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16 November 2008
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11 November 2008
The following is a small hand-out I made of our reading of Faraday. As there were two elderly people in my class I added a slightly sneering comment to rouse them.
On Faraday the ‘Anthology of Nineteenth Century Science’ tells he was of middle class decent. He was a member of the Sandemanians, a group of religious Christians who thought there was no basis in the New Testament for a national church and wanted to go back to primitive Christianity. They believed in the unity and harmony of nature. Rather heroically, Faraday, being an apprentice in a book bindery, educated himself and was able to make a career in a field where being of lower descent made you appear a lesser scientist. The following excerpt is from one of his Friday night Christmas lectures. Interestingly to note in advance is that he tirelessly worked behind the scenes to make the experiments look natural on stage. He even got eloquency lessons to improve his public performance. The lectures were held by the Royal Institution to earn enough money for its endeavours.
His public experiments with candles give us an interesting image of science popularized. With crowd pleasers like pop! (ignition of gas) and crunch! (collapse of can after subsequent heating and cooling of inside gas) Faraday was able to excite his audience. Public participation in these experiments build up the entertainment value even more. A lady brings Faraday Japanese candles of luxury to do his experiments with and Faraday says the crowd will be able to make these experiments themselves, which in the case of his experiments with carbonic acid can do not much harm. Faraday uses a simple train of reasoning for explaining what he is doing. Everything is done step by step and in a matter of fact way. This makes the experiments and conclusions evidential, you can see the experiments and even redo them yourself. Faraday unveils the mysteries of nature and makes them intelligible to the public. In one case he even reflects on a social issue when he tells his crowd about the ‘impropriety of many of the arrangements of the poorer classes’ due to bad ventilation. In his chemical explanation of a burning candle Faraday shows how to extinguish the light by putting his mouth over a tube and breathe thereby explaining the necessity of oxygen for combustion. In the end of his experiment with candles Faraday turns his explanation of scientific principles to the public into a kind of sermon. He concludes by stating the beauty of the simple process of the use of oxygen by people. They breathe oxygen which the body turns into carbon dioxide which is used by plants to create oxygen which creates this magnificent circle of dependency. According to Faraday, his listeners are like the candles he used in his experiments. They have this energy to shine, but need oxygen (breathing) to make them live, move, act and do things; they are therefore dependent on their fellow existers, i.e. the plants. He employs his audience to shine as lights to those about them.
To whom is Faraday addressing his public display of science? In the introduction to his lectures, Faraday says he means to pass away from the seniors in the audience and instead claims ‘the privilege of speaking to juveniles as a juvenile myself.’ In his first lecture he further informs his audience of what candles are made of, thereby beginning from the basis in his instruction on chemistry. His listeners need little to no background in chemistry. His lectures are accessible and use the clarity of expression needed for public education; no difficult jargon or an explanation to the words used is given. Faraday further uses his lectures to address social questions such as the conditions of the poorer classes and even his Sandemanian background jumps up at the end of the lecture when he teaches his public the harmony of nature.
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30 October 2008
Presentation for the course Understanding Chinese Medicine 理解传统中医药
Xiamen University, Ruben Verwaal
Man and Nature in Harmony
The philosophical basis for TCM is the holistic principle of integration of man and nature: the human body is regarded as a whole, and man and nature are regarded as a whole (e.g. the circulation of blood and qi through the body and to the flow of water and rivers in the natural world). Natural disasters and diseases of the human body reflect the lack of harmony between man and the world.
Confucianism
Heaven and Earth were composed of the same substance qi. Mencius: the ‘gentleman’ cultivates qi within himself, which is sufficiently refined to bridge the gab between Heaven and Earth, making the cosmos a balanced whole.
Han Confucianism and the theory of ‘Five Elements’: Heaven employs the elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water; and there exist systematic correspondences between these elements and human life. For example, fathers stand to sons in the ‘begetting’ relation of soil to metal, so that an improper paternal relationship would be ‘unnatural.’
Heaven had the yin and yang, while human nature is composed of ‘congenital goodness’ (yang feature) and ‘natural emotions’ (yin feature); thus harmony between the self and Heaven.
Theories
气 (qì, air, breath): the extremely fine and tiniest substance of the universe.
阴阳 (yīn yáng): two opposite principles of the universe. Yin (feminine, moon, shade) is characterised as passive, earth, cold. Yang (male, sun, positive) is characterised by heaven, light, heat. The opposition is relative, not absolute.
五行 (wǔxíng, five elements): wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. These elements are the basic properties of five categories of substances in nature.
Books
The Huángdì Nei Jing《黄帝内经》(Yellow Emperor's Interiors Classic) is from around the Warring States period. The book is written in conversation between the Yellow Emperor and his ministers Qi Bo, Lei Gong and Bo Gao. They discuss the different ideas in medicine: either to adopt the theory of the Five Elements or yin yang.
Also the Huángdì Bāshíyī Nanjing《黄帝八十一难经》 (Yellow Emperor's 81 Difficult Issues Classic) is written as a conversation, compiled in the late Western Han dynasty. Nanjing (Difficult Issues) studies medicine by combining the theories of qi, yin yang and Five Elements together, rather than separate, and by applying pulse diagnosis, channels, and zang fu organs with manifestations with the qi, yin yang, and the Five Elements.
Some Questions:
- “The study of functions and relationships of the five zàng systems can not be confined to the theory of five elements which only works as a naive theoretical tool of TCM” (p. 237). To what extent is the practice of TCM dependent on the theories of qi, yin yang, and the Five Elements?
