Quantum spirituality and science
It is possible to see Daoism as a form of spirituality that contrasts strongly with Western religion, particularly in its character of supporting the unity of spirituality and science.
This extends to the identity of body and mind that is also alien to Western habits of thought. It is possible to go further and see these attitudes as being fundamental to a traditional organic and holistic approach to science that contrasts starkly with the West’s mechanistic and reductionist sense of science.
Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics was one of the first to remark that the contemporary exploration of quantum physics has brought Western science closer to the Chinese tradition. Mechanist and reduction habits die hard, however, particularly as they often facilitate convenience and simplicity in the commercial world.
This is despite the growing awareness of damaged environments, threatened ecologies and epidemics of degenerative disease, all precipitated by the careless use of science to achieve one goal without paying attention to possible side-effects. Side-effects are, of course, just another name for the ‘correspondences, resonances and inter-relationships’ that have long been the concern of Chinese thought and that become much more apparent when one is accustomed to thinking of resonance at the quantum level.
The centrality of qi in Chinese medicine is an indication that the Chinese have several millennia of experience seeking to understand human well-being in terms of energies that are hard to explain as other than quantum level resonances. This is the product of a spiritual tradition that encouraged discipline, sensitivity and exploration and that had a natural suspicion of the reductionism and rationality that have defined the Western scientific tradition.