Dangerous views

[Guest guest]

Rey, Emmanuel,

 

Thanks for posting this. I think it clearly

states a very valid concern.

 

I've got another.

 

Most of the scientists I know have long

since stopped thinking in terms of or

caring much for designations such as

" Chinese " and " Western " when it comes

to knowledge.

 

Even and especially those who recognize

the importance of cross-cultural (including

linguistic) issues when it comes to exchange of

knowledge across culture and language barriers,

eschew labels that seem to assign more or less arbitrary

labels to data,information, knowledge and

even wisdom.

 

SFI is conducting a complex systems science

summer school in Qing Dao next year during

which they seek to advance development of

their relatively open approach to the exploration

of giant complex open systems, and I believe

that Chinese medicine will find an increasingly

important role as this particular vector of scientific

advance continues to develop.

 

I also look to such vectors as the likely guiding

principles for future development...not of science

per se and not of medicine or of Chinese medicine

or Western medicine...but of knowledge and

worldview. And as these changes continue their

current cascades of insights, questions, answers

and ever more questions the resulting change

in worldview will no doubt come to express itself

in public perceptions and decisions.

 

I bring all of this up not to argue with anything

you or anyone has said, but to suggest that

if we want to really position ourselves in the

waves of future development, we will move

gradually away from what seem more and

more to me to be archaic distinctions between

knowing one thing or another based on the

ethnicity of dead authors.

 

And I think that this is precisely the kind

of liberation that that young woman who

spoke of it to Paul Saturday experienced.

 

It's remarkable to watch people who have

lived sometimes for decades in a virtual

knoweldge vacuum respond to the appearance

of sound and reliable information. The

exercise in which Paul engaged us of

compariing versions of English translations

of the Su Wen was truly revelatory.

 

Anyone can do this, at least as far as

comparing the English versions. If you

don't read Chinese you won't be able

to submit these various translations to

the ultimate test of relating them to

the original, but even by simply questioning

whence the disparities arise will reveal

if not the answers, at least the questions

that should be asked.

 

Once you compare the English versions

to the Chinese, and particularly focusing

on particulars with the powerful illumination

provided by Unschuld and Tessenow's

methods of textual evaluation, it becomes

quite clear that the Su Wen in English

does not yet exist.

 

Marnae asked for an abridged version

that embodies the rigor of Unschuld's

approach. And whereas the urge for

such a thing is understandable, I see

the process of abridging it as frought

with problems...not that they might not

be adequately solved by someone with

the will to do so.

 

Anyhow, when it comes to dangerous

views, Paul's are indeed the most.

 

The danger is that people will start thinking

for themselves, and there's no telling where

that might lead.

 

Many scientists I know are profoundly

concerned about wisdom and about the

strategic implications of scientific knowledge.

 

It's quite clear, I believe, that on a large

society-wide scale we are looking at

issues that lie more precisely in the realm

of economics and finance than science...

 

....whenever we talk about the integration

of Chinese and Western science, medicine

and the like.

 

The contempoary Chinese, for example,

have just shy of a billion hungry farmers

to feed. The able-bodied male population

from the countryside has now been largely

mobilized into an itinerant labor pool that

buzzes around the country building buildings,

tearing them down, building them, paving

roads, and so on. All related economic

and social realities in China are never more

than a few heartbeats and sneezes away

from becoming emerging public health issues,

as Rey knows from his SARS related

investigations. And as an aside, there is

a concommitant epidemic of suicide by

Chinese women in the countryside who

have basically been left to fend for themselves

as well as their old and young.

 

The pressures such forces exert on the

future of Chinese medicine will continue to

be enormous. Look at the interplay of

Chinese and Western sources in Chinese

medicine over the past three decades.

 

There's a book coming by someone named

Kim Taylor (if I remember the author correctly)

concerning the development of TCM in the

modern era. I don't know if the story of the

strange synergy between China and the

West is told in this work. But it should be.

 

Unschuld refers to TCM as a baby crib

which the Chinese built to satisfy what

they initially figured would be a baby-sized

interest of outsiders. And he characterizes

the attitude of many Chinese with respect

to the crowds of foreigners who have

stuffed themsevles into this baby crib

as a kind of bewildered amusement...

 

....as they count the dollars on the way to

the bank, of course, which always adds

a deeper resonance to the chortling.

 

My experience with senior Chinese medical

personnel in China over the years lends

some credence to Paul's characterizations.

 

Basically, the experienced and knowledgable

lao zhong yi just shake their heads. But

they are generally willing to teach. And with

very few exceptions they are more than

willing to have Western investigators poke

their scientific noses around the clinic

and discover whatever they care to.

 

I think it's important that when we talk about

the hegemonic tendencies of science we

should remind ourselves that the sources

of such tendencies are more or less

identical to the sources of the hegemonic

tendencies of all human beings.

