Well, first of all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If in fact, you ask questions such as you posed and get accurate results, then you can predict the future. if not, not.

You also seem to want to figure out how it could be possible to predict the future when there are always other people involved who presumably have free will. There are a number of metaphysical scenarios in which predicting the future, even given free will of others, is possible. I think it would be off topic to get too deeply into them here. But to over-simplify one such metaphysical system: what if there are no other people? What if we are all part of the one soul making believe we are distinct and separate people?

tigerintheboat said:

In a post on his blog, in his description of the second edition of his book, The Laws of Change, Jack Balkin says the following:

"One would think it obvious-- although many people still seem to believe otherwise-- that you cannot predict the future by flipping coins or counting yarrow stalks. On the other hand, by asking questions of the book and coming to understand its philosophy over many years, you can get to know yourself better and gain some wisdom in the process."

Tiger

Click to expand...

He has it almost right - we can infact 'predict' events through understanding the CLASS of event that is occuring. When combined with the realisation that the I Ching is in fact a LANGUAGE and so able to describe anything with a vague level of precision so we can extract the details of a class. we can then use such to aid in seeing the development, evolution, and outcome of an event.

For example, if I assess an event using emotional feedback I can derive a hexagram representation of such. Using the feature of the I Ching being a language and so able to even describe itself, I can extract details from that representation that include the indication of the completion/purpose of that event if it is allowed to develop without interruption/distraction etc.

the DETAILS of the event, the instance content, are meaningless in that they are highly localised and subjective. But the FORM of the event is a universal such that given the form and its details we can fill-in the dots using consciousness with its refined mediation skills in dealing with particulars.

Thus personal questions as in 'does X love me' are meaningless due to their focus on an instance not a class. BUT we can describe emotionally the situation and derive the class of the situation. In so doing we derive meanings covering such as what caused us to ask the question in the first place.

Hi Elvis
Are you Chris Lofting with a better outfit?

Anyway. One of the myths in modernism is to value local/subjective as meaningless. Please move from the XX century to the XXI

jesed said:

Hi Elvis
Are you Chris Lofting with a better outfit?

Click to expand...

I was about to write the same thing... Just in case: Hi Chris!

jesed said:

Hi Elvis
Are you Chris Lofting with a better outfit?

Anyway. One of the myths in modernism is to value local/subjective as meaningless. Please move from the XX century to the XXI

Click to expand...

You ignore to make the distinctions between classes and instances. The class of 'whole numbers' covers properties of such where, at that level of meaning '4985' is the 'same' as 43567. Move to instances of the class and so the uniqueness of '4985' etc and you move into a more local context state that the realm of classes has no comprehension of (the FEELING of 'wholeness' and 'whole numbers' is a qualitative, vague focus, that sets a foundation for the emergence of quantitative expression in the form of specific numbers)

Its like typologies where there are 70% of the US population fit into the temperament class of "S - sensing" and 30% into the class of "N - intuiting".

Each individual is meaningless in that general class context - their uniqueness is ignored where only properties of the nature that map to the class of 'sensing' are meaningful. The CLASS information is useful in fleshing out generic properties of the 'sensing type' but the instance is unique and 'meaningless' to class level analysis.

In the I Ching the derivation of hexagrams is a derivation of classes of meanings and any situation is describable by a class where the class will come with properties and methods of a general nature. THEN comes the linking of that universal to the specific context under consideration where we can add-in personal names, dates, times, etc.

Focus on the nature of deriving the hexagrams and a process emerges where the set of classes of meanings can form into a language (the XOR focus) where we can get the I Ching to describe itself by references to itself - a standard property of languages.

What is implied by that is such classes as 'beginning' or 'ending' or 'completing' etc, due to the nature of building hexagrams recursively, become encoded in each hexagram such that it is possible to identify how a class begins/ends/completes etc and so how an instance of a class can go about such IN GENERAL where local dynamics add the uniqueness of the moment where such is unrepeatable.

