That was what I meant, item 3 is the most realistic. (Ethics is arguable, but it's still more logical than the others)

I've not heard of any taoist study on nature that makes sense.

is the taoism you guys talking about the same taoism that my relative is into? It have things like walking on charcoal, climbing sword ladders and dipping hand into hot oil. Also stuffs like making you be vegetarian, wheel of re-incarnation and so on....in another word, bullshit religion...there are a lot of such toaism in Malaysia.

This post has been edited by abubin: Sep 20 2010, 04:42 PM

Agree, definition is very important here. What instances exactly, is the logical and believable study on nature?

there are.. but less..... the original tai chi master still practise it today...

during the period when buddhism florish in china, taoist prist who felt intimidated and fear of losing influence over emperor, they start to input stories etc..

e.g. kuan Di a the buddha etc.

you need to differentiate though.. which is original and which is twisted facts... like our local imperial scene

---

Added on September 20, 2010, 5:09 pmlike I said, you need to know core essence inorder to know how to differentiate the facts....

let me put an example of myself...

when I was small(as typical chinese laa) whom were told to worship the statue of buddha, see people being possed by deity and we would gather to admire him etc....

asked my parents and they asked me not to question as it is just not right for us to question(this shut my curiousity.. for few then)

as I grew older, I read more on all the religion.. I mean I personally study all the religious books(Bible, Quran, hinduism buddhism, taoism etc...)

so, I get clearer pictuer of it.

Take buddhism for example.... IF you do not read tipitaka or study buddhism... as many typical chinese do not, they might confuse that there`s china buddha, thai buddha, indian buddha etc etc...

or you have shakamuni, siddartha, thataga etc.. all are the same...

even the statues are the same person. Since those statue of buddha were not allowed by buddha when he is alive.

and for the act of worship.. what does it mean to chinese when they say I "bai" ?

then as further study, I realise, the word "bai" for chinese is not worship as per worship in christian and islam...

as for kuan di, we do not worship(bai) him as muslims pray Allah... the art of bai is to remember his loyalty, courage, brotherhood and try to imbue those values in us. The statue? it serve a mere symbol...

nothing spiritual bout it. As per WOFS claim could attract wealth

---

Added on September 20, 2010, 5:10 pmcertainly there`s cultural gap

---

Added on September 20, 2010, 5:10 pmI cannot say "saya berkaki ayam bermain bola" in english as "I chicken legged while playing football"

This post has been edited by Awakened_Angel: Sep 20 2010, 05:10 PM

@Awaken_Angel do you mind sharing with us, what parts of taoist teachings you find reasonable, preferably on study of nature?

http://deoxy.org/iching/1

P/S finding it reasonable does not mean I agree it 100% and take it as a reference model to view to natural world

Just want to add on some of my finding on top of what awaken_angel explained here. I would like to confess that my understanding on I Ching (aka the book of changes) is rather limited, as my exposure to I Ching is mainly from the Science subject.

The Yin-Yang symbol represents a duality that build up the entire universe (the idea of wholeness), analogy to binary number of 2 to the power of 1, a number of 2. The Yin-Yang gives raise to 4 phenomenons (2 power 2), and subsequencely raises the trigrams (the infamous 3 lines representation of 2 to the power of 3, 8) and continuously give raises to 16, 32, 64 hexagrams.

The centric idea is that the universal void (In math, we study Set theory, it is represents by an empty rectangle with 4 lines without the character "U"), is the superset that gives raise to Yin-Yang. The universe is then represents by the Yin-Yang's trees as described above.

Leibniz, a mathematician and a philosopher, studied these ideograms in search of a universal symbolic language. He saw parallels between the trigrams and his binary arithmetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz
Leibniz mulled over the possibility that the Chinese characters were an unwitting form of his universal characteristic. He noted with fascination how the I Ching hexagrams correspond to the binary numbers from 0 to 111111, and concluded that this mapping was evidence of major Chinese accomplishments in the sort of philosophical mathematics he admired.

Niels Bohr, the Nobel prize physicist in quantum mechanic, adopted the yin-yang symbol to depict his principle of complementarity, which he believed was fundamental to reality at the deepest levels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr
When awarded the Order of the Elephant by the Danish government, he designed his own coat of arms which featured a taiji tu (symbol of yin and yang) and the Latin motto contraria sunt complementa: opposites are complementary.