 

We don't need special conceptual tools

to understand greed and the behaviors

that greed engenders. And we need to

keep in mind the fact that it knows neither

national nor ethnic boundaries.

 

Ken

[Guest guest]

>>I think it's important that when we talk about

the hegemonic tendencies of science we

should remind ourselves that the sources

of such tendencies are more or less

identical to the sources of the hegemonic

tendencies of all human beings.

 

We don't need special conceptual tools

to understand greed and the behaviors

that greed engenders. And we need to

keep in mind the fact that it knows neither

national nor ethnic boundaries.

 

Ken>>

 

Ken,

I don't think you're necessarily right about this. In the West, we

have an either/or attitude to knowledge, whereas CM is characterised

by an approach that Unschuld has discussed in the excerpt below. This

is precisely the problem with the scientific/biomedical outlook -

it's not pluralist, nor heterogenous in nature, and this is one of

the most important issues we need to be concerned about. It asserts

its right to authority, in the manner Rey discussed in an earlier

email.

 

Just to complicate matters, I'll include another point as well in the

Unschuld quote I've selected:

 

" So it is plain to us that although there were many internal

dynamics, in China in 1890 an author could still allude to the Huang

di Nei jing, or to the Nan jing, or the Shang Han Lun, and these

thoughts still made sense to many. Basically you have the same style

of thought for these two thousand years. But when the Imperial Age

ended early in this century the tree lost its roots. Today I would

dare to say that no one can think and argue in terms of traditional

Chinese medical theory. We have no way of being earnest or sincere in

continuing these lines of thought.

So the roots which nourish this type of thinking are just no longer

there. Chinese medicine is still used, and may still be useful, and

certain age-old techniques are used. It is used, but there is no

development from within.

Just imagine that traditional Chinese medicine never strove towards

one truth, as is a characteristic feature of Western science.

Individuals propagated a truth and they may have denied what others

said. But Chinese society as a whole never cared, they just cared

about what is useful, about what makes logical sense. Hence you

arrive at many, many contradictions, and it is just not part of the

Chinese culture of knowledge to solve contradictions And to say this

is true but not that. Individuals may have done so, but a concept of

absolute knowledge is not Chinese, and also the either/or is not

Chinese. So it never mattered whether the heart is associated with

joy as one tradition has it or whether it is associated with planning

or thought as another has it. Both these associations can be deduced

logically from some basic idea. There is no way to say he is right or

she is wrong. The either/or is part of our current Western life, and

now every child in China who gets a decent education is trained along

the lines of the worldwide Western type of thinking. You cannot enter

the age of computer technology if you say it could be this way or it

could be that way. "

 

Unschuld interview, EJOM Vol1No4 p9

[Guest guest]

Quintessences From the Medical Classics

Volume 1

By Tang ZongHai (1862-1918), China

 

Translator: Rey Tiquia

(2003 , Melbourne Australia)

 

Rey,

 

Thank you so much for this beautiful post.

 

This evening was the occasion of a birthday party for another friend and myself.

We discussed a strange configuration of study that I believe Professor Tang had

noted. When we wish to study life sciences in the West, we always begin with

and maintain a great many physical science and math requirements. The

assumption is that we will eventually conduct research and require a knowledge

of instrumentation and numerical analysis. However, along the way the strange

dichotomy between physical sciences and life science becomes rather mind

bending. Studying regulation points in negative feedback homeostatic systems in

biochemistry is challenging enough. Simultaneously I had to solve quantum

mechanics problems with little nor no relation to the life science I was

pursuing. Schroedinger's equations applied to the behaviour of a particle in a

one-dimensional box began to take on the flavor of mythos rather than science.

It was about the " life of the mind " ... homeostasis was about the " life of the

body " . They were so strangely dichotomized in my last undergraduate semester.

 

It's interesting to hear Jason and Marnae talk about the high percentage of WM

that CM students must study as if the WM somehow validates their CM curriculum.

The physical sciences seemed to be inserted into my life sciences pursuit as a

similar validation for my study of life. The empiricist " scientism " seems most

intensely prevalent in the British Commonwealth and America ... British-American

Empiricism we used to call it in our 1960s-70s philosophy curriculum.

 

These are my random observations as I complete the 55th year of my tenure on

this planet. I look forward to the unexpected joys and epiphanies of a brand

new year. I plan to pay tomorrow's qi-rent with an hour of meditation followed

by a long run on the forest trails in the hills east of my home. I hope

everyone's meditations become richer as we sail into the Yin of our year ... and

as Rey sails into the Yang of his year in the land-down-under.

 

Respectfully,

Emmanuel Segmen

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

So, western science at least deludes itself with the notion that a

unified theory of everything is possible,

>>>>Must not have heard of M theory

Alon