceutical companies have not already done this is evidence in of itself that TCM and WM are not compatible ideologically, otherwise the west would already be profiting enormously on this ancient knowledge. Since they can't do that, and they can't patent it either, they simply dismiss it as charlatanism... which is EXACTLY what it did to the herbal schools in the U.S. and Europe around the time of the American civil war. What you can't control, you oppress and dismiss. This is big politics and with globalization the battle is everywhere now.

If it doesn't know the root reason, which it often doesn't, WM/science concludes that the reason is "unknown". Not "we don't know", but "it's unknown". Likewise, when they pillage traditional knowledge from native people in the Amazon about local medicines and turn them into patent medicines to sell for profit, it's labelled a "new discovery" without any credit given to where they actually got the lead from.

Also, China suffered hundreds of years of western invasion, appropriation, ridicule, and disdain. The last thing they want to do is give up one of their only lasting ancient traditions to be dissected in a western lab, and misunderstood all the while.

Western ignorance is partly due to this, and partly due to the west thinking it's superior and reinforcing its own ignorance. Sorry, but it's true. To understand medicine like the AMA practices, you have to understand the AMA's pre-history and the kind of intense, competitive stamping out it did of other kinds of institutionalized medicine. The school of ecclectic herbalists in the U.S. spent over 80 years doing western scientific clinical trials on many different herbs, creating a vast repertoire of North American materia medica. The AMA destroyed them systemically with a witch hunt against herbalism, because a) herbs can't be patented and b) the herbs worked better than their drugs and were the choice therapy for chronic conditions at the time. The kind of medicine the AMA monopolizes now was battlefield medicine at the time. Patch them up and send them back out. It gained immense power during the American Civil War because of this, which it later used to destroy the other schools. The kind of medicine that is the rule of law in the U.S. and Europe didn't get there by scientific virtue alone, it got there by intensely politicizing and propagandizing its opponents into oblivion. Which is why the TCM lineages in China won't work with western medicine and its scientists.

TCM is inherently tied to the tenacious Chinese culture so if you want to really learn its secrets in all the diverse ways it can be employed beyond WM's comprehension, you need to go to them and not expect them to come to you. I believe we will understand things better down the road when the world is truly cosmopolitan and not a product of post-colonialism but for now it is what it is.

Right, so why not establish the conditions to demonstrate such (or expand our conception of what the material is)?

I don't see how those conditions can be established given the two completely different epistemologies. The way modern science even tests acupuncture is completely wrong because it does not integrate TCM understanding. It's like a Christian trying to prove gravity as an act of God using scriptural precedent. Apples and oranges.

*I don't mean to imply that I'm a material reductionist, but neither do I find a duality between the immaterial and material adequate.

That division is false. Western science is stooped in hubris. On one hand it acknowledges that it is not a complete system and is constantly evolving, yet on the other hand it asserts that its system is the most complete and accurate compared to others. You can only take so many "rational explanations" before you realize that you are dealing with a deliberately dumbed down system that is culturally protecting its own interests, and profits, above the general truth of the global body politic that is trying to develop. Colonialism really spread this notion everywhere... but there was science before there was science. There was Daoist science in Asia while Europe was still in the dark ages, and it's the basis for why TCM works. Just because it can't speak your language doesn't mean its world view is folklore.

The other thing is that you are dealing with two very complex yet incomplete systems which have their strengths and weaknesses. TCM definitely knows stuff that WM doesn't, and vice versa... which is why not everything that TCM successfully does can be translated to WM. Perhaps down the road WM will come up with a rational explanation for acupuncture's functionality, but for now it has no fucking clue and as a practitioner of TCM who has seen amazing, accurate, impossible-to-refute results, I really love that. It proves to me that our science is not only incomplete but other systems have superior knowledge than it in certain ways, which also means that one's philosophical search for truth should not be confined strictly to western science. To do so is folly. If only western science got excited about that, instead of running away hissing, but it can't because any system comes part and parcel with dogma.

TCM was experimenting with smallpox vaccines, using its own epistemology, before WM even thought of the idea. So yes, some of the concepts are translatable, others aren't. You can't assume that all the contents of TCM = WM anymore than you can assume that all the contents of English = Mandarin. Every culture has unique knowledge and experience that others don't, coded in its traditions, language, and worldviews, and not all of it is going to come to you on your terms. Some of it may even be more advanced than your native system is prepared to deal with, hence all the dismissals.

You can study TCM history all the way back to the beginning, to the Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor's Classic, circa 2000 BC), with the first basic set of herbs and the initial understanding of the qi anatomy. There were new discoveries about every 100 years regarding the qi dynamic, and new herbs. Around the late 1800's there was the discovery of the "San Jiao" theory of heat disorders in the body. In 200 years from now, this will be looked back upon as the "Communist era" when TCM used foreign medical science (about 200 years old, max) to gain more insight. So while modern scientists are acting all superior, they're just going to be another footnote in the very long TCM diaspora. (I say that under the faithful presumption that by then a new worldview will have come along that is better than anything we have now.) They're not some rinky dink folk herbalists. They're an entire system separate from us that has just as much power.