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WW *this "profound" being translation of a different word, 深, which H translates as "deep" Henricks WW says simply "attain the ultimate" where H says "profound, mysterious and penetratingly wise" If WW is as you say the most literal, H has indeed added words in.

Good point. I'm not clear on how Taoism (especially BCE) connects with creational mythology. Are we sure that these wonderful Taoist writers bought into all that? Surely the Way was the source? (and then 1, 2, 3...万物) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mythology If Laozi was, as people say, around from 500BC or so, and predates Nvwa, is she relevant..? And if these texts were being developed a bit later.. well, the GD was written sometime around the creation of Nvwa, in Chu, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_%28state%29#Culture Which suggests that, in the GD at least, this myth might not have held much weight, if it was known at all? (also, no longer relevant, but what I've read of the OT suggests a lot of favouritism from God! Jefferson was cool but (or because) he was misrepresenting the Bible!)

It seems to me that meanings are being added which aren't in the Chinese 微妙玄通 微 means "slightly" or "not obviously" or "weakly", 妙 means "wonder", but together 微妙 -- subtle So we have 2 characters left: 玄通 -- mystery + fully/expert/understand/open/through IMO, only 1 of these last meanings should be chosen. There is no 4-word meaning to be found. subtle and flexible, profound and comprehensive -- why flexible? comprehensive seems odd? subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive -- if we choose "mysterious", "profound" is fluff. Responsive? Dark, wondrous, profound, penetrating -- penetrating is a literal translation of 通, but...odd choice of word? subtle and profound, mysterious and penetratingly wise -- why subtle and profound, mysterious and "penetratingly wise" ?

"hid their understanding" I assume he got from 玄通, but 玄 elsewhere is not used as a verb to mean "hide".. 隐 would be more likely if "hide" was intended, no? Could not be "recognized" mentally, we assume?

长古之善为士者 Those who were good at being noble in antiquity 必非弱玄达 Were without doubt subtle and profound, mysterious and penetratingly wise 深不可志 So deep that they cannot be known 是以为之颂 For this reason we praise them in the following way Actually, my linguistic beef with H this time is with the first 2 lines "good at being noble" ? "without doubt" ? "penetratingly wise" ? But he translates 颂 as "praise", which I quite like!

Perhaps I am convinced, I just don't like it... I shall continue to play devil's advocate, just to be sure Why must we say that they only appeared so? I fully get what you're saying, 容 is to describe their appearance, but why only their appearance -- why is their appearance entirely at odds with their actual character? That is pure trickery, and is not inherently profound. "by describing how they acted and moved I can give you some idea of what they were like" is to say that how they acted and moved describes what they were like. For example, I can't know what's going on in a dog's head, but by looking at his external behaviour I can make a decent guess as to what he's "thinking" At one point, there were no people. When people came along, we didn't suddenly explode into all the types we now see. It was gradual. But it started with something. It was when people first started realizing that we could manipulate nature, and each other, with our intelligence (language) that the in-lineness with Tao was lost. Well, yeah..! That was my point, really. Wisdom didn't exist. We might call it wisdom, because we don't understand it. Alas, the GD doesn't give me much help... 是以爲之頌 頌 can be the same as 容 in meaning "description" or "appearance", although it also means "laud" or "ode", and appears in Mencius to have meant "recite" or "repeat" : - Mencius As Mencius was writing at around the same time as the GD writer (though I realize not in the same place), might it not be possible that 頌 meant "repeat" or even "laud"

And I won't stop with the GD. What do these mean? 必非弱玄达深不可志 (Henricks) 必非溺玄達深不可志 (the way it actually seems to be written) If we could take an academic approach and ignore for now preconceived notions of what Taoism should say it says, and base our understanding on what a "Taoist" writer might have been thinking in Chu, and what these characters meant right then..that would be cool. Because I'm fairly convinced by now that this guy had a slightly different take on some of these chapters than the people who changed the text for the later versions.

