...life can be translucent

Menu

Can 64 situations cover the whole span of possibilities?

laureet

visitor
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
156
Reaction score
0
This the question I got often when speaking about the YiJing to colleagues in the scientific world.

Can 64 descriptions (hexagrams) , even with all the possible tones and interpretations, cover all possible situations and outcomes?

I have been thinking long time on a simple explanation for that (to have at hand next time :D)

Finally, last night, resourcing to some notes on teachings of a Ch'an (Zen) and martial arts master, (a wandering buddhist monk), I found something which immediately "clicked" to me and I thought to expose it to this forum...

Quote as translated:

One, at any situation, can only do one of the choices in each following double options:

- Move
- Don't move

- Care for what happens
- Don't care

- Start the next movement
- Wait for the next movement be started

- Convert the moment and movement in part of a more complex undertaking
- Isolate the moment and the movement

When you think about, all possible actions resume to these eight options.

In a given situation, it also happens that others or the world and the ten thousand things can only do to you one of the choices in each following double options:

- Move
- Don't move at all

- Include you in their action and carry you somewhere
- Exclude you from their movements and leave you behind

- Move against your movements
- Move with your movements

- Make you part of a more complex undertaking
- Isolate you from any inclusion

When you think about, all possible actions they can do to you, resume to these eight options.

Once you learn the options and actions, you must think that there are only two kinds of steps: to step or not to step and only three directions to do it, front, back or side.

When you learn to see your options and the options of the world around you in a living flow, and you know your steps, you can see all the alternatives beforehand and victory is no longer necessary.

End of quote as translated

So, 8 X 8=64 and two kinds of movement in three possible directions (positions)isn't equivalent to two kind of lines in a trigram where they can alternate positions?

I suddenly read him as if he was saying that all can be resumed to 64 options :bows: and after some mental playing with many diferent situations...I needed to agree .
 

ewald

visitor
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
510
Reaction score
15
Hi Laureet, Could you illustrate that with some practical examples of hexagrams?
 

Sparhawk

One of those men your mother warned you about...
Clarity Supporter
Joined
Sep 17, 1971
Messages
5,120
Reaction score
107
I expect Chris will jump in shortly. Of course, he extends the 64 hexagrams to all their possible combinations of 4096 as he has explained many times before.

I really like that quotation, Lauree. Makes a lot of sense, indeed.

L
 

laureet

visitor
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
156
Reaction score
0
Hi Laureet, Could you illustrate that with some practical examples of hexagrams?


I was not meaning to see the YiJing at the light of this but to see this as a paralellism to the YiJing and a possible fundament of its analysis of the world...

Your 8 possible actions and the 8 possible actions of others (or the world) towards you seem to apply to any situation it comes to my mind, also the three posssible directions to step and the two possible steps..

It is the paralellism in the explanation of the 64 combinations, two kinds of movement and three possible positions which called my atention and made me see it as an interesting way to fundament the YiJing analysis and account of all what can happen :bows:
 
Last edited:

ewald

visitor
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
510
Reaction score
15
Are these 2 x 8 options supposed to each be mutually exclusive?
 

ewald

visitor
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
510
Reaction score
15
That's a pity... as it then doesn't add up to 64 differentiated options.
 

ewald

visitor
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
510
Reaction score
15
That would be the case if the possibilities in the groups of 8 where mutually exclusive. However, if only in each pair the possibilities are mutually exclusive there are

2 * 2 * 2 * 2
*
2 * 2 * 2 * 2
=
16 * 16
=
256

differentiated options.
 

laureet

visitor
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
156
Reaction score
0
That would be the case if the possibilities in the groups of 8 where mutually exclusive. However, if only in each pair the possibilities are mutually exclusive there are

2 * 2 * 2 * 2
*
2 * 2 * 2 * 2
=
16 * 16
=
256

differentiated options.

Aren't in each group also two alternatives (to step or not to step) ?

2 * 2 * 2 * 2 = 16 /2 = 8

2 * 2 * 2 * 2 = 16 /2 = 8

8 x 8 = 64

or 256 /( 2 * 2) = 64
:confused:
 

ewald

visitor
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
510
Reaction score
15
I think it's important here to have clearly defined sets, that are mutually exclusive. As I see it, from the 4 sets, 3 are about movement, and 1 doesn't seem to be. This makes it hard to put into a usuable system.

Sets about movement might be clarified and defined so that they actually are mutually exclusive. It would be important to define what this first set of moving really is, and whether a movement can be started while you're moving, and such.

