“Unbelievable! That’s impossible! It’s not backed by science!” one thought. Yet, if one was to rethink one’s assumption, whether science backed everything. “No, because science is the search for things we don’t know, and there are lots of things we don’t know. Plus, science haven’t yet disprove God’s existence.” Before long, one found oneself standing behind the doors leading to the event hall, supposingly hosting 300 participants. After taking attendance, one was allowed to enter the hall.
One make one’s way through passages, directed by hands of facilitators, and allocated seatings at random. If you ever been on board of an economy class plane, like the Boeing 777 before they expanded the width of the seat, even for a skinny person, the hands can barely move, or even put beside your torso. The seats are just similar, except instead of being greeted by shared seat handlers, you’d bear physical contact with another person, and hope the person beside you is skinny enough to not oversqueeze into neighboring compartments. Physical contact is always great, soothing one’s feelings. Who experienced touch deprivation during Covid-19?
The projector was turned on. On screen displays the definition of longevitology, says “the attraction/absorption of the energy from the universe to fill up your body, which in turns improve our metabolism rate and the speed at which new blood is created in the marrow, to flush out diseases and pain in our body.”
“Ok, science hadn’t yet prove the existence of the energy from the universe, at least not one’s aware of, yet good science is never to prove something’s existence, but to disprove its existence; and science probably haven’t disprove it yet, or we wouldn’t have so many terms like ‘dark energy’ and ‘dark matter’, where ‘dark’ may refers to non-illuminating matter, but could also means non-matter, i.e. ‘objects that we don’t know what it is.’” And if it’s not disproved, we can believe it till it’s being disproved. To prepare for the event, we were asked to meditate, to empty our minds of thoughts, or just go to sleep sitting on a chair, while waiting for the event to start. Great, one brought with one “The Renaissance” by Will and Ariel Durant, to kill time, but was asked to meditate? Don’t you know that Gen Z adults today have zero patience when doing nothing?
The event started with “opening your acupoint” (开窍). Acupoints played an important role in Chinese medical history. Each acupoints are linked to certain parts of the body, when stimulated, could provide soothing effects to its corresponding parts, or even healing effects. Perhaps the most common acupoints one’d stimulate, without knowing it’s an acupoint, locate to the left and right of your eyes, when you have headache on either left or right side of your head. Another is between your eyes, to the left and right off the top of your nose, which you stimulate when your eyes hurt.
Many chinese novels says we have 365 acupoints, but the exact amount one don’t know, just a lot of them, hundreds are best guesses. Yet, for this event, there are 7 main acupoints that linked to your body parts, at least that’s what they said. Acupoint C1 is the portal absorbing the universe energy, doesn’t exist in your body; yet the other 6 acupoints are “closed,” hence “opening your acupoints.” We start with C7 (on top of your head, the most important of all ‘other 6’, between the axis where your nose and ears intercept, or where your hair spirals out, if you aren’t bald) and C6 (Put your fingers between your eyes, above your nose, and move up toward your forehead until you feel a cavity). With eyes closed, one feels their fingers pressing on C7 and C6, while slowly reverberating as if internal energy (Qi) being transferred; though one didn’t feel any surge in energy from the universe. Meh, but it’s comfortable, so that’s forgive-able. Upon removing their hands, one was led back to one’s seat, asked to drink some water, and return back to meditative state while others wait for their turn opening their acupoint, probably another half an hour or so. As everyone had their acupoints opened, the teacher came on stage, and we could finally open our eyes, sit straight, and focus on what the teacher had to say, with a mind ready to call out “bullshit!”
The teacher starts with lots of explanation, not one you’d expect from a professional debater; for one reasoning is enough, to not easily being attacked, not easily finding loopholes in a single reasoning, and strong enough to make one stand. Yet, different people have different worries, listening on different channels; and the teacher probably have to address them speaking at different channels one at a time to convince at least most of us to believe in what he had to speak. Example, some are worried that, if they help people heal, they might catch their disease; the antidote is that the energy of the universe first fills your body before transferring to the patients’, which is stronger than the disease, so the disease is killed upon entering your body. Others are worried about going to hell (for God’s sake, what does that means, helping people going to hell???), and the teacher had to explain that the doctors you visit receives merit points, albeit in the form of their local currency, and they probably go to heaven, so why did you go to hell instead?
