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37, The Family [was "Again"]

joang

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Chris, you wrote in the other thread,

"As I said, if you are more precise in the hexagram derivation (use the questions) than I can be more precise in my advice."
I assume you meant use 'of' the questions, right?

If so, then can you use a question of this type for more precise advice on 37: Would X be worth Y? (Where Y = the costs entailed.)

If "use the questions" refers to your basic questions page, I did that and got 34. The result was relevant to the question in my mind. This question was slightly different, but closely related to the first.

Thanks for your time.

Namaste,
Joan
 

joang

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Chris, I have another question regarding a statement you made in that same paragraph. You said, "My point is that to be precise you need the 'best fit' hexagram and coin tossing etc will not necessarily give you that."

My queston is, other than your basic questions page, is there an alternative method of obtaining a hexagram that does not involve coins or stalks? If you have already answered that somewhere, a link to it will be fine.

Thaks again.
Namaste,
Joan
 

chrislofting

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Hi Joan, you asked two interesting questions - I shall cover both your emails here:

you wrote:
>
> Chris, I have another question regarding a statement you
> made in that same paragraph. You said, "My point is that to
> be precise you need the 'best fit' hexagram and coin tossing
> etc will not necessarily give you that."
>
> My queston is, other than your basic questions page, is
> there an alternative method of obtaining a hexagram that
> does not involve coins or stalks? If you have already
> answered that somewhere, a link to it will be fine.
>

Firstly note that, in principle, if you believe in an external power determining the hexagram then it does not matter what method you use in that there are as many methods as you can think of in the form of 'random' selections, but no forms outside of the question format that will get you constantly 'close' to the 'best fit' hexagram and its associated sequence of hexagrams.

I have made the questions as generic as possible (and we can create others that are synonyms) such that the particular subject is not 'in' the questions, more so you can interpret the system as the I Ching is asking YOU some general questions about the situation and so a cooperative, interactive, relationship used to derive a hexagram that is, or is close to, the 'best fit'. Thus you think of a question, approach thje IC for help, it asks for some generic information (bit like astrology asking for a place, date, and time of birth) and all else develops from there.

The ordering of the questions reflects more or less the 'order' in which your brain builds meaning from general to particular and so base line to top. ANY situation, any relationship, will reflect the general properties covered in the questions asked of you. Facts/values are the first line and are more general, more context-setting, than the time elements that come second, and both in turn are more general than the particular focus on your involvement that is the third question.

If you wish you can create your personal set of questions as long as they are in the order of general to particular and so each 'line' operating in the context set by the previous/initial 'lines'.

In the six-line system I repeat the questions, first three for the 'inner' or 'me' trigram, second three for the 'outer' or 'them' trigram but there is no need to use this in that the 'quick' system seems to do the job - it all depends on how much you want to do! (this relationship reflects a context trigram and a text trigram summing to express a hexagram so be wary on how you set things up).

There may be situations where you feel too involved to answer the questions 'reasonably' and in those situations you may need to 'go wide', recruit others to validate the questions etc or even, after you put in your answers get them to focus on the question in relation to you and put in their answers - discuss the results! ;-)

Note that you can use the questions any time, they are simple enough to remember and apply mentally to give you a trigram perspective of a situation - and so if you know the eight hexagrams in the octet with that trigram as 'base' you can generate a reasonably 'useful' hexagram representation of a situation. This gets into the proactive, affirmations-oriented approach covered in http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/icproact.html

The apparently heuristically-derived traditional method reflects the intuitive realisation that focusing on the question clearly seems to 'help' in the hexagram selection. The fact is that focusing on the question clearly will OVERLAY the I Ching AS A WHOLE onto the question AS A WHOLE to the level of deriving a 64-part perspective rather than a quick 2-part perspective (yin or yang) or an 8-part perspective (trigrams) etc. It is like pressing a tea-strainer into butter - the harder you press the more butter comes through the holes the more butter you have to work with!

