Biophysics: Week 1 Life and Living Systems
I know I am a "living system" because...
According to the theory of autopoesis as defining a living system, I know I am alive because I am asking the question in the first place (my consciousness makes me living and I am self-referring) and also because we have discovered the autopoetic workings of our own biology: the fact that the cells of our body reproduce themselves continually. For example, the components of our cells reproduce themselves with their own little powerhouses, waste management, copy centers, etc. - it's like it's own little city. Or how we shed our skin cells and renew them daily, we discard old red blood cells and create new ones every second...
TCM and Biophysics
According to a systematic review of the characteristics of acu meridians and points by Juan Li, Qing Wang, et al. ; there are a number of studies with mostly positive results which measures the activity of the points and meridians, showing their activity in the following senses: acoustic characteristics (sound transmits better at acu points and down meridians, especially in the tone that relates to that element), thermal (more heat at points), optical (more lumescience at points), magnetic, myoelectric, isotopic activities at points, etc. I think these biophysical properties are very convincing to some, certainly to a patient population used to Western biomedicine and who prefer the explanation of how qi works before getting a needle inserted in them. To me this raises the question of how much faith we put in medicine in the first place and the level of tangeability we care about: do we question what is happening when we get an injection of a drug? Do we need to understand some material change other than what we subjectively experience when receiving acupuncture?
Although I don't personally care as much about the biophysical explanation of TCM in terms of receiving treatment, I endeavor to learn it for giving treatment - to help people gain more peace of mind, as learning that points do in fact propagate a myoelectrical response down the meridian it corresponds to, according to clinical studies, can validate their own experience. Perhaps they trust this information more than their own subjective experience of say acu at LI 4 traveling up the arm, or ST 8 traveling down the leg to the second toe...
Resources: Biophysical Characteristics of Acupoints and Meridians: A Systematic Review. Li, Juan, Wang, Qing, et al. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2012/793841/
According to the theory of autopoesis as defining a living system, I know I am alive because I am asking the question in the first place (my consciousness makes me living and I am self-referring) and also because we have discovered the autopoetic workings of our own biology: the fact that the cells of our body reproduce themselves continually. For example, the components of our cells reproduce themselves with their own little powerhouses, waste management, copy centers, etc. - it's like it's own little city. Or how we shed our skin cells and renew them daily, we discard old red blood cells and create new ones every second...
TCM and Biophysics
According to a systematic review of the characteristics of acu meridians and points by Juan Li, Qing Wang, et al. ; there are a number of studies with mostly positive results which measures the activity of the points and meridians, showing their activity in the following senses: acoustic characteristics (sound transmits better at acu points and down meridians, especially in the tone that relates to that element), thermal (more heat at points), optical (more lumescience at points), magnetic, myoelectric, isotopic activities at points, etc. I think these biophysical properties are very convincing to some, certainly to a patient population used to Western biomedicine and who prefer the explanation of how qi works before getting a needle inserted in them. To me this raises the question of how much faith we put in medicine in the first place and the level of tangeability we care about: do we question what is happening when we get an injection of a drug? Do we need to understand some material change other than what we subjectively experience when receiving acupuncture?
Although I don't personally care as much about the biophysical explanation of TCM in terms of receiving treatment, I endeavor to learn it for giving treatment - to help people gain more peace of mind, as learning that points do in fact propagate a myoelectrical response down the meridian it corresponds to, according to clinical studies, can validate their own experience. Perhaps they trust this information more than their own subjective experience of say acu at LI 4 traveling up the arm, or ST 8 traveling down the leg to the second toe...
Resources: Biophysical Characteristics of Acupoints and Meridians: A Systematic Review. Li, Juan, Wang, Qing, et al. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2012/793841/
I like how you touch on the fractal nature of our bodies and how we have our own "little cities" within our body. I agree and have felt this before. It is amazing how we keep recreating ourselves every moment of existence. The fact that we are constantly producing new cells and shedding the old is a nice example of the physicality of the concept as well.
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