Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
Hi Trojina
"Cows are in Yi but probability isn't"
Where on earth do you get the notion that probablity is not relevant.
I apologize for bring up this dao and yin/yang, as it seems they are distractions to the point I was trying to make. I would like to set them aside for the time being - with the understanding that you and I may understand them and view them differently."nothing about the Dao, and next to nothing about yin/yang"
When I talk about 'instructions' I mean that the Yi does not provide any instructions for how to generate the hexagrams - such as telling us that we should use coins, or yarrow stalks, or two sets of cards, etc. It is silent on this point.Actually we do have "instructions", We have 64 Hexagrams, the inclusion of moving lines, so that one Hexagram has the potential to move to another.
I never said they were, and as far as I know neither has anyone else.There is nothing in the structure of the Yi, nor in any ancient text, that I am aware of that says that non moving lines are more relevant or important than moving lines.
Again, I do not see that any of the methods we have discussed in any way preclude or exclude any of the lines or hexagrams. They only change the probabilities.... "I mean that the Yi does not provide any instructions for how to generate the hexagrams - such as telling us that we should use coins, or yarrow stalks, or two sets of cards, etc. It is silent on this point."
But that is exactly why, if there are no specific instructons, that care should be taken not to use any method that would change the full availability of the Yi.
Actually, I think the opposite is true: if all the 'rules' were known to all - and cleary interpreted - we'd have much less to discuss here.Otherwise anything that was not specifically instructed in the Yi would be possible and all discussions and arguments would end immediately, there would be no tuition, no Forum or anything connected with the Yi at all ...
Nothing is going to preclude anyone from having opinions - even from you having opinions.Of course it is their right, but it is their right for them alone and precludes them having any opinions on anyone elses interpretations of anything to do with the Yi
And my reality is that the Yi may not be based on what is logical, rational, or always coherent. We can argue this until the cows come home (meaning, for a very long time), but that in no way makes my belief system wrong nor yours correct - only that you think yours is more logical than mine, which it might be. You believe in some underlying rational or logical basis for the Yi, I do not, and I'm content with exploring the Yi and my world in this way, however flawed or skewed you might think that is.Fine if people want to believe in whatever they want to believe in, but the reality is that such a position has no logical, rational or coherency to it ...
Hi Trojina
I think I am suffering from an excess or realism.
"I think what you're suffering from Dave is a profound lack of faith."
If I had no faith then I wouldnt be bothering with all the discussions. It is because I have faith that I persevere. But one of course have to have knowledge and understanding, to some degree at least, otherwise faith would be blind belief.
Have you read what I have been saying about a "belief" being just another way of saying one doesnt "know".
Have you read what I have been saying that there are many forms of divination, and that one can even make one up and it works,
But thats the point, unless you start of with a level playing field where all the Yi is available, then you have no way of knowing if you are getting the answer you were "meant to get".
That is complete delusion. The only way we have any way of knowing if the answers fit the questions is if we have a knowledge and understanding of the fundamental underlying principles,
Very true, but then what would be the point of anything, what would be the point of knowing onesself, or in consulting the Yi, or trying to know and understand the fundamantal underlying principles of nature and the ordinances of heaven, So that doesnt answer anything. It is just a way of not answering.
Why would you think that I had not had more that 40 years of consulting, is it because I challenge and question and dont want to go along with, we all believe in the same thing more or less.
I never said that it hadnt helped but my knowledge and understanding has grown in more that 40 years of use and I now recognise that a lot of what I "believed " in is completely contradictory, makes little or no coherent and rational sense. I now know that Psychology reveals that most of we think is real is nothing more than a creation of our own. I would recommend a little book by Cordelia Fine "A mind of its own; How your brain distorts and deceives" as a simple primer.
1. A hexagram can either change into one of the other 63, or it can stay unchanged. Those are 64 outcomes, therefore the odds of an unchanging hexagram are 1 in 64.
2. The odds of a single line changing are 50% in the 3 coin method. This is because there are four possible outcomes - HHT, TTH, HHH or TTT - of which two represent changing lines. Multiply that for 6 lines, and again you have odds of 1 in 64 of an unchanging hexagram.
Before you decide how/ whether to engage here, you should also be aware that JD is dealing - with true grit and determination - with what he himself describes as severe brain damage. That can leave someone with a bewildering mixture of capability and incapability, of which they are themselves unaware. Obviously I have no idea whether that's a factor here, but I think it might be.
The 3 coin method doesn't affect the distribution of hexagrams at all. The yarrow/ method of 16 probabilities do affect the likelihood of getting different relating hexagrams, though - Hexagram 2 the most likely and Hexagram 1 the least.In fact the opposite, as a "weighting" in any direction at all reduces the availability of the entire range of hexagrams.
