OMG, Bruce!

Hmm, this is funny. Not sure if it makes sense but I like it.

I do have problems with some of the hexagrams though, this one for instance:

37 HOME
ggggg Roof
ggggg
gg gg Legs of Pig
ggggg Body of Pig
gg gg Legs of Pig
ggggg

I do like several of his images. Lots don't make sense, but there are some that work particularly well for me (perhaps with some modification).

I had been thinking myself of Sun for hexagram 1, Tom has "RAYS OF LIGHT" (and a reference to sun in the explanatory text). Hex 1 is "Sunrise" in my translation.

"SOIL" for hexagram 2 makes a lot of sense to me. Hex 2 is "Land" in my translation.

I also particularly like ''GRASS" for hexagram 11, and "GRASS INVERTED" for 12.

I don't believe in "CANGUE" for 21, but can see that hexagram as a seed between teeth in a mouth. 27 is of course a mouth with teeth.

23 as a "BED" works for me, but with the top unbroken line as a pillow, the broken lines as the mattress.

hmesker said:

Nice metaphor, but wrong applied. You have not 'refined the topsoil', you have just uprooted a plant, modified it, decorated it with all kinds of stuff, planted it back in different soil, and you are claiming that it has become a better plant.

Click to expand...

The plant is the same - to move a plant from soil A to soil B does not modify the plant - the genetics dont change, the context that selects genetic expression has changed and so the plant blossoms and thrives better in that new context. In that thriving we notice material not expressed before and can track down the source of such - e.g. XORing or use of questions etc.

The genetics of hexagrams or trigrams or digrams etc are in the seed and are part of the development process (tthe context of observing the environment led to Fu Hsi coming up with trigrams. The context of jail caused King Wen to reflect and take Fu Hsi's trigrams and make them into hexagrams. The context of being King Wen's son ment the Duke of Chou added line comments to what 'dad' did. - IOW context selects what is expressed; context pushes and in the above we move from the general (Fu Hsi) to the particular (line comments of Chou) where that movement is a natural process, a process of refinement, raw to refined.)

At no time do we need to ADD additional material from OUTSIDE of what the genetics allows for since to do that would elicit paradox (and there is no genetic engineering here, the symbolisms remain constants) - all that differs from 10th century BC to 21st century AD is the context and that context 'selects' traits that can be supported by the context - the traits are part of the genetics (nature) the selection process part of the context (nurture) and that includes discoveries from 3000+ years of research in that context that increase our resolution power in observations and so the selection power of the context.

The Chaos Game is a universal and so elicits order from containment of noise regardless of scale, but local context then customises such and so determines if the basic qualities blossom or not, thrive or not. 10th century BC is a local context lacking in refinement and so unable to support the full development of seed into plant and maximising the potential of that plant (as in with us - the lifespan in 10th century BC was into the 30s/40s Now we live into the 70s/80s on average all due to the change in contexts). You can "live the 10th century BC only way'' if you like but to do that in a context now WELL developed and FULL of rich nutrients etc i.e. 21st century AD, is limiting (unless you are an academic in some asian studies department of a university and so focused on that local context for research purposes in mapping the 10th century BC - doing that is not using the I Ching to its fullest capabilities but the focus on these threads in clarity DO try to use the IC to its fullest capabilities)

hmesker said:

But, as I said, you don't use the text of the Yijing, therefore what you make of it is not the Yijing. To me the Yijing=text+hexagrams. If one of these is lacking it is not the Yijing, but only a part or a derivation of it.

Click to expand...

No - I would say your assertion is more Yijing=chinese-text + hexagrams. This is false in that the chinese text is LOCAL context and can be removed from the symbolisms without loss of what the symbols represent. The basics of the symbols are (a) ordering from general to particular and (b) representation of a line covering decision of differentiating(expand) or integrating(contract) or, for moving lines, aka compression of dodecagrams to hexagrams with moving lines, a transition from one to the other.

