The manifestation of God in Yi - 元 亨 利 貞

[yly2pg1]

Quote:

Alvin Plantinga's modern ontological proof for the existence of God:

1. By definition a maximally great being is one that exists necessarily and necessarily is omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good. (Premise)

2. Possibly a maximally great being exists. (Premise)

3. Therefore, possibly it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists (By 1 and 2)

4. Therefore, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists. (By 3 and S5)

5. Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists. (By 4 and since necessarily true propositions are true.)

 

[yly2pg1]

What will Yi says about this?

 

[yly2pg1]

Quote:

Alvin Plantinga's modern ontological proof for the existence of God:

...
...

5. Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists. (By 4 and since necessarily true propositions are true.)

Heaven - 乾 (Hexagram 1)
元，亨，利，貞 - the manifestation of omniscience and omnipotence ...



Why "perfectly good"?

Earth - 坤 (Hexagram 2)
The manifestation of spontaneity and receptivity, with the power to give form to things ... the agape

 

[nicky_p]

When I was studying philosophy at school Karen Armstrong came and gave a lecture. She offers a counter argument:

The preconceptions:
1. God is omnipotent (all-powerful)
2. God is omniscient (all-knowing)
3. God is benevolent (wholly good)

The argument:
1. If God is omnipotent then He has the power to stop evil and suffering. If He can but does not because He does not know about it then He cannot be omniscient.
2. If God is omnipotent then he has the power to stop evil and suffering. If He can but does not because He does not want to then He cannot be benevolent.
3. If God is omniscient and benevolent He knows of and wishes to stop evil and suffering. If He does not because He cannot then He cannot be omnipotent.

Conclusion:
1. This God cannot exist.
2. If this God does exist He is not worthy of worship.

 

[heylise]

That is a very human judgment about what God is supposed to do. If he would stop all evil and suffering, would that make the world any better? I doubt it, I even think it would stop the world.
"He does not because he does not know about it.." so if he knew he would stop it?

Both the existence and the non-existence of God are proven in a totally unscientific way. They sound both like a convicition which is proven through nonsense arguments because it has to be proven at any cost.

It is still the image of the old man with long beard sitting on a cloud. One child thinks he sits there, the other that he does not. So they get into an argument. God who happens to walk by in the form of an ant, just shakes his head.

Last sentence is nonsense too btw

Is it?

LiSe

 

[nicky_p]

Hi LiSe,

I think it ends up a semantical argument. If you discount any one of the preconceptions or if your understanding of evil or benevolence differs from that of the person presenting then the arguments fall down. I’d agree that it does bring it down to human judgement. There is a long list of well-respected philosophers that have attempted to do this and personally I would add the Buddha and Jesus to the list even though there may be those that shout blasphemy. I’ve noticed in arguments about God there seems to be a kind of disdain among some for human judgement in the assumption that it leaves out the possibility of any reconciliation with other beings – animal, plant, anything else you can think of ..or not think of but, I am human. At this time I cannot say with absolute certainty anything about the experiences or beliefs of those other beings and as it stands it’s hard enough trying to communicate human existence and experience to other humans! I wonder if animals have the same arguments about God? If humans can’t agree on an idea about God(s?!) how can we communicate it to animals to see if the ideas correspond?

Personally, I don’t think the argument is about God. I think it’s about the institution of religion and trying to break that down. It just so happens that you can’t argue one without the other.

 

[martin]

I always loved the old proof of Anselmus - I think it's the same as Plantinga's, basically - that goes (somewhat simplified) like this: If God didn't exist he wouldn't be perfect, but God is perfect, therefore he must exist.

Convincing? Logically no, not at all . But there is an unexpected twist in it that snaps us out of our limited perspectives and makes us laugh.
And is that not like having a glimpse of what God or Her Consciousness must be like? Snap!

So, in a sense, Anselmus did prove God's existence, not logically but in another way, much more direct. By demonstrating Her consciousness and let us participate in it, even if only for a fleeting moment.
Isn't it?

Snap!

 

[lindsay]

The Book of Job was written to resolve the very issues Nicky brings up. It says: the ways of God are beyond human understanding. Period. End of subject. Finis. Any questions? Have a nice day.

 

[rosada]

The argument here - as I understand it - seems to be that the existence of suffering is proof that there is no God because if there were an all powerful, all knowing, all good diety, suffering would not exist. However experience shows that suffering actually causes people to feel there is - and that they are personally connected to - an all powerful caring supreme diety. So maybe we need a whole 'nother line of reasoning to approach this riddle.

 

[yly2pg1]

The argument here - as I understand it - seems to be that the existence of suffering is proof that there is no God because if there were an all powerful, all knowing, all good diety, suffering would not exist. However experience shows that suffering actually causes people to feel there is - and that they are personally connected to - an all powerful caring supreme diety. So maybe we need a whole 'nother line of reasoning to approach this riddle.

