Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
.....coming from a background with the tarot, I have wondered about the possibility of using the oracle to ask more general questions, to get information about situations or individuals and not just one's conduct. this task is made more difficult because the texts are all phrased as though one asked "how should I act," forcing me to "translate" them into other terms.
however, in my experience the oracle seems willing to answer these types of questions when the information is useful and appropriate. and I am not fluent in chinese, but the more I look at the original text, the more I get a sense that there's a lot of imagery and poetry going on that both lends itself to this sort of inquiry.
so my question is, do others use the text in this way? if so, how do you look at the text? what translations/approaches do you find most useful? if not, do you think this is a misuse of the oracle? why?
<pre>
CUPS (EARTH) Hexagrams (RECEPTIVE BASE)
02 02,23
03 08,20
04 16,35
05 45,12
(KEEPING STILL BASE)
07 15,52
08 39,53
09 62,56
10 31,33
DISKS (WATER) (ABYSMAL BASE)
02 07,04
03 29,59
04 40,64
05 47,06
(GENTLE BASE)
07 46,18
08 48,57
09 32,50
10 28,44
-----------------------------------------------------MID POINT
WANDS (FIRE) (AROUSING BASE)
10 27,24
09 42,03
08 21,51
07 25,17
(CLINGING BASE)
05 22,36
04 37,63
03 30,55
02 13,49
SWORDS (AIR) (JOYOUS BASE)
10 41,19
09 61,60
08 38,54
07 10,58
(CREATIVE BASE)
05 26,11
04 09,05
03 14,34
02 01,43
</pre>
But be warned:
Chris is not a diviner, he is the Scientist!
...this whole IC+ thing strikes me as very interesting, but I am not sure it renders the task of my original question, how one might use the i ching to divine circumstances, any easier.
"chris loftings iching for dummies", anyone?
:\
it strikes me that the mathiness of all this
soft_helion said:....unduly privileges one system of "meaning construction" over others (e.g. narrative, emotional, etc.), while the statements about dichotomy, tho positing a unity between intuitive and intellectualized approaches, verge precariously on mentalism.
soft_helion said:I'm also not sure what this all has to do with my original question, or why this whole IC+ thing should a priori be an exclusive response to said question. to the extent that I'm almost sorry I asked it...
'mathiness' - is that a word?!
The use of the XOR operator comes from logic and the representing of yin/yang as 0/1 is a natural representation. There is no easier way to discover the X-ness properties of hexagrams other than through using XOR or EQV etc. The use is REALLY simple so I dont see what the issue is.
IMHO the attempt to be formal hides the failure in understanding what is going on.
....I know what XOR is and that's not what I was talking about. your work seems to be a continuation of a particular school of i ching interpetation, I think called "line and number," that became popular during the middle ages, which saw the geometric and mathematical relationships primary to the text itself. this school has declined in popularity in china over the centuries, for the obvious reason that most people find math unpalatable.
I have wondered about the possibility of using the oracle to ask more general questions, to get information about situations or individuals and not just one's conduct.
...
so my question is, do others use the text in this way?
if so, how do you look at the text?
what translations/approaches do you find most useful?
if not, do you think this is a misuse of the oracle? why?
.... And it's completely unrelated to divination discussion and questions about readings.
getojack said:P.S. Don't try to tell me that it's related to divination because of self-referencing and local context derivation, as explicated in XOR, etc. etc....
If I ask a general sort of question, then I just expect a general sort of answer. Not really ''This is what you should do'' but ''This is the situation at the moment.''
I'm partial towards Brad's and LiSe's online translation
I don't think it's a misuse of the oracle. There don't seem to be any hard and fast rules about what you should or shouldn't ask.
Just don't keep asking the same question or the Yi will get annoyed.
disagree. Show me how it does not relate given the IC and each hexagram is interpretable as a monad and allowing for extracting details from a reading.
Has you checked the link I posted? Could it answer (in practical way) your question?
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).