There is no need for chinese text in that from the IC+ perspective that is local colouring. In fact there is no need for the line representations in that we can use 0/1 if we want (and that is more efficient in that it makes XORing easy) in that the genetics are in the movement from general to particular and the representation of differentiating (1, yang) and integrating (0,yin). The qualities derived from "I integrate in general so I can then differentiate to enable me to integrate in particular' forms into the notion of contractive bounding and on into containment/control that locally is labelled as the trigram of 'water'. ALL brains doing this will come up with the generic quality - and so how the Emotional I Ching questions work - THEN comes customisation to fit the universals into local context, Chinese or European or South American etc etc

See the derivation of blend, bond, bound, bind in a taoist perspective - http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/tao.html
or from the root IDM perspective:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/idm003.html

hmesker said:

It would be nice to see how the original Chinese text has a place in your system. I mean, you do it with the names of the trigrams and the hexagrams, so why not with the complete text? What is withholding you from that?
Harmen.

Click to expand...

Why? There is no need and in fact it would be limiting. For historical considerations I can refer people to your site or all of the other sides focused on the Chinese etc. and so local context.

000000 is not 'chinese' - it is a pattern of brain dynamics from general to particular and focused on integrating that will lead to the experience of a quality. It is hard-coded, genetically determined, in our brains. THEN comes the GENERAL context focus on (a) the context being competitive and so a focus on darkness and fear and (b) the context being cooperative and so a focus on using the dark to protect/nurture (devotion to another/others, 'female' nature etc) - included in that is the PERSONAL assessment of the context being competitive or cooperative etc... but context pushes instincts and so can also elicit in the brain a 'quality' that we then experience unconsciously and then open to censorship by consciousness whether we become aware if it or not. The Emotional I Ching gets around this to varying degrees.

Chris.

topal said:

What if we have other means of communication and existence outside the realm of sense and mechanism? There is a vast array of evidence that that is so.

Click to expand...

really - and how is it communicated? - through the use of categories covering objects/relationships. period. The moment you open your mouth to speak or put pen to paper to write or use body language emotion, all of these will use the neurology to translate sensory data into meanings - we communicate through resonance of emotions.

If you focus on, for example, identical twins research, you will find evidence of apparent communication by resonance or more so one 'thing' in two different places at the same time. This is possible due to the correlation of the brains (gets into issues of purity etc) but the communication of such to others is still through object/relationships representations.

topal said:

Again, those focused and bias towards things that which can be SEEN and judged to be "factual" will prefer to interpret such phenomena as a product of the senses when it is nothing of the kind. Anything you can imagine is not necessarily tied to the senses and thus to neurology.

Click to expand...

EVERYTHING you imagine is tied to brain function - there is no thought that is 'free', you burn energy in thinking, be it about the real or the imagined. Imagine a vision and our vision areas in your brain light up; hear a sound and your sound areas light up as they do when you IMAGINE hearing something. Communication is through resonance such that emotions dominate (and they cover rage as they do the simple quality of syntax (correct/incorrect) where THAT emotion seems to have its origins in territorial mapping mine vs not-mine, and goes back to the neurology in fish etc)

Consciousness (aka what Freud called the superego) develops as the sense of SELF over the first 24 months or so of life. It then acts to mediate, regulate, instincts and so adds DELAY into responses. It is associated with the last parts of our brains to develop - frontal lobes, pre-frontal cortex etc. Damage these areas and we fall back onto our 'primate' nature. (dont educate them and we also reflect our primate natures!)

topal said:

Yours is ONE expression of development only in a sea of limitless potentials whether you want to call it LOCAL, GENERAL, UNIVERSAL, genetic, Neurological or self-referencing. You may THINK you've covered everything, but it does not, CANNOT encompass every reality permutation because it is a creation of your/our LIMITED extrapolations - brilliant as it is - it is indeed drawn CONTEXTUALLY from our perceptions, from our senses. And we still know very VERY little about the how the brain or the consciousness behind the brain mechanism - works.

Click to expand...

we know enough to come up with IDM to cover the structure of all metaphors. ANY attempt to communicate will require the use of the categories identified in IDM.

topal said:

What of OBEs and NDEs?

