You reminded me of a few basic points about qi.
A friend recently discussed modern Chinese attempts to make sense of the age-old concept of "qi," which reflects a deep strain of important experience, but is hard to understand. My explanation:
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One of the first sources which impressed me was:
He was a leading professor at Tsinghua University, then called "the MIT of China," in the days before followers of Jiang Zemin worked to discredit all such "old ideas." He later moved to the US, and found that US students have troubles understanding what was best in China; he has later books which Westerners find it easier to understand, but less content in some ways.
I too had troubles making sense of that book after I bought it in 1962 or so, as I wandered intoa bookstorein Princeton, New Jersey. But now I especially appreciate the discussion of Meng Tzu (Mencius) and what he said about a high form of mental qi. After years of exploring many things, I found it easy to relate to things which Meng said which even Fung found puzzling. He seems to say that most readers even in China had difficulty because they were more familiar with something more like physical qi. (I also still remember an historical museum in Changsha, which included qi gong manuals commissioned by royalty MANY centuries ago.)
But what IS qi? I always try to distinguish between the experiences and the theories, like the news versus the editorials. (When I grew up, there was a clear distinction. Lately I worry.) The EXPERIENCE of qi is what I take seriously and can relate to. But when pompous color blind art critics all over the world overstress primitive theories... I am simply happy we do have better formal concepts available now.
Many folks even with authentic experience of qi (some clearly far more proficient than me in their areas like martial arts)
naturally assume it is a kind of substance or force fields. After all, many people with experience of heat felt it was obvious that heat must be a kind of substance (phlogiston). I disagree 100%.
I do remember Karl Pribram and Walter Freeman both looking puzzled but then reflective and agreeing when I said to them: "psychic energy is not energy." Freud's concept of "psychic energy" is the strongest, most general foundation of his whole theory of psychodynamics, of how the brain works. Pribram was very proud of his book on Freud, and very sad that the world appreciated his lesser work more than that great work. My chain rule for ordered derivatives (later named "backpropagation" through a complex chain of history) actually came from translating that concept of Freud into mathematics and neural networks, long before any CS people knew of it. This is why Pribram provided a strong endorsement on the back of my book The Roots of Backpropagation which gave that history.
But here is the point: what Freud called "psychic energy" is at a higher level than simple Hamiltonian physical energy. It is NOT part of the equations of physics. It is more like a flow of emotions (coded in higher order patterns of chemistry and electromagnetism organized as major patterns in cells) than a flow of electrical energy. It is an emergent, evolved phenomenon, just like the dots and dashes of Morse code; yes, they have a physical basis, but no, they are not elementary particles or anything like it. The equations of backpropagation clearly DO NOT obey the energy conservation laws familiar in physics; the level of "psychic energy" (*or resulting affect or cathexis) in mammal brains is NOT FIXED, but varies a LOT depending on the mental condition of the person, as well as physical conditions. In essence, Freud's "psychic energy" is basically just a set of information signals computed by a mammal brain.
SO HERE IS MY CLAIM: the reality behind "qi" ("the true meaning of qi") if=s the flow of what Freud called "psychic energy", IN THE NOOSPHERE, which is a higher order organized nervous system just like the mammal brain but more powerful. (Strictly speaking, the word "noosphere" could refer to that nervous system, or that nervous system plus the entire rest of the organism it represents. Both are meaningful concepts.)
Even "physical qi" is MANIFESTATION of information signals over dark matter COUPLING to ordinary matter, just as our physical body energy is seen when our muscles hit something else guided by our nerves.
So for me, the distinction between "physical qi" and "mental qi" is ACTUALLY not between physical and mental signals, but between different LEVELS of what is totally mental at a deeper level. ONE nervous system, ONE noosphere (in our solar system) with many LEVELS, levels more complex than the simple "mental/physical distinction," but we need to start somewhere in sorting out experience.
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All for now.
Best regards,
Paul
P.S. A corollary is that qi is governed by that same general equation, with a modulation term (as in my IT versions). But of course, the overall structure and inputs are important to the outcomes.
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