![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The meaning of "Energy"
Last night a friend of mine retweeted this:
When I went off to university ten years ago, one of the questions I wanted to answer was "what is this thing called energy?" I still don't have a good answer to that, unfortunately; if asked now I'd mumble something about Noether's Theorem and Hamiltonians of closed systems, so I am at least confused on a higher level. But let's accept rhysmorgan's definition "the ability to do work" for the moment (and pretend not to notice that we haven't defined "ability" or "work"). There's still a problem with criticising marzillk's use of the word "energy": the physicist's definition isn't the only possible definition of the term. The OED gives seven definitions, of which only the final two are related to the thing that physicists talk about. Furthermore, the word "energy" has only been in use in the physicist's sense since 1807 (and the following year, someone proposed using it for what we now call "momentum"!) So if the practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine (or anyone else) want to re-use the term "energy" (or, for that matter, "meridian") to refer to something else, I have no problem with that in principle.
What I do have a problem with is the extraordinary ignorance of biology betrayed by marzillk's use of this stuff (and if she thinks that it's irrelevant that she works in educational publishing... well, I'm afraid I disagree). I've encountered a lot of skilled martial artists who claim to find qi (or something very similar) an essential component of the way they think about their art, so I'm not willing to totally write it off (perhaps it could be made to work as a high-level abstraction over some low-level biomechanical details), but really, tapping a point over your spleen to cure a cold? How on Earth does that fit with the (extremely well-attested) germ theory of disease?
But you know what, I could be wrong. Maybe tapping your spleen somehow makes it produce more monocytes or something (would that even help with a viral infection? IANAB). But that's the great thing about science: we don't have to rely on arguments from theory. Instead, we just do the experiment; if the experiment contradicts the theory, then the experiment wins. In this respect, marzillk was being more scientific than rhysmorgan, with her "I don't understand it, but I've tried it and it seems to work", approach. XKCD nailed this one: '"Ideas are tested by experiment." That is the core of science. Everything else is bookkeeping.'
To be sure, it's a pretty dodgy experiment. Only one subject, no control, no blinding, results measured by subjective feelings of wellness. One could imagine a much better experiment, in which a large number of subjects were randomly assigned to two groups: one group would receive meridian-tapping therapy from a trained master of the art, and the other would have random points on their body tapped by actors who could spin a convincing line of bullshit about the mystic significance of what they were doing. Then you measure how long it takes everyone to get better from their colds, and see if there's any statistically significant difference in the recovery times of the two groups.
I had a brief look, but couldn't find anyone who'd done that experiment. A fascinating and well-known 2007 study did what I described for acupuncture and lower back pain, though, and found that the actors had a greater success rate than the acupuncturists!
Contrariwise, this study evaluated "Meridian three-combined therapy" (thread embedding, bloodletting, and tapping/pressing) for the treatment of psoriasis, and found a small but significant improvement in effectiveness compared to conventional treatments. However, I'm assigning that limited weight in this context, because (a) it didn't just measure tapping, (b) it was for a different condition, (c) it was painfully (hoho) obvious to the patients which group they were in, and (d) it was performed in a Chinese cultural context, and we know (from experiments!) that cultural context is very important for the placebo effect.
So, anyone with greater scholarship skills able to find anything more relevant?
Update: rhysmorgan responds "I guess my beef with her referring to it as energy was that her form of energy doesn't actually exist." I take his point, but "existence" is kinda problematic in this context. Physicists' energy is an abstraction, a consequence of the time-invariance of physical laws. You can't measure it directly, nor capture it in a pure form. In what sense does it exist? But the theory of physical energy makes useful predictions: we can do calculations with energy and arrive at correct, numerical predictions of what will happen when we perform experiments. This is the important thing. To take a more abstract example: when you learn about the conventional underpinnings of calculus, you discover that there's no object in the system called "dx" or "dy", and that statements involving them are shorthand for more complex statements about the behaviour of limits. But the theory as a whole allows you to manipulate these non-existent objects and arrive at correct results. Analogously, the important question about meridian-tapping is not "does it refer only to directly observable things?" but "does it give correct predictions?"
.@marzillk What energy!? Some completely unobservable thing? Energy is simply the ability to do work. Nothing more, nothing less.It turned out that this was in response to the following:
-- rhysmorgan
@AlabasterC My sister recommends homeopathic aconite and tapping various energy points. It is helping a bit.When questioned further marzillk usefully clarified:
@rhysmorgan Spleen meridian boosts immune system. It's under ribs on the left hand side - find the sore point, then tap while slow breathingNow, there's so much wrong with that that I don't know where to start. But I do know where not to start: by criticising her terminology. I fired off:
@rhysmorgan I know it sounds mental but I can genuinely feel it doing something.
@rhysmorgan right now, @marzillk's making observations and you're bitching about terminology. Pop quiz: which is more scientific?I want to expand on that a bit.
When I went off to university ten years ago, one of the questions I wanted to answer was "what is this thing called energy?" I still don't have a good answer to that, unfortunately; if asked now I'd mumble something about Noether's Theorem and Hamiltonians of closed systems, so I am at least confused on a higher level. But let's accept rhysmorgan's definition "the ability to do work" for the moment (and pretend not to notice that we haven't defined "ability" or "work"). There's still a problem with criticising marzillk's use of the word "energy": the physicist's definition isn't the only possible definition of the term. The OED gives seven definitions, of which only the final two are related to the thing that physicists talk about. Furthermore, the word "energy" has only been in use in the physicist's sense since 1807 (and the following year, someone proposed using it for what we now call "momentum"!) So if the practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine (or anyone else) want to re-use the term "energy" (or, for that matter, "meridian") to refer to something else, I have no problem with that in principle.