Click to expand...

appears to be all brain. e.g.:

----------------------------------------
Nature, 2002 Sep 19;419(6904):269-270

Neuropsychology: Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions.

Blanke O, Ortigue S, Landis T, Seeck M.

'Out-of-body' experiences (OBEs) are curious, usually brief sensations in which a person's consciousness seems to become detached from the body and take up a remote viewing position. Here we describe the repeated induction of this experience by focal electrical stimulation of the brain's right angular gyrus in a patient who was undergoing evaluation for epilepsy treatment. Stimulation at this site also elicited illusory transformations of the patient's arm and legs (complex somatosensory responses) and whole-body displacements (vestibular responses), indicating that out-of-body experiences may reflect a failure by the brain to integrate complex somatosensory and vestibular information.

--------------------------------

The purity issues I mentioned earlier re identical twins may elicit experience of OBE when it is one resonating with another - but to achieve that level of resonance demands high levels of purity and so of correlation. The Pauli Exclusion Principle says you cannot have the one space shared for fermions but nothing about two spaces sharing one form! .. and then of course bosons can share the same space in the form of superpositions. BUT the communication of such is through the qualities of the neurology - patterns of differentiating/integrating. Our SENSORY systems can adapt to local context and also mix themselves (see anything in synesthesia - e.g. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/synth.html ) but the neurology makes the distinctions of differentiating/integrating, FM/AM, regardless of the customisations. As such the sense of 'wholeness' is present but what it is applied to can vary.

topal said:

What of numerous accounts of experiences non-local to the brain? i.e. persons giving perfect descriptions of rooms and people not known to them and all this while they were clinically dead. At the same Countless other and more whacky phenomena that defy explanation via neurology.

Click to expand...

imagination or interpretations of above mentioned states. The DESCRIPTIONS of the experiences are ALWAYS through the use of the categories derived from the neurology - patterns of differentiating/integrating - be what is communicated real or imagined or 'not sure'. Emotional communication uses categories derived from self-referencing fight/flight aka differentiating/integrating etc etc

topal said:

Therefore, what is consciousness?
Do you KNOW what consciousness is? Does anybody? So, I guess it comes down to brain or mind? Neurology or soul? Personally I think the latter makes more "sense."

Click to expand...

;-) join the Journal of Consciousness Studies list (jcs-online at Yahoogroups).

the indication from the development of brain is that full awareness requires rich differentiation (as Jung commented up, see previous posts) and is associated with development of frontal lobes/pre-frontal cortex dynamics which allow for the sense of SELF to develop after the first 24 months of life. it serves to plan, mediate, regulate in learning new skills and refining existing skills as it does mediate/regulate expressions of instincts. The Emotional I Ching covers this border area of consciousness/unconsciousness. The ability for the EIC to work is due to the self-referencing in derivation of categories of emotion and so the isomorphism with yin/yang etc etc. What is implied by studies on other neuron-dependent life forms is mediation emerging when context comes up with a 'difference' that needs attention. This allows for snippets of 'awareness' but no linking of the dots - thus awareness is linked to memory and in lower life forms memories can last short times unless reinforced etc (minutes,hours etc) With the development of primate brains emerged the sense of self. With OUR brains emerged the sense of self that can handle imagination where that tool of consciousness allows for pre-emption etc (monkeys can use mirror neurons to copy but seem unable to recognise mime - WE can recognise mime)



Good ref re development of sense of self:

Kircher and David "The SELF in Neuroscience and Psychiatry" Cambridge

Mime/Mirror neurons etc:

Dehaene, S., et al (eds) (2005)"From Monkey Brain to Human Brain" MITP

Brain asymmetries etc:

Hugdahl, K., & Davidson, R., (2003) "The Asymmetrical Brain" MITP


It makes no difference if you are communicating the real or the imagined, you will use emotions/feelings to do so, to elicit resonance, to elicit 'sameness' and so consensus in understanding. These emotions come as primate forms (raw emotions) and in human forms (derived in tandem with the development of self - e.g. Embarrassment.) - they also come as simple 'sense' of correct/incorrect (syntax focus - the feeling sourced in our sense of identity through territorial nature and so all 'truths' are part of our identity and cover personal, cultural, species/universal truth)

