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la_belle_laideSo, I am drafting an email to a professor who I really think can help me with this crisis of faith vs. science that I am having. Because science is winning, and while I think it should win and needs to win, I also can't deny the relation that all science has with Tao, which is amazing and fantastic. (Tangentially, I take nothing on faith to begin with. Nothing. I know some people think that's not too good of a trait, but it's how I'm built. My belief comes from logic, even if that logic seems twisted to some people.)
I think that my biggest problem lies in the fact that, as genius as all the Chinese medical practitioners and scientists of the natural world have been for thousands of years, there is a new science now that Traditional Chinese Medicine does not seem to acknowledge. And even though so much of what they are saying and doing is similar to modern medicine and science in a lot of ways, only with different terminology, there is a definite east-west split and apparently, never the twain shall meet.
I need it to meet. Acknowledging only TCM is like acknowledging only Newtonian physics. Yes, it worked. Yes, it was incredible and genius and created its own revolution and its own paradigm. But now there is quantum, and it's just as real, and the two need to acknowledge each other, because both are right. And they do not work independently of each other. The universe is holistic, right? So then what's the problem?
First I want to point out how amazing these scientists and doctors were by pointing up things that sound, to me, like really early although not exactly primitive versions of what we know today to be true. This stuff sounded like magic back then, elemental magic. Hell, quantum sounds like magic to me. What starts out sounding like fiction or fantasy often ends up being provably true.
From a total beginner in TCM, from someone who has barely touched the tip of the iceberg that is Tao philosophy, and from a total lay person in the sciences of chemistry and quantum, these are my observations.
The first thing: the first step in the Descent Of Being (which is basically the beginning of the universe,) is what the Tao calls the Wu Ji. Its symbol is a circle. Now, those of you who know some science, check this out, okay, and see if this Reminds You Of Anything. The Wu Ji is an infinite circle of everything. There were no polarities, no directions, nothing to quantify or qualify it (those are my words; I'm sorry if they sound clumsy or stupid.) It was "limitless," in the words of the professor who taught this to me. It was without polarity and, one must assume, without time or dimension. My first thought was "infinite density."
Then came the tai ji, that's the symbol we all know and love and refer to as the "yin-yang." In fact, this is when the Wu Ji steps outside of itself and becomes two polarities, and so Yin and Yang are created. It observes itself. This is "qualified totality." Light and dark; positive and negative; male and female, etc. (If this is beginning to sound a bit like regular old physics and logic to you, then I'm right there with you. In nature there exists polarity of everything. If one particle is spinning one way, then its partner, no matter how far across the damn universe, "knows" to spin the opposite. Provable quantum.)
Following the Tai Ji (although I don't know of any time determination,) comes the Wu Xing, which is the five elements. These are more like symbols, because while the "five elements" are Wood, Water, Fire, Earth and Metal, they are more indicative of processes than actual elements--they are not "elements" as you know on the periodic table or anything. But to me, this sounds like the beginning of an ordered universe. Processes happen, things expand. They are Qualitative measures of energy. That phrase hit me like a brick to the small of my back. Not quantities of energy, which is the basis of quantum physics, but something similar enough to make one wonder: how could these people have even known from atoms molecules or even cells? Anyway they saw that there were qualities to energy, and they gave them these metaphors in the "Five Elements" or the "Five Transformations." (These, along with Yin and Yang, are the basis for all Chinese medicine. You diagnose and treat through the Qi manifestations of Yin, Yang, and the Five Transformations. And therein lies the beginning of my problem: There is nothing outside of those boundaries. But I'll come to that later. Back to my fascination with and admiration of this.)
Following the Wu Xing is the Bagua sixty four hexigrams. These are all the combinations of Yin and Yang, represented by solid lines and broken lines. If you've ever played I Ching, you know exactly what this is. But it's represented in an Octagon, half-hexigrams on each side, eight on this "shell" of the octagon; Yin or Yang, but a perfect balance. (Wait for it.)
And following the Bagua is the Ten thousand things, which is not literally ten thousand, but The Myriad Things. This is everything we know of today.
