Yin into Yang - A definite universal

[chrislofting]

Hi all,

From the research done on dichotomies in IDM, combined with the research done on collectives (Bradley and Pribram), combined with the research done on 'small world networks', (see my post on "Historical Materialism : is it fact?") we can identify a definite dynamic reflecting change from yin to yang, from general to particular.

This dynamic reflects more that of the line sequences of hexagram 64 than hexagram 63, the latter being the more traditional template for line qualities but as such reflecting a dynamic of particular to general and so not as originating as general to particular.

The IDM material shows that the main dichotomy of collectives analysis, power/flux, reflects the same qualities as found in the main dichotomy of small world networks, aristocratic/egalitarian, and both of these are synonyms for the abstract differentiate/integrate dichotomy used in IDM and expressed in the I Ching as yang/yin.

Given the dynamics identified in small world networks from egalitarian to aristrocratic, identified in IDM as a general flow from the more integrating element of a dichotomy to the more differentiating element, we can zoom-in to the binary ordering of the I Ching and identify PAIRS of hexagrams reflecting this dynamic.

As an example, here are the first four pairs starting at the yin, or egalitarian, end of the binary sequence (02, 23, 08, 20, 16, 35, 45, 12):

02 to 23 - general sense of devotion (02) leads to ONE element asserting it is the true faith (23). The attraction of the masses to the one leads to (a) issues emerging of the one being in need of more resources to maintain position and so becomes dependent on the masses. In doing so loses power and becomes 'corrupt', and (b) copycats emerging to compete with the one and so re-distribute the energy, lessen the 'light'.

Over time a situation develops where the masses reach the same level as the one and so yin changes into yang - egalitarians become aristocratic (idealists); in so doing the one surrenders to the many. From the dark/light perspective so the darkness takes over the light (that emerged from the dark), the last expression of structure is torn down.

08 to 20 - general sense of a group leads to ONE element being/becoming the 'attractor', becoming the source of motivation and so a strong sense of 'duty' can emerge where work is required to maintain that position of being admired. This leads to the same overall dynamics as above.

16 to 35 - general sense of planning/enthusing leads to a focus on a PARTICULAR being brought into the 'light'. Same overall dynamics as above.

45 to 12 - general sense of celebrating the faith leads to a focus on defending the faith and so its particular idealisation. Same overall dynamics as above. At this position, but seen from the perspective of the *OCTET*, we are well into the realm of the aristocratic and here the egalitarian element in the hexagram relationships exhibits aristocratic tendencies in the form of the exaggerations in celebrations.

These eight hexagrams, four pairs, also reflect another level where the pairs of 02,23 and 08,20, together with 16,35 and 45,12 reflect the SAME relationships, thus (02,23) is egalitarian to the aristocratic focus of (08,20). (45,12) is egalitarian to the more aristocratic (45,12).

Move up a level and (02,23,08,20) is more egalitrian to the more aristocratic (16,35,45,12).
Move up a level and the whole octet is egalitarian when compared to the next octet in the sequence that is aristocratic.

Zoom-in to EACH hexagram and the same dynamics is present and convertable to a sequence of hexagrams from 'egalitarian' expression to 'aristocratic' expression.

This pattern reflects the same pattern of basic brain function in deriving meaning and such reflects the internalisation of the pattern (neurology adapts to context) as well as its externalisation (formation of cultures beyond just our species-natures).

The overall dynamic reflects the need to be in the 'correct position' to maintain balance in that the egalitarian develops to the border with the aristocratic and no further, else it becomes 'corrupt' in that it loses its raison d'etre, that of neutralising the excesses of the aristocratic. (note the focus on neutralising. The egalitarian is focused on coexistence rather than on replacement such that competitive dynamics is limited to coexisting and so neutralising, never removing)

At the other end, the aristocratic avoids excess by serving to harmonise rather than to 'take over'. These 'preferred states', these middle states, are usually ignored but it is that act of ignoring that encourages revolution and so 'progress', even if progress can at times mean taking a step backwards.

