Religion and TCM

[Guest guest]

Dear TCM'ers,

 

I found Maciocia's book interesting from another aspect. One page 1 (of

the 1989 edition) he says that Western philosophy is based on

Aristotellian logic (with opposites), whereas Chinese philosophy is based

on a totally different paradigm (Yin-yang; not opposites, but

complementary). Thus the medicine practiced in the West is far different

than the medicine practiced in the East.

 

Maciocia errs a little, for Western science and philosophy is actually

based on the Christian worldview (not the Aristotle worldview). In fact,

you could say that Western medicine tends to be based more on science

(postulate; test; theory; test again; arrive at conclusions and facts;

take those conclusions and extend them another step forward,

etc)....whereas TCM is probably based more on observations and anecdotes.

 

 

So I can see why a Western trained mind (like mine and most MD's) would

struggle with concepts (like yin-yang and meridians) that are not readily

demonstrable either anatomically or via instrument detection. I can see

why a largely Christian Western culture (which believes in absolute

rights and absolute wrongs) would have a vastly different approach to

things than an Eastern culture that did not believe in absolutes (I may

be wrong, but I think most Chinese religions (like Buddhism) do not

believe in absolute rights and wrongs).

 

I have a friend who is a physics professor. He told me about a Chinese

scientist (and atheist) who has written about the general lack of science

in China for centuries and centuries. This Chinese scientist wrote that

the Chinese philosophy of many gods and no absolutes prevented the

Chinese from having the worldview necessary to conduct true science. He

said the Chinese were superb observers and chroniclers of their

observations, but that formulating theories; testing those theories; and

then incorporating the newly found knowledge to move on to the next step

was a concept generally foreign to them. This is due in part to a

worldview that says things continually change and meld, and that " facts "

tend to be fluid concepts.

 

Perhaps --- and I may be way off base here, so don't get mad, Shane <g>

--- this helps to explain why acupuncture seems to have concepts and

points at odds with anatomy, and why perhaps little scientific comparison

testing has been done of acupuncture until this century.

 

Anyway, I find it interesting to think about!

 

 

Sam

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[Guest guest]

>Maciocia errs a little, for Western science and philosophy is actually

>based on the Christian worldview (not the Aristotle worldview).

 

My husband (who majored in philosophy) will be giving some info on this, but

if I remember correctly, early Christianity was influenced heavily by the

Aristotle worldview.

 

>In fact,

>you could say that Western medicine tends to be based more on science

>(postulate; test; theory; test again; arrive at conclusions and facts;

>take those conclusions and extend them another step forward,

>etc)....whereas TCM is probably based more on observations and anecdotes.

 

The problem is that a lot of Western medicine is not based on science. A lot

of Western medicine as practiced today is more akin to religion than to true

science. Doctors are told it's " science " and told they are <drumroll and

fanfare> " scientists " or at least being " scientific " for using it, but in

reality a lot of it is based on quite flimsy grounds. It's not real science

but pseudoscience for the benefit of industry and some branches of some

governments.

 

CFIDS is one very good example of this. There is volumes of research from

around the world which points to CFIDS being physical based. For example,

SPET scans have revealed that when PWCs overdo physically or engage in

aerobic exercise, body temperature goes down instead of going up and blood

flow to the brain diminishes instead of increasing. It may take several days

for blood flow to return to normal. Another example are the immune system

irregularities. I could go on, but you get the drift. In spite of all this

evidence from studies which were well performed using strict scientific

methodology, certain insurance companies like UNUM and others in the U.S.

and in other countries have mounted a campaign to convince doctors that

CFIDS is " all in the head " and can be treated by Cognitive Behavioral

Therapy (CBT) which includes of all things, exercise. Why are they doing

this? Because most disability policies have a clause that if a condition is

psychological, the insurance company only has to pay for 2 years. So they're

mounting a very agressive campaign of pseudoscience to convince doctors that

CFIDS is psychological. As a result, some young PWCs have been forced into

psychiatric hospitals and given CBT. Remember, in PWCs blood flow to the

brain decreases with overdoing physically, and as a result many of these

young PWCs have been made a lot sicker than they were. They walked into the

psychiatric hospitals under their own power, but they left in wheelchairs.

 

A lot of the erroneous ideas about CFIDS and the CBT are coming from a

British psychiatrist by the name of Simon Wessely. If I had done lab

reports while in college the way Wessely does research, I never would have

graduated. I wouldn't have deserved to. Wessely set out to " prove " that

CFIDS was psychological by proving that it wasn't physical. I trust you

already see a major design flaw in the premise of his research along the

lines of the falsifiability thing. In science, it's not science unless it's

capable of being proved false. It's very difficult, even impossible, to

prove that something is not something in a case like this.

