mixed_biscuits
_________________________
Huh? It wasn't me! I posted a essay on working memory being linked to managed farming, I think.
What does 'rational' (or 'irrational') even mean anyway?
- Thread starter Mr. Tea
- Start date
Huh? It wasn't me! I posted a essay on working memory being linked to managed farming, I think.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Oh sorry, that was "slightly crooked" who posted that, not you.
blackpixie
Well-known member
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
just an update after the escalation episode from 4 years (and 1 page) ago: while i still have not completely forgiven her for being the only one on the entire internet douchey enough to do such personal attacks in an otherwise diplomatic debate... we have stayed digital friends since. Also: Nomad is now living in California, going to grad medical school, and a master of Vipassana meditation.
seems like someone managed to get over the false dichotomy. bravo.
seems like someone managed to get over the false dichotomy. bravo.
interesting article. however ludicrously one sided and astoundingly arrogant in its complete dismissal of a massive body of knowledge based on flimsy "evidence".
Holism is but a new term to make modern western people understand a traditional philosophy, a way of doing things, and it seems like this guy doesn't know what it means. An example in medical terms:
Generally, when you go see an Asian doctor about an illness, the first questions s/he will ask you is about your daily life and environment - work, home, relationship, etc, to determine what kinds of stresses or conflicts persists. Secondly s/he will ask about your diet. Thirdly and finally s/he will ask about the physical direct aspects and history of the illness.
Ideas like this have been gradually, increasingly gaining ground in western practice, many decades after Mao was pushing Chinese medicine. In recent years we in the west are more and more aware of the fact that these things ARE INDEED inextricably connected, and physical illness can be manifestations of stress with emotional sources.
The fact that such connections between invisible factors such as emotional stress and visible symptoms of illnesses is common sensical to us is proof of how much Eastern and traditional medical ideas have, thankfully, become part of Western thought and practice.
Things like natural healing are also being more and more accepted with each passing day: ideas only a few years ago, which we have argued on this forum, are becoming more and more mainstream, such as the benefits and healing effects of raw, vegan diets.
Sure there are many of contradictions and examples of unsavory ideas and practices in China's present and past, we are talking, after all, of a long and wide history of medicine. What large body of knowledge does not contain contradictory doctrines and experts which disagree? But the existence of bad examples does not discredit the entire legacy. Bad Chinese restaurants in Berlin is no proof that the Chinese know nothing about food.
Sure Mao probably invented the term and sold it (of course a living tradition does not call itself "traditional" lol), but that is also no proof that the entire history of Chinese medicine is rubbish.
Holism is but a new term to make modern western people understand a traditional philosophy, a way of doing things, and it seems like this guy doesn't know what it means. An example in medical terms:
Generally, when you go see an Asian doctor about an illness, the first questions s/he will ask you is about your daily life and environment - work, home, relationship, etc, to determine what kinds of stresses or conflicts persists. Secondly s/he will ask about your diet. Thirdly and finally s/he will ask about the physical direct aspects and history of the illness.
Ideas like this have been gradually, increasingly gaining ground in western practice, many decades after Mao was pushing Chinese medicine. In recent years we in the west are more and more aware of the fact that these things ARE INDEED inextricably connected, and physical illness can be manifestations of stress with emotional sources.
The fact that such connections between invisible factors such as emotional stress and visible symptoms of illnesses is common sensical to us is proof of how much Eastern and traditional medical ideas have, thankfully, become part of Western thought and practice.
Things like natural healing are also being more and more accepted with each passing day: ideas only a few years ago, which we have argued on this forum, are becoming more and more mainstream, such as the benefits and healing effects of raw, vegan diets.
Sure there are many of contradictions and examples of unsavory ideas and practices in China's present and past, we are talking, after all, of a long and wide history of medicine. What large body of knowledge does not contain contradictory doctrines and experts which disagree? But the existence of bad examples does not discredit the entire legacy. Bad Chinese restaurants in Berlin is no proof that the Chinese know nothing about food.