One thing I found amazing is that some of the science students reject philosophy and treats science as the absolute truth of the universe, while a lot of the physicist, logician and mathematician are philosophers in nature.

When touches the ultimate question of existence, why there is existence at all instead of non-existence, we have to agree that Sciences is helpless (at least for now) in explaining "why and how" nothingness gives raise to something, or why and how something was a result of nothingness.

There is some Zen practitioners sitting down and medidate facing a blank wall, represents the idea of universal void, it may looks silly to some, but not to me.

and what is the conclusions to all these findings? It only provoke more thought or reasons. Nothing practical at all. So what if something is nothing and nothing is something? How does that apply to fengshui that said can bring health, wealth or love?

So what if the concept of yin/yang or iching is philosophically aesthetic or artistic? Sure, simple concept of yin/yang is logical. But does it means applying it into let's say....fengshui will work wonders?

Take away all the jargons and philosophies at the end of the day fengshui is still a bunch of placebo bullshit.

i do believe that the foromers here do not have the qualifications(as per par with Mitchio kaku, albert einstein, stephen hawkings etc) to come with a conclusion....

even it is concluded in LYN, it is not absolute and final

no conclusions? cause absolute is nothingness and nothingness is absolute? Conclusions will create more questions where questions will need more conclusions?

Einstein's relativity theory, can be applied into calculations and proven it works. Stephen hawking's butterfly effects cannot be proven BUT logically true. Are those conclusions?

Fengshui bring you bad health/luck when you stay in a house facing T-junction. Conclusion? Fengshui works? Wanna ask Mitchio kaku give conclusion?

This post has been edited by abubin: Sep 22 2010, 06:03 PM

thanks guys for the links on Taoism. Unfortunately I could not access the sites currently. Will try to do so ASAP. Will try to refrain from commenting until I've read.


But I'm with Abubin.

aren`t what you do as what malay say as "meludah ke langit, jatuh ke muka sendiri"

you are the one who asked for conclusions and now you claim there couldn`t be any conclusion scientifically drawn

what I meant was there are no experts here on LYN who has the sufficient knowledge on fengshui as well as applied physics to conclude whether the law/model is valid or invalid

This post has been edited by Awakened_Angel: Sep 23 2010, 08:56 AM

TheDoer said:



What has ethics got to do with a discussion on Feng Shui or Taoism or even a 'study of nature' whatever that means? If by 'study of nature' you are referring to the empirical nature of Taoism then you are right. But don't forget that Taoism is not wholly empirical. The origins of some of the principles, beliefs, rituals etc. are already lost in the mists of time. What is empirical, what was handed down has already been blurred by time.

I read the bk. 'Taoist Master Chuang' many years ago so I am referencing from the book here is to the best of my memory. This professor (sociology? anthropology? I can't remember) was in Taiwan to do research on the subject of Taoism. He asked the Taoist Master Chuang what were the reasons for doing the things that he did, if he could explain how those rituals were supposed to work. The Taoist Master could offer no explanation but just said that if he followed exactly what his master taught him, to write those symbols on the yellow strips of paper, to chant the prayers he was taught, to walk the steps with the requisite twists and turns whilst waving his wooden sword, chanting and imploring the deities to intervene on his behalf and finally culminating in the burning of the yellow talismans then the results would be exactly as expected. It is as if someone who throws the switch on the TV would have about 99.9% certainty that the screen would come alive even though he hasn't got a clue how electricity and electrons and cathode ray tubes works! o what this Taoist Master was saying in effect is that if he "were to draw a symmetrical sign in the sand" (or on a yellow strip of paper) then what was expected would happen without fail. Whether you call the results magical or otherwise is of course dependent on your understanding of the fundamental principles. If an electronics engineer threw the switch on his TV he would never call the results magical because of his understanding of electricity & electronics. If a caveman was taught the physical act of throwing the switch he would say its magic that the screen came alive cos he doesn't understand the fundamental priniples and how they work. Since we don't understand the fundamental principles behind why drawing a symmetrical sign in the sand makes something happen exactly the ways it's supposed to, it may be better to call it hocus pocus bullshit cos it does make us seem more intelligent. After all if we can't explain something than that something must be superstition or just some silly grandmother stories.