Note that in all of this is an overall focus on moving from yin to yang and so from materalist to idealist. The realm of the aristocratic experiences revolution and old ideals, old universals, are replaced by new ones as the egalitarian becomes aristocratic, but in that cycle some of the universals remain regardless of attempts to remove them; these are 'true' universals and reflect what Science tries to do. This pattern is reflected in the brain in the drive to LABEL everything where a level is a form of 'universal' - IOW we create a hybrid reality of materialism of the universe and the idealism of our consciousness that overall becomes more and more idealist!

Thus each evolution->revolution contains technology etc that moves the whole pattern 'foreward' in that evolution. That said, the 'copies' that can appear in the aristocratic context can act to lead astray some of the 'masses' (e.g. JonesTown, Heaven's Gate, Rwanda, Cambodia etc etc)

EACH hexagram also reflects this overall pattern in that the bottom half reflects the general, the egalitarinan CONTEXT, as the top half reflects the aristocratic CONTEXT. Trigrams placed in these contexts can then 'upset' things in being in the wrong place (determined by their base line - and so in need of pushing up or down to be in their 'right' contexts).

Zoom-in to the relationships of lines and the same patterns MUST come out since the overall nature of the dichotomies is rooted in recursion and so self-referencing and so 'fractal' expressions.

Thus, the line positions from general to particular are yin-yang, from particular-to-general they are yang-yin.

Happy reflections,

Chris.

 

[dobro p]

"Thus, the line positions from general to particular are yin-yang, from particular-to-general they are yang-yin."

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.

Women are better at multi-tasking; men are better at making sure we have sex.

Simple.

Wish I'd thought of it...

 

[chrislofting]

Hi Dobro,

you wrote:
>
> "Thus, the line positions from general to particular are
> yin-yang, from particular-to-general they are yang-yin."
>
> Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
>
> Women are better at multi-tasking; men are better at making
> sure we have sex.
>

the preference in females to extended foreplay, to be seduced etc reflects the value in the relational aspects as parts of the whole, IOW as valid, as contributing long term, and so a time focus of 'getting to know you', as the immediate, demanding, quick, 'I want it NOW' focus of actual intercourse, an attitude more common in males.

the males as such are more 'pointed' and favour blending OUT - assertion of self, the sense of power, of hierarchy. The females can be less 'pointed', more 'field' and favour blending IN - the loss of identity, the pointedness, the act of bliss allows for dissapearing into the context, to lose one's boundaries rather than to assert. - the focus is a form of surrender. As IDM shows in its analysis of emotions, the FEAR factor favours dissapearing into the context, an overall sense of coexistence, whereas the ANGER factor favours asserting the context, an overall sense of replacement.

This also gets into the differences in such sensations as 'seeing' - males see and focus on that as the core 'turn on' whereas the female is seen and as such can get-off on being looked at but also can consider it an intrusion - there is more of a buzz in hiding, being seductive, sensuous across the full spectrum of sensations rather than the more direct male focus on one particular sense. Thus with the female there are lots of IMPLICIT messages (often missed! ;-) - the flood of possibles makes the information 'diffuse', too approximate for the more precise, pointed, often 'child-like' 'male' mind).

In reverse, the male sees 'literally' whereas the female can often see past the surface, better at pattern matching over time and so dealing with the figurative and with LOCAL context sensitivities - often overlooked by the male where the focus is more on universals; single context thinking.

Thus the CORE natures of 'female' and 'male' thinking, now resident, due to education, in each individual regardless of gender, is in the dynamics of being cooperative and being competitive. Making love is different to f$cking and the dynamic covers both; too much of one or the other can elicit 'breakdown' in a relationship.

In our current collective, that is more 'aristocratic' than 'egalitarian', more consciousness oriented than speciesness oriented, the focus on reproduction is sourced in reproducing the mental experience, the psychic experience, of the sensation of intercourse (and so self-focused) such that the act itself serves more as differentiating than integrating. This 'male' focus is sources reproduction through replication of self, gets into self-referencing, and as such is focused on replacement more so than coexistence; the need for a 'better' sensation, 'better' sex etc., and so the economics is sourced in maintaining 'eternal youth' etc etc - this also gets into mental intercourse, the mind-f$ck.

