The Yi is not a fractal Lotus...

[confucius]

As is commonly perceived in the Western hemisphere ( and either lost in interpretation or transalation ) the Yi does not comprise 4082 ideograms...

So many are accounted for if one counts them, linearily, in a Western-like fashion; And as such, exotically, the Yi has been affectionately and esoterically called the ''Fractal* Flower'' , or Lotus.

* Fractal : mathematical situations whose creation or form only find their existence in irregularities or fragmentations.

The Yi, intuitively understood, is a Matrix, multi-dimesional and, as is the case for music, spaces have the same value as notes ( you could not have a musical piece without silences between notes, it would be chaos)

The Yi, if you look at it again, actually has 4096 ideograms...

Are you not surprised to realize that 4096 is the sum of 64X64 ?...

...therefore, unfractal, right ?

 

[Sparhawk]

Nope, the Yi is often compared to fractals (or conceived as holographic, as well) because fractals mean:

"a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity.

But "fractals" and "holography" are fairly new terms that describe mathematical and physical properties that may sound foreign in the description of an ancient classic. What's important is the acknowledgment that the Yi, in its expression and development, can expand to 4096 combinations, or collapse to one, and the imagery remains the same.

 

[confucius]

Quoting : ''the Yi can expand to 4096 combinations ''...I am somewhat lost here.

The figure : 4096, is the total of symbols found in the original Ma Wang Dui manuscript and, at least mathematically speaking, 8 X 8 possible trigram combinations = 64 hexagrams and, still to be elucidated, 64 hexagrams X 64 ? = 4096 ideograms total in the manuscript...

 

[Sparhawk]

No need to feel lost. I am referring to the combinations produced by any hexagram becoming any other: 64 hexagrams, mutating to any other of the 64, gives a total of 4096 combinations. The Jiao Shi Yilin is a work that explored these combinations in textual form, for example.

Now, regarding the "Silk Manuscript" found in Mawangdui, I believe the number of 4096 characters is misquoted. According to Edward L. Shaughnessy,

The Mawangdui Yijing manuscript was written on two pieces of silk, both about 48 cm wide. The first piece, about 85 cm long, contains the text of the classic itself, i.e. the hexagram and line statements often referred to as the Zhouyi 周易 (written in 93 columns of text with between 64 and 81 graphs per column), and a second, commentarial text, in 36 columns of about 72 graphs each (a total of about 2,600 graphs).​

The total number of characters is obviously greater than 4096.

 

[confucius]

Sorting-out, after hundreds of nights and as many ideograms, then comparing during twice as many days entire phrases to there find symbols deliberately ommited, has brought me back to where I should have started with in the first place : counting one by one all the ideograms composing the 64 chapters of the Canonical text. As I was going along, I was surprised no other author had, to date, the same innocent curiosity. The only ones who dare advance such endeavor repeated what the Chinese have always said : ''that the Canonical text is composed of about 4000 characters, adding the roughly 6000 characters found in the Canonical Commentaries, give a total global figure of about 10 000 ideograms'', as you say...

...but, when you consider the clockwork precision with which the Yi was chiseled over the centuries, ''about 4000 characters'' is no longer acceptable

There are 4082 written characters and 14 spatial ommissions in the Canonical text.

(((( ---- I am not a very clever man and trying to understand how you can multiply 64 mutating hexagrams into a total of 4096 possibilities since, for example, if you take
Khien(1) and change the exiting line, it becomes Kwai(43), not to be added in the multiplicity equation, since it is already accounted for as hexagram 43 !!!! or if you change the entry Hsiao, Khien(1) becomes Khou(44), so each level transmutation becomes a known hexagram and since 8 X 8 possibilities = 64, what would, say, hexagram 65 look like ?

 

[Sparhawk]

Sorting-out, after hundreds of nights and as many ideograms, then comparing during twice as many days entire phrases to there find symbols deliberately ommited, has brought me back to where I should have started with in the first place : counting one by one all the ideograms composing the 64 chapters of the Canonical text. As I was going along, I was surprised no other author had, to date, the same innocent curiosity. The only ones who dare advance such endeavor repeated what the Chinese have always said : ''that the Canonical text is composed of about 4000 characters, adding the roughly 6000 characters found in the Canonical Commentaries, give a total global figure of about 10 000 ideograms'', as you say...

...but, when you consider the clockwork precision with which the Yi was chiseled over the centuries, ''about 4000 characters'' is no longer acceptable

There are 4082 written characters and 14 spatial ommissions in the Canonical text.

