THE ICHING OR BOOK OF CHANGES

Here is my take on the book.

1. It seems to me as I was just reading the translation by Legge that the hexagrams and the comments has no connection what so ever. How one gets from yin/yang lines to a particular comment or images. Of course I know the broken-unbroken lines represents various images but still how those images are built up is unclear.

   The comments can not be the result of a reduction from the yin/yang lines. King Wen and the Duke of Chou must be reading into it what’s in their minds, kind of like an ink dot test.

   I have try so hard to find a connection and failed. There is no logical connection between the hexagram and the commentary at all. The hexagrams serve as a symbol for the contents of their minds.

2. It seems that any answer is possible. The answers are not quantitative and depend largely on the question. This is so because the answers are limited to (64x6) 144 commentaries on the lines.

   How the book works and why so many intelligent people (most noticeable Jung) fell under it’s spell is that it forces people to answer there own question.

   The question determines the answer. By clearing defining the questions one has already limited the numbers of responses. It is like a good reporter asking questions hinting at the kind of responses he/she wants.

3. A bad question is this; "Should I call this girl?"

   The response is usually unintelligible, because the answer consist of only two kinds; a positive (yes) or a negative (no), and the IChing doesn’t have those kinds of answers.

4. A good question is like this; "There is this girl I like really much, I think she might be thee One, if I don’t ask her out I might have miss a once in a life time opportunity. If I go ahead and ask her out, she might say, no. What should I do?"

   Here the answer does not consist of yes or no. One usually gets a answer like; when desire has been stir, a man can not restrain himself. In such situations there’s not much one could do but let nature take its course.

5. It does not give me anything substantial. The answers are things I already felt. I ‘m looking for "yes" or "no." And these are the questions the IChing can not answer.The commentary on the hexagrams are design to answer questions concerning actions not, yes/no.

6. The intelligibility of the answer depends on the question. The clearer the question the clearer the answer will be.

7. There is a direct correspondence between the question and the answer. And I believe I have now found that correspondence.

   It is not a physical one. It’s psychological.

8. Since commentary is more or less fixed we have to interpret and modify our questions to fit it. So it is that the better we are at formulating the question the better we understand the answer the IChing gives.

9. The questions that will receive the most intelligible answers are those requiring a decision which will lead to a result: Should I do X which will lead to A or Y which will lead to B?

   X is the opposite of Y and the result A is different from B.

10. Now, the book can not answer you with a "do Y!" or "do X!"

11. In fact it does not recognize X or Y, only positive or negative, or as it is better known, yin or yang.

12. The IChing basically recognizes two states: yin, meaning a bad, negative, dark… anything undesirable and yang, the good, the right, things that are positive.

13. Now this is what I mean by qualitative. The book is design so that no distinct answers can be receive.

14. It is as if the author sees reality as being possibilities only. There does not seem to be a distinct line between right or wrong actions.

15. The author sees the situation of life as composing of many factors and these factors are changing so no absolute yes or no is possible.

16. There is no doubt that the hexagram obtain from throwing the three coins are philosophically impressive. The doubt lies in whether there is any correspondence between the question and the answer.

17. As I have already answer, THERE IS NO PHYSICAL CORRESPONDENCE. The question in your mind, the state of your mind, imparts no force or any kind of physical influence on the coins whatsoever at all.

18. My argument: the questions can vary, any language can be use. (The IChing is not only cross culture. It is multi-lingual.)

    We can safely say that language is not a factor in the answer. Unless you want to hold the above statement. The book can not and does not understand your words at all. It doesn’t matter what language you speak.

19. But you may want to believe that there is a psychic connection between your inner state and the coins so that when you toss those coins they are influence by your state of mind.

20. But how exactly does the process work. We are not talking about psycho-kinetic phenomena of throw chairs around.

21. When you say that there is a psychic connection between the mind affecting the coins, are you saying that the mind is some how controlling the out come, on a psychic, unconscious level, of course.

22. Maybe not "control" but guide. There is a greater mind or thing that organizes the coins so that the results obtained are intelligible answers to your questions. The authors of the IChing believed that spirits responsible for the answers.

