Taoism- Actionless action

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
Fooloso4
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Fooloso4 »

Atreyu:

It's all very simple Fooloso. Just think of how ordinary science imagines it - how it was before the Big Bang.
If space is defined as the distance between objects then space is created with the expansion of the Big Bang. The problem is you are trying to imagine something prior to the universe based on intuitions derived from the universe.
A geometric point is a "space" which lacks space.
A point is without dimension. It marks a location in space. It is not a space and takes up no space.
If we compress the Universe into a point, it will become absolutely nothing.
Here you have changed how you use the term ‘point’. As far as I understand it, if such a thing were to occur all kinds of weird stuff (a technical term) would happen. As soon as we start to imagine absolute nothing we are imagined something.
The Point contains everything in the entire Universe and yet, at the same time, it is absolute Nothingness.


It would not contain everything in the universe. It would destroy everything that was in the universe. If energy is conserved in such a state then the energy would be converted. You would not have absolute Nothingness but an energy state without things.
Our puny minds cannot fully grasp this idea.
And that is why we end up talking nonsense as soon as we start talking about nothing.
But the impossible co-existing duality of Everything and Nothing is represented in the Big Bang model by the geometric point.
From the Daoist perspective Everything and Nothing do not co-exist. You are reifying nothing. Turning nothing into something. Nothing is not a mode of existence; it is the absence of existence. It is that from which all that exists emerges and to which it returns. The myriad things, each in its own time, did not exist, then they did, and then they no longer exist.
The Void is what Everything is when nothing exists. It is Nothing and yet it somehow "contains" Everything....
To contain means either to physically have one thing inside another or to include as members of a set. The empty or null set does not contain everything, it has no members. To say that nothing exists is not to say that nothing is something that exists. Existence does not refer to nothing but to things, if nothing exists then there is not anything. The absence of things is not everything or Everything. If we were to list everything in a void there would be no items in the list. To say that in the void everything is nothing is a linguistic joke.
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Misty
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Misty »

Nothing cannot be observed, nor can it evolve into something.

If a person is asked, what are you doing, and they answer, nothing, could it ever be true? No, it could not ever be true. Death even has its busyness.
Things are not always as they appear; it's a matter of perception.

The eyes can only see what the mind has, is, or will be prepared to comprehend.

I am Lion, hear me ROAR! Meow.
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Spiral Out
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Spiral Out »

I knew this discussion would devolve into moronic quibbles about translations, semantics and personal interpretations.

Even when I offered a highly literal translation of a particular chapter it was dismissed as "incoherent" simply because it is problematic to they want it to mean. Try an absolutely literal translation of the Tao Te Ching and then let me know how "coherent" it is to you.
Misty wrote:"Void place." Where is this place?
Where unicorn tears heal sick babies.
Misty wrote:If a person is asked, what are you doing, and they answer, nothing, could it ever be true? No, it could not ever be true.
Now ask a dead person what they're thinking.
Spiral Out wrote:The character for yòu (有) is representative of a "hand holding meat", which means to be "in possession of".
Fooloso4 wrote:I am going to assume this is not an obscene joke. Can you provide a reference?
This reaction from a 'university professor' of "Chinese" philosophy who taught courses for a number of years??? Since when does such a university professor not know the etymology of Chinese characters?

kanjinetworks.com/eng/kanji-dictionary/ ... _id=KUAG15

Can you provide proof of your professorship? Can you provide any credentials to support your supposed "superior" knowledge?

This topic has become mired in idiocy.

I suggest to try THINKING for a change.
Dedicated to the fine art of thinking.
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Misty
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Misty »

Spiral Out wrote:
Misty wrote:"Void place." Where is this place?
Where unicorn tears heal sick babies.
You stated that there is a "void place" and your answer above is not a serious answer. Try again.
Misty wrote:If a person is asked, what are you doing, and they answer, nothing, could it ever be true? No, it could not ever be true.
Spiral Out wrote:Now ask a dead person what they're thinking.
(Nested quote removed.)
A dead person could not answer, Spiral Out. " If a person is asked," assumes the person is alive. I don't understand your response.
Things are not always as they appear; it's a matter of perception.