ANY system of interpretation, TO BE COMMUNICATED, will always conform to patterns of objects/relationships. period. Even if through direct resonance (as covered in identical twins etc) the 'sense' will still be of an object or relationship or combination... and then of course there is our self-communication in talking to ourselves etc)

ALL interpretations are metaphors for what our brains deal with. All interpretations will derive a lexicon to communicate and in doing so will rely on qualities of object-ness and related-ness. You can invent as many labels as you like to link these qualities to some specialist context, imagined or real, but the labels, as labels, will point to the underlying qualities that the neurology processes.

Chris.

I can think of only one reason why a person might battle non-stop, endlessly repeating himself despite every attempt by others to coax or criticize him away from his rigid standpoint: because his self-image is so built on rigidly defending the system of ideas it so identifies with that to admit it might not be right would be like admitting that he didn't exist. Chris has to 'defend' his system by continual lengthy reiterations of it because if he ever questions it, he'll fall apart. I think we should stop criticizing his system, and stop trying to reason with him, because on the one hand it's useless (he'll never ever change) and on the other hand, it might even be harmful (at some level, his real self knows what's going on, and the more he puts into defending a mere intellectual construct, the more dangerous it becomes for him).

It's a bit like the Mark Twain thing about how you shouldn't try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time, and it annoys the pig.

This thread has really impressed me. I've watched how Chris's tarbaby has suckered both Getojack and Harmen; both of them (both very intelligent people intimately knowledgeable about the Yi) have allowed themselves to be drawn into 'reasoning' with Chris, and of course he hasn't budged an inch, he's just once again posted lengthy intellectualizations about the same old same old. I can't imagine that ANYBODY here or anywhere else can ever produce anything that will ever change Chris's ideas one little atom's worth. Chris is trapped, and anybody who enters into an exchange with him will find the exchange characteristic of the trap he's in.

Dobro,

You are right. But I am not having this discussion with Chris to try to convince him he is wrong (he is not wrong, only limited in my opinion), I am doing this for other members of this forum who might be interested in the possible flaws in his system. Chris will never tell his system has flaws, to him it is perfect - and that's already one flaw in it. I have given my objections to his reasoning for others to read,
and for me, well it is a nice divertissimento. It helps me to get a better idea of how I see the Yi and its usage.

But now I have other work to do. I have requests for etymological explorations, so back to my 10th-cBC books....

Harmen.

dobro said:

Chris is trapped, and anybody who enters into an exchange with him will find the exchange characteristic of the trap he's in.

Click to expand...

There's a couple of excellent books on this very subject called "Trapped in the Mirror" by Elan Golomb and "The Narcissistic Family -Diagnosis and Treatment" by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman, and Robert M. Pressman - highly recommended and relevant to all of us in different degrees.

Topal

dobro said:

... Chris is trapped, and anybody who enters into an exchange with him will find the exchange characteristic of the trap he's in.

Click to expand...

hmm.. so I am trapped in a context where I have more choices, wider scope in dealing with reality, less anxieties and quicker resolution of such (having the 2007 tookit) etc etc etc jeez, there must be something wrong since dobro wants me to limit myself and share dobro-reality since it must be the 'true' reality! LOL! get real dude.

dobro said:

I can think of only one reason why a person might battle non-stop, endlessly repeating himself despite every attempt by others to coax or criticize him away from his rigid standpoint: because his self-image is so built on rigidly defending the system of ideas it so identifies .

Click to expand...

Ummm... yeah, I am doing what I was asked to do "Chris: Defend your methodology!" - the title of the thread. SO.... your accusing me of doing what I was asked to do! LOL! your a joke dude; your practicing selective attention again tsk tsk. limiting.

Yup - the thread title invited Chris to do exactly what he's doing. Can't argue with that.

