Taoist logic?

[Aletheia]

Left-brain techno-buddha consciousness -

 

 

 

[wandelaar]

48 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

And besides, there will be more room in your (and mine, and all others) mind for wisdom of value.

 

That's the positive side of the coin.

 

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Consider:  Wisdom isn't necessarily logical.

 

That's right, but then again just as there's more to life than logic, there's also more to life than wisdom. It may be inconceivable to many but I actually like to play with logic, mathematics and science generally to construct rational systems of thought. A life of wisdom with nothing else besides would be extremely boring to me. And I don't have any talent for painting, music, athletics, etc.

Edited May 22, 2018 by wandelaar

[Zhongyongdaoist]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

Thanks for all the commends about the badness of logic. I always wonder how many people expressing this feeling actually know something about it? Modern logic doesn't claim to be anything else than a tool, so the criticism that there is more to life than logic is grossly beside the point. But never mind - it's the usual thing one gets to hear. So be it. 

 

All considered I have to conclude that there is not much to explore in the way of Taoist logic. To bad: but finding nothing also saves me a lot of time and energy.

 

The problem is that probably 95%+ of people who are involved in this type of study and practice in the West have as a fundamental presupposition, the post Romanticist meme that logic and reason are bad for your spirituality.  That is part of the reason why I have this quote from the Seventeenth Century in my signature:

 

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'... I oppose not rational to spiritual; for spiritual is most rational: But I contradistinquish rational to conceited, impotent , affected CANTING ...'

 

To point out that anti-rationalism in Western spirituality is a recent phenomena, well relatively recent, and owes itself more to crypto-Protestant thought patterns and reactions against late Eighteenth Century materialism than to the actual historical development of Western thought.  The historical root of all of this is the "Reason vs. Revelation" debates of the Hellenistic period.

 

The above just opens a tiny peephole into the results of research into intellectual history that goes back decades, but simply put, there is no real reason why either Wisdom or "spirituality" should be divided from reason, only the wish of people who want to hold on to what they already believe.

 

ZYD

[Stosh]

1 hour ago, Marblehead said:

And besides, there will be more room in your (and mine, and all others) mind for wisdom of value.

 

Consider:  Wisdom isn't necessarily logical.

 

Neither is stupidity.

[wandelaar]

52 minutes ago, Aletheia said:

Left-brain techno-buddha consciousness -

 

 

 

 

I know the guy. Not personally, but I have read some of his articles, and I plan to buy some of his books. As far as I can see he is more interested in Buddhism than in Taoism, which (from the perspective of our topic) is a pity because he would be the right kind of logician to come up with a form of Taoist logic.  

 

 

 

 

[Aletheia]

37 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

I know the guy. Not personally, but I have read some of his articles, and I plan to buy some of his books. As far as I can see he is more interested in Buddhism than in Taoism, which (from the perspective of our topic) is a pity because he would be the right kind of logician to come up with a form of Taoist logic.  

 

 

 

 

 

Right, his "dialetheism" literally means through forgetfulness lol. It's an expression of Nietzsche's "European Nihilism" whose onset took hold after the death of god. That was the time when the dialectic's rootless foundational light and essential nature of western metaphysics passed through the horizon of nihilism proper -- "the nothing nothings."

 

That was a long time ago in a galaxy far away and that guy's still going for it with logical reasoning HAHAHA.

 

Edited May 22, 2018 by Aletheia

[wandelaar]

3 minutes ago, Aletheia said:

Right, his dialetheism literally means through forgetfulness lol. It's an expression of Nietzsche's "European Nihilism" whose onset took hold after the death of god. That was the time when the rootless dialectics foundational light and essential nature of western metaphysics passed through the horizon of nihilism proper -- "the nothing nothings."

 

That was a long time ago in a galaxy far away and that guy's still going for it with logical reasoning HAHAHA.

 

Don't see what's so funny about that, the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna also used logical reasoning. 