Okay, alright... [Denzel Washington voice] I get what you're saying.. But I'm not entirely convinced. For one thing, I'm not sure why we need all the fluff, as the Chinese isn't actually quite that fluffy (subtle and flexible, profound and comprehensive; subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive; dark, wondrous, profound, penetrating...wow...) For now, some thoughts on the more modern versions (as nobody wants to talk about GD ): The ancients were ancient i.e. they lived long ago. And according to one version of the first line, they were close to Tao. They weren't close to the Tao because they were clever, or good at finding it, but because they were like it. We're talking simple, "untainted" by knowledge, and beyond wisdom. Like a dog or a tree is beyond wisdom. More than just not dazzling with knowledge, they would have no concept of wisdom, and no need to be something different on the outside than on the inside. So yes, insofar as they were close to Tao, they were subtle and mysterious, as Tao is. But we shouldn't mistake this for any clever subtlety or trickery, that they were somehow able to be better at living than the "commoners" because they'd found some special mode of conduct that others didn't have. Before the Way was lost, all people were simple and untainted by knowledge -- it was the natural way of things. A slightly different point, but would 強 not refer to 勉强, as in "reluctantly" or in other words "if I'm forced to describe them..." ? More importantly: 容 doesn't necessarily mean appearance; its original meaning was "store" or "hold within". And though I agree that this usage is that of 形容 or 容貌, that still doesn't necessarily mean we're purely describing their exterior with no thought to what's inside. If they were really that simple, free from dazzling and trickery, their outside and inside character would be the same. Then the author is saying that "though I cannot describe exactly what was going on in their heads, by describing how they acted and moved I can give you some idea of what they were like." In other words, 古之善為士者，微妙玄通 The noble ones of old were subtle masters of the mystery (or) 古之善為道者，微妙玄通 The ancients who were in line with the Way were subtle masters of the mystery 深不可識 deep beyond our understanding 夫唯不可識，故強為之容 As they were beyond our understanding, if I had to describe them / we might describe them as... and we then get a description of people who were hesitant, timid, cautious, yielding, simple, confused. Not just because some people appeared that way, but because all people were once like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele Mengele's later methods of murder and mutilation "worked" just fine, though one or two people have had a bit of a problem with them http://theconversation.com/chemical-weapons-and-the-scientists-who-make-them-17701 Glad these weapons "work" for the benefit of mankind http://www.businessinsider.com/dangerous-american-gangs-fbi-2011-11?op=1 Gangs "work" very well, and all are overtly religious. Or...

Nobody sees a problem here?

Of course, that list covers fairly recent stuff. Let's not forget the Mongol, Roman, Persian, and...so many other invasions and conquests throughout history that were not even nominally related to religion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_and_conquests But of course, I forget again. We're right in the middle of a war on terror! entirely blameable on religion. Good thing we have science atheists to help everyone out of the mess.

What point are you trying to make? Religion is the cause? Spirituality made them do it? The Seven Years’ War The American Revolution The French Revolution The Napoleonic Wars The Revolutions in the Americas The Boer War The Irish Revolution The American Civil War The Crimean War The Spanish-American War The Great War (WWI) The Italian invasion of Ethiopia The Spanish Civil War Stalin’s invasions of Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland World War II The Chinese Revolution The Cold War (including but not limited to the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the American intervention in Grenada, the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan) The Cultural Revolution (China) The Khmer Rouge Revolution The Falklands War The Persian Gulf War between Iran & Iraq The Persian Gulf War between the United Nations and Iraq The Breakup of Yugoslavia above, an inexhaustive list (edited from elsewhere) of wars/conflicts/huge death tolls caused by...people...(and aided, often, by science) below, an entirely inexhaustive list of things created through the principles of science and used by...anyone...to kill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon

Of course. Fact is fact and belief is belief. Every native English speaker knows what these words mean, right? The question is, how can you be sure a "fact" is a fact? My belief is that not everything people hold to be "fact" is in fact fact, and not everything people hold to be no more than belief is necessarily not fact.

Not a humanities fan eh! Actually, I suppose the label is too broad to have a meaningful discussion about them as a whole. All of them are intrinsically related to all the others (in that it would be very difficult to entirely break the link between literature and philosophy, or music and religion, or art and history, or religion and philosophy, etc..) But where I might agree that, for example, History by and large is a great tool for indoctrination (they killed us so we killed them back, so they owe us something...and we invented this, so we're culturally superior...), much Art and Music is entirely free of any judgement of people or places etc For example, we can know things like this (or worse) about a composer but still study and appreciate the beautiful music they left behind...

So...perhaps someone will entertain a question or 2 According to Henricks: Why does this mean this? This is an important one for me. Not just because of the problem i have with the language/translation itself (and major language issues continue, with respect to the GD, for the next few lines), but also because -- to me -- this chapter even as traditionally understood doesn't make any sense from a Taoist perspective. According to Wu: Why would Laozi be lauding the ancients so? Profound, mysterious? Comprehensive?? Why, if in other chapters we're taught that simplicity, dimness, and lack of learning are good? Why, if elsewhere we're told to abandon discussion and wisdom? Chapters 19, 20, 58, just for 3 that I can think of, praise a lack of knowledge and sharp wit. What makes it oddest for me is that the rest of this chapter, chapter 15 itself, calls the ancients hesitant, cautious, simple, confused... So are they simple and obvious, or profound and mysterious? Surely we're talking about the beauty of a lack of profundity, mystery, or even conventional wisdom?

