Sunday, August 11, 2019
Week 3: Some thoughts about bionics
From modified stones to bionic implants, the history of tool use in human evolution has gone a long way. The definition of a tool, according to Cambridge dictionary, is either something used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession, or an element of a computer program that activates and controls a particular function. Bionic arms, portable organs, and brain chips, all fit into the definition of tools. The development of tools is inevitable, but regardless of what form these tools turn out to be, they should always serve the function of improving the quality of life. For a military purpose or not, whether a tool can be used in a positive way relies on the intention behind it. Moran Cerf has made some valid points on the potential concerns of bionics, but before the universal regulations are implemented, we could consider using these tools case by case to help with our lives.
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Week 2: Human Intent As It Affects Health
TCM does not look at mental health and physical health separately. In Western medicine, there are clear distinctions when a patient visits a general practitioner vs. a psychiatrist, but TCM practitioners often treat both aspects at the same time.
Human intent affects our habits and behaviors, such as what we do, what we eat, and what we choose. Imbalanced emotions can bring negative impact to the body. In TCM, for example, Spleen controls our thoughts (Yi ), but excessive thinking, studying, concentration can weaken the Spleen, which reflects in our digestion. When an intention cannot be fulfilled, Qi and emotion can easily stagnate inside the body and cause health issues - Liver Qi stagnation attacking the Spleen in TCM commonly addresses digestive problems that are affected by imbalanced emotions.
Human intent affects our habits and behaviors, such as what we do, what we eat, and what we choose. Imbalanced emotions can bring negative impact to the body. In TCM, for example, Spleen controls our thoughts (Yi ), but excessive thinking, studying, concentration can weaken the Spleen, which reflects in our digestion. When an intention cannot be fulfilled, Qi and emotion can easily stagnate inside the body and cause health issues - Liver Qi stagnation attacking the Spleen in TCM commonly addresses digestive problems that are affected by imbalanced emotions.
Week 2: How I Think of Kirlian Photography
It is definitely interesting to measure and compare energy changes before and after treatments. Many animals can alter their colors and even textures to adapt to the environment or to show their emotions, so why would it be surprising to see energy field changes according to their respective activities?
Electrographic imaging techniques, like Kirlian photography, have become a tool to study the energy changes in acupuncture, such as measuring the skin conductivity in relation to acupuncture points. Yin and Yang in TCM can be looked at as two opposite polarities and acupuncture is the art to balance these two. Acupuncture can also change body temperature, which means alternating the energy radiated from the body. One way to tell if acupuncture is working for someone, we can "test" the body to see if the person would sweat when needling LI4 and Liv3, which may likely show in Kirlian images.
Electrographic imaging techniques, like Kirlian photography, have become a tool to study the energy changes in acupuncture, such as measuring the skin conductivity in relation to acupuncture points. Yin and Yang in TCM can be looked at as two opposite polarities and acupuncture is the art to balance these two. Acupuncture can also change body temperature, which means alternating the energy radiated from the body. One way to tell if acupuncture is working for someone, we can "test" the body to see if the person would sweat when needling LI4 and Liv3, which may likely show in Kirlian images.
Week 2: Acupuncture as effective energy medicine
Energy, Energy Medicine, and Acupuncture
Energy, in physics, is defined as the capacity for doing work. Energy medicine deals with imbalanced energy fields of the body, and TCM theories are based on Yin-Yang balancing and overall health of human bodies.
Acupuncture is a physical intervention which manipulate the Qi flow in the the meridians. Many question about the efficacy of this treatment modality because acupuncture is utilizing an energy that is unmeasurable and meridians that are invisible with modern technology, but for someone who experienced acupuncture it's undeniable for them to sense the Qi flow moving inside their bodies.
Measuring the Unmeasurable Is Impossible
Qi is more than just the capacity of doing work. There is a huge gap while translating Qi directly to the word "energy." Qi (气) originally means the any existing substance rather than the heaven and the earth. Later it was used to describe the functional part of the eaten grains being processed in the body (aka. digestion). In TCM, Qi refers to the functional aspect of life. Furthermore, Qi can also describe the weather, the air, a person's mental spirit, breathing, attitudes, odor. Long story in short, Qi has a collection of meanings - some of them are quantitative concepts while some of them are qualitative. For instance, Sheng Qi (生气) in Chinese literally means "generating Qi", but it also means someone being angry or agitated. In this case, how you mathematically measure the psychological part becomes very difficult.
Luckily, You Do Not Need To Believe In Acupuncture To Make It Work
Some wonder if acupuncture is a placebo effect. I think any medicine, scientifically or "pseudoscientifically" can have a certain degree of placebo effect. However, how do we explain the animals that respond to acupuncture? How do you explain children, or even babies, respond to acupuncture? They obviously do not have to believe in medicine before getting the treatment.
Western sciences, including western medicine, usually focus on the vast majority and statistics. We often see because X amount of success rate we conclude this treatment is successful/unsuccessful. Medical care, however, can be very individualized. How many of us complain about "this medicine does not work for me" even though laboratory research tells you that it SHOULD work by status? Acupuncture, or TCM treatments, can probably help fill in that gap since they can be modified to fit individual needs based on pattern differentiation.
Energy, in physics, is defined as the capacity for doing work. Energy medicine deals with imbalanced energy fields of the body, and TCM theories are based on Yin-Yang balancing and overall health of human bodies.