So from one point of infinite, (I assume,) density with no polarity or time, moving to a split into two polarities, expanding into processes with order and natural laws to it, to combinations thereof, to everything we understand in the world including all of the natural laws, that seems to me to be a long way of saying "The Big Bang."
I could be waaaay off.
Now hang on, because there's more.
It follows that these scientists--for that is what they were; this was the first medicine to look at the natural world and say "things in the world are what cause pathology, not evil spirits"--will equate everything they observe with everything else. We all do that. We learn by observation and we apply those observations. What is amazing is how much they observed and how much they freaking just knew. Okay, for example, everything is either Yin or Yang. But since Yin and Yang are always transforming, they are interdependent etc., there is the seed of Yin in every Yang and the seed of Yang in every Yin. So no matter what you look at: an organism, a tissue, an element (in their sense of the word,) a process, anything, whether you classify it as either Yin or Yang, once you break it down, you find it has elements of Yin and Yang. Then when you look at those smaller pieces, you find that they, in turn, are both Yin and Yang. Breaking those pieces down, Yin and Yang etc. Eventually you come to what the ancient Chinese didn't have words for, but which we might know as quarks, even down to light and dark matter, Yang and Yin.
And it is when Yin and Yang are out of balance that pathogens are able to enter the system.
Positively charged protons, negatively charged electrons, Yang and Yin. Number of electrons = number of protons in a stable atom, balance. Eight electrons around the valence shell of an atom (not all, but those whose energy level only goes to the third shell, which is what you tend to find in living organisms,) the Octet rule. When an atom loses or gains an electron and becomes an ion, it "wants" to become stable again; this is, at least for me, a simplified way of thinking of how free radicals and antioxidants work. If the atom is out of balance, (a positive or negative charge when it should be neutral,) a free radical with a negative or positive charge comes along and snatches it up. Yin and Yang out of balance allowing a pathogen in.
Taking it one step further, there is idea of Qi. This was just their word for energy, but the energy of everything. You couldn't see it, not as such, but you could see its effects on the natural world and through the bodies of organisms. If Qi sounds so far fetched, one has to wonder how atoms themselves seem. No one has ever seen one, yet we know of their effects. Energy is a proven thing, it is real; it exists. Between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons, if you were to increase the scale to where you see it, the space between them would span towns, or maybe it's cities; I forget the exact scale reference. Let's just say, effing huge. And they are held together by, what? Positive and negative energy, right? Qi is energy guided by Yin and Yang. It is in all mass, and it obviously moves.
I'm tempted to think that Qi=MC2.
That is all utterly amazing.
So, what's the problem?
"Amid myriad changing techniques, the principle remains the same." Tao and T'ai Chi Kung By Robert C. Sohn
The principle remains the same and I'm totally cool with that. I so much prefer the holistic approach to health and to the entire world, because that is what's logical to me.
But the techniques have changed and I think that needs to be at least acknowledged. Because for as much as this whole Tao thing and its relation to the actual world and scientific reality is significant to me, the truth is that western medicine and its affects--both good and bad--are also irrefutable. Western medicine might not be harmless, but the knowledge itself exists and could be put to such better use.
If the principle remains the same, and the techniques have changed, well, I think we need to take into consideration the changing techniques, as well as the changing terminology. I am cool with metaphor, as I have mentioned many times. I was a literature major. Metaphor and I are old bed-fellows. We still get together a few times a week to make out. But if there is another way to look at it, a scientific way to understand it, I want to understand that aspect of it, too. Why not both?
If an herb works because it disperses heat and tonifies Yin for example, that's fine and I agree with it, but what is the physiological reason for that change?
The two should not be mutually exclusive. TCM and modern medicine / science--though one is holistic and the other not so much--are saying so much of the same stuff. TCM could be leaping and bounding past western medicine if only the two could intersect. Or even acknowledge one another.
