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lightofreason

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Hi lightofreason

Sorry that I have cut in my quotation of your posting, but it's only meant to point at the center of this thread:

My focusing on trigrams rather than lines is because the ancient chinese pictogram Changes (I or Yi) shows the sun above the moon.

I agree, that all kinds of systems can be made out of the 64 hexagrams. That's why my reconstruction of the legendary Lien Shan Yarrowstalk Oracle is 100% in accordance with the text of Shuo Kua: ......

I have never seen any "I Ching expert" explain the backwards-moving numbers? ...

your approach is obviously traditional and I am not an "I Ching expert", my focus covers a more general, wider realm of which the I Ching is but a metaphor. As I said before the calendar realm needs analysis from the IDM perspective so all I see is some specialist perspective using trigrams for calendars etc - which is fine but I cannot comment on your traditional perspective - if you wish to stick with that then I suggest you speak to the traditionalists on this list - Jesed, Bradford, LiSe etc etc.

That said, I strongly suggest you set out all of your work on website for consideration and in doing so show the use of what you present.

Chris.
 

lienshan

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Hi lightofreason

Are You unable to explain this Shuo Kua sentence of I Ching:

"This is why the Book of Changes has backward-moving numbers."
 
L

lightofreason

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Hi lightofreason

Are You unable to explain this Shuo Kua sentence of I Ching:

"This is why the Book of Changes has backward-moving numbers."

Cant you read? I said in the previous post:

"As I said before the calendar realm needs analysis from the IDM perspective so all I see is some specialist perspective using trigrams for calendars etc - which is fine but I cannot comment on your traditional perspective - if you wish to stick with that then I suggest you speak to the traditionalists on this list - Jesed, Bradford, LiSe etc etc."

I am sure they can engage you with your seeking an explanation and/or review your explanation but what you offer is very local, small world specialisation, and so outside of what I am dealing with which is the IC as a general language and so mappable to anything. Can one use the I Ching to represent cycles of sun/moon activities? Sure, no problem, and fleshing it out to cover moon phases and influence on tides and sun phases in the passage of daylight will elicit meaning. So what? What is the USE of what you are proposing? SHOW results of such a perspective. e.g. if 111-111 covers a full moon and high noon, so what? The apogree/perigee dynamics of the moon's revolving around the earth will vary tidal intensities etc so where is that represented? or dont you cover that detail? How do you deal with lunar vs solar eclipses? to include earth you would need to reduce to digram representations (sun-earth-moon) for hexagrams or extend into 18-line models (3 hexagrams, one each for sun-earth-moon) etc etc etc

IS the precision of what you offer better than that supplied by current clocks and tide tables? How can this perspective describe some context from an emotional point of view (as covered in the Emotional IC) and so extend that point of view?

It is obvious that your focus is on type 2 of the three types of interpretation methods of the IC I have given - and as I said before, this type needs review from an IDM perspective but I dont have the time at the moment to do so (or more so I have no interest at the moment, too focused on XORing etc), and if you seek validation from a traditionalist perspective then I suggest you speak to those I have listed.

The only focus I have on 'reversal' of a sequence is in the binhex link I gave before, but you show no interest in such and so I assume it is out of your realm of interest - and thats fine, so to focus on the traditional perspectives speak to the traditionalists. ;-)

Chris.
 

lienshan

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Cant you read?

This thread is an explanation of the following sentences of Shuo Kua:

To Heaven they assigned the number three and to Earth the number two;
from these they computed the other numbers.
Counting that which is going into the past depends on the forward movement.
Knowing that which is to come depends on the backward movement.
This is why the Book of Changes has backwards-moving numbers.

The Book of Changes is more than I Ching; it's too Kuei Ts'ang and Lien Shan. The sentences above can't be explained by I Ching. The logic consequence is, that the sentences describe the pre-editions of I Ching. The logic consequence is, that the sentences above are older than I Ching !!! :)

The I Ching edition of The Book of Changes was made about 1122 BC. King Wen changed the order of the hexagrams written on bamboo slips by changing the order of the slips, but he didn't change the texts written on the slips !!! :)

He only did it of political reasons because the Chou worshipped Heaven, but the order of the hexagrams in Kuei Ts'ang was numerical and according to Richard Wilhelm with 2 Earth first. King Wen placed 3 Heaven first, 2 Earth second and mixed the other bamboo slips into a non-numerical order.

You can't explain the backwards-moving numbers, because they are an ancient number system computed from 2 Earth and 3 Heaven. There are no binary 0 or 1 in this mysterious way of counting described in Shuo Kua:

In ancient times the holy sages made the Book of Changes thus:
They invented the Yarrowstalk Oracle in order to lend aid in a mysterious way to the light of the Gods.
 
L

lightofreason

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.....
The Book of Changes is more than I Ching; it's too Kuei Ts'ang and Lien Shan. The sentences above can't be explained by I Ching. The logic consequence is, that the sentences describe the pre-editions of I Ching. The logic consequence is, that the sentences above are older than I Ching !!! :)

you mean older than the traditional, Wilhelm-sourced text. So what? you are still focused on traditional, specialist, perspective. Have you gone through Wang Bi's comments on this?

lienshan said:
The I Ching edition of The Book of Changes was made about 1122 BC. King Wen changed the order of the hexagrams written on bamboo slips by changing the order of the slips, but he didn't change the texts written on the slips !!! :)

He only did it of political reasons because the Chou worshipped Heaven, but the order of the hexagrams in Kuei Ts'ang was numerical and according to Richard Wilhelm with 2 Earth first. King Wen placed 3 Heaven first, 2 Earth second and mixed the other bamboo slips into a non-numerical order.