Thus is it possible to predict future conditions by consideration of the classes of situations and identification of a situation from that level (and we can do that using or holistic, organic, natures in the form of emotions then open to refinement by consciousness).

IOW there is some 'science' behind the ' magic/randomness' of the X BC IC but only brought out using XXI AD methods where we can identify the language nature of the I Ching and its ability to describe/represent anything (and, AS A LANGUAGE, we can zoom-in for finer details by repeating the process of class usage but are still tied to class distinctions where consciousness is the final arbiter on the hexagram/situation 'fit')

So - Jesed - maybe YOU need to move into the XXI?

http://www.emotionaliching.com

elvis said:

You ignore to make the distinctions between classes and instances.

Click to expand...

No, I don't ignore that distinction. Just pointing to the fact that the relevance/irrelevance of local/subjective is the border between modernism (XIX-XX century)/posmodernism(XX-XXI century).

Life is more than mathematic theories and abstractions

Hi, Chris

Along Comes Lila...

elvis said:

He has it almost right - we can in fact 'predict' events through understanding the CLASS of event that is occurring... Using the feature of the I Ching being a language and so able to even describe itself, I can extract details from that representation that include the indication of the completion/purpose of that event if it is allowed to develop without interruption/distraction etc.

Click to expand...

Your Class and Instance analysis is very well stated (and makes me think about programming in Java or C++--but that is another thread).

I think I agree with, but haven't managed to formulate clearly for myself, your idea about the understanding of the Class leading, with the help of the Language of Yi, to knowing the Results. I am not sure about the unpredictability of the Instance; after all, every question, ultimately, is about an Instance. I am trying to think about this

But I am also fascinated by the possible contradiction that by describing the Class, and relating it to the reading, we are describing the expected outcome for the Class, but only if an exogenous variable does not come along and upset our system.

Let's say that Rita loves Dexter and is unsure of the depth of Dexter's feeling. Rita thinks about this deeply, and asks Yi a question about Dexter and Rita's relationship. "Will Dexter and I stay together?" Is that a specific Instance, or a Class question?. I think according to your analysis, it would be an Instance. But Rita is a good diviner and she may understand the language used and perhaps it is a useful question.

Now Lila comes along, who distracts Dexter's attention and nearly ruins their relationship. Should Yi's original reading have foreseen this, that Dexter had enough depth of feelings to stay in love with Rita under current conditions, but perhaps not for an unexpected event like Lila?

This is the stuff I am thinking about....

Tiger

Elvis Lives

Hi Tiger,

I don't have any views on what you're touching upon here, but I just noticed a - probably unexpected- 'slip of the hand' in your title . . 'fixed or static'? . . have you answered yourself already perhaps?

(great photos btw . .)

:bows:

rodaki said:

Hi Tiger,

I don't have any views on what you're touching upon here, but I just noticed a - probably unexpected- 'slip of the hand' in your title . . 'fixed or static'? . . have you answered yourself already perhaps?



:bows:

Click to expand...

I missed that entirely...well spotted. A case of what we expect to see over riding what is actually there. 'Fixed or Static' ! lol I see the 'Fixed or..' and supply the rest myself

Titles can't be Fixed, so they Must be Static

rodaki said:

Hi Tiger,

I don't have any views on what you're touching upon here, but I just noticed a - probably unexpected- 'slip of the hand' in your title . . 'fixed or static'? . . have you answered yourself already perhaps?

(great photos btw . .)

:bows:

Click to expand...

Thanks for the kind note on the photos...I will change out the galleries for other photos as time permits. Most of my work is candid shots of people, but not everyone cares for that. Most people do like flowers.

As for the title, good catch! See my title for this post above; the software won't let me edit the title!.

Mea culpa, and pretty funny, but actually, I don't think the future is fixed or static. Understand that I don't believe in this firmly, as a point of principle or religion, but I am leaning toward seeing the universe as dynamic. We study change, after all, and If one truly believed that nothing one could do or think could make any difference to the fate of things, it would be hard to get out of bed in the morning.