You can't deny the fact that acupuncture and herbs work; for one thing, people swear by them. (I realize that many people think that acupuncture works only on the placebo effect, but please consider that a lot of the time so does western medicine. You can give someone a blue sugar pill for their aches and pains.) The effect of herbs is easier to qualify and perhaps quantify because we have an understanding of biochemistry and how molecules in different foods and herbs affect molecules in animal bodies etc. To say that ginseng has an effect on the mind is no different than saying that caffeine does, or morphine, or seratonin. And as far as acupuncture goes, that is a bit more vague to me, and I suspect to most people, because western science hasn't really studied it or even looked sideways at it other than to handwave it. We just don't know, in western terms, why it works. Maybe it's got something to do with neurological response, or with the body's natural defense the release of white blood cells or something. (Note: TCM addresses the body's natural defense, too, in Wei Qi. I mean they were on it, people.) TCM has its own reasons why it works: It balances the Qi. If you have too much heart fire, or an excess of Yin, or rising liver fire etc. then acupuncture either tonifies (builds up deficiencies) or gets rid of excess.
My biggest "BUT!!" is this: I need to reconcile the two. At some point, these have to intersect. And so far as I have seen in the two weeks I've been here, TCM handwaves western, scientific reasons just as much as western does to TCM. Why? TCM practitioners were pioneers; they were pro progress. Why aren't they using what science now knows to explain, in scientific, physiological terms, why it works? And yet, so far, everyone has told me to "stop thinking like that" and basically to not be so western about it.
In other words, I can't be all Mulder. I need to be some Scully as well.
I'm so torn, because I don't want to get a scientific degree in something that I can't reconcile as science. I am totally cool with Tao and TCM, but if it refuses to acknowledge science, that can it really call itself that? And even though I do acknowledge the absolutely amazing observations that TCM was capable of, it still seems "stuck" and not moving forward. Why can't the two intersect? I love metaphor and I really love this philosophy because the philosophy is based on what is observable and, amazingly enough, what was unobservable but has been proven true. It is amazingly real and effective. Just, why? In hard science, why?
I guess the real question is that, when I get this Master's degree, will it be in Science or in Philosophy?
*Sigh*
In non-school/science news, Kung Fu tonight was fantastic, with lots of kicks which I really love, and then a drill which was awesome, even though I got kicked in the chest but that was partially if not entirely my fault; I should have been watching better. On the other hand I did get up at 6:30 this morning and I felt like I was halfway asleep; I don't even know WTF I'm writing right now. Mornings are torture to me. Seriously if I was ever captured and someone wanted to really torment me, making me get up and do stuff that early in the morning would be very effective; I could be talked into many evil and unnatural things if tempted with sleeping past 6:30. I sort of just want to cry when my alarm clock goes off that damn early and it's all dark and STUPID cold like it was this morning, when it was seven whole degrees, people. Well anyway, so Kung Fu was great, and then in blackbelt we did another cool drill which I liked and I was working with the Lady Chrysanthemum which is always fun, and then I was so damn tired and so the Gold Dragon drove the Empress Teishi home tonight with a very sweet, "You're tired from school; I'll take her home," when I could only guess that he was tired from school too; so that was very kind and gracious of him; but he is often gracious so that's no surprise. Not that I mind driving the Empress home because she's good company and we talk about all manner of things.
OMG, "I'm tired from school," a year ago I could not have imagined saying that. The best thing is that I'm doing something, and I'm feeling like I'm taking in all this fantastic history and knowledge. yesterday in chemistry it was getting a little hairy what-with sub-orbitals and whatnot and I was halfway confused and halfway totally glorifying in finally coming to know the world that I love and all its crazy ways; the world I should have been understanding since high school.
I just hope I will end up where I'm supposed to be. I'm thinking maybe of switching out to the massage program and then finishing up a Master's in something like nutrition at some other school; I think I mentioned that before. It would be cool, I could start making money sooner and then, in the meantime while I was still studying science, I could set up a table somewhere or other and help all of my friends and stuff. You know?
Gosh it seems so late and I am really tired. I need to eat a pomegranate!
(Of note: The title of this entry is the text on my fantastic and awesome new icon that I made myself and is probably my new favorite icon at the moment. Those lyrics come from one of my all-time favorite songs ever. I still have it on my iPod. ^_^ )
ETA: I'm really sorry that I'm repeating myself. These past few entries have all been attempts to say exactly what I want to say in an email to one of my professors. So I do realize that I've said the same exact things two or three times in a row and I'm sorry for that.
