wandelaar

In that case there is a natural explanation of cause and effect. That's not what I mean. Consider the case where a ruler spends his life with gambling, women, drugs, an so on without caring about the welfare of his people, and suddenly his whole palace with everything in it is destroyed by a meteorite. That sort of thing. Could the immoral behaviour of the ruler be seen as the cause of the meteorite destroying the palace?

Buddhism has more "food for thought" for those of an intellectual disposition.

???

Much one-liners, and little reasoning. But it's the chanting group here, so why bother. As to the extreme of capitalism, it's plutocracy. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy Capitalism when left to it's own naturally leads to extreme inequality. That's why some checks and balances are needed. So I agree with: The golden mean, as always.

Has the thesis of this book something to do with philosophical Taoism? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081297381X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 I haven't read it myself and I am wondering whether that would be a good idea. (I have too much books already. ) Has anybody here read it?

Thank you! It looks like the book contains an attack on rationalistic and technocratic approaches to social and political developments because of the important role of events with a small probability of happening but large effects when they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory The connection with Taoism might then be that the view commended by the book is quite sceptical about the idea that we can rationally control the (social) world.

As there is a difference (as regards electromagnetic properties) between stones and air an object made of stone placed on the ground and surrounded by air will naturally have an effect on electromagnetic waves. And as electromagnetic waves are periodical phenomena and carry energy one can investigate the amount of resonance and energy concentration. Nothing special about that. Keep in mind that the terms "resonance" and "energy concentration" have a precise meaning in physics and cannot easily be translated into the rather vague esoteric concepts named by the same words.

The second division of the bundle For the second division of the bundle of stalks the 5 or 9 stalks found as a result of the first division are no longer used. So the second division is done with 49-5=44 or with 49-9=40 stalks. Because both are even numbers, the probability distributions of this second division will most likely have a "sharper peak" in the middle than we found for the probability distribution of the first division.

Has this chapter been mentioned already: Source: http://www.wussu.com/laotzu/laotzu53.html Note particularly the last two sentences. So according to Lao tzu there are forms of evil he would rather not have around. I think Lao tzu is much less of a moral relativist than Chuang tzu.

One sentence in the Tao Te Ching chapter 41 reads: I find this paradox very hard to understand. Any suggestions?

Now we can calculate the probabilities of the 9's and 5's on the basis of the ideal frequencies for a hundred divisions of the bundle of 49 stalks. Call the number of stalks in the right heap R and the number of stalks in the left heap L. Then we will only have to consider the cases where R = 19 to R=30 because other values of R don't happen. We will use the symbol mo(Z) for the result of repeatedly taking away 4 stalks from a heap of Z stalks until only 4, 3, 2 or 1 stalks are left. Then the number X (being 9 or 5) that results on the basis of the division of the bundle of 49 stalks can be found with the following formula: X = 1 + mo(L) + mo(R-1) = 1 + mo(49-R) + mo(R-1) Thus: R=19 => X = 1 + mo(49-19) + mo(19-1) = 1 + mo(30) + mo(18) = 1 + 2 + 2 = 5 (with frequency 1) R=20 => X = 1 + mo(49-20) + mo(20-1) = 1 + mo(29) + mo(19) = 1 + 1 + 3 = 5 (with frequency 2) R=21 => X = 1 + mo(49-21) + mo(21-1) = 1 + mo(28) + mo(20) = 1 + 4 + 4 = 9 (with frequency 5) R=22 => X = 1 + mo(49-22) + mo(22-1) = 1 + mo(27) + mo(21) = 1 + 3 + 1 = 5 (with frequency 11) R=23 => X = 1 + mo(49-23) + mo(23-1) = 1 + mo(26) + mo(22) = 1 + 2 + 2 = 5 (with frequency 15) R=24 => X = 1 + mo(49-24) + mo(24-1) = 1 + mo(25) + mo(23) = 1 + 1 + 3 = 5 (with frequency 16) R=25 => X = 1 + mo(49-25) + mo(25-1) = 1 + mo(24) + mo(24) = 1 + 4 + 4 = 9 (with frequency 16) R=26 => X = 1 + mo(49-26) + mo(26-1) = 1 + mo(23) + mo(25) = 1 + 3 + 1 = 5 (with frequency 15) R=27 => X = 1 + mo(49-27) + mo(27-1) = 1 + mo(22) + mo(26) = 1 + 2 + 2 = 5 (with frequency 11) R=28 => X = 1 + mo(49-28) + mo(28-1) = 1 + mo(21) + mo(27) = 1 + 1 + 3 = 5 (with frequency 5) R=29 => X = 1 + mo(49-29) + mo(29-1) = 1 + mo(20) + mo(28) = 1 + 4 + 4 = 9 (with frequency 2) R=30 => X = 1 + mo(49-30) + mo(30-1) = 1 + mo(19) + mo(29) = 1 + 3 + 1 = 5 (with frequency 1) So 5 will happen 1+2+11+15+16+15+11+5+1 = 77 times, and 9 will happen 5+16+2 = 23 times. The probability of 5 is thus 77/100 = 0.77, and the probability of 9 is 23/100 = 0.23 .