I understand there are sophisticated counter arguments to that. It may be simply that you have to choose which story you believe in, and generally I like to believe that the future is malleable.

So from that, I come up against my belief that the I Ching works as tool for understanding the present, and possibly predicting the future. If Yi works, then perhaps the future is fixed, and so I am in conundrum.

But mostly I wanted to see what others think, rather than talk anyone into seeing it my way or settling the matter.

Tiger

hello

well actually I didn't mean that deep down you believe it is fixed, I was thinking of how, in your question, the insistence of the fixed came up thru an unexpected slip . .
I too think that if one thing seems static (or, rather, constant) that should be the fact that things change, but this is a contradiction in itself, a paradox . . so how do we go on from there?

tigerintheboat said:

I understand there are sophisticated counter arguments to that. It may be simply that you have to choose which story you believe in, and generally I like to believe that the future is malleable.

So from that, I come up against my belief that the I Ching works as tool for understanding the present, and possibly predicting the future. If Yi works, then perhaps the future is fixed, and so I am in conundrum.

But mostly I wanted to see what others think, rather than talk anyone into seeing it my way or settling the matter.

Tiger

Click to expand...

I like to think the future is malleable too...but in my own readings in the last year or so I notice Yi kinda side steps the questions and tells me an outcome that seems irrespective of what i did or didn't do. Maybe not because things are fixed or static but the Yi can see a bit further than me, around the next corner where i can't..or rather I access a broader consciousness ?

Supposing I'm in the midst of tricky negotiations with someone and I'm trying to figure my timing, my attitude, what i want, what i can reasonably ask for and so on..and i ask Yi many questions about how i should approach the person and so on and so on and I keep getting 38.2 for example...and I'm still planning my opening lines to person X as well as how i might arrange an informal meeting to my advantage and so on and while I'm walking along planning all this oh so carefully I er bump into person X literally in a back street in the town...and the shock of it knocks all my plans out of my head. So in that instance the Yi wasn't advising me to arrange a 38.2 scenario it was just telling me what would be.

I don't know why it is but thats how Yi answers me often lately. It is kinda disorientating because of the sense of predestination with it...but maybe not so disorientating if ones thinks of Yi as ones 'larger' self....

Hmm anyway to get back on the fence i think the future may be both inevitable in some instances for some unknown reason, call it destiny, (actually probably way less lofty than destiny just ineitable via a train of events already in motion)...and also malleable in many instances . In trying to interpret answers for others I would much prefer to err on the malleable side because obviously we do not have the intimacy with anothers reading/life that we do with our own, can't climb into their souls and see how the reading feels or how their world looks from their eyes ..not generally anyway

Anyway alot of the time Yi seems simply to give insight into the present as you say enabling a decision...but it also seems to chuck in pretty spot on predictions too..its not an either/or situation its both isn't it

I don't typically seek out or experience the I Ching in a predictive sense. But what I find is that it is more about developing independence and inner strength in our character with regard to relationships, no matter what. It seems to address, continually and consistently, issues of maintaining one's equanimity in all circumstances, with patience and compassion for our shortcomings, as well as others'. It seems to remind us to keep our expectations on an even keel, which is doable if our mind is peaceful. Then there's no static, and there's room for light to come in, helping us clear things out a bit.

jesed said:

No, I don't ignore that distinction. Just pointing to the fact that the relevance/irrelevance of local/subjective is the border between modernism (XIX-XX century)/posmodernism(XX-XXI century).

Life is more than mathematic theories and abstractions

Click to expand...

For fully developed consciousness life is language. It offers the best precision in understanding and allows for emergence of uniqueness and the asymmetric.

For lesser developed consciousness, where the focus is more on species behaviours, socialisations and a focus on symmetry, the emphasis is more stimulus/response and the use of instincts/habits 'without questioning'.