Sure Mao probably invented the term and sold it (of course a living tradition does not call itself "traditional" lol), but that is also no proof that the entire history of Chinese medicine is rubbish.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Zhao, if your knee were jerking any harder we could attach it to a generator and solve the world's energy needs forever more.
Read the article again. At no point does it say what you clearly think it says or would like it to say, namely, "Chinese medicine is a load of old nonsense". What it says, among other things, is that Chinese medicine, to be taken seriously as medicine, should be subjected to the same standards of scientific scrutiny as Western medicine. Do you substantially disagree with this point?
In fact, the article is as much about Western (mis)conceptions of Chinese medicine as it is about Chinese medicine itself. Such as the idiocy of the sort of extreme cultural relativism that paints China as Ye Mystick Orient where the laws of nature and principles of logic are radically different or don't exist at all, and which comes in part from the mistaken belief that objectivity and empiricalism are uniquely Western ideas. Or about how many people have totally missed the point that complementary medicine is exactly that, i.e. medicine that's intended to complement conventional treatments. So we have a story about a guy who was treated with acupuncture for postoperative pain mutating into an urban myth about a guy was operated on with acupuncture as the sole anaesthetic. The article doesn't say "acupuncture is moonshine", it implies that you'd be foolish to rely on acupuncture alone to prepare you for major surgery - as evinced by the fact that Chinese surgeons use effective, modern chemical anaesthetics, just as Western surgeons do.
But, you know, please don't let any of that get in the way of a jolly good rant!
Yep, someone should definitely tell Western doctors about the importance of diet and lifestyle to overall health, I mean they've really missed a trick there.
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For fuck's sake, did you even bother to read the article?
Read the article again. At no point does it say what you clearly think it says or would like it to say, namely, "Chinese medicine is a load of old nonsense". What it says, among other things, is that Chinese medicine, to be taken seriously as medicine, should be subjected to the same standards of scientific scrutiny as Western medicine. Do you substantially disagree with this point?
In fact, the article is as much about Western (mis)conceptions of Chinese medicine as it is about Chinese medicine itself. Such as the idiocy of the sort of extreme cultural relativism that paints China as Ye Mystick Orient where the laws of nature and principles of logic are radically different or don't exist at all, and which comes in part from the mistaken belief that objectivity and empiricalism are uniquely Western ideas. Or about how many people have totally missed the point that complementary medicine is exactly that, i.e. medicine that's intended to complement conventional treatments. So we have a story about a guy who was treated with acupuncture for postoperative pain mutating into an urban myth about a guy was operated on with acupuncture as the sole anaesthetic. The article doesn't say "acupuncture is moonshine", it implies that you'd be foolish to rely on acupuncture alone to prepare you for major surgery - as evinced by the fact that Chinese surgeons use effective, modern chemical anaesthetics, just as Western surgeons do.
But, you know, please don't let any of that get in the way of a jolly good rant!
Yep, someone should definitely tell Western doctors about the importance of diet and lifestyle to overall health, I mean they've really missed a trick there.
Edit:
For fuck's sake, did you even bother to read the article?
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Sectionfive
bandwagon house
comparing Chinese medicine to Scientology and basically saying that it is only effective as placebo... sounds very much like complete dismissal as nonsense to me.
again, he is basically saying that it should not be taken seriously.
did YOU read the article, Tea?
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
The point he was making about Scientology is that a set of ideas don't have to be consistently valuable or consistently worthless. By all accounts Scientology includes some fairly advanced practical psychology, I mean William Burroughs of all people was a member of the CoS for a while and found their techniques very useful. That doesn't mean you have to take as gospel all the stuff about us all being possessed by the spirits of deal aliens. Similarly, acupuncture does seem to have something in it, in that people genuinely find it to be of benefit. Again, it's hard to distinguish this from a very powerful form of placebo, but from a phenomenological point of view, it works. And of course there are all sorts of herbs and whatnot used in traditional medicines in China and all around the world that have genuine medical value because of their chemical content.
But there is good reason not to take seriously the 'five elements' theory of medicine, or the kind of thinking that's leading to species being hunted to extinction because some decrepit millionaire thinks eating part of it will turn him into a sexual superman. It's based on pre-scientific ways of thinking and has been superseded by better theories (theories to which scientists and doctors from all over the world have contributed and continue to contribute).
