@fdrake

Enough already

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seems like a little bit of a stretch to me. — Joe0082

seems only a partial truth, — Joe0082

This is known as "seems to me science." "Seems to me" in this context just means "I don't understand how." The world is full of things that seem to be impossible but which, none-the-less, exist.

A question - do you believe that all living organisms on Earth are the descendants of one kind of simple single-celled organism?

We only know the direction from the "point of the big bang" and the approximate time of its beginning. But we do not know (are not sure) that this happened from the "point". — SimpleUser

It is my understanding the singularity that is talked about at the beginning of the universe or in a black hole is a mathematical construct based on the equations of General Relativity, i.e. an undefined point. The interpretation of that as an infinitely small and infinitely dense point is a human interpretation. A metaphor.

the faster than light expansion of the early universe is only impossible by the internal physical laws of the universe. — counterpunch

The explanation of the apparent expansion of the universe at speeds greater than that of light I have heard is that the expansion of the fabric of space-time itself is not subject to the speed limit. Seems like a cheat to me, but people who know more than I do accept it.

I think this is right.
Your interpretation is in keeping with that of Ivanhoe's notes concerning V12. — Amity

After I read your response, I went and looked some more. I still haven't found anyone else who uses this interpretation. I'm still not sure I believe that's what it meant, although it seems like a deeper meaning than the other ones we're talking about. I went and bought his book. I'm glad you found it. Thanks.

This question is tied to a preoccupation I've developed around neoliberalism, which I think is partly fuelled by a desire to create strife in the same way a video game does. — frank

Can you define neoliberalism as you're using it here. Generally, it means laissez-faire capitalism, free-trade, and globalization.

And in an unrelated note - "whing" is a word I never heard until I came on the forum. The word I've always heard is "whine," which means the same thing. Is it an Australianism?

I see this verse a little differently. I think it has more to do with the fact that when we seek to overwhelm the senses or indulge in excess, we’re unable to appreciate the diverse qualities of the world. — Possibility

I guess the difference between my way of seeing it and yours is the distinction between my "perceive the Tao" and your "appreciate the diverse qualities of the world." I guess I would interpret "diverse qualities" as referring to the 10,000 things. That carries through to the other senses described.

Therefore, the sage seeks only what he needs, not what he sees (acts in the capacity of his belly, not his eye). — Possibility

The distinction between belly and eyes you describe is echoed by some other commentators. Others see things differently. Here's Chen, who includes your interpretation among others:

This is a persistent primitivistic theme in the text—that humans should be contented with the simple pleasures of life (ch. 80) and that the overstimulation of the senses renders them incapable of functioning smoothly...

...According to Wang Pi the issue is between preservation or dissipation of the self. The sage makes things serve him; he does not enslave himself to things. Food, which is for the belly, serves to sustain the body, but the eyes lead us to outside distractions and dissipate the body’s energies.

...We suggest that the symbols of the belly and the eyes go deeper. The belly, representing instinct, the unconscious, and the unopened self, is the seat of life and unity (Gebser: 145). The eyes, opening us to the external world, represent consciousness, sight being the most refined and intellectual of the senses.

“your eyes were too big for your belly” — Possibility

My father always said "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach."

All of this refers back to the relation between substance and lack: if we concentrate only on filling our world to the brim, then it leaves no room to appreciate wu in relation to the Tao. — Possibility

Where you read substance and lack I see being and non-being; 10,000 things and Tao. I think we're talking about different things, but I'm not sure.

It does make a big difference. I do think there are separate experiences being considered here.
I will mull in the idea while considering the other translations. — Valentinus

Your way of seeing things has been helpful for me. Not that others aren't.

I just wanted to be the 300th comment. It's kind of a Taoist thing.

Perhaps the differences of meaning are related to which kind of observation is required. — Valentinus

I'm not sure, but I do like that translation. None of the other translations use the word "allow" in reference to desire. That makes a big difference.

