The Yi-globe

[Sparhawk]

This morning I received a nice message from Steve Marshall pointing to a review of his of a new site with some exciting findings. In my experience, very few things excite Steve. All the more reason to pay close attention to the new material:

The Yi-globe

 

[Tohpol]

This morning I received a nice message from Steve Marshall pointing to a review of his of a new site with some exciting findings. In my experience, very few things excite Steve. All the more reason to pay close attention to the new material:

The Yi-globe

Wow. This is amazing. Thanks for this.

Topal

 

[rosada]

This all sounds Very Important but I don't understand what it means. Can you explain the significance for us bears with very little brains?
Most grateful,
rosada

 

[dryjoe]

dryjoe

This all sounds Very Important but I don't understand what it means. Can you explain the significance for us bears with very little brains?
Most grateful,
rosada

Dear Rosada, the Yi-globe is quite a new discovery. You may look at it as if it were a nice toy or a useful device that you found on the street. It depends on you. You can try it and learn whether is it good or not, is it usable or not for something?
Some ideas for the initial steps:
If you want to take it for a toy, look at its nice form only. In the books the hexagrams are placed in a row or in square tables almost orderless. Now you can see a beautiful sphere where the hexagrams are at their proper place: the Heaven at the top, the Earth below, the two signs of Completion (the beginning and the end) in the center, etc. Still you can see some interesting forms inside as in a caleidoscope: a cross, six-pointed stars, the yin-yang diagram, and so on. There are nice pictures on the site.
Moreover, the Yi-globe can be taken as a guide on consulting the oracle. When your hexagram is built up, you can find it on the Yi-globe. Now, in contrast to the usual methods, it has a definite position among the others: up or down (see the levels I to V.), on the dark or on the light side, on the East or South, etc. You can connect your hexagram to a certain time too: to a month or an hour of the day, it can be early or late, and so on. If the hexagram has moving lines, you can see where you go and in what direction. All these "data" can be considered in the interpretations.
At the end, these informations have to be compared to the results of the usual methods (to the image, to the judgement, etc.).
I think this is a way to the usage of the Yi-globe in the process of the divination. There is a possibility, of course, that you will not find any connection with the traditional methods, or even the Yi-globe contradicts them. Then there remains the enjoyment of the sight of the sphere, this cultural historical novelty.
Joe

 

[frank_r]

Beautifull some of his diagrams and pictures. Very interesting!!

Thanks for showing.

Frank

 

[rosada]

Thank you dryjoe,
I haven't really grocked it yet, but already friends and I are seeing some some shifts in thinking. Having this model in your brain seems to strengthen the potential for seeing different perspectives simultaneously.
Cool!

 

[rosada]

Ah, just realized I had only gone to the first place Sparhawk suggested and only just now clicked The Yi-globe site. So anyone else reading this be sure to check out Sparhawk's second site suggestion.
r

 

[Sparhawk]

What?!?!"Sparehawk"?!?!

I am NOT a "spare" hawk!! I'm the ONLY hawk in here! On the other hand, I am a "sparrow-hawk" and proud of it, excuse me (insert here a picture of contemptuous look, with a sticking tongue for good measure)

 

[rosada]

 

[fkegan]

Hi Rosada and Luis,

Hopefully the Spare-hawk reference was an homage to spare ribs which any good hawk would swoop down and grab on to.

The Yi globe involves fitting the 64 possible hexagram patterns into a Western model of perpendicular axes and a spherical globe. The principles used to organize the levels or latitudes of this globe are based upon the hexagrams in terms of their line places, so that one-yin line or one yang line hexagrams are each one level, then patterns with 2,3,4 yang lines to them. The overall structure follows from the arrangement of the Earlier Heaven where the trigrams (or hexagrams of double trigrams) use simple principles, Heaven Above, Earth Below.

