The Skeptic thread

[Toni]

After around two years involved in qigong and other asian systems of training, now I think that many people on this forum should think about being involved in a conceptual and theorical system which is many years old. Concepts like dantians, meridians or qi should be replaced by others which are not in so flagrant contradiction with modern science. It is not that I am scientificist or something, I really like the theoretical contributions of other paradigms, which can be as valid as those of modern science.

 

But the fact is that a concept like dan tian is not empirically observable by a majority of people. This means we need to believe what some "master" or "guru" say. And why should we believe them? I have had many masters and some now I know they were quite ignorant. Maybe I haven't been lucky finding the right ones. But even so, if we want to focus on empiricism, direct experience of things, and logical thinking, then we shouldn't talk about dan tians, meridians or qi. We can use, instead, concepts like blood circulation, nymph, solar plexus, human anatomy, etc.

 

This change of paradigm would not mean that qigong or taichi are not valid practices. A practice is always more important than the theory behind it. And if the practice is good then to admit that the theory behind it is not valid doesn't mean that the practice is less good. In conclusion, I think it is important to change paradigm and start using a more scientific terminology. That way we could improve our practices, our knowledge and we wouldn't take the risk of talking endlessly about things which have never existed just because some masters who are eager to sell themselves say it.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Toni

[Vajra Fist]

Empiricism is part of the scientific paradigm though. Being able to prove the existence of the dantian through the methods of science is no more valid than being unable to prove the existence of gravity through qi. 

 

Also, science and it's methods is an evolving paradigm. Scientists are increasingly coming to terms with the limitation of observation when it comes to quantum behaviour. To dismiss something as unscientific within our current frame puts a limit on the possibility that scientific theory will evolve to understand what has hitherto been unknowable. Put another way, instead of being a relic of the past, qigong could be future science. 

[Toni]

22 minutes ago, Vajra Fist said:

Empiricism is part of the scientific paradigm though. Being able to prove the existence of the dantian through the methods of science is no more valid than being unable to prove the existence of gravity through qi. 

 

Also, science and it's methods is an evolving paradigm. Scientists are increasingly coming to terms with the limitation of observation when it comes to quantum behaviour. To dismiss something as unscientific within our current frame puts a limit on the possibility that scientific theory will evolve to understand what has hitherto been unknowable. Put another way, instead of being a relic of the past, qigong could be future science. 

do u think science will find a dan tian below the navel in the next say 10 years? or the kidney meridian?

[SirPalomides]

It’s pretty crazy that the modern (should we call it Baconian?) scientific methodology is now simply called “Science” and all the old sciences suddenly became “pseudoscience” including the disciplines (alchemy, astrology, etc) from which modern science emerged. 

1 hour ago, Toni said:

do u think science will find a dan tian below the navel in the next say 10 years? or the kidney meridian?

Science AKA natural philosophy already found these things long ago. Will what is reductively called “science” today find it? Maybe not. We arrange our lives around a great many important things that will never be measured or observed in a lab.

[thelerner]

For me its a question of what can I get out of this 'map'/paradigm? 

 

I don't know if science has found the dan tien, but after years, decades really, I've found mine.  There's times I breath deep and hit it, and times I don't.  Your scientist may not necessarily be a very healthy person, but odds are your Taoist practitioner is. 

 

The good thing is we can reap the benefits of both. 

[Earl Grey]

3 hours ago, Toni said:

After around two years involved in qigong and other asian systems of training, now I think that many people on this forum should think about being involved in a conceptual and theorical system which is many years old. Concepts like dantians, meridians or qi should be replaced by others which are not in so flagrant contradiction with modern science. It is not that I am scientificist or something, I really like the theoretical contributions of other paradigms, which can be as valid as those of modern science.

 

But the fact is that a concept like dan tian is not empirically observable by a majority of people. This means we need to believe what some "master" or "guru" say. And why should we believe them? I have had many masters and some now I know they were quite ignorant. Maybe I haven't been lucky finding the right ones. But even so, if we want to focus on empiricism, direct experience of things, and logical thinking, then we shouldn't talk about dan tians, meridians or qi. We can use, instead, concepts like blood circulation, nymph, solar plexus, human anatomy, etc.

 

This change of paradigm would not mean that qigong or taichi are not valid practices. A practice is always more important than the theory behind it. And if the practice is good then to admit that the theory behind it is not valid doesn't mean that the practice is less good. In conclusion, I think it is important to change paradigm and start using a more scientific terminology. That way we could improve our practices, our knowledge and we wouldn't take the risk of talking endlessly about things which have never existed just because some masters who are eager to sell themselves say it.

