Ki Aikido Performed by Yoshigasaki Sensei

"So now I am silly, dichotomous, have strange beliefs, and not really scientfic. Any other ad hominem things you want to call me"

I wasn't invoking ad hominen in calling you dichotomous! hahah. It just seems that you are. Which of course leads to being rather silly and to some strange beliefs. But that's not really ad hominen either.

"It is the scientific process itself that is the only way of acquiring reliable knowledge.

I acquired vast amounts of reliable knowledge long before I learned about the scientific method. Did you?

Have you been reading the mad rantings of that personality disordered Ayn Rand? Sounds like it.

" All I ask for is a reasonable slice of empirical evidence before I believe these miracles."

Why do you define such things are being miracles. This is typical skeptic sophistry. Define something as being impossible and then insist that impossible things are impossible. haha.

Besides, I have no idea why you feel you need empirical evidence to accept that something exists. That's silly.

"Now you equate skepticism of ki with credulity and blind faith?"

No, I equate the contemporary skeptic movement as being filled with a lot of people who are astonishingly credulous and have grabbed onto a bunch of strange epistemological concepts they don't understand.

Furthermore, I accuse skeptics of frequently, if not the majority of the time, accepting on faith whatever the skeptic establishment says about some particular discipline or phenomenon.

So now I am silly, dichotomous, have strange beliefs, and not really scientfic. Any other ad hominem things you want to call me because I dare ask that the fantastic feats claimed for ki be proven in a scientific and logical way?

I never said science has discovered everything. It is not the conclusions one draws from science that are important, those are subject to the fallibility of man. It is the scientific process itself that is the only way of acquiring reliable knowledge. Feelings, wishes, whims, instincts, hopes and fears are far less reliable in separating fact from fiction.

The last thing Randi acts like is an oracle and his approach is precisely opposite of anything oracular. Now you equate skepticism of ki with credulity and blind faith? I think you are getting things in reverse my friend. So I am skeptical of ki... well, I am in good company. It is a hotly contested topic. All I ask for is a reasonable slice of empirical evidence before I believe these miracles. Just check out some of the unbelievable things people claim for ki.

There are few things in this world as credulous and blindly faithful than many of these so called Skeptics running around who fervently believe and repeat whatever the likes of James Randi or Michael Shermer spout out in oracle like pronouncements.

Your assumption that things which are not science are therefore grounded in faith and belief and therefore mystical is really kind of silly and shows a strong tendency in you towards dichotomy. Which really isn't science, it's just some strange belief you've picked up somewhere, a belief for which the justifications and foundations probably elude you.

I suspect the world is vastly more complicated than you realize.

"Science is not western, it is objective, provable and universal in the universe."

Science is a social activity that appears to discover a few facts, but wraps them up into a vast array of assumptions. Science is also rather limited if it is, as you say, grounded in mathematics. That would mean that science requires quantifiable data, data which would at least have the appearance of being objective.

But we are surrounded by things which resist objective quantification.

It's not the spoon that bends, it is you.

I'm afraid that you know little about ki, little about the unbendable arm, and probably not very much about the philosophy of science or basic epistemology.

If you can hold your arms out stiff and straight enough to withstand the force of people exerting their full strength without moving you... then you should be able to hold up your entire body weight while you hang from the rings as in the 'iron cross'. Same principal applies except that instead of others pulling on your arms your own body weight is doing the pulling instead. Your arm IS bendable, the laws of physics are not.

Keep in mind I'm talking about unbendable arm and ki demos in general. What about guys who claim to put out several candle flames using ki and a slight wave of the hand. Isn't the flame inanimate or do candles have ki? If I pull on your "unbendable" arm while you are in ki mode I can't move it, BUT if I hang heavy weights on your arm, it will move because the weights don't have ki? Is that what you are saying?

Science is not western, it is objective, provable and universal in the universe. It is grounded in mathematics. Chinese philosophy & medicine on the other hand is based on various ancient religious and mystical beliefs, shintoism, buddhism, taoism, zen and others. These are grounded in faith and belief. I'll take the rigid objectivity of science before the subjective, the unproven and the mystical.

Ki: the circulating life force whose existence and properties are the basis of much Chinese philosophy and medicine.

How would science go about measuring and testing for this?