These are all principles viewing the hexagrams through their lines and trigram references. It is the set of principles of the earlier Yi ordering which is also the binary principles of our computers. The innovation of the Ken Wen Sequence was to arrange the hexagrams in terms of their overall meaning not just the lines.

I find it interesting that the sets of ten appear in this work, though as "decimal" sets which actually would refer to our Western number system and not the Chinese. The missing key to unlock the unknown King Wen Sequence are the philosophical principles of the Taiji or Pythagorean monad, dyad, triad, and tetrad. Instead the Yi globe is left without any clear relationship to the sequence numbering and the King Wen Sequence remains a mystery and apparently chaotic without any relation to Chinese philosophy.

But the Yi globe is an interesting example of Western mathematical ideas applied to binary 6-place figures. One of the wonders of the Yi is that just about any arrangement can be made and found insightful, as long as one doesn't expect it all to hang together, follow smoothly from one number set to the next, and express both poetic principles of the inverse pairs and the philosophical depth of the decads or sets of ten.

Frank

 

[erime]

the Yi globe is left without any clear relationship to the sequence numbering and the King Wen Sequence remains a mystery

Agreed. I was very surprised to find that the Yi Globe website in all it's high quality graphic-ness and intellectual talent could not back up it's claim to explaining the origin of the King Wen Sequence very well at all.

and apparently chaotic without any relation to Chinese philosophy.

Disagree. I will prove it to you soon enough...

 

[Sparhawk]

BTW, the author of the Yi-Globe is now posting here as "dryjoe"

 

[fkegan]

Hi Erime,

I look forward to your evidence. My remarks arose from the difference between modern geography of the globe and the Ancient Chinese, who like most ancients dealt with the Earth as at best the rounded back of a giant Tortoise. The notion of how folks could live upside down in Australia was tough without a spinning Planet Earth. Even Pythagoras had a static Earth and Aristotle fixed Crystal Spheres.

Waiting for your next demonstration,
Good luck.

Frank

 

[dryjoe]

Ah, just realized I had only gone to the first place Sparhawk suggested and only just now clicked The Yi-globe site.

Hello Rosada (and everybody),
For the sake of your (and everybody's) sake of convenience, I made two new pictures and put up on the Yi-globe site. They are enlarged variants of figure 20 and 21, filled out with the names of the hexagrams: fig. 20b and fig. 21b.
After having thrown coins or stalks, one can locate his/her situation of the moment here, then the changes can be followed and the future position found.
Just like looking into a crystal ball ...
Best, Joe

 

[fkegan]

Hello Rosada (and everybody),
For the sake of your (and everybody's) sake of convenience, I made two new pictures and put up on the Yi-globe site. They are enlarged variants of figure 20 and 21, filled out with the names of the hexagrams: fig. 20b and fig. 21b.

After having thrown coins or stalks, one can locate his/her situation of the moment here, then the changes can be followed and the future position found.
Just like looking into a crystal ball ...
Best, Joe

Hi Joe,
Could you give an example of following a Yi Oracle through your Yi-Globe? If you need a sample Oracle, try hex 55.3,5 >> 17 which are all on the line of latitude in your Yi Globe, and maybe you have a sample that changes position more than that?

The new illustration makes it clear you are arranging the hexagrams by their numbers of Yang lines though not why that relates to the globe.

Cheers,

Frank

 

[dryjoe]

Hi Joe,
Could you give an example of following a Yi Oracle through your Yi-Globe? If you need a sample Oracle, try hex 55.3,5 >> 17 which are all on the line of latitude in your Yi Globe, and maybe you have a sample that changes position more than that?
The new illustration makes it clear you are arranging the hexagrams by their numbers of Yang lines though not why that relates to the globe.
Cheers, Frank

Hi Frank,
Here is the illustration of your oracle:
Frank's oracle
- Hex 55 (Abundance) is located on level III.
- The change in the third and the fifth lines results hex 17.
- Hex 17 (Following) is located on level III as well.
The heavy red line shows the way of the movement.