Chris - I know this was suggested before, but how about some case studies? Or come to that, a few anecdotes? Joe had this problem, he used this method, got this answer, and applied it in this way to create this solution. Repeat ad lib. People relate to stories and find them convincing.

hilary said:

Yup - the thread title invited Chris to do exactly what he's doing. Can't argue with that.

Chris - I know this was suggested before, but how about some case studies? Or come to that, a few anecdotes? Joe had this problem, he used this method, got this answer, and applied it in this way to create this solution. Repeat ad lib. People relate to stories and find them convincing.

Click to expand...

All anyone has to do is go to the Emotional I Ching site and use it and get back to us on what they experienced - you dont ask the designer to test things - you get in outsiders to do that (also gets into double blind testing but that might be too heavy at the moment!) - its like a chef making food, it is the eaters who decide the success or not - the chef is naturally biased ;-)

I gave an example recently with the permission of my daughter on her experience of it - but not her other uses of it. Topal says it has been of benefit so there is a possible source.

Have you used it? If so how accurate was it for you? or did you use it to interpret for others? I recall someone else on this list using it and getting good results but also noting it can get such you can see the answer coming - and I have touched on this re adding more questions a la the MBTI where IT asks over 100 questions to map to four dichotomies! I was thinking of the same three questions but with a slight context dependence and so a set of questions focused on generic situations but that can skew interpretations away from the 'real' problem!

The personal emails I have recieved have focused on its accuracy etc but I have not asked for details - it is after all a personal dynamic and the EIC in particular has scope to deal with the taboo so touching on that it not my business. (my daughter's example touched on this censorship issue and the EIC getting around it)

I have just removed the prose and made a trial page so all you get is the program - try that out if you found the original prose is too distracting:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/lofting/EmoteIC.html

to read the preamble just click on the "Emotional I Ching" part of the page heading. .. and DONT forget to press RESET before trying it out again.

I cannot, will not, supply my use of it since that would be interpreted negatively by the likes of Dobro, Harmen, etc etc and it has to stand up on its own, no biasing by me - so use it and produce your own anecedotes! ;-)

The IDM point is that the EIC can stand on its own since it captures the dynamics of our brains at work in assessing situations - no magic/random required just the dynamics of the unconscious and conscious ;-)

Chris.

hilary said:

Chris - I know this was suggested before, but how about some case studies? Or come to that, a few anecdotes? Joe had this problem, he used this method, got this answer, and applied it in this way to create this solution. Repeat ad lib. People relate to stories and find them convincing.

Click to expand...

...BUT if you are asking about XORing then that is explained here:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introXOR.html

and here:

http://members.iimetrpo.com.au/~lofting/myweb/properties.html

and has roots through IDM analysis of paradox processing as covered here:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/paradox.html

What THAT does is cover the question of what does XORing hexagrams do/mean? From that we get the ability to use the I Ching to describe itself through reference to itself.

The only prose I have seen that covers this (no maths yet other than the vague form used in covering the chaos game) comes from Leibniz and his "Monadology" e.g.:

"56. Now this interconnection, relationship, or this adaptation of all things to each particular one, and of each one to all the rest, brings it about that every simple substance has relations which express all of the others and that it is consequently a perpetual living mirror of the universe"

See the links I supplied on the thread I started a while back on the IC as a monad -

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=4050

what Leibinz is trying to cover is what comes out of the containment of noise - order from self-referencing (the chaos game). He wrote the prose in response to Descartes dualism (and it carries on in FIchte vs Spinoza etc etc etc)

Chris.

lightofreason said:

I cannot, will not, supply my use of it since that would be interpreted negatively by the likes of Dobro, Harmen, etc etc

Click to expand...

My my, how prejudiced. If you find your system valuable you should give your own cases, because that would show how you think it should be applied. You, and only you, know the system's value to the fullest, and only you can show how it can best be applied.

And you should not be bothered by possible negative interpretations by the likes of Dobro, Harmen etc etc. It hasn't bothered you in the past, so why should it bother you know? Come on, practice what you preach.

Harmen.

Um, no, you were right the first time. I'm just asking for examples of ordinary people getting ordinary kinds of help with your method. Could you link to that story of your daughter's?

