Qi sandwich
Someone the other week intimated that the classical Chinese concept of Qi, being some kind of energy which motivated physiological change in the body, is actually a bit weird in this day & age when we understand so much about the human body. I mean we know all about molecular level interactions …. you know … we’re all chemicals innit ?
I readily agreed. ‘Look at the wonders of oxydative phosphorylation’ I sagely replied. Krebs cycle, the production of chemical energy from the raw materials of glucose and oxygen happening in every cell in the body, actually in cell organelles called mitichondria. A production line with 3d protein molecule enzymes in an unfathomable dance during which the raw materials get processed into carbon dioxide, water …. why? there’s plenty of that stuff around…. because the process produces chemical energy.
What’s that ??
Actually it’s the creation of a high energy phosphate bond onto the molecule adenosine diphosphate to create adenosine triphosphate. Effectively this is the body’s battery cell providing energy wherever it’s needed by releasing the energy in that phosphate bond and reverting back to adenosine diphosphate.
But what is ‘that energy’
Well it’s … er … just energy innit…. just something nebulous & unfathomable in a chemical bond… but by ‘eck nothing happens without it despite it’s nebulousness…..maybe we should give it a name????
But anyway, back to Qi….. how absurd eh? Those primitives and their weird ideas.
(One day being a smartarse will get me into trouble…… oh wait a minute, it already has, many times)
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