There is a possibility to show the movement in detail:
- Hex 55 (Abundance) is located on level III.
- The 9 in the third place leads to hex 51 (The Arousing) on level II.
- The 6 in the fifth place leads further to hex 17.
- Hex 17 (Following) is located on level III as well.
These movements are indicated by broken red lines.

There is another example taken from the 'Shared Readings' (by el_2, June 5th): 11.1,4,5,6 >> 44. Both kinds of movements are shown here too (purple lines).

Comment: When one consults the oracle, according to the usual methods, the first hexagram and its texts, the texts of the moving line(s), and the resulting hexagram has to be considered. Seeing the diagram above, one may begin to speculate on the stations between the two endpoints too. In such a way some very interesting 'journey' can be found.
Let us see, for example, our second oracle (see the diagram): Poor fellow! He rests in tranquility, then undertakes an enterprise, travels to the South, goes and goes somewhere, has success, gets married, and at the end the ridgepole of the house breaks, the walls fall down on him, and even his marriage proves to be a bad match. (My italics, from the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. I am sorry for these unfounded ideas, and the light-minded reading.)
--- x ---
You have right; the hexagrams are arranged by their numbers of yang lines on the different levels. It is more important, however, that they are arranged in accord with the words of the I Ching as well: 'The Receptive is the earth; therefore it is called the mother. In the trigram of the Arousing she seeks for the first time the power of the male and receives a son.' and so on; these texts have been applied to the hexagrams (see chapter II, subtitle Fundamental principles). The result is the same in both cases but the foundations are different. And so, not the hexagrams were adjusted to a spherical form but, on the contrary, the ancient principles have resulted in the globe.
Best regards, Joe

 

[fkegan]

What does it mean to travel along a parallel between hexagrams?

Hi Joe,
It is nice to see the vectors on your globe, but that still does nothing to explain how one interprets an Oracle through your system or why the KWS should be scrambled to align with the parallels of latitude. Clearly there is some basic background to your system that you are totally steeped in which makes this all make sense to you, but I don't have that context.

Regards,
Frank

 

[dryjoe]

Hi Joe,
It is nice to see the vectors on your globe, but that still does nothing to explain how one interprets an Oracle through your system or why the KWS should be scrambled to align with the parallels of latitude. Clearly there is some basic background to your system that you are totally steeped in which makes this all make sense to you, but I don't have that context. Regards, Frank

Hi Frank,

Thank you for the new questions. It is a pleasure to me that the Yi-globe has aroused your interest, but it appears too that my study is not clear enough. Now, I shall try to give you some amendments.
1.) You wanted some explanation on the interpretation of an oracle through the Yi-globe. My answer is very simple: I do not have any explanation. As you can see, the study does not deal with oracles or divinations at all. I look upon the Yi-globe as a symbol of the Universe that reveals a lot about its structure and operation (as Chinese people might imagine it some thousand years ago). Nevertheless, my conviction is that outstanding practitioners in divination (like you, and Hilary, for example) could be able to obtain valuable information from the Yi-globe to their predictions. (E.g. from the position of the hexagrams, the direction of the movements, the time factors, etc.) Look at the globe as a new device, and use it for your purpose as your knowledge and experiences demand.
2.) It was not me who 'scrambled' the King Wen's sequence to fit into the Yi-globe. According to my supposition, as it is put down on my web site, the Yi-globe had had to be existing (maybe in mind or in imagination only) long before the KWS. Then, its elements had been scrambled, and so the KWS originated (see Chapter V, figure 51).
3.) Naturally, there is a basic background to my theory on the Yi-globe – the I Ching itself. (See Chapter II, Fundamental principles).
Best regards, Joe

 

[fkegan]

Hi Joe,

OK, the Yi globe is just an arrangement of the hexagrams by parallels of Yang lines.