MY OCTOPUS TEACHER is a fine documentary on a particular octopus - on Netflix. — Bitter Crank

I've been thinking about watching that.

"Ontological Principle" that "no argument is valid if it overdetermine a cause that affects only external factors without having any kind of internal consequence", — Gus Lamarch

When you say "overdetermine a cause" does that mean there are other possible causes of the phenomenon in question?

Can you give an example of an argument that doesn't affect external factors but has an internal consequence?

Awakening from the scientific trance for a second, one has to say the universe could not expand then coalesce into the vast reality it has become from an infinitely small point Just not possible. In fact ridiculous. Nor could energy expand faster than the speed of light. Not possible. Nor could gravity shape matter and anti-matter into a universe capable of creating and supporting life, even if on just one little planet. No way. — Joe0082

I'm not a physicist, but I have a good background in science. The story does not seem ridiculous or impossible to me.

Verse 12

Ellen Marie Chen translation

The five colors blind a person's eyes;
The five musical notes deafen a person's ears;
The five flavors ruin a person's taste buds.
Horse-racing, hunting and chasing,
Drive a person's mind (hsin) to madness.
Hard-to-get goods,
Hinder a person's actions.
Therefore the sage is for the belly, not for the eyes.
Therefore he leaves this and chooses that.

Heshang Gong commentary

Greed and lust for beautiful appearances cause injury to the vital essence and loss of brilliance.

If one longs to hear the five notes, harmonious energy breath leaves the heart and they cannot hear the sound of the soundless.

They excite and destroy it. People who have a weakness for the five flavours end up destroying their mouths. This is to say that they lose Dao.

People’s spiritual vitality loves tranquility and stillness. Quickly breathing in and out in haste causes the spiritual vitality to scatter and die. A person then becomes insane.

Interfere, here, means to injure. “Goods which are difficult to obtain” refers to gold, silver, precious stones, and jade. The heart-mind which is greedy, and thinks about what it desires does not know how to be content when it has enough. This causes one’s journey to suffer and their character to be insulted.

By guarding the five intrinsic natures, abandoning the six emotions, and uniting the energy-breath of the will, spiritual intelligence is cultivated.

The eyes should not look frantically. Regarding frantically leaks out vital essence.

They leave frantic looking, and take the cultivation of pure nature (xing) by way of the stomach.

This seems like a pretty straight-forward verse. Sensual pleasures (sounds, tastes, and sights), greed, and excitement damage our perception organs and mind. I think this means they distract us from our perception of the Tao, which requires quiet contemplation. I guess they are the result of or a reflection of desire.

I had another thought. The five musical notes seem to refer to the Chinese pentatonic scale. The ancient Chinese also had a system of five colors that represent directions, planets, or elements. They also classify flavors into five categories which generally match those we use. Maybe the use of these words references division of the natural world into rigid conventional categories. "The five colors blind a person's eyes" might mean that thinking in terms of those categories keeps us from seeing the world directly. I haven’t seen this interpretation anywhere else.

bored me out of my mind — FlaccidDoor

I was raised as a Methodist, although my mother wasn't as devout as your family sounds. I have very vivid memories of sitting in the pews when I was about five, listening to the sermon and feeling like I was going to explode. I was a very high-energy child and I had no patience. Sitting still for that long was very painful.

I'm not completely sure what made me think back to this from what you mentioned. — FlaccidDoor

That happens to me all the time. I usually find that, even though it might not seem directly on-subject, it shares the tone or mood of the subject being discussed. That can be helpful, even if it isn't a perfect match.

I like that too. It closely hews to the Lin version I was trying to articulate earlier but is more elegant. — Valentinus

I've been thinking about this more. I'm comfortable with what we've worked out for the meaning of the lines, but I'm still working on the other issue I had with the verse - The use of "being" and "non-being" seems to mean something different in this verse than it does in other verses, as I noted in particular, Verse 1.

