dust

This is what I was getting at. Whatever influence it is that's made me so snobby about intelligence in the past (school, friends, family have certainly all contributed), I've come to realize that the IQ of a person (or where I estimate they might fall on the scale) has no relation to whether or not I enjoy spending time with them. Your partner sounds like a cool guy. The whole area is dangerous, online or not, which is why I warned against quoting individual scores. For sure, whether or not one places any importance on I.Q., most online tests are pure nonsense... but people still like to believe them. People want to think of themselves, and be thought of by other people, as "intelligent" (as it refers to I.Q.)

Substantial! I used to have the Happy Fuck You Songs CD...good stuff (if you like that kind of thing )

Where do you live? Perhaps my perspective is coloured more than I realize by the people that I know.

Changing language would be one way of manipulating attitudes, though I don't know how one would go about it. People rarely adopt new language based on theory. I like the idea of implying certain attitudes with these words -- cunning, prudent, arrogant, etc -- but then again, if people want to, they can describe people with these words already. "He's intelligent, but so arrogant!" .. "She's cunning, that one!" Yes. This is something I'm not a fan of. If only people saw it like this. I don't think most do. Yes, mathematical ability etc is important to be a physicist. And in society, we extoll astrophysics as something grand, something to aspire to. We say things like "Come on stupid, it's not rocket science" or "It's hardly astrophysics, idiot" Stupid people can't do astrophysics. In many people's eyes, an inability to understand physics beyond a certain level is a reason to mock someone. I've seen it, even on the television. We also extoll charity, giving to those less fortunate. So we think of ourselves as a load of intelligent people going around doing good deeds. How wonderful we are! But if we didn't love intelligence so much, would we need so much charity in the first place? Certainly, but I don't think these skills are emphasised much, are they? I think your definition of intelligence and the pervading idea of it are quite different. If intelligence was thought of as also being "gifted with sensitivity and quite humble", I wouldn't have so much of an issue with people glorifying it (though I'd have an issue with the glorification of anything, tbh) This is, though, mostly an issue of definition. Most people don't think like this, as I see it. Which is my problem. Yes.

Yes. I agree that it's possible. However, thanks to your input, though it was not what you intended, I'm now convinced that it's 艹 This is my final attempt at convincing you, I promise. Compare these 3. If you're not convinced, we can call it a draw

Yeah, until I noticed the difference between the 2, that's the character I'd been using I'm still not sure, though, what the difference signifies. If they both mean beautiful, that's good, but....they're still written differently...!

As far as justice, equality, punishment..? 水 equality (water benefits all things, after all) 廌 punishment (Qilin hitting a criminal!) ?

So what's the character mean??

Oh, yes, I wasn't saying that there's no animal aspect. Just wondering about the animal itself. What it is. It looks, to me, like the animal depicted has 2 horns/antlers. As the Qilin is supposed to have only 1, I still wonder if it wasn't, originally, meant as a deer, but later perhaps changed to mean a Qilin Knowing the ancient propensity (all over the world) for creating crazy tales about what went on in the past, making up stories about chimeras and unicorns etc, could it be that the original character 灋 , which depicted a deer, was adapted/taken to fit with this story about the Qilin? Or that someone made the story up to explain the character, as at that point they'd forgotten the original meaning? Is this referring to 法 ?

Yes, as I've been thinking about it, I've come to realize that my supposition of what zhong meant might well be entirely wrong As you point out ch.25, I also see that the ch.25 中 lacks the extra line on top that the ch.5 中 has This follows on from what Riyue has mentioned about the differences in characters like 天 上 下 而 夫 where one version of 天 has an extra line on top and another doesn't. I thought I'd noticed this variation, but told myself I was imagining things, and never bothered to check. Silly. As far as man being empty...yes, I think he's at least implying that man could emulate the bellows of Heaven and Earth. And the order of the chapters here seems to fit very well, in that regard

I think my language was a bit unclear. Sorry. What Henricks has there is precisely what I meant: The left-hand of both is the same (apparently depicting an old person with long hair -- http://dict.shufaji.com/word-3367.html) However, the right-hand radical on the first character is 支 and the right-hand radical on the second character is 女 In the first instance, if we added 彳on the left, we'd have 微 wei (tiny, insignificant) But there is no 彳component, and I can't find a variant where 支 is replaced with 女

Do you not think it likely that the top component is 屮 ? See the next chapter after 25, part of ch.64: the 9th character, transcribed as 兆, but with grass on top; or in ch.55, the character resembling 恕, composed of grass, woman, heart To me, the top of our writer's 法 actually looks a lot like his "grass" radical I thought this is what you meant. Yes, could be. Interesting. OK. I think that it's very confusing! Sometimes he appears to be making mistakes when he writes, but sometimes he appears to be changing things deliberately. I'd love for you to have a look at my question here: http://thetaobums.com/topic/16446-ttc-study-chapter-2-of-the-tao-teh-ching/?p=589471 and see what you make of it

Coping

Perhaps looking at the chapters as they're ordered on the slips might be useful. From the end of ch.25 to ch.5: ... ... 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 天地之間亓猷囤籥與 The space between Heaven and Earth is like a bellows, 虛而不屈動而愈出 Empty but never exhausted, increasing as it goes 至虛恆也 Reach emptiness, 獸中篤也 Maintain ????; 萬物方作居以頒復也 Life flourishes all around, living in coming and going; 天道熉熉 The Way of Heaven is balance, 各復亓堇 Everything returns to its root (me) . Humanity takes as its model the earth; The earth takes as its model heaven; Heaven takes as its model the Way; And the Way takes as its model that which is so on its own. The space between heaven and earth - Is it not like a bellows? Though it is empty it does not collapse; When put into motion it sends forth all the more. Take emptiness to the limit; Cautiously guard the void. The ten thousand things, side by side they arise; Sitting still we await their return. Now, the forms come forth in great numbers, But each returns to its root. (Henricks) Note that I used the word "trying" -- sometimes it's hard not to look!