I think that my biggest problem lies in the fact that, as genius as all the Chinese medical practitioners and scientists of the natural world have been for thousands of years, there is a new science now that Traditional Chinese Medicine does not seem to acknowledge. And even though so much of what they are saying and doing is similar to modern medicine and science in a lot of ways, only with different terminology, there is a definite east-west split and apparently, never the twain shall meet.
I need it to meet. Acknowledging only TCM is like acknowledging only Newtonian physics. Yes, it worked. Yes, it was incredible and genius and created its own revolution and its own paradigm. But now there is quantum, and it's just as real, and the two need to acknowledge each other, because both are right. And they do not work independently of each other. The universe is holistic, right? So then what's the problem?
First I want to point out how amazing these scientists and doctors were by pointing up things that sound, to me, like really early although not exactly primitive versions of what we know today to be true. This stuff sounded like magic back then, elemental magic. Hell, quantum sounds like magic to me. What starts out sounding like fiction or fantasy often ends up being provably true.
From a total beginner in TCM, from someone who has barely touched the tip of the iceberg that is Tao philosophy, and from a total lay person in the sciences of chemistry and quantum, these are my observations.
The first thing: the first step in the Descent Of Being (which is basically the beginning of the universe,) is what the Tao calls the Wu Ji. Its symbol is a circle. Now, those of you who know some science, check this out, okay, and see if this Reminds You Of Anything. The Wu Ji is an infinite circle of everything. There were no polarities, no directions, nothing to quantify or qualify it (those are my words; I'm sorry if they sound clumsy or stupid.) It was "limitless," in the words of the professor who taught this to me. It was without polarity and, one must assume, without time or dimension. My first thought was "infinite density."
Then came the tai ji, that's the symbol we all know and love and refer to as the "yin-yang." In fact, this is when the Wu Ji steps outside of itself and becomes two polarities, and so Yin and Yang are created. It observes itself. This is "qualified totality." Light and dark; positive and negative; male and female, etc. (If this is beginning to sound a bit like regular old physics and logic to you, then I'm right there with you. In nature there exists polarity of everything. If one particle is spinning one way, then its partner, no matter how far across the damn universe, "knows" to spin the opposite. Provable quantum.)
Following the Tai Ji (although I don't know of any time determination,) comes the Wu Xing, which is the five elements. These are more like symbols, because while the "five elements" are Wood, Water, Fire, Earth and Metal, they are more indicative of processes than actual elements--they are not "elements" as you know on the periodic table or anything. But to me, this sounds like the beginning of an ordered universe. Processes happen, things expand. They are Qualitative measures of energy. That phrase hit me like a brick to the small of my back. Not quantities of energy, which is the basis of quantum physics, but something similar enough to make one wonder: how could these people have even known from atoms molecules or even cells? Anyway they saw that there were qualities to energy, and they gave them these metaphors in the "Five Elements" or the "Five Transformations." (These, along with Yin and Yang, are the basis for all Chinese medicine. You diagnose and treat through the Qi manifestations of Yin, Yang, and the Five Transformations. And therein lies the beginning of my problem: There is nothing outside of those boundaries. But I'll come to that later. Back to my fascination with and admiration of this.)
Following the Wu Xing is the Bagua sixty four hexigrams. These are all the combinations of Yin and Yang, represented by solid lines and broken lines. If you've ever played I Ching, you know exactly what this is. But it's represented in an Octagon, half-hexigrams on each side, eight on this "shell" of the octagon; Yin or Yang, but a perfect balance. (Wait for it.)
And following the Bagua is the Ten thousand things, which is not literally ten thousand, but The Myriad Things. This is everything we know of today.
So from one point of infinite, (I assume,) density with no polarity or time, moving to a split into two polarities, expanding into processes with order and natural laws to it, to combinations thereof, to everything we understand in the world including all of the natural laws, that seems to me to be a long way of saying "The Big Bang."