上善若水 The highest good is like water 化莫大唬不智足 No turmoil is greater than not knowing what is enough 天下皆知美之為美斯惡已 When beauty is recognised as beauty, ugliness is also born These were the first to come to mind. 1. Be like water. Striving rarely achieves anything, though there is a time for force (tsunami?); if at first you don't succeed, go around and find another way (river flowing around the mountain), or try again and again (ocean eroding the shore), or simply hover into the sky and see the world as a cloud. 2. I've always, like MH, been frugal, and so chapter 46 certainly speaks to me. I know so many people who always want more -- more and tastier food, the newest tech, more and better sex(ual partners), etc etc. There is a point at which one must say, "I'm satisfied, and if I'm not, I never will be" 3. I see both beauty and ugliness. I'm human, so I don't think there's any way around perceiving things subjectively. And that's one of the great things about being human -- appreciation of beauty, happiness, "goodness" etc. But realising that these things only exist in relation to their opposites is helpful in mitigating the sadness and horror felt at seeing the ugly and bad things in life. Happiness only exists with sadness. Life only exists with death.

Ha! Yeah, that's more where I stand, I guess. We wouldn't be human (whatever that means) if we didn't feel sadness or disgust or other things sometimes. I just think it's good (helpful) to remember that in the end, it all exists because the rest of it does.

Really? I honestly can't tell if this is irony... If not.. While I'm sure there are some plants or bacteria or something living in the sea or on a rocky outcrop, that don't rely on other life for survival, the vast majority of life is codependent. I'd suggest that close to 100% of life is based on interaction with other life. "Parasitic" is just a way of saying codependent that we use when we don't like what we see. Trees and other plants grow out of the soil. The soil houses worms and other things which aerate it and keep it healthy so the plants can grow. Birds and other animals take nuts and seeds from trees in order that they can eat, and the trees can grow elsewhere. Bees take pollen from flowers when collecting nectar for food, and thus pollinate flowers. Every animal, in fact, from insect to human, feeds off other life, even if just fungus or plant life. In our own bodies we house many types of bacteria and virus that help us to survive... and those worms and other things, which keep the soil healthy, feed off of us and other animals when we die. Honestly, if you're disgusted by any form of life using any other form of life to survive, you're disgusted by nature itself... If that's not what you meant, I apologise for my rant

I find it interesting when OPs pose a problem and then only respond to things they believe they have an answer to, in order to reinforce their own fundamentally flawed view of the world. Why do people bother if they're not actually looking for answers?

Is this an American thing? A class called "Humanities"? Are you forced to study them in college even when on an entirely different major? If that's the case, I agree. To prepare for a specific job, one need only be taught about that job. Anything else can be done in one's spare time. However, if it's just that you don't like art or literature and think you should never have bothered learning about them... Firstly, we'd do well to discern what they are: -- Stanford website Secondly, if your aim is to remove the "humanities" entirely from schools and teach everyone about computer coding and financial models, you've got to ask a few more questions. Are the only things worth studying (in life) the things that will help us get jobs and fit into society as Google drones? What makes you think that studying van Gogh ever helped anyone except people who wanted to study van Gogh? What makes you think that nobody wants to study van Gogh? If all art -- music, painting, sculpture, literature, television, movies, and many more -- is obsolete, then yes, the humanities are obsolete. But I hope they never will be.

Perhaps that's all I needed to say I haven't been explaining myself very well recently, it seems...

I don't know the answer, but I'm almost certain that the way most of us do it these days is wrong. Agreed, though it's probably important to think about different places on Earth. At the time you're talking of, people mostly didn't live in places with such short winter days / long summer days. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783 I've discovered this myself. Breakfast makes me less active in the morning, and no less hungry or energetic through the rest of the day. But you're not saying that snacking itself is bad, right? I love snacking! I mean, if we're talking about ancient human behaviour/eating patterns, it's quite likely that people would be snacking on berries and roots and nuts when they came across them, and cooking up big meals of meat etc when they got the chance, right?

Sure. I agree, mostly. But, as BKA questions, I'm not saying he is doing anything wrong, or that even if he were it would be a good reason for another kid to push him over. I am saying that there might be other reasons for this behaviour, and other courses of action (as well as or instead of martial arts). If it's that the kid is overly gentle and an "easy target", we can try and teach him to be more assertive. If it's that the "bully" is overly aggressive, we could try and teach him to be more gentle and empathetic. Wouldn't a good course of action to be to approach the parents of the "bully" and see why he's behaving that way? If it's that the kid is annoying or otherwise provoking the bully, we could teach them both how to handle the situation better. From my own experience, I think it's almost certain that a parent will assume the best about their own child and the worst about others; that their child is being too gentle, and the other a horrible bully.

Nature's not cruel. It's just nature. For me, this is one of the central tenets of Taoist thought. To lament the bad is to lament the good. edit: just realized Brian said precisely the same thing earlier ignore