The development asymmetry from anti-symmetry from symmetry is a path of fragmentation and increased complexity. The response to such is a falling back onto symmetry (it is a realm of energy conservation and simplicity but the latter can drop details and so we see some dumbing-down at work - that includes the post modernist perspective of 'any metaphor will do' in understanding reality.)

These dynamics span all levels of observing reality and as such work at microbiological as they do at the generational where the flow of civilisations can be mapped.

And on a simple note, an unknown author once stated that
'what is behind us and what is in front of us is nothing compared to what is within us'

tigerintheboat said:

Your Class and Instance analysis is very well stated (and makes me think about programming in Java or C++--but that is another thread).

I think I agree with, but haven't managed to formulate clearly for myself, your idea about the understanding of the Class leading, with the help of the Language of Yi, to knowing the Results. I am not sure about the unpredictability of the Instance; after all, every question, ultimately, is about an Instance. I am trying to think about this

Click to expand...

The focus is on a hierarchy that oscillates across class/instance. Thus an instance of a class can itself be a class for a more particular instance.

For example, I can derive a hexagram as class based on an emotional assessment of a situation. The emotional assessment will lack precision and as such the image generated is class-related that is then open to refinement and linking to the instance by consciousness.

Given the class of the situation I can apply the I Ching language to that class to give finer details but still class related but interpretable as instances. E.g. If I get hexagram X I can identify its outcome in the form of hexagram Y. I can then zoom-in on hexagram Y and identify the beginning/ending of such and so on - all based on using the I Ching language classes to bring me closer to the instance but no deriving personal names/times/locations etc - only classes that elicit vague qualities that those names/times/location 'fit'.

tigerintheboat said:

But I am also fascinated by the possible contradiction that by describing the Class, and relating it to the reading, we are describing the expected outcome for the Class, but only if an exogenous variable does not come along and upset our system.

Click to expand...

..which is what the realm of asymmetry is about - acts as a source of randomisation locally but the class can still apply globally. For example, primary emotions are genetic and so tied to determinism and as such are symmetric in nature - stimulus/response rules. Thus our emotions can assess a situation as 'angry' and with that comes properties and methods (covering degrees of anger from irritation to rage etc). Differences are then LOCAL, SUBJECTIVE, and so open to the actions of the asymmetric, our mediating consciousness. With such works as the Emotional I Ching we can make an emotional assessment - identifying what our species-nature, holistic, organic, nature interprets and then refine such through consciousness that can include the suppression of the assessment due to detection of some details not 'visible' to the emotional assessment.

tigerintheboat said:

Let's say that Rita loves Dexter and is unsure of the depth of Dexter's feeling. Rita thinks about this deeply, and asks Yi a question about Dexter and Rita's relationship. "Will Dexter and I stay together?" Is that a specific Instance, or a Class question?. I think according to your analysis, it would be an Instance. But Rita is a good diviner and she may understand the language used and perhaps it is a useful question.

Now Lila comes along, who distracts Dexter's attention and nearly ruins their relationship. Should Yi's original reading have foreseen this, that Dexter had enough depth of feelings to stay in love with Rita under current conditions, but perhaps not for an unexpected event like Lila?

Click to expand...

The EIC focus does not ask those sorts of questions - it asks for answers to a generic set of supplied questions from an emotional perspective and grounded in neural function regardless of specialist perspective. Thus in the above focus the EIC emphasis is on what is driving the issue in the first place - is it about identity, security, sensation, problem solving?

IF Rita is unsure about Dexter's love then the suggestion is a grounding in security issues and possibility of betrayal by another. We can identify sixteen hexagrams that cover situations grounded in such issues (the questions asked are hierarchic and so take us from the general to the particular) - we can go deeper but there is no need given the amount of information available that we can extract from hexagrams.

