http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Agents,+Causality,+and+YinYang+Bipolar+Relativity&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1256/qj.05.18/pdf

It seems you don’t understand the Chinese stuff so well…
Please note- I am not suggesting that they had it all right way back when or that one should see a TCM practitioner instead of an MD, or any such thing. It seems humans have managed to learn a few things over the last 2000 years.
Is that really a surprise?

It is true that if one considers that ‘yin and yang’ are actual physical objects, it is silly. But it also hints at misunderstanding. Yin and yang are not actual physical objects.

Another example– you gave the example of the “stagnated liver-qi attacking the spleen” to illustrate what they got wrong. But the understanding the TCM practitioner has is that given spleen difficulties one checks liver function.
This is what one would expect a science based doctor to do as well- right?

I don’t see you making that mistake when it comes to other areas that you critique.

My two cents…

But that aside – even as a concept, it is vague and nonspecific enough to be generally useless. Some things are dichotomous, big deal. Any relationship to yin yang is incidental and nonspecific. Some things are not. A dichotomous view may be counterproductive when it is a false dichotomy.

Your chain of reasoning – Bohr somehow found the concept of Yin Yang useful means that ying yang underlies physics or our understanding of physics – is incredibly thin. You then go further from this to say that yin yang is useful to our understanding of physiology is beyond thin.

Your example of how it is useful (exercise and rest) is a terrible example, if anything a false dichotomy showing how counterproductive it is to try to shoehorn in a modern understanding of biology into a simplistic prescientific philosophy.

I can come up with better examples off the top of my head – such as the sympathetic vs parasympathetic nervous system. Again – completely incidental, with any relationship to the concept of yin yang being superficial.

Many systems in biology can also be understood as a hierarchical relationship. This means you can take any prescientific philosophy that includes the notion of a hierarchy and claim it provides insight into biology. Other systems are feedback loops (some reinforcing, and some inhibiting) There are many ways to conceptualize systems in biology – and the simple dichotomy of a yin yang concept is only one of them.

New worst ever.

“one does something strenuous followed by rest”

All I see is a continuum, not two equal and opposite things, but that’s me.
(exhaustive exercise -> strenuous exercise -> mild exercise -> moving about -> sitting but moving -> sitting still -> lying down -> sleeping -> comatose)

“….the statement that yin-yang has no basis in physical reality…an affront to…physics in general…I am assuming that physiology has it base in physics….Where did I go wrong?”

Physiology can be done with complete disregard to physics.
Otherwise you should be able to find plenty of references to physics in any text on physiology.
There is speculation about quantum effects in how plants use EMR to produce energy stores but, in general, there are at least two phase transitions between physics and physiology: physics -> chemistry -> physiology.

My premise is that Neils Bohr found the concept of yin-yang to be helpful in understanding physics and that is why he chose the symbol to be the centerpiece of his coat of arms. I believe that is a fact.
So if the problem isn’t in the premise- then it is in the reasoning–

I reason that yin-yang can be seen as an important concept that underlies the understanding of physical reality- and I would use Bohr to back that claim. (Please note- others have used different ideas- this one has no patent on helpfulness).

From there I reason that the statement that ‘yin-yang has no basis in physical reality’ is either-
a) a straw man (nobody claims yin or yang are actual physical objects)
or
b) an affront to Bohr and physics in general (and I think it is an unknowing one).

I don’t see you going at straw men. So that leaves b). (I am assuming that physiology has it base in physics- a safe assumption I think).

Where did I go wrong?

tmac57-
You do get off a good one from time to time- don’t you. LOL
Thanks.