This post is in reference to this video
Western medicine is based off of a Cartesian mindset - highly logical (Reason), skeptical thinking. When it is applied to Eastern healing or what we call "alternative" medicine in this hemisphere it attempts to assimilate its knowledge into our standards. One such example of this "assimilation" is Western medicine's interpretation of "Chi" energy, a source of energy of life in many Asian cultures, but mostly Chinese.
In the linked video there is a man who can focus his Chi energy to heal patients suffering from back pain, which will heat up on his command, seemingly out of nowhere. In a very Cartesian manner, the American doctors, via Ripley's Believe It or Not, say "there is nothing in Western Medicine to explain such a phenomenon" and immediately try to explain Chi in their terms: temperature measurements and clinical language. The doctors try to "make science" by using thermometers to transcribe what is going on - something that is simply the "flow" of Chi energy to the Eastern healer is turned in to a science that must me understood in a "scientific" way.
The difference between the two methods is an epistemological one: what Westerners believe is the true producer of knowledge (in this case scientists under authority of some university with tools with exact values that correspond to our system of measurements, which also in this case is different than what the Chinese would use for scientific data) and what the healer (and "kung-fu" teacher) believes produces knowledge (traditional teachings based on, perhaps, thousands of years of human observation and practice) are at odds here. The healer's knowledge is passed down from father to son, and so on, yet the knowledge the doctor's and scientist's use is obtained from universities. Thus, the "center" of the episteme (as Derrida might say, for you linguistic theorists) of Western and Eastern medicine are different, and are completely unable to describe each other. Its similar to two different languages, each complete with entirely different system of signs (signifiers/signifieds) - we can't understand the use of Chi, their tradition, and their system of knowledge production and vice versa.
This works in the same way that I reacted to Theresa Neumann - I did not think for a second about the religious or spiritual factors of her condition, I simply thought her stigmata came as a result of a mixture of poor health and diet habits, bedsores/injuries, and pre-existing conditions, otherwise a very "Western medicine" (Cartesian to the max) way of thinking. I can no easier understand her stigmata than she can understand my lack of faith and a lack of belief in her condition, as well as my shock (or even pity) when I learned she went without food or water for a number of years before she died. It all comes down to what we believe is the source of knowledge, who is allowed to create it, and how its passed on.
Eric Best
I think you make a very good point on how we distinguish between different epistemological conclusions about the world. Our Western medical science does have some good things about it, treatments and medicines that produce real effects on patients. That being said, Eastern medicine, and alternative medicine also have real effects on people, as in the case you mentioned. In the West, we tend to think there can really only be one truth, or one way of knowing. This applies to medical science as well as other aspects of epistemology. In the East, there isn't this strong emphasis on one truth, different truths can be obtained from different sources. Good post, I think it highlights pretty well the Cartesian, Western viewpoint and its limitations.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you drew the conclusion you drew that we cannot fully comprehend traditional Chinese medicine (an culture) because we're locked into our Cartesian mindset. I already showed Robin this, but there's a section in a recent issue of the journal Nature that has several articles about attempts to "Westernize" traditional Chinese medicine. Mostly, people are approaching this task by trying to identify single chemicals in Chinese medicines that are responsible for medicines' therapeutic effects. Although there has been some moderate success, I feel that this approach is fundamental flawed in the sense that we're trying to apply our Cartesian methods to something that is definitely NOT Cartesian. We're force-fitting a round peg in a square hole.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v480/n7378_supp/index.html#out
Thanks for the video - another fun example to get people talking around the dinner table. I've found that it's dangerous to have these conversations over beer - my friend group has almost been torn apart on multiple occasions by variations of this conversation gone awry. I have at least one friend, currently in med school, who believes that if a medical treatment is not verifiable by double-blind testing, it is not "real," and any positive results can only be explained by the placebo effect. Further, he believes that, since all "alternative" treatments can be explained by the placebo effect, the treatments themselves are unnecessary and unethical for any respectable doctor to administer, and that the caring, respectful interaction between doctor and patient is all that is necessary.
ReplyDeleteHowever, an alternative medicine practitioner like the Qi-gong master in the video would argue that his method of treatment works whether or not it can be understood within the framework of the contemporary Western scientific picture of the world.
My mother, a physician trained in the Western tradition, also uses acupuncture, herbs, and homeopathy in her practice. In addition, she uses things like tuning forks and "energy work" to supplement her other practice. I'm not sure what she would think about the Qi-gong master in the video, but I suspect that she might accept not only that his practice of healing works, but also his explanation of why/how it works. In my mother's view of the world, when working with patients who have been deemed untreatable by the medical establishment, any treatment that isn't harmful is fair game to try, and non-Western ways of viewing the world must be respected as much as their Western counterparts.
There is something about the way that this whole Cartesian/non-Cartesian discussion has been framed in class so far that I find fundamentally unsatisfying, and I can't put my finger on it. I am dissatisfied with the conclusion that there are things that "we simply can't understand" because we are inescapably trapped within our own way of thinking. I'd like to believe that we can learn to understand phenomena from multiple perspectives, to hold a multiplicity of perspectives within ourselves and shift perspectives whenever a certain way of viewing the world becomes more useful for understanding what actions to take in a certain situation.
In a classroom setting, we are locked into speaking within the Cartesian framework if we want to be regarded as reasonable thinkers. However, I think if we could break out of that framework, we would find that each of us also think about the world in some distinctly non-Cartesian ways.