Laozi versus the logicians

[lienshan]

The opening lines of the Mawangdui Tao Te Ching chapter 23 are:

 

Hopes spoken self-fulfilling are:

"The whirlwind might not last the morning out"

"The cloudburst might end before the day is done"

What causes these to happen?

Heaven and earth as likely as being made earlier than one's big brother?

Therefore ...........

 

The last opening line refers to the paradoxes of the logicians; for example:

 

I go to Yue today and come yesterday.

 

Perhaps relying on a past-progressive tense for "come",

indistinguishable from present tense in Classical Chinese.

The logicans themselves explained their paradoxes this way:

 

"On Names and Actualities"

Heaven and earth participate in the things that they give birth to: all together are ‘things’. When a thing is taken as a thing according to what makes it a thing without excess, that is ‘actuality’. When actuality actually fulfills its character as actuality without deficiency, that is ‘occupying a position’. If one goes beyond that which is the character of a position, that is not occupying a position. To fulfill the position of one’s position is ‘correct’. To take what has been corrected to correct what has not been corrected is to introduce doubt about what has been corrected. What is corrected is the character of a position as actuality. To correct its character as actuality is to correct its name.

[Stosh]

RE:

I go to Yue today and come yesterday.

 

Coming and going, like many things is basically a matter of perspective.

Much of what Lao and Chuang were talking about was non-perspective based understanding.

 

So ,I think that sentence was designed to mock what he would have considered a nonsensical argument.

 

Correct character? who or what, is to do the determination of correct?

then also the whole 'correctness' argument is sub par , jumbled and confused temporally.

essentially 'B.S.' as far as Lao was concerned.

 

So if the two bits are joined in some way , Lao's joking seems evident.

 

but I think the saying goes back to hui shi

Hui Shih focuses on such distinctions as large/small, thick/thin, high/low, south/north, and today/yesterday. Their common feature is that from different points of view we can assign either member of the term-pair to the same object. His typical paradox makes sense as a comment about how we might redescribe familiar paradigms from a distant perspective.

• Heaven is as low as the earth; Mountains are level with marshes.
• The sun from one perspective is in the middle from another declining.
• Natural kinds are from one perspective living and from one dying.
• I go to Yue today and arrive yesterday.

The most important result for theory of language strikes at the Achilles heel of Mohist realism--the construction of similarity classes.

 

• The ten-thousand thing-kinds are ultimately alike and ultimately different. This is called the great similarity-difference.

As the Chuang Tzu develops this insight, it amounts to the claim that we can find a difference between any two things no matter how alike they are and we can find a similarity between any two things no matter how different. So even if there are objective similarities and differences, they do not justify any particular way of distinguishing between thing kinds. For every category and name we use, we could have had conventions that as consistently and with equal 'world-guidedness' divide stuff up differently.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Stosh

[thelerner]

 

The opening lines of the Mawangdui Tao Te Ching chapter 23 are:

 

Hopes spoken self-fulfilling are:

...

Mwandui's?? More like Yoda's do they sound.

[lienshan]

So ,I think that sentence was designed to mock what he would have considered a nonsensical argument.

 

I read Laozi's arguement as not mocking but logically:

 

What causes these to happen?

Heaven and earth as likely as being made earlier than one's big brother?

Therefore is the following standard as likely as Tao is Tao and Te is Te:

If a loss was lost by Te,

and if Tao together with Te share losses,

then is Tao additionally becoming the lost.

 

He says, that the logicans only focus on Te and therefore forget Tao.

Or as a metaphor: making Tao the little brother of Te.

That'll say he uses a paradox to argue against the logicians paradoxes!

 

The first three lines of the chapter are about what today is called Self-fulfilling Prophecies.

That'll say he nicknames The School of Names as The School of Self-fulfilling Prophecies.

Edited April 18, 2013 by lienshan

[lienshan]

Mwandui's?? More like Yoda's do they sound.

 

希言自然 is an ordinary subject-verb-object sentence.

 

希 is the subject, a noun, that'll say hopes (plural because it refers to two samples below).

言 is the verb, that'll say spoken (past time because the two samples are from the past).

自然 zi ran is an adverb of compound characters and is the object of the sentence.

The two samples are defined as hopes that'll say must be read in future time:

 

"The whirlwind might not last the morning out"

"The cloudburst might end before the day is done"

 

Both a whirlwind and a cloudburst normally lasts no longer than a few minutes.

That'll say the two hopes are always self-fulfilling.

[Stosh]

I wasnt really addressing the first lines , just the emboldened ones.

 

The last line I am told is the preeminent one in the lingo

and it was paired up with the logicians argument which runs counter

to Laos discussion of self fulfilling ,

 

The first three lines go together nice and easy

fourth line takes the argument on a wider track

The line disbelieving that one can be born before their older brother

then makes a link to 'going to yue' today.

Lao seems to be saying

it is what it is -and it does what it does, ( self fulfilled),

so If you are going to define it you are drawing up arbitrary delimitations that end in paradox .

