An etymology of Qian.1

[lightofreason]

I mean, if you really want you can see connections everywhere. To me it is all too far-fetched.Harmen.

Due to the self-referencing used to create the IC so, AS POTENTIALS, all elements are connected and the XOR material shows how to use that connectivity to extract 'hidden' information.

The TRADITIONAL sequence of the IC shows us a 'small world network' version of the 'universal' IC in that perspectives in the universals can be expunged or marginalised due to that local context - be it due to ignorance of the 'big picture' of our species or the localisation demanding meaning derived from local history/legend/myth.

It is the universal form that allows for each of us, every person on the planet, to come up with their own IC that, when analysed will show the universals shining through (and even in the traditional approach there is the sense of the Fu Hsi compass ''behind" King Wen where the latter is temporal, the former structural). As such there is no Chinese element required - only the form of representations (that can be coverted to bit sequences a la 000000 or 110010 etc) Each bit represents a decision and so we can map out qualities of meaning to products of decision making as covered in the IDM work on brain oscillations.

Thus "I differentiate in general to then integrate so that I can finally differentiate in particular" is "DID" that converts to "101" that coverts to the IC fire trigram where we have the focus on a containment of the integrated, the sense of 'sameness within' and 'difference without' and the use of that boundary to focus on issues of 'acceptance' (as it is with water focused on issues of rejection). We then differentiate at the particular level and that includes pushing the boundary outwards - and so convert difference to sameness, to being 'accepted' etc and so the notion of guidance and setting a direction, an ideology etc within the symbol of fire.

IOW we can map generic decision-making dynamics to categories of trigrams and on into hexagrams etc., and this is all connected together IN PRINCIPLE with LOCAL context specialising such that some aspects of the 'universal' are never considered locally.

THEN comes the issue of being born into a 'small world network' where lack of education re what one has been born into allows one to consider that 'small world' as the world of universals - and so we make smaller-world networks and in doing so can lose sight of the 'all is connected as potentials' and so limit ourselves - become over specialised and so limited to change!

Chris.

 

[heylise]

When I read what the professor says, I feel two very different things. One is, that he is a synologist, he knows what he is talking about, others agree with him. All together ‘good enough’ for taking his word on it.
The other is, that science is only a little part of life. A good one, I would not want it not to be there, but far from representing the whole of reality. It is only a part of it. Even when one sees it in a more general sense, as ‘facts’, assuming that indeed everything science says is true, even then it is only part of reality, part of life.

I don’t think reality is only what can be see, touched, measured or in what other way proven to be real. Reality includes a lot we will never be able to prove.

When you believe what science accepts as being reality, it will kill your creativity. It seems life is made up of more than facts only.
When someone makes an Yi according to proven facts, it will be a very good Yi. One I will be happy to buy and use. But only for information, not as an oracle. The other end of the spectrum is someone who makes an Yi only using his imagination. If he is really at the other end, it will be a personal one, for him, and maybe a few others, but nobody else. Somewhere in between is the realm of the “real Yi”, close enough to the original one, and to the ancient culture it stems from, and yet open and supple enough to answer to our needs now. It is the space where creativity reigns, and the only place where a living oracle can exist.

Creativity has to reckon with facts, or else it will evaporate in new-age cloudiness. But it also has to reckon with deep mythical images of the soul, in order not to dry up into scientific knowledge. The clouds are useful for that one person (since I don’t know about that, I just quote what they claim), the knowledge has use for humanity, but not for individual needs of the soul. The new-age side is not negative, especially when it is not extreme. Poetry can reach unto there, and many other forms of art.

There is something else, when you believe science, at least when you believe it more than your gut feeling. You give up something of yourself, which is also indispensable for creativity. Even within science itself, the really great scientists do not believe science. They question it all the time, they think up impossible things which everyone else thinks crazy and impossible. They hear 100 colleagues all agreeing about something, and still only believe their own idea. In short: they believe their own soul/guts/child and not scientific facts. (Probably the worst scientists do the same, but you never hear about them.)

So I prefer to believe my own idea, until I see proof which is really convincing. Both in facts and in ‘living’ evidence. I know that it is for a big part my idea, and in my website I make that clear in many places. Advising people to use it next to a ‘traditional’ translation. But even the good traditional ones are somewhere in the middle between science and poetry. They have to, for being an oracle.

In this article, I see quite a lot of flaws. For example those 90% of all characters, which had no relation between the picture and the meaning, it sounds like a big number. As far as i can see, it is 90% of what they could find of the 800 OB characters, which is in its turn less than ¼ of all OB characters. They are a special selection: probably the 800 of which they could find the sound. The dogs which did not look like dogs anymore, but because they were used rhyming with flog or fog or clog, they could guess them according to the sound. It is not entirely circular reasoning, but it does come close.
For testing medicines, there are strict rules, but for a ‘proven fact’ about characters, these rules seem not to apply. No medicine would get a license, if it was only tested on a special selection of people.

