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Thread: Socrates practiced QiGong!

  1. #1
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    Socrates practiced QiGong!

    'Socrates habitually practiced this: he would stand in one fixed position, all day and all night, from early dawn until the next sunrise, open-eyed, motionless, in his very tracks and with face and eyes riveted to the same spot in deep meditation, as if his mind and soul had been, as it were, withdrawn from his body. His temperance also is said to have been so great, that he lived almost the whole of his life with health unimpaired. Even amid the havoc of that plague which, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, devastated Athens, by temperance and abstemious habits he is said to have avoided the ill-effects of indulgence and retained physical vigour.' --- Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights

    Certainly this practice will sound familiar to many of us. I can't imagine any of you have not heard of Socrates but even if you have not, rest assured his influence on your life has been great. Of most renown of all the ancients, second perhaps only to Pythagoras, the first man to call himself a philosopher (Pythagoras who incidentally was vegetarian and believed in reincarnation, even that he could remember his past lives).

    Its just awesome to find these little things sometimes.... It thought I would share it with you all.

    A practice then that has been valued by the wisest across all the ancient world. Well then, we would be foolish to dismiss it.
    問「武」。曰:「克。」未達。曰:「勝己之私之謂克。」

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    Socrates encouraged knowing the physical limits of the self and building the body to great strength and to test your mettle.
    Now the only issue is...did he really exist outside of Plato's writings and others who came after and read or studied Plato and Aristotle.
    he probably did. It would have been great if he actually wrote something, but legend has it, he was against the use of writing for remembering things. He though that the alphabet rotted the mind and made us stupid. lol. Carry that forward eh?

    Love me a little SPA time.
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Jamieson View Post
    It would have been great if he actually wrote something, but legend has it, he was against the use of writing for remembering things. He though that the alphabet rotted the mind and made us stupid. lol. Carry that forward eh?
    Hehe, its a good point.

    But of course he is still right..... Memory.... it is everything. Think about matter.... Utterly deterministic. One look at its inertia, its movement, and we can deduce where it has been. But organised matter, organic? It has free reign over choice. Why? Memory. We have memory.... Think of a headache, an hour is bearable but the same headache over a week? Unbearable. Nothing has changed in the instantaneous sensation, only the memory of its duration. Memory modifies everything. It exponentially increases sensations. The fact we recognise objects is due to memory, what conditions our decisions is memory. Memory is the very bridge between time and space, between mind and matter. Of course Socrates thought it was important. The more events you sum into consciousness the greater your wisdom. Memory is everything. A large measure of the ills of society are the things with short memory.... like politics.

    Everything we create these days are devices of convenience.... By reducing our memory we reduce our possible action over things and so reduce our measure of free will. Perhaps we will become unconscious automatons, and our convenience devices will be our downfall and the alphabet will indeed rot our minds!
    問「武」。曰:「克。」未達。曰:「勝己之私之謂克。」

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    Quote Originally Posted by SKM View Post
    I have always been interested in the Spartans, their training progression, and skill sets. As much is unknown about them as is known about them and the best we can do is guess as to what their training requirements were. Perhaps Nei Gung was one of them.
    Perhaps, though the Spartans were very harsh in comparison to the Athenians.

    All I know of their life is in Plutarchs 'Parallel Lives'. We can't know how true an account this is.

    Lycurges was the lawgiver of Sparta, and this is a short account of the laws (all from Plutarch);


    The Laws of the spartans were forbidden to be written down, so that everyone might learn them by heart.

    The Spartan Kings were the successors of Hercules.

    They were communist. The land of Sparta was divided equally among them.

    Gold and silver were abolished. The currency was a heavy and ugly piece of iron. So heavy that it could not be hoarded or stolen or traded in secret. It could not be used to purchase foreign luxuries. They took away from wealth the property of being coveted. Wealth obtained no honour or respect.

    Superfluous arts and products were banned, so spartan industry excelled at making useful things only. The furniture even could only be smoothed by the saw.

    All the men were not allowed to eat at home but had to eat communally and the same food. So no-one rich could make use of their wealth.