The more you focus upon the question the more you get into the question and the more your brain differentiates the potentials such that when you derive your hexagram 'randomly', it can 'make sense' even if far from the 'best fit' position since all is connected and we can 'force' the meaning easily! ;-)

The Q/A method is generic enough to make things a little more precise but also a little more 'engaging' of you in the process of deriving a hexagram. The coin-toss method is a little 'competitive' in form in that you surrender all involvement to 'the gods' and so passively interact by giving the question, tossing the coins and out pops the answer.

The Q/A method makes things a little more cooperative in that you can consider the Q/A as coming from the I Ching as a request for 'aid' in coming up with a hexagram that 'suites' the situation reasonably consistantly (I say reasonable in that we have to trust ourselves that our answers are 'true' - and so my comments above of sometimes needing some help!) The focus is on you not being totally 'lost' such that you can recognise the generic states asked-about in the questions - the problems are in the particular situation and the resulting hexagram should aid in dealing with that.

==

As to your initial question - using the Q/A system you CAN ask more about a previous question. I am in fact setting-up a chatbot to do this but using the 'random' method as a demonstration of the use of random access eliciting meaning in that the brain will 'link the dots' where question 1 is random selection of hexagram X. If you then ask what or when or how etc the system randomly selects another hexagram but your mind will automatically 'link' this second, randomly-derived hexagram, to the context set by the first. The computer does nothing but retrieve the hexagrams randomly, your mind 'links the dots' and so derives meaning. In principle this sort of conversation could go on ad infinitum.

To use the Q/A method you just need to keep track of things. Your brain will operate in processing:

WHAT questions and the associated WHO and WHICH. Note these are 'object' oriented.
WHERE questions and the associated WHEN and HOW. Note these are 'relationship' oriented.
WHY - a value judgement! ;-) Since we see an oscillation in the I Ching and brain of differentiate-integrate so a why applied to a differentiate should elicit an integrate and a why applied to an integrate should elicit a differentiate! ;-)

WHAT questions reduce to being questions of differentiations. (yang)
WHERE questions reduce to being more questions of integrations. (yin)

Since I have identified the 'roots' of hexagrams through the changing bottom/top lines (as covered in the Hexagram Notes page - http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/icpoints.html) so a WHY question would elicit the result of 'hexagram X comes from mixing hexagram Y that is local and hexagram Z that is general.'

For example, getting hexagram 37 and asking WHY would give you:

"The generic properties of hexagram 37 reflect the mixing of the generic properties of hexagram 63 with the generic properties of hexagram 39.
A combination of 'correct order', of completion (63) with a sense of going against the flow of things through imposing structure (39) is reflected in the rigid structure that serves as as source of tension release (37)."

The LOCAL element is 63, the global is 39.

At first it appears that this form of 'why' is perhaps too literal, it is like saying 'why did you open the door' and to answer 'to go out' in that this is the immediate local form whereas the why is asked to draw-out the deeper intensions! That said, if we zoom-in on the generics here, 37 reflects 'rigid structure to enable tension release' and asking WHY gives us a local of 63, seeking completion, 'correctness', and the global deals with obsticles (or being obstructive, going against the flow (which can be positive) ;-))

You could interpret this as "37 had come about due to a local context that reflects properties of 63 and a general context that reflects properties of 39. The mixing of these general contexts ensures the emergence of the characteristics of 37 as being in demand" - sound reasonable? the point here is that these are all GENERAL and so the user would need to 'fill in the dots' the particulars that belong to these generals.

This is of course highly speculative and needs 'consideration' ;-) Play with it if you like - use Q/A to derive a hexagram and then look at the base elements as if asking 'WHY' and see if they relate to your local and global situation.

Chris.
 

joang

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Chris, you gave me a lot to chew on. I may have to digest it a bite at a time. :cool:

When you say, "ANY situation, any relationship, will reflect the general properties covered in
the questions asked of you."

Does that mean if I have an entirely different question/situation in mind, and I answer the questions put to me in exactly the same way I did before, I will ALWAYS get hex 34?
 

joang

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Chris, another question...

