Last Sunday (8/20/22) we started from a lengthy Zoom discussion of new cutting edge opportunities in hard core systems neuroscience, the first 1.24 hours of:
(By the way, Microsoft acted up when I clicked on this, so I just downloaded the mp4.)
Yeshua Davis and I got deep into the hard core brain data work which we previously collaborated on,
AND on critical new research issues with time scales in the brain. It was nice to have a chance to discuss what the real meaning was of what we found in the best existing real data, and
on new questions. (https://www.frontiersin.org/
earth type organic brains.
But then Mike asked "... what IS qi?" and Kashyap asked about the data from first person experience ("1pp")
I had to leave at that time, because of important prior commitments (which I was already late to!). Mike said we should continue that by email.
In general, the later debate was really great in bringing together DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS, which I feel duty to respond to.
In a way, Kashyap spoke for science, Mike for (mysticism?), and Yeshua for the challenge of how to integrate the two.
It seems to me that sincere, deep and competent DEBATE or DIALOGUE between the two is the most important single challenge in "psychotherapy for our noosphere",
to improve our chances of humans reaching a higher level of consciousness before it is too late. (In other words, to achieve the first of the great hopes in the jpeg list I attach, before one of the four great fears kills us all.)
Kashyap also said bluntly for the recorder "My problem with this stuff is that **I** have not had any of the kinds of mystic experience which would let me take this more seriously. Yes, I know all these gurus, and see how it works in India..." Mike was a bit nervous about that, but Yeshua praised Kashyap for this. Before I get to qi... I need to agree with Yeshua, and say more.
The BPM list was created to try to generate focus, world-class dialogue aimed at SEVERAL basic questions. Yes, it was i tended to be very open to anything else people on the list want to discuss, but it is very unfortunate that people who are interested in the original short list, in a serious balanced way, may feel inhibited by distractions. PLEASE COME BACK.
The subject codes (like "N" for serious neuroscience and "PSI" for mind beyond what QED physics allows) SHOULD BE USED ONLY FOR POSTS WHICH FIT, AND THOSE WHO WANT TO DISCUSS THE MORE SERIOUS BIG QUESTIONS SHOULD IGNORE THE REST AND POST USING CODES. (There was a Q code for serious quantum physics.)
WITHIN THE 'PSI" challenge of the first big hope in the attachment... Kashyap's question is of very fundamental importance. HOW CAN WE HELP PEOPLE who have not yet had veridical experience
of what I call "PSI" to achieve it, to achieve it as reality, not as illusion, and know when it is real? I have even bcc'ed one such teacher, and hope to have future dialogues doing justice to it.
But for now... I owe Mike my answer..
What is qi? (My view)
The true integration of brain and "soul" demands that each one of us get serious BOTH about what we can learn from "1pp" and from hard core objective "3pp".
This kind of integration is what I call second-order sanity (2OS) for people who have "opened their eyes" enough that they account for
PSI inputs as well as mundane sense inputs in their experience.
In one of the papers I linked to at werbos.com/religions.htm, h
I discussed the important concept of "zheng qi". Many view "zhengqi" as the very center of true Confucianism. My comments there are based on a talk I was invited to give to almost 1000
people in a university in China, as the first stage of a friendly visit to the world headquarters of the Confucius Institute.
See http://www.werbos.com/pi/
where they asked me to speak from the chair Zhu Xi used in his lectures, and where Mao had HIS interpretations. This paper also cites a paper by Xi JinPing on the same topic,
which I discussed in China BEFORE they shifted power to him.
"zheng qi" basically refers to "properly channeled qi". (2OS, really. The use of music, meditation and ritual in the Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius, Meng-tsu or Menhzi,
clearly fits, even though some later followers were more cold and rigid, as Mao rightly noted.)
BUT WHAT IS IT?
I view qi as an essential part of the 1pp heritage of all of the earth. Even as many gurus in India are often obsessed with formalistic 3pp verbiage, like "color blind art critics,"
the culture of China so far has focused much more concretely on ACTUAL 1pp. In my view, this is why Walter Freeman knew to collaborate with people in Nanjing who built on concrete ancient 1pp
experience and culture, to create unique links with science, which many in China ALSO revere. Probably US-China collaborations (connecting leaders in Nanjing and Taiwan with IEEE leaders who know about neural networks) are the most promising venue for actually building tangible connections, measurements and experiments.
Because qi has been an essential part of my own 1pp, not only for PSI but for sheer physical survical, I should give the link to just one or the three big tai qi / qi gong classes
which probably saved my life in 2019, when I was struggling to recover from a very difficult fall
Above all, "qi" in China refers to a kind of SENSATION. There has been very complex debate about what KINDS of qi exist, how they interact, and what lies behind it.
There is no agreed meaning for the word "qi," but I have a view.
The most important type of qi, in my view, for us, is the flow of modulated backpropagation in the "noobrain," the "nervous system" of the local noosphere in our solar system.
In my view, that is what lies behind, especially, the kind of higher qi which Meng Tzu talks about, in his highest most important writings. My paper linked to above cites Fu's book on that and other important aspects of Chinese philosophy. In truth, Fu was puzzled by what Meng says about exactly this kind of qi, and I was thrilled to recognize exactly what I have seen myself. (And yes, I also saw it in Meng's instruction room when my Chinese hosts were kind enough to arrange a visit.) But the highest qi is only ONE of the flows of qi in the noobrain.
Our noosphere also has some ability to perturb the "physical world" of this solar system, the movement of (some of the) ordinary particles described by quantum electrodynamics (QED).
Nancy DuTertre has described centers in Russia which continue their long tradition of experiments on psychokinesis, which I view as actions "emanating from" our noosphere.
More precisely, I claim that PK can actually happen when the "souls" of people connect through the noosphere to the MOTOR SYSTEM of the noosphere, which uses dark matter to perturb QED matter/energy to perturb our physical reality. THIS kind of qi, the forces exerted by the noosphere outside of the noobrain itself, is another very important kind of qi, responsible for perturbation of the brain (as in "ESP") and for physical manifestations which people wrongly interpret as "ghosts" or "etheric bodies." YES they really saw something, but NO, they did not know what it was.
Is there anything else out there which is real which would fit the word "qi"? Yes, as Hal noted, there are electrical effects in human bodies, well studied even in western medicine, but I would not call them "qi" myself, even though many in Chinese medicine might, as it helps them consider medical options. That use of the word confuses the issues I just raised questions about.
On the other hand, Yeshua would rightly note that mental "energy" and modulated backpropagation are not limited to earth. So perhaps "extraterrestrial qi" might be spoken of as a third category of true qi, even if we should not pretend we know more than we do about it.
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All for now. Best of luck, Paul
(was cc'ed to sboc and some relevant players)
