Subject: The place of research in TCM (ideas)

[Guest guest]

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:26:07 EST, DrGRPorter wrote:

 

>Without the extensive training that you or

other members of this group have had, even I have had similar experiences.

 

While acknowledging the respect, my own training

is not that extensive, and in the presence of

people like Drs. Shen, Hammer, Jeffery, etc., and

many in this forum, " expert " is a term I would

not use to describe myself. What you point to

above is, though, crucial. At any level of

training, experience, or " mastery " , those

experiences (if I'm interpreting your words

correctly) are what puts us all in the same boat,

and motivates us to investigate further, and

communicate about it ( " stand on each others'

shoulders " , to quote a famous depiction of knowledge/science across history).

 

>In order to determine if this experience is

significant, it would be important to look at all

the myriad things that did not get detected.

 

I'm reminded of a young MD I once met, fresh out

of medical school, who was fascinated by the

notion of holistic medicine, but intimidated in

that his training led him to interpret this as

meaning becoming expert in all the myriad

specialties of Western medicine, i.e. to be able

to see and understand the " whole " . Agreeing with

Paul Unschuld (and my own Western education),

biomedicine is the best (read: " most rationally

convincing " ) medicine so far in human history.

Gilded as it may be, it's a cage. (In the words

of one of Ted Kaptchuk's article titles Gold

Standard (DB-RCT) or Golden Calf?) Anything that

enables also implies limitations (as in the Buddhist proverb you mentioned).

 

>Thus, this one experience (that perhaps most

have had at one time or another) is dramatic and

might point us in the wrong direction regarding the conclusion we take from it.

 

From the pure (perhaps " naïve " Western mindset,

any mode of knowledge other than " objective "

validation might well be seen as a wrong

direction. Second-guessing your own experience

could also be the of self-judging proprioception of the rational mind.

 

Diversion to expand the point: There was a

cultural-historical theory (mid-20th century) I

once came across that history can be seen in

large scale phases, namely from " magical " , to

" religious " , to " rational " and then a new

(currently emerging) age of the " aperspective " .

The rational can be epitomized by perspective in

painting the focus of objects and relative sizes

such that everything is properly placed and

proportioned relative to a single focal point off

in the distance. Then everything appears real,

objective, and socio-culturally proper. In art,

cubism and abstract expressionism marked the

beginnings of human investigations beyond the

rational. Simultaneously relativity and quantum

mechanics in physics. The term " aperspective "

means " free from perspective " (this " a- " is

called alpha-privitive, as in 'agnostic' or

'amoral', as well as numerous medical terms). It

means not that having a fixed perspective is

wrong, but rather that we might discover it is

not the whole story. Note this theory, like the

shifts in art and physics, accompanied the early

phases (e.g. " world wars " ) of what we now call

globalization -- the confrontation of the major

cultural traditions (on terms other than

colonialization). So that writer's sense of the

aperspective makes sense in a world now where

different world-views need to be somewhat

mutually recognized. Each is self-evidently true

in its own context, but must face the fact

nowadays that for other cultures truth appears differently.

 

> Clearly an aortic aneurysm is not an

abstraction. Neither is a large lump in a breast.

In the continuum of things regarded as " real " v

" abstract, " belief systems, spirituality and

cognition are far more abstract. This isn't to

say that they cannot be explored, but rather that

we should be careful with our words since we're on shaky ground, so to speak.

 

Admittedly, distention in an artery, or 'aortic

aneurysm,' and a lump in the breast, or

'neoplasm,' can be taken as descriptions of

phenomena. I was referring to them as technical

terms. The point about the terms (abstract vs

concrete) is subtle but defensible. A datum of

objective evidence is an abstraction in that it

requires a mindset, a belief system, to

appreciate its significance. The significance of

objective data is an abstraction of meaning from

the phenomena. The setting has to be rigidly

controlled by the methodology in order to isolate

analytical meaning, a sort of rigorously defined

perspective. Not unlike that Platonic scenario in

which ideas give meaning to appearances.

 

I just came across (during " Spring cleaning " ) an

article by Z'ev that fills in a lot of gaps in

this discussion(1). I will paraphrase the main

metaphor with a (briefer) anecdote of a New

England farmer and his axe " it's been in the

family for 5 generations; we replaced the handle

4 times and the axe head 3 times but it's the

same axe. " Is a particular piece of wood (the

handle) more real (concrete) than the its

belonging to the functional reality of the axe?

Is an " object " really more concrete than its

usage? It's a matter of perspective. One of

Z'ev's points in the article is the importance of

the relationship of things in usage (or Sx etc.

in medical conditions), and that Chinese medicine

is more about relationships than objective

particulars. Maybe, aspects of Chinese medicine

can be key to a more exact science of relationships.

 

One of the bits of current science I alluded to

earlier is a study of the cognitive dimension of

visual perception. A picture of a tiger in some

setting is presented to two groups of subjects.

One group consists of persons educated in Asian

cultures (say group A), the other educated in

Western cultures (say Group W) -- the independent

variables. The dependent variables were mined

from the descriptive comments when the subjects

were asked to relate what they saw in the

picture. Statistically significant differences

were discovered: group A tended to relate

observations about the relationship of the tiger

to the rest of the picture; group W tended to

relate particulars about the tiger itself.

(Spring cleaning notwithstanding, I've not yet

located this article to be able to supply the reference.)

 

While I'm at it, the other bit of science I ran

across(2) . Most human languages do not

distinguish between the colors blue and green,

i.e. have only one word for it. Investigators at

Univ. Chicago and UCBerkeley found native English

speakers (English, Germanic languages in general,

have " blue " and " green " ) were faster at

distinguishing (the colors) when they appeared

within the right visual field. The effect

vanished if the subjects were given left-brain

(mathematical) challenges simultaneously. Right

visual field goes to the left brain, as we know,

and left brain processes language, usually. The

somewhat surprising conclusion is that language

appears to condition perception neurologically.

There's nothing here about Chinese, per se, but I

doubt that anyone reading this in this forum

wasn't reminded right off the bat that Chinese

" qing " , the color of the liver, is somehow

blue-green. In fact, after this article, I

noticed in a Chinese art work on the wall in my

clinic an uncannily beautiful shade of blue-green

used for the foilage it's distinctly blue and

green to the same degree (to my perception!).

 

Scientific method is leading us deeper into

understanding of " reality " , ie as culturally

influenced and physiologically conditioned

perception of meaning. Research, once we figure

out how (with a little help from our friends,

like Ted Kaptchuk), can become a powerful

validation for aspects of Chinese medicine, as

long as we keep our perspectives in perspective, so to speak.

 

To extend Guy's thought " it would be important

to look at all the myriad things that did not get

detected " it's also important to look at the how we detect things.

 

 

 

References:

 

(1) " The DELPHIC BOAT and the YELLOW EMPEROR:

Thoughts on " ; except from

" Reflections on the Nan Jing " [published?]; PCOM

newsletter " Oriental Medicine " , Summer 2005 [accessible on the internet?]

 

(2) " What You See Is What You Say " , by Charles Q.

Choi [sic]; Scientific American, March 2006, p.

32. (synopsis of a report in " Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences USA " , January 10th

issue. [i tried on the internet, but you have to pay to get the full text.]