 

In short, you want information on the LDT and qi, which was traditionally secretive and now public knowledge from the unqualified, from scammers, and from self-proclaimed "masters", to prove themselves. 

 

They certainly didn't care if you believed them or not in the old days, and those who actually know what they're talking about, have the skill, and can transfer that knowledge and skill to others, will treat you like people whom you're starting to sound like: WMPs who demand evidence and refuse to do the work themselves. 

 

Toni, get over yourself. At this point, your attitude, entitlement, and lack of humility that you are publicly showing now are 100% going to make sure you never meet a master who can give you what you want. Change your inner dialogue and fix what's going on in your head, and you just may open up those channels for possibly getting what you want, because in the same bizarre and twisted self-rationalization "skeptics" make, they just want someone to prove this all works for them so that they can avoid doing the inner work and more importantly, avoid doing any work whatsoever. 

 

tl;dr: nobody owes you shit to explain what was never public knowledge to begin with, and you're too lazy and disappointed that you don't have miracles after you've made almost no effort whatsoever ("I just did it one month or one month and a half, while i did fragrant, which is much better, for 7 months.").

[forestofclarity]

Dan tians, channels, etc. are experiential. You can experience them with enough practice. In that regard, they are quite important. Whether they are measurable in a scientific way is not relevant. It is like saying, "Let's not talk about love. Let's call it, oxytocin filling the brain." Or you may say, "I've dated for two years, and I haven't fallen in love. Love doesn't even exist."

 

If you take a microscope and you train it on the brain of a person in love, you may find many bumps and ridges, neurotransmitters and electric signals, etc. but you won't find that sweet, peaceful sense of love that fills the mind and body like nectar. All you find, at best, are correlation with love. The brain does this when we're in love. But finding measurements that correlate to love tells you absolutely nothing. You can run brain scans, but all those spikes and ridges will not tell you what love feels like. The only way to find out about it is to fall in love. Everything else is just conjecture and inference. 

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by forestofemptiness

[freeform]

12 hours ago, Toni said:

But the fact is that a concept like dan tian is not empirically observable by a majority of people. This means we need to believe what some "master" or "guru" say.

 

I think you're giving scepticism a bad name.

 

What you're doing is exactly what you say you're against.

 

You're just taking what a bigger, louder, more accepted guru is telling you - and ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

 

The strength of Daoism is that it's incredibly empirical. Every permanent change in consciousness has a direct physiological change in the person.

 

The dantien eventually becomes a physical thing - a genuine teacher would let you feel their belly and you'd feel a physical, spherical object moving, shaking, twisting under the skin. 12 jurors would agree it's there. Because it is.

 

The thing is, as @Earl Grey says - no master wants to prove anything to you. They just want to get on with their work. They really don't care one way or another whether you 'believe' this stuff or not. Just as if you demanded a quantum physicist to prove the existence of quarks to you.

 

No one owes you a thing. You're not in a position to suggest a quantum physicist should start using musical theory to explain their work in the same way as you're not in a position to ask a master that has dedicated their entire life to their art to start using 'scientific' terms to explain theirs because it fits with your preferences.

 

If after dabbling in this stuff for a little while, you decide it's not for you - then that's great - you've just discovered that this stuff is not for you - a marvellous opportunity to do something else!

 

But just because you've read a popular science article on quantum physics doesn't mean you have the required understanding to judge whether quantum physics is 'real'.

 

Same with these arts.

 

Just save yourself the hassle and move on to something more productive!

[waterdrop]

19 minutes ago, freeform said:

The strength of Daoism is that it's incredibly empirical. Every permanent change in consciousness has a direct physiological change in the person.

what is the first change you can obesreve ?  

would love to find some difference in me to know for sure im not in point 0  of practice 

[freeform]

6 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

Dan tians, channels, etc. are experiential. You can experience them with enough practice.

 

But here's the thing - they're not just experiential!

 

They are physical too. Not everything is physical - but the lower dantien for example - even the majority of the channels - they all have a physical existence.

 

In most practitioners, the physical existence of these things is quite subtle. But in masters who have dedicated their life to full-time training and trained for hundreds of thousands of hours - these are obvious and can be felt by anyone. As in you could feel the Du channel in a person physically by palpating their spine - and you'd see that a master's back clearly looks very different to a normal back.

 

Similarly, if you decided to cut open that poor master, you'd discover major physiological differences - particularly in the shape, quality and density of their fascia.

