Comment by blackSnake | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blackSnake | Hacker News Reader

I have noticed, having the sensitivity of a qi gong practitioner, that computers and interfacing with a digital device makes your body weaker. It sucks the energy right out of you. It also concentrates the energy around the head.

The dangers can come when you don't rebalance the energies in your body. Doing something physical is important and I am sure a lot of you guys will tend to something physical after large amounts of screen time. Unless you ignore the body. That's where you can get a lot of anxiety, mental imbalances, neurosis etc.

The fuel for the mind comes from the body. If you have a strong body, the drain from using the screen will be lessened but make no mistake about it, its taking away from you. You are trading information for energy so make it worthwhile and safe. Don't put the laptops on your lap. Keep the cellphone away from your face. Take a lot of breaks. Eat well.

In all my years of using my computer, I have never gotten up from it and thought to myself "Wow, I feel great after that". It might have been interesting and stimulating but my body would not agree, in a way that's different from reading a book for an hour. Computers will continue to get even more immersive. Maybe the stereotypical image of an alien is accurate for the future of a human being, big heads, little bodies.

This sounds like the same mumbo jumbo my Mom forwards from obscure sources. She even goes as far as to order Faraday Cage underwear and laments the existence of wireless anything.

That said there's plenty of times that I feel great after working on a computer all day. It can be draining too, but it just depends on what I'm focused on and accomplishing (or not). I feel refreshed and charged solving problems, but of course the loop of opening a new tab, typing "news.", closing the tab, and doing it again feels awful after some time.

Oh gosh can you grow up and read between the lines and refrain from ad hominem arguments? OP is saying that exercise is important for a healthy body and mind. It's true and we all know it.

Do I believe in Qi Gong woo woo? No, but I do know that Qi Gong is a physical practice that can make you more aware of your body and how it feels by sheer mindfulness, just like yoga, running, hiking, etc.

Being right for wrong reasons is still a bad thing, see the recent article about gettier cases. Eg. if you see a cardboard cutout cow in the field and think that is a cow, you are wrong even if there is an actual cow behind the cutout. This is not a mere epistemic nitpicking, it is a question of whether your process of arriving to conclusions can give you right answers in other applicable cases.

So calling out woo is worth it even when it happens to lead to conclusions you agree with for other reasons.

All of science is right for the wrong reasons. Our models are wrong. Just by decreasing degrees. Science will never be "true" in the strictest sense. Looking at it otherwise is a flawed viewpoint that is perpetuating post-modernism.

Sure, I didn't mean to imply one can be absolutely right. But willfully choosing more wrong model and not looking to improve it is, well, more wrong.

I don't think I agree. If a model is known to be largely false but in certain situations it provides good enough results and is easy to work with, that model will continue to get used until a better one replaces it. It's the classic problem undergrads have with Physics I vs. Physics II where the second declares all of Physics I false. Really, it's that Physics II is more accurate under more conditions, but that doesn't make what's learned in Physics I useless.

There is a small step from physics I to physics II, accuracy wise. There is a huge step between physics I and astrology, or basic anatomy and energy meridians. To the point of one of those method from each pair not being useful even in limited specific circumstances.

I don't disagree with your points mind you, I'm making a distinction between inaccurate methods that work in their own limited domain with limited accuracy (that is all we have, I agree) and not even wrong methods that sometimes work by accident but don't generalize even within their own stated limits.

> OP is saying that exercise is important for a healthy body and mind

Well, they're also saying there exist magic 'energies' that can be 'rebalanced' to fix problems such as 'anxiety, mental imbalances, neurosis etc.' Personal attacks aren't warranted, but lambasting such medieval silliness surely is here? What next? Chakras? Magic homeopathic waters?

Its not magic. Just an aspect and extension of your physical body. All of chinese acupuncture is based on the same principles, which is thousands of years old and a reputable system of medicine.

I am not claiming god powers, just that your body is a complex system that can be finely tuned with some attention and the proper tools. How much control do you have over your body and your mind? How much control do you have over your computer? It probably took decades of attention and the right tools to develop a high degree of skill to be able to get the computer to do what you want. The same can be said for the human body, which is infinitely more complex if you pay attention to it.

So if it's not magic, what is the 'energy' whereof you speak?

[Edit: that question's a tad rhetorical. Qi is the epitome of a pre/anti-scientific 'magical' concept]

a metaphor for something we don't understand.

Phlogiston, God, chakras, qi etc aren't metaphors - they're (quite literal) concepts from discarded prescientific ontologies. As far as we know (which isn't everything, but it's all we've got for now) they have no referents.

I'm not a qi gong practitioner (had to look it up...), but I relate to the sensations your describing. Using the devices too much leaves a type of buzzing in my head. I've always described it as bunch of voices, all the different ideas I tried to absorb or started thinking about while using a device.

Anything that consciously makes you aware of your stomach area, what the Chinese call the "Dan-Tian", will rebalance your energy.

If you are interested in the topic, there are a bunch of great books about the subject.

Check out "The root of Chinese Qi-Gong" by Yang Jwing-Ming.

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