effective theories, dualities, and the chinese medicine

dir


inspired by debates on the chinese medicine in xys, i would like to 
say something about concepts called effective theories and dualities.
 is it possible to incorporate the traditional chinese medicine into
 the framework of western medicine? 
recent developments in elementary particle physics (and in superstring
physics) have made some concepts, such as dualities, effective theories
and so on, to be very useful and interesting. 
for an example, let us talk about the particle pion. the pion is a 
meson which mediates strong interaction (like that photons mediate 
electromagnetic interaction). this interaction combines protons and 
neutrons tightly inside nuclei. the quantum chromodynamics provides 
a basic description for the pion, such as a pion is made of quarks and
 gluons. at low energies, however, the quantum chromodynamics cannot
 give definite predictions to the pion behavior by ordinary calculat
ions. at low energies, pion can be better described by the chiral 
perturbation theory. this theory is a low energy effective theory of 
the quantum chromodynamics. instead of being regarded as a composite 
particle, the effective theory takes pions as basic degrees of freedom. 
the effective theory provides a dual description to the quantum 
chromodynamics with a very different language. 
dual theories often adopt totally different basic degrees of freedom
, terminologies, and therefore different laws. the interesting point
 of dualities lies in the fact that duality is a general phenomena. 
an example in biology is that the darwin's theory of evolution can 
be regarded as an effective and dual theory of the dna theory in 
describing creatures in a long time scale. 
it is quite general that the microscopic description is more fundamental 
than its dual description. however fundamentalness does not necessarily
 mean usefulness. in certain cases effective theories make clear and
  powerful descriptions, whereas microscopic theories are incapable 
	of working.
	 
i know little about the chinese (oriental) medicine. its basic concepts
 are totally different from the western one. it uses different 
 terminology. for examples, it takes the human body as a whole with a 
 net connected; it roughly classifes some diseases according to "yin" 
and "yang". but i know that it is useful in some cases.
since 1950's, china has tried to combine the traditional chinese med
icine with the western medicine in medical research. there might be 
some progress. but i do not know how deep the reseach has reached. 


i wonder if the basic chinese medicine, or some part of it can be 
regarded as a dual medicine which is an effective theory of the 
western medicine. if this is true, this part chinese medicine may be give
n a real scientific foundation. if this conjecture makes sense, the 
following conditions must be satisfied. 

1. the basic chinese medicine theory (or some part of it) is valid 
in some regions, and in some cases where the western medicine cannot
provide clear description. even though the western medicine is more 
foundamental, it does not mean it has clear pictures everywhere. of 
course this part of chinese medicine should not be in contradictory 
with the western medicine. furthermore, it may have some general 
support from the western medicine's theory. 

2. it must be a subject of sciences. namely it is based on experiments. 
it is falsifiable. but for the time being it is not necessarily 
to have obvious relation to the western medicine, because this detailed 
relation maybe hard to be found . in principle, the chinese medicine 
will be derived from the western medicine finally. 
3. the other large part of the whole chinese medicine should be thrown 
away. it would be too much accidental if the whole chinese medicine
is the dual medicine of the western medicine. in this sense, the 
chinese medicine must have limited application, compared to the western
 medicine. 
 
 i have noted that several days ago, a friend asked if the two medicine
 theories can be regarded as two different pictures of the same theory. 
 i think it is more reasonable to regard the chinese medicine theory 
 to be an effective one of the western medicine. the latter describes 
 human body microscopically, which is therefore more foundamen
tal. on the other hand, the chinese medicine theory takes a human body
 as an integral object. this picture should be only valid in 
some limited situation, if it is not nonsense at all. 
finally i want to add that this is not a hoax post. the relation between
 the two medicine theories is just a conjecture. other people might
  have the same idea. 


=============================
●简单回dir兄,中医的问题不仅仅是方法论的问题
1/137 于 December 22, 2002 10:37:24:

你称有效场论,钱学森称唯象,无非都是想表明还有底层基础的可能性存
在.这是方法论问题.

问题不在这里.我个人觉得中医的问题在经络和气的物理性质上.这两个
东西不弄清楚其他基本上是做无用功.

相信不相信是哲学问题,存在不存在是物理问题,所以要有可靠的物理手
段来解决.先解决物理问题是被承认的基本前提,不然没多大希望(我个
人看法).

回想我"青少年"时代的一篇"论文",我的看法没多大变化.现在做研究的
动力都是GRANT DRIVEN了,做这些冒险的事情没什么人了,无可奈何的事
情.所以也有了很多口水之争,少见认真探索,探索了还要小心背上假伪
科学的帽子.

就象我们这样,方法论是争不完的. :-) 休息了. 

=============================
●其实目前有没有筋络证据先不提
stopit 于 December 22, 2002 21:06:42:

咱就孤陋寡闻地分解一下去理解。

1。中医最终大多要给病人吃药，没有争议8？吃药吃进去治病的是那些化学成
分应该没人反对8？如果反对的话，那化学就需要重新建立，一们崭新的学科
在等人去建立：)

2。如果是化学成分起作用的话，他们可能是协同，加和或是某单一成分在起
作用。总之药效取决于有效成分的浓度(就是所有效成分必须有一个最低浓度)
，同理毒性也取决其中成分的浓度，如果毒性物质浓度足够高了，就会致毒。
如果这两点有人有疑问的话，药理学毒理学需要重建，又一们崭新的学科在等
人去建立：)。因此呢在理想情况下，应该确定到底是什么在起作用到底需要什
么。但是这个问题可能很复杂，目前技术不好办得到。只好条件再降一下，至
少选择几个化合物作为探针。甭管这几个化合物是不是有效成分，但至少他们
和活性或是毒性存在一定关联。就是说这些成分在一定浓度范围内，中药便在
某一实验条件下表现出来活性，而毒性很低。那么至少咱们理直气壮地说，中
药治病是有证据的，而不仅是老祖宗如此说。老祖宗如此说总归不能作为证据
，除非咱们一直是在退化。

可是中医学问如此高深，老祖宗几千年前撩下来这么一套理论，几千年子孙还
不知所云，更别说找什么证据去证明它了，看来咱们子孙实在不成器。现而今
中医西医的差别可能就成了是一个是有证据的理论，而另一个则是没有，至少
是暂时还没有。


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