I don't remember ever trying your method before. It's not clear what questions I could ask it - I'm guessing only 'What should I know about this?' rather than requesting advice or getting more specific?

OK, I asked your system about the current situation with my absentee web designer. Basically he is months overdue with the finished product, slow as a wet week to respond to emails, and I wish I'd saved my money. My current concerns on this are about the best way to get finished, regardless of how indignant I may feel.

First hexagram 31, second 49. I can maybe see a need for 49 in the old-fashioned sense of changing the form of government (the connections are less clear from your notes on the hexagram). I don't see any connection with 31 (in either your perception of it or my own), but especially not with the idea that 'one has found what one wants or fits with.' 'One' really hasn't.

However... it's very possible I'm not really applying myself to this because I have low expectations of the results, as compared with what I've come to expect of divination. So over to you... what have I missed? What can I learn from this that will help me get the work finished?

its like a chef making food, it is the eaters who decide the success or not - the chef is naturally biased ;-)

Click to expand...

Of course. But look at Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey. They always say: a chef has to taste his own cooking. You should see what Gordon does with students of him who don't taste what they cook. It is not a pleasant sight.

Harmen.

hilary said:

Um, no, you were right the first time. I'm just asking for examples of ordinary people getting ordinary kinds of help with your method. Could you link to that story of your daughter's?

I don't remember ever trying your method before. It's not clear what questions I could ask it - I'm guessing only 'What should I know about this?' rather than requesting advice or getting more specific?

OK, I asked your system about the current situation with my absentee web designer. Basically he is months overdue with the finished product, slow as a wet week to respond to emails, and I wish I'd saved my money. My current concerns on this are about the best way to get finished, regardless of how indignant I may feel.

First hexagram 31, second 49.

Click to expand...

what this 'says' is that the situation covers "with/from cooperative enticement comes revelation". You need to 'woo' him entice him to reveal all that has been done, will be done, and by when. The 'charm' is required to elicit 'like mindedness' (49 shares space with 13 but is cooperative).
That said, the change indicates you have been doing this - there is a cyclic vibe present (24 controls line 1 change of 31 to 49) and so a sense of repetition (here we go again? etc - keep asking nicely, repeatedly...)

The 31 concern is rooted in being blocked, self-restraint. Within this is operating intensity in expression. From a negative perspective the root emotion is grief - you have lost or fear the loss of something dear to you. (your website?) WIthin this is operating passion (intensity in expression). The IC makes the analogy to wooing, restrained enticement (cooperative, 33 is competitive).

TO complete 31 requires the presentation of characteristics of 55 - diversity, competition (there is a sexual aspect here about getting large and about to 'give birth' but I dont think appropriate! - perhaps as metaphor, someonelse enters the scene 'by chance' who happens to be .. etc etc the focus in diversity suggests the indication to him of getting someonelse - or from a cooperative position asking HIM for someoneelse etc. since he is obviously very busy but you are running a business etc etc etc - sweetness said in rock.

BUT the change favours the completion of 49 and that requires 16. Revelation/revolution/unmasking has a sense of purpose focused on the future plans/enthusism etc., overthrow the current that is 'corrupt/molting' etc. but all done in a fun, cooperative, enthusiastic way.

Chris.

dobro said:

I think we should stop criticizing his system, and stop trying to reason with him, because on the one hand it's useless (he'll never ever change) and on the other hand, it might even be harmful (at some level, his real self knows what's going on, and the more he puts into defending a mere intellectual construct, the more dangerous it becomes for him).

Click to expand...

You are not the only one who worries about that, Dobro. The problem is that the internet can be very misleading and Chris might be quite different in real life.
But I, for myself, have decided that I will try to be a bit more careful with him than I sometimes was in the past.
Just in case.

Hi Chris,

Not bad, not bad at all.

You need to 'woo' him entice him to reveal all that has been done, will be done, and by when... That said, the change indicates you have been doing this

Click to expand...