Perhaps it would be possible to rework this into two sets of 8 mutually exclusive options, that would give 64 possibilities. But would they relate to the hexagrams?
 

laureet

visitor
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
156
Reaction score
0
I think it's important here to have clearly defined sets, that are mutually exclusive. As I see it, from the 4 sets, 3 are about movement, and 1 doesn't seem to be. This makes it hard to put into a usuable system.

Sets about movement might be clarified and defined so that they actually are mutually exclusive. It would be important to define what this first set of moving really is, and whether a movement can be started while you're moving, and such.

Perhaps it would be possible to rework this into two sets of 8 mutually exclusive options, that would give 64 possibilities. But would they relate to the hexagrams?

I read you :) and your analysis is quite interesting ...enough for having a project ...

You know..in another thread we are just talking about the Tai Hsuan which interesting enough is 256-dimensional while the I Ching is 64-dimensional...I wonder if to check out if the groups of options we are speaking about are fitting also or instead with the Tai Hsuan ? ...mmmhhh... will think about ... thanks for stirring my thoughts :D
 

charly

visitor
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
2,315
Reaction score
243
I expect Chris will jump in shortly. Of course, he extends the 64 hexagrams to all their possible combinations of 4096 as he has explained many times before.

I really like that quotation, Lauree. Makes a lot of sense, indeed.

L

Hi, Luis:

I'm thinking that also 4k possibilities are pretty few. Tree of Life folliage should be more wide. I don't believe much in Chris calculations.

On the other hand the 8x8 that Laureet describes sounds like very attractive promise for getting oriented.

We speak of the fourth directions North, South, East, West, but compass has more than fourth possibilities, all the 360 degrees range and the arrow moves continuously (not by steps): infinite possibilities.

Four or eight directions are not real, but very practical for quickly getting oriented. Illusory but may be useful.

Un abrazo,


Charly
 

charly

visitor
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
2,315
Reaction score
243
... Tai Hsuan ... is 256-dimensional while the I Ching is 64-dimensional...

Hi, Laureet:

Tai Hsuan has more signs / graphs than the I Ching, but no more dimesions. An oracular book has infinite dimensions. Dimensions depends of meaning, and meaning depend of users. Dimensions are concepts, constructs, abstractions, anyone can arrange dimesions in another way, the game of building dimensions never stops. And meaning is also infinite. Yet collective is so subjective, so wide and deep.

Wen printed the book is finite, but it isn't when we read it.

We are taken the decision method for what a paragraph to read as it were the product of the reading.

The method can have 8x8 drivers (if we only consider one hexagram), or can have 4k, or can have more.

But in the consult we read words, phrases that are highly polisemic by its own and we add our own interpretation granted by our own problems... Living trees are not as decision trees, and of course, never are binary.

Don't you agree with me?

Yours,


Charly
«...gris es toda teoria, verde el arbol de oro de la vida...» Goethe
(era así?)
 

charly

visitor
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
2,315
Reaction score
243
I think it's important here to have clearly defined sets, that are mutually exclusive... Perhaps it would be possible to rework this into two sets of 8 mutually exclusive options, that would give 64 possibilities. But would they relate to the hexagrams?

Hi, Ewald:

Surely they will not relate. Your logic and your mathemathics are ok, but I Ching having logics and mathemathics is neither logic nor mathemathic, as with life happens.

Alternatives are not two or eight and of course are not mutually exclusive, you can give the menu to choose, but the guy is not one, is really very much persons in one, very much dessires, very much fears. The guy has his 2nd. ego, his 3rd., his 4th...

He likes to step but also don't. He likes a 3rd. alternative, full acting, half acting, no acting at all, also could like more than three.

May be I'm wrong, but I don't believe it.

And if possible the 8x8 or the 4k, I don't like it althought it looks ****ing well.

Yours,

Charly
 
L

lightofreason

Guest
The I Ching uses the self-referencing of yin/yang to create its representations - be they digrams, trigrams. hexagrams. dodecagrams.

A property of self-referencing is entanglement in that no matter what level of recursion I am at, I can use the set of symbols to describe each symbol in detail. XORing does this.

At the level of hexagrams I have 64 GENERIC forms covering qualities of blending. bonding, bounding, binding. aka wholeness, static relatedness (sharing space), partness, dynamic relatedness (sharing time).

This set of 64 qualities are like nouns and verbs, they are general qualities, variables into which I can put some value - e.g. noun becomes "Chris" or verb becomes "watching" etc etc - the 'protecting-verb' of the water hexagram covers all expressions of such processes etc (nominalisation-denominalisation allows for swapping noun/verb qualities etc)

The XOR material brings out the ability derive 64 aspects of each hexagram such that WITHOUT changing lines etc we have 4096 expressions FOR ANYTHING.