The maintaining of this need for the sensation without the consequences nine months later is solved through our technology - all focuses on the female, THEY take the pill, THEY watch their cycle etc etc - all that 'time' stuff is for the female to worry about and so the male can focus on "I want it NOW"! ;-) - and so our technology again comes to the rescue when the males have 'NOW' problems - all supposidly solved with Viagra.

That said, the dynamics discussed in this thread reflects the dynamics of yin into yang, yang into yin, such that the more 'male' will assert and so sets-down the aristocratic position and the 'masses' then get attracted. Over time this dynamic shows elements of becoming increasingly egalitarian, the universal of the particular male is swamped due to (a) competition from other 'universals' who copy in body or in mind (and so the gender issue becomes more diffuse) (b) dependence on the masses for resources to maintain position - e.g. to be the President of the USA today will cost $200,000,000 and that does not come out of one's own pocket - we have to 'shmooze' and in doing so corrupt the idealism that was originally asserted, the separation of powers becomes 'hazy'.

The slow 'takeover' by yin will force the weakened yang to express itself in a 'yin' manner, thus we have idealist egalitarianism etc! - at the same time the egalitarians, now occupying an 'aristocratic' context will, OVER TIME, become corrupted in becoming elitist and so decadent and so open to 'revolution'.

When we focus on the overall dynamics, the YIN bias is more to EVOLUTION, a sense of connectedness, a sense of the historic, and a sense of learning 'good' habits/instincts to operate WITHIN the context of the egalitarian. There is a STRONG sense of TIME here, of THERMODYNAMIC time, the sense of birth-to-death, a sense unescapable from IN GENERAL but seemingly escapable from in PARTICULAR; we can lose our focus on energy conservation to 'lash out' LOCALLY, to escape the constraints and so.... the YANG bias is more LOCAL, more into REVOLUTION, a sense of discreteness, a sense of NOW where all other measures of time are impoverished for the 'buzz' of the moment and so an experience of what seems to be the 'eternal'.

ECONOMICALLY the dynamic is expressed in capitalism vs socialism/conservationism/interventionism. POLITICALLY the context for capitalism (aristocractic) is democracy (egalitarian).

This focus on high energy expenditure and so differentiations forces a more competitive perspective, a more aristocratic perspective on things. From this perspective emerges technology and so despite the yin-to-yang-to-yin dynamic, universals from one age can stay around, and be refined, in another age. What this means is OVERALL a shift from the material to the ideal, from context-sensitive to context-universal. (and so technology allows for reproduction to be removed almost totally for the female - we head towards foetal development fully 'in vitro'!)

This shift to the ideal DEMANDS the labelling of 'everything', in that each label is a form of universal (and this is reflected in the brain where the KNOWN, and so labelled, elicits a distinct 'single context' focus in the brain, the area of universals)

This labelling focus FORCES the overall context to be increasingly aristocratic and so increasingly fragmented and so increasingly competitive and so, due to the focus on 'precision', we add more borders by 'cutting' and so ensure the emergence of complexity/chaos and so a degree of perpectual revolutions! (complexity/chaos 'lives' on borders. Stability is 'in land', the centre, not the edge. The issue here is that the more cuts so the more edges so the reduction of centres or more so their reduction in size.)

At some point, due to the high amount of universals, many 'false', too local, the egalitarian side starts to assert itself again in that we start to look BEHIND these universals, and so start to see them as 'false', LOCAL expressions, and so removable, or more so re-integrated with others to restore a degree of stability, BUT the precision focus, and in particular Science, has also brought out 'true' universals that can span ages and so they must remain (or WILL remain regardless of attempts to 'deconstruct' them).

The dynamic of yin-into-yang-into-yin etc is reflected across all levels of analysis and as such reflects recursion at work. Thus WITHIN the aristocratic operates the same aristocratic/egalitarian dichotomy as does that dichotomy operate WITHIN the egalitarian context. Thus the egalitarian limit imposed on the aristocratic is to harmonise (hex 11); the aristocratic limit imposed on the egalitarian is to neutralise (hex 12).