[Aletheia]

Logic occurs and is a function of what McLuhan called "visual space."  He briefly mentions western logic in this talk -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its thinking space is abstracted right out of the body (see what voidisyinyang says about the right-brain vagus nerve plus lookup "brain lateralization")  as such its objects of concern don't exist in the real world at all.

 

EDIT: "Visual space" is an unconscious effect of the phonetic alphabet. Just the act of being literate biases different psycho-somatic functions compared to oral peoples. Then through use those biases become environments like roads, cities etc.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Aletheia

[doc benway]

On 5/20/2018 at 9:24 AM, wandelaar said:

Is there something that might be called Taoist logic?

 

I have not come across anything that fits that bill in my (limited) study of the classics.

In looking for Daoist logic, I would look to nature as that seems to be the ultimate source.

Is there logic in nature and natural processes?

While there are certainly intelligence and organization in nature, I'm not sure one could call it logic.

Logic is a unique expression of human intellect and reasoning. 

Perhaps this is why logic does not appear to figure prominently in Daoist classics.

Then again, the vast majority of Daoist literature has yet to be translated to Western languages and my studies of Daoist classics is very limited.

 

[Aletheia]

Just now, wandelaar said:

 

Don't see what's so funny about that, the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna also used logical reasoning. 

 

A-letheia is not a logical negation, why? because logic is a mutation of the more primordial logos -- different order of the sign.

 

Lethe is a river in the Hadean underworld where souls drink upon corporeal death. It's the river of forgetfulness; the soul drinks and forgets its past life, then returns to the ether to be recycled through the system again. It's in the "Myth of Er."

 

The A of Aletheia is privative, which means release. That is to say it's significance is given by a totally different sign-regime unknown to the logician.

 

So the semiotics of things is ontologically contingent i.e. Nothing is not the same thing for the presocratics, Platonists, modernists, contemporaries etc.

[wandelaar]

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Its thinking space is abstracted right out of the body (see what voidisyinyang says about the right-brain vagus nerve plus lookup "brain lateralization")  as such its objects of concern don't exist in the real world at all.

 

I have already looked up a lot of texts from voidisyinyang and found them largely incomprehensible. There are much more effective ways of study.

[doc benway]

15 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

Don't see what's so funny about that, the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna also used logical reasoning. 

 

Buddhist geshes are masters of logic and debate.

It's a required part of their training.

 

Not Daoism, but this is a great course  in Buddhist logic and debate for anyone interested -

The Course in Buddhist Reasoning and Debate: An Asian Approach to Analytical Thinking Drawn from Indian and Tibetan Sources by Daniel Perdue

[wandelaar]

2 minutes ago, steve said:

Buddhist geshes are masters of logic and debate.

It's a required part of their training.

 

Not Daoism, but this is a great course  in Buddhist logic and debate for anyone interested -

The Course in Buddhist Reasoning and Debate: An Asian Approach to Analytical Thinking Drawn from Indian and Tibetan Sources by Daniel Perdue

 

Yes - Buddhist logic is quite advanced! That's why I don't see why Taoist logic would be impossible.

 

I haven't read the book you mention but I will take a look.

[voidisyinyang]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

 

I have already looked up a lot of texts from voidisyinyang and found them largely incomprehensible. There are much more effective ways of study.

 

You can try Chinese language and philosophy professor Patrick Edwin Moran. He also studied physics at Stanford - so sometimes he does mention quantum nonlocality - but mainly he focuses on Daoist philosophy. https://www.researchgate.net/project/Chinese-Philosophy-2/update/598f41c6b53d2ff30bd97efe

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http://www.china-learn.info/Philosophy/Lao Zi & epistemology.pdf

 

Deeper than Languages Lie Daoism's Roots A study of the Daoists' understanding of how human creative powers create concepts.

 

 Xiǎo Qǔ chapter of the Mò Zǐ , early study of logic and set theory written by followers of Mò Zǐ.

http://www.china-learn.info/Philosophy/DDJ_Secret.html

 

Happy "shopping" - (what I call Mall Science! haha)....

