dust

Yeah. I just hate the term "good job". "He's so successful now, got a really good job, making loads of money!" "What does he do?" "Investment banking." "Isn't that stressful?" "Yeah. He's got no time for friends or family or anything, and he's addicted to coke. But he's got a Ferrari!" Pfft. No offence to any investment bankers, but...fuck that for a game of soldiers.

Tomorrow, then. http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/ingrained-ideas This would be titled, "Chuang Tzu chapter 15" ? Assuming all parts should be looked at together...

Well, if I may bring the GD in... and I apologize if I appear to be beating a dead horse with any of the following ideas. Or if it just sounds like nonsense. 亡爲 We have 亡 wang "death", instead of 无 wu. In this context, 亡 means absence, but the death connotation implies to me quite a significant, absolute absence. 衜恆亡爲也 Dao eternal absence of Wei 侯王能支之 Ruler ability to lean on 而萬勿將自而欲作 Ten thousand things will themselves automatically Zuo as they want Clearly Dao can't really be said to have a complete absence of action, as it is the origin of all action and non-action, so being absent of Wei, it must be absent a certain kind of doing. 作 Zuo is written here as 乍 + 又, a hand and blade chopping wood, originally meaning to cut or chop wood to make things with, and here simply to do or to make. So, 爲 Wei describes a specific type of action, and 作 Zuo another. Zuo and Wei are found together in ch.2 also: 萬勿作而弗怠也 Ten thousand things Zuo and not begin 為而弗志也 Wei and not ambitious And..that's all I have to say for now.

So, did people get bored? Seems like a lot of chapters haven't been covered? I've been reading a few bits from the Outer Chapters, notably Ingrained Ideas, and was looking for the thread in which to discuss it...but I don't want to jump the gun or create a thread if there is one (and I'm too dim to find it)

Really. None? Well, I'm not sure what your definition of intelligence is, but if you're talking about people who do well in school and get "good" jobs in modern society, I think you're referring to IQ. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203674704574334752489414792?mod=googlenews_wsj&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052970203674704574334752489414792.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj http://phys.org/news172174436.html -- higher intelligence and curiosity has been linked to higher likelihood of drug abuse http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-drink-more-alcohol http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-use-more-drugs What does "successful in life" mean? Lots of money? Your definition of intelligence includes being socially inept and very ugly? Again, "success in life". What is this? Has it anything to do with being happy?

The next bit... 亓安也易困也 Something at peace is easy to control, 亓未垗也易悔也 Something still growing is easy to develop, 亓毳也易畔也 Something weak is easy to break down, 亓幾也易踐也 Something lesser is easy to scatter; 為之於亓亡又也 Act when something doesn’t exist yet, 紿之於亓未亂 Control it before it turns to disorder; 合抱之木生於毫末 A great tree grows from a tiny shoot, 九成之臺乍於羸土 A nine-storey tower is made from dust, 百千之高怡於足下 A momentous task starts from where one stands Had to guess at a few characters in the last 3 lines, based on the MWD mostly, as there are a couple of bits missing. Very annoying. So very annoying. Clearly saying "Deal with problems before they become problems", it seems to be intimating the ruling of a kingdom -- crush foes before they realize they're your foes. Though it talks of actually doing and controlling and interfering with things, it seems to be suggesting how to manage affairs so that wu wei / non-interference is possible?

http://www.foodfortranslators.com/2014/10/26/best-quotations-on-translation/ Some interesting thoughts on this wonderfully silly task we set for ourselves. “All translating seems to me to be simply an attempt to accomplish an impossible task.” – Wilhelm von Humboldt “Even the simplest word can never be rendered with its exact equivalent into another language.” – Kimon Friar “In its happiest efforts, translation is but approximation, and its efforts are not often happy. A translation may be good as translation, but it cannot be an adequate reproduction of the original.” – George Henry Lewes “Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.” – Anthony Burgess “There are three grades of translation evils: 1. errors; 2. slips; 3. willful reshaping” – Vladimir Nabokov “The translation called good has original value as a work of art.” – Benedetto Croce “Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes.” – Günter Grass

As someone on the forum (maybe you?) mentioned elsewhere, wasn't Confucius more of a vehicle for collecting, elaborating upon, and enshrining ideas that already existed?