The eyes can only see what the mind has, is, or will be prepared to comprehend.

I am Lion, hear me ROAR! Meow.
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Spiral Out
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Spiral Out »

Misty wrote:You stated that there is a "void place"
No I did not.
Misty wrote:A dead person could not answer, Spiral Out.
And why do you think that is?
Misty wrote:" If a person is asked," assumes the person is alive.
You can ask a dead person questions all day long. You don't have to assume they're alive.
Misty wrote:I don't understand your response.
That's because you don't understand the Void. You've filled the Void with gods, angels, devils, demons and other invisible things you have been conditioned to believe.

But what have you to say of the Tao??? How do you equate what you say to the topic of Taoism?

The ancient Taoists understood the Void, partly because they were not subject to the onslaught of the nonsense that you were exposed to in modern society.
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Fooloso4
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Fooloso4 »

Spiral:

I knew this discussion would devolve into moronic quibbles about translations, semantics and personal interpretations.
If you were to give this a moment’s thought you would see how misguided this complaint is. Unless the reader is well versed in the original language he must rely on translations and thus the interpretation of the translator. There can be no competent translation or interpretation without attention to semantics. Even when the text in question does not require translation a discussion of it cannot bypass meaning and interpretation. One does not see beyond the words by overlooking them.
Even when I offered a highly literal translation of a particular chapter it was dismissed as "incoherent" simply because it is problematic to they want it to mean.
It is not incoherent because it does not mean what I want it to mean but because it is meaningless. The syntax is ungrammatical and lacks internal logic. When translating it is not enough to take the meaning of individual terms in isolation and put them side by side. Why not translate is as: Not a hand holding meat enters into a lack of space? Is it the meat that does not hold hands or is it a meat that is not held in the hand? Does this mean that a meat that does hold hands or a meat this is held in the hand enters a lack of space?
This reaction from a 'university professor' of "Chinese" philosophy who taught courses for a number of years??? Since when does such a university professor not know the etymology of Chinese characters?
The history of written characters is not the same thing as the etymology of spoken words. When one does not know the difference the result is comedy. If you follow the links you provided you will find the following:
Chinese Etymology presents an outstanding selection of the ancient forms of the characters, but its interpretive information is of dubious value.
Your hand holding meat is a hilarious example.

I am not a professor of Chinese philosophy. I said that I have taught courses in Chinese philosophy. I also said that I do not know the language and that this is one reason I cannot claim to be an accomplished scholar of Chinese philosophy.
Can you provide proof of your professorship? Can you provide any credentials to support your supposed "superior" knowledge?
I certainly can provide proof of my credentials and teaching experience. I did not claim “superior” knowledge. I have over 1,200 posts and less than half a dozen in which I have said anything about my training or teaching, and in none of them have I made an appeal to my own authority. It was an offhand remark meant to indicate that I have more than a passing interest in the topic and it is not something new to me. Instead of making inflated claims on my behalf in order to attack them, stick to the topic.
This topic has become mired in idiocy.

I suggest to try THINKING for a change.
This is a tactic that you have resorted to in the past when an examination of your claims has demonstrated that they are so problematic as to be indefensible. It really is not effective at masking the problem and I am not going to follow you down this path. Your decision to absence yourself from your own thread on existence and the Void was a far better choice. But there are other alternatives that are not so ego invested.
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Misty
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Misty »

Spiral Out wrote:
Misty wrote:You stated that there is a "void place"
No I did not.

Yes it did in your post #38

-- Updated Sat Aug 22, 2015 7:10 pm to add the following --
Spiral Out wrote:
The chinese expression, 空间 (kōngjiān), means "empty space" or "void place". It would be a redundancy to express an empty space that contains nothing. Therefore, the expression is indicative of the Void.
Things are not always as they appear; it's a matter of perception.

