Would you say that pointing out a form of hypocrisy in society's treatment of the two genders is standing up for one by putting the other down? — Valued contributer

Yes, I think it is. I've taken exactly the position you're taking in previous discussions. I came to realize that setting this up as a men vs. women thing hurts more than it helps. That's what infuriates me about a lot of feminist ideas.

Lao Tzu was onto something i.e. his mind did know about whatever the hell quantum vacuum is. — Agent Smith

[irony] Yes, and Nostradamus predicted the Patriots will win the Superbowl this season.[/irony]

Let's analyze rationally and offer rational critique. — Hillary

My approach to the TTC tends to be intellectual, rational, but that's me, not Lao Tzu. I don't see it as a fundamentally rational document. It's not irrational either. For me, it's about experiencing the world without words or concepts, if that's possible at all. Can't get much more non-rational than that.

Nature says a lot of words, whispers constantly, screams at times. — Hillary

As I see it, nature may scream sometimes, but briefly, then it stops. We should be like that. None of this whispering. Just be quiet. Say what needs to be said, then shut up. Do what needs to be done, then stop, leave it behind, and go on to whatever's next.

I think this chapter refers to recognising and trusting our temporary nature within Tao. The previous chapter described how the sage manifests effect without intending or desiring to BE the effective agent. — Possibility

I think that's right. I think that "temporary nature" you're talking about is hard to attain. Or at least it's easy to forget. I went back and reread Verse 22 since you brought it up. For me, it was much clearer in what it was saying than this one.

A violent wind or a sudden downpour are temporary events within an ongoing directional flow of energy, or ch’i - Feng Shui meaning ‘wind and water’. If we consider our life event in a similar way, then we have three basic options: we can focus on attracting energy, on losing it, or we can position our being according to the Way, which neither gains nor loses but rather effects an unobstructed flow of energy. — Possibility

Chi, c'hi, qi, energy; is like yin and yang - People say that it is central to understanding the Tao, but it rarely or never is mentioned in the Tao Te Ching. I have some sense of what it means based on my experience with tai chi. I think it points to the fact that Taoist practice includes meditation. That's something I don't generally take into account.

I don't think so. The definitions of reason in the google dictionary are
1) a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.
2) the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.

Note that this has nothing to do with truth necessarily. — Paulm12

I disagree. Definition 1, as I noted in a previous post, is clearly not the sense of "reason" addressed by the original post, which did not discuss "a reason" or "reasons", but "reason". The OP said:

Obviously if we are doing philosophy, we try to use reason/rationality to make an argument and avoid contradictions. — Paulm12

This is consistent with your Definition 2. To say this has nothing to do with truth is not correct. We make arguments about the truth of a position. Thinking and understanding are the tools we use to make judgements about truth.

If we take "reality" as "the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them," then science, reason, and mathematics actually don't tell us much about reality at all. They do tell us idealistic, notational ideas of reality, which are incredibly useful and perhaps "good enough" in most cases. — Paulm12

You're talking about some fancy schmancy subtle, nitpicky version of truth with all sorts of qualifications and conditions. Cartesian truth I guess. I'm talking about regular old everyday truth like who murdered the butler or how the war in Ukraine will affect the price of butter in Peoria.

Are you not curious for the why? — Hillary

People have reasons, not the universe.

How did he know about the quantum vacuum already back then? — Hillary

He didn't.

Yes! I think though that if you know the reason for that ground, which only can be given in a theist context, the ground gets an extra dimension, and all the reasons we invent, like maybe the morals, an extra depth. — Hillary

As you can see from the language in Verse 4, the Tao came before any God. Before anything was named. Before the quantum vacuum.

If you're interested in reading more, here is a link to a website that has many different translations of the TTC.

https://terebess.hu/english/tao/_index.html

You can read the whole document in about an hour. As I indicated, the text you liked is from Ellen Marie Chen's translation.

I take mine from it then, as it seems to advocate. I love these lines! Until the last three lines I see it like the the most beautiful way I have seen the quantum vacuum described! All propagators, momenta, and energies, hidden variables, etc. shrink into insignificance wrt to it! For me, it's a kind of revelation. :up:

How long ago written? By who? — Hillary

Written about 2,500 years ago by Lao Tzu in China.

The universe exists because it exists? — Hillary

Yes. It just does. Again - that's enough for me.

The quantum and the Tao, so often exploited... — Hillary

Everything I write about this is how I see it, not the way it is. There are hundreds of translations and interpretations of the Tao Te Ching out there. I guess you could say this thread is just one more. Metaphorically, I can see how the Tao and the quantum vacuum are the same. They are both the absolute ground of being. But then, the Tao is many other things also. There are moral, social, and psychological dimensions that you don't find in physics.