    Walking at night they were forbidden lamps, so they may learn to march in the dark.

    They were forbidden from making war often with the same enemy, lest they should inadvertently instruct them in the art of war.

    The women were trained in running and wrestling that they might bear stronger children.

    They would meet their wives in dark rooms and after making love would return to the barracks and sleep on wooden planks. Some had children without ever seeing their wife. Marriages were arranged with a view to strong children and wives were shared if it was thought another man could produce a strong child.

    Children were the property of the community and were everyones responsibility.

    When a boy was born it was submitted to judgement, if weak it was thrown into a deep chasm, it not being in the public interest to bring it up.

    New borns were bathed in wine not water, it was thought to make them strong.

    At seven children were removed to military schools. The strongest was made captain and the others had to submit to his command.

    At 12 they were forbidden normal clothes and given just one cloak to suit all seasons.

    The boys were given almost no food and were encouraged to steal it. If they were caught they were whipped severely, not for stealing, but for stealing clumsily enough to be caught. On story relates to a boy having stolen a fox, he hid it under his cloak where it tore out his bowls with his teeth and claws. The boy made no noise so as not to be discovered stealing, and died there on the spot silent.

    In battle food was more and rules relaxed so that the spartans were the only men on earth to whom war was a vacation.

    They banned foreigners from their country so they could not be infected with bad habits.

    All manual work was done by their slaves, free time was spent training.
    問「武」。曰:「克。」未達。曰:「勝己之私之謂克。」

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    All is mind. - Buddha

    he got that right for sure!
    Kung Fu is good for you.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RenDaHai View Post
    Hehe, its a good point.

    But of course he is still right..... Memory.... it is everything. Think about matter.... Utterly deterministic. One look at its inertia, its movement, and we can deduce where it has been. But organised matter, organic? It has free reign over choice. Why? Memory. We have memory.... Think of a headache, an hour is bearable but the same headache over a week? Unbearable. Nothing has changed in the instantaneous sensation, only the memory of its duration. Memory modifies everything. It exponentially increases sensations. The fact we recognise objects is due to memory, what conditions our decisions is memory. Memory is the very bridge between time and space, between mind and matter. Of course Socrates thought it was important. The more events you sum into consciousness the greater your wisdom. Memory is everything. A large measure of the ills of society are the things with short memory.... like politics.

    Everything we create these days are devices of convenience.... By reducing our memory we reduce our possible action over things and so reduce our measure of free will. Perhaps we will become unconscious automatons, and our convenience devices will be our downfall and the alphabet will indeed rot our minds!
    Incoherent rambling scale 1-10; your level is... Deepak Chopra...

  7. #7
    Saw that one coming.


    I was going to comment on the inertia thing, but I lost the will go there.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Syn7 View Post
    I was going to comment on the inertia thing, but I lost the will go there.
    Really, what about 'inertia' confuses you?
    問「武」。曰:「克。」未達。曰:「勝己之私之謂克。」

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    Quote Originally Posted by RenDaHai View Post
    Everything we create these days are devices of convenience.... By reducing our memory we reduce our possible action over things and so reduce our measure of free will. Perhaps we will become unconscious automatons, and our convenience devices will be our downfall and the alphabet will indeed rot our minds!
    An argument has emerged recently that 'devices of convenience' remove the need to remember phone numbers, social graphs and other superfluous drains on our active short term memory and reasoning. The resulting surplus of cognitive capacity can then be focused on the really important things like self indulgent pseudo philosophy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wenshu View Post
    An argument has emerged recently that 'devices of convenience' remove the need to remember phone numbers, social graphs and other superfluous drains on our active short term memory and reasoning. The resulting surplus of cognitive capacity can then be focused on the really important things like self indulgent pseudo philosophy.
    Really? Well I'd like to read that argument, it would be a good one to laugh at. Imagine at its extreme no one ever learns their discipline, they just get very good at interpreting wikipedia?