Think carefully here - if we assign yin to the quality of verb and yang to the quality of noun then we have at the hexagram level 32 types of noun-ness and 32 types of verb-ness. THEN we can label these, customise them to fit some local context.

Now move to the dodecagram level (2^12 or 4^6) where we compress these into hexagrams with changing lines. There are 4096 of these dodecagrams (64 dodecagrams per hexagram) and the XOR still applies and so we have over 13MILLION possible categories where LOCAL context can take these and relabel them to be used to describe some context (or the universe for that matter).

I repeat, not carfully that we are at the level of the general and so of 'noun-ness' and 'verb-ness'. Now consider the amount of books describing reality using nouns and verbs!

A hexagram, its image, represents a quality that elicits emotional resonance to communicate. This level of communication is 'vague' and lacks the precision we get with words but there is enough meaning present to allow for the customisation of the 'vague' to make the meaning 'crisp'.

Each hexagram has a spectrum of meanings (64) as it does a spectrum of magnitude in expression - thus, for example, hexagram 23 covers the low level quality we equate with activities of 'housekeeping'; the medium level quality we equate with activities of 'pruning'; and the high level quality we equate with activities of proactively removing the chaff from the wheat, as a high priest/priestness 'cleaning up' the faith.

If we move to 4096 qualities (or on to 13Million) we can be overloaded with generals andso it is easier to focus on the hexagram level (since there is already 4096 aspects at this level without moving lines!)

As there are 64 hexagrams so there are 26 letters in the English alphabet - from these we can represent 'all there is' in general. High detail moves us into mathematics etc where it covers measurements of scalars and vectors and LOTS of repetition (equivalent to quantifying the expression of a hexagram and so a scale form 1 to 64 where 1-23 is housekeeping, 32-23 is pruning, 64-23 is high energy form etc etc)

THEN note the DUALITY in representiations of the hexagrams - each hexagram describes structure (A something) as it does process (TO something) and so all of what we have covered above is multiplied by two!

You need to understand the Science of your art guys to appreciate what you are dealing with.

Chris
 
L

lightofreason

Guest
For a concise focus on the I Ching and its roots I suggest a review of my draft "Language of the Vague". I have updated it recently and will continue to do so to develop the work as a summary of the IDM/IC+ perspective. Current version is:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/Vague.pdf

File size is almost 1MB so it can take time to download on a 56K dial-up system... but these days I think most of us have broadband. If you dont have the Adobr pdf reader the download it from the 'net. Easy to find and install (also large though - 7Mb or so)

Chris.
 
Last edited:

charly

visitor
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
2,315
Reaction score
243
If we move to 4096 qualities (or on to 13Million) we can be overloaded with generals andso it is easier to focus on the hexagram level (since there is already 4096 aspects at this level without moving lines!)

You need to understand the Science of your art guys to appreciate what you are dealing with.

Chris

Hi, Chris:

First: You are quite right, but we can drive a car knowing nothing about motor engineering, and car goes. What we can learn is ever few in comparson with all that we still ignore.

Second: Could you help me with some figures?

You speak about 4096 only without moving lines, but I don’t get this number, maybe you are not speaking of probabilities. I see the things so:

If I have 3 coins marked 1, 2, 3, I can use it for getting 2 trigrams, say, upper and lower ones.

For the gotten hexagram:

3 coins, 2 times : 2^6 = 8^2 = 64
Probability is 1 / 64​

This method will not produce information about changing lines. I can throw another time for to get a second hexagram. Combined probability is:

1sth. And 2nd. Hexagrams: 64^2 = 4096, say 4k​

This is the reasoning: 1st.Hexagram probability is 1/64 and for whatever 1st.Hexagram, probability for becoming whatever another is the same, hence 64 x 64, 4k. Changing lines are implicit in the passing from 1st. to 2nd. Hexagram.

But in the real life we don’t apply this method, except may be if using cards or wheels.

With the standard coin method we use to throw 3 coins 6 times, from the result issues 1st. hexagram and changing lines, hence the 2nd. Hexagram.

With the standard coin method:

3 coins, 6 times: 2^3^6 = 8^6 = 262144
Probabilty for a given result over possibilities is 1 / 256k​

Am I wrong?

When we apply coin results (1) to the I Ching reading complexity increases… but this is another story.

