The Emotional I Ching (version 2)

[lightofdarkness]

I have put up the draft page for this methodology in accessing the I Ching as a guide to giving one the 'big picture' where our consciousness cannot 'see' what is going on other than detecting a 'vibe' of "there is something wrong here; what is pushing my buttons, causing these feelings?"

(the orginal was a word document done some time ago and converted to HTML that 'got confused' when it tried to load into the browser! - vague stuff, that is now more 'refined')

This page uses a link (near the bottom) to the ICPlus questions method to interrogate one's feelings about the context re 'facts/values' etc etc from one's perspective.

The feelings one is having is in resonance to what is happening in the context, the 'big picture' in that our emotions work holistically, immediately, organically, with the context. Our emotions being a source of relating to the context will always detect an emotional element in that context (even the sense of 'correctness' has been mapped to a feeling associated with syntax processing in the brain) - through IDM analysis we can map-out the set of possible expressions that elicit sub-conscious resonance 'in here'. Our consciousnes lets us interrogate that resonance using the questions given, where they reflect how the brain deals with novelty. Given the results of that interrogation we can identify the hexagram that 'best fits' the context and is 'pushing' our buttons.

This form of the IC will always work, giving consistant results re what is pushing our emotions - BUT it does not deal with such questions as 'does he love me?' etc since it focuses on the context, the surroundings that are pushing implicitly and as such the IC is there to work as a guide.

Feedback, suggestions welcome - I do aim to 'polish up' the current questions page to fit better the particular Emotional IC perspective. The draft is presented to see if you can 'get it' based on the text so far.

Chris.

 

[lightofdarkness]

oops - the link:

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

 

[matt]

Comments on writing prose only (you know I dont agree with all of your ideas lol)

Hey Chris, its much clearer now - good job. Just one suggestion:- you used the expression 'local' a couple of times throughout the article. This expression is well known to all of us because we have often debated on the univerals vs locals and so on. But if someone was reading for the first time, they may not have a good picture in their head about what you might be referring to. So only tip:- clarify the term 'local' to the reader in some way.

Apart from that, great! I enjoyed reading it.

 

[heylise]

Good!!
I read part of it, but printed the rest for later reading. I like it a lot so far.

LiSe

 

[lightofdarkness]

Hi Matt, LiSe.

I have 'refined' the prose re context etc (and added some qualifiers etc) in the main page http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/EmotionalIC.html and have restructured the questions page format to bring out the emotions focus etc.
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/lofting/icplusEProact.html

Thus one can bookmark the questions page once familar with the concepts covered in the main page. There is still refinement needed in the questions pages but it gives good results even as it is now.

Chris.

 

[matt]

Hey Chris,

Thats much better, it reads in a very flowing manner now. Obviously I am a little subjective when I'm reading you material because I'm familair with the specialised terms you use, but I tried to imagine that I didnt know anything about the subject when I was reading, and I think it expresses itself very well to someone without specialised knowledge too.

Good job

p.s. This is not a criticism Chris, just a constructove comment:- if more of your pages were written in this way, it would be great, because it allows a larger audience to enjoy your work. And if you ever want a proof reader, Im willing, I'm a reading-addict lol

 

[lightofdarkness]

Hi all,

I have made some changes to the hexagram display areas by removing unnecessary material such that we get just one or possibly two hexagrams. I have also re-written the text linked at the top to cover the emotional IC characteristics expressed in the first and possibly second hexagrams.

The direct link (bypassing the opening page covering the idea) is:

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

I could add material covering the recommended response to the hexagram (based on trigram swapping) but I think that might clutter things too much and we an leave it up to the user to decide what they want to do (if anything).

I may add more associations to each of the questions to allow for the user to get a better 'feel' for what is intended. Thus asking about facts/values also covers particulars/generals, personal/social etc etc but there would be a need to keep it as generic as possible to elicit the emotional response free of the need for more complex understandings.

Chris

 

[lightofdarkness]

Elswhere someone raised the issue re exploration etc and so an increasingly proactive perspective that introduces a finer scale of emotional dynamics.

I have reviewed Plutchik et al re a the sense of exploration (which is
proactive) and it 'fits' to the realm of anger issues in that it maps to acquiring more information and so a need to replace 'old' with 'new'.

The basic traits from Plutchik applied to the IDM ordering cover - Approach (fight element of fight/flight):

Explore (part of the anger quality - heaven)
Mate (part of the sex quality - lake)
Injest (part of the acceptance quality - fire)
Orient (part of the surprise/ 'new' quality - thunder) (this is the 'reactive' side of the proactive dimension)

The other side of the coin gives us - Avoid (flight element of the
fight/flight):

Retreat (part of the anticipation quality - wind) (proactive side of the reactive
dimension)
Vomit (part of the rejection quality - water)
Cry for help (part of the grief quality - mountain)
Freeze (part of the fear quality - earth)

These give us dichotomies of:

Explore/Freeze - Anger/Fear
Mate/Cry for help - Sex/Grief (loss of love) Injest/Vomit - accept/reject
Orient/Retreat - surprise(new)/anticipation

With these we could extend the questions of the emotional IC by adding more details on possible associations but the issue is the inclusion of 'self' - the original focus is on resonance of 'primate' emotions free of the details of that self puts in. From a hexagram perspective, the resonance is to the bottom trigram, which is all the 'primate' state understands but that resonance will form the foundation for hexagrams that reason/consciousness does understand and so will 'fill in the dots' so to speak when the hexagram appears.