 

Wessely set about to " prove " that CFIDS was not physical by testing for I

believe two viruses in PWCs and only two viruses. How many viruses are there

that have been identified, and how many are continuing to be discovered? I

trust you see the flaw here. In order to prove that CFIDS is not caused by

a virus, one would have to test for every known and unknown virus. This is

untestable.

 

But Wessely wasn't about to trust that this would be enough to " prove " his

premise. So he engaged in " data loading " . In strict scientific methodology,

test groups are carefully chosen. I mean you don't put people who don't

have arthritis in the test group for a drug that may be used to treat

arthritis. It would skew the results. Even though Great Britain and the

other UK countries signed an international agreement to use the U.S. CDC

(Centers for Disease Control) criteria of CFS for research purposes, Wessely

came up with his own guidelines. These are so broad as to include just

about anyone who has ever suffered from fatigue. In addition, Wessely

eventually misappropriated the CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome label) and

called the very generalized criteria that he developed, which are so broad

as to include just about everyone who has ever suffered from fatigue, CFS.

So any research you see on CFS that comes from Great Britain and other UK

countries is automatically suspect because it's not known if the research

was based on the CDC criteria for CFS or on the Wessely criteria. Most

people do feel better if they start exercising regularly, so the CBT therapy

is based on test groups that contain very few PWCs and mostly people who do

not have CFIDS (as defined by the CDC).

 

But getting back to Wessely's original study, after he found no evidence of

one of the only two two viruses he tested for in a test population that

included very few real PWCs and a lot of people who don't have CFIDS, he

announced that this proved that CFIDS was not physical; therefore it had to

be psychological. I trust you also can see the flaws in his logic here too.

 

An analogy to what Wessely did (and continues to do) is if I set out to

prove that the pear is not a fruit by trying to find pears in an apple

orchard, and then when I find few if any pears in an apple orchard,

declaring that this proves the pear is not a fruit; therefore it is a

vegetable.

 

BTW, do you remember back when the U.S. Pentagon was denying that any

personnel that served in the Gulf War were sick and denying that there was

such a thing as Gulf War Syndrome? And do you remember how when reporters

started digging and finding out stuff that the Pentagon was forced to admit

that service personnel were sick but the Pentagon kept grossly

underestimating how many personnel were affected? There for a while about

every two weeks, the Pentagon would come out with an estimate that it's only

so many solders, and then when reporters uncovered more information, the

Pentagon would be forced to revise its estimates upward? And the Pentagon

started pushing the " it's all in their heads, " a reaction to stress

explanation when it finally was forced to admit that personnel was sick.

Well, the Pentagon eventually gave a $1 million dollar grant to guess who to

study GWS in UK troops. Yep, Wessely has quite an international reputation

for for give me the research grant and I'll " prove " whatever you want

" proved " , dress it up in scientific terms so you can tell the public that

" science " says. And BTW, Wessely doesn't use control groups in most of his

research.

 

But as bad as citing Wessely for supposedly " scientific " proof is, it pales

besides what some insurance companies in the U.S. have done. They trot out

a woman named Elaine Showalter who lumps people with CFIDS in with people

who see flying saucers and little green men, and calls them nothing more

than hysterics. And exactly what are Showalter's credentials as an authority

on CFIDS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, or for that matter UFOs? She's an

English professor at Princeton. As far as I know Showlater has no training

whatsoever in medicine or even in science. Yet, she's trotted out as an

expert on CFIDS and quoted by even the New York Times like she knows what

she's talking about. Every few months the insurance companies will mount a

campaign to convince the public that CFIDS is psychological. They usually

arrange for reporters to interview 3 " experts " on CFIDS. These 3 usually

are Wessely, Showalter, and a doctor from a military hospital. (The doctor

from the military hospital varies.)

 

I can go on with examples of " science " which is not science but

pseudoscience in the name of someone's selfish agenda, but it would fill a

book so I won't. I do want to mention one that I saw some time ago from a

pharmaceutical company. It concerned a new, injectible medication for

blood clots. As I read through this I discovered that the company was using

magnesium sulfate as a carrier for the new drug. I couldn't find any mention

of Mg sulfate being used for the control group. The thing is, it's been

known since at least the 1950s that Mg will prevent blood clots. So unless

Mg sulfate also was used on the control group, there is no real evidence

that this expensive new drug is effective. It's effectiveness could be

coming strictly from the Mg, and Mg sulfate is a very cheap treatment.

