Originally Posted by firegoat
Your evident dislike of Western Medicine and medical doctors seems to underpin your desire to embrace the writings of Dr. Lin.
I am quite sure that you are not in any branch of the alternative/complementary health field that has any congruence with Traditional Chinese Medicine, or you would be very aware from reading his writings that his understanding of Chinese Medicine is somewhat below that of a first year acupuncture student.
It is important when trying to reach one’s own conclusions or develop an understanding of a subject which does not form part of one’s own higher education, that one does not just seek information that concurs with one’s forming beliefs, but also information in opposition to them. Very often these are presented together, but one chooses to only see what one wishes to see and disregards the rest.
I have in fact, rarely seen a more extraordinary attempt to try to prove or justify something to oneself or others than this, from your second post in this thread:
Which greatly reminds me of this:
Bubba and Couter were thinking about expanding their horizons by taking a few courses down at the local community college. So Bubba sees the list of classes available and notices a course in logic. Well, he wonders what’s up with that and wanders on over to the classroom and happens to catch the teacher. He asks the instructor what good this class would do him. So the instructor says, "Let me give you an example; do you have a weed whacker?" Bubba says, "Yup, got one." The teacher says, "Since you’ve got a weed whacker, I can deduce that you’ve got a yard." Bubba goes, "Well, hell yes, got one of them too." So the prof says, "With that yard, I’ll bet you live in a house." And Bubba replies, "Damn straight." The teacher than says, "In the house, I’ll bet you live there with your wife." Now Bubba is amazed and says,"That’d be Betty Mae," Finally the teacher says, "Living there with a woman, I’ll bet that you’re a heterosexual." Bubba says, "That’s exactly right, I’m signing up."
Now Bubba runs into Couter outside and Couter asks him what the logic course is all about. So Bubba says, "Cout, let me give you an example. Do you have a weed whacker?" Couter says, "Nope, don’t need one." And Bubba says, "You’re a queer, ain’t cha."
Now that may seem a little (or maybe a lot) flippant, but it’s just my way of saying be careful about drawing conclusions that are not there to be drawn.
This also applies, only doubly so, to any books about Taoist practices written for the Western market, whose subject is medical, sexual, health or martial arts. Taoist books for the Western market on philosophy tend to be fairly safe.
So little of Taoist beliefs in respect to the other topics have been ‘translated’ by people other than to make money. Attempts at genuine translatation are frought with the problem that many concepts that the Chinese understand as implied are missed out altogether in the original texts, and to try to add these in to a translation for a non-Chinese reader results in the translator’s own understanding of the subject matter being crucial to the integrity of the end product. Most of the time the translation is as close to ‘word-for-word’ as is possible, which renders the translation useless to anyone not raised in China. Philosophical treatise fare better because of the nature of philosophy.
Incidentally, I assume the article you were reading about testosterone levels rising after abstinence from ejaculation was that by M. Jiang, as it is the most often quoted. It is quoted also by this article, along with other information which may be of interest to you. Testosterone and Ejaculation
I know little about Taoist practice. I do not mean to speak on the original Taoist texts, just on what I know, which, yes, is translation from Chinese to English to practice to results. I already say that I know little about Taoist practice. Anyhow, yes, the semantic confusion between — loosely now we speak — the modern West and traditional East is one that I have tried to touch on.
The modern Western medical semantic is one of dissection and microanalysis, the literal accuracy of a detail, and fixing that detail; the traditional Eastern semantic is one of relationships and balances, the overview in a system, and restoring those dynamics. This involves the divergence that Dr Lin straddles, approaching the Eastern understandings through the Western semantics, sometimes failing to resolve this coherently, but doing well in pitching supplements to Americans. Clearly, he does not deal in the paradigm of the organ systems and forces of traditional Chinese medicine. I said that if one sought herbal treatment, one probably ought to see a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, rather, who would prescribe formulas to balance the system, and not to buy Dr Lin’s formulas. Myself, I have seen nothing where Dr Lin includes any traditional Chinese medicine at all into his writings. Some may be there, but I have not seen them. (His cupping system seems a take on acupuncture, loosely, and yet it is bereft of the context offered to acupuncture by traditional Chinese medicine.) Never did I say anywhere that Dr Lin applied traditional Chinese medicine.