Thanks in advance, yours,


Charly

-------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Not speaking of if we use stalks or a different random method. Moreover, there are quasi random methods, as described by Jou Tsung-Hwa and non-random at all, like Cleary or Plum Tree.
 
L

lightofreason

Guest
Hi, Chris:

.....
Second: Could you help me with some figures?

You speak about 4096 only without moving lines, but I don’t get this number, maybe you are not speaking of probabilities.

I'm not. I am responding to the original question regarding deriving meaning from 64 where that covers 'all there is'. Your focus is on possible access to the structures not the structures themselves. There are an infinite number of methods to link the structures to some context using probabilities etc but if you understand IC+ then you understand there is no use of such methods (e.g. see the Emotional I Ching method:

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


For 4096 possible expressions without moving lines you just need to understand self-referencing and XOR-ing where EACH hexagram can express a state influenced by some other and so 64 possible expressions in one hexagram and so 4096 expressions of hexagrams without considering 'moving lines'. It is like identifying a person by name and then refining such with a spectrum of the properties/methods of that person and so gain details that aid in predicting actions, preferences etc. Thus a situation can be the expression of some aspect of a hexagram and as such taken as the meaning for that situation. As such there are 64 'people' involved and each can express themselves in 64 different ways etc.

Any moment as such expresses the whole of the I Ching but the local context will sort the 64/4096 etc into 'best-fit' to 'worst-fit' order.

When we introduce moving lines we are in fact introducing the use of dodecagrams (12 line symbols) where we compress them into six lines and that is only possible when each of the six lines has a line position that has four possible states. Thus each hexagram with moving lines is a compression of 64 dodecagrams and so 4096 dodecagrams overall.

Given the 4096 dodecagrams, each of THEM can be XOR-ed and so another 4096 expressions per hexagrams and so 4096^2 expressions overall (13+million). These are structures not multiple combinations. To get the possible multiples of hexagrams you need to derive the power set of 64 (but to see the hexagrams as 64-hexagram sequences bringing out 'logics of relationships' see such pages as http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/icmatrices.html )

Once the full range of structures is derived then comes the set of possible methods to derive those structures using random/miraculous means - which IC+ does NOT do since it serves no purpose or more so lacks the consistancy in deriving a 'best fit' expression for some situation when compared to the IC+ method using questions.

Due to the use of self-referencing, entanglement is present in the hexagrams and so using XOR I can extract 64 'details' from any hexagram where the details are made by analogy to all of the other hexagrams. Thus any of the 64 can give me high detail on what a hexagram is/does and so THAT then gives me information on the context associated with that hexagram - how it will work in general, what it means in general. THEN comes consciousness mapping the general to the local particulars.

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

There is NOTHING about using random/miraculous methods here. All I have focused upon is what comes out of the method used to derive the hexagram structures - self-referencing.

If you map the noun/verb dichotomy to yang/yin then the hexagrams are representative of specialist forms of nouns/verbs where each form is a class and local context is the instance of a class. Thus a context is an instance of hex 44 or hex 56 etc Using XOR we then get details about that class and so about the context in general where we can then identify the unique expressions of that detail.

Thus as the hexagrams are aspects of the whole that is the I Ching so there are aspects of each hexagram where we take a hexagram as a whole. This is all about structure and what is possible given that structure - nothing here about accessing those structures using random/miraculous means - and there is no need for such other than those focusing on 'traditional' methods and so 10th century BC thinking - IC+ focuses more on 21st century AD thinking ;-)

Chris.
 

heylise

Supporter
Clarity Supporter
Joined
Sep 15, 1970
Messages
3,128
Reaction score
202
I don't think it is that complicated. I do agree with Charly, and also with Chris, but I think it can be explained in a much simpler way.

ALL possibilities is a huge ocean, infinite. But if you have an 'idea' about them, they start to get divided. Eg, if you see them each as "good for me" or "bad for me", like a small child starts to explore the world, you get 2 categories. Including EVERYTHING. When you grow up, your ideas expand, and so do the categories. Finally you get lots of them, and things start to get complicated. For grownups the world can be very confusing.

So you need to simplify it, but in a more sophisticated way than just 'good for me - bad for me'. Many categories can be put together. Usually it works best, if you give them simple names. 'Obstruction', 'A Well', 'Waiting'. The categories have no fixed places. Sometimes something is in waiting mode, other times in decisive mode, danger mode... The Yi tells you where to look for it, so you can find where it is now. In this situation you happen to be in.

