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I disagree, the modern industrial way fo farming animals is far from caring of the animals, there are plenty of moveis about this if you are interested. But even the old less industrious and fankly speaking horrible ways of raising animals for meat could arguably be worse than leting animals live in the wild. (Do you know how mos modern meat is produced, how does life look for the average chicken that will become chicken meat?) This is not really the case, it's a rather nuanced and glorfied picture of farm animals. Hunting of course takes the life of the animal which is arguable wrong but does not in anyway oppress it before that. This is not practicable, we must seek to use pracitcable ways to live that are alingned with our ethical reasoning. And to stop eating or using animal products is in this modern age practicable as opposed to the idea that we can survive solely on air.

I'm assuming here that subject means 'that which expriences' and object are more specifically ontological objects, if i am wrong in this assumption, then i am sorry for that and would like to be both corrected and have a explanation of what is really meant. Here i am going to assume the same meanings of the terms (but the later sentance makes me unsure of this interpretion here). Are not experiences themselves experienced in forms and lables, or more precisecly concepts. What concepts are involved in the first experiences of the external world? How do we map these concepts of the first external world into an experience without the use of concepts? And are there no other possible source of experiences than that which is formed from expeirence of the external world? What about abstract concepts that do not map to any ontological objects. Even though they might arise as a further development of concepts that are maped to ontological objects, they must somehow form in a process which is not reallt based in ontological objecs which leads me to think that our way of forming concepts is not inherently related to ontological objects. What about meditation, why do we expereince things that seems inherently unconnected with the external world when we meditate?

I'm getting outside my understanding here a bit, but i will give you my believes, and more expereinced people should feel free to correct me if i am wrong. Surely there is always a flow in both the du mai and the ren mai, and surely they are related and connected with eachother. Granted the flow both in them and between them can vary. But i think that when we do neidan something else happens, somehow. It's not only that we are aware of the energy that is flowing there. Something else is happening, either the energy flow is different or other energy is flowing or something of the sorts. I am quite unsure of what exactly but i do belive something different happens.

But what is it that is aware? Meditation surely gives us a certain tacit understanding of conciousness, and i would agree that it is beyond thoughts. It is still very hadrd to define with our lagnuage. That which can be expressed on the subject has alreday been expressed. It tells ut very little, aside from the fact that our conciousness is beyond thinking, we can also metacognise and that is an interesting aspect of the relationship between conciousness and cognition.

What is your take on the hard problem of conciousness?

What is the mind?

The problem is that you need to see the ninja first if you're going to notice what their buckle belt is saying.

Thank you for you respons on the book This was very well worded, and I agree very much. Well said.

Yes, and action does imply an actor, and ther we are back again, what is it about us that makes us actors? What is conciousness? What is it that experiences? What is it that acts? What is it that decides?

Biscuits are indeed one of the most powerfull of weapons.

I've been looking at that book before, and considered buying it, but i am always buying too many books, and have currently limited my funds for buying more books lately. What do you think of it so far, would you recommend it?

Becase we do not know what it is that senses or thinks. And without being abel to define an agent for the sensing and thinking we can't fully understand what it is to sense or think. In a sense, we often think about sensing and thinking as actions. Actions however are often related to ability to think, if one does not think than can one take action? If something is able to sense but not think, then is that an action? Can plants think? and if not, are their ability to sense an action or not? And is thinking an action? Is not thinking a requirment for actions? If thinking is a requirement for an action, then thinking can not in itself be an action, or can it? If sensing is an action then it implies there must be a conciousness for something to sense, and in that sense how do we meassure sensing? Is any form of reaction a sign of conciousness? If thinking is an action, then what is an action?

I cut the kale off the stalks and into appropriately sized bits. Put them in some sort of appropriate ovenware i then pour oil, balsamico and herb salt (and sometimes liquid smoke) over them. Then i put them in (the pre-heated) oven. Now there are different schools when it comes to the method of heating, some prefere to do it hot and fast other prefere to do it less hot and slower, either is fine i usaualy go for less hot and slower because it gives me a larger marginal for errors/ditsyness. They're done when they're cripsy (and delicious). One could try out various spices on them aswell, no need for balsamico either if you prefete to abstain from it. Do as you wish, experiment and find your own recipy.

It's very simple it is _____. No but seriously, to be able to tell what makes us able to sense and to think we need to define what sensing and thinking is. And then we come to the question of what it is that senses and thinks. We don't really understand this fully yet so we can't really understand what it means to ask where the abilty to think and sense comes from, because we don't really understand what it is to sense or to think. Meditation however tends to give some sort of intrisic and tacit "knowledge" of this.

What is a hole? Things do fall into black holes, just like things fall into holes in the ground. Holes are usualy defined as the lack of something which there is a hole in, and in a sense a black hole is a hole because it can be said to be the lack of that which we can see on the sky, and thus black holes are holes in the view of the univers from where we are. (though of course we can use their lensing effect to see beyond them, but hey they're still a big spot of nothing on the sky). So what makes a hole a hole, and what makes a black hole not a hole?