What I do have a problem with is the extraordinary ignorance of biology betrayed by marzillk's use of this stuff (and if she thinks that it's irrelevant that she works in educational publishing... well, I'm afraid I disagree). I've encountered a lot of skilled martial artists who claim to find qi (or something very similar) an essential component of the way they think about their art, so I'm not willing to totally write it off (perhaps it could be made to work as a high-level abstraction over some low-level biomechanical details), but really, tapping a point over your spleen to cure a cold? How on Earth does that fit with the (extremely well-attested) germ theory of disease?
But you know what, I could be wrong. Maybe tapping your spleen somehow makes it produce more monocytes or something (would that even help with a viral infection? IANAB). But that's the great thing about science: we don't have to rely on arguments from theory. Instead, we just do the experiment; if the experiment contradicts the theory, then the experiment wins. In this respect, marzillk was being more scientific than rhysmorgan, with her "I don't understand it, but I've tried it and it seems to work", approach. XKCD nailed this one: '"Ideas are tested by experiment." That is the core of science. Everything else is bookkeeping.'
To be sure, it's a pretty dodgy experiment. Only one subject, no control, no blinding, results measured by subjective feelings of wellness. One could imagine a much better experiment, in which a large number of subjects were randomly assigned to two groups: one group would receive meridian-tapping therapy from a trained master of the art, and the other would have random points on their body tapped by actors who could spin a convincing line of bullshit about the mystic significance of what they were doing. Then you measure how long it takes everyone to get better from their colds, and see if there's any statistically significant difference in the recovery times of the two groups.
I had a brief look, but couldn't find anyone who'd done that experiment. A fascinating and well-known 2007 study did what I described for acupuncture and lower back pain, though, and found that the actors had a greater success rate than the acupuncturists!
Contrariwise, this study evaluated "Meridian three-combined therapy" (thread embedding, bloodletting, and tapping/pressing) for the treatment of psoriasis, and found a small but significant improvement in effectiveness compared to conventional treatments. However, I'm assigning that limited weight in this context, because (a) it didn't just measure tapping, (b) it was for a different condition, (c) it was painfully (hoho) obvious to the patients which group they were in, and (d) it was performed in a Chinese cultural context, and we know (from experiments!) that cultural context is very important for the placebo effect.
So, anyone with greater scholarship skills able to find anything more relevant?
Update: rhysmorgan responds "I guess my beef with her referring to it as energy was that her form of energy doesn't actually exist." I take his point, but "existence" is kinda problematic in this context. Physicists' energy is an abstraction, a consequence of the time-invariance of physical laws. You can't measure it directly, nor capture it in a pure form. In what sense does it exist? But the theory of physical energy makes useful predictions: we can do calculations with energy and arrive at correct, numerical predictions of what will happen when we perform experiments. This is the important thing. To take a more abstract example: when you learn about the conventional underpinnings of calculus, you discover that there's no object in the system called "dx" or "dy", and that statements involving them are shorthand for more complex statements about the behaviour of limits. But the theory as a whole allows you to manipulate these non-existent objects and arrive at correct results. Analogously, the important question about meridian-tapping is not "does it refer only to directly observable things?" but "does it give correct predictions?"
no subject
Martial arts has to be one of the largest mines of spurious mystical nonsense that I'm aware of. The vast majority is explainable by conventional physiology, and the stuff that seems extraordinary can invariably be shown to be fakirism, trickery or just plain lies.
A martial artist babbling about "qi" would make me MORE suspicious.
Regarding the acupuncture study, what's interesting is that it doesn't matter where you stick the needles - providing compelling falsification of the "meridian" hypothesis (at least insofar as it applies to acupuncture).
no subject
Agreed. To be a bit clearer, I give zero credence to the "iron shirt" stuff and the like. But when someone who can do impressive things says "I think about it in terms of X" then that suggests to me, not that X necessarily has any physical reality, but that X may well be a useful approximation to or metaphor for what's really going on. Does that make any sense?
Regarding the acupuncture study, what's interesting is that it doesn't matter where you stick the needles - providing compelling falsification of the "meridian" hypothesis (at least insofar as it applies to acupuncture).
Agreed. Elegant, isn't it?
no subject
no subject
The question is not "does qi exist?", it's "does thinking about your actions and training in terms of qi improve your performance of those actions?" And in the crucible that is modern international athletic competition, we overwhelmingly find athletes whose training is shaped by the scientific understanding of physiology, suggesting that a qi-based training regime is outperformed by a scientific one. But a qi-based regime might still outperform a "make it up as you go along" regime.
no subject
no subject
Then again, there's a whole other worm's nest in discussing what, exactly, should count as abuse from believing parents — and raising your child to believe in the same potholes you do could well qualify.
no subject
no subject
(Anonymous) 2010-10-27 09:14 pm (UTC)(link)It's a metaphor for doing it right. It's a way of thinking about (or rather 'not thinking about') your musculoskeletal system and mind working harmoniously. An example would be during Tai Chi's "pung" force-transference exercises. You're told to visualise chi running through you and into the ground, moving the external force into the earth. When you get the posture right, it's amazing how much shoving you can take - and it feels right too. You're taught this is correct chi flow, because those are words to describe something we haven't long had words for.
Qi/Chi is more understandable (especially considering a system a few thousand years old!) than explaining how to balance your skeleton, musculature and mind in order to leverage the physical properties of correct posture/movement. You teach that "feeling of dynamic rightness" as chi control. I'm sure you've felt that kind of feeling when a climb is really going well and you're just hitting everything and it's like you're flowing up the face - when you're in the zone.
I think you can do both - science and chi - but you don't see it in most sports 'cos it's not something trainers would train with. Martial arts contests, I bet you'll see both.
-mmmmmattt
no subject
I've encountered that feeling more often when juggling or playing video games, but yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.