When you put all meanings of a character side by side, there is still an overall 'impression' of the meaning. The name of hex. 16 is a very clear example. It is a picture of an elephant and a shuttle. I try to imagine how I would have tried to write ‘image’ or ‘weaving’. Using the picture of 'elephant' for 'image', makes sense in my eyes: impression, impressive. Using 'shuttle' for 'weaving' makes sense too. So it is now 'weaving images'. Enthusiasm and cheating hardly have a relation, but when you see the picture of 'weaving images', then it connects both.
But now look from the other way, the professor's way, and then you see an elephant and a shuttle, and the meaning 'cheating'. It is very hard to figure out, what one has to do with the other. Even more so, when the picture is not recognizable anymore.

And this strange sentence: “Each of these abstract symbols was used to represent a word or morpheme in the Chinese language, not objects or ideas”.
Then what does a word represent? An object or idea as far as I know. Oh well, I guess he means that it represents a sound and nothing else, but even a spoken sound represents an object or idea. In China the ‘sound’ of a word is used as a symbol for luck if it sounds like the word for luck, so especially there I don’t think you can cut sound and meaning (all meanings) apart like that.

“The word for "that" (qi2) sounded very similar to the word for "winnowing basket" (ji1).”
I try to figure out, how I would write “that”. Maybe a pointing finger, or maybe a number of objects with one set apart from the rest, or maybe a device for putting something apart from the rest... like maybe a winnowing basket?? It was present in every household back then, everyone knew what it was.

Then there are the books by Wieger and Karlgren. They give many pictures which do make a lot of sense. Even in uses of the character which are not anymore that picture. Did they deal only with those 10% of that one quarter of OB characters? The argument that you ‘read the meaning into it’ does not hold when you look at them. With some, yes, even with quite a number, but there are lots which do make sense.

Probably writing started out with priests, maybe it was holy, and only in use by them, with very strict rules, that it should never fall in other hands and maybe those priests made it deliberately abstract, so someone else could not read it. Or maybe it was as simple as the doctor’s fast writing, in the course of many centuries turning it into abstract waving grasses.
Then, when you try to go the other way, from later back to the beginning, it is almost impossible to find the picture back. But that is no proof, that the picture is not there.

When I get hexagram 16 as an answer, and I want to find out what it means for me, I have the choice to follow science, and they give me several meanings, from which I can choose. But when I look at the picture, “weaving images”, it makes much more sense for me. I can use that image, and put my question in front of it, and it is as if the Yi ‘paints’ the answer. The simple and quite realistic image has a much wider meaning than all translations put together. It gives me the means to find my own ‘translation’, which fits my question. Like a song does more than only its text, written down. Even music without any text can reassure, comfort or give joy. It speaks to the soul, with images, composed of sound. The pictures of the characters also speak to the soul.

My Yi is a personal one, but I have taken care, never to get lost in poetry, nor in facts. Most of all because I could not use either myself. I needed that balance in between, where things dance and move and live. One can only create one's own life in that place where the border between dreams and reality is not entirely clear anymore. Where a dream can become reality, or reality can turn into wisdom. Both are a product of your own mind, soul, whatever, but they happen only in that open field. Not choosing a side gives facts room to become magic. And magic to become fact.

LiSe
http://www.anton-heyboer.org

 

[lindsay]

I cannot improve on Harmon's answers to the questions posed by Hilary and Bruce. As usual, Harmen is (IMHO) dead on target.

Harmen mentions a few elements that would be included in his ideal edition of the Yi, and I would add a few more. I would add the Dazhuan and Daxiang for the philosophy we find so interesting, the Shuogua for its outline of trigram analysis, and the Xugua and Zagua to remind us there is either a very deep and unsolved mystery at the heart of the King Wen sequence or perhaps no explanation at all. I suppose I would insist on having all Ten Wings and possibly the Mawangdui Wings as well, not because I'm terribly fond of them, but because they've shaped my thinking (and everyone else's) more than I care to admit.

My ideal Yi would have at least two translations for every line: a traditional version and a Zhouyi version. There would be notes explaining how the translator made his/her final decision about translating. There would be open acknowledgement of the work of prior translators, historians, and interpreters. There would be helpful discussions of difficult points in Old Chinese syntax and grammar. Historical and concrete references would be clearly explained. There would be cross-references to OBI and other Chinese texts. There would be a full glossary containing an explanation of every character. Stock phrases, repeated concepts, and the technical vocabulary of divination would be treated at length. There would be an up-to-date annotated bibliography.

My ideal Yi text would NOT include a lot of speculative transference to modern life. It would not be openly hostile to Confucian ideas. It would not be moralistic and preachy. Most of all, it would not be dogmatic. It would be a baseline edition of a classic work we could all accept as reasonably definitive.