This is specialist perspective and of no interest without detailed commentary etc and clear identification of the use of such material in modern times.

lienshan said:
You can't explain the backwards-moving numbers, because they are an ancient number system computed from 2 Earth and 3 Heaven. There are no binary 0 or 1 in this mysterious way of counting described in Shuo Kua:

In ancient times the holy sages made the Book of Changes thus:
They invented the Yarrowstalk Oracle in order to lend aid in a mysterious way to the light of the Gods.

Your confusing expression, and so metaphor, with essence. There is ALWAYS binary activity in the form of brain oscillations that elicit qualities of meaning and so 'two-ness' or 'three-ness' or 'one-ness' or 'square-root-of-minus-one-ness'. Whole numbers beyond 1 are expressions covering repetition (aka sameness over time, aka cycles etc).

These small world perspectives cover specialist perspectives developed from ad-hoc means to try and describe reality since in ancient times there was no understanding of 'in here' and so rich metaphor was used.

Your tidal model of trigram interactions is one perspective. Wang Bi's comments are another:

"With the combinations of the eight trigrams, all the principles involved with change and transformation are complete. In regards to the past, one gets to know it by going with the flow [up to the present], and in regard to the future, one reckons it by working backward [to the present]" p121 The Classic of Changes - Wang Bi - translated by R.J.Lynn.

This is all traditional perspectives, expressions behind which are nouns/verbs behind which are patterns of differentiating/integrating and their source from neural oscillations.

In other words behind the I Ching is self-referencing and so properties of THAT will be available for use in any form of I Ching.

Now, as I have repeatedly stated, I have not reviewed type 2 interpretations of the I Ching and as such I have suggested you engage the traditionalists on the matter. If you are claiming some insight into the prose, based on covering sun/moon representations in the form of tidal control (bottom trigram, moon position) and daylight hours (top trigram, sun position) thats fine but you will need to show its use and so link your speculations with experiences (as my Emotional I Ching does). So far you have not shown use, only some claim to understanding what the text means - as in some indication of more ancient prose that slipped in to the I Ching etc. So what? We know that the core source of the I Ching was our brains as a species. WITHOUT understanding of 'in here' we create imaginative interpretations in our attempts to describe and so the ancient IC or whatever came before that has its source in our brains and its use of sensory systems to derive meaning and through oscillations and the use of emotion, communicate it.

Using the oscillations of our brains we can map out categories of meaning that we then find are qualitatively isomorphic to the I Ching (or more so the binary ordering of such) and from that comes mathematics etc and that includes a focus on symmetry/asymmetry and so representations through symbols covering repetition of sameness over time - aka cycles etc.

Othe than noticing the patterns in the binhex link, the closest I have come to considering a cycles focus is in http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/times.html

That is an old page and so, as I have repeatedly said, covers type 2 interpretations and is in need of further analysis but I dont have the time at the moment. So -- if you want to talk type 2 interpretations I again suggest talking to Jesed, LiSe, Bradford etc etc etc

Chris.
 
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hmesker

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Counting that which is going into the past depends on the forward movement.
Knowing that which is to come depends on the backward movement.
This is why the Book of Changes has backwards-moving numbers.

Personally I think this is a wrong translation of

數往者順
知來者逆
是故,易逆數也


I have the impression that it has something to do with the yarrow stalks.

'Counting that which is going is progress
Knowing that which is coming is going backward
Therefore the Yi (is) backward counting'.

You count the stalks which are being put aside (are 'going')- this is the progress,
By doing so you are diminishing the stalks - you are going backward. This enables you to know what is coming (predict the future).
Thus, using the Yi is 'backward counting'.

At least it has nothing to do with hexagram sequences, as hexagrams were not numbered. References were always being made to their names.

Harmen.
 

lienshan

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Hi Harmen

Thanks for your translation of the three lines.

I've never seen an explanation of the three lines before; Yours sounds reasonable :)

You write, that hexagrams were not numbered. My pointe is not, that they are numbered, but that they ARE numbers.

In ancient times numbers were different than today. They had names. E.g. the hebrew numbers/letters. E.g. the Shang dates on the oracle bones are numbers, but are written as names. E.g. in Shuo Kua the number two is named Earth and the number three is named Heaven. From these they computed the other numbers?

Jacques
 

lienshan

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At least it has nothing to do with hexagram sequences, as hexagrams were not numbered. References were always being made to their names.

Hi Harmen

David N. Keightley Page 26 :

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cach....pdf+reign+of+Wuding&hl=da&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=dk

"It should also be noted that the Shang diviners occasionally made use of piles of six numbers that presumably recorded the results of manipulating bamboo strips, milfoil stalks, or other rod-like objects that could be counted. These functioned as a form of pre-pyromanic divination and were presumably ancestral to the hexagrams of the Zhouyi"

Jacques
 

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