    You are correct though that self indulgent pseudo-philosophy is certainly one of the really important things. Imagine again a world where only the 'professional' philosophers were allowed to philosophise? Or a world where people cannot gratify their desire to philosophy by discussing it in public forums, or indeed have no desire to philosophy.
    問「武」。曰:「克。」未達。曰:「勝己之私之謂克。」

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by RenDaHai View Post
    One look at its inertia, its movement, and we can deduce where it has been.


    It's just that there are a ton of caveats to such a statement. Know what I'm sayin...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Syn7 View Post
    It's just that there are a ton of caveats to such a statement. Know what I'm sayin...
    Yes, yes there are. But given as its the qigong section of a kung fu forum, I was not expecting to be subject to much rigour. That and i was on my 5th night cap while writing

    I'll clarify;

    Inertia as momentum; p=mv, since v is a vector quantity knowing an objects momentum we have some information as to the direction it is moving in and hence may be able to deduce something of where it has come from.

    Inertia as a quality of matter being 'inert', i.e will not make spontaneous movements but rather will keep doing as its doing unless acted on by an external force.

    As opposed to organised or 'organic' matter which stores energy up to be released in decisive actions. Its actions can not be deduced so simply from its immediate influences since you must also sum the influences from its entire memory.

    Hence memory being the major factor contributing to the 'free will' of an organic in the initial comment. As opposed to the 'determinism' of inert matter.
    Last edited by RenDaHai; 07-06-2014 at 12:44 PM.
    問「武」。曰:「克。」未達。曰:「勝己之私之謂克。」

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by RenDaHai View Post
    Yes, yes there are. But given as its the qigong section of a kung fu forum, I was not expecting to be subject to much rigour. That and i was on my 5th night cap while writing

    I'll clarify;

    Inertia as momentum; p=mv, since v is a vector quantity knowing an objects momentum we have some information as to the direction it is moving in and hence may be able to deduce something of where it has come from.

    Inertia as a quality of matter being 'inert', i.e will not make spontaneous movements but rather will keep doing as its doing unless acted on by an external force.

    As opposed to organised or 'organic' matter which stores energy up to be released in decisive actions. Its actions can not be deduced so simply from its immediate influences since you must also sum the influences from its entire memory.

    Hence memory being the major factor contributing to 'free will' in the initial comment.


    Yeah, I'm just sayin... If you build a robot to kick a ball in a vacuum at a specific angle and velocity, we can narrow down it's path with incredible accuracy and precision. Large body cruising through space, not so easy. I'm amazed at how well it's done though. So many unknown variables. Were there any external forces we aren't aware of, were their any collisions, was there a change in mass etc etc... We know momentum is conserved, but we can't always account for everything. Still, with a **** ton of observation, you can partially piece together an amazing puzzle. But I have too much to say about this topic to write it all out.


    Anyways. how do you know you have free will? That is not a given, IMO.

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    Quite so, we can't account for everything, but we can (on a classical scale) assume at no point did the matter do something spontaneous and if it did undergo changes in its momentum they were due to external forces, as opposed to internal decisions.

    Free will, well certainly if I could give a positive proof of that I would be quite celebrated. But my reasoning is this; Within our concrete experience we feel we have free will. It would be very strange to deny your own concrete experience in favour of determinism based on an incomplete physics (our physics is awesome, but it is simultaneously feeble in comparison to what is left to learn). By concrete experience I mean the actual representation of consciousness you yourself experience.
    Last edited by RenDaHai; 07-06-2014 at 01:48 PM.
    問「武」。曰:「克。」未達。曰:「勝己之私之謂克。」

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by RenDaHai View Post
    Quite so, we can't account for everything, but we can (on a classical scale) assume at no point did the matter do something spontaneous and if it did undergo changes in its momentum they were due to external forces, as opposed to internal decisions.

    Free will, well certainly if I could give a positive proof of that I would be quite celebrated. But my reasoning is this; Within our concrete experience we feel we have free will. It would be very strange to deny your own concrete experience in favour of determinism based on an incomplete physics (our physics is awesome, but it is simultaneously feeble in comparison to what is left to learn). By concrete experience I mean the actual representation of consciousness you yourself experience.
    Ok, but how do you know that organic matter makes spontaneous "decisions" due to no external forces? Immediate or otherwise.

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