The diagram of the frequencies would have to approach a symmetrical bell curve when the division of the bundle of stalks is repeated many times over. Apparently even with a 100 divisions there still is a notable error-range. On the basis of the found results, the assumption of a bell curve, and the error-range I have estimated the ideal (= probabilistically most likely) outcome of the frequencies in column B of this file: estimation.xls This is the corresponding diagram:

Here is a table of the frequencies for the number of stalks in the right heap: frequencies.xls

What do we think of Derek Lin's translation of and commentary on the Tao Te Ching ? I hadn't heard of the book before but read about it here. It looks alright to me, but that is only my first impression.

So there is quite some difference between the probabilities of the 2's and 3's found here, and the theoretical values from the books? Is it possible to convert the date in the xls-file into a bar chart for the different numbers of stalks in the right heap?

Results at last! I have performed the division in half of the bundle of 49 stalks for a total of a 100 times. I originally planned to do it 200 times, but I will keep it at a 100 times. I already had to repair one broken stalk, and I don't think more divisions will lead to a more precise estimations of the probabilities given that it's a human process where personal and circumstantial factors influence the precise manner of dividing the bundle of stalks. The division was done just roughly in half with open eyes, without trying to achieve any particular division. A few times (2 or 3) I redid the division when I saw even without counting that the division wasn't even roughly in half. I have counted the number of stalks after the divisions in the right heaps. See the uploaded files for the results. iching.xls iching.pdf

The Tao Te Ching is a difficult work, and I doubt whether the entire book was understood even in ancient times.

Yes - I also prefer books. Here are some basic approaches to translations: - Literal translations - Literary translations - Translations focusing on applications - Scientific translations with information on philological issues - Free translations presenting a certain perspective on the text - Translations with lots of added (ancient) commentary - Translations with added art work So it will depend on what you want from your study of the text which translations would be best. In making a choice it helps to read the commentaries en reviews on book shops and sites. It is also often possible to read a part of the book as preview. In this way your chances of buying the most appropriate translations will improve.

@ Raindancer I don't think you can decide beforehand which translations would be best for you. As you study the texts you will automatically find out which texts work best for you. It all depends on what you want from it. Taoism in its different forms and applications is a huge subject. It will be impossible to study let alone practice it all. As was already said before: know when to stop.

How does the I Ching relate to the ways of Lao tse and Chuang tse? Do they have anything to say about it? And if so, is this positive, neutral or negative?

@ Zork Well - it looks like our viewpoint are not so far apart after all.

Also relevant is this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution The human ideas of good and evil are a natural product of evolution: social instincts become gut feelings and those social gut feelings in thinking creatures eventually result in ideas of good and evil. I think this is basically what happened.

@ Zork Because evil is a rather vague concept one cannot expect reasoning about it to be correct without there being many exceptions. That's why I wrote: (Colour added.) The reason I corrected your standpoint is because you wrongly suppose ethics (or the ability to recognize good and evil) to be something exclusively human. Further I don't understand what you are trying to prove with the examples given. Do you think there is an objective standard of "evil" even in the animal kingdom that has to be met by any theory of evil? No - as I said evil is a vague concept, and I don't think it can ever be made precise even in the case of humans. But some form of evil can be seen in all social animals.

No - the problem of evil extends far beyond human societies to all social animals. There is a fundamental tension between the interests a social animal has in its defence of and contribution to its own life and well being and in its defence of and contribution to the "society" it is part of and depends on. Evil generally refers to the actions of those animals (including humans) that completely (or almost completely) ignore the interests of the society they are part of. There is nothing exclusively human about that.