These limits occupy the border areas of the overall contexts of aristocratic/egalitarian and as such reflect what we can do as CONSCIOUS beings (and so border dynamics, complexity is CREATIVE but needs monitoring or else we can generate 'crap'), witnessing this grand development of the Universe. - Thus for interpretations a hexagram can be divided into three pairs of line *positions* - HEAVEN (Aristocratic - top pair), MAN (balance/neutralise - middle pair), EARTH (Egalitarian - bottom pair) EACH of these can be extended into 'finer details' in the form of a sequences of all of the hexagrams etc etc.

Chris.

 

[dobro p]

ROFL @ Chris.

Okay, you win. I'll read both your posts carefully now.

 

[dobro p]

"Thus for interpretations a hexagram can be divided into three pairs of line *positions* - HEAVEN (Aristocratic - top pair), MAN (balance/neutralise - middle pair), EARTH (Egalitarian - bottom pair) EACH of these can be extended into 'finer details' in the form of a sequences of all of the hexagrams etc etc."

Um, yeah, you *can* do that if you want to, but you'd have to invent the meanings that went along with each pair, I think, right? Cuz I don't think the meanings ascribed to each line of each hexagra as we have it now reflect that 3-pair system you're describing. There's a lot of 'lower-middle-upper' symbolism, sure, but I'm not so sure about the egalitarian/aristocratic polarity mediated in the middle by the balanced man. (It's a nice idea, though.)

However, I'd like you to work that conceptual voodoo of yours on this issue: why a lot (in the US an estimated 1 in 6) of marriages go kinda dry sexually after a while, with the woman uninterested basically. You mentioned the buzz from being seductive and hiding and so on. Would you say the sexual drought arises because when you live with somebody intimately for a while, the mystery and seductiveness just tend to disappear?

 

[dharma]

Chris,
really great essay!... thanks

now if we could just find a way to package your mindset into say a little purple pill, we could call it Crysagra and we could all experience the wonder of instant transmission intercourse and benefit from the marvelous logic that for the time being takes so long to convey and so much longer to be grasped

appreciating the value in your unflagging and unflappable efforts to share your vast understanding

 

[chrislofting]

Hi Dobro,

> Um, yeah, you *can* do that if you want to, but you'd have
> to invent the meanings that went along with each pair, I
> think, right?

wrong. ;-) the CORE qualities are hard-coded into our species-nature, operating at the unconscious levels as GENERALS that our consciousness will then particularise through relabelling.

> Cuz I don't think the meanings ascribed to
> each line of each hexagra as we have it now reflect that
> 3-pair system you're describing. There's a lot of
> 'lower-middle-upper' symbolism, sure, but I'm not so sure
> about the egalitarian/aristocratic polarity mediated in the
> middle by the balanced man. (It's a nice idea, though.)
>

You obviously have not reviewed my ICPlus (IC+) and IDM work. The I Ching is a SPECIALISATION, a LANGUAGE, based on taking a GENERALISATION, the QUALITIES we use as a species to derive meaning in the form of FEELINGS, and applying those universals to a particular context. Thus all specialisations are metaphors for the one general, they allow us to talk in detail about a particular context without clashing too much with our descriptions of other contexts - thus the examples I use at my websites of the I Ching, the MBTI, the basic human emotions, and the types of numbers we use in Mathematics (and so all specialisations that use mathematics); ALL of these share the ONE set of qualities where for each specialisation the qualities are relabelled.

It is the generalisation that allows us to make links between specialisations to allow us to communicate by analogy.

The I Ching, due to its form of symbolism, reflects well the GENERAL and as such is applicable to ANY specialisation, ANY moment, etc etc. The GENERAL is hard-coded into your brain, into all neuron-dependent life forms, and as such reflects the basic information processing dynamics of the neuron. Consciousness acts to refine things through relabelling ,abstracting etc such that each person on this planet could create their own I Ching and close examination would show that behind the differences in expression would the the SAMENESS of our species-nature; i.e. the sense of 'wholeness' is built-in, WHAT we as individuals link that sense to is determined by local conditions and consensus elicits the formalisation expressed through education.

The degree of analysis of the IC is from the perspective of dodecagrams, hexagrams, trigrams, digrams, lines. Each perspective will work due to them all reflecting the method of recursion we seem to use to derive the qualities.