Contrasting .. The logicians argument seems like it is pointing towards things

having definitons- or determined perfect forms ( similar to greek forms) -names ,

and that the forms fulfill the actuality .( generating the 'perfect' form -from which they deviate -making the perfect form become synonymous with the actual form .) (which you are possibly calling Tao and Te)

Going to yue today and coming yesterday , is Hui Shi's argument ,

and Lao is linking the two as arguments together because both rely on some

fixed point of perspective and end in paradox

Not because he is teaching the paradox in the chapter , very much the reverse , he is appealing to your own understanding of the world to dispel the confused argument you may have read elsewhere. .

 

My very much simplified point , You dont make the sun come up by saying it will.

The universe has rules that just ARE.

You logicians - have twisted the cause and effect relationship much as Hui Shi confuses things.

 

Not you personally

IMO

Edited April 18, 2013 by Stosh

[ChiDragon]

希言自然: It is being natural with less words.

希: (adj)scarce
言: (noun) words; speech, decree(metaphor in the TTC classic only)
自然: natural


Edited to add:
BTW The line does not belong to Chapter 23. It was copied from another chapter by mistake.

Edited April 19, 2013 by ChiDragon

[Wu Ming Jen]

Battle of worldview how we see ourselves in the world. Lao and Chuang both put down the logicians weak understanding of reality and win. In the west about 2500 years ago the opposite happened, the mentalist logical and idealist way at looking at the world won the war of worldview,

Now in the west we can see all the harmful effects of such a philosophy in action. We could even say that western philosophy, religion and science is fundamentally the same and goes into all branches of western civilization law. medicine and so on.

 

Imagine If the founders of america before america became a capitalist corporation (we were forced to join the world bankers before then we printed our own money with no interest) had known of an alternative to greek philosophy.

 

Personally I am not that old to remember these things, really I am not that old.I am not in denial of my age. How old am I? I don't even know.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Wu Ming Jen

[Stosh]

Proceeding from greek philosophy we created a complementary system to eastern philosophy. Together they do a nice sound job of covering the human experience.i just dont get why folks pit the two systems against each other either.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Stosh

[Birch]

Proceeding from greek philosophy we created a complementary system to eastern philosophy. Together they do a nice sound job of covering the human experience.i just dont get why folks pit the two systems against each other either. vBulletine

Because they are now being duly pitted. I wonder if they were before? Maybe not on the same scale - unless you count killing large numbers of people in the previous pitting.

[lienshan]

希: (adj)scarce

言: (noun) words; speech, decree(metaphor in the TTC classic only)

自然: natural

 

The scarce words are Tao and Te; their natural metaphors are the whirlwind and the cloudburst.

Laozi followed the logicians theory: To correct its character as actuality is to correct its name.

 

That's why he in his premises states: Tao is Tao and Te is Te

in the same way as a whirlwind is whirlwind and a cloudburst is a cloudburst

That's why he in his premises states: Tao together with Te share losses

in the same way as a whirlwind and a cloudburst share losses (blowing away and flooding things)

 

The first line of the chapter is meant to be read both as you do and as I do ... by purpose!

That was possible in classical chinese but is impossible in modern english ... we must choose?

 

Just like when translating the in his arguementation important character 失 (to lose and a loss)

[Stosh]

Because they are now being duly pitted. I wonder if they were before? Maybe not on the same scale - unless you count killing large numbers of people in the previous pitting.

Well even the folks most supportive of either seem to be adopting the ways of the other, as in the current western trends toward spirituality- wellness , and the eastern trends toward materialism. Between the two trends it appears that western materialism is having a greater effect on the lives of those in the east than the ideas coming in from there do here..

 

If Wu ming and you are right on the cultural divide thing, we are seeing a similar battle today as the world becomes connected, and to me , it seems like western materialism is going to be the survivor albeit modified. Folk can say , "Oh it is just such a shame that the interference from the outside world precipitated the dissappearence of this rich cultural heritage to jungle tribes in the Amazon!" but its the folks of those tribes themselves who are deciding in favor of pennecillin versus jaguar -gall-bladder powder , or whatever useless folk remedies were used to salve the mind before there was a functional alternative.

 

If you are talking about the communism versus capitalism 'pitting' when you refer to previous pitting, I agree yeah , very unneeded , fortunately it only took a few decades of relative deprivation to force a shift in policy, but I never have been of the opinion that the chinese people themselves were really geared in favor top down authority. Prosperity is a reward for folks being enabled to contribute thier best to a system and thier motivation includes their own wellbeing.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Stosh

[Stosh]

The scarce words are Tao and Te; their natural metaphors are the whirlwind and the cloudburst.

Laozi followed the logicians theory: To correct its character as actuality is to correct its name.

 

That's why he in his premises states: Tao is Tao and Te is Te

in the same way as a whirlwind is whirlwind and a cloudburst is a cloudburst

That's why he in his premises states: Tao together with Te share losses

in the same way as a whirlwind and a cloudburst share losses (blowing away and flooding things)

 

The first line of the chapter is meant to be read both as you do and as I do ... by purpose!

