Hi guys I recommend you to read the following article on Qigong by Dr. Yan Xin. It is highly informative. Enjoy it. Please don't comment make comments on the background of the article. Limit your opinions to its content otherwise you'll be opening Pandora's Box again. http://twm.co.nz/DrYan_qi.htm Cheers.
I cited this for a research paper I did long ago on the mystery of qi, etc. and found that these results were not reproducible by any other researcher (which is a huge blow to their credibility). I don't know what happened to that paper, but when I find it I'll post the relevant section.
Lets see, no actually quantifiable results, no dates or details of the experiments carried out, the paper has not been subjected to peer review but simply published without the scrutiny of the scientific community first, and as said I very much doubt any other researcher has managed to replicate the results. Without any of that, its nothing more than science fiction.
I was waiting for you. I gave a warning in my first post: Please don't check the background of the article. O.K. Can I ask you something very simple?: Do you meditate?
Sorry gerard, LilBunnyRabbit has a point. You can't post a scientific article and ask people to ignore the fact that it may not be based on real research. A marketing piece dressed up as science should be scrutinized in the same way as any other piece of scientific research. It's not written as an opinion piece. The scientific language and "data" is given to lend the article credibility, so unless the science is also credible, it may give people a false idea of the facts. Won't it
Yep, any other questions? So what exactly do you want? People to just hum and haw and agree blindly with the article?
Not at all, and I've never claimed that they are. I think that internal martial arts are fantastic for developing good biomechanics, body awareness, and as a general health exercise. I just don't believe in a mystical force called chi.
HEATHEN! Raises another question: If you don't believe in chi, would it affect your progress in the internal martial arts? My answer is no. You might feel 'something', but that might just be a result of "developing good biomechanics, body awareness" or increased blood flow etc. You don't have to believe in chi for it to affect you, or for there to be an affect that some would say was chi and others would say was a result of improved circulation, relaxation, etc.
The problem only comes in when people try and use chi in some mystical sense, rather than to describe simple physical phenomenon. Channeling your chi into other people for example, as healing or whatever, is a type of chi that I have issues with, whereas saying that you've felt your chi during a pattern or something similar would agree with you, its the feeling of just doing everything right, increasing blood flow, or whatever.
I'm afraid I'm highly skeptical. How can he have done Qi research for 10 years and still only present preliminary results? None of the papers are in Internationally recognised journals. If proper scientific controls are in place then it should stand up to scrutiny. I think it is one thing to claim that Qi can affect water and other liquids - and would be a way of explaining effects on the human body. But he is trying to claim influence on fundamental physical forces like the weak-nuclear force (affecting the decay rate of radioactive material). He is citing Qi effects at ultra-long distances (1,900 km) - almost the width of Australia or the USA. If these effects are observable at such distances and at such fundamental levels then why are Qi effects so tenuous when observed in the "everyday" world?
Bunny, have you ever read the "The Dancing Wu Li Masters"? I totally agree with you concerning the "mystical" chi force. The problem for me is that I have felt some things that lead me to believe that there we don't yet have a complete picture of what is going on in and between our bodies. A great many things that we take for granted as true about the physical and energetic world have been shown to be wildly of base. This has been happening with science from its beginning. In your mind is there the possibility that what people are calling Chi is something that has yet to be labeled and quantified by science? Like I said, I totally agree with you concerning the "mystical" chi force, but I have thus far resisted the temptation to dismiss it. It may one day be proven to exist and no longer be “mystical” Stranger things have happened in the world of science, no? Snob
Until someone can actually demonstrate what I'd call the mystical form of chi in laboratory conditions, and have their results duplicated in other experiments by other people, and their paper subjected to peer review, I have a little difficulty accepting that the phenomena even exist. I have tried to experience chi, from practitioners, and have yet to feel anything or notice any actual effect. The day that this happens I will happily take back everything I've said about empty force, or any similar chi effect.
There is currently no evidence whatsoever that chi is anything other than an anecdotal phenomena, mystical chi that is. Or to put it another way, yes, there is room in my mind that chi might be something not yet explained by science, however as yet there is no evidence that it even exists. Once there's evidence that it exists I'll consider that it may not yet be explained by science. And sorry about that last post, someone keeps forgetting to log off their user account.
The problem is that people who don't believe what they can't measure ir see is because they are not ready yet. Maybe in your next human lifetime. Seriously, Qi-Prana-Pneuma exists. Period.
Seriously, the universe is actually run by a giant invisible purple duck. Period. The problem is that people who believe everything they're told, when they can't check it for themselves or at least have some sort of rational reason for believing it are gullible. The emperor's new clothes springs to mind.
Qigong and Science. When science has sorted out all the important stuff, then we can start buggering about trying to prove, quantify, measure, document chi/ki/prana etc. Until that time funding will go to important projects and research. Any project looking at this currently will be woefully underfunded (and rightly so), and as such is unlikely to be able to prove or disprove anything much. Until that time we will just have to settle for personal belief. Either you do or you don't. Period. Furthermore: "Seriously, the universe is actually run by a giant invisible purple duck. Period." How did you know? Only the illuminated brethren of the Sacred order of the Webbed Foot are privy to such information. Broadcasting this sort of information on an open forum such as this could lead to the downfall of civilisation as we know it! Consider yourself warned mister!
Bunny, Rat, I do understand where you are coming from. Personally I have just as difficult of a time believing in the existence of Chi as an unidentified "force" as I do dismissing it. I have had some experiences that point me in the direction of believing that there is "something" going on between people energetically that we have yet to fully explain or understand. I am assuming that the phenomena that I have experienced are not exclusive to me as I have had conversations with many people who have had similar experiences. What is a skeptic like myself supposed to do with an experience but no proof? Is it your opinion that I should pretend that it did not happen? Or that it was simply my imagination? I ask this in all honesty. Snob