Man experiences his surroundings via "metaphors".

(1) In Yi, the metaphors are grounded in the "archetype" of Yin/Yang .

(2) In the West (and to a great extend the civilization of mankind) for the past 2000+ years, the metaphors are grounded to the "architect" of the archetype.

=> and that forms a long forgotten dichotomy - Archetype/ Architect

 

[yly2pg1]

(1) In Yi, the metaphors are grounded in the "archetype" of Yin/Yang .

The Chinese coins this as Tai Ji.

 

[yly2pg1]

...
(2) In the West (and to a great extend the civilization of mankind) for the past 2000+ years, the metaphors are grounded to the "architect" of the archetype.

The Chinese coins this as Wu Ji.

 

[yly2pg1]

My opinion, the God and his manifestation (trace) is a form of dichotomy ---

Wu Ji / Tai Ji

 

[RindaR]

Theodicy per Rinda holds that in order for there to be any kind of creation or manifestation there has to bve some kind of boundary or limit. Once those are established there exists the possibility that those boundaries may be broached, hurt, deformed, etc.,etc, and thus by extension, suffering. In order to experience love, good fortune, to gain wisdom, the opposites must exist somewhere. IMO it's foolish to think we can escape one or the other....

Rinda

 

[stevev]

Why did we loose faith …

in the old monkey gods, and the holy banana ?

39.6 -> 53 (Obstruction, Development)

 

[yly2pg1]

Theodicy per Rinda holds that in order for there to be any kind of creation or manifestation there has to bve some kind of boundary or limit. Once those are established there exists the possibility that those boundaries may be broached, hurt, deformed, etc.,etc, and thus by extension, suffering.

This is under the scope of "Root dichotomy".

0/1 - the root
00, 01, 10, 11 - each number at 2nd digit (of digram) is the root
000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111 - each number at 3rd digit (of trigram) is the root

In order to experience love, good fortune, to gain wisdom, the opposites must exist somewhere. IMO it's foolish to think we can escape one or the other....

This is coined as "Symmetric dichotomy" :

0/1 - an opposite mirror image
00, 01 / 10, 11 - an opposite mirror image
000, 001, 010, 011/ 100, 101, 110, 111 - an opposite mirror image ...

 

[yly2pg1]

I think it ends up a semantical argument. ...

Personally, I don’t think the argument is about God. I think it’s about the institution of religion and trying to break that down. It just so happens that you can’t argue one without the other.

The argument is about "Anti-symmetric dichotomy" - a focus on hierarchy and so rigid ordering (with the 'yang' element emerging from the yin element)

0 ->1
00 -> 01 ->10 ->11
000 -> 001 -> 010 -> 011 ->100 -> 101 -> 110 -> 111

 

[bradford]

(1) In Yi, the metaphors are grounded in the "archetype" of Yin/Yang .

No, they're not. Yang doesn't even appear in the Zhouyi.
And Yin appears only once, as shade the crane hide in.
Neither are night and day grounded in the archeytpe of yin/yang.
These are grounded in the earth turning around.

 

[lightofreason]

No, they're not. Yang doesn't even appear in the Zhouyi.
And Yin appears only once, as shade the crane hide in.
Neither are night and day grounded in the archeytpe of yin/yang.
These are grounded in the earth turning around.

dichotomy Brad. dichotomy. The moment you make a distinction and so contain noise you open up self-referencing - what you CALL the experience, the feelings, is up to local context that will, over time zoom-in to a basic dichotomy.

dark side, light side, flags in the sun, whatever - it all comes down to formalisation in mapping self-referencing and so emerges the yin/yang in one culture, earth/air in another etc etc - all difference expressions of the one set of qualities we all have as a species - a sense of dichotomisation, applied recursively.

Chris.

 

[yly2pg1]

No, they're not. Yang doesn't even appear in the Zhouyi.
And Yin appears only once, as shade the crane hide in.
Neither are night and day grounded in the archeytpe of yin/yang.
These are grounded in the earth turning around.

Feel free to solve the riddle ...

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=3544

 

[bradford]

All I was saying was that Yin and Yng are derivative with regard to the Yi,
based on the graphics and the occurrence of linguistic dichotomy, and not
culturally prior in any way that would allow you to say correctly that anything
in the Yi is founded on this dichotomy,
And also that the Yin and Yang dichotomy is ontologically prior to very little in
reality. This is a tool derived from our perception of things in relationships of
apparent dichotomy and then superimposed upon them. Reify it how we will,
it's in our heads, not "out there". There are also may kinds of dichotomy, and
the oversimplification of all things into one sort is absurd, as in "us is to them
as good is to evil as man is to woman as causasian is to negro". Reifying
yin and yang in this way leads to ignorance.