Some others, like oneself, is convince more by the scientific facts, or at least logical non-scientific facts that sounds like “common sense” (when it can be “common nonsense”). The initial explanations aren’t clear, at least not clear enough one could convey it to you. It’s only two days later, after several testimonies from the audience, that one gets a bit of it. By that time, one was finishing Book IV: Via Negativa of Antifragile; which suggests against the use of medicine for mild diseases like headache or depression, instead our body will deal with them ourselves, that reminds one, perhaps this longevitology takes advantage of our body’s own immune system, making more sense. Plus, testimonies are filled with people resorting to medicine, via positiva interventions; and the removal of medicine probably helps their body recovers, without the side effects of medicine prohibiting such recovery. Some other testimonials sounds like pure coincidences, wrongly associated with longevitology, though one can’t disprove it not related to longevitology. Others still aren’t convinced why it’s better than medication; and convinced via medication targeting only the symptoms, not the cause of the disease, while this does (in what ways??? Read on!)
With people convinced at least to come back the next day, even bringing in their relatives and friends that was absent on the first day, the teacher finally gets to the most important point: the how! There are two branches: one to heal existing pain or disease, another to prevent being ridden by future pain and disease that could be avoided (that is, being cut by a knife isn’t included, nor being knocked down by cars, but back pain can be prevented by good posture). Starting with healing existing pain, for that’s accountable for most of the audience, or the audience won’t be there if they don’t have pain, unlike you’re in one’s situation partially forced by one’s parents to the event, on behalf of making more friends or meeting new friends, which is convincing, for one’s life goal is to make long-term friends, friendship that could last at least 60 years till one’s death. It’s easy: put one hand on the area of pain/disease, another hand at its corresponding acupoint (C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, or C7), which one could find in the last page of the “assigned textbook”. In case you don’t know which is which, just put your hands on C7. In general, it’s related to the nearest acupoints. E.g. C7 and C6 is located at top of the head, so it governs the whole head. We’ll explain the locations of C2, C3, C4, C5 later.
(unfortunately, one don’t have reprint permission for the image on the textbook)
Then, the steps for prevention:
Eyes looking forward at a target, breath in via your nose to your lung max capacity, breath out through your mouth. Repeat 5 times.
Close your eyes. Breath normally. Maintain (in meditative state) for at least 15 minutes.
Open your eyes. Do step 1 (that is, eyes forward at a target, breath in via your nose to your lung max capacity, breath out via your mouth, repeat 5 times).
Sounds easy? Practically not. How long can you meditate? Like most meditation, if any thoughts pop up, you’d slowly acknowledge it, delve in it, analyze it and see if it brings you any signals you don’t hear when you’re on your phone or busy with other stuffs, then finally resolve it by dismissing it. Yet, some thoughts are so difficult for one to face that one wants to numb oneself on one’s phone than to face it directly. Other people think meditation is a waste of time, just because they don’t understand the importance of connecting with one’s subsconcious. Still others just can’t sit still, actions, actions, and more actions! Even 15 minutes is painful. Like exercise, the joy comes later when one can finally break free from the shackles of the urges that strongly prefers the phone, that strongly prefers actions, from the shackles of fear of confrontation, to solve a problem at its root. Probably at the 10th minutes only one feel the joy; some can only feel so after 30th minutes; differ from person to person.
“The importance comes with practice and trying. We humans learn by practicing, not listening; and without trying, we never know whether it’ll work or not.” Probably the testimonials are biased towards those that’re only successful, disregard those that’re not; yet one agrees with this sentence the teacher mentions. In Antifragile, author convinces us on the importance of actions than “talk” (which he spelled it as “tawk”). The latter reminds one about how a strong fear prevents one from even trying, like fear to propose to a girl one like in case one puts oneself below the lights while being rejected; like fear of telling teacher one had to go to the bathroom for fear of cutting him/her halfway through his/her speech and getting scolded. Yet, these are just one’s imaginations; for one isn’t the girl or the teacher, so how do one know how (s)he will react without even trying?
Perhaps, locked in a world with myriads of technologies enslaving your attention, that deprives your body’s ability to heal itself. For it was when we finally relax, free from all external demands, when our body could relax and heal your disease. An attention-deprived state is comparable to fight-or-flight, which postpones healing to a later stage, after the supposing “danger” is over. Alas, most never got free from the shackles of the screen, constantly in fight-or-flight mode, to switch to the next most interesting news, fear of missing them out, even to the point of reducing one’s sleep, or at least disrupting one’s sleeping schedule. Longevitology offers the time and psychology, to recreate an environment where technology hadn’t yet deprives us of our attention, finally allowing your body to relax after years of locked in “busyness.”
C5: Between the 6th and 7th bone of your spinal cord, counted from the top. If you’re finding your own, it’s in between the two largest protruding bones; or you can try extrapolate where your shoulder lines meet, that’s about it.