That was possible in classical chinese but is impossible in modern english ... we must choose?

 

Just like when translating the in his arguementation important character 失 (to lose and a loss)

Tao and Te are mutually complementary aspects of the whole , that is how they could be seen to share losses

they dont 'run out of rain', one finally yields to the other to complete the whole cycle.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Stosh

[Birch]

Interesting points Stosh. I only have my wonderings. Anyway, I question whether one side is aware it needs the other to continue working as it has been in order to continue. The idea that all can develop under a system that requires a majority to be in poverty (uh, I mean 'underdeveloped') for it to be workable is a major sticking point.

 

---opinion etc--

[Stosh]

Interesting points Stosh. I only have my wonderings. Anyway, I question whether one side is aware it needs the other to continue working as it has been in order to continue. The idea that all can develop under a system that requires a majority to be in poverty (uh, I mean 'underdeveloped') for it to be workable is a major sticking point.

 

---opinion etc--

Well they fund our debt , and so we each have each other by the short hairs , I think we know that.

Yeah both systems rely in disparity of wealth to a degree, luckily I guess

, there is never a shortage of disparity of wealth.

so rest easy

[Birch]

Yeah. I'm not resting easy on this way of doing things at all. But hey, just need to rid myself of that damned illusion of self and I'll go willingly.

[Stosh]

Yeah. I'm not resting easy on this way of doing things at all. But hey, just need to rid myself of that damned illusion of self and I'll go willingly.

Perhaps.

Good luck with that.

[Birch]

Perhaps.

Good luck with that.

 

With what? The ridding of the illusion of self? I have no intention of doing so:-)

[dawei]

Heaven and earth as likely as being made earlier than one's big brother?

Therefore ...........

 

The last opening line refers to the paradoxes of the logicians; for example:

 

I go to Yue today and come yesterday.

 

 

Perhaps relying on a past-progressive tense for "come",

indistinguishable from present tense in Classical Chinese.

The logicans themselves explained their paradoxes this way:

 

The paradox is not illogical on some level. The logicians wanted to point out the simultaneous aspect;

 

They argued the sun at noon is both raising and falling; man is both living and dying. To arrive at Yue yesterday is to have planned it yesterday; that is not any different than going there today. They are 'one and the same' part of the plan.

 

The gist of this chapter is about comparisons which fall away and one is left with singularity.

 

Not sure where 'earlier' comes from in: earlier than one's big brother?

 

If you want to really translate Xiong as brother instead of man, it should be understood that Xiong and Man are also simultaneous; thus, it means either "brothers" or "brotherhood of man". Then comparisons throughout the opening lines are preserved. JMO.

[lienshan]

Not sure where 'earlier' comes from in: earlier than one's big brother?

 

The litteral reading of the sentence:

 

天 地 heaven and earth

而 as likely as

弗能 the impossibility

久 to grow late

有兄 to have a big brother

於人 one's

乎 rethorical ?

 

It was important for Laozi to use the verb 久 for some specific reason I don't know.

So the litteral read sentence contains a double-negotiation; that'll say:

the impossibility to grow late = the possibility to grow earlier

[ChiDragon]

MWD-B
天地而弗能久
有兄於人乎

lienshan:
Heaven and earth as likely as being made earlier than one's big brother?
Is the about statement logical.....???

WB:
天地尚不能久，
而況於人乎﹖

Heaven and Earth cannot be long lasting,
Thus how can even human?

[Wu Ming Jen]

Western system uses human mind. one thing against the other they have no relationship, no dot within yin and yang called absolute fragment philosophy. chinese system is polar complete. one paradigm can not "talk" to the other because of this difference.Look at western science does astrology talk with physics or biology or other branches of science? There is no common source to unite them they are separated.The closest we have is quantum physics proving Taoist understanding daily.

Note :modern astrology is based on BC chinese science called Observation. All is alive, death is change not an end. Energy can not be created or destroyed it only changes form. Throw an apple in the air potential energy when it falls kinetic energy.Rub your hands together friction turns to heat and so on.Past, present, future are elements of human mind.Depression dwelling in the past anxiety dwelling in the future. worry comes from future thoughts. When a philosophy does not transcend human mind we have excellent earth science ie the knowledge of the visible world.What completes the whole is left out of the equation do not look over there. Why is there only present tense in chinese language does this not seem odd?

[Wu Ming Jen]

When one preconceives a future event do our thoughts ever match up with reality?

It is not the destination it is the journey that is important, living in the now

Edited April 19, 2013 by Wu Ming Jen

[ChiDragon]

"Why is there only present tense in chinese language does this not seem odd?"

It is Not odd, only, and only if someone knows the language. Of course, there is past tense in the Chinese language. You give me an example in English and I will give it to you in Chinese....!!!

[Wu Ming Jen]

I was being sarcastic, But this is fun, Please translate "I worked in the garden"

I am having trouble with this because I can only figure out how to work in the garden, I do not know how to do this in the past or in the future.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Wu Ming Jen