 

[bruce_g]

Going with Chris on this one. True, duality, dichotomy, yin-yang, whatever, is only our expression of what we perceive, but regardless of the cultural (local) expression, it’s the same rock-n-roll. What difference does it make, if the sun revolves around the earth or the earth around the sun? It doesn't change the phenomenon of light and dark.

 

[bradford]

It doesn't change the phenomenon of light and dark.

Well, there you said it. Phenomena, not numina. Not fundamental, not elemental.
Not in themselves existing without both a point of view and an organ of sense.
Put an eyeball into the darkest part of space and it, too, will see a sky full of stars.
Some believe that Yin and Yang are ontologically or metaphysically real and
prior to light and dark like some sort of Platonic form or ideal. Even some of the
Han Dynasty comments on the Zhouyi, in and out of the Ten Wings, assert this.
I just don't go to that church. Most of what we talk about is formed in our heads,
from our senses and our languages.

 

[bruce_g]

Well, there you said it. Phenomena, not numina. Not fundamental, not elemental.
Not in themselves existing without both a point of view and an organ of sense.
Put an eyeball into the darkest part of space and it, too, will see a sky full of stars.
Some believe that Yin and Yang are ontologically or metaphysically real and
prior to light and dark like some sort of Platonic form or ideal. Even some of the
Han Dynasty comments on the Zhouyi, in and out of the Ten Wings, assert this.
I just don't go to that church. Most of what we talk about is formed in our heads,
from our senses and our languages.

I'm with ya there, but also not fixed there, because it's hard to reason the sexes away. Opposites due appear to be fundamental in this dualistic experience we call life – the phenomenal world. However, the specific term, yin- yang, as it relates to the development of Yijing, may in fact be a fallacy. I’ll trust your knowledge in that area, because I don’t have an entire other lifetime to study the Zhouyi.

 

[martin]

Yin and yang, in the way these labels are often used, are relative, isn't it, like left and right?
What is to the left for me may be to the right for you, it depends on where you are and where I am. Likewise, what is yin from one position can be yang from another, or the other way around.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say 'more yin' instead of 'yin' and 'more yang' instead of 'yang'. More yin or yang than a chosen 'zero point'.
We have chosen a zero point - consciously or unconsciously - before we label anything as yin or yang. The same for many other dichotomies, left-right, warm-cold, high-low, dark-light, polite-rude, ...

The world is not 'made of' yin and yang anymore than it is 'made of' of left and right. Yin and yang are not like substances. They are more like means of orientation. Same for other dichotomies.

Exceptions? What comes to mind is the Kelvin temperature scale which has a 'zero' (-273 Celsius or something) that is also a lower bound. There is no 'minus' in this scale. Nothing can be colder than zero degrees Kelvin. But that zero is very far from where we live, an academic zero, kind of. What then, distance? Is there something like a negative distance? Guess not, but anwyay, I think if we are talking yin-yang we are nearly always talking about a scale with a zero that is not an upper or lower bound, a zero in the middle somewhere. Like left-right, basically, yes?

Okay, male and female then, is that an exception, in this sense that it is perhaps a substantial dichotomy? Not like left-right?
Some males are more male or female than others males, some females are more male or female than other females. Relative. And yet. I still call men men, however male or female they are. And women women.
Yes, of course, some people are inbetween, neither this nor that or both, but it seems that male-female is touching something that is not only left-right. Not only relative, it has a hard core, so to speak. Absolute.
I don't know, just thinking aloud, hard nut to crack? What do you think?

 

[lindsay]

Umm, we're getting into pretty deep water here - could someone throw me a lifeline or two?

On "Theodicy per Rinda", Rinda said: "In order to experience love, good fortune, to gain wisdom, the opposites must exist somewhere. IMO it's foolish to think we can escape one or the other...." Rinda, are you saying some things imply the existence of their opposites? Wisdom implies foolishness, good implies evil, love implies hate, good luck implies bad luck? That seems reasonable but there is another possibility. St. Augustine said evil was merely the absence of good. You could say foolishness is the absence of wisdom, or hate the absence of love. In this way, the only truly existing qualities are goodness, love, wisdom, and so on, and the lack of these qualities creates pain and suffering and sin and all kinds of other problems.

Brad and Bruce, you guys are leaving me far, far behind. Brad, are you saying the Yi is not based on an underlying theory of dualism? Yep, I agree with that if you are. Also, are you saying that what is real is the many, the ten thousand things? Metaphysical schemes like dualism are derived from thinking about the ten thousands things. But dualism did not create the ten thousand things, they were all here first. Maybe this isn't what you're saying?

Bruce, I think a lot depends on how much importance we give to the hexagrams as symbols. Certainly there are only two kinds of lines, whole and broken. But how important was that in determining (or assigning) meaning to the hexagrams? It is also true there are quite a few hexagrams with paired meanings, but their line texts rarely parallel each other. You could also argue the underlying basis of the Yi is the eight trigrams, but again the text is difficult to reconcile with this notion. I'm not at all sure the Yi was first invented by a systematic philosopher.