There's not much of a profit in using Mg sulfate to help to control a

tendency to form blood clots. There is in announcing that you have a brand

new drug that has been " scientifically " proven to be effective.

 

The fault I find with some of Western medicine is that it's not really

scientific at all. It's been touted as being so, but it isn't. Sometimes it

is, but all too often it isn't.

 

>So I can see why a Western trained mind (like mine and most MD's) would

>struggle with concepts (like yin-yang and meridians) that are not readily

>demonstrable either anatomically or via instrument detection.

 

But the results can be demonstrated. What you're actually struggling with is

the expansion of a paradigm (worldview of what is and is not possible).

You're also struggling with going from a linear logic that looks at one part

at a time for the most part to a circular logic that looks at both the whole

and parts at the same time. You're also going from primarily using deductive

reasoning to using more inductive reasoning. You're also going to learning

to trust yourself as well as your patients.

 

My background is in engineering (Biological Agricultural Engineering). The

overriding concerns for engineering types are does it work, what

circumstances does it work under, and can it be put to a practical use.

Engineers tend not to care so much about the ultimate nature of reality as

about rather or not something works. If it can be demonstrated that

something works consistently under a given set of conditions, we tend to

figure that the paradigm needs to be expanded, not that anything that

doesn't fit the current pardigm couldn't possibly be real. You have in TCM

something that not only works and works well, you have a body of literature

that spells out quite well exactly what circumstances it will work under and

what circumstances it not only won't work but can do harm. For example,

giving an herb with heating energy to a person who already is too Hot not

only will not work to alleviate suffering, it will make the person sicker.

(You can give an herb with heating energy to a person who is too Hot if you

mix it with other herbs that are cooling so the overall energy of the

forumla is on the cool side or neutral.) You can test the thermal energy of

herbs and foods. Part of the training of herbalists at some schools is that

you have to consume herbs and note their effect on the body plus note their

taste. If I give cayenne to people, an overwhelming majority of those

people are going to say that cayenne is heating in nature to their bodies.

If I give a piece of wild asparagus root to people to chew, a majority of

those people are going to find that the root tastes both sweet and bitter.

(You'll taste the sweetness first, and as you continue to chew the bitter

taste becomes apparent.) As you learn more, you realize that the tastes

often reflect the properties of the herb. Herbs with spicy taste usually

are warming in nature. (There are exceptions.) Bitter tasting herbs often

do have a cooling and drying effect on the body. Etc.

 

>I can see

>why a largely Christian Western culture (which believes in absolute

>rights and absolute wrongs) would have a vastly different approach to

>things than an Eastern culture that did not believe in absolutes (I may

>be wrong, but I think most Chinese religions (like Buddhism) do not

>believe in absolute rights and wrongs).

 

Don't want to overwhelm you here, but one thing you'll discover in TCM is

that conditions can change into or create their opposites. For example,

Dampness can create Dryness. If the Dampness is so severe and goes on so

long, Phlegm is created. The Phlegm can block passage of fluid so that

Dryness is created. The Wind Cold of the common cold or flu can become Heat

and then the Fire of pneumonia. The Cold causes contraction. The pores

close. The Wind Cold that has moved to the Interior and other energy build

up and create Fire. Part of the strategy for treating colds and flu in their

early stages is to release the Exterior. In herbalism this means giving

herbs that induce sweating. You want those pores opened up and the muscles

less constricted so Protective Qi can circulate and fight the Evil and so

energy doesn't build up in the Interior and become Fire. In other stages of

Cold-Induced Evils, you don't want to release the Exterior but use other

treatments. You're find the strategy of sweating in the early stages of

infection in herbal traditions from around the world.

 

>I have a friend who is a physics professor. He told me about a Chinese

>scientist (and atheist) who has written about the general lack of science

>in China for centuries and centuries. This Chinese scientist wrote that

>the Chinese philosophy of many gods and no absolutes prevented the

>Chinese from having the worldview necessary to conduct true science.

 

???? Let me see .... They knew about the circulation of blood through the

body centuries before anyone in the West did, they knew to use seaweed to

treat goiter more than a millenium before anyone in the West caught on to

the iodine-goiter link, they invented gun powder, they were experimenting

with vaccinations centuries before anyone in the West realized that cowpox

could prevent small pox, etc. I'd say they aren't exactly slouches when it

come to discoveries. In fact, they're done quite well.