Everyone who has ever read the TTC has seen it differently.

It seems to be the ancestor (tsung) of ten thousand beings
— T Clark

Now it truly gets scary... — Hillary

The ten thousand things, or ten thousand beings, refers to the multiplicity of the world. All the individual things that exist once we cut the Tao into pieces.

a reason why existence exists in the first place. — Hillary

why the universe is there — Hillary

Because it does. That's enough for me. Clearly not for you.

That's the quantum vacuum! Whirling emptiness: whirling virtual particles. The entangled particles disentangled during inflation. The sharpness blunted: uncertainty relations. Must I continue? — Hillary

Again, that's not how I see it. The quantum vacuum, virtual particles, that's physics. The Tao is metaphysics. It's one useful way of seeing how things are, not the only way.

This is where it seems like we have to make a circular argument. We say reason is the process of finding truth, because we believe that we can arrive at truth using reason. Now, perhaps reason was developed because it described our conception of reality. However, to claim that we have arrived at truth because we used reason is a metaphysical claim about the world saying that truth follows due to our use of reason (probably pretty justified, it seems to do better than other methods, etc). — Paulm12

It's not a circular argument at all. Reason is a process for finding the truth. That's a definition. That's what reason is intended for. Now, perhaps it's a bad or ineffective process, but that's another question.

In the light of gods, reason can be given. Science merely describes creation while informing us about eternal heaven and the eternal life in it. — Hillary

I'm not a follower of any religion. I don't see things the way you do. For me, the reason for existence is a human question that only has human answers.

Sounds reasonable. But how can it be used to find out about the reason for existence? — Hillary

I have answered that question to my own satisfaction, although probably not yours. There is no reason for existence. There is never an answer to the question "Why?" Only "How?"

Sounds like a poetic description of the quantum vacuum structure preceding the big bang, and which is still around us! Damned,T Clark! A revelation! — Hillary

Agreed, it is a poetic description, but then "vacuum" and "big bang" are used metaphorically. I'm not clear on what the revelation you're so excited about is. If you mean that the Tao is the quantum vacuum, that's not how I see it.

It depends on your frame of reference what reason is used. There is no such thing as pure reason. That's an abstraction applicable for an imaginary world only. — Hillary

I'm just talking about regular old normal, impure reason. The kind you and I are involved in here.

But the aim is to find the true reason for existence. Causes give no answer, only a description. — Hillary

Ok, but you're still talking about "reason" in a different sense than the OP is. Reason, as it is normally used, is not the process of finding the reason for existence.

The reason is the why. What's reasonable for me might be unreasonable for you. Is the universe reasonable? Can we apply the why-question to it (including all life in it)? Can cosmology offer a reason for the existence of the cosmos? Several attempts have been made to paint a self sufficient picture, i.e., the cosmos being it's own cause. Obviously there is circularity at play here, because the question remains what the reason is for a self-causing universe in the first place. I can offer a cosmology in which the ending of a cosmos is the trigger for a next, but the reason is not included, i.e., my cosmology is irrational. — Hillary

I think this just highlights what @Philosophim wrote. It's important to define what we mean by "reason." Reason, as it is discussed in the opening post, is a process for finding the truth. A reason, as you are discussing it, is different. It's another word for a cause or purpose. They are completely different things.

Thanks for firing this thread up again. Hope I can clear some time to take a closer look at this fascinating book. One I always felt a kinship to. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Any thoughts will be welcome. They help me understand better and give me incentive to keep going.

Sounds like the eternal but still timeless absolute reality of the quantum vacuum, on whose higher dimensional structure time and space emerge in a big inflation. — Hillary

One of my favorite verses is Verse 4. This is from Ellen Marie Chen's translation:

Tao is a whirling emptiness (ch'ung),
Yet (erh) in use (yung) is inexhaustible (ying).
Fathomless (yuan),
It seems to be the ancestor (tsung) of ten thousand beings.
It blunts the sharp,
Unties the entangled,
Harmonizes the bright,
Mixes the dust.
Dark (chan),
It seems perhaps to exist (ts'un).
I do not know whose child it is,
It is an image (hsiang) of what precedes God (Ti).

If the Tao precedes God, it also precedes the quantum vacuum and any higher dimensional structure.

The forum guidelines say "Don't start a new discussion unless you are...Capable of writing a decent title that accurately and concisely describes the content of your OP.

Verse 23

I always enjoyed this discussion. Putting my thoughts about the Tao Te Ching into words has helped me gain an understanding about what it means to me. The thread sort of ran out of steam along the way, so it has been dormant for almost a year. I’ve been thinking about starting it up again, for at least a verse or two. I’m not sure how much I’ll carry it on.