 

But this wouldn't happen... there are not many masters at this level... the ones that are - would not be interested in donating themselves for the sake of curiosity - just as Elon Musk is not going to let you examine his brain. And on the other hand - no credible scientist would even want to do anything of the sort - and no funding body would be interested in funding the millions it would take to do this.

 

Science has limitations - major ones. That's why it can't be used as your only barometer for truth.

 

For example - only a couple of years ago they discovered a pretty major structure in the body that they never knew about (the interstitium).

 

I have no doubt that with real funding and focus, 'science' would begin to validate the physical reality of at least some aspects of the internal arts - just as it's starting to with meditation. But there's no impetus to do this sort of work. And we're probably better off for it - otherwise, we'd get the horrendous, watered-down '15-minute workplace mindfulness' type crap that will begin to take over and slowly squeeze the life out of the genuine arts.

 

We're far better off doing our stuff in private

 

[freeform]

Just now, waterdrop said:

what is the first change you can obesreve ?  

would love to find some difference in me to know for sure im not in point 0  of practice 

 

zifagong is often the first evidence of something outside of the ordinary going on... although it can (and should) be contested by the sceptic in you.

 

Where you're at - probably once you start to connect your hands to your insides, and notice how you can shift tissues inside your torso that you've never been able to before. That will take a few months of practice probably.

 

The most obvious is when you start to build qi and your channels start to fully open - then you'll see a pretty noticeable change in your physical body... but that's usually around 5 years into dedicated practice.

[senseless virtue]

13 hours ago, Toni said:

After around two years involved in qigong and other asian systems of training, now I think that many people on this forum should think about being involved in a conceptual and theorical system which is many years old. Concepts like dantians, meridians or qi should be replaced by others which are not in so flagrant contradiction with modern science. It is not that I am scientificist or something, I really like the theoretical contributions of other paradigms, which can be as valid as those of modern science.

 

This following info came from a https://taichi18.com/ newsletter (I have made few edits):

 

Properties of Qi

 

One of the very first scientific experiments that investigated the properties of qi was conducted in 1977 in Shanghai, China. An instrument was placed 1 meter away from Professor Lin Hou-Sheng in an attempt to measure the amount of infrared radiation emitted from his qi. In just a few minutes, the equipment was able to detect some infrared radiation coming out from Professor Lin’s palms. The intensity of the radiation gradually increased as he continued to release his qi. That experiment revealed the first property of qi – a low frequency infrared wave.

 

In the past few years, a lot of research has been performed to measure qi in terms of infrasonic waves. Infrasonic waves are sound waves that have a frequency below 20 Hertz (Hz). The vibrations of these waves are too slow to be heard by the human ear. Every living person emits these waves from the palms of their hands. The average person emits waves ranging from 8 to 12.5 Hz at an intensity of 40 to 50 decibels (dB)

 

The intensity of infrasonic waves emitted from the palms of qi gong practitioners and non-qigong practitioners was compared in one research study. 29 Americans, with no prior qigong training, were chosen for the study. The average intensity of the group was 47dB. Qi gong techniques were then taught and prescribed to the group. After one week of learning and practicing, the average intensity of the group rose to 54dB. This is an increase of 7 decibels.

 

This may not seem like a lot but remember the difference in decibels between the two is defined to be 10 log (P2/P1) dB where the log is to base 10. In other words, the energy emitted by group members was five times that of their energy emission before their initial training. The Qigong master teaching the techniques to this group had generated waves of 78db, which was 1000 times greater than the average person.

 

Qi emission involves more than just infrasonic waves and infrared radiation. Other scientific experiments have revealed the magnetic and penetrating powers of qi. In fact, qi is so powerful that it can penetrate through concrete walls. As technology advances, I am sure we will be able to discover more properties of qi.

 

Meridians - Channels of Qi

 

What about the meridians, the channels of qi, are they real? In 1972, Professor Zhu Zong-Xiang led the acupuncture meridian research team of the Institute of Biophysics under the Chinese Academy of Science to prove the existence of the meridians. In the 1980s, the researchers successfully showed the 14 meridians in human body through two biophysical experiments, which are surprisingly identical to that recorded in the ancient classical meridian graph.

 

The first experiment uses a small pointy mallet to knock on the body and the sound it generated is measured through a device similar to the stethoscope. When the mallet knocks on any points along the meridians, the sound it generated is louder and has a higher tone than when it knocks on any other points of the body. It sounds like it is hitting a hollow tube whenever it knocks on the meridians. More than tens of thousands of individuals had participated in this experiment and all have the same result.

 

The second experiment proved that our meridians have lower electrical resistance than any other parts of our body. Again, more than tens of thousands had participated in this experiment and all have the same result.