I'm a big fan of mung beans, I eat them a lot. They're cheap and i can buy big amounts of organic mung beans by wheight and get them in paper bags in a big city nearby where i live. And i just love their taste, and one can sprout them aswell, lovely little things. Chickpeas are a favourite aswell i can by them the same way as mung beans and making humus from them is a favourite, aswell as just frying them with spinache and garlic (and lots of oil). I like sweet potatoes, but i seldom buy them. Perhaps i should buy them more often. I'm a big fan of Kale, and something i love to do with them is to make crisps(chips) out of them. I drink around a litre of tea a day, and it is very much something you can dive further into for a long time. I'm very much fond of what most people would call more subtle tastes and can love a good subtle white tea. But i can appreciate a stronger tasting wulong aswell

It's actually really hard to fully understand these things, studies are not always a reliable way to understand them. And sometimes empirical knowledge such as yours is more important. However studies are a good indicators of how things do work as long as you can be critical of them and understand the limitiations of knowledge one actually gains from the results of certain methodology. But the reason i would like to see studies is because it has been shown that while high oxalte intake is common in patients with calcium oxalate stones it is not common with calcium oxalate stones in people with high oxalate intake. And anturally one conclusion is that you need a high intake of both calcium and sodium aswell, but i think this is not enough, i am going to make a qualified guess that low production of urine is also required. What i am saying is that high oxalate intake is not the only factor in the formation of calcium oxalte stones and that if you are otherwise healthy and eat well balanced and drink enough a high oxalate intake should make little difference for the formation of calcium oxalate kidney stones. But then again if you do have calcium oxalate kidney stones i think reducing oxalate intake will definitely help. And it seems to me that your empirical data does seem to be inline with this reasoning of mine, but at the same time i don't think it is wise to make the conclusion that high oxalate intake leads to kidney stones from that same data.

Unfortunatly my chinese is not on a level where i could read books with ease yet, but i hope it to be in the future. (I really should spend more time in china to remedy this, i'm rather sure it's the best method) Perhaps that is a good book to start with when i am proficient enough however and thus it might be a good book to get. Thank you for recommending it.

It would be interested to read on how they do this, mostly because I would want a better understanding of acupuncture. I am a firm beliver in the idea that the internal alchemy/medicine/elixir is far greater than the external.

All of this is very much in line with TCM theories on internal alchemy. (There are some differences on the theories of the inner workings of the internal alchemy as thought in TCM and Daoist practices). But the way acupuncture works is sometimes different from how Qigong works aswell. But I guess what I wanted to know is how we affect this system when we use acupuncture to open up the extraodrinary meridians. In general when we use acupuncture we do affect the flow of the Qi in the meridians. But the extraordinary meridians are somewhat different, and there is also a question on what it means to move the Qi around and what acupuncture really does. Besides it's fully possible to (atleast indirectly) affect Jing this way (But again, what does this mean, and how does it compare to nei dan). Not to mention that there are a number of different kinds of Qi, and that Jing is sometimes just categorised as a form of Qi which is arguable true from a philosophical level but doesn't help making the nomenclature very clear. Granted the Ren Mai and Du Mai both have points located on them and we can directly go in and manipulate them which is not true for the other extraordinary meridians. I have looked into the extraordinary meridans somewhat but i haven't really researched it deeply, there seems to be different views on them sometimes. What is clear is that energy is considered to move slower in them than in the Zangfu meridians. Some say that Jing rather than Qi moves through them, and of course here the whole confusion about the usage of the term Jing in TCM gets more confusing. Some speak only of movement of Post-heavenly Jing, and thre are some theories of the origin of Post-heavenly Jing, and transformation of both QI and Jing using Pre-heveanly Jing, but it's hard to find a consensus on this from what i have read. All in all what is meant with opening the Meridian in the sense that is used in TCM is rather confusing. It is rather obviously not the same thing as what happens if one practices neidan but yet i wouldn't mind understanding what is meant by it, and how it relates to opening the meridans as meant in neidan.

This does seem to argue against your previous statement that all qualities of a man[sic] are products of reason. Are you retracting that statement?

What is the difference of opening the ren and du meridians in this aspect and opening the ren and du meridians in the sense that you do in TCM?

Are there anty studies that supports this claim?

What in particular stands out as perfect? From a scientific viewpoint, where are the references? They're not even refering to any studies to support why certain foods stuffs are good or bad for you.

I've never heard of anyone getting oxalate poisoning from smoothies, black tea is most likely more dangerous in that sense and you have to drink a lot of tea to get oxalate poisoning. I doubt that drinking one big smothie a day would matter much unless you have any form of medical condition. And i also doubt people put only green vegetables that are high in oxalte in their smothies.