Mair 2:13

[Marblehead]

Penumbra inquired of Shadow, saying, "One moment you move and the next moment you stand still; one moment you're seated and the next moment you get up.  Why are you so lacking in constancy?"

Shadow said, "Must I depend on something else to be what I am?  If so, must what I depend upon in turn depend upon something else to be what it is?  Must I depend upon the scales of a snake's belly or the forewings of a cicada?  How can I tell why I am what I am?  How can I tell why I'm not what I'm not?"
 

 

Edited September 25, 2016 by Marblehead

[rene]

Heh, methinks Penumbra is tired of Shadow jerking him around.

[Taoist Texts]

Must I depend upon the scales of a snake's belly or the forewings of

......

 

Whats this all about?

[Marblehead]

Must I depend upon the scales of a snake's belly or the forewings of

......

 

Whats this all about?

I see that as a play on the concept of dependency and connectedness.

 

Penumbra lacks consistency.  Many people can't handle that from others.  You must be what they expect you to be.  If you're not then they ask you why. 

 

A person who lives spontaneously cannot answer the question.  They have no idea what inspired them to do as they did.

 

If the person is dependent one something else (in the manifest) then the concept of connectedness would imply that they were dependent upon a snake's belly or the forewings of a cicada.

 

Penumbra is just being natural and doing what feels natural at the time.  A Confucian would never do that.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Marblehead

[rene]

I see that as a play on the concept of dependency and connectedness.

 

Penumbra lacks consistency. Many people can't handle that form others. You must be what they expect you to be. If you're not then they ask you why.

 

A person who lives spontaneously cannot answer the question. They have no idea what inspired them to do as they did.

 

If the person is dependent one something else (in the manifest) then the concept of connectedness would imply that they were dependent upon a snake's belly or the forewings of a cicada.

 

Penumbra is just being natural and doing what feels natural at the time. A Confucian would never do that.

I see it as Penumbra not knowing itself. A penumbra is the outer edge of a shadow; it moves when the shadow moves. Pot, meet kettle.

[dawei]

It seems a debate between the part and the whole... Penumbra does not only not know itself, it doesn't know the whole.  

 

So while Penumbra is absence of the whole picture, Shadow stays within his own whole.

[Taoist Texts]

 

Are virtual particles really constantly popping in and out of existence ...

www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-virtual-particles-rea/

1.  
2.  

Gordon Kane, director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, provides this answer..

 

This is a really deep polemic with the rationalistic thought of Mo-zi and Confucianism. There is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

Plato's cave in it, and also the ultimate unpredictability and chaos of the ultimate causes which flicker imperceptibly and constantly,  like the scales on the snake's underbelly or the wingtips of a cicada in flight. 

 

 

[Stosh]

http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/aquinasFiveWays_ArgumentAnalysis.htm

 

This section was a discussion about the unmoved mover , the author is presenting an argument in the form of a 'question' that there is an underlying unity , which Aquinas concluded was god in his Five Ways thing.