Who will create this work? Apparently nobody in academia has enough courage or scholarship to undertake it. This is a much diminished generation in our universities, I fear.

Martin asked about the connection of the hexagram lines to the text, and I confess I believe the text existed prior to the hexagrams. My own speculation is that the hexagrams evolved as a diviner's notational system for keeping track of the readings (note the Shang obsession with recording their divinations), and that the 2x6 form willy-nilly limited the the divination possibilities by simple mathematics to 64. There were probably more or less possibilities before hexagram notation was adopted. In my view, all the meaningful signficance of the hexagrams evolved later as an overlay to a pre-existing body of divinational lore. Can I prove any of this? Not yet, but I'm working on it.

I'm also working on a modern Western version of the Yi (which Bruce finds such an amusing idea). There are a number of things about the traditional Yi I find disappointing and inadequate for the purposes of divination. One of them is scope. The Yi does not really cover the full range of modern life and thought. I have reviewed a number of systems for classifying everything in the world - but because of various theoretical beliefs I hold about the interrelationship of language, thought, and emotion - I have decided to adopt as my foundation the work of the brilliant Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869). I am also researching divination itself as an affective process, trying to understand what it is and how it works. My intention is to produce a modern Book of Changes. One problem, however, is that I may need more than 64 hexagrams. Any ideas?

Lindsay

 

[lindsay]

Bravo, Lise! What a magnificent defense of creativity you have written! You make me feel like a "xiao ren" for going down this road of inquiry in the first place.

"Our age is retrospective. I builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embossomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us, by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines today also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

"Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unaswerable. We must trust to the perfection of the creation so far as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth. In like manner, nature is already, in its forms and tendencies, describing its own design. Let us interrogate the great apparition that shines so peacefully around us. Let us inquire, to what end is nature?"

- Emerson

Yes, Lise, you are magnificent, but alas, I do not agree with you.

Lindsay

 

[lightofreason]

There is the essential requirement to differentiate material of the realm of the singular from material of the realm of the particular-general in that the latter is Science oriented as it deals with comparisons and issues of sameness and so has a statistical bias. The former is the realm of the unique individidual and so summarises personal experiences often ignorant of properties and methods sourced in the particular-general - as such there is a tendancy to re-write things.

The realm of the singular has only one "Science" applicable and that is of Freedom - aka Ethics, Morality - a theme well covered in ancient Chinese perspectives as it is in Western Philosophy in that the uniqueness of consciousness elicits competitive behaviours (a product of discreteness, fragmentation etc)

The IC+ material comes out of the particular-general in that it identifies where, in our species nature, such a metaphor as the IC could develop - and so all of the properties of self-referencing are discovered that open up the IC way beyond its 'traditional' perspectives. As such, Lindsay could not do a 'modern' IC without the XOR material since that material is present in the traditional but in an intuitive form, a sense of 'something' not differentiated - all due to the self-referencing of the IC. Thus diviners of old working off their intuitive sides were in fact 'filling in the dots' of potentials into actuals - they were never 'free' to make links, the links where already there as POTENTIALS and local context then actualised them.

That said, there are 'science' elements at work touching on the edge of the singular in the form of sameness through genes or memes - as found in:

(a) identical twins
(b) pure bred lab rats
(c) cancer cells
(d) old fashioned radio crystals

The common ground here is in detected behaviours 'linking' elements such that we reflect not two in the one space (forbidden by the Pauli Exclusion Principle) but one in two+ spaces. IOW comparisons ( and so statistical methods) indicate a connection when things are 'pure' in form.

This can be extended to mental states where education/background will ensure 'similar' thinking in general and so a statistical increase in chances of 'running in to each other' etc.

However, the focus on twins, cancer cells etc is on a matter level of relationship, a physical link of 'resonance' not due to education etc but due to emerging from the 'one' form as identical twins emerge from one egg, or as cancer cells all become 'generic' and so lose their specialist context -or as inbreed lab rats show correlations in behaviours etc.

BTW - this is what the XOR material covers - the focus on 'all is linked together' and how that focus is exploitable in investigating deeper dynamics of the IC and any other categorisation system derived from self-referencing.

There is a LOT of work to be done in these areas and so more interesting than perpetuating 10th century BC thinking.

Chris.

 

[bruce_g]

Boy, am I confused.

Harmon, I must have somehow misunderstood your response to Hilary. I thought you were saying that it was not important to reference accurate translation when using Yijing as an oracle. Apparently I got it wrong.

Lindsay, wow. I can only encourage you to pioneer this perfect Yijing you speak of. I’m sure I’d learn a great deal from it; that is unless it was too dry for to hold my interest. I never was one for pure academics.

While I ain’t no Emerson, I wrote something last night for my own amusement (see, Lindsay? you’re not the only one who amuses me!). I hope it doesn’t offend the intellectuals in our midst, though I doubt anything could.

