Evolving Systems: October 2009 Core Group Meeting

For some thoughts on our possible over-emphasis on the human dimension of emergence, see "speculative realism."

Here is what might be a fifth possible reading of the I Ching. On this reading, the text is a tool for personal transformation and meditation, and a way to focus on what really matters in life.

To build on the example Ben introduced, suppose I am facing a choice, say about whether to take a job or not. Normally given human psychology, this is a very stressful situation where one is forced to consider dozens of variables, all in the face of an uncertain future. Here the stress of making the choice is amplified by the sense of feeling inundated by many more variables than one can calmly process. In thinking about my decision, I might feel that I have to think about every aspect of the job (location, colleagues, money, freedom to pursue one's thought, how others think of the place, its financial situation, how I might be two years from now, what my family will think of it, its ranking, etc.), and that only once I have come to a complete understanding of all these variables, should I make a decision. Here I would suggest the overwhelming stress comes from the fact that our minds cannot process so many variables at once, and this stress actually negatively affects our ability to think well about any of the factors, and so stress builds upon stress.

In a case like this, what would help is a mechanism which actually eliminated variables for me to think about, whereby I am able to just focus on the one or two things which enable me to achieve peak performance with the minimal amount of stress. I need something which will help me breathe out and get rid of the stress I am putting on myself to know what is the one, right choice (to take the job or not).

I wonder if the I Ching was helpful when it was put together because it was such a mechanism. We now look at it and think that it is bizarre because it is adding irrelevant variables to a decision. We want to ask, what does the location of the clouds have to do with whether I should take the job? But I would suggest this is misleading. The I Ching isn't adding variables to one's decision making process; it is not saying, just like you have to think about the salary, location, etc., you should also think about the clouds, what the temperature is and so on. Rather, it is doing the opposite. It is saying: just like you can't control the clouds or what the temperature is, so too you can't control what to make of the salary or location or rankings or anything like that. By putting all variables on an equal footing, the I Ching cultivates in the person who would consult it an attitude of meditative awareness and performance which soothes the mind and frees it from the stress it puts upon itself.

On this interpretation, the I Ching isn't a primitive decision making algorithm. It is actually a very sophisticated mechanism for dealing with the stress brought about by the perhaps false self-confidence that the person herself is smart and capable enough to make any and every decision and can process all relevant facts.

This is I think the Jungian reading of the I Ching. Jung's point, which I am inclined to very much endorse, is that if we ignore or discard practices such as consulting the I Ching on the basis that it is primitive, trivial and idiotic,  then we might actually be losing mechanisms which can help us now. The fact that the I Ching is old and in some sense out dated, doesn't mean that it is simple and trivial. What if consulting the I Ching was a group practice which emerged as a way to deal with the stress which results from excessive and unproductive thinking? What if in discarding it we are ironically getting rid of the very structures which we can build on to deal with our sophisticated intelligence? What if the point isn't to substitute the I Ching with better, modern rational thought, but to substitute it with better meditative mechanisms which can work for us now in this age?

This reading of the I Ching is similar to the Taoist attitude in that it doesn't treat the "answer" as the main thing to get from the process. The process itself is the main thing in that the process is what helps one be better attuned to the world. But this reading is different from the Taoist attitude in that this reading puts the answer in a broader context, that of meditative awareness. The Taoist I imagine would eschew thinking about it even this much, and suggest that the answer is the answer is the answer.

Linking to Alice's post, perhaps this meditative reading of the I Ching relates to a corresponding picture of education: that education is a tool for personal transformation and for embracing the overall mystery of every aspect of life.