Incidentally this professor doing his research in Taiwan was absolutely dumbfounded by what he saw and experienced when he was with the Taoist Master Chuang.

If I told you that you could use the dorian mode instead of the major scale when improvising over a major key would you say it was bullshit just cos you don't know what i was talking about? Of course not! You would get hold of a music teacher or a book on modal playing and spend a couple of years working on your chops. Similarly if you don't understand some aspects of Taoism then what you should do is to do a little more reading and researching on the subject before dismissing it as BS or hocus pocus!

Straw man argument here.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
* Straw man: A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.
o Example
Person A claims: Sunny days are good.
Argument Person B: If all days were sunny, we'd never have rain, and without rain, we'd have famine and death. Therefore, you are wrong.
Problem: B has falsely framed A's claim to imply that A says that only sunny days are good, and has argued against that assertion instead of the assertion A has made.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

We were discussed about which parts of taoist teachings are reasonable, preferably on the study of nature. To me, the binary tree discovered more that 2000 years ago had mathematic and computing implication. Plus the principle of complementarity which parallels with Quantum Mechanic modern physics. Hence book of changes does have philosophical/science values.

Wonder where can we find in the post above that said because of this discovery, one have to buy the trigrams to bring good luck, health. wealth or love???

One thing that I agreed with you is on the fallacy of false cause.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Fallacy of false cause implies that because two events are related in time, wrong perception of one caused the other to happen.

- Someone walked under a ladder
- He was hit by a car

--------> Hence walking under a ladder brings bad luck

This implies that walking under a ladder caused the bad luck of being hit by a car. And this is fallacy of false cause. Same can be said for buying crystal ball could bring health, wealth, love etc
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Although fallacy of false cause is illogical, it does has educational/awareness value, as walking under ladders increase chances of injury for someone underneath if the persons/things fall from the above.

As for what conclusion it can be made, either the book of changes is bullshit, or what not, it is entirely up to you.

+1

nice argument.....

in math, I think it is sub set...
in which an event result from the cause, but that cause does result in one consequences

yup..good posting by nice.rider.. +1 too.

Does show how something as simple as having good sunny days can be twisted by human into something more elaborate or bad.

Now, how does this apply to effectiveness of fengshui?

Yup, that is correct. subset -> superset and not superset -> subset. A lot of pals does not aware that Set theory related to logic and it influences logical thinking.

One thing that I find interesting is the idea of balance. And there is no good and bad, as they are merely a perception, an illusion.

Example 1, some said buying a house near hospital is no good, it bring bad luck or could cause bad health. But if we consider this, a moderate family of 8 persons, with old folks that could hardly walk, with a few kids and without a car as transport, if could be an excellent choice.

Example 2, for a house near pubs, karaokes, it could be not suitable for married family with a lot of kids, but it could be a good choice for young pals who like to sing and social.

Lets look at example 2 again, at young age, the pal considers the house near pubs was great (good fengshui) as it suits his lifestyles. 15 years later, after married with kids, he decided to move to a place near school with good access to food (good fengshui).

Does the house near pubs fengshui ever changes??? No, but what cause the young pal changes his perception of good fengshui become bad fengshui as he aged?? Think about it.......What have changes in the middle???

Now you got the idea of balance, and also good and bad is merely a perception of reality, and it is not real, you are one step closer to understand the centric idea of "book of the changes".

Fengshui is all about how living things harmonize with its surrounding, nothing more. And the book of changes show the way to harmony, the art of balancing.

I wonder which Sciences books (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, please don't quote psychology) tells us why our perception of good location becomes bad location whereas the location remains unchanged??

Now consider why there is a philosophy book called "The book of changes" and why it is named as such.

Also, please don't quote buying crystal ball is BS, and all. That is not fengshui, that is marketing.

My two cents.

It is evident to me that most of you peeps embroiled in this discussion on Feng Shui are from a science/engineering/math background as can be seen from the terminology used as well as the putting forth of hypotheses argued from a scientific and logical perspective. Without a doubt a group of highly intelligent and knowledgeable people..... in the field of science. Kudos!