This essay is very helpful - thank you. Here is a PDF version (unfortunately without the Chinese characters). — Possibility

@Valentinus - I agree with @Possibility. This is an interesting paper. The language seemed very out of date. I looked up the author. He died in 1908, so it makes sense. It as edited by Ezra Pound.

I forwarded it to a friend of mine who is a linguist with an interest in Chinese language. I'll see what he thinks.

Thanks.

You don’t really own it, though. Your possession of it is an event in which you are relating to the pitcher’s substantial potentiality (its capacity to be held, seen, felt, etc), and your use of it is an event in which you are relating to the pitcher’s insubstantial potentiality (its capacity to be empty or filled, sold, given away, etc). — Possibility

I don't know what "substantial potentiality" and "insubstantial potentiality" mean.

Did your sister and your South Carolinian parents hate the experience? or was everyone else who had to deal with it the most hateful of the situation? — FlaccidDoor

My sister and my brother's parents-in-law were not talking to each other. My sister was just expressing her opinion forcefully to the whole table. They just sat there in silence. I think it probably bothered my brother most. I think he was humiliated.

“If I put it on a shelf, my house will be more attractive” - is to behold value in the substance of the pitcher, and derive benefit from that (for the house). — Possibility

I'm seeing it differently than that. I own the pitcher, but I use the emptiness. I hold the pitcher by it's clay handle, but the hollowness is what actually allows the pitcher to function.

I like that too. — Valentinus

I like it more the more I think about it. I think that's because it has that ironic twist, that forced switch in perspective, that my favorite verses in the TTC have.

You mentioned Lin's translation. This is part of his commentary on Verse 12:

Therefore, we can see how we create solid objects to provide us with benefits and convenience, but it is actually the emptiness formed by, or embedded in such objects that really provide them with functionality and usefulness.

It's "actually" and "really" that makes the point for me.

One thing which I am also wondering is if we think about any form of consciousness in any other life forms apart from human beings, we would have to query in what form would meaning be grasped if it is not in the form of language, as we know it? — Jack Cummins

That's a really good question.

But if you find a error in my logic please show it to me because it would really help. — SmartIdiot

I don't think I find any error in you thoughts, although I do have a somewhat different perspective. As @Bitter Crank says in his comment, scientists have come to believe that some animals are conscious in a way similar to how we are. In that context, consciousness is seen as the ability to think about themselves in an abstract way. One of the ways they test this is to see if an animal can recognize itself in a mirror. Crows, chimpanzees, and octopi have passed that test. It's amazing to me that an invertebrate, related to clams, may have self-consciousness. That may be evidence that evolution of intelligence and consciousness is not that unusual.

I don't buy it either. — Bitter Crank

Jaynes had some thoughts on how our consciousness is related to our ability to form metaphors that I found very interesting and convincing. The rest was sort of highfalutin Malcolm Gladwell pseudoscience.

"More liberal than thou" liberals can be vicious, vituperative vipers. — Bitter Crank

Actually, my brother's Trump supporting South Carolinian parents in law are the most conservative when everyone is there. At our last reunion, someone allowed my outspoken liberal sister and daughter to sit next to them. It was painful and inconsiderate. My sister often doesn't think before she speaks. Actually, she does. That's probably the problem.

Carry on with the plan, Sam. — Amity

Will do.

The question of meaning arose late in the historical game (just my guess). Tyrannosaurus Rex probably didn't worry about the meaning of existence. Five million years ago, our predecessors weren't worrying about meaning either, We, on the other hand, do worry about it--a lot. (At least people on this forum do.) — Bitter Crank

Are you familiar with Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind?" It's an odd book that contends that homo sapiens did not become self-aware until sometime in the last few thousand years. Here's what Wikipedia says:

Abandoning the assumption that consciousness is innate, Jaynes explains it instead as a learned behavior that "arises ... from language, and specifically from metaphor." With this understanding, Jaynes then demonstrates that ancient texts and archeology can reveal a history of human mentality alongside the histories of other cultural products. His analysis of the evidence leads him not only to place the origin of consciousness during the 2nd millennium BCE but also to hypothesize the existence of an older non-conscious "mentality that he calls the bicameral mind, referring to the brain’s two hemispheres".

