Elephants like it, too. -"Yi copula"
Thinking in images is the most representative way of thinking in China traditional culture. "Image" usually refers to the external phenomenon and image of objective things. Everything that can be seen, smelled, heard, touched and perceived is an image. Between heaven and earth, everything is expressed in the form of "image".
Through analogy, symbol and other methods, according to the similarity of two kinds of things in some attributes, the conclusion is drawn that the two kinds of things may be the same or similar in other aspects. This kind of logical reasoning is "thinking in images", which is also called "drawing inferences from others".
Ancient sages in China often used "thinking in images" when exploring the unknown world. This mode of thinking is based on the unity of heaven and man. The ancients believed that people, like other creatures in nature, were born with the spirit of heaven and earth and all followed the same law, so there were many similarities. This is the so-called thinking mode of "the same origin of all things" and "the unity of man and nature".
"Image thinking" has laid the theoretical foundation of traditional Chinese medicine to a great extent.
Take Chinese medicine as an example.
For example, through long-term observation, people find that lilies bloom at dawn and close at dusk; The growth characteristics of perilla leaves are related to people's daily activities and sleeping habits at night. Therefore, it is inferred that these two plants may have the mechanism and efficacy of regulating opening and closing, so we try to verify in human body that lily and perilla are used to treat intractable insomnia. Practice has proved that they do have good therapeutic effect and curative effect.
Deduct invisible laws with tangible "images". This is the thinking mode of "harmony between man and nature", just like "the same kind follows each other and the spirit seeks each other".
Another example is Achyranthes bidentata, whose joints are like knees, so it can cure the disease of knee and tibia; Eucommia ulmoides is tough and tough, so it can strengthen bones and muscles; Safflower blood has the function of promoting blood circulation and regulating menstruation; Reed and Alisma orientalis are born in wetlands or swamps and are not afraid of soaking in water, so they have diuretic and diuretic effects. Ephedra was born in a cold area and can keep out the cold, so it has the effect of dispelling wind and dispelling cold; Insects avoid it, so the dragon is used to treat stroke and meridian hemiplegia. ...
For example, cinnabar is red, and the color is red to the heart. Cinnabar is heavy, but it can soothe the nerves and calm the heart.
Compendium of Materia Medica: "Every medicine is lighter than the weak, and it is promoted; Where the medicine is heavy, it sinks; Where the taste is weak, the taste is strong ... where the taste is thick, it is hidden and flat. " These are all images of olfactory state to illustrate the law of the rise and fall of drugs.
Not only in the discovery and understanding of traditional Chinese medicine, but also in the aspects of yin and yang, five elements, viscera and meridians of traditional Chinese medicine. "Image thinking" has many ways of reasoning and cognition.
"Elephant thinking" was not imagined by the ancients. "Observing things-taking images-analogy-body way" is China's traditional epistemological method. People know the "image" of drugs through the senses, initially understand their characteristics, then think in the same whole with the human body and nature, understand their mechanism of action from a macro perspective, then try to treat diseases, and then summarize and analyze them to form a preliminary medication theory. Under the guidance of this theory, we have repeatedly recognized drugs and treated diseases with drugs, and gradually formed the theoretical embryonic form of traditional Chinese medicine through continuous exploration and summary.
Through analogy, "thinking in images" can enlighten people's thinking and help them spread their imagination wings, thus pushing others away and understanding and discovering new things.
"All shapes and colors are natural, and there are legal images." Ancient sages repeatedly experienced the medicinal properties and smells of natural materia medica through eyes, hands, mouth and tongue, and gained a lot of valuable clinical experience through "image thinking". However, it must be said that the "thinking in images" of the ancients also has certain subjectivity and limitations, which is easy to cause analogy errors. Everything has its universality and regularity, as well as its particularity and irregularity. In the process of analogy, it is easy to generalize and ignore the particularity of things.
For thousands of years, "imaginative thinking" has played an important role in clinical practice. With the development of the times, we are placed between square inches of reinforced concrete, away from the fresh nature, away from the cognition of natural creatures in the era of Shennong tasting herbs, and the cultural accumulation of predecessors for thousands of years. We should study and understand carefully, take its essence, inherit and develop. Don't take it for granted that you know some science and technology such as physical chemistry, so you can get a glimpse and completely deny it.
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