17 and 18 being regarded in GD as the same chapter, I'll put them together. 17 大上下智又之 A great ruler is one of whom the people are aware; 亓卽新譽之 Next is one who is praised; 亓卽畏之 Next is one who is feared; 亓卽婺之 Next is one who is ridiculed; 信不足咹又不信 When one is distrustful, he will be mistrusted, 猷唬亓貴言也 His most treasured words will be lost; 成事述功 If he manages affairs well, 而百省曰我自然也 The people will say, “We did it ourselves” 18 古大道癹咹又忎義 So, when the Way is destroyed? We have benevolence and justice; 六新不和咹又孝孳 When the six relationships are not in harmony? We have filial piety and subordination; 邦家緍亂咹又正臣 When the nation is in disarray? We have righteous officials

Some, including MH (and FH?) might prefer this. I've changed 安 into 咹 to better represent the GD character: it appears to be used to indicate query or supposition. 又壯蟲成 Something great gave way to all form; 先天地生 Born before Heaven and Earth, 敚綉蜀立不亥 Morphing and hazy, singular and limitless, 可以為天下母 It is the mother of all things; 未智亓名 Its name is unknown, 字之曰道 We refer to it as the Way; 吾為之 Were I forced to, 名曰大 I’d name it Great; 大曰筮 A greatness we can only divine, 筮曰遠 To have to divine, it surely goes far, 遠曰反 Going far meaning to return; 天大地大道大王亦大 Heaven, Earth, the Way, and also the King, are Great; 国中又四大咹 Does this realm have four Greats? 而王居一咹 Of which the King is one? 人灋地 Man is of the Earth, 地灋天 The Earth is of the Heavens, 天灋道 The Heavens are of the Way, 道灋自然 The Way is of itself Also noted that the ran of ziran / tzujan on the slips does not have fire on the bottom, so actually just looks like animal flesh... self-fleshing?

In another post, there's discussion on whether or not something looks like a loaf of bread. If someone thinks something looks like a loaf of bread, then it does... to them. Even if it's a teapot. It was designed as a teapot, and has all the qualities of a teapot, so it would follow that it is, objectively, a teapot. But what's a teapot? Only something created by man's subjective mind. Also, if anything can be said to look like anything from one's subjective perspective, and that nobody can disagree with how I perceive things (because how do you know?), how do we know who's seeing a thing as it "really is" and who's hallucinating? Cervantes offers a view on this: through Don Quixote's madness -- because he wants the world to be different than it appears to be -- he just starts to see things completely differently to other people. An inn is a castle, a bowl is a helmet, an ugly smelly serving maid is a beautiful fragrant princess. Don't we all do this? I see the moon, you see the moon -- but what's the moon? The fact that we give it a name indicates that we've subjectively separated it from the rest of existence. Someone sees it as a big block of cheese, someone as a ball of rock floating through space, someone as a concentration of matter among the less concentrated matrix of matter that makes up space...

Oh, yes, I'm not suggesting that there is no underlying objective stuff. I guess I am suggesting that we never experience the whole of it -- that our experience is incomplete. And if our perceptions are incomplete / subjective, our language is subjective, and our use of and understanding of numbers and language is subject to subjectivity.... almost all of what we think and say and do is subjective. We see the moon, but not (necessarily) in the same way. http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=30670#.VFi0PslaaZQ Part of a fascinating documentary, well worth a watch.

Not sure what you mean. The concepts both exist, but, as Rara said in the OP, "everyone seems to have an opinion about something". The point being that what people believe is objective is really often subjective, or somewhere on a scale of subjectivity. http://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2014/apr/08/seven-worlds-favourite-number-online-survey http://pages.bloomsbury.com/favouritenumber/3 (about the number 3) (about the number 4) In China, 4 is unlucky, as it sounds like death. In the West, some people don't like 13 or 666, for whatever reasons. In Cantonese, apparently, 3 sounds like "alive". In Japan, 8 is supposedly lucky. People can have feelings/opinions about numbers, assigning them colours and emotions. So...we can be subjective about pretty much anything.

Very good point about definitions. I think that, if one denies the possibility of objectivity, one is denying definition : that there is anything we can know for sure independent of the mind. edit: to contrast with "subjective" _______________________________ Using this definition, clearly there are commonly-experienced phenomena -- numbers, feelings, objects that we can see and touch, etc -- but they are, to us, only experienced in the mind, and we can only describe them using human language, which is itself necessarily subjective (based on or influenced by the personal feelings, tastes, or opinions of those who create and use it). So, in order to decide whether or not we can not be influenced by personal feelings or opinions in representing facts, we have to decide: - can we remove ourselves from opinion? - are there any "facts"?