And if a certain treatment from a certain culture is found to be no more effective than placebo in rigorous clinical trials, well I'm afraid that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Insisting Chinese medicine must work because you like the idea of it is unfortunately not a watertight argument for its effectiveness.
You've also completely ignored the bit where he talks about Chinese doctors hundreds of years ago effectively using anaesthetics, performing complex surgery and correcting old textbooks that were found to be correct. In other words, improving knowledge and moving on, no slavishly 'respecting' ancient, incorrect ideas just because they're ancient.
Ideas in medicine should be taken seriously on the basis of how effective they are for treating patients, not on how old or folkloric they are. If you think every element of ancient Chinese medicine should be taken seriously just because it's ancient and Chinese, then well...I dunno what to say.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Really, it's false to distinguish between 'empirical Western medicine' and 'non-empirical Chinese medicine'. The only valuable distinction to make is between medicine that works and medicine that doesn't. There is no argument to be had over the fact that medicine based on empirical observation and study works a lot better than medicine that isn't. As the article points out, for hundreds of years Chinese doctors have been finding fault with established practices and developing new, better practices based on observations they'd made - in other words, practicing empirical medicine. Making progress precisely because they didn't hold ancient and traditional ideas in an attitude of uncritical reverence.
And on the other side, it's hardly as if Western medical thought isn't haunted by a whole load of pseudoscientific nonsense - the Wakeman MMR jab/'autism' scandal and other examples of anti-vaccine superstition, homeopathy, AIDS denialism, a non-stop drip of sensationalist bullshit about 'superfoods' and miracle vitamins, the gutter press's obsession with things that supposedly cause, prevent or 'cure' cancer...it goes on and on.
So if you want to take criticism of non-empirical medicine (which is entirely justified) as a criticism of Chinese medicine in its entirety, then go right ahead, but that's a profoundly mistaken view and, I say again, not what the article is saying.
And on the other side, it's hardly as if Western medical thought isn't haunted by a whole load of pseudoscientific nonsense - the Wakeman MMR jab/'autism' scandal and other examples of anti-vaccine superstition, homeopathy, AIDS denialism, a non-stop drip of sensationalist bullshit about 'superfoods' and miracle vitamins, the gutter press's obsession with things that supposedly cause, prevent or 'cure' cancer...it goes on and on.
So if you want to take criticism of non-empirical medicine (which is entirely justified) as a criticism of Chinese medicine in its entirety, then go right ahead, but that's a profoundly mistaken view and, I say again, not what the article is saying.
luka
Well-known member
Good talk, he's right on some, but not all, of these. Some of the phenomena he describes aren't necessary, are ludicrous or are paranoiac. However the mind/matter problem remains profoundly insoluble for science for all sorts of wonderful reasons. I don't think anybody thinks deeper on this than Raymond Tallis, he's tricksy fucker when it comes to demonstrating the utter uniqueness and exquisite capability of any old human mind.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
There's a double bind for the science mainstream with regard to 'mavericks' and cranks like Sheldrake. Do you attempt to engage them and explain why their ideas are nuts, knowing that the unreasonable are unlikely to be swayed by reason and that you run the risk of giving them a patina of legitimacy? Or do you refuse to engage them and give them the opportunity to cast themselves as the voice-from-the-wilderness telling the harsh truths that the arrogant science establishment can't handle?
This comes partly because of the stereotype of the lone genius overturning the established world view, so that a lot of non-scientists don't realize that paradigm shifts happen very rarely, perhaps a few times per century in a given discipline at most, and that the vast majority of scientific progress is accumulative, not revolutionary. So figures like Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein, despite being unrepresentative of the vast majority of scientists, have given rise to the belief that if an idea is called crazy by mainstream science, it's almost guaranteed to be correct.
Watching that video, it's kind of funny how much like a mirror-image Dawkins Sheldrake is. He starts out by mischaracterizing science in much the same way as Dawkins does religion, they even look and sound remarkably similar.