Traditional Chinese culture represents the unity of human diversity, and traditional science is an important part of human diversity. Among them, traditional Chinese medicine, as one of the most representative disciplines in traditional Chinese science, carries a profound historical and cultural heritage.
On two different levels, there are two very different views of science. Traditional Chinese medicine focuses on the phenomenal aspects of human life, while Western medicine focuses on the morphological aspects of human life. Traditional Chinese medicine regards time as an important scientific observation dimension, while Western medicine prefers spatial observation. These two perspectives are not replaceable or transitional with each other, and each has its own unique theoretical basis and application field.
Carl Gustav Jung (c.) g.Jung (1875-1961) was a master of psychology who conducted in-depth research on the I Ching and Eastern civilization. He pointed out that China has its own "science", marked by the Book of Changes, and its scientific principles are very different from traditional Western science, which challenges "scientific monism" and calls for people to be open-minded and recognize the diversity of scientific ideas in different cultural contexts.
There is a symmetry between traditional Chinese science and traditional Western science. Western science tends to divide the world into two levels, phenomena and essences, through analysis and abstraction, emphasizing the existence and laws of space, while traditional Chinese science pays more attention to the time process of natural generation and focuses on the functional phenomena of things. Western science emphasizes the essence behind the phenomenon, while Chinese science sees the phenomenon itself as the basis for existence.
There are different levels of relationship between TCM and Western medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine focuses on the phenomenal aspects of human life and emphasizes the law of "fluctuation", while Western medicine focuses on the morphological structure of the human body and involves the law of "particle". There is a certain degree of correspondence between the two in theory and practice, but they cannot completely replace each other. Traditional Chinese medicine emphasizes holistic observation, while Western medicine focuses more on local analysis, and there are obvious differences in understanding methods and emphases.
Traditional Chinese thinking tends to start from functional phenomena and attaches importance to the observation of "images". Concepts such as Dao, Yi, and Qi are regarded as the fundamental laws of the world, while Yin and Yang, and the Five Elements are regarded as the basic attributes of all things in the universe. Rather than reducing the world to tangible material elements, ancient Chinese philosophers emphasized the importance of functional phenomena and natural processes.
As a science, Chinese medicine attaches great importance to the study of the laws of movement of things in their natural state. It treats the human body as a natural phenomenon of the process, emphasizing the importance of holistic observation and the course of time. Elephant science focuses on the comprehensive observation of phenomena and imagery thinking, which contrasts with the abstract analysis methods of Western science. The theory and practice of TCM are rooted in the understanding of the laws of time in the natural state, which embodies the unique way of thinking and observation of traditional Chinese science.