Ken #4

[Guest guest]

Lon: In fact, any medicine that uses measurement as its " basis " is

 

materialist

 

> in nature and therfore could never, on its own, be holistic.

 

Ken I'm not sure that I understand the distinction

 

you're making between materialistic and

 

holistic. Are the two understood to be

 

mutually exclusive? >>

 

Lon: I'm making the distinction that *measurement* has a place in an integral

science but could never be its *basis*. Measurement could only ever be a

source of input. A truely integral science would *have* to include measurement

as

the external objective *has* to be considered in an integral model. I'm am

also making a distinction between " holistic " and " integral " . The five element

model, for example, is " holistic " (in fact, its one of the only true holistic

models that exists relative to medicine) yet does not require measurement at

all.

It is holistic in and of itself as a fully formed system. I explain this in

my text Nourishing Destiny on pp. 130-136 and in the appendix on Western Vs.

Chinese science. Think of the 5E chart with five elements and 12 officials and

each official haveing an internal representation of the five elements within

it. Each element point is a holon, each meridian and official is a holon, each

element is a holon, and each human is a holon. A holon is a whole which itself

is composed of smaller wholes.

However the five element model itself, not relying on measurement cannot

be considered integral. An integral model brings all of our human experience

to bear. Hence five element/eight principle, quantitative analysis/inductive

synthesis, deductive/inductive thought, left/right brain, internal

subjective/intersubjective, external/objective all come together. Hence in an

integral

model there would be no contradiction between my experience, our experience, the

data, and the direct observation of physical structures. This four quadrant

model really is mind blowing though, it is still a model (as all models are).

For example, I feel hungry, I have a stomach (in the CM sense) and a part

of my brain that presides over metabolism, you sense my hunger (the we) and

what I eat has implications for you (is there enough left for you?), and we can

measure the changes in the brain as hunger approches and after I eat.