C4: It’s approximately directly behind the axis where your heart lies, but on the spinal cord.
C3: It’s approximately directly behind your belly button.
C2: It’s the final bone of your spinal cord, where you can feel a sharp tip (as if we used to have a tail there). Directly below is the anus.
(All acupoints lie on the axis of your spinal cord)
(You could skip these text. They’re don’t meet what one actually want to say)
Well, any words with “-ology” sounds cool, does it not? Don’t be confused, though, it’s just created to attract attention. Longevitology is the absorption of “universe energy,” which helps improve our metabolism and blood creation (in the marrow), which in turns speed up our recovery from disease and pain inside our body. One’ll try to explain why it works, from its perspective and from more logical (which may or may not be scientific) perspective.
(skip forward if you don’t need explanation)
In Antifragile Book VI, Via Negativa, Taleb explained that mild disease could be treated by reducing intake, instead of increasing intake (via positiva). The latter is taking in “pills,” or involved in interventions (operations, surgery). The former, reduce your food intake, for example. Let’s take a deeper look at why this makes sense.
Every pill has side effects. Some side effects are directly relatable, such as, if you don’t finish your antibiotics, remnants bacteria would develop antibiotic-resistant mutation, and the same antibiotics must be prescribed in larger amount, or switching to a stronger antibiotics, to continue the treatment. Other side effects aren’t directly relatable, especially those that their side effects happens only few years later [Requires an example]. Recalling back, who would have thought a pill that brings immediate benefits would have cause such large side effects after such a long time? Sometimes, doctor might ask you to take pills till your time of death.
Therefore, author suggests that, unless you’re on the verge of death, or risk dying without intervention, don’t take pills. Example, if you got hit by a bullet, you probably want to remove the bullet especially if it causes unstoppable bleeding. Similarly, in Sapiens, author Yuval Noah Harari explained that, if you got hit by an arrow on the torso, you’re most likely dead from infection; while today, it can be easily treated by antibiotics (to kill the bacteria causing the infection).
However, if it’s not to the verge of death, your body most probably can repair it, especially when you’re still young or in middle ages, when body functionality is still high. For children and old age, it might or might not work, depending on how weakened your body functionality is. Example, if you have a headache, refrain from taking painkillers (like Panadol). If you have depression, refrain from taking antidepressant medicine (like Prozac, SSRIs, etc.) Never never use “I don’t have time for headache” as an excuse!
In Taleb’s word, the benefits from such medicine isn’t enough to offset the disadvantages it brings.
One last thing. Your body meets equilibrium depending on the product you use. For example, if you use artificial tear droppers, to ensure you don’t produce too much tears, your eyes will stop/lessen secreting tears. When you stop using it, it’ll gradually come back. To smoothen the period in between, you might want to lessen it slowly by slowly to reduce a sudden jump in changes.
In the upcoming discussions, we’ll use this via negativa to explain quite a lot of phenomena, on how it relates to longevitology.
(This is a simplified version that applies to all. For more specific and longer version that’s not explainable without long paragraphs, please visit the classes).
At the body parts which you feel hurt, injured, or whatever problem, put your hands there for at least 10 minutes. Put another hand at the top of the center of your head (it’s where your hair spirals out. If you’re bald and hence can’t feel your hair spiraling out, it’s about the interception of your nose axis and your ear axis) also for at least 10 minutes. It’ll slowly heal your wound/disease.
The encouraged timing varies person to person. On average, 15-30 minutes; actually, do it until you feel comfortable, even if it means an hour or two. Plus you don’t have to do it yourself; someone else could help you do it.
During the process, technically speaking, you should be concentrating on emptying your minds, in meditative state (albeit, posture don’t have to be meditative, just anything comfortable). But the teacher say, while you can’t watch TV while you perform such actions, you can perform such actions while watching TV. The former is your current aim is to perform healing, while the latter you’re resting. It may be less effective, though; for it’s probably the concentration, the staying away from the busyness of life, that allows your body to finally have time concentrating on healing your pain which usually they don’t have the time and attention to.
The meditative state is for both person, if you’re helping someone else, you should meditate; the person helping someone else should also in meditative state.
Relax, don’t need to think of anything. You don’t need to pass your Qi (气) to another person; because you absorb the universe energy, transfer it through your hands, to the other person. Instead, if you focus on passing your Qi to them, you lose your Qi as Qi isn’t universe energy, hence it requires time to replenish; while universe energy is everywhere and you just redirect it; universe probably replenish faster than you replenishing your Qi.