Strong knowledge without creative spirit is as a parrot who mimics his master, or a rusted gate which opens to an abandoned house. He is neither a curse nor blessing, neither hot nor cold; he is temped and stale, tired and withered, white bread with no butter, a dream with no understanding, a book with no meaning, a song with no inspiration, a temple with no god.

Anyway, that personal view expressed, I’m privileged to share in the wealth of personage and knowledge that graces this community, and on this thread particularly.

Bruce

 

[hmesker]

Harmen, I must have somehow misunderstood your response to Hilary. I thought you were saying that it was not important to reference accurate translation when using Yijing as an oracle. Apparently I got it wrong.

I don't think so Bruce, but there was an 'if': If you want to use the Yijing as an oracle instead of a faint shadow of it, like an interpretation, then you will be served best by an accurate translation. If you don't want to use the Yijing but are comfortable with any (Western) variant of it, well, then choose whatever you like best. In divination it does not matter what use. But if you want to use the 'original' Yijing, then you need to have an accurate translation of the text - or at least as accurate as possible.

Harmen.

 

[lightofreason]

Strong knowledge without creative spirit is as a parrot who mimics his master, or a rusted gate which opens to an abandoned house. He is neither a curse nor blessing, neither hot nor cold; he is temped and stale, tired and withered, white bread with no butter, a dream with no understanding, a book with no meaning, a song with no inspiration, a temple with no god.Bruce

The realm of the creative, or more so the innovative creative, is our singular nature, or mediating consciousness. This realm is also that of the miraculous, the random, the psychotic, the transcending (and so one can 'transcend' into psychosis where we can create a very special 'small world network'! ;-)) This realm develops in the first 24 months of our birth and 'takes over' as our sense of self (together with specialist emotions that have developed with, are dependent up, the 'self')

The realm of the singular has developed at the species level from a favouring of 'correct' interpretation of reality so that it all 'best fits' the moment - but just as 'genius' comes out of here so do flat earthers come out of here in that a paradigm once considered 'dogma' becomes increasingly extreme, as does the extreme become dogma and what VALIDATES things is the statistical dynamics of Science (the focus on repeatability etc)

The benefit of the singular, from the species perspective, is that it maximises the bandwidth OF THE SPECIES in the intepretation of reality such that each conscious indiviudal is a 'specialist' and so able to contribute a unique perspective upon reality and so contribute to the processing of information by the species.

Running in parallel with this is our nature as conscious individuals where we are driven to be self-regulating, self-governing, and so autonomous beings out of which we can set our own contexts and so form new perspectives 'different' to all of the others but 'same' to all who fall within that perspective - this gets into the fire/water dynamic (accept/reject) and so issues of ideology etc.

Thus we have two thread operating, one within the other and at the same time oblivous to this in that it feels as if 'autonomous' when in fact it is tied to the species - until it develops a new species.

Our singular nature reflects positive feedback processes where the focus is on avoidance of others turned into pushing away others to assert self.

That is working WITHIN a realm of negative feedback based on establishing consensus across the species re information/habits/instincts.

All of this is thus working in parallel and outside of immediate, particular, consciousness - or so Science has discovered ;-)

Chris.

 

[hmesker]

Strong knowledge without creative spirit is as a parrot who mimics his master

....enabling his master to reflect himself.

or a rusted gate which opens to an abandoned house.

....allowing others to enter and live in it.

He is neither a curse nor blessing,

....so each person can take it as he seems fit.

neither hot nor cold

....which are relative to circumstances.

he is temped and stale

....like compost for flowers.

tired and withered

....but available to put to use.

white bread with no butter

....because not everyone likes butter, some prefer to make their own sandwich.

a dream with no understanding

....as the experience of the dream can be enough.

a book with no meaning

....so everyone can find their own meaning in it.

a song with no inspiration

....because the inspiration is in the listener.

a temple with no god.

....because a god can live wherever he pleases.

You know, 'knowledge' isn't that bad. It is something you can put to use. Only when knowledge has no use it becomes dead.

Harmen.

 

[heylise]

Many Yi's exist in the world. Not sure if the one we know is the only one with 6 lines. I only know that most have less lines.

The simplest one has one line and a very simple text. "Yes, no", that is all. The closed line (heads or the dot or the stone) is yes, the open line (tails or whatever complements the dot or stone) is no. And since yes and no existed before the dot got a meaning, the text came before the lines. But if you take the dot for nodding and the double-dot for shaking one's head, then what came first begins to resemble the chicken and the egg.

The one with 2 lines is already quite sophisticated. Yes, yes-not-sure, no and no-not-sure. Here in Europe is one with four lines, tetragrams. Old, its origin was one called ilm-al-raml, "knowledge of the sand". But compared to Yi's age, just a toddler. 1101 (top to bottom) is puer (boy), 1011 is filia (girl), 0001 tristitia (sadness), 1010 amissio (loss), 1111 via (way, road), 0000 populus (people, masses). 1 or even is a dot, 0 or odd is two dots.