Our consciousness is a little too specialist to work with the whole, it works more with parts and so interprets through a particular rather than general. Thus any use of the I Ching, be it through random or determined means, in fact interacts with ALL hexagrams etc at the one moment. LOCAL conditions sort the parts into 'best fit/worst fit' ordering and our consciousness will be attracted to what it thinks is the 'best fit' (the 'light') and will ignore the rest. My IC+ work on brain function identifies how the brain deals with generals and moves to particulars. I have kept the general in the form of general questions that have a better chance of eliciting the 'best fit' then does 'random' processes (considered as 'synchronous' moments by some) - see http://www.austarmetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/lofting/proact4.html)

The DI-gram perspective is very GENERAL and reflects:

(a) pure yang
(b) yang into yin
(c) yin into yang
(d) pure yin


Thus, for example, hexagram 12 reflects:

HEAVEN - pure yang [lines 5,6]
MAN - yin into yang [lines 3,4]
EARTH - pure yin [lines 1,2]

The overall IC+ interpretation is on the act of neutralising; parrying the attacks of others upon one's belief and in doing so strengthening one's faith. The trigram reading is 'from devotion-to-another/others [earth in lower position] comes singlemindedness [heaven in upper position - devotion to self ;-)]' the di-gram analysis reflects earth and heaven 'doing their thing' mindlessly and the human mediating the activity. As an overall behaviour we get the hexagram's main focus.

As a WHOLE the hexagram reflects a dodecagram where the issue for the IC is on 'standstill' or 'stagnation'. Since the IC is traditionally about change so any form of neutralising change will be considered in a negative light. Understand how we create these symbols and each hexagram has DUAL expressions, competitive as well as cooperative (and so hex 2 is both an expression of devotion to another/others as well as an expression of total darkness ;-) - BOTH deal with integrating with the context, drawing IN and so, from an individual perspective, dissapearing)

When we replace the trigrams with their emotional content so we have anger being expressed through fear. The egalitarian element is reflected in fear/devotion-to-others and overall reflects a focus on coexistence. The aristocratic element is reflected in anger/devotion-to-self and overall reflects a focus on replacement. The coxistence domination (context of earth) means that there is no chance of replacing, of destroying the attacker, only on neutralising the attacker.


> However, I'd like you to work that conceptual voodoo of
> yours on this issue: why a lot (in the US an estimated 1 in
> 6) of marriages go kinda dry sexually after a while, with
> the woman uninterested basically. You mentioned the buzz
> from being seductive and hiding and so on. Would you say
> the sexual drought arises because when you live with
> somebody intimately for a while, the mystery and
> seductiveness just tend to disappear?
>

Neurologically we are geared to habituate to sameness, are over-sensitive to difference. This is our species-nature. It is very exaggerated in consciousness. Our consciousness allows us to 'spice up' the relationship if need-be ;-) The habituation reflects the species focus on learning 'good habits' to integrate with the context such that context will push us but that means a sense of 'contentment' such that the tension release that can come with sex is not required in that sex/anger share the same overall space, a focus on replacement.

Habituation favours coexistence and so working off 'autopilot'. Setting a ritual for sex can help but then consciousness can interpret this as lacking 'spontaneity'! ;-) - The benefit to us is what our imagination can come up with and so as adults we can 'play' - we can pretend scenarios, we can set aside time to 'have fun' but not decide the details until the moment/hours/day etc. IOW to maintain a relationship we need to introduce some 'difference' now and then - that said, that could elicit 'tension' if one party is not willing etc.

The consequence of an aristocratic context, and so a focus on universals and so on named individuals, will ensure a degree of fragmentation of any real egalitarian elements but also the idealisation of those elements where that idealisation itself serves to introduce stress in that if your family is not 'ideal' then it is considered a failure! The core focus in an aristocratic context is very EITHER/OR, A/NOT-A; that is what makes universals, you shine or you dont! ;-) That 'demand' to shine 'precisely' is the expression of the context pushing instincts/habits where the demand to shine is a 'natural' state of the context and so to fit in with that context one must adapt.

the aristocrative focus will thus nominalise, doing becomes being, verb into noun, and that elicits a degree of alienation from the doing. ANY form of differentiation will PUSH AWAY all surrounding differentiations as a property of trying to express self. We can go against what hex 37 deals with, tension release through everyone in family/clan being in the 'correct' place - there is no competition WITHIN the family but the individuals are clearly labelled (father, mother, first son, first daughter etc etc) - IOW 37 reflects tension release by rigid structure, 40 reflects tension release by relaxed structure (has an egalitarian context, yin base line).

