Somewhat of a newcomer to the i ching, and would appreciate the input of the many experts in this forum...

Is it advisable to ask a question in the form of "what are the chances of x happening"? Will the answer make sense? Or is this just as bad as asking a yes/no question?

Thanks

saguy said:

Somewhat of a newcomer to the i ching, and would appreciate the input of the many experts in this forum...

Is it advisable to ask a question in the form of "what are the chances of x happening"? Will the answer make sense? Or is this just as bad as asking a yes/no question?

Click to expand...

First, there are no experts here.

Second, I think that probability is a concept that deals in measurement, as well as a concept that has no foundation in actual, real facts. It's a way for people to think of a situation in a very superficial way. But the Yi deals in images and symbols, not in measurements. So I'd say that the type of question you're asking about wouldn't produce a response from the Yi that would be easy to interpret. For instance, you ask: "What's the probability of her and me having a good relationship if we get together?" and the Yi responds with Hex 10. Well, it seems to me that says nothing about probability and everything about 'be careful in this relationship or you'll get bitten in the bum."

However, I do think the Yi responds well to a hypothetical situation if you picture it vividly in your mind. So imagine you and her in a relationship together. Now consult the Yi while you ask a question like: "What do I need to know about being in a close relationship with her?" Imagine you draw Hex 10. Well, it's a lot easier to understand the response now, right? The Yi's saying something like: "Tread carefully in such a relationship cuz it can bite you."

saguy said:

Is it advisable to ask a question in the form of "what are the chances of x happening"? Will the answer make sense? Or is this just as bad as asking a yes/no question?

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IF you wish to stick to 10th century BC thinking then chance has nothing to do with anything - all is determined but access to that determination is through 'magical' means.

Moving up to the 21st century AD, where we include consideration of the last 3000+ years of research into psychology, anthropology, neurosciences etc etc etc and we can flesh out how the IC can work.

Firstly, our consciousness is a PART of our whole being, and as such is an example of metonymy (part considered as whole).

Secondly. our whole being experiences reality through sensory filtering and as such the I Ching is an additional filter. As such it is a metaphor for what our brain deals with.

At the level of the unconscious ( and so equated with the realm of emotion-ladend symbols etc) the I Ching filter applies to ANY moment and so situation. In other words ALL hexagrams apply to a moment as universals but LOCAL CONTEXT sorts those hexagrams into a sequence of 64 ordered from best fit to worst fit (and so a probabilities distribution)

Using 'random' methods to create a hexagram means we try to bring out the 'best fit' using methods that are not guaranteeing of consistancy. It is a bit like trying to derive a 'snow in the sahara' prediction on a regular basis when the reality is this is rare - possible but rare.

OTOH the use of vague QUESTIONS, aimed at one's emotions, can give the 'best fit' in a more consistant format. However, this is not about asking particular questions but about deriving a sense of the situation and from there identifying how the situation can develop and one's involvement with that development.

Being unique individuals, due to consciousness, any situation, once identified, is open to exploitation by one, or we 'go with the flow' or we move on.

As for interpretations of the IC, we can use three main perspectives - a symmetric perspective, an asymmetric perspective, and an anti-symmetric perspective.

The 'traditional' perspective is more anti-symmetric where it allows for 'multiple changing lines' concepts etc.

These perspectives come from the way in which our brains deal with reality - thus the symmetric covers issues of magnitudes, scalars, emotions. From this perspective we can zoom in on each hexagram to get fine details on that hexagram's properties and methods.

The asymmetric perspective covers what happens in the brain when it develops past the scalar, we move into sequences, vectoring etc.

Combine the symmetric and asymmetric brings out the anti-symmetric where the focus is on hierarchy (and so the raw to refined focus 'up' a hexagram where each line position reflects a level of a hierarchy)

Hierarchy comes in two main forms - nested and non-nested (the latter aka pyramid format).

If we go back to the I Ching applying to any moment as a whole, a sequence of probabilities of expression of hexagrams for some particular moment is ismorphic to the concept in quantum mechanics of the Schrodinger wave equation where it too is a sequence of probabilities of finding some particle in the particular state/context.

SO -- on this list we have 10th century BC thinking that is akin to the darkness of superstition,or the 21st century AD thinking that is akin to the light of reason ;-)

(we can in fact recurse the superstition/reason dichotomy to give us a range of perspectives and so mixing 10/21 perspectives! )

An example of the QUESTIONS perspective (a 'prototype') see:

The program page:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/lofting/icplusEProact.html

The preamble:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/EmotionalIC.html

Chris. (light of reason as well a light of darkness)

Lorawalod - sounds a bit formal, if you ask me.

dobro said:

Lorawalod - sounds a bit formal, if you ask me.

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oh but dude! - there is more in the form of different logics or more so the development of logic covers symmetric to asymmetric to anti-symmetric perspectives.