- The philosophical theories provide explanations to the practice of TCM. Have these theories led to new medical practices and know-how? Are the philosophical theories actually contributing to the medical practice, or are they just means of remembering symptoms and treatments?
- If so, could we simply add a fourth theory in case the theories of qi, yin yang and the Five Elements fall short? In other words, what is the justification for using these three in particular?
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07 October 2008
An enjoyable read and exciting theory: that the Chinese fleet of the early 15th century would have travelled all the way to Italy and would have ignited the Renaissance. I am halfway now, but no single proof have been offered yet, only more hypotheses.
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22 September 2008
On the 15th of September, I took the ferry to Macao, an island in front of the coast of China where the Portuguese in the 15th century first went on shore: Vasco de Gama visited the peninsula in 1497. My visit 511 years later felt as a ‘must,’ considering the rich history of the island and the fact that the island was an early ‘contact zone’ for east and west. Of course Macao has changed a lot since Matteo Ricci and Francis Xavier walked around, yet the churches, missionary buildings, and crucifixes reminds of its Christian and Portuguese past. Ironically though, Macao has now turned into the Las Vegas of the east, because it’s one of the few places where gambling is not forbidden. Huge casino’s light up at night; dramatically overdone, but surely gives a nice view from the 68th floor in the Macao tower.
(Ruins of St Paul Church)
To talk about an other museum: the Macao Museum in the centre is most definitely worth a visit, because it’s shows a historical and comparative story of China and Europe, under the title of “Continuous Convergence.” I have yet to find a more suitable application of our master programme in a museum. You walk through an alley, and on your left you see the history of Europe and on your right the Chinese. You could choose just to see the one or the other, but you’re invited to make the comparison yourself. First, examples of the Egyptian, Persian, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin scripts are compared with the evolutionary development of the Chinese script. Second, the Roman empire and Qin empire (first emperor Qin Shihuang and his terracotta army) are shown with their accomplishments. Further comparisons concern schools of thought (Greek philosophers and Confucius), religions (Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism), science and technology, and it keeps on going; as long as it fits in the idea of east and west convergence.
In the museum, the number of houses were rebuild to give an impression of a Macao street through time. The first house is typical Chinese, the last typical Portuguese, and the houses in between combinations of the two. A map of the world show the Portuguese trade routs over the oceans as well as the famous Silk Road through Central Asia towards the west. This comparison technique is practised on practically everything: Chinese and Christian marriage rituals, eastern and western medicine, a Chinese and a Portuguese living-room, which contained a picture of a Portuguese-Chinese couple and their children. The story is at times a bit too romantic, yet very entertaining and interesting.
I couldn’t thus detect any clashes between the Chinese and Portuguese. One violent confrontation is mentioned, which only gave the Macao and the Portuguese a common enemy: the Dutch! It turns out that the Dutch tried to take over control over Macao, and although initially successful, they were defeated by Portuguese soldiers and Macao civilians. Since 1999, Macao passed to China, but is considered a Special Administrative Region so I have an extra stamp in my passport!
[Pictures soon]
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18 September 2008
On the first day in Hong Kong, I went to the Hong Kong Museum of History. This museum instantly became one of my favourite museums (others being for example the Tate Modern in London). I did not exactly know what to expect, but I have learned that that is usually the best. Sometimes I go visit a museum with big expectations, or just the wrong expectations, and then your experience will usually be a disappointment. But in the case of the Museum of History, everything added up to a great museum experience.
The museum had done a great job in combining all kinds of history into one. It started with the geological features and history of the Hong Kong area. How the different layers in the earth came to be, what effect the ice age had, how the different islands and mountains came to be; everything complemented with the estimated years when it occurred, usually going into the millions of years ago. Of course I don’t know anything about geology, but the fact that the rock we’re sitting on hides an enormous history under its surface is of course amazing to a simple history student.
Anyway, after the geological history of rocks, the next hall in the museum was dedicated to natural history! Suddenly you walk in a small jungle with animals and plants, typical for the region through time. I was just too happy and walked around without reading all the info signs; maybe next time. With the third room you finally enter human history, but it’s still pre-history so no written records. There are mannequins of how the humans a few tens of thousands of years ago probably looked like. The museum explains the discipline of archaeology, a history of archaeological excavations in Hong Kong, and the donor collections of (amateur) archaeologists.
Now we race through the dynasties from Han to Qing and the place of Hong Kong in this history. So only in fourth section did the museum enter my field of study, namely history based on written works. But after the geological, natural, archaeological, and ‘ordinary’ history, it still continues! Now it is time for the people itself: anthropology. It turns out that we can distinguish four kinds of people in Hong Kong. The Boat Dwellers who fish, the rich Punti, the Hoklo who cultivate rice, and the […]. Other cultural riches are shown, such as Chinese opera, theatre, rituals for marriage and birth, etc. Next floor: Opium war, English rule, grow of the city, Japanese occupation, modernisation, and it all finishes with the return to China. All accompanied by pictures, posters, movies, buildings with period rooms, etc. Wow…
So, everyone who visits Hong Kong, go to the Museum of History! But if you plan to visit multiple museums in Hong Kong, go to this one last, to keep your expectations for the other museums low. This museum reaches a high level, making the other museums look, well, less impressive.
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13 September 2008
As you may know, we've all taken off to explore the world outside Utrecht. Klaas-Pieter is taking classes in Amsterdam, Koen will take philosophy courses in Leeds, Dirk goes to Aberdeen in Scotland and I will go to Xiamen (China). And apparently, there is Aberdeen in Hong Kong too! (see picture). By the way, the Hong Kong Museum of History is a MUST for everyone visiting this great busy city, it's one of my favourite museums now!
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