Hex 37 reflects a more or less 'middle position' WITHIN the overall context of an aristocratic focus (yang bottom line) - with guidance [fire in lower] comes becoming influencial [wind in upper]. The overall focus here is on the benefits of hierarchy, a willing hierarchy, to maintain structure of family/clan/nation WITHIN the aristocratic context.

Thus, as covered in the traditional commentaries, when the 'injured' walks through the front door so the family environment removes all tension. Nothing needs to be said. It is also reflected in such acts as travelling in a foreign land and coming across someone from your land, speaking your language.

Chris.
http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting

 

[chrislofting]

HI Dharma,

thanks for the comments. I think the area to work on (and so does require time) is on our consciousness in that through imagination we can 'program' instincts/habits PRIOR to having an experience! - very efficent system but can also come up with 'distortions' not possible in reality - so we have to be wary!

Our aristocratic context favours the NOW over the 'later' and so the need for quick, precise, fixes but in dealing with the psyche time is required (the aristocratic realm is also the home of psychosis and so we must be careful in our exercising our consciousness) Perseverence furthers! ;-)

Chris.

 

[dobro p]

Chris - what you're presenting here is complex and new to me. My initial impression is that you're completely correct about the relation in our species between generalisation and specialisation (I see it that way too), but at this point, I don't buy how you've mapped that onto the meaning(s) of the Yi. I believe the guys who assigned meanings to the individual lines didn't do so systematically, according to the sort of intricately- and well-thought out system you've outlined. I think they had a few rules of thumb which they followed, and used their experience of situations to assign useful meanings to the individual lines. Something sort of along the lines of: okay, this hexagram's about obstruction. So, what are the most useful aspects of obstruction that can be described and assigned to these lines?

In doing that, I see only about three principles they used: whether a line is yin or yang; whether a line is low/mid/high in the hexagram, and whether it occupies one of the two 'sweet spots' in the hexagram - line 2 or 5; and whether or not to integrate the meaning of the 'related' hexagram into the line. (This last one is very general and not always true, but there's a tendency for it to happen - 2.2 is the most powerful line in Hex 2, for instance, because it relates to, or incorporates some of the general meaning of the 'force' of Hex 7. 1.5 is the most spectacular line of Hex 1 - it incorporates the meaning of 'Big Having' of Hex 14; 1.1, by contrast, has us not using the dragon because it incorporates the overall meaning of Hex 44, which includes not taking the woman. And so on...)

(An aside here: I also think changing lines don't indicate the line of future development of the situation at all, or that the hexagram you draw changes into the so-called resulting hexagram. I think a changing line isn't a changing line at all, in fact. I think it's a *significant* line - a line that carries special meaning. What people call the resulting hexagram is not a result, but a meaning incorporated into the significant line.)

However, despite all I've said in this post, I'm willing to consider the possibility that you're right. For example, there's the possibility that the guys who I described assigning meanings to the individual lines did so in a state of mind that was meditative, reflective and receptive - in other words, likely to pick up any archetypal meanings that wanted to be expressed.

Whatcha think?

 

[dharma]

Chris,<BLOCKQUOTE><HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1>Quote:</FONT>

I think the area to work on (and so does require time) is on our consciousness in that through imagination we can 'program' instincts/habits PRIOR to having an experience! - very efficent system but can also come up with 'distortions' not possible in reality - so we have to be wary!<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>

i often work with dream images in this way. ie, if i am restricting myself in someway i will dream about it and then i take the dream image that surfaces and work with it in a conscious way.

apart from contemplating the way I respond to the relevant waking life situation, I also visualise letting my dream image "run free" - doing so allows me to experience the peace and joy of the dream image's "freedom run".

this type of imaginative play defuses my fears by transforming their dark energy into something more positive and therefore more empowering for myself.

as far as the 'distortions' in reality that you mentioned, i know what you mean. from line five of hx20 (Sam Reifler's I Ching) "for a man without illusions and aware of his own absurdity, this is alright. for a man without a sense of humour, who retains illusions about himself, this is very bad. it makes his reality dangerously irrelevant to the day-to-day world about him."