About your analogy, and it’s possible flippancy, well, I mainly just feel that it suits your purposes for now, suits what you wish to gain for now, in that it gives you theoretical shelter for now. Your assessments of my views are mainly ad hominem, theoretical, and semantic, rather than based on practice and results. You have admonishments for me and yet you do not heed them, yourself. Are you, yourself, trained in original Taoism, in the ancient Chinese language, in translation, in traditional Chinese medicine, and in orthodox American medical school? Are these parts of your own higher education? Now we are quibbling.
The irony about your excerpting from my earlier post is that the excerpt, within it’s original context, was an illustration of varying semantics, and the twists that they can take, skirting the bottom line of results. The excerpt, within it’s original context, goes to illustrate that microanalysis of a first semantic by a second semantic can easily disprove the first semantic within that second semantic — what surely is a theoretical victory by the second semantic within that second semantic — and yet the first semantic may still hold the schema that, when applied in life, brings the desired result. I call this the desired result if, in fact, the pursuit is a pursuit of favorable outcome, not a pursuit of supremacy in semantics or theory. You carved an isolated chunk from my post, stripped it of context, omitted it’s result as actually used, and thereby, scoring a mere theoretical point, you discarded for yourself your own admonishment of me:
It is important when trying to reach one's own conclusions or develop an understanding of a subject which does not form part of one's own higher education, that one does not just seek information that concurs with one's forming beliefs, but also information in opposition to them. Very often these are presented together, but one chooses to only see what one wishes to see and disregards the rest.
Maybe a higher education in each of these matters means that you do not need to consider opposing information, or my information. Although the excerpt of mine that you took was not even used to argue that semen was produced from cerebrospinal fluid, you surely did zone on it as such, disregarding the rest of the information given with it, in order to justify your own view. And you do not qualify your own view, except with an analogy applied to a misused excerpt.
Yet I cannot say that these leaps are an extraordinary attempt to misrepresent my view. These leaps are typical tactics taken to sidestep a point in question.
First, you write this: Your evident dislike of Western Medicine and medical doctors seems to underpin your desire to embrace the writings of Dr. Lin. Well, for that, let me write this: Your evident dislike of Dr Lin seems to underpin your desire to embrace the popular medical views on male health that also oppose Dr Lin. And therefore? Either way, nothing is qualified, whether with particulars about Dr Lin, or whether with particulars about the popular medical view. Instead, we now tug on ad hominem strings, each implying that the other’s stance stems from an emotional grudge. You never qualify this implication that you make about me. This introduces the question of whether a grudge is the soundest basis for your own view, really.
From there, you imply that I indicated something that I never indicated — that Dr Lin deals in traditional Chinese medicine — and you use this to dispute my credentials, ad hominem again, based on my implied wrongness about something that I never did indicate. This is the same tactic that you took — disputing something that I never claimed — in order to lead into the analogy that supposedly revealed the error in my logic.
Theory appeals to some. Some profit monetarily from the theories that they believe. Others, with empty pockets, take emotional comfort in those very same theories. Theory appeals to me, too, but mainly when the object is not the comfort of semantic supremacy, and when instead the theory finds results.
I was a sickly child, who failed to thrive, and from the time that I was in elementary school, I began to research. I started with the medical books in my mother’s living room. From there, I went on in search and search of answers — answers with results, answers through trial, not answers of theoretical comfort — because supreme theories never healed me, and I needed results. I never had the health advantage that most persons can take for granted, never had that buffer of health which allows them to practice advice for years or even a lifetime on theory alone. Had I done that, I would be an invalid. I am very familiar with Western medicine. I have seen it up close, I have lived it, applied on me by people, by doctors, who, themselves, like most of my neighbors, in their own good health, knew it only as theories. And they, you see, were not schooled in any opposing views.