23. But again, how exactly does this process work. It can not be that the "spirit" or what ever is at work here understand your words and so answers you. We have already settle that words are not factors in the outcome.

24. My question is: How exactly does your question become translated into a psychic "thing" and then gets imparted onto the coins.

25. We can say that the question was psychic to begin with. This I agree with. But what exactly is psychic.

    I use it only in the sense that I feeling some thing. So I would have to say it is a feeling. It is a state of being.

26. But here you see that we are getting lost already. It has now become a matter of distinguishing mental states. We do not want to end up here.

27. The answer is that there is no psychic influence. Imagine if we can photograph the event and analyze point by point you would see that from the moment the coins left your hand it follow the laws of physics. There is an unbroken chain of physical causation.

28. The hands impart force onto the coins and the coins move accordingly. There are only two forces at work, your hand and gravity.

The Coin Toss

1. There are within a 100 toss X number of falls and bounces which differ each time the coin is thrown.

2. Yet despite all the X number of falls and bounces the only two results are head or tail.

3. We can say that the result is the summation of all the falls and bounces of the coin.

4. We can not say it is chance because the initial condition was set to be the same, thus there is one point (the initial) in which the coin is always the same.

5. It follows from the law of inertia that the coin must follow its path until deflected, in this case the ground.

6. Yet, why does the coin bounce different on every drop.

7. Is this due to some imperfection in the coin, some factor too minute to be accounted for.

8. But in this ideal experiment everything is suppose to be perfect.

9. There are only three factors at work: gravity, the floor, the supporting apparatus.

10. What I don't know is whether in this ideal situation the coin will always fall the same way. But from what I have seen a coin never bounce the same way no matter how many times you toss it.

11. Of course, it follows some regular motion but never exactly the same way. Why is this so? Why is it that no two things are exactly (100%) alike?

12. Well, there might be some disagreement here because two or three (all) electrons are alike. One also have to ask what I meant by alike?

13. Anyways, what I'm really getting at is what makes a coin end up being head or tail.

14. The answer is that it is merely the side that end up on top when the coin loses its momentum.

15. To ask why is the coin is head on this throw and why tail on that throw is to assume that the coin (or nature) has a distinction between head/tail.

16. In truth, the coin is just a circular flat object falling under the influence of gravity. The head (yang, #3) or tail(yin, #2) are not factors of the coin, those are qualities we give to the coin.

17. The coin has only two physical factors; weight and shape (not head and tails).

18. This little psychological blind spot took me 5 years to uncover.

19. Now, if Jung was here he would say that the coin (or coins) come under the influence of a psychoid factor and thus possesses a third property not native to the coin but is imparted onto it.

20. In other words, the psyche has an influence on the coins. Now, he is not that dumb, the psychoid factor does not come from the person but is impersonal (was not imparted by the person's wish or desire). It's a very subtle phenomena. I know what he is talking about but it's hard to explain.

21. He would also say that although the above analysis is technically correct it eliminated the psychoid factor. Such factors require some "emotion". And he will also go on to say that not every one possesses the psychological qualities to cast oracles. It needs someone who is in tune with the psyche (Unconscious).

22. These are the basis of his "synchronicity" theory.

23. The psychoid property is ultimately bound up with purpose.

24. Yet I must ask, in what way is the coin affected by the psychoid factor. Supposedly, the Unconscious affects the coin in such a way as to give us a head or tail. And yet, if we are able to video tape the fall of the coin we will see that it falls the same way, within the confines of the laws of physics.

25. How do I know this?

26. Because there is no other way.

27. I know, I know… quantum physics says this and that… that's something else, but just to answer those who raise this question, we are dealing with coins here not subatomic particles moving near the speed of light.

28. Is there any point in the course of the coins fall in which its momentum was accelerated or slow down?

29. This then, we could say, was when the time the psychoid factor came into play.

30. Or it could be that the psychoid factor was imparted at the beginning, which means we won't see an acceleration or a slow down.