So 64 does include everything. A bit like weather includes fair and stormy, rain, dust storm, freezing. There are innumerable kinds of weather, but they are all weather. Innumerable feelings but they are all feelings. Innumerable objects but they are all objects. A pin and the Himalayas are both objects. A pin and a crowbar are both metal. A pin and an insult are both sharp.

So the number 64 has more to do with a level of subdivision, and it changes from day to day. You can just as well go to the level of 128, or to 32, or to 5, or to 4096. It is up to you, what works best for you. And 64 seems to be a workable number.

LiSe
 

Sparhawk

One of those men your mother warned you about...
Clarity Supporter
Joined
Sep 17, 1971
Messages
5,120
Reaction score
107
Fractals...
 

getojack

visitor
Joined
Jun 13, 1971
Messages
589
Reaction score
10
So the number 64 has more to do with a level of subdivision, and it changes from day to day. You can just as well go to the level of 128, or to 32, or to 5, or to 4096. It is up to you, what works best for you. And 64 seems to be a workable number.

LiSe

I see it more as 36 hexagrams of which 28 have different qualities when inverted and 8 have the same qualities when inverted.
 
L

lightofreason

Guest
Fractals...

The basic form is like a neuron that is customised to local conditions. This form comes out as a consequence of the containment of noise where such containment elicits spontaneous order through self-referencing. Google the "Chaos game". The resulting sierpinski gasket that forms from the self-referencing sets down the basic patterns of the binomial theorem - aka Pascal's Triangle - and THAT sets down the basics of the I Ching (theorem is (A+B)^n - if A=1,B=1 then we have the IC representations of yin/yang).

As the REPRESENTATION of such is in the form of yin/yang lines, so there are a number of basic forms of interpreation - symmetric, asymmetric, anti-symmetric, and so bringing out the customisation of brain to context.

The self-referencing allows for the XOR dynamics and so bringings out the monadic form of the I Ching and so 'all is connected'.

The self-referencing of the dichotomy allows for symmetric forms to represent asymmetric forms but with a lack in precision. The levels of self-referencing bring out the fragmentation of a whole and so properties of complexity/chaos (and so fractals)

Thus we see the derviation of a language where the symbols of the I Ching are differentiated classes of meaning and labels then ground the class with a context to give a sense of wholeness, partness etc etc.

BUT note that the original symbols were vague and taken literally. With refinement in representations so the representations become representations of classes of 'things' rather than things - their crispness of X thousand years ago becomes a vagueness out of which comes local crispness through more details. THus, like the concepts of noun and verb where they are variables in need of filling, so the hexagrams are variables in need of filling - by local context.

Chris.
 

charly

visitor
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
2,315
Reaction score
243
... Your focus is on possible access to the structures not the structures themselves. There are an infinite number of methods to link the structures to some context using probabilities etc but if you understand IC+ then you understand there is no use of such methods... There is NOTHING about using random/miraculous methods here... This is all about structure and what is possible given that structure - nothing here about accessing those structures using random/miraculous means...

Thanks, Chris:

I now realize that you are speaking of structures. I wildy interpret it as support or continent, like mental rooms where all sort of things can be stored. You can layout a little house with few rooms or a great palace, both can store infinite ideas because all the angels fit in a pin point.

But you're not using random/miraculous methods for choosing one room or another.

Meanwhile I read the pdf I taken from your link, I will continue using random/miraculous coin method, because of traditional reasons.

I remember Kerson Huang quoting Niels Bohr, not having Kerson's book at hand, I get this from the web:
I have been told it works even if you do not believe in it.
Niels Bohr - commenting on a horseshoe by the entrance to his laboratory

Yours,

Charly
 

laureet

visitor
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
156
Reaction score
0
Thanks, Chris:

I now realize that you are speaking of structures. I wildy interpret it as support or continent, like mental rooms where all sort of things can be stored. You can layout a little house with few rooms or a great palace, both can store infinite ideas because all the angels fit in a pin point.

I remember Kerson Huang quoting Niels Bohr, not having Kerson's book at hand, I get this from the web:
Quote:
I have been told it works even if you do not believe in it.
Niels Bohr - commenting on a horseshoe by the entrance to his laboratory

Yours,

Charly

I agree with Charly and very much with LiSe

The latest research supports the fact that all what may exists already exists in an ocean of potential possibilities, making one or other possibility to become "real" just the action to be observed... Any field or particle changes its characteristics when observed...

No one has yet explained why or what makes flowers blossom (beyond the mechanics of it). nevertheless, they continue to beautifully do so...:)


:bows:
 

Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom

Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).

Top