Sorry, but the above makes no sense to me. The Mawangdui text, found on the two pieces of silk, is clearly segregated between the "Zhouyi" proper, so-to-speak, and the "commentaries." Please explain exactly what you mean for "canonical text" and lets start from there.

(((( ---- I am not a very clever man and trying to understand how you can multiply 64 mutating hexagrams into a total of 4096 possibilities since, for example, if you take
Khien(1) and change the exiting line, it becomes Kwai(43), not to be added in the multiplicity equation, since it is already accounted for as hexagram 43 !!!! or if you change the entry Hsiao, Khien(1) becomes Khou(44), so each level transmutation becomes a known hexagram and since 8 X 8 possibilities = 64, what would, say, hexagram 65 look like ?

I feel silly explaining this, but, what number of symbols do you have when you combine the eight trigrams amongst themselves? Take it one step further and combine sixty-four hexagrams (which is the equivalent of an hexagram changing into any of the other sixty-three; or, if you like to visualize it that way, stack the different hexagrams as if they were trigrams) and tell me how many you obtain...

 

[confucius]

...if I stack-up hexagrams to total 4096, they are not hexagrams anymore.

 

[Sparhawk]

...if I stack-up hexagrams to total 4096, they are not hexagrams anymore.

That's why I said "If you like to visualize it that way"... The thing is that the same occurs when 1.1>44; 1.1.2>33; 1.1.2.3>12; and so on for every possible combination of changing lines in any given hexagram. Any hexagram can become any other; thus, 64x64=4096 hexagrams.

 

[my_key]

That's why I said "If you like to visualize it that way"... The thing is that the same occurs when 1.1>44; 1.1.2>33; 1.1.2.3>12; and so on for every possible combination of changing lines in any given hexagram. Any hexagram can become any other; thus, 64x64=4096 hexagrams.

Luis

OK - I think I'm following this thread.........

So are you saying that each line is a quantum of energy that contributes to a bigger blob (the hexagram). Then the way in which we move the energy or move with it gives us a possible 4096 outcome. Now if my thinking is sound, with 4096 possible outcomes we have 4095 degrees of freedom and these constitute our free will - the choices we choose to make at any one time.
If this thinking is on the right track what are your thoughts that free will is limited to 4095 options?
Mike

 

[Sparhawk]

Hi Mike,

Luis

OK - I think I'm following this thread.........

So are you saying that each line is a quantum of energy that contributes to a bigger blob (the hexagram). Then the way in which we move the energy or move with it gives us a possible 4096 outcome. Now if my thinking is sound, with 4096 possible outcomes we have 4095 degrees of freedom and these constitute our free will - the choices we choose to make at any one time.
If this thinking is on the right track what are your thoughts that free will is limited to 4095 options?
Mike

Geeze, where to start... I don't remember if you are in the Reading Circle section of Clarity (highly recommended). I was brain-dropping ideas there, a while ago, about this; both, directly and indirectly.

Now, you must remember the subject title of this thread. I think it comes from a misunderstanding of what "fractals" are. The thing is that the Yi can indeed be conceptualized as such because it can expand holistically to comprehend "the Ten Thousand Things" or collapse into a singularity, taking with it the whole of existence. That is, the singularity contains within the "Ten Thousand Things" and the "Ten Thousand Things" are the expansive expression of the singularity. Every "Thing" is the potential expression of the whole.

Having said that, your point is certainly an expression of the potential of the above. Have you gone through Chris Lofting's material on this? Although I don't agree with all of his concepts some are very compelling, specially in the area that I call Yijing Holistics. One of his ideas for this is that any hexagram and/or pair of hexagrams (one pair out of 4096) can fully express a given situation and its outcome and that it is the task of the querent to find the correct expression. I depart with him in his shunning of synchronicity (understood as "randomness" by him) to find said expression. For him --as I understand him, anyway-- the querent must consciouslly find said expression and apply it. You used the notion of "free will" for it...

 

[confucius]

Simplify complexity...

...or complicate simplicity...

...Taoism has that virtue that no other method of comprehension has : a binary code, Yin and Yang, it is that simple. Each of these are in their turn either active Yin or passive Yin, same with Yang ( hence the well-known Tai Chi symbol everyone calls Yin-Yang)

...there where 2 hexagrams can not be superimposed to form the '' Myriad things '' is based on the following, unless someone helps me out by enlightenment :

Entry level ( first or bottom line ) the level of instincts
second line that of self interest
third line of individual endeavors
fourth of social consciousness
the fifth level depicts the level of authority and
the sixth level is that of wisdom

Each particularity, or attribute, is vowed to a level ( the virtue of water is to be wet, so to speak), as such, the entering in a context ( first level) is done instinctively and upward until it is mastered ( whence wisdom)

When an hexagram is set to be recognized ( without mutating lines, lets say), let us say, Li, hexagram 30, we see that at the level of self-interest stands a Yin line, proper, because being active at that level is using a sword to cut a feather...