Sorry Hilary, I can't be explaining things very well.Any methodology that deviates away from each type of line being equally available alters the possibility of being able to get all the available Hexagrams. Given the nature of the variability of the first throw this will vary for each casting. It affects the first Hexagram to some degree and affects the second Hexagram significantly.Take a situation where one has cast the first 3 lines. Say, just for example they are all unbroken. The next line should have an equal possibilty of being broken, broken moving, unbroken, unbroken moving, if there is any deviation towards any particular type of line, say towards a broken line, then any Hexagrams that have an unbroken line as the 4th line are significantly less available than they should be. Similarly all the Hexagrams that would result from having the 4th line as a moving line would be sufficiently reduced as being likely.The 3 coin method most definitely does affect the distribution, because it is erroneously derived from 8 rather than 4.There is of course nothing "practical" in having anything less than the whole truth, the complete picture.The odds with my card method, give the correct number of moving lines, which does take more understanding of what the lines, and the Hexagrams, mean, rather than the literal interpretations, from the translations that rarely consider the underlying, internal, knowledge of the inner self, factors. Your question does highlight one point that I have ignored so as to not complicated the issues to greatly and add yet another contradiction onto the mix. How does one interpret a reading when one has multiple moving lines, as happens even with methodologies that usually only produce one or two. When the lines often contradict the others and may make little sense with either Hexagram.All the best DaveOK, so it's your position that this is Yi's position .The 3 coin method doesn't affect the distribution of hexagrams at all. The yarrow/ method of 16 probabilities do affect the likelihood of getting different relating hexagrams, though - Hexagram 2 the most likely and Hexagram 1 the least.As for why there should be differentiation to make changing lines less likely, I think it's just a matter of practicality. Most questions can be answered with no more than one or two changing lines; it's an unusually complex situation that requires 3 or more. With a 50:50 chance of each line changing, you're going to have an average of 3 moving lines per reading.Are those the odds of your card method? If so, have you developed any particular way of reading multiple changing lines?
...The next line should have an equal possibilty of being broken, broken moving, unbroken, unbroken moving, if there is any deviation towards any particular type of line, say towards a broken line, then any Hexagrams that have an unbroken line as the 4th line are significantly less available than they should be.
There are 8 possible outcomes with the 3 coin toss
1 ~ Red (3 yin) Changing Yin
1 ~ Yellow (3 Yang) Changing Yang
3 ~ White (1Y, 2y) Stable Yang
3 ~ Black (1y, 2Y) Stable Yin
But the traditional methods do just that.Which is exactly why the traditional methods are incorrect and should be replaced by method that are able to allow the entire range of Hexagrams for any reading.Even the assumption of the "probabilities" of getting a particular line is incorrect.Analysis of the "sequences" produced by other than a one for one representation, produce sequences that take considerably longer to converge, meaning that it takes considerably longer than just 6 lines to reflect the mathematical probabilities, which are established by the laws of large numbers and require many thousands of events to reveal the probabilities. The larger the initial parameters the slower the rate of convergence and the less likely it is that one has a non chaotic distribution. If the methods produce a measurable probability then they are not chaotically random and so should demonstrate that probability.The coin and yarrow method, 8 and 16, produce sequences which do not quickly converge and so for a 6 line selection, which is a mathematical slice of the sequence, the randomness of distributions is excessively erratic and so doesn't even bear much relationship to the underlying probabilities anyway. The yarrow and coin methods give different ratios of Yang to Yin lines. As there is no rational reason why there should be methods that give different results, at least one of them, just be comparison with the other must be wrong.If there is no rational reasons why there probability of getting all 4 lines equally then both methods are wrong.If the coin method, which produces equal yin and yang non moving lines, cannot be shown to be correct, in that it effectively denies a significant proportion of the hexagrams at each reading, and there is nothing clearly stated in the Yi itself that non moving lines are to be considered more prominant than moving lines, then that method is incorrect.If antiquity is considered a major factor in knowledge of the Yi, then either the yarrow or the coins should be taken as the more relevant method and the other must be wrong.Both are wrong because both are not able to give the complete Yi for each casting. Both are wrong because the sequences they generate do not reflect even the probabilities that supposedly underlie them. Both are wrong because they are not in agreement with each other. Both are wrong because the Yi does not favour one type of line over any of the others.Or it doesn't matter and one can use any method. I am sure you can see the consequences of that would render most of what is considered relevant in the Yi as obsolete. So the method must be important. DaveYes, any method that skewed the probability of getting broken vs unbroken lines in the primary (cast) hexagram would indeed make some hexagrams less available in readings than others.However, neither of the traditional methods does that.
Hi Hilary,It is not the question of the probabilities just being accurate. It is the question of "why", methodologies that don't agree with each other, that differently favour one type of line over another, that don't allow the full range of all 64 hexagrams at every casting, that she the availability of hexagrams in particular directions, that don't represent the " equality " of all the types of line, and consequently don't represent all types of hexagrams equally, should even be considered as valid methodologies.If it is just because that is the way that it was done thousands of years ago, and we don't even know if the record of what was retained was the genuine method or designed to hide the real secrets of the Yi, then the adherence to methods, just because they are "old", makes little sense. Surely we should be learning from the mistakes of those that went before, not copying their errors.The methodologies have no rational and coherent logic to them. They are not representative of all of the Yi, they aren't even representative of the underlying probabilities.You must have realised the ramifications and consequences of this as it impacts hugely on everything that we think about the Yi and how we use it, including the whole matter of if it can be taught or learned.Limited as I am, and supposed to be on a break and not doing anything but relaxing I don't have access to a word processor to be able to write it all down. But as there are obviously intelligent people participating in the discussions I will let all of you work out out. It is only a question of rational and logical thinking, and I have referenced most of the salient points in my posts, it only needs a bit of logic to see the enormous ramifications of what the apparently innocuous subject of the thread.It isn't going round in circles at all, unless one is ignoring the basic questions of why, and the consequences of the possible answers.All the bestDaveOh. I thought you'd agreed that Radiofreewill's summary of the probabilities was correct. I think we're just going round in circles here, so I'll bow out.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).