- true enough. In fact, you've picked up on a lot of what I've already been doing and thinking (though you might have done that just from the background information I gave ) : ask, with charm, for a detailed progress report; this elicited a response which was startlingly promising, though on closer examination less so (things missing we'd agreed on before). The unspoken premise behind this was 'It's getting done, whether you do it, or I do it, or I find someone else.'

The notion that line 1 moving might reflect a recurrent pattern is intriguing. Would that apply only when 1 is the only line changing, or also when there are others?

Loss or fear of loss - yes, a 'hit' to some extent. Not the site, of course, but time, money, and especially momentum.

So you've echoed many of my own thoughts and things I've already tried back to me. You've also provided one idea I hadn't thought of: to ask him to recommend someone else. No doubt with much charm and admiration for how tremendously busy he is. I'm not sure whether this new idea is testimony to the benefits of your system, or of your particular way of thinking...

***

On the broader subject at hand, namely Chris's faith in his own system and what this has to say about his mental health, etc, etc.

Let's see: we have someone who will not give their method up, or allow other approaches to have equal value. Someone who might dabble in the rival method, but will never invest the time to work with or investigate it seriously as they simply don't believe it holds any advantages. Someone who is thoroughly personally invested in their own approach, to the point where the possibility that it might not work is more or less unthinkable.

Um. Cough. That seems to describe Chris and IC+, and also to describe me and old-fashioned divination. Maybe some others here also. Cough.

Okay, so, cough, you are saying that we should be careful with you too?

No, no need at all. My cactus understands me anyway.

Lol, so does my computer.

It isn't the method but the certainty of absolute superiority of the method, which in question. I don't think anyone objects to Chris' method, for him. In fact, I think that more people have understanding of many of the bottom line points Chris repeatedly makes than Chris is either willing or capable of seeing. For example: most everyone here, if not everyone, comprehends universal v.s. individual meanings of hexagrams, yet to hear him speak of it, no one understands this but him. Granted, there's a lot more to Chris' method than this, but just because a different set of words is used to explain something doesn't mean it's so different than the way someone else understands it. There's no common ground to be found with Chris, unless you parrot his exact same jargon, and rest assured he will even challenge and correct that. That's the thorn that eventually gets into peoples' craws.

hilary said:

On the broader subject at hand, namely Chris's faith in his own system and what this has to say about his mental health, etc, etc.

Click to expand...

The concept of "mental healthiness " is a human construction designed to separate and highlight odd behavior from the bulk of humanity, granting that, since the statistical "bulk" can't be wrong, those in the minority must be. I wish that concept could be applied to governments and chuck a few super-power cupolas in an insane asylum...

Um. Cough. That seems to describe Chris and IC+, and also to describe me and old-fashioned divination. Maybe some others here also. Cough.

Click to expand...

Well, that's a welcome epiphany... The "Chris-gate" issue will never be resolved in the theoretical realm but in the empiric one. Since experience seems to be as unique as there are individuals, a compromised consensus seems to be the only choice left. If we poll our opinions, we know, more or less what that consensus is... However, a herd mentality of disqualification will blind us from useful information and will not, in the end, actually disqualify any theories. We would just be closed to them. As with anything else, being stubbornly closed to other systems will just show us as, well, stubborn, not more intelligent than the other party. Alas, stubbornness is the sin-du-jour, on all sides... :bows:

Just adding some personal color to Hilary's epiphany... Arguing against arguing, which of course, will have the opposite effect...

But.. that said in my last post.. that is also true of the forum in general: it's often hard to find common ground. Ever notice how many posts begin with a disagreement, as opposed to finding something in common to work from? Chris often begins a post with "No..", but I dunno how different he is, really, in that way. Maybe just more blunt.

hmesker said:

Your system falls in the same category - a derivation of the original, and therefore not the same as the original. And maybe your system is better - but it is not the Yijing.

Click to expand...

