Knowledgeable people are also easy to con - in fact acknowledged experts and 'smart' people tend to be the easiest cons of all.
Dude you are like a walking encyclopedia! That reminds (little off topic) there was a Phd Psychologist that made a trip to Mexico and was conned out his money by a street con using some mental tricks. The psychologist was irritated that how can HE be duped by a street con? But curious why are acknowledged experts and 'smart' people the easiest to con?
Surprisingly simple really. Someone intelligent in one specialisation (let's say quantum physics) will usually overrate their ability in another area (say the stock market). Because of this they'll be more easily caught than someone who is not so used to thinking of themselves as intelligent, and so naturally takes more caution when something seems suspicious. There's also the difference between academics and practice. The psychologist you mentioned was probably a highly skilled researcher or theorist, or maybe even a medical professional. That's not the same thing as being mentally fortified against some of the more practical applications of psychology - most of which are pretty effective anyway.
Qi is just a term ancient Chinese came up with when they didn't have the scientific advancement and knowledge. The term is also used COLLOQUIALLY within China. Most Western people don't get this damn part of the picture. If I say your family has a lot of yang qi, it means your family has a lot of male children/descendants and it is a compliment. It has nothing to do with some stupid "energy." Anyway there is no magical power. "Internal" and "external" didn't exist 500 years ago. Some ******* decided to create those terms. 50 years ago Chinese Communist Party deemed stuff like Taijiquan and Baguazhang harmless so they also help spread the difference of "internal" and "external." If you told someone 500 years ago within Wulin (which meant they were probably some criminal or warlord) they had the "fake internal" they would probably just chop off your penus with a meat cleaver. Stupid terms are stupid. ALSO CHINESE IS MAJORITY PICTOPHONETIC AND NOT PICTOGRAPHIC LIKE MOST PEOPLE ASSUME. Get your facts straight first.
Imagine if one of us went back into time with a flashlight. People of that era would say we were a sorcerer, witch, God, whatever. Then after thinking, they could not explain what we had done and simply say we used Chi to create the light.
Ego - they are expert at one area so they MUST be expert in everything...right?right? This is an awesome example of mental street con [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4y5iX4uRY&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4y5iX4uRY&feature=related[/ame]
what i'd like to say is that there always seems to be a thread related to "chi - does it exist" on any & all tai chi forum - it's like it's compulsory, some unwritten law of the internet the compulsory thread generally has someone who is very newtonian-esque in their thinking (bear in mind that even einstein's relativistic model of the universe has been largely superceded, but the general population still lives in a newtonian world view (the inaccurate idea that objects that appear separate and unconnected actually are separate)) harping on with great authority that chi does not exist as you can't prove it the cutting edge of western science is now describing that we live in a field reality, that everything is intimately connected and interwoven chi is the chinese word for bio energy - called ki in japanese (kiai, the famous japanese karate shout translates as spirit focus or to bring spirit together) - prana in sanskrit, orgone in english in the mid nineties i became interested in and started practising energy healing one famous system of energy healing is called reiki - this translates as universal life force energy - it's hands on "spiritual" healing i worked for many years with many people, practising reiki with them - the method being to use myself as a channel for universal life force energy to flow into the other person, naturally going to areas it is needed (just as water flows downhill & round bends) through correlating my experiences & feedback from people i worked with i began to understand the universe and myself in a more holistic way i learned to bring my conscious awareness to part of myself that was previously subconscious i realised that we are entirely interconnected & composed entirely of energy if someone wishes to call this energy chi then ok - but i speak english so i use an english word - energy for me the whole argument is as daft as fish swimming about going "water, water, what's all this rubbish i've heard about water - i've never seen any of the stuff"
Mobile Dogwash I have been doing a lot more studying up on it and recently found what you have mentioned. Here's a couple quotes: Einstein: "There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality." Einstein: “The field is the sole governing agency of the particle” This is saying that matter is ultimately determined by the field. Today's medicine works based on Newton's primacy of matter and often we look at science as absolute proof but often new discoveries will refine or completely change what has come before and I'm just saying this in a general sense. Initially they thought the earth was the center of the universe and they tried devising very complex models to explain the rotations of the other planets but once the paradigm shifted to the sun as the center, everything clicked. And of course we know that NOW, but back then, it was fiercely opposed. In allopathic medicine they attribute spontaneous healing to the placebo effect. The placebo effect is our bodies self healing capacity. But what is it? A belief a person has can override their biology. You can take an inert substance with no known medicinal capacity and create a physiological change in the body. Also a medicinal substance can be rendered ineffective based on belief alone (the nocebo). Science recognizes that at least 1/3 of all healing has nothing to do with the process but the placebo effect. 1/3 of all healing occurs out of nothing but having a positive thought in mind. But in a pharmacology course the will spend about 15 minutes on the placebo effect in their whole course of medicine. They aren't even studying it properly. (quick tell this to obama, we can cut our health care by 1/3 by applying the placebo effect! ) The way that the placebo effect is explained is an effect created through energy fields. As Einstein eloquently said, "The field is the sole governing agency of the particle". The energy fields of the human body is called bioenergy or in Chinese "chi". And like in Qigong or Reiki, I agree with Mobile Dogwash that it's taking something that was previously subconscious and making it conscious. From personal experience I have seen and experienced this healing energy. And I know people will still debate me on this but we can just agree that what I'm doing is "Placebo effect Qigong" :jester: Now whether it can be used as a martial power, I'm having trouble finding anyone that can explain it. I've read through many posts and articles online that haven't explained it that well. It sounds like a lot of general talk and not much instruction. So far what I gather from my master is that "chi power" is based on a reverse breathing technique and intention. These two things are known to greatly improve performance in the athletic field. But it's a difficult skill to understand and apply in depth since it doesn't lend so well to visual observation but is something to experience and learn through practice. I've asked him some more questions about this and hopefully I can gain some clarity about what is taking place.