The only point I would quibble about is the notion that at some ancient or archaic time the Chinese imagined the 3-D Yi Globe Structure. The mind appears to be 2-D and the ancients generally were much happier with a vision of the Earth that made sense from their experience. Watching a total lunar eclipse indicates the Earth is a globe, but imagining there are folks living normal lives in Australia isn't part of the ancient mindset.

The Yi globe charts an oracle by its changing total number of Yang lines, with oracles whose moving lines keep the same net Yang balance being on the same parallel. Those oracles that change latitude indicate an increase or decrease in total Yang line content.

I have no idea what that would mean in divination interpretation, but it is a clear graphic for the exposition of this perspective.

Frank

 

[AltVis8D]

Frank and Joe are avatars of the dialogical split at the heart of the Zhouyi itself, first manifested in the diagram form, and later developed into Meaning/Principle and Image/Number Schools of interpretation. In other words, the form of the diagram is only pertinent to (predominantly) Meaning/Principle interpretations insofar as it has an influence on the words of the text, and the words of the text toward the derivative meaning of an oracular casting. Dialogic and diagrammar are indomitably fundamental to the interpretive capacities of the Zhouyi - without them the texts interpret nothing at all. Diagrams have a rationality all their own; they engage interpretive faculties at a level of inception that can never be completely rationalized or reduced to the logic and causal syntax that language is designed to represent.

interpretation, representation, reading - these are borrowed from the forms and invention of images. the gua are xiang and xiang are gua. the gua are the simplest imaginable image, and so they are traces of self-recognition by the imagination, or recursion at the ur-level.

but even in language Meaning/Principle breaks down even as it is built up again. given sufficient attention, images do speak for themselves.

 

[lienshan]

the hexagrams are arranged by their numbers of yang lines on the different levels.

Globetrotting in the footprints of King Wen:

03-04 level II
05-06 level IV travelling north
07-08 level I
09-10 level V travelling north
11-12 level III
13-14 level V travelling north
15-16 level I
17-18 level III travelling north
19-20 level II
21-22 level III travelling north
23-24 level I
25-26 level IV travelling north
27 level II
28 level IV travelling north
29 level II
30 level IV travelling north
31-32 level III
33-34 level IV travelling north
35-36 level II
37-38 level IV travelling north
39-40 level II
41-42 level III travelling north
43-44 level V
45-46 level II travelling south
47-48 level III
49-50 level IV travelling north
51-52 level II
53-54 level III travelling north
55-56 level III
57-58 level IV travelling north
59-60 level III
61 level IV travelling north
62 level II
63-64 level III travelling north

 

[Sparhawk]

Howdy, Justin!

interpretation, representation, reading - these are borrowed from the forms and invention of images. the gua are xiang and xiang are gua. the gua are the simplest imaginable image, and so they are traces of self-recognition by the imagination, or recursion at the ur-level.

but even in language Meaning/Principle breaks down even as it is built up again. given sufficient attention, images do speak for themselves.

A few months ago, in the Hex 52 Memorizing thread, I was quoting from Richard Smith's book about Wang Bi take on images and ideas. Wang Bi was a young genius.

 

[fkegan]

The gua are the simplest imaginable image, and so they are traces of self-recognition by the imagination, or recursion at the ur-level.

Hi Justin,
The trigrams as gua are remarkably simple images with just the three line places and their two possible line values creating a meaning without any language involved.

The hexagrams as gua are not quite as immediate though they are fully explained by just their line place sequence and Yang lines in the overall Yin matrix. (cf. my Flux Tome page in signature).

The great innovation of the Zhouyi was to create a system of MEANING overall for the gua rather than the old Shang era (cf. Lienshan) Earlier Heaven Arrangement based in individual lines and such.

The Yi-globe takes the older notion of classifying gua by the number of Yang lines and puts the results upon the 3-D image of the Earth Globe as a system of latitude and longitude.