Speaking of God, how do you translate di4 帝 in 42.2?

Lindsay

 

[bradford]

Brad, are you saying the Yi is not based on an underlying theory of dualism? Yep, I agree with that if you are. Also, are you saying that what is real is the many, the ten thousand things? Metaphysical schemes like dualism are derived from thinking about the ten thousands things. But dualism did not create the ten thousand things, they were all here first. Maybe this isn't what you're saying?

Yes, that's what I was saying. As to the myriiad beings, I have no problem with the paradox that the ten thousand things constitute or are imbued with a unity. To quote Eckhart, the Christian mystic that even us atheists love, "the One is not less the One in a thousand stones than in four stones".

Speaking of God, how do you translate di4 帝 in 42.2?

"The divine", with the understanding that the fact that the king makes sacrifices to this
does not mean that it exists, or that it exists in a particular form. It merely describes what the king is doing, thinks he is doing, or what the people see him as doing.
[/QUOTE]

 

[RindaR]

Umm, we're getting into pretty deep water here - could someone throw me a lifeline or two?

On "Theodicy per Rinda", Rinda said: "In order to experience love, good fortune, to gain wisdom, the opposites must exist somewhere. IMO it's foolish to think we can escape one or the other...." Rinda, are you saying some things imply the existence of their opposites? Wisdom implies foolishness, good implies evil, love implies hate, good luck implies bad luck? That seems reasonable but there is another possibility. St. Augustine said evil was merely the absence of good. You could say foolishness is the absence of wisdom, or hate the absence of love. In this way, the only truly existing qualities are goodness, love, wisdom, and so on, and the lack of these qualities creates pain and suffering and sin and all kinds of other problems.

<snip>

Lindsay

Not necessarily opposites (0 point in the middle?) but differentiation, boundaries that may be impinged upon, changed, expanded or contracted, or "damaged" causing pain in a sentient and limited being...

interesting discussion...

Rinda

 

[bruce_g]

Bruce, I think a lot depends on how much importance we give to the hexagrams as symbols. Certainly there are only two kinds of lines, whole and broken. But how important was that in determining (or assigning) meaning to the hexagrams? It is also true there are quite a few hexagrams with paired meanings, but their line texts rarely parallel each other. You could also argue the underlying basis of the Yi is the eight trigrams, but again the text is difficult to reconcile with this notion. I'm not at all sure the Yi was first invented by a systematic philosopher.

No, I wouldn’t argue those things, because they are a construct, albeit an ingenious construct. Fire, for example, is female, second daughter, in trigram symbolism system, but is fire really female? I don’t think so. But, is female only a mental construct? I don’t think so. I perceive it more as an inherent feature of duality, which is a necessity for the manifestation of the ten thousand things, of which fire is one.

 

[lightofreason]

From the position of eliciting meaning, or more so categories used to represent/communicate meaning, we notice that the elicitation of categories is done at any level of analysis through the containment of noise.

This containment will elicit order in the form of the Sierpinksi gasket and its local 'variations' - Google "chaos game" for more on this.

The Sierpinksi gasket is the 'seed' for meaning and for the I Ching is the foundation of the binomial theorem - from which we can derive the hexagrams (1+x)^6 where x = 1.

What is of essential importance is the self-referencing that occurs here in the form of a dichotomy.

What is covered here is the fact that containment of noise will elicit order in the form of self-referencing, and so the 'binary' sequence of the I Ching, but as POTENTIALS and so in need of actualisation in the form of local customisation.

Neurologically, the dichotomy of yang/yin is isomorphic to what/where, male/female, differentiating/integrating, positive/negative etc and is open to THREE forms of interpretation where those three forms reflect biases in brain dynamics - thus the symmetric form of interpretation deals with magnitudes, opposites; the anti-symmetric with hierarchy, and the asymmetric with spectrums (sequencing etc, complements)

And so we have male FROM female (asymmetric), male opposed to female (symmetric) and male/female in family order (patriarchic or matriarchic hierarchies - chimps vs bonobos etc)

The elicitation of order from the containment of noise ensures the manifestation of meaning in the form of dichotomies and their self-referencing - as such, ANY specialist perspective focused on dichotomy representations will be a source of analogy to describe 'all there is' and that includes other specialisations, still formed from dichotomies but 'covered up' by local colourings/'foilage' etc

Note that this containment of noise and elicitation of order covers all scales - and so particle physics (fermion/boson), molecular biology (RNA/DNA) etc etc where 'blend, bond, bound, bind' form basic categories derivable from self-referencing in the containment of noise and Mathematics can represent 'all there is', as can the I Ching.

Chris.