Acupuncture is a physical intervention which manipulate the Qi flow in the the meridians. Many question about the efficacy of this treatment modality because acupuncture is utilizing an energy that is unmeasurable and meridians that are invisible with modern technology, but for someone who experienced acupuncture it's undeniable for them to sense the Qi flow moving inside their bodies.
Measuring the Unmeasurable Is Impossible
Qi is more than just the capacity of doing work. There is a huge gap while translating Qi directly to the word "energy." Qi (气) originally means the any existing substance rather than the heaven and the earth. Later it was used to describe the functional part of the eaten grains being processed in the body (aka. digestion). In TCM, Qi refers to the functional aspect of life. Furthermore, Qi can also describe the weather, the air, a person's mental spirit, breathing, attitudes, odor. Long story in short, Qi has a collection of meanings - some of them are quantitative concepts while some of them are qualitative. For instance, Sheng Qi (生气) in Chinese literally means "generating Qi", but it also means someone being angry or agitated. In this case, how you mathematically measure the psychological part becomes very difficult.
Luckily, You Do Not Need To Believe In Acupuncture To Make It Work
Some wonder if acupuncture is a placebo effect. I think any medicine, scientifically or "pseudoscientifically" can have a certain degree of placebo effect. However, how do we explain the animals that respond to acupuncture? How do you explain children, or even babies, respond to acupuncture? They obviously do not have to believe in medicine before getting the treatment.
Western sciences, including western medicine, usually focus on the vast majority and statistics. We often see because X amount of success rate we conclude this treatment is successful/unsuccessful. Medical care, however, can be very individualized. How many of us complain about "this medicine does not work for me" even though laboratory research tells you that it SHOULD work by status? Acupuncture, or TCM treatments, can probably help fill in that gap since they can be modified to fit individual needs based on pattern differentiation.
Week 1: Biophysics and Traditional Chinese Medicine
Biophysics applies the physics theories and methods to understand how biological systems work. Biophysicists combine knowledge of physics, math, and chemistry to study a wide range of biological topics, such as how cells communicate, how cells transform energy, how transformation of cancer cells are being triggered, and in traditional Chinese medicine, how energy flows in the meridians and how TCM treatments work.
In the early 90's, Lu Zuyin and coworkers studied the effects of the external Qi of Qigong on radioactive decay rate of an radioactive element. Though radioactive element's half-life is known to be unaffected by external physical or chemical influences, their experiments suggested that the external Qi could cause 12% change in radioactive decay rate of the radioactive source, as well as affect de-ionized water and change its ultraviolet absorption spectrum (1).
Although I am a little skeptical about their results since it was the Qi from only one Qigong practitioner, I cannot deny that it was an interesting idea to build a bond between Western science and TCM, and maybe biophysics can provide the common language between these two world. I remain hopeful to see TCM to yield positive treatment results via biophysics, such as mass data analysis, computerized modeling, imaging techniques, medical devices.
(1) Lu, Zu Yin, et al. “ The External Qi Experiments from the United States to BeiJing (China) by Yan Xin.” China Qigong, vol. 1, 1993, pp. 4–6., users.eastlink.ca/~cabbages/psi/usbeijin.pdf.
In the early 90's, Lu Zuyin and coworkers studied the effects of the external Qi of Qigong on radioactive decay rate of an radioactive element. Though radioactive element's half-life is known to be unaffected by external physical or chemical influences, their experiments suggested that the external Qi could cause 12% change in radioactive decay rate of the radioactive source, as well as affect de-ionized water and change its ultraviolet absorption spectrum (1).
Although I am a little skeptical about their results since it was the Qi from only one Qigong practitioner, I cannot deny that it was an interesting idea to build a bond between Western science and TCM, and maybe biophysics can provide the common language between these two world. I remain hopeful to see TCM to yield positive treatment results via biophysics, such as mass data analysis, computerized modeling, imaging techniques, medical devices.
(1) Lu, Zu Yin, et al. “ The External Qi Experiments from the United States to BeiJing (China) by Yan Xin.” China Qigong, vol. 1, 1993, pp. 4–6., users.eastlink.ca/~cabbages/psi/usbeijin.pdf.
Sunday, August 4, 2019
Week 1 - Human Body Is A Living System
A living system can be big or small. Our planet Earth is a living system, and a single cell is also a living system. What, in deed, is a living system? A living human body has a composition of all the biochemical elements, such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphate, nitrogen, sulfur, etc., which are making connections and reactions according to Laws of Physics, is that enough to define a living system?
The descriptive definition of life has been a challenge since life is process not a substance, and our knowledge of life is limited to the known living entities on planet Earth. Life has most or all of the following characters:
The descriptive definition of life has been a challenge since life is process not a substance, and our knowledge of life is limited to the known living entities on planet Earth. Life has most or all of the following characters:
A living system has a
capability to store, retrieve, transmit, and respond to information essential to life processes, such as being able to maintain homeostasis, regulating the internal environment to
maintain a constant state. A living human body is able to regulate the internal temperature
according to external environmental changes.
A living system is organized in a structured way and has the
capability of transforming energy. A living human body is composed by organized cellular structures, and it requires energy to maintain
internal organization and to produce other phenomena associated with life.
A living system can grow, adapt, and reproduce. A living body can grow cells in size and numbers, be able to response to the environment and stimuli, and be able to reproduce its own cells as well as new individual organisms.
According to living system theory, a living thing is an open self-organizing system that interact with the environment. Such system is maintained by flows of information, energy, and matter. In 1974, Varela, Maturana, and Uribe proposed that living beings are autopoietic systems that can reproduce and maintain itself.
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