Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
Occasionally -- not often, but with increasing frequency lately, as I get more comfortable consulting it -- I get the distinct impression that the I Ching is joking around with me: sometimes rolling its eyes and making fun of me, sometimes saying things to make me laugh.
Any of the rest of you ever notice anything similar?
Occasionally -- not often, but with increasing frequency lately, as I get more comfortable consulting it -- I get the distinct impression that the I Ching is joking around with me: sometimes rolling its eyes and making fun of me, sometimes saying things to make me laugh.
Any of the rest of you ever notice anything similar?
People like Chris, the guy who posted just before me in this thread, think and say that the traditional way of consulting the Yi is magical and random.
no. magical/random. it depends on your belief system as to whether the derivation is by random means or some magical connection with the moment. Any coin toss, yarrow stick use, marble use, 'drop the book to open at a page' use is not consistant in coming up with the best fit hexagram.
To supplement this, and to get more consistantly the 'best fit', try using questions. E.g.
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/lofting/icplusEProact.html.
Not understanding these properties/methods associated with the I Ching will mean that in some coin toss you will get a hexagram you consider to be the best fit and in that consideration think the IC is 'being silly'!
What I like about tossing the coins is that it bypasses my intellect - it helps counterbalance my overdependence on intellect. I also like it because it works with uncanny utility. You call it magical, but I say you don't know what you're talking about, for two reasons: the coin toss method works, as I said, with uncanny utility for me; second, whether I use your method of getting a hexagram or my method, I'm still faced with interpreting the bugger. And in that (if you take the time to read what I wrote to the poster, above), it is very, very difficult to escape subjectivity. In fact, it's impossible. But in MAKING THE EFFORT to understand what it means in the context of my life and my question, insights do arise.
I disagree. Not only that, you don't actually know for a fact that what you say is true. You're as opinionated as I am.
dobro said:What I like about tossing the coins is that it bypasses my intellect - it helps counterbalance my overdependence on intellect.
dobro said:I also like it because it works with uncanny utility.
Occasionally -- not often, but with increasing frequency lately, as I get more comfortable consulting it -- I get the distinct impression that the I Ching is joking around with me: sometimes rolling its eyes and making fun of me, sometimes saying things to make me laugh.
Any of the rest of you ever notice anything similar?
You skip the hot issue, Chris: 'do the coins fall random during an IC consultation or not?'.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'basic probability theory' but as far as the math goes, there is nothing there that states that the coins should fall random or not in such a situation.
From a physics perspective nonrandomness would be hard to explain, that is true.
To 19th century physics the universe seemed entirely predictable, at least in principle. But with 20th century physics behind us (quantum mechanics and later chaos theory) we are not so sure anymore. The universe is in fact, as far as we know, basically random on the quantum level.
However, this is perhaps not important for coin throws. Perhaps we are able to manipulate coins with great precision, unconsciously ?
. Random is what we call what appears to have no order, but order - whether we can recognize it or not – is inherent in all things.
The difference between the 20th and the 21th century is the location of scientists.
During this century most scientists will escape to a parallel universe through a worm hole in their mind that was created by one of Bruce's squiggling worms.
You skip the hot issue, Chris: 'do the coins fall random during an IC consultation or not?'
I think the random coin falling thing is a red herring. Either coins always fall “randomly” or they never do.
Nope, not true. You disproved yourself in your previous post. In that post, you said that 'the Yi speaks to who you are about the condition you're in'. Well, people are at different levels of being, with different capacities of will. (Jesus and the Buddha were different than you and me, in other words, and had way more control over their wills, which had way more power than you or I do.) So I can easily see that for one person, the coins will fall randomly, and that for another person, the coins will fall meaningfully.
It's a variation of why I don't believe Chris when he describes the Yi coin toss as random and magical. I don't believe it. And none of his scientific and quasi-scientific theories have one little bit more certainty to them than my belief that the coins fall meaningfully.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).