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General books on the I Ching and Mathematics?

Leerling

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Do any of you know a book that gives a general overview of mathematical approaches to the I Ching. I have found lots of material on the internet, but it would be nice to have a well researched book that presents the major approaches.
 

russell

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Yin-Yang Code: A Introduction To I-Ching by Ning Lu discusses some mathematical concepts. The author is a mathematician.
 

Leerling

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Thank you, looks interesting. :) Searching the internet I have found some other books besides your title. Problem is there is too much of it: information overkill! So my idea was to buy just one general overview of the field "I Ching and Mathematics" and that would be it. But unhappily it looks like the book I am searching for does not (yet?) exist...?
 

russell

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The parts that resonated with me were the hexagram transformations as boolean operators (which he describes but does not explicitly name, for some reason), and the representation of trigrams as octal numbers (which in my opinion should be done very differently, but it is ultimately arbitrary). As far as “correctness” goes, the book is suffused with solid = yang and broken = yin, which as has been pointed out was probably not part of the original intention; although solid = odd number and broken = even number does go way back and may be seen as a seed of the idea.

Should you want to know my personal take on the concepts, see

http://www.russellcottrell.com/VirtualYarrowStalks/booleanIChing.htm
http://www.russellcottrell.com/VirtualYarrowStalks/little-endian.htm

and its application on some of the other pages.
 

Leerling

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@ russell

You can indeed use Boolean operators on hexagrams (or trigrams) as I have seen done on the internet (like on your site). But I have not so far seen any remarkable results. As Boolean algebra is a well developed part of mathematics one should expect some interesting theorems to result that are helpful in understanding the relations between the hexagrams and/or trigrams. Correct me if I am wrong...
 

Leerling

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@ russell

Have you also written a book on The Boolean I Ching?

Is there a place on this forum to (further) develop a formal mathematical approach to the system of hexagrams and trigrams?
 
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russell

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The book I have in my head is called The Binary Oracle. It may get written someday . . . .

To me, the most relevant application of boolean algebra to the I Ching is to pair each hexagram with its algebraically reversed opposite (the pang tong gua), rather than the physically inverted one. Which means that I do not think much of the King Wen sequence. It is probably based on some trick of arrangement; several have been proposed; but there is nothing magic about it and I believe that pang tong gua pairs are superior no matter what order they come in. I always look at the pang tong gua of both the primary and transformed hexagrams.

Other boolean applications include the patterns of change and the correctness hexagram. I do not personally use them but some people do. Neither do I pay any attention to trigrams, or the “image.”

I believe that one way of connecting with the Yi is to play with it; and there are as many ways of playing with it as there are people. Pioneers of this way of thinking include Nigel Richmond and Larry Schoenholtz. A lot of the material on my own site consists of playing with it mathematically, in a number of ways. I do not advocate any one method as the “right” way; I just put them out there with the expectation that they will resonate with someone somewhere.

Concerning modern studies of the Zhouyi, you might want to start with I Ching by Kerson and Rosemary Huang; the introduction is scholarly but very accessible. Then comes Rutt; then Shaughnessy (http://dissexpress.umi.com/dxweb/search.html, order number 8320774). There is also I Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Oracle and Book of Wisdom by John Minford, and The Duke of Zhou Changes: A Study and Annotated Translation of the Zhouyi by Stephen L. Field.

George Boole’s wife had a baby. The doctor handed the baby to Boole. His wife asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?” Boole replied, “Yes.” :eek:uch:
 

tacrab

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For mathematical approaches to Yi look at materials by Edward Hacker, Andres Schotter, and Richard Cook. Make sure to not just look for books or online materials. Your library or local university library should be able to help you access journals, which is where many of these will be found.
 

li chien

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Leering, Can you thank the scholar, watched part 1 and enjoying the direction of the seminar. Most interesting that Appleblossom makes a clear distinction between the quantative appreciation of the mathematics that western tradition applies as opposed to the qualitative values applied by traditional philosophy. So it is meaning and purpose that becomes important rather than solving some riddle. This may prove a longer journey than planned.
 

li chien

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Apologies Leerling, just realised I I had your name wrong and went to edit but the function eludes me, I'm unfortunately not good at computer stuff.

Also the tone failed to imply how good I thought this all could be, taking longer to bring understanding by exploring the underlying patterns of this.

My particular interest is in correlations between this most extraordinary body of thought and how it also then also can correlate to other traditional patterns of thinking in it being a binary based on an eighth order harmonic. I hope this pathway proves rich for you.

best wishes
Graham
 

Leerling

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@ li chien

I have emailed your thanks to the scholar.

The video's are most important to me in that they give a (very) general overview of the mathematical approaches to the I Ching that have already been tried. I was looking for such a general survey in book form, but these video's are a good alternative.
 

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