I get what you mean, absolutely. But...I don't think it is (possible). Unless we completely redefine 虚, it seems to me that it must mean emptiness, absence, vacancy... As far as the Legge version, TT.. well, let's just say I really am not a fan of his translations of anything. But again, "vacancy" -- is there a translation which doesn't translate 虚 like this?

I would agree, except for a couple of concerns The GD version of 上 has an extra line below (as seen, for example, in ch.66): 上 ` but, assuming that the 法 here was using a simplfied version of 上... why have it twice? And from the components, how did you come to the meaning that you came to? (interaction for balance) I mean, if we have 上 representing "above", what represents "below"? And then, how do you explain the difference between this and the similar character in ch.57? I hope these questions don't seem too ignorant or pedantic... I'm just trying to be thorough

I have been trying to not look at others' translations before I attempt my own -- hoping not to rely on previously inferred meanings, but what I can figure out purely from the Chinese. Looking now at the translations by Wu, Feng, Addiss, and Henricks... they all use empty/emptiness too! So... it does seem that, from the GD to the received, "emptiness" is what was meant. It's the same character as in chapter 5, with the "empty bellows" (in the GD, 16 follows 5, continuing this apparent theme of emptiness) But since you don't like it, if it helps at all to perhaps find another word for the concept: The origin of the character was, apparently (and this sounds a bit odd), a place where wild animals roam and men don't go -- i.e. a place free of people. It later came to mean a place free of any creature, or simply: empty. I suppose that any of the following synonyms would be "acceptable" replacements: vacant, unoccupied, uninhabited, untenanted, bare, desolate, deserted, abandoned

Jumping in without reading any of these 10 pages. Because I'm lazy like that. 至虛恆也 Reach the empty eternal, 獸中篤也 Maintain in honesty; 萬物方作居以頒復也 Life flourishes all around, living in coming and going; 天道熉熉 The Way of Heaven is balance, 各復亓堇 Everything returns to its root Well...not really happy with the first 2 lines -- especially as I'm not sure what's meant in line 2 -- but happy with the rest of it.

First off, excellent! interesting origin, and I'm absolutely changing all instances of 法 in my transcriptions wih 灋 ! Secondly... this is entirely different to my previous understanding of fa. Very interesting. One of my usual sources states 将鹿群从山林驱赶到河岸开阔地带进行围猎的古代猎鹿术 Driving a herd of deer from the mountains to the riverbanks of an open area and picking them off, in an ancient deer-hunting technique I wonder if both understandings could be true? That the character meant something about removing evil to some in the Western Zhou, but hunting to others. Because they both seem quite plausible. I cannot quite make out the exact components of the GD version of the character except for water at the bottom, though it seems that both 去 and 廌 / 鹿 have been simplified or replaced -- certainly, the 口 of 去 is not discernible. It doesn't look like any example version of the character I've found elsewhere. All this to say.. I think that any interpretation of 法 now is probably quite acceptable...

OK. That's cleared it up a bit. Even more simply, if one practices wu wei, one is allowing zi ran to happen? 3 different people, 3 different ideas about "fa" and its etymology! I think that none of these ideas are wrong. The character/word has an astounding network of meanings. I like the idea of "led" -- and I like both "Dao is led by its own nature" and "Dao is led by itself" Thank you for the link -- actually, the alice-dsl page is already constantly open on my laptop! I've been using the original slips, along with a number of online dictionaries and transcriptions, in order to figure out a transcription which I feel looks and feels closer to the original written text. What you see in my translations here on TTB are the closest I can get with the characters we have available/recognizable by our internet browsers.

While I agree, by and large, with your ideas about this, I'm also very aware that people don't tend to give up ideas, or perhaps more accurately behaviours, that have been around for the better part of recorded history. It is, imo, a futile hope that one might convince people that they are not seeing things objectively. Even if it were possible to convince people of your theory of intersubjectivity, and we all started using that term instead, eventually intersubjective would come to mean the same as objective does now... I reckons..

Thank ye sir I'm going to reply about ziran but leave the bit about "fa" for tomorrow as it's getting late and there's a lot there to think about! Well, I agree, to an extent.... I was in agreement with the apparently forthcoming conclusion ("It is the natural way of everything's becoming itself"), though he subsequently lost me a little! I don't think he needed so many words to explain the concept! With the idea of positive and negative versions of ziran... is this necessary? If we agree that it means "self-so", what else do we need to know? I'd think that self-so implies both positive and negative, at once...?

I guess we're all clueless

Yes. Of course, I have struggled, and still struggle, with this myself. I think that it's something many, if not most of us humans, naturally lean toward: searching for some objective, supreme, good fact, as if "the truth" is anything but what we perceive (subjectively). As I recall, Descartes was on the right track: the fallibility of our perception precludes even our concept of knowledge from being infallible. To look at the other side for a moment, there are some concepts that are, by virtue of how we define them, self-evident "truths" For example: 1 = 1; a square has 4 sides; blue is not orange; something exists. But these “truths” are only expressible/recognizable through language, and are of no more real value than saying "people who like cookies like cookies" or "honest pigs don't tell lies"

The character 屈 was, apparently, originally a pictograph of someone squatting and taking a dump, so something along the lines of "empty" might also be used to refer to that