As it usually happens, while looking for something else, I found something interesting I didn't have before:

Daoism, Time, and Divination

Thanks

L.,
Thank you for passing this on. My sole regret is that he did not have a better command of English.
R.

re5ga said:

L.,
Thank you for passing this on. My sole regret is that he did not have a better command of English.
R.

Click to expand...

LOL! Hard to read, isn't it? On certain paragraphs I had to go back two or three times to understand what he was saying (I thought it was my own, far less than perfect, English. I feel better now... )

Mr. Mahootian is a respected professor at Shepherd University though. I'd love to hear some of his lectures (without the reponsibility of writing papers on those, unless the lectures could be recorded and played back, over and over again... )

Hi Luis,
I am most impressed by his years teaching high school science in Washington, D.C.
with his Ph.D. and M.S degrees.

There are a few limitations in his work. It is a totally Eurocentric view based in Medieval Scholastic views of science as taught in modern universities. He even only allows Yijing to the Chou Yi of 1150 BCE (which he believes is the age of the Bible) rather than realizing the Chou Yi is a very recent innovation in Chinese history --cf Lienshan).

He equates alchemy and Daoism which is perhaps a natural prejudice for one trained in chemistry, though he appears not to know that most gold before the conquest of the Americas was obtained by alchemical means. That is only lead was smelted from ore and the gold that was dissolved in the lead had to be separated. Alchemical techniques arose not from magic but from very concrete assay methods to obtain some of the gold still dissolved in the lead after the standard cupellation.

He does in the end discover the distinction between time and timing, though just barely. The notion of 'scientific' time he comes to arises from mechanical clocks developed to fulfill St. Benedict's Rule that it was a sin for a monk to enjoy a full night of sleep, so they had to be awakened at 3am, and thus a mechanical alarm clock was needed.

I prefer the definition of time as that which continues to change when everything possible is held constant. In terms of modern Big Bang theory time is the expansion of the universe from the original Big Bang. Timing then is measurement of situation here-and-now of Big Bang Gravity which is best done by casting dice or throwing coins for the Yi Oracle.

Interesting article though, thank you, Luis.

Frank