I think the one with two lines stands at the origin of all of them. That would mean that the lines and the hexagrams have grown together. Although it might very well be, that lines from scapulamancy (the kind with turtle shells and such) have replaced the lines which came with the line-oracle.

Mm, Harmen's posts in this thread were brilliant, but I cannot agree with this one. Bruce was not talking about knowledge, because there is nothing wrong with it, but about knowledge without creative spirit.
The worst one was about the song with no inspiration. Ever listened to one? Awful, and no way to put your own inspiration in it. It is just a bad song.

LiSe

 

[hmesker]

Mm, Harmen's posts in this thread were brilliant, but I cannot agree with this one. Bruce was not talking about knowledge, because there is nothing wrong with it, but about knowledge without creative spirit.

Ah yes, you are right, for some reason I missed that (must be the temperature). Nevertheless for me it doesn't change much. Most dictionaries are 'strong knowledge without creative spirit' to me. Yet they assist me tremendously in my quests.

The worst one was about the song with no inspiration. Ever listened to one? Awful, and no way to put your own inspiration in it. It is just a bad song.

To me bad songs do not exist, mostly it is just a matter of taste.

Harmen.

 

[bruce_g]

Harmon, thanks for clarifying your statements to Hilary. It makes more sense to me now.

Of course LiSe is correct regarding my “knowledge without creative spirit” as the intended meaning. And that’s exactly what makes this entire thread so enlightening to me.

Knowledgeable folks, like: Harmon, LiSe, Lindsay and Bradford all exhibit tremendous creativity in their presentations of even the most stoic “facts”, and also within the proximity of said facts. An example is Harmon’s last post to me. I love that! And, when even sarcasm can be expressed creatively – of whom I consider Lindsay to be the Supreme Master – it is potent and life-giving. Otherwise it’s just hostile; and lord knows, that’s one thing the world doesn’t need more of.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

 

[bruce_g]

Oh, about a “bad song”?

I’m a member of another community, dedicated to a particular brand of fine electric guitars. Some of the members occasionally show off their stuff through sound and video clips. There’s a popular term among many of these players, known as “shredding”, which utilizes extremely fast, long and intensive technique driven arpeggios. Students of this style are well versed and accomplished in technique and music theory. The majority of these practitioners simply “spout” many, many notes, which seem to have no musical continuity, whatsoever. But, there are a rare few among them who utilize this “chops” driven style in a most musical and creative manner. They are the masters of shred. The others, well, as Harmon points out, it depends on personal taste, and they do seem to enjoy one another’s notes, even if there is no actual song.

 

[lindsay]

Before we go roaring off with Bruce to musicland (a place I love to go), let me say one last thing about this etymology business.

According to a celebrity tabloid I was reading the other day, British actor Hugh Grant once said that whenever he had to kiss Julia Roberts on the movie set, he always had the strange feeling he was kissing a religious icon.

If you substitute "kissing" with its near-homonym "kicking", then that's exactly how I feel about Lise. She is the Julia Roberts of the I Ching world. Everytime I criticize her, it feels like an act of sacrilege. My head says,"Watch very carefully how this woman deals her cards, something strange is going on" -- but my heart says,"Hey, this is as close to the real deal as you're going to get!"

Which brings me to my final point: divination is a lot more about the heart than the head!

Lindsay

 

[heylise]

LOL, Lindsay

Why substitute it with kicking?? To me it does not feel at all like kicking. I love your posts, all of them, and you seem to have a way to criticize.. mm, maybe a creative way? This post sure seems a big proof of that.

You made me write that big thing about how I think about etymology, and I am grateful that you did. If you agree or not, is not important, it is a great exchange. And besides, you did it most of all through the way you are, and only secondly with what you say.

I don't disagree with you. I can understand, that science has different priorities. I respect that. I am happy that they figure out things about Yi, and I make a grateful use of it. But I am not going to confine myself to their rules, even though they have good rules. I am even happy that they don't follow mine. Things would become a mess.

Going to look if there are nice emoticons, if I can send you a big kiss.
Not even a kiss there!! You will have to do with this one

LiSe

 

[martin]

Martin asked about the connection of the hexagram lines to the text, and I confess I believe the text existed prior to the hexagrams. My own speculation is that the hexagrams evolved as a diviner's notational system for keeping track of the readings (note the Shang obsession with recording their divinations), and that the 2x6 form willy-nilly limited the the divination possibilities by simple mathematics to 64. There were probably more or less possibilities before hexagram notation was adopted. In my view, all the meaningful signficance of the hexagrams evolved later as an overlay to a pre-existing body of divinational lore. Can I prove any of this? Not yet, but I'm working on it.