In the alternative, the Meaning perspective does indeed explain the King Wen Sequence from the system of decads or sets of ten which also happen to reflect the Chinese numbering system. This explanation requires a bit of context, either from the Pythagorean Tetraktys or the Chinese Tai Ji. (cf. Also my fluxtome page)

I have just completed and put online my comments upon the 7 Dyads of the I Ching hexagrams. In general, most folks only seem to relate to the Yin/Yang dyad.
Cf http://www.stars-n-dice.com/dyad.html
The 7 Monads are already online at:http://www.stars-n-dice.com/monad.html
The remaining hexagrams perspectives, the Triad and Tetrad page are still development. They are all clear to me in general, but nailing down the exact details for each of the hexagrams involved turns out to require some new thinking.

Ultimately, I suspect it is a Gestalt thing, like the drawing that is either a vase or two faces. Training your mind to flip to the other interpretation is a bit of an effort--but once there it all follows step-by-step.

Frank

 

[dryjoe]

Globetrotting in the footprints of King Wen:
03-04 level II
05-06 level IV travelling north
07-08 level I
09-10 level V travelling north
...
39-40 level II
41-42 level III travelling north
43-44 level V
45-46 level II travelling south
47-48 level III
49-50 level IV travelling north
...

Dear Lienshan,
I am very glad to see your experiment to find a new regularity in King Wen's sequence on the basis of the Yi-globe. It is a pity that an undisciplined pair has come forth, but I hope you'll find an explanation on their disobedience.
And now, allow me to give some advices to a more enjoyable globetrotting. If you want to travel on the Yi-globe, you have to observe the following rules:
1.) One body, at one time, can't be at two places. (With the exception of certain subatomic, elementary particles.) Thus, e. g. in the case above, you can't start from hex 3 and hex 4 at the same time.
2.) From a given point one may not go wherever he/she wants; he has to choose one way out of six – according to the position of the changing line. E. g. from hex 3 you may go to hex 8, 60, 63, 17, 24, or 42. If there are two or more changing lines, one has to take the lowermost one first and go to the appointed hexagram. There (in the second hexagram) the second changing line has to be taken into account; this shows the way to the third hexagram. And so on, according to the number of the changing lines. See two examples in my #16 post here.
3.) The four cardinal points (N, S, E, W) are defined in the horizontal planes only (see fig. 23 in my website). Going upwards or downwards means ascending or descending respectively (and not traveling north or south, as you have thought). The meaning of the different levels depends on the person's interpretation - like in the case of the individual lines of a hexagram. Maybe it means being nearer to the Heaven or to the Earth, maybe being on a higher or lower spiritual level, or anything else.
At last, look at the nice trip from hex 36.2,3,5,6 to hex 61.:bows:
My best wishes: Joe

 

[lienshan]

One body, at one time, can't be at two places. (With the exception of certain subatomic, elementary particles.) Thus, e. g. in the case above, you can't start from hex 3 and hex 4 at the same time.

One body, at one time, being in two places:

When I sit in front of you, face to face, looking down at hex 3, then you are looking down at hex 4

 

[lienshan]

If there are two or more changing lines, one has to take the lowermost one first and go to the appointed hexagram. There (in the second hexagram) the second changing line has to be taken into account; this shows the way to the third hexagram. And so on, according to the number of the changing lines.

Do you mean, that one only read the lowest line-statesment of the received and each appointed hexagram
instead of reading all the line-statesments of the received hexagram with more changing lines?

 

[dryjoe]

Do you mean, that one only read the lowest line-statesment of the received and each appointed hexagram
instead of reading all the line-statesments of the received hexagram with more changing lines?

NO, NO, NO, God forbid!
Don't read anything! I haven't written a word about line-statements, or any text. The three rules referred to the traveling (globetrotting!) only among the hexagrams on the Yi-globe.
It was only a joke! You had begun to play with the hexagram pairs, and I shown you another course. That's all!
Best: Joe

 

[lienshan]

(From the Yi-globe website):

In all probability, the sixty-four hexagrams have been rearranged some times during the thousands of years.

