Boy, you young fellas sure like to type a lot.

"'chi', as it is used for healing practices, is now finding correlatives in Western medicine."

It is not because Chi does not exist and cannot be demonstrated.

"'chi' is just a term used to explain the why of how this stuff works."

It explains nothing. It is a vague, malleable, nonsense term and an incorrect explanation of physical effects for the same reason, that it does not exist. There are no such energy fields as chi proponents insist. If there were, they would have been identified like any other form of energy.

"If I took a random person off the street and sat them in a chair in a University lecture hall where a graduate level seminar in chemistry was occuring, I dare say they would find that fairly 'mysterious'."

The difference is that ultimately there is a scientific explanation for chemical processes, unlike chi, which is a fantasy concept.


"I await you scientific explanation as to what exactly occurs when the needles are poked into someones skin, and how the endorphins are acted upon by that."

Not being a doctor, I am not in a position to do this in detail. To ask me for this again misses the point-it has been identified again and again as a testable, physical reaction (unlike chi ever). In any event the doctors I have spoken to seem to have a logical and scientifically proveable basis for their understanding of the process of releasing endorphins, amongst many other things. Unlike chi which is unproved and unproveable, sorry to be boring but because it does not exist.

Because you believe in something which does not exist, I can only find that highly irrational and ridiculous. If I were to speculate as to why you believe in it, well a lot of people in MA are in awe of Eastern philosophy and culture and are looking for something different to their own experience. Maybe that is your situation, maybe not. maybe you would like to think that Aikido or tai Chi or whatever can give you special powers. Sorry but they cannot.

Whilst you are getting upset, you have failed in any way to offer the tiniest reason why anyone should believe that chi exists or why anyone would believe that kata heals.

"How very unscientific."

You believe in chi, something that ranks in credibility alongside the tooth fairy. Yet you insist it exists. What is that if not superstition? You offer no science to back up chi (how could you, it is nonsense!) and get upset when you are called on it.

"But Ames, Sham accupuncture has shown that subjects who undergo sham accupunture, i.e. where neddles were stuck in at so called non-meridian points showed the same response as those undergoing regular accupuncture. Surely this is damning evidence to those who belive the response is due to flow of ki in the meridians being linked to the benifits of accupunture.
Whats more, the effect has also been shown in cases where the subject only thought they'd had a needle put in them. Is this not massive evidence in support of placebo. Is this not evidence against the chi hypothesis?"

Creative, you will never convince a True Believer-Chi is real dammit!

"no one is quite sure as the HOW or WHY the endorphins are triggered."

So if we accept the above statement (I do not necessarily but let's say) clearly undetectable chi energy is the clear and logical explanation for endorphin release! Very woolly thinking based upon your desire for chi to be real and nothing else.

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You believe in chi, something that ranks in credibility alongside the tooth fairy. Yet you insist it exists.

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No I don't. This is the last time I will say this. SHOW ME ONE INSTANCE WHERE I SAID THIS or stop saying it.

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Very woolly thinking based upon your desire for chi to be real and nothing else.

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I have no desire for chi to exist. At the moment, all I desire is for your reading comprehension to go up, and you disingeniousness to stop.

Again, please show me ONE INSTANCE where I say chi exists. Good luck, because you won't find it. Instead of debating anything with even one bit of intelligence you have spent your last 5 posts insulting me, putting words in my mouth, and misrepresenting what I have said, for reasons I don't understand. You strawman me by stating that "chi is the most logical reason," when not only have I NOT said that, but have gone to great pains to express my not wanting what I am saying to be construed that way. And all this is a clever way of getting around that fact that you have not one shred of objective information to add to this topic beyond anecdote, and vague references to 'studies' that I'm sure you've never read first hand. So what is interesting to me especially about this is that you accuse me of being superstitious etc. yet it is YOU who has not provided one shred of anything like objective evidence to backup your argument. Meanwhile my point, that I have made time and again is that I prefer to be open minded about the potential for certain Eastern practices to help certain conditions, that is all I have been trying to say.

You have to audacity to say to another poster:

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Contrary to your claims, it is not "all about belief", it is about not making supernatural and metaphysical claims that you cannot be back up. And getting offended when someone calls you on it.

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Yet you have yet to back up a SINGLE ONE OF YOUR CLAIMS! You vaguely reference there being a perfectly rational explanation for everything, and that science has discovered the answer, yet you are unable to tell me BECAUSE YOU DON'T ACTUALLY know what the answer is! In this way, your abstracted, vague solution of 'endorphins' has been accepted by you without one bit of CRITICAL THINKING and is as shrouded in mystery as someone's calling it 'chi'.

That's it I'm done with stooping now, and done with replying to anymore of your stupid and tired bait.

Thanks for ruining an interesting topic with your irrational close mindedness. Irrational because you seemingly have no ability to actually argue a point with facts, instead you are attempting to defame me personally. As I said before, how very unscientific of a person who asks others to "prove it."

--Chris

Fine Ames, we agree then. Chi/ki is a fantasy that does not actually exist. If that is your position, then I take it all back and apologise for causing offence.

B.

Oldman,

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If you are willing to consider physical and psychotherapy as
"methods to promote healing" would you be able to consider the practice of kata as a "method to promote healing"?

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What has the practice of kata and healing got to do with this threa.......oh....

I've already said said that I think it can. I was disagreeing with neko in regards to how it may help. i.e. through exercise explainable through 'western methods' vs directing ki. Also I don't believe the more fantastic claims of healing.

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Fine Ames, we agree then. Chi/ki is a fantasy that does not actually exist.

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Chi is a fantasy for those who think it is a fantasy, something real for those who believe it's real, and a useful metaphor/abstraction for some who wish to make use of Eastern healing practices and certain martial traditions, but maintain some critical objectivity. Here is a nice quote that succintly explains the later view:

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"A few Chinese scientists we met maintained that although Qi is merely a metaphor, it is still a useful physiological abstraction (e.g., that the related concepts of Yin and Yang parallel modern scientific notions of endocrinologic and metabolic feedback mechanisms). They see this as a useful way to unite Eastern and Western medicine."

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So, like religion, people should choose what works best for them, but hopefully also critically think about what they are being told or reading.

Thanks for the apology.

--Chris

"Chi is a fantasy for those who think it is a fantasy, something real for those who believe it's real."

No, sorry, go back a good few posts and you will find me saying to Neko what I repeat to you. "Real" is an absolute, not a subjective concept. Do you understand the concepts of "real" and "unreal"? They are not malleable at your whim. You really seem unable to grasp this very simple piece of basic, logical thought. Chi is not real even if you or others think it is real.

B.