I don't buy it, and a lot of psychologists and anthropologists don't either, but he wasn't laughed out of the room.

Seems to me that sense of meaning is a function of consciousness.

They absolutely can be civil. A civil discussion between a Trump lover and a Trump loather probably won't result in changed positions, but if they can at least get to what it is about Trump (or any other politician, political issue, religious question... all sorts of things) that they love or loathe, that would be good. — Bitter Crank

One place where I found common ground with Trump supporters was an agreement that, given the fact that almost half of American's doubted the legitimacy of the election, it would make sense to have an even-handed investigation. It's not that I have any doubt that the election was fair and legal, it's that I want to acknowledge the beliefs of those I disagree with. Whatever the cost of an investigation is nothing compared with the possibility of reducing the level of anger.

Family is one of the places where children (and parents) can stake out claims for what they believe, or what they don't believe, as the case may be, then defend the territory. Family argument is the cradle of opinion making, and learning the skills to have and deploy opinions. — Bitter Crank

My family is terrible. We all agree on everything. Our arguments are all about who can be more liberal. I tend to be the most conservative person in the room. I'll say something conciliatory about supporters of President Trump and I get beaten to a figurative pulp.

Yes - the model you're taught when you study adult learning is that learners progress through four stages - unconscious incompetence (I don't know what that is') conscious incompetence ('I don't know how to do that'), conscious competence ('I can do that if I really try') unconscious competence - mastery or 'second nature' i.e. something that can be perfomed effortlessly. (Like watching a great pianist - they make it look easy.) Wu-wei is a form of mastery or 'second nature'. — Wayfarer

I've been reading through all the comments, bashing my head against a wall, and I thought of this. It's not the same as what you've written about, but it's related. I first noticed this when I was practicing Tai Chi, but once I started paying more attention, I saw it in other areas where I was becoming more aware, more competent.

Practicing a new movement in Tai Chi, my actions would be mechanical. I was just trying to follow my instructors actions without reflection. I remember the first time this happened - I was practicing a move I had learned mechanically trying to pay attention. Trying to relax my body. I felt a little tickle, just a little metaphorical tingle, of something. I wasn't sure I felt something real or not. I remember thinking it would be really easy to mess around with this and it would turn out it doesn't mean anything.

So, I started paying attention to that tingle. As I continued practicing and paying attention, the signal became stronger and I became more certain there was something real there. I modified, fiddled with my practice and my attention to see if I could enhance the feeling. Maybe at that point I would talk to my teacher and she would give me a little guidance. That might change my direction, or maybe it would expand my understanding. This process continued until I came to a place when I realized that what started out as a tingle had been there all the time. It was so obvious I didn't understand how I could miss it. All of this grew - learning to become aware once made it easier to learn new things. And now I am a Tai Chi master. Not.

It isn’t ‘non-being’ that Lao Tzu is referring to, though: it’s lack. What is translated as ‘non-being’ relates to this idea of lack, and so does this lack of substance described in verse 11. — Possibility

My first thought when I read this was to check other translations to see how they dealt with this issue. Here are a few.

Mitchell

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Addiss and Lombardo

Therefore, Having leads to profit, Not having leads to use.

Lin

Therefore, that which exists is used to create benefit
That which is empty is used to create functionality

Cleary

Therefore being is for benefit, nonbeing is for usefulness.

Boy - that's not much help.

The value of the pitcher is in our relation to its substance, — Possibility

This would make sense to me if it said that we handle, move, carry, own, have the pitcher through its substance. I just don't know what it means when we say "value." Can you give some examples of the value of the pitcher.

Actually - I like that. We possess the pitcher, but we use the emptiness. Or - We hold the pitcher, but we use the emptiness. I like that a lot.

out of many, one (the motto of the US). — TheMadFool

Yes - the Tao is the melting pot.

