Tacit Knowledge Mining: The Key Traditional Chinese Medical Inheritance

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a treasure of traditional Chinese culture and a gift to the world. TCM tacit knowledge refers to the knowledge and experiences formed in the process of learning and practice of TCM. The objective of this study is to discuss the importance of TCM tacit knowledge in the inheritance and education of TCM. As the essence of the TCM, TCM tacit knowledge has the characteristics of massive, complicated, relativistic, highly individualized, constantly innovative, the dependence of cultural background and the regional environment, as well as difficult to explicate. It exists in every aspect of the TCM theory and the process of dialectical treatment. Besides the traditional master-apprentice, family-based, school-based, and inheritance and education methods, together with the inheritance based on the books, images, and network platforms, in the process of TCM modernization, a variety of modern theoretical models and computing techniques have also been used in the mining of the TCM tacit knowledge. In this study, we introduced the usage of SECI model, complexity adaptive system, latent variable model, and some of the data mining technologies in the TCM tacit knowledge mining. An accurate and efficient inheritance of TCM tacit knowledge is the key to maintain the vitality and innovative development of TCM. Under the reasonable application and combination of the traditional education methods, modern mining methods, and further the artificial intelligence, the explicit and inheritance of TCM tacit knowledge will get tremendous development, and it could extremely improve the efficiency and accuracy of the TCM inheritance and the TCM modernization.