Like many Westerners, I suppose, I have never had much contact with acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (OM) and only thought of it vaguely as a folk art that worked more or less by accident. I’ve since come into a much closer relationship with Oriental Medicine and have found that it makes sense to me in terms of my own profession, computer modeling.

Today\u2019s blog is written by guest author Barry A. Wilson, a RAND research programmer and co-authour of such works as A Question of Balance: Political Context and Military Aspects of the China-Taiwan Dispute <\/span>(2009); Measuring Interdiction Capabilities in the Presence of Anti-Access Strategies: Exploratory Analysis to Inform Adaptive Strategy for the Persian Gulf<\/span> (2002); Dire Strait? : Military Aspects of the China-Taiwan Confrontation and Options for U.S. Policy<\/span>(2000); Ground Combat in the JICM<\/span>(1995); Analytic War Plans: Adaptive Force-Employment Logic in the RAND Strategy Assessment System (RSAS)<\/span> (1990) and The Secondary Land Theater Model (<\/span>1987).\u00a0 These and other RAND publications are available in the RAND online bookstore http:\/\/www.rand.org\/pubs\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Like many Westerners, I suppose, I have never had much contact with acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (OM) and only thought of it vaguely as a folk art that worked more or less by accident.\u00a0 I\u2019ve since come into a much closer relationship with Oriental Medicine and have found that it makes sense to me in terms of my own profession, computer modeling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A truism about any model of the real world, computer or otherwise, is that it is wrong.\u00a0 All models are abstractions of the world, and therefore inaccurate.\u00a0 The question is, can you do useful work with a bad model, and the answer is of course, yes, as long as you remember that the model is not reality.\u00a0 You can get insight into the real system by working with the simpler model.<\/p>\n

Western science has created a model of the human body through the powerful technique of scientific analysis, taking the system apart and understanding each piece in detail.\u00a0 To paraphrase an excellent author on understanding OM, The Web That Has No Weaver<\/em> by Ted J. Kaptchuk,<\/p>\n

Western medicine is concerned mainly with identifying and controlling disease.\u00a0 The Western physician starts with a symptom, and then looks for a cause.<\/p>\n

Pre-scientific people created models, too.\u00a0 It\u2019s what we humans do.\u00a0 The ancient Chinese observed people for thousands of years and created a model along the lines of their Daoist philosophy of the balance of opposites in nature, Yin and Yang.\u00a0 Again paraphrasing Kaptchuk,<\/p>\n

The Chinese physician looks at everything about a person, all psychological and physiological characteristics, in order to see what is not in balance.\u00a0 The question is not \u201cIs X causing Y?\u201d but \u201cWhat is the relationship between X and Y?\u201d\u00a0 They do not look for a specific disease or cause to treat, but rather to discern the configuration of the signs and symptoms and then to bring that configuration into balance, to restore harmony.<\/p>\n

The limitation of the analytic approach is that by focusing on the details it can miss the complex balances and flows that arise between the parts.\u00a0 The ancient Chinese built their model through synthesis of the entire person and their relationship with the world.\u00a0 Western medical science is just beginning to understand how important the mind is to health, and how personality does not stop at the skin.\u00a0 The limitation of synthesis is that it remains largely an art, the human system seen as a whole is so complex that the experienced practitioner may not be aware of the thousands of tiny signs they are synthesizing into their sense of the balance and energy in the patient.<\/p>\n

OM\u2019s human model is in no way a simpler model.\u00a0 Although it describes using simple opposites \u2013 hot\/cold, dry\/damp, Yin\/Yang \u2013 each balance has its opposite within it, Yin within Yang, to potentially infinite regress.\u00a0 And although it uses words that have been translated into the English words\u00a0 such as heart or liver, these describe abstract functions in the model that are not related to any actual body part.<\/p>\n

Where a Western physician might see 6 patients with similar symptoms and diagnose the same condition in each, an OM physician will see 6 very different individuals each in a different state of balance and would likely treat each very differently.\u00a0 But because it sees each person as unique, it cannot be codified into cut-and-dried rules and taught as Western medicine is taught.\u00a0 Western medicine has developed powerful techniques to treat severe illnesses.\u00a0\u00a0 My friends in OM would say, if you have pneumonia go see a Western doctor, but if you have a problem of systemic balance, such as chronic pain, fertility, recurring headaches, go see a person trained in observing your whole self.<\/p>\n

As an abstract model, OM represents the human being better in some ways than others.\u00a0 No doubt some parts are very poor representations.\u00a0 But as a holistic model, you can\u2019t carve off some parts and leave the whole intact.\u00a0 OM is an incredibly sophisticated and complex model of the human system built through close observation of people over thousands of years.\u00a0 In the hands of an experienced practitioner it can achieve results that are simply not possible using the analytic techniques of Western medicine.\u00a0 The strengths and weaknesses of each approach should be understood and valued for what they are.<\/p>\n\n