was Deke again---Now Complexity in Pulses

[Guest guest]

Z'ev, et al:

 

This is why we do pulse diagnosis using three depths---and why we

are always talking in threefold terms. Any less rigorous model of

diagnosis, like 8-Principles, can only be descriptive of homeostasis

at best. I find it ironic that the Chinese would marginalize pulse

diagnosis and 5-Phases in their attempt to standardize CM and make

it more like Western medicine, since those are the very models that

really bridge both---but then Western medicine doesn't make use of

complexity either. Interestingly, the fundamental laws of physics

all require three terms.

 

 

In Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior

(MIT Press, 1997) J.A. Scott Kelso states:

 

" A minimum of three levels (the task or goal level as a special kind

of boundary constraint, collective variable level, and component

level) is required to provide a complete understanding of any single

level of description.

 

" Patterns at all levels are governed by the dynamics of collective

variables. In this sense, no single level is any more important or

fundamental than any other.

 

" Boundary constraints, at least in complex biological systems,

necessarily mean that the coordination dynamics are context or task

dependent. I take this to be another major distinction between the

usual conception of physical law (as purely syntactic, nonsemantic

statements) and the self-organized, semantically meaningful laws of

biological coordination. Order parameters and their dynamics are

always functionally defined in biological systems. They therefore

exist only as meaningful characteristic quantities, unique and

specific to tasks. "

 

 

We often find this three-fold symmetry in Chinese medicine and

Taoist philosophy. We have heaven, earth, and man; qi, jing, and

shen; the trigrams of the I Ching; the three yin and three yang of

the Six Energies Theory (Liu qi); and the three jiaos of the body.

In pulse diagnosis, we divide each position into the qi, blood, and

organ (adapted) levels. When we examine three discrete levels in the

pulse diagnosis we can find and appreciate the complexity and

richness of living systems. By comparison, if we use only one or two

levels, we develop a somewhat perfunctory model that largely ignored

the extensive details found in the Nan Jing and Mai Jing.

 

In biological systems, one level interacts with the environment, a

middle level involves the dynamics and maintenance of homeostasis,

and the third level consists of the physical constitution of the

organism. Some examples in humans would be gestures and words for

the first level; blood sugar, electrolyte balance, and lung capacity

for the second level; and the chemical composition of bone or how

one molecule's geometry fits like a key into a lock with another

molecule at the third level. We can see that properties of the

system as a whole emerge from the interaction of all three levels,

as opposed to viewing the action of the parts as being imposed by a

dominant central source.

 

Jim Ramholz