You mentioned WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, WHEN and HOW type questions, but where does WOULD or WILL fit in? It was a WOULD question that yielded 37, when I asked it using the 4-colored beads method.

TIA...
 

joang

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Chris, on re-reading your post I think I found the answers to my last two questions there.

1. I will not ALWAYS get 34, because the computer generates a random hexagram even if I have answered the questions put to me exactly the same.

2. The WHO, WHAT, WHERE, etc., are asked as possible follow-ups to the original question, which in this instance began with WOULD.

Is that correct?
 

chrislofting

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Hi Joan, some more to 'chew over' ;-) ....

you wrote:
> Chris, on re-reading your post I think I found the answers
> to my last two questions there.
>
> 1. I will not ALWAYS get 34, because the computer generates
> a random hexagram even if I have answered the questions put
> to me exactly the same.
>

thats right - but you COULD get 34 five times in a row! - the fun of 'randomness' ;-) This gets into such complex concepts as "Markov Chains" where patterns emerge in randomness that are random and not caused by anything (as in *intent*). Our brains are pattern-seekers and so can read into something something that is not necessarily there (issues of maya etc).

Since the I Ching is deemed to reflect 'all there is', it works as a filter, so ALL of the hexagrams apply at EVERY moment but into the 'best fit - worst fit' order where the LOCAL dynamics will make a 'best fit' to one of the hexagrams. If we use randomness then we are not accessing that particular best-to-worst ordering of hexagrams, we are accessing the hexagrams out of order and so lacking in qualitative precision BUT we will still 'link the dots' and so derive meaning from whichever hexagram we get as long as we can link it to a context - and so the strong focus on clearly differentiating the original question. (as covered elsewhere, if the hexagram does not 'fit' then it is, or is near to, the 'worst fit' hexagram and so just focus on its opposite that should be, or be close to, the best fit hexagram)

As a species we are very sensitive to 'differences that make differences' (Gregory Bateson's phrase), we are over-sensitive to difference, habituate to sameness.

As instincts of PROTECTION, lifeforms in general seem to:

(a) interpret each sensation as potentially meaningful
(b) interpret all sensations as potentially linked together.

These instincts help avoid one becoming dinner for some other lifeform etc. They also seem to be the roots of a collective sense of the 'spiritual', as a form of protection (which is what the more down-to-earth spiritual focus is upon, protecting rather than exploiting the 'vibe' to transcend)

With the development of individual consciousness, our idealism will EXAGGERATE the protective instincts and so can remove the 'potentially' and assert these as actuals and then try and EXPLOIT those assertions (as in 'GIVEN THAT ALL SENSATIONS *ARE* MEANINGFUL and *ARE* linked together, IT FOLLOWS THAT... etc etc' and so we can create our own local worlds ;-))

> 2. The WHO, WHAT, WHERE, etc., are asked as possible
> follow-ups to the original question, which in this instance
> began with WOULD.
>
> Is that correct?
>

yes you can do that.

A dialogue in the chatbot concept would be something like:

Question "Would I succeed with X?"
Answer - randomly derived hexagram.

Followup:

Question - one of WHY, HOW, WHAT, WHERE etc
Answer - randomly derived hexagram
you can loop on this 'forever'.

your BRAIN will take these follow-ups and apply them to the original question/answer where that pair sets a context, a WHOLE within which we can particularise using Why? etc. and so flesh-out the particular details of that whole. It is not as 'efficient' as the Q/A approach to line generation etc but can serve as an exercise in working through all aspects of the WHOLE without 'plodding' through each hexagram in order one at a time.

(and that 'plodding' method will not allow for such actions as asking 'WHY' and getting 35 followed by asking 'HOW' and getting 35. There will be subtle difference in the 'feel' where we focus on 35 with a 'why' perspective and then on 35 with a 'how' perspective etc. fine detail distinctions etc showing how one hexagram can reflect all possible forms of questions (as in what, where, why etc) but still retain an overall 'bias' (as in all yin-base hexagrams have a 'where', a relational, bias overall but if it has a yang top line then it will more reflect a local differentation, a 'what' focus, differentate over integrate) - the richness in detail we can get out of any 'reflection' is amazing but can also be too 'over the top', not practical! ;-)

You could combine the three-question Q/A method with the coin-toss, 'random', method in that the Q/A would give you the initial 'best fit' for the question and then the random gives you 'perspectives' operating WITHIN that 'best fit'.

