thanks and sorry to press. on topic, do you believe chi-based disciplines either lengthen or improve quality/quantity of lives, that is to say over and above non-chi based exercise, resonable diet and a disimilar spiritual fulfillment?

if no one can claim any imperical advantage, then it becomes a matter of preference, does it not? and therefore personal claims are just that: personal and incomparable.

The underlying theme of threads like this are the believers and followers of a chi-based disciplines attempting to speak from a position of superior method, telling others how much they don't understand and miss out. while it may be true that they/we don't have an immersive understanding of Chinese-based folk beliefs (and there are a great many Chinese who feel you must be Chinese to understand Chi), it is very much arguable that a life of exercise, good diet, emotional intellectual and spiritual fullfillment while having access to western medical care and reasonably violent-free environments - gives every bit as much a shot at a full happy and long life, than what one particular way you believe in offers in claim.

If it comes down to preference, and you currently know no other way than the way you have decided to follow, then why push it as something that is being missed out on? couldn't everyone take that same position with their own path of choice?

The answer is, absolutely yes. I believe pushing a point of view comes from a sense of insecurity - it's a type of 'recruitment' that speaks to the need for people to have others that think the way they do for a type of reassurance. ie. the more people that believe the same thing, the more 'real' the belief becomes. I'm certainly not immune to that as well, nor do I exclude myself from that observation.

something for all of us to be aware of. and something I often forget.

To argue beliefs and choices in path is not the point of threads like this. The arguement here is about what is real and what is not - independant of belief. People's beliefs are real, but do those beliefs kill cancer cells? is the question.

If the answer is no, then it does not negate or minimize that person's beleifs in ki/chi...it simply and unemotionally addressing the question by imperical observation. not to seek the belief is invalid, but to either show or not show the apparent validity of the claim of that belief - while having the common sense to take built-in biases into account as well.

can't Spell China without Chi

Yep Ed, your right. Can we move on now???

that depeneds, do we have anything left to say or discuss on chi effects on cancer

You should never mess around with a person's belief system.
I don't propose to be the authority on martial arts or anything else here. I'm talking about my experience with martial arts and meditation and Tai Chi. You are right when
you say people with a background in internal styles like to
Lord that over other people. I played the same game with some of my friends.
That is why I shifted my reference point to movement instead
of style.
"People's beliefs are real, but do those beliefs kill cancer cells? is the question."
Everyone that gets cancer, doesn't necessarily die
from cancer. Some people recover, some quite well.
How do they recover, why do they recover. You would have
to ask people that had cancer and recovered from it to get
those answers.
You say people's beliefs are real. That is a really vague
sort of statement. The word real means a lot of different
things to a lot of different people.
I have seen plenty of examples in my life where people
told me my understanding wasn't relevant.
Doesn't mean they are right, doesn't mean they are wrong.
Means they have no need to deal with my understanding.
There are 6 billion people on this planet that don't care
what I think.
If there was a simple and easy answer to your question
someone would have come up with that by now.
I personally believe from my own experience that
chi can cure any ailment and assist with any problem.
Problem is you can't just snap your fingers and
summon up some extra chi for the occasion without
some serious effort somewhere along the road.
Everything you do in your adult life has some element of
choice in there. You live by the choices that you make.
Chi and how that functions is not something that is
easily figured out, is my standpoint. Do you have to
learn internal arts to get somewhere?
There are people I have met that don't know any
martial arts and they manage to get along in the world.
I've seen people with no martial arts training
affect other peoples lives very dramatically, good and bad.
You have to go through the external to get to the internal.
So internal martial styles should encourage people
that there is something beyond the physical if they
ever come to a roadblock because of age or ill health.
The art of martial art says that: "The mind moves the chi
and the chi moves the body:" If you don't believe in
that statement, realize this; The people that came up
with that information are considered to be the source
of modern martial arts.
If the source of martial arts is of no value then you
should consider the possibility that you have
never done or attempted to do any martial arts.
And as far as cancer cells go, you can't kill something
that is already dead.
The mind moves the chi and the chi moves the body.
Mind, chi, body.

ah, but you are taking a position of superiority, even if subconsciously.

"The mind moves the chi
and the chi moves the body:"

instead of 'chi' in your sentance, many use the word 'intent'...some use the word 'spirit' or 'soul', etc by utilizing your point in your terms (actually, not your terms, terms from ancient China that have evolved, molded and adapted in meaning since their first use), you are inadvertantly dismissing from your definition all of those who study martial arts in non-chi terms.
you have become so attached to the terminology and ideology of it's framework, that it is unfathomable for you to recognize a viable alternative.

my view is, if you can't demonstrate, illustrate or argue a position outside of personal belief that imperically makes your case of one training framework over another, then there really isn't anything to discuss.

for instance, is there any physical feat that someone having trained in a chi-based discipline is able to do which a non-chi trained person is unable to do?

do an overwhelming majority of chi-disciplined people outlive others or somehow have a better quality of life?

do chi-displined people transcend to a higher consciousness than other spiritual paths?

can chi-disciplines heal the body with a better effectiveness than modern western medicine?


etc...these are the imperical questions. some more difficult than others to 'prove' - the easiest being the medical claims...which are time and time again shown to be within the limits of what is known as placebo. This places it firmly in the realm of faith healing. I've seen people say acupuncture makes them feel better - and I've seen honest people stand up from wheelchairs at church. The mind and intent can do great things, especially clearing the "cant do" psychological blockages we all have. science can't explain the mechanisms of placebo any more than explaining people's belief systems, they can only observe it's success rate and compare it to conventional treatment.

when side by side, what it shows is placebo is placebo. placebo from believing chi can heal you has no better or worse success rate than people who believe in prayer to their god.

you are way too talented for me to deal with

well, sorry you feel that way.

hey Bonjopi, after reading all that, I forgot the begining and where It was going.
Can I have the short version? or thematic statement

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=13453&ch=biztech

http://www.helium.com/tm/660939/years-magazine-reported-million

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/11/16/cnna.sara.lazar/

http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-2191.html

"The research into meditation has also turned up some interesting physical results. Areas of the brain which deal with attention and processing sensory input have been found to actually thicken. Sara Lazar, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School noted, "These increases are proportional to the time a person has been meditating during their lives". She went on to report, "This suggests that the thickness differences are acquired through extensive [meditation] practice and not simply due to differences between meditators and non-meditators."