Also, some people says it works without touching too, but one isn’t sure about this. Their explanation is, if you already open your “窍穴” (more on this in “Does it work?” section), your Qi can be redirected if you point your palm at the other person. This is useful if it’s between different gender, and your country have restriction between cross-gender touching (like in Muslim countries, or people who prefer not to be touched in other countries).
And there is the method of “swaying”, like if you help someone fanning with a fan. Exactly how it works is unknown.
These are just a few of a lot more; which one will skip. You’d want to attend a class perhaps to know more about it.
Well, before one knows longevitology, one used to put one’s hands on one’s stomach during stomachache. One don’t know if it increases one’s healing, but at least it soothen one’s pain.
Generally, they say you need to open your “窍穴” before you can accept universe energy. However, if you’re more believing in science, you could always try without, yes?
(For science explanation, see below “On the Limits of Science Applicability” section)
There’s a meditative training that you should do every day. Basically, one doesn’t see it very different from other widely-available meditations (let’s ignore the different meditations the yogi developed for different purposes). Here it is:
Eyes looking forward at a target, breath in via your nose to your lung max capacity, breath out through your mouth. Repeat 5 times.
Close your eyes. Breath normally. Maintain for at least 15 minutes.
Open your eyes. Do step 1 (that is, eyes forward at a target, breath in via your nose to your lung max capacity, breath out via your mouth, repeat 5 times).
That’s it.
To ensure you know it’s 15 minutes, set an alarm clock on your phone, then start. When your alarm ring, open your eyes, turn off the alarm first, then do step 3.
At the beginning, you could start step 2 with 10 minutes first; later increment it to 11 mins, 12 mins, finally 15 mins. And it doesn’t have an upper threshold: you could do it for hours, one heard from Dr. K the yogis do meditation for days (yes, hibernation so your intake of water and food can be delayed, living longer than the 3 and 7 days you’ll die without them respectively. Not sure if your heart beats slower like in bears’ hibernation, though).
Perhaps we should look more at healthspan than life span. In True Age, author Morgan Levine talked the importance of extending healthspan more than life span. If you have a longer healthspan, even one as long as your life span, you’d die with less sufferings. With the math, if you live to 60 years, but your health span is only 50 years, then you have 60-50=10 years of suffering (that is, feeling pain, or even losing certain abilities).
As a relatively new field, we won’t know whether it would make us centenarians. One can only see its effects in extending healthspan so far, by reducing one’s suffering even at old age. Whether or not it’ll make us centenarians, we may know it in a century or two.
One’d like to remind all readers that science cannot explain all phenomena. In Antifragile, author Nassim Taleb reminds that many of us confused absence of evidence with evidence of absence. Sounds complicated? Let’s take two examples:
Absence of Evidence: We have no scientific studies that prove that God does not exist.
Evidence of Absence: We can prove that ether (aether) does not exist.
Unfortunately, the gamification of science funded by influential investors, requires most studies looking for evidence of presence, rather than evidence of absence. Furthermore, looking for evidence of presence easily traps one into confirmation bias, mistaking the evidence of presence for absence of evidence. That’s why people say they don’t believe in God, because science cannot prove that God exist, when science should be the one to prove that God does not exist.
The conclusion is, so far, one isn’t aware of any scientific studies proving the existence of “universe energy” or “energy of the universe”, yet we can’t disprove it either. Consider dark matter and dark energy; the “dark” here could have several explanations, among two are “it isn’t illuminating/glowing,” and “it is matter that we don’t know, and it may not be matter at all, we also don’t know.” If we take the second explanation, it’s very probable that these “materials” aren’t matching those available on the periodic table, including its composites. Or it may be, we don’t know. If there are so many objects we don’t know about the universe, why disagree that “energy of universe” doesn’t exist? You never know if they flow around you, especially if only interacts with gravity, but presence in so small an amount that even our best equipments couldn’t detect it (unless it aggregates in tremendous amounts, consider how weak the force of gravitation is compared to other fundamental forces). Plus, how can we be sure our equipment can indirectly detect “dark energy”, if it doesn’t interact with any existing four fundamental forces? Generally, we can’t; so we’ll accept its existence until it’s disproved. Just like you would believe in God’s existence until science can prove it doesn’t exist.
As for longevitology, we don’t have scientific research to disprove it yet. Yet, considering how long it had been (32 years, as of writing, if one got the correct information), someone would had sue it if it hadn’t at least had some work aspects. Of course, some may be coincidences, but we don’t know. We can’t prove it is coincidence, neither can we prove it be not coincidences.
Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
“I don’t have time for headache” is taken from a Malaysian TV ads, that tries to sell you painkillers.
True Age by Morgan Levine