Posted: Jun 12, 2010 6:39 pm
DST70 wrote:I think this is really important. The difficulty lies in investigating phenomena that are not so easily put into external/objective and internal/subjective categories.
Which brings up the question that often arises in response to arguments for the existence of God: How do you determine the difference between something that exists, but for whose existence no evidence exists, and something which simply does not exist? Answer: You can't.
Any outward programme of empirical research seemingly handles 'external' significantly better than 'internal' phenomena. Astrophysics being quite different from psychology. Where would pain feature on a scale from external-internal?
It's very easily done. You use a standardized self-rating scale for pain. The rating is subjective, but so long as the conditions of the trial are well-controlled that doesn't matter. Improvement, or not, in pain control can still be determined.
Maybe I should mention that I'm coming from a place of being a practitioner of qi gong and other internal energy work, which tends to throw a spanner in the works when it comes to scientific validation. There are favourable studies showing its therapeutic benefit, but I do realise it probably counts high on the 'woo' scale for many here.
I don't really know anything about qigong. If you want to show us some of these favourable studies, I"m sure we'd be interested. (But they'd better be good!)