No, his system is not better

Try look at the 64 hexagrams as 64 numbers from 1 to 64. The sixth line is either I = 1 or : = 2. The five lines below have value 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, if they differ from the sixth line, or value 0, if they are equal to the sixth line. A few examples:

IIIIII (1+0+0+0+0+0 = number 1) II: (1+32+16+8+0+2 = number 63)
(2+0+0+0+0+0 = number 2) :III:I (2+32+16+8+0+2 = number 60)
IIIII: (1+0+0+0+0+2 = number 3) I:I (1+32+16+8+4+0 = number 61)
::I (2+0+0+0+0+2 = number 4) :IIII: (2+32+16+8+4+0 = number 62)
IIII:I (1+0+0+0+4+0 = number 5) I:: (1+32+16+8+4+2 = number 63)
:I: (2+0+0+0+4+0 = number 6) :IIIII (2+32+16+8+4+2 = number 64)

The 64 hexagrams counted as numbers show the flaws of the lightofreason system. He says e.g. that "In the variation on a theme sequence, hexagram 01 complements hexagram 44". These two hexagrams are the binary numbers 1 and 3 as shown above.

Do the number 1 complement the number 3

lightofreason said:

Ummm... yeah, I am doing what I was asked to do "Chris: Defend your methodology!" - the title of the thread. SO.... your accusing me of doing what I was asked to do! LOL! your a joke dude; your practicing selective attention again tsk tsk. limiting.

Click to expand...

Your resorting to cheap personal insults means that I'm getting close to the truth.

You are polarized in your intellectual center and you identify strongly with a mere intellectual construct - that's why you keep attracting emotional situations like you do here - life is trying to get your attention about this imbalance.

You have wasted the time of a lot of people on this board with your overlong, overdry, over-repeated ideas, and you have repeatedly pissed off a lot of people in the process. You're showing signs of obsessiveness.

The situation I'm describing isn't a joke. It's where you're at right now.

What pisses me off is that Chris repeatedly puts anyone with another viewpoint down. I've said all this before in this thread, I know, but maybe it's worth repeating. Chris, you do piss a lot of people off... repeatedly. Why do you think you've been thrown off of other boards? Because they've failed to understand your material? Yeah, right. It's because you're a major prick to the people you claim to be helping.

lienshan said:

No, his system is not better

Try look at the 64 hexagrams as 64 numbers from 1 to 64. The sixth line is either I = 1 or : = 2. The five lines below have value 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, if they differ from the sixth line, or value 0, if they are equal to the sixth line. A few examples:

IIIIII (1+0+0+0+0+0 = number 1) II: (1+32+16+8+0+2 = number 63)
(2+0+0+0+0+0 = number 2) :III:I (2+32+16+8+0+2 = number 60)
IIIII: (1+0+0+0+0+2 = number 3) I:I (1+32+16+8+4+0 = number 61)
::I (2+0+0+0+0+2 = number 4) :IIII: (2+32+16+8+4+0 = number 62)
IIII:I (1+0+0+0+4+0 = number 5) I:: (1+32+16+8+4+2 = number 63)
:I: (2+0+0+0+4+0 = number 6) :IIIII (2+32+16+8+4+2 = number 64)

The 64 hexagrams counted as numbers show the flaws of the lightofreason system. He says e.g. that "In the variation on a theme sequence, hexagram 01 complements hexagram 44". These two hexagrams are the binary numbers 1 and 3 as shown above.

Do the number 1 complement the number 3

Click to expand...

You're just using a different sequence than either the binary sequence or the Wen sequence... that doesn't make it better, just different.

getojack said:

What pisses me off is that Chris repeatedly puts anyone with another viewpoint down. I've said all this before in this thread, I know, but maybe it's worth repeating. Chris, you do piss a lot of people off... repeatedly. Why do you think you've been thrown off of other boards? Because they've failed to understand your material? Yeah, right. It's because you're a major prick to the people you claim to be helping.

Click to expand...

Yes, of course. But what if he isn't TRYING to piss people off? What if he pisses people off merely as an inevitable byproduct of his rigid adherence to his little intellectual construct? What if his ego's equilibrium is predicated on not changing the 'intellectual giant' persona he uses here? If that's the case, then it's still a problem, but not such a big problem for us. But A Very Big Problem for him. No?