For example, asking such questions as are you feeling nauseous, a need to vomit etc, would bring out the description of a context mapped to rejection issues where the context is eliciting that emotion through resonance. If we move into the realm of self then we have to cover issues where WE are painting the context with emotion rather than resonating with it.

BTW - Plutchik focuses on an appraisal function in between stimulus and emotional response. The emotional IC focuses on the HARD CODING of basic emotions rather than derived emotions and so emotional resonance - there is no 'appraisal' as such. With the development of a sense of SELF can come this mediation position. For the emotional IC the appraisal is after the event in the form of consciousness enquiring about the feelings through the use of generic questions. Reason comes AFTER emotions such that any DELAY element is one step past the 'instincts' level we are working with a la resonance where the feelings are unconditional, immediate, discomforting.

To move into 'higher emotions', derived emotions, may break the process.

Chris.

 

[martin]

I think if you want to get the whole spectrum of emotions the basic dichotomy is analogous to the sympathetic - parasympathetic (S-P) nervous systems and the corresponding hormones.

Fight - flight is a subdivision of the S side of this dichotomy (andrenaline) and if you exclusively focus on that you miss out a whole class of emotions that relate to the P system (insulin) and have nothing or less to do with fight-flight.
These include feelings of relaxation, peace, merging (being at one with) affection, empathy and love. Sexual feelings are also more P. Too much activation of the S system inhibits sexual arousal.

If we start with S-P as the basic dichotomy the next question is how to map the differences to trigrams.
Predominantly P emotions are generally more yin. But what is "more yin", which sequence do we use?

In the binary order lake is more yang than thunder but is it also more S and less P? It is rather the other way around. Lake is more P than thunder. The family arrangement seems to give a better fit than the binary order, in this and other cases.
The "mother" and the "daughters" are more P and the "father" and the "sons" are more S.
The father is most S, the mother is most P. the others are inbetween.

So we get something like this?

Less P and more S =>
000 011 101 110 001 010 100 111

 

[lightofdarkness]

Hi Martin,

an interesting dichotomy and well worth investigating but I think it actually maps to fight/flight. Note that love, empathy etc emerge from the self-referencing of fight/flight where fight/flight are labels that reflect dynamics of context replacement/coexistence. See the references etc in my IDM page on emotions:

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

Where the fight/flight dichotomy appears to be badly labelled but traditionally maintained in that it allows for the development of positive/negative emotions. As we move from 8 to 64 qualities so finer distinctions bring out the play of fight/flight and so of S/P.

The underlying dynamics allow for the resulting dimension of emotions to tie-in to neurochemical connections to the S/P realm where the resonance of 'anger' elicits S/P dynamics in that these are responses to stimulus where the resonance of anger sets off the dynamics (increases adrenaline ec) - IOW the self-referencing of fight/flight overlays the S/P self-referencing - thus in the IDM mapping so anger/sex have the same root in the generic concept of 'context replacement' and we see here operating the S/P dichotomy in the same space as fight/flight.

The trigram of sexual love (lake) pairs with the trigram loss of love (mountain) to cover all aspects of love/suffering and passion in general. (and so empathy is covered where hex 61 manifesting the nature of empathy/sympathy etc - this associates empathy with a context of 'self-reflection' (the mirror element) and a text focused on anticipation (WIND top) - we can
'feel' what they feel and so anticipate where it is going as through the resonance of the whole we 'know' the outcome etc).

In the sexual love pairing so the temporal element is present in the 'now' of lake vs issues of past/future in mountain.

It is likely that the above are categories of structure (as the binary sequence favours) and so not of any following dynamics (that the family arrangement may reflect - there are also the five-phase perspectives to review but the cycle is fixed on production to consumption and so a sequence whereas the Emotional IC (EIC) picks up any resonance and so the position in the cycle).

In the EIC the focus is on resonance as a drum will resonate with a tuning fork. There is no serial 'dynamic' as such, all is 'immediate', parallel rather than serialised. IOW the intent is to draw out what one's emotions are resonating with 'out there' IN GENERAL in the form of a hexagram. Consciousness then 'recognises' the details not necessarily understood by emotions since consciousness is 'precise', detailed, when compared to emotions - the only issue for consciousness is that it is experiencing 'suppression' of the explicit emotion and so only feeling 'discomfort' - by accessing the emotion we draw to attention what is causing the discomfort even if it is a taboo issue. That is were consciousness can be 'surprised' in that we have revealed what the subconscious is suppressing due to learnt social rules (or even self-imposed 'blockage', denial etc)

There is no consideration as yet on more precise dynamics as that raises issues of involvment of self etc... issues that come up with consideration of 'exploration' etc.

Chris.

 

[lightofdarkness]

BTW -if 61 represents the empathy/sympathy factor at work 'NOW', so 62 is the same factor applied to a PAST/FUTURE focus - as in (a) traditions (accumulation of past) and (b) the continuation of the collective, the maintaining of collective loyalty, into the future. This the exaggeration of traditions to maintain the continuation of the collective, and so not 'now' but into the future.

Emotionally we have issues of loss of love (blockage, stopped etc) out of which is a focus on the 'new', surprise, orientation (thunder in upper as a sense of awareness). This takes us into 62 as the re-affirmation of love but love of the past in the form of traditions etc and so drawing on a sense of empathy, of resonance as 61 does.

I think here you can see the upper position of grief as being discernment where from lost loves or imagined future loves we learn discernment and so quality control (the benefits of suffering etc)

Chris.