...as such, each line, or level, has a distinctive attribute, either Yin or Yang...If you superimpose 2 hexagrams ( even if you pair-up sets of 2 levels) it can not be done without chaos and the Yi ( nor life as we know it) do not allow any possible reponses but : ''beneficial now, or beneficial later'', of course, because synchronicity ALWAYS benefits one or the other, in this case the seeker wishes for the benefit and asks the Yi : ''is it time now, or should I wait ?''

As such, no possible 4096 sequences of twin or paired-up hexagrams.

 

[fkegan]

There is always a problem when one set of metaphors are imposed upon another without any regard for the assumptions involved.

Taoism has that virtue that no other method of comprehension has : a binary code, Yin and Yang, it is that simple. Each of these are in their turn either active Yin or passive Yin, same with Yang ( hence the well-known Tai Chi symbol everyone calls Yin-Yang)

Is Taoism binary based upon Yin and Yang or is that a Western interpretation based upon the innovation by Confucius to establish the proper relationships in the Imperial Bureaucracy upon his notions of what made for proper family dynamics.

If Yang and Yin are seen as figure and ground in Gestalt an entirely different set of conclusions follow. Is 64 squared the essential numerological key to the Yi? Or is it simply a 6-place matrix whose open spaces may or may not have a mark filled in them and that mark can change to or from open space as well?

Fractals are interesting contemporary notions. They were developed by Mandelbrot as a means to deal with questions about two-dimensional representations of solid objects. They are mostly about confusing computer drawings with real objects they are expected to represent. Thus the term fractal from fractional dimension since they are not linear or areas or volumes but somewhere in between--a drawing of area that looks like a solid object but isn't since it is just a drawing on paper. Some folks play with these tricks of the Eye like Escher others take them to be deep mathematical and theoretical discoveries like Mandelbrot.

Personally, I find the Yi amazing for its power to use the simplest of fundamental principles to create images and Oracles of the greatest personal relevance independent of any mathematical, language, or theory from other perspectives being involved.

Frank

 

[Sparhawk]

The above was supposed to demonstrate simplicity in the face of what I offered which is simple multiplication and demonstrated in textual form in such works as the Yilin?

Furthermore, I'm afraid that if you preach "impossibilities" related to the Yijing, you haven't yet found the beginning of the ball of cosmic yarn the classic is.

You've placed yourself so "way up in the northern hemisphere" as to be unreachable...

 

[Sparhawk]

Fractals are interesting contemporary notions. They were developed by Mandelbrot as a means to deal with questions about two-dimensional representations of solid objects. They are mostly about confusing computer drawings with real objects they are expected to represent. Thus the term fractal from fractional dimension since they are not linear or areas or volumes but somewhere in between--a drawing of area that looks like a solid object but isn't since it is just a drawing on paper. Some folks play with these tricks of the Eye like Escher others take them to be deep mathematical and theoretical discoveries like Mandelbrot.

I've said as much in message #2 above:

But "fractals" and "holography" are fairly new terms that describe mathematical and physical properties that may sound foreign in the description of an ancient classic. What's important is the acknowledgment that the Yi, in its expression and development, can expand to 4096 combinations, or collapse to one, and the imagery remains the same.​

 

[confucius]

The above was supposed to demonstrate simplicity in the face of what I offered which is simple multiplication and demonstrated in textual form in such works as the Yilin?

Furthermore, I'm afraid that if you preach "impossibilities" related to the Yijing, you haven't yet found the beginning of the ball of cosmic yarn the classic is.

You've placed yourself so "way up in the northern hemisphere" as to be unreachable...



I am sorry you think the Northern Hemisphere to be unreachable; I presume Hidden is more attainable, so do you describe your position !

It is perspective that is constructive here; In the end, we all all right according to everyone very own perspective but seek out to share other's point of views. Winston Churchill once said : '' I have absolutely no respect for a person which cannot change his mind''

I would praise less egoticism from your part.

The Humanist Montaigne in France said :

''You may well be seating on the world's highest throne, there are you still sitting but on your butt''

I have not learn to appreciate that phrase you offered me :

You've placed yourself so "way up in the northern hemisphere" as to be unreachable...

perhaps 1971 is not a vintage ?

