Cause and Effect (was: TCM will be TCM for ever!!)

[Guest guest]

Alon,

 

, <alonmarcus@w...> wrote:

> Please jump into and do swiming in TCM,(use it,taste

> it like you are sen2-long2 shi4, you will see that it

> is not outcome only.

> >>>>May be for the doctor, not for me as a patient

 

 

You've touched on an interesting point.

I've been thinking about past discussions

and it seems to me that on this list we often find

ourselves talking about dichotomies

and/or diametrically opposed propositions,

ideas, schools of thought, etc.

 

I've got a couple of observations on

this. The first is that this pattern

in our (I'm referring here to the whole

group that uses this list) discussions

reflects a characteristically Western perspective,

which is natural enough since the majority

of us are Westerners. In fact this

Western persepctive has tended to

predominate " modern " thinking everywhere

along with the spread of Western science

and Western technology.

 

I think that the meeting of Chinese medicine

and the West begins in our minds. We can

understand and facilitate a number of

things about this meeting if we observe

our own mental habits. The habit in question

is the one that tends to see any pair of

phenomena as standing in opposition or

at least potentially opposed. We often

hear about Shan Han Lun vs. Wen Bing,

Nei Jing vs. Nan Jing, one school or approach

vs. another school and its approach, and so on.

 

But are these perceived notions of

opposition and conflict entirely accurate?

Or are they projections of our own mental

habits? Since school we have, after all,

been taught constantly to compare and contrast.

 

But the Chinese have not. I remember the

puzzlement with which I first read the

compositions of my Chinese students.

They seemed so rambling and unorganized,

until I slowly began to understand that

they were simply organized according to

a different pattern of logic than I was used to.

I recall trying to explain the idea of

the compare and contrast model of English

composition to my wife. It seemed so alien

to her.

 

The Western emphasis rests upon an ideological root

or set of roots that winds its way back

through the intellectual history of the

West through such notable bodies of work as

Newton, Descartes, and the material contained

in the books that we call The Bible.

Our Westsern way of thinking is pegged to the

universal dichotomy of right and wrong.

In science we think always in terms of

cause and effect...or at least we tend to.

More recently, and to some extent as

a consequence of increasing exposure to

Chinese sources, Western sciences have

begun to abandon this mental habit in

favor of one that embraces a more

complex understanding of the bevhavior

patterns of natural systems.

 

The issue about doctor and patient

pivots, to some degree, on this same

point. Of course the patient wants

an outcome. But though such outcomes

are easy to wish for, they are not always

easy to achieve. Thus medical strategy.

 

We have ample examples of how unwise medical

strategy leads, even when it is capable of

producing near-term outcomes that patient

and doctor alike welcome, to longer-term

catastrophe. The antibiotic nightmare is

one of the best examples.

 

Countless patients over the past six decades

have survived an infectious disease that would otherwise

have killed them by the administration

of an antibiotic that, as we have only

recently and probably too late come to

recognize, was also part of a long-term

unintended program to breed super-bugs

impervious to all antibiotics. This has

been further aggravated by the indiscriminate

use of antibiotics. And this disturbing

approach to medical and public health

strategy continues virtually unabated

in the present, as the anthrax-cipro

nightmare continues to unfold. What makes

cipro and that whole family of antibiotics

valuable to those who use them is that it

is one of the agents of last resort for a

host of infectious agents that have been

cultivated into a high degree of resistance

to all other known varieties of antibiotics.

 

Doctors know that the indsicriminate use

of cipro will result in the transformation

of more disease-causing micro-organisms

into fully-antibiotic-resistant strains.

But patients want the result of protection

from whatever is bothering them at the

moment.

 

My point is that of course results matter,

but as we are forced now to understand

through such phenomena as the resistance

to our medicine that we ourselves have

engineered, so does strategy, i.e. our

consideration, both theoretical and

pragmatic.

 

Whenever you punctuate a discussion with

the " where's the results? " imperative, I

believe you tend to cast the whole process

into a mode of thinking and operation that

leads away from a clearer understanding

of what makes Chinese herbal medicine

so curiously effective, not only in the

time frame of a single patient with a

complaint he or she wants addressed, but

across the long span of history that has

witnessed the disappearance of so many

other forms of traditional healing and

the civilizations that spawned them.

 

I don't say this as a personal dig at

you. My aim in taking the trouble to write

this out is to see if we can get our discussions

to survive beyond the point where we draw

a line in the sand and dare each other

to step over it.

 

It does not, I believe, all come down to

where's the results. I think that if we

allow our own thinking to be foreshortened

in this way, that we run the risk of losing

the perspective that has sustained the medicine

that we purvey.

 

I think that two of the principal factors

at play here are:

 

1. the mental habit I describe above; and

2. the no understanding or wrong understanding

of the basic terms and concepts of the subject

itself.

 

I often encounter people whose understanding

of yin1 and yang2 includes an equation of

these terms with evil and good. I've even

met folks who assert that this is the

essence of yin1 yang2 theory, i.e. that

it is the Chinese expression of the universal

truth of the conflict of good and evil.

 

Such misunderstandings have a direct impact

on clinical results, just as our behavior

in the clinic influences how we understand

and lead our lives.

 

Ken

[Guest guest]

Interesting conclusions Ken. I think some of these perspective comes out of nature of discussion which is a back and forth relating of ideas. I do not however think that having the bottom line results as the final arbitrator, defiantly lead to unwanted consequences. Learning and knowledge is a process.

 

What makescipro and that whole family of antibioticsvaluable to those who use them is that it is one of the agents of last resort for a host of infectious agents that have been cultivated into a high degree of resistance to all other known varieties of antibiotics.

 

<>>>>>You are not correct about Anthrax. It is susceptible to almost all of the old antibiotics. The reason that cipro has been chosen is because it is the only drug that has the indication by the FDA, which is in the process of being changed.

from a clearer understandingof what makes Chinese herbal medicineso curiously effective, not only in thetime frame of a single patient with acomplaint he or she wants addressed, butacross the long span of history that haswitnessed the disappearance of so many

 

>>>>It is this statement "across the long span of history" that needs to be assessed. Since no reliable CDC has been part of TCM or any other traditional forms of medicine.

Alon