 

[gene]

I think that the "high state" of the I Ching is a strong indication that this was not just "thought up" by mankind. In a sense, it is a mandate that came from heaven itself. "In my picture of things, and I have strong evidence of this, (though not necessarily anything that would convince anyone else), these forms of divination were "given to mankind" by the gods. Aliens? yes, you could look at it that way. The way of the I Ching is perfect, converting the soul. As the Psalmist said, in the old Testament. "Thy law is perfect, converting the soul." If the Torah, (the five books of Moses, could be given to us from heaven, why not the I Ching?

And just to be more absurd, and outlandish in my views, (maybe start a war here), we are those space aliens, we are their children.

And to add a political side to this. The destruction of many of the historical museums in Iraq, while American soldiers stood by without interfering, museums that had documents written in the ancient Sumerian language, that tells of our heritage, destroyed for no purpose except one. Someone does not want us to know who we really are.

Oh, many of you do not agree. But I know very well, that this is the case. And if you don't agree for any other reason, consider this. All ancient prophecies predicted cataclysmic events at the end of the age. The age of what? The age of man, i.e., the aquarian age. Our time has come. "A time of trouble such as the world has never known." My calculations don't mean anything, but judging by the coming year 2012 by the Mayan calendar, and also calculations from Egyptian documents, we have about two years left of "relative" freedom in this world. The Chinese have the story of the dragon and the Tiger. The dragon often refers to the East, the Tiger to the west. In the west we have the stories of the dragon slayers, slaying with the cross. and indeed, in the northern sky we have the constellation of the dragon, (draco), and in the southern sky, the constellation of the cross.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. The ancient texts are full of prophecies. I believe if we really understood it, the I Ching would be found to have those prophecies too. And in a different context, it certainly looks like Chris, and a lot of others have been able to use human reasoning powers to "decode" a lot of the text, and understand it in more and more meaningful ways. Incidentally, I saw another book out by Master Ni the other day, maybe its been out a while, and I just didn't know it, but it is just a short little book that offers meanings of the lines, interactions of lines. Which line supports other lines, etc. I found it interesting, but very short. Anybody else seen it? It has a blue cover, a paperback.

Gene

 

[dobro p]

Gene, I don't think the Yi was 'thought up' either. I think it's an expression of human wisdom about situations and dynamic patterns. And like all wisdom, the patterns that the Yi captures in four and five-lines 'image poems' are often archetypal for our species. But I think those 'image poems' came from the empirical wisdom of the guys who wrote them, and not from any mathematical system or philosophy.

But hey, if I had 5 bucks for every time I've been wrong, I'd be really rich right now LOL.

 

[gene]

Hi Dobro

Yeah, I wish I could get paid for being wrong.

Geez, way better than social security.
Gene

 

[bradford_h]

Hi guys-
Just so you won't get completely away with this, I'll take my stand on the opposite side of that fence and claim that the Yi was "just thought up" by a group of human beings, in exceptionally good mental health (unlike the Bible's authors), over a span of several centuries of testing, and who enjoyed the sponsorship of their sovereign.
I look at the Yi as a language which gradually evolved to meet the same needs usually filled today by psychological and educational counselors.
b

 

[lenardthefast]

Hi all,

OK, if we're voting, I have to say that I ascribe to many of the same beliefs as Gene.

But then, you probably already knew that, huh?

I can cite chapter and verse(non-Biblical), too!

Namaste,

Leonard

 

[chrislofting]

If you read carefully what I have been saying then the 'prophecies' are valid IN GENERAL in that the dynamic from egalitarian to aristocratic ensures increase in differentiation and so an increase in competition and so increase in wars etc etc to the point where the egalitarian starts to take over again.

The I Ching is a specialisation and as such is a particular language. What IDM identifies is the underlying common elements that allow it to be used as analogy/metaphor in describing anything.

Attempts to credit the IC to 'aliens' etc are 'unfortunate' and reflect a failure to appreciate the skill set of the species and the nature of the brain/mind.

Chris.