the fantasy ends...

[saintjon]

inspired by lucid dreaming thread

where does it end? What do you believe in?

Does the martial artist REALLY harness chi, or is it just muscle power? Ever watch Scariest Places on Earth?

What is popularly held to be fantasy that you choose to believe in?

Personally I believe in chi (it just makes sense). I'm open minded about magic and spirits and lots of people think I'm crazy.

[Aik Haw]

*Smiles*

Westerners place too much mysticism in the phenomenon the Chinese and Japanese calls Qi. To the Orientals, Qi is merely the manifestation of the life force, which pervades all things, though it is more aligned in all living things. To an Easterner, muscle strength and Qi goes hand in hand, a weak Qi results in poor muscle development, or an unbalanced Qi result in muscle sprains etc.. In Eastern medicine, both body and balance, esoterically and physically, are one in the same, like a river. The banks represents the physical, the water represents the Qi. A river cannot exist without the banks, and cannot exist without the Qi. What happens to the banks affect the water, and likewise, the water affects the banks. When the nature of the bank becomes imbalance or changes, so does the water, and when the water flow changes, so does the bank .

[Aik Haw]

To rectify, this means that a person with a weak muscle or a severe neurodegenerative disease will likewise have a weaker Qi as opposed to those who don't. As I said, they go hand in hand.

[chocky]

Ever watch Scariest Places on Earth?

My wife does and believes. Personally, I am a skeptic. I don't rule any of the paranormal out but there would have to be pretty persausive proof for me to believe.
I do believe in Chinese medicine. My wife is asian and treats all my maladies with it. She always says I have to much "Heat" in my stomach and thats why I have stomach problems. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean but I always feel better afterwards.

[Holbrook]

The fantasy ends, when you close the book, or switch of the TV, or walk out of the picture house.....

[milamber_reborn]

Crossing Over with John Edward has started airing recently in Australia, and I believe he's for real. The rest of my family automatically assume it's a con.

[Forrest]

I believe my beloved Seattle Seahawks will someday win the superbowl. Yes I am a sad little boy.

But on a more relavent vein, I also believe in Chi or Qi or whatever it is. I have felt it and I find my performance is superior in all areas when I work to be attuned to it.

[Celtic Warrior]

I never realised Chi, Ki or Qi is something to believe in, it's just there. I've done Reiki, and I would like to do Tai Chi, to relax.
I believe in reincarnation and karma. I think buddhism is the closest that comes to my believes.
I don't like the word "paranormal", if it exists, it can't be paranormal, it's just "normal".

[Nevyn]

If I believed in reincarnation like the Buddhist , that would certainly explain why there are so many cockroaches around nowdays
I don't so I swat !

[Celtic Warrior]

Originally posted by Nevyn
If I believed in reincarnation like the Buddhist , that would certainly explain why there are so many cockroaches around nowdays
I don't so I swat !

LOL, my vision is a little different from that though

[Pantalimon]

I am a skeptic. I don't rule any of the paranormal out but there would have to be pretty persausive proof for me to believe.

The funny thing is when you test a random set of people the belivers score higher than chance (positive psi) and the skeptics lower than chance (negative psi). Niether should have happened, in parapsycology belivers are called sheep and non-belivers goats.

[saintjon]

yeah man, I've read stuff about chi. Thing is, when you try to sell the idea to physicists, that chi allows you to do more than muscle development alone can account for (because as you said, they're tied together) well, usually they're not very keen.

When you get reading historical bits about martial arts (even fairly recent ones) some of the stuff they do is pretty crazy. I loved reading about O-Sensei displaying his stuff at tournaments .

What do you guys think of this one from Tao of Pooh? There was a guy who died in the thirties named Li Chung Yun. The Chinese government officially and irrefutably recorded (which was verified by thorough independent investigation) that he had been born in 1677. When he was over the age of 200, he did a series of lectures on longevity at a chinese university. The people who saw him said he looked like he was in his fifties. This was because he took it easy and tried not to worry about stuff, did was needful (Taoist). Which makes a lot of sense to me. How else do you explain George Burns? For all his habits, the guy was very laid back.

[Hereford Eye]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by saintjon
[B]
Thing is, when you try to sell the idea to physicists, ....well, usually they're not very keen.

As said earlier in the thread, everyone has their own mysticism to work out or words to that effect. Physicists have to deal with the consequences of believing in gravity even though they don't know what it is. Worse, they have complementarity and the inter-connectedness of everything that QM produces. And then there are a bunch of them that think a unified field theory (another name for the explanation of everything) is just around the corner. It's not easy to be a physicist.

[Llama]

>>Crossing Over with John Edward has started airing recently in Australia, and I believe he's for real.


Might wanna revise the tag under your avatar then, Milamber. There was a pretty good article in the press lately about how they tape the show -- where they only air the segments that appear to work, but not those where he makes a complete ass of himself, which apparently is often. And then they also spoke to skeptics who noted that with an audience that "wants" to believe you can get a high response by saying pretty much anything at all. Which is nothing new, of course, but it seems to bear repeating every few years, every time another one of these extortionists comes on the scene.

It's so sad, because this is EXACTLY the sort of thing that nineteenth century seance hoaxers used to do, and do well, often depriving credulous families of their savings in the process. Those who forget history, etc.

[saintjon]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Hereford Eye

Originally posted by saintjon
As said earlier in the thread, everyone has their own mysticism to work out or words to that effect. Physicists have to deal with the consequences of believing in gravity even though they don't know what it is. Worse, they have complementarity and the inter-connectedness of everything that QM produces. And then there are a bunch of them that think a unified field theory (another name for the explanation of everything) is just around the corner. It's not easy to be a physicist.

Never said it was. My hat's off to the scietific community, especially when the fuel cell's done.