Presumably, these re-arrangements did not occur at the same time, in one step, but during the gradual transformations of the forms.

essentially there were only three changes removing six hexagram pairs in one instance, and another pair independently from these. In the third case two pairs were exchanged with each other.

The majority of the misplaced hexagrams — six pairs — was removed together.

The canonical matrix, the direct predecessor of the 'traditional' sequence known of our time, has been developed from the Yi-matrix, by means of the displacement of the hexagrams.

The King Wen sequence is expressing another point of view than the Yi-globe sequence.
Saying that the hexagrams of the King Wen sequence are 'misplaced' is a subjective statesment.

The main difference between the two sequences is, that the hexagrampairs 27-28 and 61-62 are important and the hexagrampairs 51-52 and 57-58 not important in the King Wen sequence, while the opposite is true in the Yi-globe sequence. The main theme of the King Wen sequence is to underline a 'logic order' of the trigrams, Heaven-Earth-Water-Fire, while the main theme of the Yi-globe sequence is a 'logic order' of all hexagrams with respect to the number of yang-lines.

The order of the two hexagrams in each pair has a meaning in the King Wen sequence.
Does the order of the two hexagrams in each pair have a meaning in the Yi-globe sequence?

E.g. Level V: 9-10, 14-13, 43-44
E.g. Level I: 7-8, 15-16, 24-23

 

[fkegan]

King Wen Sequence Explained fully by Monad, Dyad, Triad and Tetrad perspectives...

Hi Lienshan and Dry Joe,

The analysis by hexagram pairs, trigrams, number of Yang lines is like analysis of poetry by the rhyme scheme. The innovation of the King Wen Sequence is that it is organized upon general philosophical principles connected to the symbolic meaning of the hexagrams overall.

I have finally completed the Triad and Tetrad analysis to add to the Monad and Dyad pages and now all 64 hexagrams are explained in terms of the 6 sets of 10 hexagrams or decads and the final four hexagrams. I put my analysis of hexagram 64, the special last hexagram that isn't part of any other set on the end of the Dyad page.

Just about any analysis imposed upon the KWS will almost fit with only a few whatever you use not quite fitting. It is part of the power of this innovation of 1100BCE that it is so delightfully organized from so many perspectives.

However, the KWS is set up in two halves. The first clearly consists of exactly 30 hexagrams arranged into 3 sets of 10. The first 10 about the Water Cycle, how sunshine evaporates swamp mist to form clouds that become part of weather systems that bring rain to nourish the crops in the fields and supply rainfall to fill the streams and rivers and run into the Sea to start all over again.

The second set of 10 hex11-20 is all about agriculture, that co-operation of natural plant growth with human activity and organization to feed the Empire.

The final set of the first half of the KWS is hex21-30 about the Divine rules organizing proper social order as Justice, Karma or Cause-and-Effect.

The second half has the other possible hexagrams, another 3 sets of 10 and the final four hexagrams as cardinal points by their overall structure highlighting inner, outer, completing and finally beginning.

All now part of my Flux Tome page as text links:
http://www.stars-n-dice.com/monad.html
http://www.stars-n-dice.com/dyad.html
http://www.stars-n-dice.com/triad.html
http://www.stars-n-dice.com/tetrad.html

Also the explanation of this perspective in general in terms of the Pythagorean Tetraktys which is also the basis of the Taiji:
http://www.stars-n-dice.com/tetraktys.html

Happy Fourth of July, too!

Frank

 

[lienshan]

However, the KWS is set up in two halves. The first clearly consists of exactly 30 hexagrams arranged into 3 sets of 10.

The second half has the other possible hexagrams, another 3 sets of 10 and the final four hexagrams as cardinal points by their overall structure highlighting inner, outer, completing and finally beginning.

Your view at the King Wen sequence is explained and named "The canonical matrix" here:

http://www.i-ching.hu/chp00/chp5/origin.htm#sub2

But there is no clearly explanation of the received division of the sequence in two chapters?