 

[Sparhawk]

I am sorry you think the Northern Hemisphere to be unreachable; I presume Hidden is more attainable, so do you describe your position !

Laughable! If you would take the time to check the website associated with my account you'll see my full details. Just for you, I added a link under my name above. Cut and paste it in your browser. Short of giving you my street address and phone number, you'll see where I live. My real name is Luis Andrade and it has never been a hidden fact. Now is your turn.

It is perspective that is constructive here; In the end, we all all right according to everyone very own perspective but seek out to share other's point of views. Winston Churchill once said : '' I have absolutely no respect for a person which cannot change his mind''

I would praise less egoticism from your part.

Change my mind? Speak for yourself. I only corrected your use of the word "fractal" in association with the Yijing and why it may be compared with such constructs, even when the metaphorical fit isn't perfect. I didn't make it up. It is in the dictionary. As for the number of characters in the "canonical text," you still owe me a reply.

It isn't the first time you have come to this forum preaching your "subjective truths and sagely advise," as if you were living in the character of your moniker. Well, I don't believe you are the reincarnation of good old Master Kong...

The Humanist Montaigne in France said :

''You may well be seating on the world's highest throne, there are you still sitting but on your butt''

Oh, the irony of it. We seem to agree on something...

I have not learn to appreciate that phrase you offered me :

You've placed yourself so "way up in the northern hemisphere" as to be unreachable...

I know, it shows...

perhaps 1971 is not a vintage ?

Let's deflect some heat to Hilary for the "1971" thingy in our profiles... I've actually lost count of the years I've been here but I believe it was shortly after she started the site in 2000.

 

[confucius]

...alright...life is a circle...and through a circle falls all that has been ingested following an 8 hour cycle...

...I appologize honestly if I led you to believe that my intention was to make you agree with me...

...I will modestly go on with the sharing of my etymological elaborations on the Hsiao...good life to you, Grasshopper

 

[Sparhawk]

...I will modestly go on with the sharing of my etymological elaborations on the Hsiao...good life to you, Grasshopper

See, that I am, indeed, and I've certainly met a few masters I'd acknowledge as such. You are not one of them...

 

[Trojina]

Yeah Confucious I am Luis' Master er Mistress

You really thought 1971 was Luis join date ? The internet wasn't invented yet. (why can't someone fix that...why does it still say 1971..modern technology is so crap)


Anyhow I would like to award this thread the award of THREAD TITLE OF THE YEAR

THE YI IS NOT A FRACTAL LOTUS

To myself who has no clue what a 'fractal lotus' is and so never suspected the Yi of being one anyway, this title has a certain poetic beauty....it calls for a second line, a verse infact...

The Yi is not a fractal lotus
........

 

[lucia]

The Y is not a fractal Lotus
Simplicity or Magnum Opus?
Lotus petals are concentric
Mandelbrot? (That's ethnocentric)

Little things please little minds
And little pants fit little behinds
My love life's fu**ed
My heart is sore
The ching won't answer anymore
(I asked for 1 it gave me 4)

churchill............? Dios mio!

Happy New Year everyone

Lucia

 

[Sparhawk]

Yeah Confucious I am Luis' Master er Mistress

I know truth when confronted with it... (ahem, Trojan, the other fellows here will start fantasizing of me chained to the ceiling and you switching me with a pink whip...)

THE YI IS NOT A FRACTAL LOTUS

To myself who has no clue what a 'fractal lotus' is and so never suspected the Yi of being one anyway, this title has a certain poetic beauty....it calls for a second line, a verse infact...

The Yi is not a fractal lotus

I know! Such a waste of a title for a thread that died in the rhetorical vine.

 

[Trojina]

The Y is not a fractal Lotus
Simplicity or Magnum Opus?
Lotus petals are concentric
Mandelbrot? (That's ethnocentric)

Little things please little minds
And little pants fit little behinds
My love life's fu**ed
My heart is sore
The ching won't answer anymore
(I asked for 1 it gave me 4)

churchill............? Dios mio!

Happy New Year everyone

Lucia

thats very good, the only thing i could think that rhymed with lotus was crocus

 

[Trojina]

I know truth when confronted with it... (ahem, Trojan, the other fellows here will start fantasizing of me chained to the ceiling and you switching me with a pink whip...)


.

OMG I just realised if Mrs Sparhawk were reading she'd think I was saying i was your actual mistress thankfully you made this post so she'll know I'm just one of many of the fantasy cast that inhabit your fertile imagination, though i find it suprisingly easy to fall into role