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Philosophy Feng SHui

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nice.rider
post Feb 26 2010, 01:39 AM

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FS1: Don't build your kitchen at the West

Explanation:
- Morning sunlight from the East is rather mild, and the heat will not spoil the food (In ancient time, the bacteria concept and its grow and its activity against temperature was unknown during the time), this observation of food against Sun movement was recorded. This statement holds true with or without refrigerator in mind.
- West is where the sun setting, heat accumulated throughout the day and the West spot is always the warmest, which is bad for food.

FS2: Build a house located at the North and facing South, and good to have a wall at the North

Explanation:
- This statement/observation is definitely recorded by people who lived in Northern Hemisphere. During winter time, snow and cold wind blows from the North, a wall built at the North would comes in handy here.
- Facing South means doors are good to be built at South, for the same reason above. Snow, cold wind blows into the house if the doors are built facing North. Inconvenience and bad for health too.

I came across these explanation from some articles on the subject. There are not many books referring to reasoning and scientific explanation on the subject nowadays.

My guess is, if someone publishes a book with this kind of explanation, Feng Shui master would have a hard time selling the concepts anymore. It has evolved from impacts of surrounding to human being towards superstitious on how they could impact your wealth, your love life, your health, your everything.....and without a need of explaining why.

Do this, or buy this crystal, whatever you dream of will come true. You only need to pay a small amount to get what you wish for.....how wonderful the deal is.....

For me, Believe in Feng Shui, yes.....Believe in Feng Shui master...probably not.
nice.rider
post Feb 27 2010, 12:25 AM

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QUOTE(robertngo @ Feb 26 2010, 08:03 AM)
the two example are elementary feng shui that help to make a better house to live in but today feng shui master dont focus on these, they spend alot of time focus on placing stuff arround the house to improve your luck. out of the many client there is sure some that will have improvement in their health or business after doing what they told and these example will be used to sell more of their service and product. those client that have no improvement will not be mentioned.
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If you read between the line, you would understand my take on this subject:

"It has evolved from impacts of surrounding to human being towards superstitious on how they could impact your wealth, your love life, your health, your everything.....and without a need of explaining why.
Do this, or buy this crystal, whatever you dream of will come true. You only need to pay a small amount to get what you wish for.....how wonderful the deal is.....
For me, Believe in Feng Shui, yes.....Believe in Feng Shui master...probably not"

I am not here to promote/demote FS, I am saying it has evolved from a simpler agriculture society where sun, rivers and land could impact the productivity to money, love, health, success nowadays.

My view is instead of saying Feng Shui master could be a big fat liar and all, why not look at one's own greed, desperately wanting to full fill wishes in fastest way, and do whatever it takes to full fill those dreams.

Another way of looking at these masters is they are like a motivator who motivates the seekers that their life will improve shortly, with a price to pay of course.

Whether we realize it or not, we tend to look for a better location to park our cars, or even cinema seat. Some people goes further and hires master to provide suggestion on their business premises, houses, renovation plan and all. This is the privilege that everyone can have.
nice.rider
post Sep 21 2010, 08:31 PM

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QUOTE(TheDoer @ Sep 21 2010, 08:17 AM)
@Awaken_Angel  do you mind sharing with us, what parts of taoist teachings you find reasonable, preferably on study of nature?
*

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.
nice.rider
post Sep 23 2010, 05:29 PM

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QUOTE(abubin @ Sep 22 2010, 04:20 PM)
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.
*

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.
nice.rider
post Sep 23 2010, 07:45 PM

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QUOTE(Awakened_Angel @ Sep 23 2010, 05:46 PM)
+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, 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.

QUOTE(abubin @ Sep 23 2010, 05:50 PM)
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?
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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.
nice.rider
post Sep 26 2010, 09:28 PM

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QUOTE(wongpeter @ Sep 23 2010, 09:06 PM)
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?
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What follows is a link to Ying Yang theory.

http://www.jamesmiddleton.net/philosophy_p2.htm

Tai Ji gave rise to Si Xiang, according to the link above. And Wuji (universal void) gave rise to Tai Ji.

On your second question, yes Einstein did mention that. However it wasn't a religion discussion. It was a debate between Bohr and Einstein on whether fundamental elements (sub particles) uncertainty is intrinsic in nature. When it comes to clock, it works like snooker balls, when it comes to atom, it works like roulette.

After several experiments conducted to confirm the finding, the result was, Bohr win, Einstein lose. Nature does play dice when comes to fundamental elements. Uncertainty is indeed an intrinsic property at atomic level (and is not due to measurement errors).
nice.rider
post Sep 26 2010, 10:48 PM

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QUOTE(TheDoer @ Sep 24 2010, 09:51 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.
If you plan to get a house, do you check the location accessibility to work's place, hospital, school, restaurant? And whether it is built on a slope, having a dam nearby, draining facility is intact, etc.

You could call it a checklist before getting a house, or other names you see fit, some still stick to the conventional name FS. This is what harmonize with the surrounding actually means. I regards FS as all of the above and not about buying crystal ball, etc.

Unless you don't do the checklist above.
QUOTE(TheDoer @ Sep 24 2010, 09:51 AM)
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?
You know what, what you mentioned here make sense.
What is your opinion on the following scenario? You plan to get a house which is built on a hill slope. There are many houses on that slope. A friend of yours advised you this, the house is no good FS and he showed you a FS book that mentioned it. The reason is slope indanger kids when they walk out, bicycling and performing other activities. Also slope limits the car driver's vision as such indanger other cars and also the people staying there.

Using your example above, did your friend just justify a baseless conclusion? The chance that it is indeed bad to own a house on a slope would be coincidental?

Would you do a statistical study whether the chances of accidents are more likely happened on slopes before buying?

More importantly, will you buy the house?

I do not see any points in saying that, even FS's book is coincidentally logical in this case, it doesn't justify the correctness to its entity has anything to do with the decision in buying the house above.

The bottom line is, are you or are you not buying the house.
QUOTE(TheDoer @ Sep 24 2010, 09:51 AM)
As 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.
Same reply, I do not see any points in saying that, even the book of changes is coincidentally logical in this case, it doesn't justify the correctness to its entity has anything to do with the decision in buying the house above.

The bottom line is, are you or are you not buying the house.

 

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