 

>He

>said the Chinese were superb observers and chroniclers of their

>observations, but that formulating theories; testing those theories; and

>then incorporating the newly found knowledge to move on to the next step

>was a concept generally foreign to them. This is due in part to a

>worldview that says things continually change and meld, and that " facts "

>tend to be fluid concepts.

 

" Facts " do tend to be fluid concepts. How many times in Western medicine

and science has a fact beein announced only to have to be retracted at a

future date and treatments changed? I can think of quite a few times. One

of the most glaring examples is margarine is better for you than butter is.

For years doctors and scientists pushed margarine over butter as being

healthier for people. As it turns out, butter doesn't have near as many

health risks than margarine does. Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated

fats wreck havoc on the body. For one thing, they tilt the body toward

making more of the " bad " prostaglandins, the ones that promote inflammation,

pain, fever, non-IgE allergic reactions, depression, etc. (Omega-3 Essential

Fatty Acids tilt the body toward making more of the " good " prostaglandins:

one of the Omega-6 EFAs provide the raw building material of all PGs. I've

put " good " and " bad " in quotes because sometimes the body needs those " bad "

PGs in order to survive, and some people run into problems because of too

many " good " PGs.) Industry loves the hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated

fats because they extend self-life (and profits). (Advancing age, too much

insulin, and infection also will tilt the body toward making more " bad " than

" good " PGs.)

 

>Perhaps --- and I may be way off base here, so don't get mad, Shane <g>

>--- this helps to explain why acupuncture seems to have concepts and

>points at odds with anatomy, and why perhaps little scientific comparison

>testing has been done of acupuncture until this century.

 

You will discover as you get into acupuncture and acupressure that working a

certain point will cause sensations in other parts of the body. When you let

up on the point, the sensations will decrease. When you press or needle it

again, the sensations will resume. Eventually, if you work the points

enough, you will stop getting the sensations in the other part of the body.

 

You also will discover that feelings of pain, cold, heat, numbness, and

other sensations along part of the course of a meridian is a diagnostic

tool. For example, Wicke uses the example that people with pain in the area

of the gallbladder often will have aching pains between the 4th and 5th

metatarsal. Even when there is no pain in the gallbladder area but there are

gallbladder problems, this area of the foot will be sore when you press it.

Sometimes the person will feel the pain in this area without anyone pressing

it. Suspect possible gallbladder problems.

 

>Anyway, I find it interesting to think about!

 

Don't just think about it. Start observing and noting on your own. See if

some of these concepts stand up. Start noticing and noting if you get more

patients with specific medical complaints during times of unusual or

extreme weather conditions. For example, more people with allergies,

hypertension, pains that migrate in the joints and muscles, sinus congestion

when the wind is bad.

 

Victoria

 

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[Guest guest]

Sam,

<< Chinese were superb observers and chroniclers of their

observations, but that formulating theories; testing those theories; and

then incorporating the newly found knowledge to move on to the next step

was a concept generally foreign to them >>

 

It is interesting that you would put this at the end of your e-mail because I

wanted to talk about it. Western health is based on a hypothesis that is

tried and tested over and over. It is about moving to the next level. The

body while complex is really rather a simple machine when you think about

what it needs. It is important for us to understand why something ticks and

how to fix the broken part. Western health stays mental if you will.

Whereas Eastern tends to use the whole self to evaluate and balance. Have

you ever been in a room and you just knew something about someone that you

have never met and later you find out what you picked up was accurate. This

is what TCM and all other complementary medicine is about. Not what a theory

proved but what is going on with this person.

 

Ok let me take a left turn here. It is important that you understand

connection with the spirit and movement from there. Have you ever picked up

a crystal or rock for that matter and felt the energy generated from the

object. This does require the person to leave the mental and rely on only

your senses. It is incredible I remember my first time. I had just had

Reiki (it Was during my auricular training in New York) there were to M.D.'s

with me one who is very high strung and never relaxes she cried most of the

week (no ego so strange for a dr <G>). Anyway she felt the Reiki as well

later we were in Greenwich Village in a tiny crowded shop her husband (also a

dr) making fun of everything in this shop Sticks Stones and Bones (you get

the idea). I picked up a crystal in that shop and it almost jumped out of my

hand, I passed it to the dr who is so high strung she felt it, it came home

with me. From that day forward I have been able to feel the energy in

things. My point in all this link with the patient feel what is going on,

use the diagnostic tools that TCM is uses pulses and tongue. I know they

seem primitive aside all the machines and pills of the west but they do work

and well. Use all your senses to connect with the person, this is why

testing testing and retesting and creating theory based on a test group of a

few in opinion is not what healing is all about. Connecting person to person

and keeping it simple is far more healing.

