The I Ching, Small World Networks, and the Dodecahedron

[lightofdarkness]

Interpreting things from metaphors sourced in a high precision, and so dimensionless, algebraic, perspective, is often complemented by analysis from a dimensional, geometric, perspective. Here we cover some 'simple' mappings of IDM concepts from the ICPlus metaphor to small world networks and the dodecahedron.

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/The%20Dodecahedron.htm

Chris.

 

[yly2pg1]

At the turn of the millennium few years back, a group of Chinese launched a journey. The journey traces along an ancient roadmap from Greece to Egypt, Israel to the old address of Babylon, entering Pakistan, Ganges River, Nepal and back to China, in the search to learn more about the China civilization ...

 

[yly2pg1]

Going through IDM materials, as a metaphor, is a kind of expedition ...

 

[yly2pg1]

"As we review the dynamics of the I Ching, so we move from a focus on 64 ?static? hexagrams to 64 ?changing? hexagrams. This is in fact a movement from medium precision to high precision where we move to considering 2^12 (4096) distinctions as compared to the hexagram?s 2^6 (64) distinctions, and the trigram?s 2^3 (8) distinctions; with each distinction being made within the context set by the previous.

Thus, what are labelled as ?changing line? hexagrams are in fact static dodecagrams ?compressed? into six-line expressions. That compression ensures FOUR qualities per line (not changing x 2, changing x 2).

This explains how the IC Plus is phrased?

E.g.
1. Context is proactive (no changing)
2. Was proactive but now not sure (changing)
3. Context is reactive (no changing)
4. Was reactive but now not sure (changing)

 

[yly2pg1]

It is said a language reflects the mindset of her users. Is there any scientific explanation for that? And how?

The Chinese Character and Radicals

(1)Each character has a fundamental component, or radical
(Chinese: b? shou, Japanese: bushu, literally "initial portion"),
and this design principle is used in Chinese dictionaries to logically order characters in sets.

(2)Full characters are ordered according to their initial radical, which fall into roughly 200 types.

(3)Then these are subcategorised by their total number of strokes.

This principle of categorisation is exploited by everybody who must learn to write Chinese characters: the vast number of Chinese characters can be much more easily memorized if they are mentally broken down into their constituent radicals.

It is usually said that about 3,000 characters are needed for basic literacy in Chinese (for example, to read a Chinese newspaper), and a well-educated person will know well in excess of 4,000 to 5,000 characters.

Note that it is not necessary to know a character for every known word of Chinese,
as the majority of modern Chinese words are compounds made of two or more Morphemes and are thus written not with a single unique character, but with multiple, usually common, characters.

(There are 6763 Hanzi in GB-2313, the Chinese national standard.
The Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi proficiency test covers approximately 5000 hanzi.)

Reference:CC

 

[yly2pg1]

Illustration with Table:

<table border=1><tr><td>2^x</TD><TD>number</TD><TD>no. of radicals/characters</TD><TD>remarks</TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2⁰</TD><TD>1</TD><TD>1-stroke radical</TD><TD></TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2¹</TD><TD>2</TD><TD></TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2²</TD><TD>4</TD><TD></TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2³</TD><TD>8</TD><TD>1-stroke radicals(diff spins)</TD><TD></TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2⁴</TD><TD>16</TD><TD> x-stroke radicals</TD><TD></TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2⁵</TD><TD>32</TD><TD>x-stroke radicals</TD><TD></TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2⁶</TD><TD>64</TD><TD>x-stroke radicals</TD><TD></TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2⁷</TD><TD>128</TD><TD>x-stroke radicals</TD><TD></TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2⁸</TD><TD>256</TD><TD>214 radicals</TD><TD> Kangxi dictionary</TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2⁹</TD><TD>512</TD><TD>no. of characters</TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2¹⁰</TD><TD>1024</TD><TD>no. of characters</TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2¹¹</TD><TD>2048</TD><TD>no. of characters needed to read Chinese newspaper</TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2¹²</TD><TD>4096</TD><TD>no of characters needed for well-literated</TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2¹³</TD><TD>8192</TD><TD>no. of characters</TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2¹⁴</TD><TD>16384</TD><TD>no. of characters</TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2¹⁵</TD><TD>32768</TD><TD>Kangxi Dictionary lists about 40000 characters</TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD>2¹⁶</TD><TD>65536</TD><TD>modern Zhonghua Zihai lists in excess of 80000</TD><TD></td></tr></table>_{A radical is sometimes a morphemes}

Is DODECAHEDRON reflects the number of Chinese characters used in the daily life?

 

[lightofdarkness]

? possible ;-)

Chinese seperates visual and auditory allowing for many auditory forms to refer to the one set of visuals.

Japanese mix the two in their script (kana/kanji)

English etc is auditory all the way (even the written forms are representing audition not images).

Japanese and Polynesian have different ways of dealing with vowels (a whole setence can be made of vowels only) and so some research indicated differences in brain dynamics - and recent work comparing English to Mandarin brought out differences.

 

[yly2pg1]

Abstract:
_{The large number of Chinese characters is due to their logographic nature ? for every morpheme there must be a symbol, and sometimes there are variant characters have developed for the same morpheme.
It has also been claimed that the sheer number of characters is used as a way to separate scholars from the ordinary, and perhaps even to keep certain texts from being read by but the most scholarly.}

 

[yly2pg1]

Abstract:
_{Note that these ?forms? idealisations are just that, idealisations, where the development of ?ideal forms? stems from basic, mindless, growth dynamics. Thus, the tetrahedron (a closed system by the way, as are all ?ideal? forms) is a manifestation of our sense of taste developing by maximising the distance of each of the four tastes from each other, and so ensure ?clarity? in perception (plant leaves do the same ?optimising of distance? and in so doing show Fibonacci spirals in their growth).}

A typical English dictionary might have 200 000 entries, while its Chinese counterpart will have only 50 000.

Is that a kind of space-optimising in the development of Chinese character, to ensure 'clarity' in auditory perception?

 

[yly2pg1]

Correction:
Is that a kind of space-optimising in the development of Chinese character, to ensure 'clarity' in visual perception?

 

[yly2pg1]

Shuowen jiezi

 

[yly2pg1]

Abstract:

In the foundational Chinese dictionary Shuowen jiezi, Xu Shen (A.D. 30-124) 'formulates' his "six techniques" liu shu typology concerning character formation:

[Of the] Six Techniques [of character formation],
(1) zhi shi ["indicatives"]: Such characters one understands at a single glance; mere examination reveals their meaning.
(2) xiang xing ["giving an image of the shape"], the outline of of which forms an object. According to their shape one glosses and voices them: ri and yue ["sun" and "moon"] are examples [i.e., the reading of the character is the name of the thing it depicts] ...
(3) xingsheng, the composite of shape-element [signific] and sound-element [phonetic] ...
(4) huiyi, combines different meaning-elements [to make a new meaning] ...
(5) zhuanzhu, a character is appropriated [exclusively] to indicate a meaning other than its original meaning ...
(6) jiajie, is the use of homophones: where there is no character for a certain word, one makes do with another character having simlar sound.
(Cited in Saussy, 2001:204)