That's an interesting thesis! A bit extreme though.
The antithesis would be that it is _all_ in the lines and that it is possible to read the core meanings of trigrams and hexagrams if you decode the line language in the right way.

That is also a too extreme position, IMO. An analyis of the line language (like that of Chris or Nigel Richmond) can help and serve as a guideline but I believe that interpretations that are solely based on such an analysis narrow the Yi down too much.
I think Nigel would agree with that (Chris maybe not), it seems that he is well aware of the danger of trying to capture the Yi in a system. If you follow such an approach you will probably end up with an imitation Yi-bird in a cage that cannot fly or sing for the soul.

When little science comes great poetry may leave. Hexagram 12?
There are many ways in which science can go wrong, if it's "little".
It can get lost in dead facts and details, in suffocating systems, in meaningless abstract bla bla bla, and so on.
The main shortcoming of "little" science is perhaps that it is too much after certainty, security, a sense of control. "Look, I have it all in my pocket".
Perhaps, but a butterfly in a pocket ...?

 

[martin]

Something else .. I strongly believe that other cultures/times (and their documents, art and so on) should as far as possible be studied from their own perspective and not from ours.
This implies a kind of identification with the people who live in that culture or time, looking through their eyes, thinking with their concepts, feeling with their values.

Not every antropologist will agree with this. For some objectivity has the highest priority, so when they study a culture they will 'keep distance' and not try to become part of it. The 'objective school' usually also sees no harm in analysing a culture from the perspective of relatively modern psychological theories.
And I think it's okay to look at a culture or its documents through - for example - a Freudian or Jungian prism sometimes. Or through the prism of binding-bounding-bonding-blending.
On the other hand, those people probably didn't think Freudian or Jungian or BBBB and if I really want to understand them I have to use their theories and concepts.

We perhaps believe that our way of thinking (especially if it is 'scientific') is 'better' then theirs. But how can we 'grok' them, to use Heinlein's word, unless we learn to think like them?

 

[heylise]

When I try to understand a hexagram or line, I imagine myself as much as possible in 'their' shoes (or bare feet, whatever). Not with the whole culture and everything, because I simply don't know enough. I try to get things back to basics, making plants grow, getting a harvest, how is it when there is no rain, or too much rain. How does it feel to have gods everywhere around. How is it to live in a small community, no connection with the rest of the world. A time in which a life was not very valuable, a captive something one simply disposed of, or used as slave. A life as wife and mother for a woman, no career or whatever else than that place in the household. Times of drought in which thousands died, without anyone in the rest of the world noticing.

For that, simple and direct images work best, images of drought and hunger and danger, of wild country, happiness together, having to defend oneself, survival. They are not at all strange to us nowadays. Even though survival in New York looks quite different from survival in a tiny village. The basic ideas are still valid. The jungle of wild animals: we still have our jungles in our mind, cities, families, jobs. In these things, those ancient times were not basically different from our times.

LiSe

 

[lindsay]

Veritas numquam perit

Martin, what on earth are you talking about? You know as well as I do that “science v. art” is a false dichotomy, that nobody in this the whole string advocated confining the Yi to a system, that no one here claimed to have all the answers.

If anything, I am trying to cut through all the interpretive layers of speculative thinking to find out what actually happened in a certain limited situation, the evolution of Chinese writing. I don’t care much about “science” as a philosophical issue. What I care about is finding truth in history. You may think that is a hopelessly naïve objective, but I do not.

The question is, “How did Chinese writing evolve?” We know many Chinese characters contain components that are pictures of things. One answer has always been, “Characters developed when the Chinese combined little pictures to represent things and concepts.” This is a reasonable hypothesis. However, one problem with this explanation is that it separates written language from spoken language. Written language becomes a kind of code composed of little pictures that does not offer any clues to the spoken word. A second problem is that it postulates a daunting intellectual exercise. It is easy to draw pictures to represent simple objects – a sketch of a cat can mean “cat” or of the sun can mean “sun”. But how do you represent abstract concepts? Emotions? Complicated relationships? Did someone sit down and draw a combination of pictures that indicated these difficult ideas? If they did, how did they win general acceptance?

It turns out many scholars have been thinking about and studying this problem for years. The current consensus is that Chinese characters did not evolve for the most part out of combinations of graphically representational pictures, but from combinations of symbols that represent sounds in the spoken language. The Chinese were not trying to represent concepts graphically, but to indicate the sounds of words in their spoken language.

How did the scholars come to this conclusion? This is a long, complicated, and difficult story. I’ll leave it to you to look it up – but I assure you, the story is there for everyone to read who has access to a decent library.

Now, where is the “science” in this? We framed a question that has a definite historical answer (something happened that is a matter of fact): “How did Chinese writing develop?” Two hypotheses were offered. Years of research suggest one hypothesis is more likely to be true than the other.