(there are 32 hexagrams covering the issues of absolute trust/devotion to another as there are 32 hexagrams covering the issues of absolute trust/devotion to oneself. Each of these then contain characteristics of all 64 hexagrams as sources of analogy in describing the whole situation - this is the language nature of the I Ching)

Each of the hexagrams in this set of sixteen covers a class of meaning that can then be tied to some instance and show the generic outcomes of that instance GIVEN no interruptions. BUT we also see the use of changing lines that SHOW the interruptions in the form of one already adjusting to the situation and moving things in a different direction. IOW we can identify the consequence of interruption since the interruption itself is representable by a class given the finite set of images available in the I Ching.

IOW the EIC focus is on unconscious activities that can aid consciousness as they can be suppressed by consciousness - and we can pick up that sort of stuff (see the example in the EIC FAQ - http://www.emotionaliching.com/faq.html )

Particles and Waves

rodaki said:

I didn't mean that deep down you believe it is fixed, I was thinking of how, in your question, the insistence of the fixed came up thru an unexpected slip . .
I too think that if one thing seems static (or, rather, constant) that should be the fact that things change, but this is a contradiction in itself, a paradox . . so how do we go on from there?

Click to expand...

It is probably like the wave/particle duality in physics. Sometimes it is clear that light acts and can be described in waves, and other times it is very clear that there are individual light particles (photons), with lives of their own. In physics, they are not agreed on a reason or explanation for this, but the phenomenon is undeniable.

So I guess the malleable future is also fixed, and the static future is full of changes.

Tiger

tigerintheboat said:

It is probably like the wave/particle duality in physics. Sometimes it is clear that light acts and can be described in waves, and other times it is very clear that there are individual light particles (photons), with lives of their own. In physics, they are not agreed on a reason or explanation for this, but the phenomenon is undeniable.

So I guess the malleable future is also fixed, and the static future is full of changes.

Tiger

Click to expand...

The experience of wave/particle duality can be traced to being an artifact in the way experiments have been set up such that the combination of:

(a) a dichotomy
(b) recursion
(c) indeterminacy (variation in the position of the detector medium from the slits of the dichotomy)

where such an experiment, REGARDLESS OF SCALE, will create a wave interference pattern on the medium - be it photographic film or the neural networks in your brain.

See example using the I Ching in such as:

http://www.emotionaliching.com/myweb/WaveStructure.html

Not following

elvis said:

.

IOW the EIC focus is on unconscious activities that can aid consciousness as they can be suppressed by consciousness - and we can pick up that sort of stuff (see the example in the EIC FAQ - http://www.emotionaliching.com/faq.html )

Click to expand...

Chris,

Thanks for trying. I read the FAQs and I somewhat understood that one example, but it wasn't enough to really flesh out the ideas for me. I also read your posts several times, but I just am not following. I would need to study the book, and that probably isn't happening. I already have too many books I haven't made time to read, and yours is not a simple read, it would require study.

Still, I am intrigued. If you ever post any more simple examples online on the site, let me know.

Tiger

This really is THE question to end all questions. Does God exist? Easy one, Sure. Life after Death? You bet.

But, Determinism v Indeterminism??! It goes something like this:

Either, everything happens to us happen for a REASON (i.e. fixed future).

Or, there is RANDOMNESS to our existence. (i.e. open ended future) .


I have come to believe that likely BOTH are at play and that we humans, in our temporal state, are inherently incapable of understanding how it works at the moment. Nor are we meant to.

Furthermore, the fact that it is an either/or question question is a hint that the question is flawed to begin with.


As for the Yi predicting your future. Well, as I understand it, the i Ching is not meant to be used for fortune telling, but rather, as a barometer to read the current situation in question.

That said, it has let me know a few times in no uncertain terms the outcome of an even beforehand.

I think a better question, rather than "Does X love me?", would be"What would the consequences be from beginning a relationship with X?"

or "What sort of match would X and I make?"

IMHO, if it is meant to happen, it probably will.

jesed said:

One of the myths in modernism is to value local/subjective as meaningless. Please move from the XX century to the XXI

Click to expand...

There are some who think that we are already in a post postmodern era.