A number of thoughts having read through this thread, but I'll present the most recent one, as it's the only one I still remember. There was talk of WWII, the Cold War, and wars in Chinese history being "Taoist" in nature I guess that we can see the existence of war as just as in line with the Way as anything else that exists. Meaning that there's a time for everything, including death, decay, and war... But, if we look at both the Laozi and Sunzi, avoiding war is the "most Taoist" way. To quote my own translation: China is an oddity in history, having -- since unification -- existed as one recognizable, consistent entity for so many centuries. It's managed this consistency through dynastic rise and fall. And the cycle continues, even to this day: to my mind, there's very little about the CCP that one can't liken to the dynasties of old (notably, absence of eunuchs? ) -- it's the same cycle under a drastically redecorated mask. This dynastic ruling cycle, and the way modern governments rule, is certainly not what Laozi talked about in ch.66: or 17: However, the dynastic cycle served to avoid as much war as might have happened in a fragmented land such as during the Warring States, and has exhibited one other element, at least, of Dao:

Having read all these comments, which offer some great insight.. I've decided that I don't care! As far as translating it, though I over-think many things, I don't think the title's worth over-thinking. The 经 jing "classic" component marks it out as a title that was given much later than the text was written. All we know for sure is that the earlier versions were called 老子 Laozi / Lao Tzu. Calling it this puts it squarely next to the Zhuangzi / Chuang Tzu, and many other great -zi authors/texts (Sunzi, Liezi, Mozi, Guanzi) But please don't take this as a suggestion to stop discussing it.

iain, I don't have answers either, but as you bring up dogs... I notice that when we praise animals for their intelligence -- usually dogs, pigs, dolphins, chimps, etc -- we're often praising their ability to recognize human-like language (spoken words, signs, pictures -- symbols), and subsequently perform tasks. A fish can't use human language or perform tasks on command, but... a fish is pretty good at being a fish. So, according to wiki, "His principal goal was to identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum." If someone needs help in coping, perhaps they should be doing something else. Forcing people to conform to society's current limited notion of intelligence seems counterproductive, doesn't it?

Be careful of bid sites for web design.. I don't think they're useful in the long run. You probably want a nice design, help with marketing/analytics/SEO/social media etc, help with uploading/implementing code, and future help with updates/redesigns. I don't know if bid designers are useful on all these points. Perhaps, also, it's nice to know who you're dealing with (someone local). Then again, sites like 99designs are praised for sending business to poor areas all over the world.. Just some thoughts.

Great stuff. I love the chapters where he teases Confucius. I agree with him, and your observations. I've never looked at the origins of 仁 before. One source suggests that it originally depicted equality between people -- the idea that the monarch and the commoner are no different. This is great,but what it came to mean -- conformity -- eugh.... I hate that word. Truth!

"evolve" is a good word, I think it fits well there Other than that, I get the emptiness bit (I think), but I do still wonder about the second line. Especially in the GD.

Aha! Very nice. Perhaps we can say it's both. So we have upwards-reaching grass on top, water on the bottom, and a man (great) at middle-right. I'm still not clear on what the 二 +丨 might represent..?

It's cool that you're looking for different perspectives, and certainly I wouldn't discount any of these ideas 100% -- grammar is grammar, but there's no reason writers couldn't have been inserting hints/references here and there. Sorry I can't be more help historically. Hopefully someone like dawei or Taoist Texts will be able to shed some light...

Certainly. But can these things be measured, if we do it differently? And more importantly, should we bother to try?

I understand that you're mainly concerned with historical stuff here, but I think some linguistic review would be helpful. With modern punctuation, I'd read it as follows (and I might well be wrong, though I think not too far off) 豫兮！若冬涉川 猶兮！若畏四鄰 儼兮！其若容 渙兮！若冰之將釋 敦兮！其若樸 曠兮！其若谷 混兮！其若濁 孰能濁以靜之徐清？ 孰能安以久動之徐生？ Firstly, I'm not an expert, but the first mention of Henan as Yuzhou seems to be in the Rites of Zhou 周礼 which was written no earlier than 300BC -- after Laozi is said to have first written the TTC Secondly, I'd suggest that the use of 豫 is from a later revision, as both the Guodian and Mawangdui texts use different text here. So, it could be that some later revisionist was referring to Laozi's homeland, but unlikely that it was his usage originally. Thirdly, the grammar doesn't really work. 兮 being exclamatory, it'd read "Yu! Like crossing a stream in winter", which doesn't make much sense. It would sound quite plausible, except.. I don't think the word order works, to mean "generals withdrew like melting ice" 将 can refer to that which is going to happen, so I've read this as "like ice that is about to melt" This is ignoring 兮. And the use of 若 in each line: 敦兮! 其若樸 Honest/unpretentious! Like uncarved wood 曠兮! 其若谷 Barren/vacant! Like a valley I hope this is somewhat helpful and not too negative. I like your ideas, just not sure they work.

Perhaps a puzzle without a solution. I want a time machine.