Not every question can be resolved this way. “What is beauty?” “What is the meaning of life?” “Are humans basically good or evil?” “Is love more important than hate?” But, if you ask, “Who wrote the Yijing?” or “Were hexagrams always part of the Yi divination tradition?” – these are questions that have answers, although it is very difficult to answer them today. If we had a time machine, we could watch somebody compile the first version of the Yi (somebody did it sometime). We could go back and find out if the earliest Zhou diviners used hexagram symbols or not. Since we do not have a time machine, we must look for evidence that helps us make as good a guess as possible.

Now, the question remains: “To what extent is the injection of imagination into history justified?” That is, can we justify “making up” answers to historical questions, especially answers that run counter to the best historical evidence?

I have no quibble with historical novelists, who chose to invent their own vision of Elizabethan England or ancient Rome. That is understood to be fiction. But what do you say about people who deliberately falsify their autobiographies? About people who pass off fiction as fact? About people who distort facts to justify their own ideas? What do you call people like that?

It doesn’t matter what you call them, after all. Only the truth survives. Here is where there is unity between the world of fact and logic and the world of art and imagination. Only what is true in both worlds can stand the test of time.

Lindsay

 

[martin]

Martin, what on earth are you talking about? You know as well as I do that “science v. art” is a false dichotomy, that nobody in this the whole string advocated confining the Yi to a system, that no one here claimed to have all the answers.

Lol, I was not talking about you or what you are trying to do, Lindsay. More about Nigel and Chris. And as you know, one of them indeed claims to have all the answers!
As to science versus art, I agree, false dichotomy. But how about 'little' science? In 'little' science truth perishes everyday.

 

[heylise]

Lindsay, you finally got through to me, about characters, pictures, and so on. "a sketch of the sun can mean “sun”. But how do you represent abstract concepts? "
Until now, I got the impression that it was either one or the other. Either a picture or a sound. Occasionally borrowing a character for something else, because it sounds similar.

Now I understand that both happened, and that makes sense to me. Going to let that simmer in my head for a few days, I like this.

Thanks

LiSe

 

[bruce_g]

I don’t know why someone would set out to prove one theory or the other as to which came first, text or lines, other than to support our own premonitions. My premonition is that pictures came first, then trigrams, then hexagrams, then finally as a compilation of text. Evidence, I guess, points elsewhere, but until it’s proven with certainty, I proceed along this line of thought.

That said, I too think Lindsay’s ideas are interesting and completely plausible. My reason is this: As I understand it, Yijing was not developed for the commoner but for the King and his council. From this starting point, intellectual thought would likely precede symbolic thought as expressed through lines, trigrams and hexagrams; which would have then been added at a later time as a means of record, structure and mathematical illustrations of the text.

However, along the lines of LiSe’s thoughts, it seems logical to me that primitive cultures first draw their signs in the sand or on rock in the form of pictures, then as sounds, and lastly as a collection of intellectual ideas.

I have no idea, obviously, but I find more creative motivation from the primitive/nature side of things than from high minded philosophies. So I’ll stay with that for now. Hopefully, some day we’ll know for certain.

 

[heylise]

Asking for a yes or no is extremely old. Like throwing up a coin, head is yes, tails is no. There is always an agreement to begin with. If i see a bird, it is yes, if i see a a four-footer first, it is no. If i get the long stick, it is yes, if i get the short one, it is no. Innumerable small oracles all over the world, in all times.

What came first, the yes or the longer stick? Not a question which really has an answer.

The yes-no 'oracle' evolved into a more comprehensive one, with more possible answers.

My own idea about the Yi is, that it had something to do with the sundial. Maybe there were small simple yes-no-maybe oracles already, and some priest/diviner saw the shade of the sun, moving across the lines on the sundial. They had oblong ones, with marks for spring, summer, autumn and winter times, probably for moons or double moons. Double moons would mean 6 lines. A gnomon cast a shade, long in winter, short in summer. All lines in the light in summer, when the sun is high. All lines hit by the shade of the gnomon in winter. Shade falling across three lines: spring, and again in autumn. That too must have been like a miracle brought by divine forces.

Spring, which is a beginning of new growth, expansion, has three bright lines, light from the sun, and three dark lines (or broken by the shadow), shade of the earth. Since ages for everyone a very auspicious image.

See http://www.anton-heyboer.org/i_ching/origins/index.html

LiSe

 

[hilary]

Wonderful thread!

Harmen said:

I mean, look at the people who use The I Ching Workbook by Wing, or, even worse, I Ching in Ten Minutes by Kaser. Especially the latter hardly has anything to do with the Yijing, but the people who use these books do get meaningful answers. They believe they are using the Yijing, but from my point of view they aren't.

Agreeing all the way!

