Talk:Energy (esotericism)/Archive 5

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Some clarification would help, what is "energy" exactly?

I seem to be misunderstanding what this article means by "energy". I always read "qi" or "chi" as meaning either blood circulation or oxygenated blood circulation. The exercises in "qigong" are mostly breathing exercises, which would lend to my belief that "qi" in Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to oxygenated blood, which is a measurable energy source. The meridians that transport that energy would correspond to veins that carry the oxygenated blood. It seems like a translation error of the description of blood vessels transporting oxygen and not a "mystical force" that gets energy from nowhere. When they say the energy is all around us, that sounds like someone trying to explain that our cells are fueled by the oxygen in the air around us. Exercise is good for our cardiovascular health; that is a true statement. Movement is good for our chi; objectively that means the same thing. 2600:1700:8830:8DF0:2870:A34F:F45B:B762 (talk) 23:02, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

But here is the catch: either inspiring too much oxygen or not expiring enough carbon dioxide messes up the blood pH, which only allows for an extremely small variation. So, yeah, there is a way to change blood pH, but it isn't advisable.

You also need to understand something about Wikipedia: we don't settle stuff through original research, but only based upon reliable sources. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:45, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by blood ph?: I was not referring to the ph of blood, I was making a link between blood circulation bringing oxygenated blood to the parts of the body where that oxygen will be used by the muscle that needs the energy. I purpose that the "mystical" energy qi was a reference to the systems in the body that transport oxygenated cells and convert the oxygen and human fats and sugars into adenosine triphosphate, and then transport that adenosine triphosphate to the muscles that need that fuel. If exercise improves that transport system, then is seems like the ancient world knew that exercise improved the human body's ability to transport and modify different forms of chemical energy into ones that are able to be used by muscles in the human body. 2600:1700:8830:8DF0:5426:5419:BFC8:81AB (talk) 21:40, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable enough to me :).

Cannot add anything of the like without a published source describing it as such, though. And even with one, likely there will be partison zealots crying foul, heresy and sorcery (i.e. the go to buzzword that is guaranteed to kill any deliberations on WP - "pseudoscience"). Firejuggler86 (talk) 00:34, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

The burden of proof is upon those who advocate the real existence of qi. Also, qi-based therapies have not been found to work better than placebo—that counts as hard evidence against the existence of qi. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I have seen a lot of martial arts that claim that exercise improves qi/chi, and it translates to "energy" in English. When we play sports and get tired we say that we are out of energy, if a Chinese person plays sports and gets tired, they say they are out of qi/chi. Exactly how is it mystical? They know breathing has something to do with increasing energy, and we know that breathing gives us more energy. I fail to find any mysticism in it. It seems like a lot of bias when the "modern world" claims that they discovered breathing is connected with energy for physical activity and the "ancient world" was telling fairytales when it said that breathing improved energy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:8830:8DF0:A986:8A0B:82ED:62 (talk • contribs)

The problem with your claim is WP:OR. We only accept information from WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:58, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

non-RS cites

@Tgeorgescu: sorry for my typo "on-RS" in edit summary before. The point is that that sources I removed are flaky sources; why do you want them back? And you also reverted another small change to stick closer to sources. Can you please say why? Especially if you intend to revert me again. Thanks. Dicklyon (talk) 02:32, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Stenger is a trusted debunker. According to WP:PARITY trusted debunkers write WP:RS for WP:FRINGE subjects. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:35, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

tgeorgescu is right. That's what PARITY is for. -- Valjean (talk) 02:44, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning a reason for one of those. Can you point out more specifically what WP:PARITY says about trusted debunkers? I'm not finding it. Dicklyon (talk) 02:47, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: You have to read the whole of WP:ARBPS to make heads or tails of it. If you don't believe me, you may open a topic about it at WP:FTN. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:48, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

No problem, Stenger is fine as an additional source on the non-existence statement. It looked to me like other source was stronger, and enough. Dicklyon (talk) 02:57, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

quote from Brian Dunning: "energy is the measurement of work"

With the gist of this article, I would entirely agree. And whoever added the quote from Brian Dunning had a right to do so. And Brian Dunning has a right to say... what he said.

However... that quote seems almost as "metaphysical" as the topic "metaphysical energy" I Google'd to come across this.

No, it is not true that "energy itself is not the thing being measured: energy is the measurement of work performed or of potential"!

Energy is in fact the thing being measured (that is, when it is being measured): it is that which is the ability to do work, or embodied in the work already having been done (object elevated, temperature raised, ...).

It is good that there is a link at the top of the article to the Wikipedia article "Energy". Note that that article begins (as this moment, at least) by saying "In physics, energy is the quantitative property that must be transferred to a body or physical system to perform work on the body, or to heat it."

Note in particular that it does not say "the measurement of" that property.

Energy is measurable, in any particular case can (theoretically at least) be measured - but energy is not itself then the measurement, but the thing being measured.

I'm not going to do this (gotta think about that), but it seems that each use of "measurement" by Dunning should be followed by "[sic]". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:648:4301:6190:BDEF:C986:71A0:35BE (talk • contribs)

To cut a long story short: no WP:RS = no edits. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:14, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Keynes

Keynes's Animal Spirits do not mean the sort of "energy" esotericism postulates, but actually quite mundane characteristics of humans. And those do not mean disembodied spirits, either. So, yup, he actually wrote those words, but those words are not germane to this article. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:54, 15 November 2024 (UTC)