I am however appalled by the distinct lack of knowledge on the basic principles of Feng Shui, the topic in question, and what's worse is the obvious fallacious understanding of Taoism and the I-Ching. Trying to argue as to the validity or otherwise of Feng Shui from a scientific perspective is rather pointless.

btw I don't think Yin & Yang gave rise to what-was-it? the 4 powers just because 2x2=4?! I thought it gave rise to the 5 elements. From nothing came something? my my thats mind boggling! I thought Wuji gave birth to Yin & Yang, no? I am quite confused now.

Oh I just wanted to ask if Einstein really did say something like "God does not play dice' and if he did, just what did he mean by it? That God doesn't exist cos it cannot be proven scientifically?

With regards to ethics, we were drifting off topic, to touch on taoism, philosophy, and subsequently ethics that may be discussed. (so just ignore that)

As to study on nature. That was a question for "nature balance" mentioned by Awaked_Angel. I have yet to read his link. o.o|| my bad.


There is nothing to remember or forget about other aspects of Feng Xui, they are just put aside for the sake of discussion.

Eloquently put. Just because we don't understand something, doesn't mean it doesn't work.

Likewise if something appears to work, doesn't mean that it does. Fallacy of false cause, as nice.rider mentions.

Once on a tour trip, the driver told us that he modified his car, so that to sound the horn, you had to press on the key hole of the passenger side glove compartment. He demonstrated it to us several times, and it worked. But when my friend tried it, however it didn't work.

Obviously we were tricked. The driver just laughed on.


So how you may ask, does superstitious stuff appear to work?
Simple, have you heard of murpy's law? It states that the toast always lands on the butter side down, You always tend to lineup behind the slowest queue. It appears to be true doesn't it?

The answer is false, we just tend to remember things that are memorable, such as unlucky events, or in this case, when something supernatural occurs.

When something works, beyond our comprehension, indeed it appears like magic. But the way an engine works, isn't magic to the engine designer, because he knows exactly what's happening. On the other hand, it's still magic for the taoist dudes, as confessed they do not understand how it works either. So for them to say it's not magic because they understand it, is BS to make themselves sound powerful~.

---

Added on September 24, 2010, 10:13 amI have to emphasize, that we can't just say, hey it works, and leave it at that.

Once upon a time, chinese medicine contained heavy metals, ppl were consuming them, and it "appears" to be working. No one knew the harmful effects until it were truly tested.

---

Added on September 24, 2010, 10:28 am

Perhaps you were discussing on that, but as the topic was generally about Feng Xui, some of us, were pointing out that it's a waste of time to study or apply based on the Feng Xui Teachings. Therefore it was not really a strawman.

Exactly.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

I disagree. As I mentioned before with the example of house facing a junction, it appears that we are trying to justify a conclusion. The chance that it is indeed bad to own a house facing a junction would be coincidental, and has no weightage over how true other things mentioned in Feng Xui is.

Infact, when we see things this way, we tend to forget to question the conclusion itself: If staying at a junction increases the chances of cars crashing into our houses. Then let me ask, how likely is that compared to an average home being robbed?

On the otherhand, having such baseless conclusions can actually be harmful.

How many percent of no#4 houses are vacant due to the fact that people are afraid to buy?

---

Added on September 24, 2010, 10:57 amAs to taoist symbols appearing to follow binary or quantum physics, it does not prove that they are reasonable.

Fallacy: irrelevant conclusion

The purpose of the symbols had nothing to do with mathematics, or quantum physics, and vice versa, mathematics and quantum physics, are not used to formulate the conclusions in Taoism.

Therefore to associate them and saying if one is accepted, then the other must be true too, is false.

This post has been edited by TheDoer: Sep 24 2010, 03:05 PM

friend, I think that you have hit the jackpot. harmony... that is the essense of fengshui(from what I know laa)

---

Added on September 24, 2010, 11:15 pmFrom my engineering persepctive, we call this harmony as Equilibrium....

anything that oppose each other, be it direction, magnitude etc will transfter its force/magnitude/force/other dimensions** to opposite side untill the state where it achieve equallity.

I guess, this is the most plausible common sense that we could extract from 10page feng shui discussions

equilibrium in whatever... people`s age that live within the particular area with respect to the activities that they are more keen of doing

** dimension in engineering does not mean Dimensions as in timetravel thread... dimension in engineering meant the different parameters...

e.g. time, length, temperature, viscosity, force, acceleration etc... all of this are different dimensions with their respective unit of measurements

This post has been edited by Awakened_Angel: Sep 24 2010, 11:15 PM