My use of the chatbot is as a demonstration of how, given a pool of meanings that are declared as representing 'all there is' so we will link interpretations and force them to, assume they must, 'fit' the meanings in the pool. The pool is the WHOLE and the meanings the PARTS. ALL of the meanings apply to the moment since it is the pool that is the WHOLE, but the meanings are locally sorted into 'best-worst' fit. Random access will generate, MUST generate, meaning since the pool is bounded (as are our senses - we cannot see 'X-rays' etc and so without instruments they are 'meaningless' other than capable of eliciting a 'paradox' where some observable, or felt, event is not explainable, should 'not' happen etc)

Anything 'outside' of the pool of meanings will be interpreted by using the contents of the pool but will appear as an oscillation across the main distinctions of the pool, i.e. object or relationship, yang or yin (or composite of). This oscillation process is how our PARTS focus deals with complex, WHOLE, patterns, we try and categorise X as object but then along comes a context where it appears as a relationship and out pops such concepts as 'wave/particle' duality etc. (see the diagrams in http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/paradox.html where the experience is localised to visual paradoxes, note the oscillation. We seem to have adapted this to assertions re our sense of identity - we are born to argue! ;-))

The overall 'error' here is not recognising that there is a realm of wholeness, as in our species-nature sense of, that is OUTSIDE of our experience, our conscious experience. As such, as an integrated lifeform, the 'full' experience of wholeness is reduced to the lowest common denominator, our species-nature, and so one step 'up' from what our consciousness categorises as a whole. To our species-nature the whole is the I Ching and each hexagram a part. To our consciousness nature each hexagram is a whole and within each hexagram are parts!

The initial role of consciousness seems to have been to focus on refining the instincts of our species-nature through parts-analysis. From that our consciousness continues to develop, and so develop its LOCAL sense of 'wholeness' etc but 'issues' emerge where when we try to link consciousness with reality we also link-in the lowest common denominator, our unconscious species-nature and so can elicit 'paradox' if we dont understand the different levels of meaning-processing at work.

OVERALL there is hierarchy here where level A is BOTH/AND ('holistic') and below it is level A-1 that is EITHER/OR ('parts'). Move to level A-1 and it becomes 'holistic' and below it at level A-2 are 'parts'. In our brains our more 'holistic' side (for the hemisphere it is usually the right,) relects integration over differentiation and can deal with 'complex' patterns. Our 'partial' side (in the hemispheres usually the left) reflects diferentiation over integration, EITHER/OR and so is driven to 'reduce' the complex, the immediate, the parallel experience, to a parts list, a sequence. This is VERY clear from a consciousness perspective but also partial from a species-nature perspective.

Our consciousness focuses upon pinning something down and labelling it 'forever'. To do that in a dynamic universe means we have to recruit universal constants to relate to, to 'freeze' that something in place. The more precision we seek the more universals are required until ultimately you have labelled EVERY single point in the universe and linked each point to all of the others! This is 'holographic' but, like a hologram, 'sterile' - it goes against the grain of the Universe that is dynamic, thermodynamic, and so there is a passage of change etc., nothing is frozen 'globally' but can be 'locally'.

LOCAL processes are excessive, over-exaggerated, when compared to the every-day of the Universe which is what our species-nature interacts with through instincts, BUT our consciousness is evolving and as such its perspectives can be useful to the species as a whole in its evolution, we have to just make sure we dont lose contact with our species-nature and the I Ching aids in doing just that.

Chris.
 

joang

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Thank you, Chris.
I'm still chewing, but it's beginning to make more sense to me. I'm sure I will have more questions for you soon.

Namaste,
Joan
 

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