Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
When I first discovered the oracle casting techniques of asking someone "to tell me 2 natural numbers, 1 to 64, either the same number twice or two different numbers" and applied it at a family gathering of my friend in Belgium which included the current King's Counsel, I found that although stating two numbers was totally polite social inquiry, the structural analysis of the hexagram responses turned out to expose an intimacy which was not.
Any questions about how these interpretations could be applied to your actual questions or situations, I would be glad to try to answer too.
Frank
I use numbers already for a long time, but I pick a big number, then divide it by 64 and the remainder is the hexagram number. I sometimes have used a digital watch too (the seconds, if it was possible to stop the watch) A few hexagrams missing (60-64) but you get a zero extra for 'no answer' or 'void'. When I was near the Himalayas in Nepal my watch very often said '52!'. Yeah, I would think, but what do you mean? That I should stop and sit still? Or that you like those mountains? Or both?
Does the concept make any more sense to you now? And you Dobro?
The sequence is not so much about the pairs or the next hexagrams
but an entire system of sets of 10, that arise from the One, the Two, and the Three, with the next step being the 10,000 things in China and the horoscope wheel upon perpendicular bisectors in Pythagorean metaphysics.
For instance, let's say we subscribe to the idea that yang lines enter (and disappear) from the bottom. In that case, Hex 2 would be followed by Hex 24; Hex 24 would be followed by Hex 7; Hex 7 would be followed by either Hex 19 or Hex 46 - that sort of thing.
I don't follow; why would Hex #46 follow Hex #7?
I don't follow; why would Hex #46 follow Hex #7?
Actually, 19 is the right answer for a binary sequence...
Well, if yang lines enter and disappear from the bottom up, then which hexagram follows 7? You can either add a yang to position one, which produces 19, or you can add it to position three, which gives you 46.
Why can one add a Yang to position 3 - you mean Yang builds upwards from any existing Yang (and there is an implicit Yang beneath the Hexagram)?
Or #4, if the placement system corresponds from top-to-bottom, as it were; any Hex with two Yang lines could technically follow #19 and still preserve a binary sequence (it would just be highly non-intuitive).
Let's start with Hex 2. It seems natural that this would be followed with 24, right?
What comes after 24? Well, you add another yang at position two, and that gives us 19. But what comes after 19? Do you add another yang at position three, which gives us 11? Or does the Hex 19 position one yang disappear, giving us Hex 7? I think it's 7, because I think you should deal with all the lower possibilities before moving on to higher positions. So if the sequence goes 19>7, what comes after 7? 19 or 46? Do you add the new yang to the first position or the third? What's the criterion for adding/subtracting lines? If you follow the principle of dealing with lower positions first, then the answer to this one is 19 (cuz position one is lower than position three, so you change that one first).
Okay, so what happens after 19?
Nope, binary sequences are very precise (bottom line is rightmost number)...
Can anybody point me to a logical sequence of hexagrams based purely on line structure? For instance, let's say we subscribe to the idea that yang lines enter (and disappear) from the bottom. In that case, Hex 2 would be followed by Hex 24; Hex 24 would be followed by Hex 7; Hex 7 would be followed by either Hex 19 or Hex 46 - that sort of thing. I seem to remember a long time ago somebody here saying they'd seen a sequence like this, and that it made perfect logical sense. Anybody?
But so that we're all on the same page with this, let's say that the bottom position is on the right.
If that's the case, then the sequence Luis posted works. It's logical.
The point is the bottom line is the rightmost member only by convention - a sequence is still technically binary if the bottom line is the leftmost member, or the second from rightmost member, and so forth.
I came up with a similar idea a few years ago and posted it on this forum. To get a 'next' hexagram delete line 1 and add a whole or broken line on top. So every hexagram has two successors.
Let me try again... Lets separate the set of "binary" numbers from hexagrams. In a binary representation of numbers, you read them as any other number, i.e. the rightmost digit is the smallest quantity...
I discussed this with Chris Lofting back then and somewhat to my surprise (because the idea is not so easy to reconcile with his approach) he liked it.
Not all numbers (and hence, not 'any other number') denote the smallest quantity as the rightmost digit. However, as above, I'm willing to agree with you for the purpose of this discussion.
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The sequence below is inspired by the Shuo Kua quote: "The number three was assigned to Heaven,I had a similar idea, but the other way around (delete line 6, add Yang/Yin to the bottom)
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).