 

No two humans will fit the text book for any syndrome. I know we think that

it will but it does not. Where is that person today, their stress level,

where do they live, what chemicals might be effecting them, etc., etc., etc.

Mind body spirit. Text books of studies done on controlled groups is not

valid that is why I dropped out of nursing school I watched as we killed

people because we did not connect because the study or text did not indicate

to connect.

 

I know that TCM and most complementary therapies seem so simple and so way

out there but it does work and it is really simple and we do not need

controlled studies to take us to the next level we are there and if you are

not paying attention it is passing you by. The study is in connection with

the world and the life in it. Not a lab. Look at all the studies done in

labs, the medical community saving us from ourselves. Please they are

poisoning us with the chemicals. How is that taking us to the next level?

We are killing the rainforests which hold the answers to so many things and

then lets not forget the things that are coming out of the forests that we

cannot treat. I always love the lets find a cure for cancer, we know the

cure, stop the poisoning of the planet and we can stop cancer.

 

Here is an abstract concept and I challenge you to try this because we can

all do it we just forget that we can. I can use Reiki (which we can do

without attunments sorry if we have any reiki people here, I have been

attuned and still feel that I have done this all my life) or Qi Gong and run

my hands over a person and tell where the blocks and/or imbalances are in the

body. Try this sometime with a friend you will feel it also. We had a women

come in the office that had incredible back pain, I had only been at this

office a week, I was sent in to scan her. I found all three site the origin,

the problem area and the result or final destination. They wanted here to

have surgery which she never need once we identified the problem. This is

why TCM is so difficult to fit in western terms it is not based on what

worked for a specific control group but what works for this person.

 

Sorry for the side trip but I think if you move out of why and into wow it

will be so much easier. I personally do not care why something works I just

think it is great that it does.

I know I got rather confusing here but maybe something will click and make

sense.

 

I don''t think it was that the Chinese were not good at taking it to the next

level I just don't think they felt they needed to. Why fix it if it is not

broken. Just my thoughts.

 

Shane

[Guest guest]

>with me. From that day forward I have been able to feel the energy in

>things. My point in all this link with the patient feel what is going on,

>use the diagnostic tools that TCM is uses pulses and tongue. I know

 

I can't sense energy flows and have to rely on conscious analysis, but I

know there are people who can. Either they're sensing energy flows or

they've got powers of observation and non-conscious analysis that dwarfs

those of most people.

 

I had a practical demonstration one summer day. One of my students was into

massage and reflexology. On that particular day I got to class early. I

was feeling very crappy that day because I had been working with a lot of

household cleaning chemicals. She happened to come early for class before

anyone else got there. She saw how I was feeling, I mean I had my head down

on the desk when she got there. She offered to help, and when I agreed, she

instructed me to remove my sandals. I thought this is weirdsville, but I

was feeling so bad I did. She started massaging my feet. After a while, she

announced, " You had injury to the base of your spine when you were very

young. " I did. When I was about 5 I was supporting myself with my arms

between two counters and swinging. My arms gave out, and I landed on the

base of my spine. It hurt so bad I couldn't move for a while. She could

have unconsiously picked this up from noting something about my posture.

Still, that's quite remarkable observation. She then asked me if I knew I

had thyroid problems. I have a history of on-agian, off-again thyroid

problems dating from childhood. Again, it could have been some uncanny

powers of observation. Maybe there was some very slight swelling in the neck

that she unconsciously or even consiously noted. But what really got me was

the last thing she said, " You have an infection building in your body. " I

knew I had an infection building. By that time I had had years of

experience with a recurring infection. But I also knew from experience that

it was not yet to the point where any evidence would show up in blood work

or other lab work so I was just going to have to suffer a few more days

before there would be objective proof that I did indeed have an infection

and be given antibiotics that would help the problem. Now keep in mind that

I had told her I was feeling so sick because of the exposure to all the

chemicals, and that was the main source of my feeling so crappy that day.

The infection wasn't yet to the point where it could make me feel that bad.

I hadn't mentioned the buidling infection. My big problem was feeling

nauseous from the chemicals. Yet, she zeroed in on a building infection that

I knew from long experience wasn't yet bad enough to show up in lab work.

