Five Elements or Four Elements?

[Wu Ming Jen]

Without earth there is no foundation or unifying principle for the elements or five agents to go. Meaning not static material aspect of each element but energy aspect as fire rises and water sinks.

 

The western 4 elements does not have a unifying aspect just as all western science, each branch of science is absolute and independent.

 

Polar complete reality as opposed to absolute fragment science. The difference is to say darkness is absolute and independent to light the fragment is when you say out of all the elements water is the creative, just like the bible, just like western science. So religion and western science is fundamentally the same.

 

Polar complete science of the taoist shows that nothing is absolute and polar opposites complete each other like dark and light.White and black are not polar complete, red and black are when it comes to colors. Extreme heat is purple returning to black more energy than matter reverting to black/no heat. Red is the most energetic and black is the least.

 

All we have to do is look at a fire burning matter and nature tells us what's up. When we get the mind involved to say whats up, it is then a mentalist construct of science putting mind over nature.And here comes an endless amount of theories with no empirical evidence.

 

The two systems are fundamentally not the same. Western scientist are stuck in there pyridium not able to escape no matter how brilliant they are. We are more familiar with the alternative to transcend our own culture than a western trained mind. People with no knowledge of science understand the world better than western scientist because of the fundamental mistake, absolute fragment understanding of the world.

[ChiDragon]

I have great admiration for the wisdom of our ancestors in observing Nature. They had lots of great thoughts from the observations with their naked eyes. I can only treat their thoughts as conceptual evidences without the ability to prove scientifically. My present task is to have the conceptual evidences as hypothesis and search for proofs, with the modern scientific method, as conclusion.

[Slim]

Both systems are understood and spoken of in Chinese philosophy, medicine, cultivation, and so forth. In China the five phases are called the 五行 and the four elements are called the 四大.

 

The former refers to five states or phases of existence: growing/rising; expanding/flourishing; diminishing/falling; contracting/storing; and stable. It does not refer to literally to the materials of wood, fire, soil, metal, and water, even though those materials are used to represent these five states/phases.

 

The latter refers to the four fundamental constituents of the physical universe. The idea came to China alongside Buddhism and is considered an originally-Buddhist concept here.

 

When spoken of in China by those who understand this vocabulary there is no contradiction, because the two systems refer to different ideas. Therefore, in a single sentence one can refer to both systems without confusion nor need for reconciliation or melding, because the phases refer to phases and the elements refer to elements.

 

Well put.

[ChiDragon]

五行 is the "Five Categories" rather than "Five Phases"

四大 is the "Four Greats" rather than the "Four Elements".

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

Tao + (5*4)

[Slim]

五行 is the "Five Categories" rather than "Five Phases"

 

四大 is the "Four Greats" rather than the "Four Elements".

 

That depends on context.

[ChiDragon]

That depends on context.

 

In general, 五行 is the "Five Categories". All the things have to be classified in a category, in order, to do an evaluation. The TCM was based on the "Five Categories". Otherwise, the TCM will not work without it.

 

Yes, the "Five Phases" depends on context can be used for the explanation of the "Five Categories".

 

Edited May 19, 2013 by ChiDragon