I could be waaaay off.
Now hang on, because there's more.
It follows that these scientists--for that is what they were; this was the first medicine to look at the natural world and say "things in the world are what cause pathology, not evil spirits"--will equate everything they observe with everything else. We all do that. We learn by observation and we apply those observations. What is amazing is how much they observed and how much they freaking just knew. Okay, for example, everything is either Yin or Yang. But since Yin and Yang are always transforming, they are interdependent etc., there is the seed of Yin in every Yang and the seed of Yang in every Yin. So no matter what you look at: an organism, a tissue, an element (in their sense of the word,) a process, anything, whether you classify it as either Yin or Yang, once you break it down, you find it has elements of Yin and Yang. Then when you look at those smaller pieces, you find that they, in turn, are both Yin and Yang. Breaking those pieces down, Yin and Yang etc. Eventually you come to what the ancient Chinese didn't have words for, but which we might know as quarks, even down to light and dark matter, Yang and Yin.
And it is when Yin and Yang are out of balance that pathogens are able to enter the system.
Positively charged protons, negatively charged electrons, Yang and Yin. Number of electrons = number of protons in a stable atom, balance. Eight electrons around the valence shell of an atom (not all, but those whose energy level only goes to the third shell, which is what you tend to find in living organisms,) the Octet rule. When an atom loses or gains an electron and becomes an ion, it "wants" to become stable again; this is, at least for me, a simplified way of thinking of how free radicals and antioxidants work. If the atom is out of balance, (a positive or negative charge when it should be neutral,) a free radical with a negative or positive charge comes along and snatches it up. Yin and Yang out of balance allowing a pathogen in.
Taking it one step further, there is idea of Qi. This was just their word for energy, but the energy of everything. You couldn't see it, not as such, but you could see its effects on the natural world and through the bodies of organisms. If Qi sounds so far fetched, one has to wonder how atoms themselves seem. No one has ever seen one, yet we know of their effects. Energy is a proven thing, it is real; it exists. Between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons, if you were to increase the scale to where you see it, the space between them would span towns, or maybe it's cities; I forget the exact scale reference. Let's just say, effing huge. And they are held together by, what? Positive and negative energy, right? Qi is energy guided by Yin and Yang. It is in all mass, and it obviously moves.
I'm tempted to think that Qi=MC2.
That is all utterly amazing.
So, what's the problem?
"Amid myriad changing techniques, the principle remains the same." Tao and T'ai Chi Kung By Robert C. Sohn
The principle remains the same and I'm totally cool with that. I so much prefer the holistic approach to health and to the entire world, because that is what's logical to me.
But the techniques have changed and I think that needs to be at least acknowledged. Because for as much as this whole Tao thing and its relation to the actual world and scientific reality is significant to me, the truth is that western medicine and its affects--both good and bad--are also irrefutable. Western medicine might not be harmless, but the knowledge itself exists and could be put to such better use.
If the principle remains the same, and the techniques have changed, well, I think we need to take into consideration the changing techniques, as well as the changing terminology. I am cool with metaphor, as I have mentioned many times. I was a literature major. Metaphor and I are old bed-fellows. We still get together a few times a week to make out. But if there is another way to look at it, a scientific way to understand it, I want to understand that aspect of it, too. Why not both?
If an herb works because it disperses heat and tonifies Yin for example, that's fine and I agree with it, but what is the physiological reason for that change?
The two should not be mutually exclusive. TCM and modern medicine / science--though one is holistic and the other not so much--are saying so much of the same stuff. TCM could be leaping and bounding past western medicine if only the two could intersect. Or even acknowledge one another.