 

Below is a short video clip of the two experiments mentioned above:

 

[Toni]

Some of you are focusing only in the negative side of what I said, just because my personal opinion differs from your delusions.

 

But let's do something positive. Why don't we try to give a scientific explanation of why qigong works, based on modern scientific knowledge?. That way it is not even necessary to depart from the classical view, as both paradigms can be used.

 

I really think it is possible to explain qigong with modern science. It would be a very interesting and helpful task, which could help many practitioners to advance.

[Earl Grey]

3 minutes ago, Toni said:

Some of you are focusing only in the negative side of what I said, just because my personal opinion differs from your delusions.

 

We're focused on the negative because that's exactly how you communicated it. It was a loaded and critical post that came with a conclusion already that it was bogus and based off of believing dogma.

 

But that's not how it works; you have just never met an actual master or trained with someone. So you complain about it claiming to be skeptical but sound more like a whiny and entitled kid who is angry he can't get a response form Santa Claus after all the letters he has mailed to the North Pole.

 

5 minutes ago, Toni said:

But let's do something positive.

 

Why don't you start saying something positive instead of being such a whiner as you have been over the past few weeks with every post you've made from calling covid19 a hoax to your view of the LDT development and your disappointment with Flying Phoenix? 

 

6 minutes ago, Toni said:

Why don't we try to give a scientific explanation of why qigong works, based on modern scientific knowledge?.

 

Uh, we already have, as @virtue posted above and there are plenty of other threads with research and proof. 

 

7 minutes ago, Toni said:

That way it is not even necessary to depart from the classical view, as both paradigms can be used.

 

However, you're rejecting the old paradigm when not long ago you were accepting it, and now you're asking for a new paradigm to justify things to you because you are unhappy with what your eyes showed you (like a frog in a well who thinks it sees the whole sky) to your sensations (like a kid who squeezes a loaf of bread and imagines that this is what a woman's bosom feels like). You won't be pleased even with science.

 

9 minutes ago, Toni said:

I really think it is possible to explain qigong with modern science. It would be a very interesting and helpful task, which could help many practitioners to advance.

 

Already. Been. Done. 

 

You just aren't listening. 

[Toni]

Any thread in which this is done? I am very interested in reading scientific explanations of qigong

 

And it is probably true i have never trained with a real master, as it is difficult in spain. Maybe that is a reason sometimes i feel disappointed with some trainers i have had, bc the money they charged me was quite real haha

Edited May 12, 2020 by Toni

[Earl Grey]

6 minutes ago, Toni said:

Any thread in which this is done?

Use the search function.

[freeform]

2 hours ago, Toni said:

Some of you are focusing only in the negative side of what I said, just because my personal opinion differs from your delusions.

 

But let's do something positive. Why don't we try to give a scientific explanation of why qigong works, based on modern scientific knowledge?. That way it is not even necessary to depart from the classical view, as both paradigms can be used.

 

I really think it is possible to explain qigong with modern science. It would be a very interesting and helpful task, which could help many practitioners to advance.

 

I would like you to ask this question again.

 

But in the form of interpretive dance.

 

Because I prefer interpretive dance to English.

 

If you can't - then I'm afraid your question (and English) is bogus - because it does not conform to my preference of how I like things to be communicated.

[freeform]

2 hours ago, Toni said:

I am very interested in reading scientific explanations of qigong

 

I think you're being rude.

 

@virtue just used his precious time and effort to help with your request - right in this thread. Right above your post.

 

You ignored it. And you ignored everything else everyone has said - and just carried on with your demands.

 

This, in my book, is rude behaviour.

[Earl Grey]

3 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

I think you're being rude.

 

@virtue just used his precious time and effort to help with your request - right in this thread. Right above your post.

 

You ignored it. And you ignored everything else everyone has said - and just carried on with your demands.

 

This, in my book, is rude behaviour.

 

Rude and clueless. 

[SirPalomides]

Such skepticism! Yet willing to reach very sweeping conclusions about women from some dating app reports.

[Toni]

deleted content

Edited May 12, 2020 by Toni

[Toni]

the possibility that chi is a total delusion is too much for some of you to even consider, you prefer to be deluded

Edited May 12, 2020 by Toni

[Earl Grey]

22 minutes ago, Toni said:

the possibility that chi is a total delusion is too much for some of you to even consider, you prefer to be deluded

Even WMPs believe in qi. And they consider themselves rational skeptics too...you’re in good company, Toni.

[SirPalomides]

We are not worthy of your enlightenment. You must withdraw your blessing, shake the dust from your feet, and move on.

[Toni]

belief... always belief, never proofs