 

But just so you know - Platonic philosophy is not Daoism. haha.

 

Buddhism is a reform religion of Brahminism - and so that also is not Daoist philosophy.

 

Every human culture uses the Octave, Perfect Fifth and Perfect Fourth music intervals - that is Daoist philosophy.

 

Only in the West were the natural resonance music intervals "compromised" into symmetric mathematical logic.

 

You said you don't understand how logarithms are symmetric math? You would have to study my research I guess. The secret is from the wrong music theory, the secret origins of Western logic.

 

But I recommend just studying the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" - focus on the solution, not the problem.

 

Then just practice that book as philosophy - also it's based on a 1615 book - that I discuss on my blog.

 

You say you don't have "talent" for music - why do you think music is a "talent"? It is just a matter of culture - if you train in music from a young age then it creates a larger corpus callosum. Perfect Pitch is easier for people who have a tonal language - like Chinese. The most ancient language is, the more musical it is - and so the original human culture has the most musical language, with the most sounds and the most pitches - the San Bushmen - they are the origins of Daoist philosophy and "logic." haha.

 

 

So as you "shop" around for some left-brain dominant analysis - watch this vid - and ask yourself if there is a deeper, stronger type of knowledge.

 

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Toward what I believed to be the end of the evening, Xaxe, a great hunter, healer,and shaman, laid hands on me....I felt the energy, his energy, surge through my body. He had his hands on me for about twenty-five or thirty seconds, but it felt like he had only touched me for a split second. Time stood still. I literally had a short out of body experience. I could see him touching me from just above my body, almost like I was floating six feet off the ground, watching myself. All of a sudden I was back in my body observing an image of him thumbing through the book that contained all the pictures and moments in my life. I saw images of my childhood I hadn't remembered in years, pictures of my mother and me walking on a beach and shelling, very strong images. At the time, both during his touch and immediately afterward, I described it as him flipping through the pages of my life....Later the next morning, I spoke with Xaxe about the trance dance. He told me he wanted access to me in a way that was not possible through a translator....Xaxe's curiosity was such a caring, loving gesture....When he detached from me it felt like someone was unplugging a lamp from a wall socket. As he let go of me and continued to dance around the fire, I spontaneously burst into uncontrollable tears....I had been stripped to my emotional core, completely stunned by what I had witnessed so up close and personal.

  Andrew Zimmern, The Bizarre Truth: how I walked out the door mouth first – and came back shaking my head (Random House, 2009), 234-5.

 

You have a cognitive "bias" - so you say you don't like my "presentation" - or that I am repeating myself - this is a critique of the "form" of my information -  as syntax - but music logic as the Logos is "ever-new and ever-fresh" as Yogananda calls it.

 

So you can repeat something but since it is nonlinear then it is always changing - it is the process of change that stays the same.

 

https://www.swjoyoflife.com/

 

Here is qigong master Shen Wu - he is a "music" qigong master.  So he documents how music logic of the Daoist Logos was the earliest form of qigong healing - as part of the trance dance T'ai Chi training....

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With his theories of “Music before Medicine” and “Music is also Medicine”, he has revealed the lost remedies of ancient Chinese music therapy and became the first person to introduce Five Tones Therapeutic Music to the modern world.

Over the last decade, Professor Wu spent a great deal of time studying ancient medical texts such as the “I-Ching—Five Tones and Eight Sounds”, “The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine – Five Tones and Five Major Organs” and “Twelve Scales and Twelve Meridians”. He has combined music melody with physiology to create a systematic and organized subject with a series of musical therapeutic methods. It contains a strong root in ancient philosophy and is differentiated from the Western method of seven scales.