Thus symmetric logic is 'irrational' when seen from asymmetric in that symmetric logic is the logic of dreams/emotions and works using the EQV operator (equivalence) such that we have:

IF A THEN B and so IF B THEN A ! (this is illogical from the more developed perspective)
This form of perspective links to the EQV operator (opposite of XOR) with a focus on sameness rather than difference. (e.g. IF I LOVE X THEN X LOVES ME, IF I HATE X THEN X HATES ME - and so I LOVE/HATE X if and only if X LOVES/HATES ME!)

Asymmetic logic includes the IMP operator as in IF A THEN B where there is NO reverse operation and so IF I LOVE X does NOT imply X LOVES ME.

We can see the transition from symmetric to asymmetric in the same format but in the context of Mathematics where symmetric perspectives are rooted in magnitudes, scalars and so the laws of basic arithematic re commutative, associative, and distributive laws where these all represent symmetric operations.

When we move to include vectors etc so these laws start to break down and we get highly specialised mathematical representations in the form of complex numbers (complex, quaternions, octonions) where these mix magnitude with sequence.

In interpretations of the I Ching, emotional/irrational perspectives can elicit illogical (aka symmetric logic) interpretations and/or formation of questions based on the symmetry where there is none.

Chris.

lightofreason said:

OTOH the use of vague QUESTIONS, aimed at one's emotions, can give the 'best fit' in a more consistant format.

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1 Why concentrate on reading one's emotions? One's emotional activity is only one part of our total being - there's also the intellectual activity, the somatic activity, the sensual activity (which can be seen as part of the somatic), and the movement activity. At the very least, four dimensions of being down here at the lower level where most people operate most of the time. So why limit the enquiry to the emotional? How can an emotional response begin to be a foundation for understanding an entire situation?

2 And why those particular questions that you came up with on the page you link to all the time?

3 And why bother to connect the answers to those vague questions to Yi hexagrams at all? What benefit is there by doing that? You've already figured out how you feel by asking the vague questions. If the emotional response is so important, why go further?

And if you care at all about whether I understand what you have to say in answer to these questions, please keep it simple.

dobro said:

1 Why concentrate on reading one's emotions? ... How can an emotional response begin to be a foundation for understanding an entire situation?

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The flow of information from your senses through your neurology and on through percepts, categories, concepts, cognition and the communication of such through emotion, symbols, metaphors is hierarchic.

Each level in the hierarchy is semi-autonomous and as such interacts with the environment in its own way. This semi-autonomous dynamic allows for dealing with novelty that does not threaten the whole system, it can cause issues at one level that are not passed on to others (or needs high energy expenditure to do so).

At the cellular level the hierarchy is more nested, there are strong dependencies across levels in that at these levels all that can happen is KNOWN such that boundaries can be crossed easily, dependencies made, without fear of transfering problems (unless a virus turns up!)

Our personal consciousness develops in the first 24 months of life and when it emerges it then interacts with reality as an agent of mediation; consciousness mediates reason as reason mediates emotion as emotion communicates cognition where cognition is the sum of categories and concepts (rules linking categories) that come out of percepts (sensory system dynamics).

Our emotions are highly tuned to the processing of sensory harmonics, and in particluar the colours of vision and the chords of audition. Thus tuning allows context to push us and often before our consciousness is aware as to what is going on!

Note that PRIOR to the development of consciousness, our sense of SELF, and the associated 'secondary' emotions dependent upon that sense of self for their definition, we work off our primate emotions, our primary emotions, that are hard-coded (we share them with any other life form using an amygdala etc for emotional expressions)

In this development of our unique consciousness we are open to social regulation in that our primary EMOTIONS, being hard-wired, look out for number 1 such that if we let them run 'wild' then the sophistication of our social environments would not be as developed as they are.

In other words there is benefit in DELAYED gratification and our reason acts to delay/block emotional expressions set off instinctively in that our emotions lack precision in information gathering/expression.

As such our emotions reflect symmetric dynamics in that they are metaphors for communicating some internal state - empathy does this and so shows emotional resonance at work, you cannot have metaphor without symmetry.

BUT, to get precision we need more information that (a) refines our instincts and (b) calms down emotional expression and (c) is more context-sensitive. (as such we move to being asymmetric, a focus on DIFFERENCE as compared to the SAMENESS aspects of symmetric interactions)

The price for all this precision is censorship; our consciousness and reason can block emotional expressions, and even the awareness of them other than as some vague discomfort as we rationalise some situation - in other words are emotions are screaming but out consciousness is covering their 'mouth' ;-)

HOWEVER - due to the hierarchy, our consciousness/reason makes decisions grounded in unconscious dynamics where our emotions can assess a situation in general and our consciousness deals with the details. However, due to the censorship aspect of consciousness we will often cover up the emotional assessment but in emotional situations we NEED that assessment, even if it is 'uncomfortable'.

The emotions will lack high precision but are sensitive to general 'vibes' that our consciousness will miss/censor and the Emotional I Ching allows for revealing that censorship in that it can bring out what our emotions 'see' of a situation and so validate the assessment of consciousness or show incongruency - where our consciousness is rationalising and our emotions are 'in need' of attention, consideration.

As such, our emotions may be screaming but the detailed focus of consciousness can belay the reaction of emotions, calm them down due to the ability for critical analysis of a situation and showing the reactions of the emotions to be in fact unfounded.

