Diagnosing with Light

Abstract

Acupoint Biophoton Emissions Testing (ABET), an alternative diagnostic technique used by practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine, illustrates a case of non-linguistic Delome-level semiosis that is understood to form an interface between endosemiotic and linguistic semiotic levels of human (bio-)communication. Performed manually, the technique employs an array of Hypoiconic and Indexical Symbols that, when used in combination, enable practitioners to “listen in” and learn with biocommunicational processes, re-embodying them in a manner that renders them available to conscious recognition and linguistic representation. The Delome formations of the ABET technique afford the gradual accumulation and transformation of practitioner understanding through sign co-performances that achieve triadic relationality mediationally—prefiguring fully representational forms of learning. They demonstrate embodied capacities for pattern recognition, coordination, exploration, articulation, explication and self-governance that may have evolved in advance of representational sign formations, setting the evolutionary stage for them.