I find Verse 23 a bit perplexing. As I see it, it has three subjects:

• Don’t talk too much. Put everything you have into what you say, then stop.
• Something confusing about our relationship to the Tao, Te, and loss.
• If you don’t trust, you get no trust in return.

I’m not sure how these three subjects are related. The translations I looked at all address the first subject in similar ways, but the second and third are handled differently in different translations.

The first translation of Verse 23 in this post is one I found fairly recently, so I haven’t used it in past posts. It seems like a useful translation. Best of all, for me, is that it includes specific verses from the Chuang Tzu that are relevant to some of the Tao Te Ching verses. Here’s a link to a downloadable PDF version:

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.189060/page/n3/mode/2up

Lin Yutang

Nature says few words:
Hence it is that a squall lasts not a whole morning.
A rainstorm continues not a whole day.
Where do they come from?
From Nature.
Even Nature does not last long (in its utterances),
How much less should human beings?

Therefore it is that:
He who follows the Tao is identified with the Tao.
He who follows Character (Teh) is identified with
Character.
He who abandons (Tao) is identified with abandonment
(of Tao).
He who is identified with Tao—
Tao is also glad to welcome him.
He who is identified with Character—
Character is also glad to welcome him.
He who is identified with abandonment—
Abandonment is also glad to welcome him.

He who has not enough faith
Will not be able to command faith from others.

Addiss and Lombardo

Spare words; nature's way.
Violent winds do not blow all morning.
Sudden rain cannot pour all day.
What causes these things?
Heaven and Earth.
If Heaven and Earth do not blow and pour for long,
How much less should humans?

Therefore in following Tao:
Those on the way become the way,
Those who gain become the gain,
Those who lose become the loss.
All within the Tao:
The wayfarer, welcome upon the way,
Those who gain, welcome within gain,
Those who lose, welcome within loss.

Without trust in this, There is no trust at all.

Stephen Mitchell

Express yourself completely,
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature:
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.

If you open yourself to the Tao,
you are at one with the Tao
and you can embody it completely.
If you open yourself to insight,
you are at one with insight
and you can use it completely.
If you open yourself to loss,
you are at one with loss
and you can accept it completely.

Open yourself to the Tao,
then trust your natural responses;
and everything will fall into place.

Stanza by stanza discussion:

First stanza:

As I noted, the first stanza is generally handled the same by all of the translators. Wind and rain are nature’s speech. There is power in the way “heaven and earth” express themselves. Express yourself briefly, powerfully, then be quiet. This is a common theme in the TTC - act spontaneously, from the heart, without regard for success, failure, acclaim, or blame. “Wu wei,” act without acting. Then let it go.

Second stanza:

This one confuses me and different translators give it somewhat different interpretations. First off, it seems as if the contents of this stanza are considered direct results of what is stated in the first. I don’t see that connection. The main confusion I have is with the idea of loss. Addiss and Lombardo say:

All within the Tao:
The wayfarer, welcome upon the way,
Those who gain, welcome within gain,
Those who lose, welcome within loss.

This makes is seem as if it’s a good thing to lose. On the other hand, Lin Yutang writes:

He who follows the Tao is identified with the Tao.
He who follows Character (Te) is identified with
Character.
He who abandons (Tao) is identified with abandonment
(of Tao).

This makes it seem like it is a bad thing. Most translations hint at least that loss, or at least identification with loss, is a good, or at least neutral, thing. I like the way Stephen Mitchell puts it:

If you open yourself to loss,
you are at one with loss
and you can accept it completely.

This makes sense to me and is consistent with my experience. Similarly, Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English write:

When you are at one with loss,
The loss is experienced willingly.

Third stanza:

This seems pretty straightforward, although, as I noted, I’m not sure of it’s connection with the previous two stanzas. Lin Yutang writes:

He who has not enough faith
Will not be able to command faith from others.

Is this a reference back to the need for a ruler to trust the people? Similarly, Ellen Marie Chen writes:

When you don't trust (hsin) (the people) enough,
Then they are untrustworthy (pu hsin).

Taking a different tack, Mitchell writes:

Open yourself to the Tao,
then trust your natural responses;
and everything will fall into place.

This interpretation seems to refer back to the first stanza.

Commentaries from Lin Yutang and Ellen Marie Chen are included in the hidden section.

What do you consider reason? Its a broad word that is often interpreted differently by different people. — Philosophim

I was going to make a similar comment. People toss the word "reason" around a lot without being very specific about what it means. I don't have any particular problem with your definition, but I note that the vast majority of human cognition is not found within its borders. Reason is just a tool.