Maybe she unconsciously noted some very slight swelling in the lymph nodes.

I don't know. But she pinpointed some things. And I did feel a lot better

when she got through with the reflexology. I guess that was the start of my

getting interested in massage and later led to an interest in acupressure.

 

Regardless of how someone arrives at the diagnosis, massage and acupressure/

acupuncture can help a great deal. I caution some readers not to dismiss

sensing energy flow as impossible. Just adopt a " who knows? " attitude and

file it away mentally as something you don't have to make a decision on

today. Or any other day for that matter. I caution other readers that using

conscious analysis is as valid as sensing energy flow. It depends on the

particular talents of the healer and what works and has been shown to get

results in the physical world for the individual healer. I never argue with

positive results that can be demonstrated consistently in physical reality

to be real.

 

Victoria

 

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[Guest guest]

>Spoken as only you can. I hope someday to be able to write as well.

 

I thought you did quite well in bringing out points that needed to be made

but I didn't think of making.

 

Thanks.

 

Victoria

 

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[Guest guest]

>Please excuse my ignorance on yet another matter...but I am unfamiliar

>with the abbreviation PWC.

 

Person With CFIDS. A lot of PWCs in the US refuse to call it CFS because it

trivilizes how serious the condition is by focusing on one symptom. It would

be like calling pneumonia Chronic Coughing Syndrome or calling diabetes

Chronic Urinating Syndrome. Descriptive of only one symptom and failing to

convey just how serious the conditions are.

 

What corresponds to CFIDS/CFS in Great Britain was called ME. I can't spell

what that is an abbreviation for. That is it was called ME until Wessely

misappropriated the CFS label for his own critieria which bear little

relationship to the CDC criteria for CFS. I sometimes think the US and

Britain must have had a contest to see which could come up with the worst

name for this - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which makes it sound like sufferers

are just a little tired or the Me Disease.

 

>I mentioned these things to the physics professor, and he said the above

>are more in the category of astute observations (where the Chinese stood

>head and shoulders above the rest of the world) rather than in the

>category of science per se.

 

I say hooray for astute observations, and can we get astute observations

more into Western science where they are needed a lot so we can stop

extrapolating from what sometimes are faulty assumptoms and get back to

trying to understand the real world and how things work?<G>

 

My husband may have some things to say on true and false. (He loves to talk

philosophy.) Basically, a false system is one that relies on its own tenets

for its rationale for existence. It never allows any new information into

the system that doesn't fit the existing framework, it never expands. If the

information doesn't already fit within the system (like it can't be

explained by the current understanding of anatomy in the West), it's judged

as not valid automatically when it may be that the paradigm needs to be

expanded to allow for this possibility. But the paradigm never gets expanded

because anything that doesn't fit is rejected automatically as not valid.

 

Expanding a pardigm is not easy. You go through a period where you may have

doubts about everything. It can be rather painful in fact. Like breaking out

of a shell.

 

Victoria

 

Victoria

 

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[Guest guest]

Victoria,

 

Spoken as only you can. I hope someday to be able to write as well. Now

that is the point I wanted to make but only rambled never reaching the

destination.

 

Well said. I second the motion.

 

Shane

[Guest guest]

Victoria,

 

Please excuse my ignorance on yet another matter...but I am unfamiliar

with the abbreviation PWC.

 

What does it represent?

 

You wrote:

>Let me see .... They knew about the circulation of blood through the

> body centuries before anyone in the West did, they knew to use

> seaweed to

> treat goiter more than a millenium before anyone in the West caught

> on to

> the iodine-goiter link, they invented gun powder,

 

I mentioned these things to the physics professor, and he said the above

are more in the category of astute observations (where the Chinese stood

head and shoulders above the rest of the world) rather than in the

category of science per se.

 

 

Sam

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[Guest guest]

It seems to me that St. Thomas Aquinas was famous, among other things,

for bringing into focus the thoughts of Aristotle, and other Greek and

Arabian philosophers. St. Augustine was big on Plato. Their period was

when antiquity began to be tapped. The church came down hard on Aquinas

because he dared to bring science to Christianity. But then philosophy

is itself based on science. Probably more equated with TCM though would

be Chu Hsi who was about contemporary with Aquinas, and Lao Tzu who of

course is from a much earlier period. The forrmer was a forerunner of

eternal return which is much more uncongnial to Western philosphers, more

so than TCM is to us.

 

tmex

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