 

Edited May 22, 2018 by voidisyinyang

[Wu Ming Jen]

The Art of Chinese Feng Shui originates from the abstruse and profound Taoist Yi Jing. The Yang Abode is an essential part of the Chinese ancient art of Feng Shui, Wind-Water. It has been transmitted for a very long time, thereby past generations inferred and deduced its applications and formed its very complicated system. Schools are intricate; there is a division into the “Laws of Form” and the “Laws of Logic”.

 

The laws of form belong to the topographical school, which lays stress on the natural geography, such as by examining and differentiating all the individual aspects of the eco-system, the landscape and many other factors, as well as methods that resolve issues by corresponding to the geography’s acupuncture points and the architecture of the Yang Abode. Diversely, the laws of logic and the laws of time fall under the discretion of the logic school. It emphasizes the direction and points of the compass, the orientation, the auspicious and inauspicious timing its prohibitions, however it does not attach much importance to the geographical and environmental factors.

 

In regards to the Feng Shui of the Yang Abode, the Yang Abode refers to the place where people reside, where they return home to after going out. Therefore the environments of lodging places are not identical; there is the city’s Yang Abode, the wilderness abode, the mountain and the valley abodes. The focus of the Feng-Shui of the wilderness, mountain and valley abodes is associated with the laws of the form, attaching importance and taking advantage of the surroundings and the natural environment; whereas the Feng-Shui of the city’s abode places its attention on utilizing the laws of logic.

 

 

[doc benway]

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

 

That's why I don't see why Taoist logic would be impossible.

 

I agree but the thrust of much Daoist thought seems to me to be in the opposite direction.

I'd be very interested if you find what you are looking for!

[wandelaar]

5 minutes ago, steve said:

I agree but the thrust of much Daoist thought seems to me to be in the opposite direction.

I'd be very interested if you find what you are looking for!

 

Taoism and Buddhism did form Zen, so there should be some similarity.

Edited May 22, 2018 by wandelaar

[doc benway]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

 

Taoism and Buddhism did form Zen, so there should be some similarity.

 

One way to look at it is that Zen is Buddhism stripped of all the logic and debate...

Koans are designed to confuse and ultimately exhaust the rational mind.

Could that be the Daoist influence?

[Stosh]

55 minutes ago, steve said:

 

One way to look at it is that Zen is Buddhism stripped of all the logic and debate...

Koans are designed to confuse and ultimately exhaust the rational mind.

Could that be the Daoist influence?

No, youre meant to Understand Daoist reasoning.Koans present paradox rather than irony.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Stosh

[Zhongyongdaoist]

1 hour ago, Stosh said:

2 hours ago, steve said:

 

One way to look at it is that Zen is Buddhism stripped of all the logic and debate...

Koans are designed to confuse and ultimately exhaust the rational mind.

Could that be the Daoist influence?

No, youre meant to Understand Daoist reasoning.Koans present paradox rather than irony.

 

A good point Stosh.

[Mig]

Are you talking about formal logic. Check this out, it may help

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-logic-language/

[Boundlesscostfairy]

Taoist logic is objective...

 

Thus being objective is naturally taoist..

[doc benway]

10 hours ago, Stosh said:

No, youre meant to Understand Daoist reasoning.Koans present paradox rather than irony.

 

Excellent point, although I don't know that it completely excludes the possibility that Daoist influence on Buddhism contributed to the form Chan/Zen has taken.

[wandelaar]

23 minutes ago, steve said:

Excellent point, although I don't know that it completely excludes the possibility that Daoist influence on Buddhism contributed to the form Chan/Zen has taken.

 

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chan_Buddhism#Signification_of_Buddhism_and_Taoist_influences

[doc benway]

22 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chan_Buddhism#Signification_of_Buddhism_and_Taoist_influences

 

Interesting stuff -

 

"Buddhism was first identified to be "a barbarian variant of Taoism", and Taoist terminology was used to express Buddhist doctrines in the oldest translations of Buddhist texts,^[24] a practice termed "matching the concepts".^[26]"

 

I wonder if this could be a source to address the OP? Perhaps they matched Buddhist logic and debate to a Daoist equivalent...