I somewhat agree to this portion of your post. However; Simply, the mind with positive attitude will heal than one with negative, or giving up the "will" I cannot call that Chi People who get healed by a belief (such as religion, chi, etc) could be in great health risk and danger I do not think "healing by chi" is advisable
that's ok mate, you don't have to think it's advisable for others to benefit from it your statement makes about as much sense to me as saying you don't think healing by medicine is advisable, but that's my perspective i'm not really interested in getting dragged down to a battle of semantics, which is all that will generally happen in an internet "chi" debate suffice to say that if you start widening your view you will encounter evidence of our subtle dimensions & our interconnectivity in other fields devices such as Kirlian cameras or SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) can measure energetic & magnetic fields that surround, emanate from & provide a platform or blueprint for our physical selves if you don't want to call the flowing bio fields chi then no worries, call them what you will, it doesn't matter, lol, the energy is living intelligence, it doesn't need you to name it to know what it is this article seems to be very good, it might give you a better idea about all this energy field stuff http://brownrabbit.org/bioenegetics.pdf as to whether "chi" can be used in a martial sense, well to me that's like saying can breathing be used in a martial sense without the chi or the breath u'd not get very far, put it that way, lol using & getting caught up in the word "chi" can just get in the way - for instance if you study tai chi pushing hands deeply you can discover that the chinese have identified different levels or stages of intention - eg - i'm going to think about doing something; i'm thinking about doing something; i'm about to do something; i'm doing something tai chi training can develop your sensitivity so that you become aware of the opponent's intentions before their actions are carried out physical intervention can therefore take place before they act it is also possible to use your intention to "jam", divert, or deflect a person's intention of harming you if you want to call that fighting with chi then great if not then also great lol
uh...care to explain your perspective? I'm open to it. If the placebo effect isn't your body's self healing capabilities, then how would you explain it?
Right a positive attitude isn't chi it's part of the mental faculty. Be careful about reading the label on prescription pills, you may die of a misprint, it happens. I see no risk in having positive beliefs and practicing qigong and healing by chi. It's not the only tool in the shed I use, nutritional support and detoxing are also paramount among other things.
OK. For one, the term allopathic is a pejorative term used by alt med people to discredit proper medicine. It's a nonsense term used to try to bolster the support for alt med. It was created by a deluded fool (Samual Hahnemann). It's not an accurate description of proper medicine. Using it shows clearly your bias. No they don't. A proper understanding of medicine and health is MUCH more comlex than that. Healing can happen for many reasons. The appearance of healing can happen for many reasons (natural course of condition, bodies natural healing powers, regression to the mean etc). The placebo effect is but one part of the whole when it comes to looking at "healing" and proper doctors fully understand that (better than alt med people in fact). No it isn't. There are well understood mechanisms of "self healing" in the human body. The immune system, damage repair, blood clotting, cell regeneration etc. The placebo effect is (very roughly speaking) a change in the perception of the recipient of some treatment, AND the giver of that treatment, that gives the appearance that that treatment has had an effect despite no medically active component being present (or in addition to the active component). This is often (but not always) most noticable in things that rely on perception like pain and pain relief. The placebo effect can make your broken leg fell less painful but won't make the bone knit together any faster or stronger (unless maybe something like the pain relief relaxes you and enables your body to better heal through stress reduction maybe).