The myth of pure Objectivism in Modernism isn't any more flawed than the myth of pure SUBjectivism in Postmodernism.

Personally, with all the good to come from PM theory, I find the importance that it places on the subjective to be ultimately indulgent... even infantile. Just look at the rampant narcissism and materialism that plagues modern society, where Me is king.


Clearly a NEW understanding needs to, and probably already is, succeeding PM.

(My two euros)

bodhidogma said:

This really is THE question to end all questions. Does God exist? Easy one, Sure. Life after Death? You bet.

But, Determinism v Indeterminism??! It goes something like this:

Either, everything happens to us happen for a REASON (i.e. fixed future).

Or, there is RANDOMNESS to our existence. (i.e. open ended future) .


I have come to believe that likely BOTH are at play and that we humans, in our temporal state, are inherently incapable of understanding how it works at the moment. Nor are we meant to.

Furthermore, the fact that it is an either/or question question is a hint that the question is flawed to begin with.


As for the Yi predicting your future. Well, as I understand it, the i Ching is not meant to be used for fortune telling, but rather, as a barometer to read the current situation in question.

That said, it has let me know a few times in no uncertain terms the outcome of an even beforehand.

I think a better question, rather than "Does X love me?", would be"What would the consequences be from beginning a relationship with X?"

or "What sort of match would X and I make?"

IMHO, if it is meant to happen, it probably will.

Click to expand...

I think you may have contradicted yourself, unless I'm misunderstanding you. You say that the I Ching should be used to read the current situation rather than fortune telling. Then you say that rather than asking "Does X love me" [current situation], it's better to ask "What would the consequences be from beginning a relationship with X?" or "what soft of match would x and I make" [fortune telling]

It all depends on the situation.
If something is already happening between you and x the question would be: "Will my current attitude to X bear fruit in a love relationship?"
If nothing has happened yet the question could be: "Is it furthering to start a relation with X?".
In both cases a good first question would be: "Is my attitude to a love relation with women correct?"

bostonian said:

I think you may have contradicted yourself, unless I'm misunderstanding you. You say that the I Ching should be used to read the current situation rather than fortune telling. Then you say that rather than asking "Does X love me" [current situation], it's better to ask "What would the consequences be from beginning a relationship with X?" or "what soft of match would x and I make" [fortune telling]

Click to expand...

Yes, well perhaps I am just playing semantics here, but I think there is a SLIGHT difference between asking, for example;

a. "Will X happen?" (Predicting the future)

and

b)"What would the possible consequences be if X happened" (A reading of probability)

One demands an answer, the other asks conditions surrounding one probable outcome. The former is more ego driven and rigid than the latter, in my opinion. I find my readings to be much more useful when my questions aren't so structured.

bodhidogma said:

Yes, well perhaps I am just playing semantics here, but I think there is a SLIGHT difference between asking, for example;

a. "Will X happen?" (Predicting the future)

and

b)"What would the possible consequences be if X happened" (A reading of probability)

One demands an answer, the other asks conditions surrounding one probable outcome. The former is more ego driven and rigid than the latter, in my opinion. I find my readings to be much more useful when my questions aren't so structured.

Click to expand...

yes, I agree there is a difference.

I still don't think the answer as to whether the I Ching can and should be used for straightforward fortune telling has been resolved -- at least not to my satisfaction.

bostonian said:

whether the I Ching can and should be used for straightforward fortune telling

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what "fortune telling" means for you.

If it means answer "will x happen", of course the answer is yes. You can use the Yijing to answer that question.

But the diference, in my opinion, rest in other place: fortune telling, as I understand it, is all about fortune or destiny. The outcome or the future is external to the people's actions.

If you understand fortune telling this way, then the answer is no; that's not the way the Yijing works when it can help you to forsight the future.

Best wishes

Any (probable condition future) outcome lies within the approach of the humble :bows: questioner.
So why not, provided that you have one, put your ego on the line(s)?
Fear that it gets a drubbing ..?