You can't deny the fact that acupuncture and herbs work; for one thing, people swear by them. (I realize that many people think that acupuncture works only on the placebo effect, but please consider that a lot of the time so does western medicine. You can give someone a blue sugar pill for their aches and pains.) The effect of herbs is easier to qualify and perhaps quantify because we have an understanding of biochemistry and how molecules in different foods and herbs affect molecules in animal bodies etc. To say that ginseng has an effect on the mind is no different than saying that caffeine does, or morphine, or seratonin. And as far as acupuncture goes, that is a bit more vague to me, and I suspect to most people, because western science hasn't really studied it or even looked sideways at it other than to handwave it. We just don't know, in western terms, why it works. Maybe it's got something to do with neurological response, or with the body's natural defense the release of white blood cells or something. (Note: TCM addresses the body's natural defense, too, in Wei Qi. I mean they were on it, people.) TCM has its own reasons why it works: It balances the Qi. If you have too much heart fire, or an excess of Yin, or rising liver fire etc. then acupuncture either tonifies (builds up deficiencies) or gets rid of excess.
My biggest "BUT!!" is this: I need to reconcile the two. At some point, these have to intersect. And so far as I have seen in the two weeks I've been here, TCM handwaves western, scientific reasons just as much as western does to TCM. Why? TCM practitioners were pioneers; they were pro progress. Why aren't they using what science now knows to explain, in scientific, physiological terms, why it works? And yet, so far, everyone has told me to "stop thinking like that" and basically to not be so western about it.
In other words, I can't be all Mulder. I need to be some Scully as well.
I'm so torn, because I don't want to get a scientific degree in something that I can't reconcile as science. I am totally cool with Tao and TCM, but if it refuses to acknowledge science, that can it really call itself that? And even though I do acknowledge the absolutely amazing observations that TCM was capable of, it still seems "stuck" and not moving forward. Why can't the two intersect? I love metaphor and I really love this philosophy because the philosophy is based on what is observable and, amazingly enough, what was unobservable but has been proven true. It is amazingly real and effective. Just, why? In hard science, why?
I guess the real question is that, when I get this Master's degree, will it be in Science or in Philosophy?
*Sigh*
In non-school/science news, Kung Fu tonight was fantastic, with lots of kicks which I really love, and then a drill which was awesome, even though I got kicked in the chest but that was partially if not entirely my fault; I should have been watching better. On the other hand I did get up at 6:30 this morning and I felt like I was halfway asleep; I don't even know WTF I'm writing right now. Mornings are torture to me. Seriously if I was ever captured and someone wanted to really torment me, making me get up and do stuff that early in the morning would be very effective; I could be talked into many evil and unnatural things if tempted with sleeping past 6:30. I sort of just want to cry when my alarm clock goes off that damn early and it's all dark and STUPID cold like it was this morning, when it was seven whole degrees, people. Well anyway, so Kung Fu was great, and then in blackbelt we did another cool drill which I liked and I was working with the Lady Chrysanthemum which is always fun, and then I was so damn tired and so the Gold Dragon drove the Empress Teishi home tonight with a very sweet, "You're tired from school; I'll take her home," when I could only guess that he was tired from school too; so that was very kind and gracious of him; but he is often gracious so that's no surprise. Not that I mind driving the Empress home because she's good company and we talk about all manner of things.
OMG, "I'm tired from school," a year ago I could not have imagined saying that. The best thing is that I'm doing something, and I'm feeling like I'm taking in all this fantastic history and knowledge. yesterday in chemistry it was getting a little hairy what-with sub-orbitals and whatnot and I was halfway confused and halfway totally glorifying in finally coming to know the world that I love and all its crazy ways; the world I should have been understanding since high school.
I just hope I will end up where I'm supposed to be. I'm thinking maybe of switching out to the massage program and then finishing up a Master's in something like nutrition at some other school; I think I mentioned that before. It would be cool, I could start making money sooner and then, in the meantime while I was still studying science, I could set up a table somewhere or other and help all of my friends and stuff. You know?
Gosh it seems so late and I am really tired. I need to eat a pomegranate!
(Of note: The title of this entry is the text on my fantastic and awesome new icon that I made myself and is probably my new favorite icon at the moment. Those lyrics come from one of my all-time favorite songs ever. I still have it on my iPod. ^_^ )
ETA: I'm really sorry that I'm repeating myself. These past few entries have all been attempts to say exactly what I want to say in an email to one of my professors. So I do realize that I've said the same exact things two or three times in a row and I'm sorry for that.