Thus the hierarchy is from the general to the particular and our emotions are a step or two 'down' from the precision of consciousness/reason but act as bedrock and so can influence the top soil; only certain expressions can 'take root' in that topsoil due to the influences of the bedrock.

In our brains the expression of emotion is derived from self-referencing the fight/flight dichotomy, a dichotomy that allows for the development of all categories of emotion (as covered, with references etc, in http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/emote.html ) such that the SAME methodology applied to yang/yin allows for isomorphism across categories of emotion derived from fight/flight and categories of meaning derived from yang/yin.

The issue then is how to get the emotions to present their assessment of a situation? ... and that leads us to your question 2:

dobro said:

2 And why those particular questions that you came up with on the page you link to all the time?

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We cannot ask detailed emotional questions of emotion since we can censor them but if we ask generic questions then they serve as coathangers onto which emotions put their replies. The questions are vague and relate to the current situation but they are hierarchic in format and reflect applying yin/yang recursively and so generate a trigram/hexagram representation of the situation.

The fact that it is consciousness presenting the questions is fine in that the questions are generic and reflect at the category/concepts level how our brains deal with assessing novelty. As this filters up so it passes through emotions.

All consciousness can do is CENSOR emotions, not determine their reply in that our primary emotion system is a very sophisticated, parallel-processing, communication system semi-independent of our consciousness (and as such associated with the unconscious - see the comments on implicit communication of emotions through the face that allows for projection/transference/counter-transference issues : http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/EmotionalIC.html )

The questions lack content, are too vague to be 'censored' but there is enough there to elicit some response from the emotions in regard to the current situation. Given the responses we can build an image of what the emotions are 'seeing', even if 'vague' and as that builds so our consciousness will see it and go 'oh, of course! ' and we can even experience a degree of embarassment as the emotions present a perspective we have been trying to cover up! ;-) (or present a perspective in agreement with consciousness assessment of the situation)

The set of questions presented comes from consideration of the brain dynamics involved in dealing with novelty. There are times when you can 'see things coming' and so apply some censorship so I will be 'refining' the questions, make a drop down box of sets of questions that allow for more context sensitivity and yet retain their generality!)
But even with some censorship they appear to generate more consistant replies to a situation than the 'magical' methods do.

dobro said:

3 And why bother to connect the answers to those vague questions to Yi hexagrams at all? What benefit is there by doing that? You've already figured out how you feel by asking the vague questions. If the emotional response is so important, why go further?

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The emotions are symmetric, vague, magnitudes oriented and so we have to fill in the dots to get the full spectrum of what is going on, but they give us a foundation covering the 'form' of the situation - they are to meaning as the parafovea of the eye is to edge detection, identifying 'form', and the fovea then covers the details.

The METHODOLOGY of self-referencing a dichotomy means that ANY dichotomy will contain the same generic qualities of meaning due to the method - all meaning is determined by the method used to derive it.

Our brains use this method in general to derive categories of meaning that are then coloured, relabelled, to give descriptions of some local context. The IDM work covers the general categories, the IC+ work covers the relabelling of these categories and their expression in the I Ching. As such we identify the isomorphism of IC and basic categories derived from the neurology.

By asking the questions we show a clear link from the neurology to the IC for the determination of the properties and methods of any situation where we derive an analogy of the situation to an I Ching hexagram.

Given the XOR work, we can then map out in high detail all of the properties/methods of the situation and so make choices on what actions we intend to take - to go with the flow or fight the context or move on. No 'magical/random' methods required. IOW we show clearly how the IC can work, does work, as a 'predictor' of events - and can do so with a much higher degree of resolution than possible in the past.

Simple enough for you?

Chris.

BTW - the original questions method covered use of consciousness alone as one went through questions - see the 1995 version:

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/quest.html

The current, Emotional IC, version brings out possible conflicts with the unconscious.

Note the original covered deriving a trigram and then the user 'resonating' with one of the eight possible hexagrams OR continuing on with questions for the top trigram. There is also this version on the current main website as:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/lofting/icplusProact.html

What all of this demonstrates is (a) the I Ching works (it has empirical support from neurosciences re derivation of meaning) and (b) there is no need for magical or random methods.

GIVEN the above, so the IC is also a map of the territory we call the 'universe' and is useful philosophically in that its GENERIC form is consistant across the species and LOCAL context then adds nuances (as the traditional IC is a metaphor for what IDM comes up with when analysing the way we derive meaning as neuron-dependent life forms - http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html )

The issue then comes down to mapping out (as done previously) the properties/methods/logics when interpreting symmetrically, asymmetrically, and anti-symmetrically.

There is nothing 'heavy' about this that a few weeks of study wont resolve to make it all 'intuitive' ;-)

Chris.

saguy said:

Is it advisable to ask a question in the form of "what are the chances of x happening"?

Click to expand...

Hi

When using mathematical methods for prections, one phrase that works fine is "Prospect that X happen within the next X months"

As you can see; is quite the same meaning/intention that your phrase; only with time reference included.

Best wishes