Whether instead of Humanities and Social Sciences we should have psychology, sociology, history, and so on, as separate categories, I don’t know. Seems ok as it is. — Jamal

I don't generally pay attention to what categories posts are in. It all just shows up on my front page.

Could you provide me with the theological roots of rights theory? Where in the Bible (or elsewhere?) is rights theory derived? — Moses

I don't know. I was speaking from personal conviction.

IS that the best folk can do in the face of autocracy? Quoting American mythology? — Banno

Typical smug, snotty, shallow response.

A wise woman once taught me this - If the only way you can stand up for men is by putting women down, you're just playing the same game as the people you oppose.

People are not born equal. — Wittgenstein

But they are equal. They are all endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. Among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. To secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

I've only read Revolt and Culture of Narcissm but feel an urge to get a deeper understanding of his insights. Looking at the long game here as I don't always have a ton of time to read. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I've read those and several others. I remember "Haven in a Heartless World," as being pretty good. As I said, I need to go back and reread.

I have been a fan of Christopher Lasch since back in the 1990s, just after he died, although I have not read his books in a long time. He was humane and pragmatic in his understanding of society. Non-ideological. Lower case "c" conservative of the front porch swing variety. Normally, I would be resistant to his psychoanalytic approach to history and sociology, but it worked for me. It made me think about how changes in society, in the family in particular, also changed how we think - actually changed the structure of our minds.

I guess it's time for me to pull out my old copies of his books to see how they have held up over all these years.

It is intractable that by being born we are forced into complying into a situation lest death. That is a moral problem, not a "get out of jail free cause we can't help it". It is callous to make others choose between X, Y, Z activities or death by de facto the very fact that X, Y, Z leads to non-death. — schopenhauer1

Although it is a common theme for you, I had not entered this discussion from the point of view of anti-natalism. Certainly I knew it was in the background. We've been through that before. No, I don't think it is a moral problem.

So that would be a straw man you are presenting to say we don't have to live in such a manner.. We are indeed social animals. — schopenhauer1

Not a straw man. People have lived as hunter gatherers or subsistence farmers for as long as there have been people. The need to eat is not a burden society placed on our shoulders, it is our existence as living organisms that does.

It isn't trying to be "high falutin" but rather, it is describing our situation in opposition to other animals who live more in the present and have inbuilt instinctual mechanisms.. Whatever the case with other animals, WE don't operate like that. Rather, we operate via self-imposed plans, goals, and expectations.. We choose to work. We don't "survive" in the manner animals just "survive". — schopenhauer1

This is just what I was talking about when I said "highfalutin." You're trying to turn our simple, straightforward, fundamental biological nature into an existential crisis. It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair! (stomps feet)

This is a very good post. Informative and interesting. I remember watching as Poland broke free from the USSR and communism in the 1980s, but I know nothing of the details of post war Polish history.

I wish I had something more substantive to offer than that.

So with my Pessimist philosophy, I have distilled the idea that Comply or Die is a feature of the human condition. Basically, this means that we either comply with the conditions we are situated in (socioeconomic in particular) or we will die a slow death due to not playing the game correctly or simply outright suicide (outright rejection of the game). — schopenhauer1

At bottom, it's not a social or economic issue. If you were alone on an island you would have to comply or die.

Holding off on what other animals can do (because people get caught up in the red herrings of animal psychology rather than my essential point at hand), individuals of our species must continually self-impose the regiment to do work, over and over to "get things done". — schopenhauer1

But we are animals. The constraints you're talking about are the constraints all animals face. You're just making them seem more highfalutin by giving them an existential twist. Metaphorically, you're complaining about gravity. It's not fair that it hurts when we fall down.

Are you familiar with Taoism? Jami's explanation sounds a lot like the Tao Te Ching. The main difference I see is that the Tao is impersonal while God seems to be personified.

I’ll offer that to “justify” means, at the very least etymologically, to make, else evidence, as just; i.e., as right, correct, or fair/good, and, hence, to evidence as true in many of the term’s commonly used senses (from conformity to what is real to the moral fidelity of being loyal/faithful to that implicitly addressed – be this some other, the ideal of objectivity or goodness, or something else).

There is the dichotomy between moral justification and factual justification - and there is equivocation between the two often enough - but to me they both yet pivot around the evidencing of X as just. — javra

You're right. I thought about that before I responded to the post. As I noted, in philosophy, "justified" is a word that is often used to indicate the extent to which the truth of a statement has been verified, or more accurately, the extent to which my belief is warranted. In particular, justified true belief is a commonly used definition of knowledge. Looking at the post it seems this is the sense in which Varde was using it.