As a diviner I want to use something as near to 'the real Yijing' (yes, I know, I know...) as I can get, because I reckon it works better than the pseudo-yijings. I dare say they do get meaningful answers in some sort of abstract way, but I really don't think there's much mileage in these, compared with real live tigers and dragons. This is a favourite hobby-horse of mine that I take out for regular constitutionals.

And for similar reasons to LiSe, I want to imagine as best I can what life was like for the people who wrote it. So when I read about horses, they also feel a little like Ferraris.

Ah, Lindsay, a fellow footnote fetishist! That's the Yi I want, too. Let me know when you find it. (Maybe you should just write it, in your spare moments?)

 

[soshin]

Yi?

I value your insights and points of view very much, please let there be no misunderstanding about that. What a wonderful thread!

But isn't there also an important metaphysical question to be asked?

Does chance exist?

If chance would be an illusion, each and every version of the Yi would do the trick and the answer one gets would be truly her or his very own answer regardless were one gets it from.

One could read the meaning of times out of the flight of the birds, if he would be only ready to truly "see" it.

And there are some lines in the Dazhuan which would perhaps suggest that the beginnings of the Yi were done by encountering the reality around us as meaningful symbols.

If meaningless chance would exist, there wouldnt be any Yi to speak of it.

Namaste,

Soshin

BTW: In my personal experience with the Yi, I used it mostly as a kind of binoculars to have a better and sharper sight. Otherwise I am nearly blind...

 

[jesed]

Does chance exist?...

If meaningless chance would exist, there wouldnt be any Yi to speak of it.

Dear Soshin

Just in case the comment could be useful

In traditional teachings, "chance" does exist; and that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be any Yi.

Chance, in traditional teachings, is one element of that "reality" described in Yi's basis:
Heaven, Earth, Mankind and Chance

The importance of Chance is little... but does exist.


Of course, this is diferent that say that everything is chance. You could say that everything is predeterminated (Heaven and Earth forces); you could say that everything depends on your free will (Mankind force); you could say that everything is a resultant of chance (Chance force).

Traditional teachings says that reality is a balanced combination of this 3 issues (a free will that interacts with chance within some predeterminated limitations)

Best wishes

P.S. "balanced combination" doesn't mean 33% each one.

 

[heylise]

I think chance is a very natural phenomenon. Everything has a tendency to happen, some things a big one, other things a small one. Very often opposite things have almost the same possibility to happen. One time chance makes one of the two happen, another time the other one, but counted in big numbers, one side happens just a fraction more often than the other. We exist thanks to this. There is a tiny fraction of a bigger chance for a particle (or whatever it is called) than its anti-particle. A totally equal chance would result in the non-existence of this universe. The tiny difference is the reason that all these stars and planets exist.

Some people attract a special kind of fate. It does not happen once in their life, it is as if the same pattern repeats itself. Without any visible reason why it should. Some attract a lucky one all the time, others a hard one, still others a dull one. As if 'something' in their mind or expectations or wherever attracts it. As if chance stands in a poised balance, and can fall either way, no preference, and a tiny cause, the wind made by the wing of a butterfly, makes it fall one way and not the other.

Maybe throwing the coins makes this tiny difference manifest itself. Deep in the soul a butterfly moves its wings, and chance reacts to it. Leaving things open, free, not giving them a form, gives chance a chance. I think that is the secret behind attracting 'your' fate. The slightest form will steer your fate away from your highest destination.

Lindsay, what kind of a butterfly lives in yours, causing a thread like this? Must be a lovely one.

LiSe

 

[bruce_g]

What a beautiful image to contemplate, coyote.

Some never give chance a chance; holding to tradition, fearing to leave the safe and familiar, playing by rules and following the script, bowing to facts or conforming to what is average. To these, even the smallest greatness eludes them, because in never trusting the gods, their wings never unfold for fate to catch the wind, which blows this way and that.

 

[heylise]

View attachment 33
Never underestimate a butterfly...

 

[soshin]

Yi!

Sorry for expressing myself so bad...

What I actually meant is:

I think that the spirit behind the Yi is absolutly able to express himself according to the book one is using in the present moment when one asks.

I happen to be a messie, and when I ask sometimes I have the Karcher Version handy, somtimes the Wilhelm, sometimes the Lynn or - of course in times of Internet - always LiSe :bows: .

I would suggest that in hindsight, there was no chance in what version I happened to use. It gave a meaningful answer, and sometimes even more so, a nuance which wouldnt have been possible with another version, which "luckily" wasnt available for use at the moment of asking.

So I think that it is not that important exactly which version one uses, as long as they are close to the spirit of the Yi, which goes for all (and more) versions which I mentioned above.

Dear LiSe, Rodrigo and Kan, your butterfly wings are more like dragon wings, how could they fail to make a difference? Of course I am fully with you concerning chance, and you put it very beautiful.

Namaste,

Soshin