As a beginner, I should have realised that in dealing with my own limited understanding, I should steer clear of attempts to help. — Amity

I think you are being a good participant in this discussion. "Limited understanding" certainly describes my situation now. You've been around the forum for a while. You should be used to people not understanding what you're trying to say or disagreeing with you.

I not only quoted the story, I made additional comments see my post to Wayfarer.
Thanks for your contribution — Amity

I suggest, if you're hoping for a response from a particular person, you tag the post for that person.

This is echt Jordan B Peterson. — Tom Storm

Always on the lookout for new words - "echt." One of those words that sounds like it aught to mean something cool, but actually means something normal. It almost has that guttural German sound you make at the back of your throat. My favorite voice sound.

Thanks.

The pitcher must exist for it to be a benefit to one. The utility that makes it beneficial is possible through the non-being. The wheel makes carriages exist and move. The non-being involved in the wheel is what makes the being of the carriage possible. — Valentinus

I don't like that interpretation much, but I don't hate it. You may be on to something. I'll think about it some more.

Thanks.

I read Possibility's remark to mean the benefit is the direct utility of the result; The pitcher holds water. The wu permits it to be filled and emptied. — Valentinus

Therefore in the being (yu-chih) of a thing,
There lies the benefit (li).
In the non-being (wu-chih) of a thing,
There lies its use (yun). — T Clark

Verse 11 makes the distinction between benefit and use. The benefit comes from being. The use comes from non-being. I don't understand it. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Wu refers to the idea of lack - its meaning hasn’t changed, only the level of relation to these ideas. Here, rather than a figurative or active lack of being, it is a tangible lack in relation to certain objects and their potential substance. Wu is a vital aspect of the Tao - what we ignore, isolate or exclude in our relation to the world, what is missing or removed, is an integral part of how we relate to the world on all levels of awareness. In Western thinking, we conceal this aspect at each level and focus only on the tangible substance, as if this lack doesn’t matter. But lack exists as a necessary aspect of even the most concrete or fully-formed reality. — Possibility

I agree with what you're saying, but the type of non-being you describe seems different to me than the non-being described elsewhere in the TTC. In those cases, such as Chen's alternative translation of Verse 1 which I showed in a previous post to Wayfarer, non-being is a property of the Tao. That non-being is the source of everything. The seem like entirely different things. Entirely different not-things.

I think Lao Tzu is making a distinction here between substantial value (benefit) and immaterial potentiality. Value is the capacity or ability that exists in what is; - is the capacity or ability that exists in what is not - but can be, was before, or might have been. It is this relational structure to the world, between substance and its lack, that all action, dynamic, movement, change, creation and destruction derives from. — Possibility

I don't understand the distinction you're making. Let's break this down. What is the use of a pitcher? I can use it to hold water because of it's enclosed emptiness, its non-being. Ok. Then what is the value of the pitcher? The benefit? How does it make my life better?

• It will increase my water storage capacity.
• If I put it on a shelf, my house will be more attractive.
• If I give it as a gift I can earn gratitude and appreciation
• If I sell it, I will have more money.

So, is it a have my cake and eat it thing?

Very nice TC. — Tom Storm

Awww shucks.

An Australian Aboriginal activist I know once said that bigotry and hatred isn't more prevalent today than it was 50 years ago, it is just better organized. — Tom Storm

And, given the internet and all the associated media, more visible.

They may say that about me, but it's not true, — RogueAI

At the risk of repeating myself, they feel the same way about you.

The reason politics has become divisive is because the conservative movement (about 80% of it) has lost their minds, has bought in to all this white grievance BS, believes crazy conspiracy theory shit, and is enthrall to a narcissistic sociopath. How can I have common cause with such people? So, I avoid them as much as possible. — RogueAI

They feel the same way about you. That's how we got to this place. If we ever want to get out of it, we have to try something different.

I'm a liberal Democrat. Even so, I know it's true that I share most values with people I disagree with politically.