The eyes can only see what the mind has, is, or will be prepared to comprehend.

I am Lion, hear me ROAR! Meow.
Belinda
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Belinda »

Fooloso4 wrote:




(Spiral Out wrote)
You obviously find some relevance in the text to something. What is it relevant to?


(F replied)How I live. I see it as part of a cross-cultural tradition of philosophy as therapeutic, transformative practice. We find in Plato, Laozi, Lin Chi, Wittgenstein and others explicit reference to philosophical practice as therapeutic.
I find the unhewn wood , and the water images to have more than a passing resemblance to Jesus of Nazareth. For instance he was powerless against the Roman occupation. The Romans' is arguably the least Daoist of all the cultures of belief and practice that we know about. Jesus said "Render unto Caesar". This is perhaps the most prudent response to oppression , although it's well known that Chinese history until Mao has been a succession of feudalistic states and very courageous peasant revolts . But I guess that there must have been many occasions when peasants could preserve themselves only by capitulating to what they could not strive against.

However Jesus goes beyond self preservation, and perhaps Taoism is more than therapy. Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan describes how labels such as 'Samaritan" are specious. All the good works we see in the present day. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Medecins Sans Frontieres, Mercy Ships, Oxfam, Greenpeace etc are all unhewn wood.

( Edited) The soft word that turneth away wrath is water :) :) And how fertile is that for international diplomacy! Actually that is Proverbs, not Jesus, but same difference.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Sy Borg »

Of course, the idea raised in the OP is not exclusive to the Tao. Buddhists have also long espoused the idea of effortless action. The Christian notion of "surrender" is also a similar concept - let go and let the deity/nature pulls the strings. Throughout history people have always observed that we can always operate more effortlessly and, thus, more efficiently and reliably. The hard part is letting go, which is an act of courage.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Belinda »

Greta wrote:Of course, the idea raised in the OP is not exclusive to the Tao. Buddhists have also long espoused the idea of effortless action. The Christian notion of "surrender" is also a similar concept - let go and let the deity/nature pulls the strings. Throughout history people have always observed that we can always operate more effortlessly and, thus, more efficiently and reliably. The hard part is letting go, which is an act of courage.
Yes, and I gather that Fooloso4 pinned down what for him is what makes Daoism unique, that is, not changing the continuum, the Way, into permanent words and crystallised concepts. (If I understand Foolo)
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Fooloso4 »

Belinda:

Yes, and I gather that Fooloso4 pinned down what for him is what makes Daoism unique, that is, not changing the continuum, the Way, into permanent words and crystallised concepts. (If I understand Foolo)
Right, except not unique in the sense that it can only be found in Daoism. It can, for example, be found in Ch’an Buddhism and Zen Buddhism as well. It’s all a bit of a mash-up. We can find commonality between them as well as differences within them. One interesting problem that emerged was with regard to the logic of Ch’an koans. Some schools held that they are illogical and the goal is to reject logical thought. Others held that they are logical but that they play by a different set of rules. They are not rules that can be learned from a rule book, but that can be seen when we are able to see the limits of our conceptual constructs and stop forcing things to conform to them. Accordingly, some commentaries stop with the appearance of logical contradiction, but others take this as a starting point.

Questions also arose within Daoism with regard to changing the Way. Zhuangzi, for example, said that a way is made by walking it. This can be understood at many levels. In one sense, all that happens happens within the whole, it is, thus, part of rather than apart from the Way. In another, it has to do with the necessity of making determinations from the perspective of what and where we are. Any attempt to orient ourselves in accord with the Way is actually an attempt to orient ourselves from the perspective of what we imagine the Way to be. As a result some will take one path and others another and both will insist that they are right and others wrong. At another level it has to do with making our way in the world of human beings, that is, understanding their ways.
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Belinda »

Fooloso4 wrote:

Questions also arose within Daoism with regard to changing the Way. Zhuangzi, for example, said that a way is made by walking it. This can be understood at many levels. In one sense, all that happens happens within the whole, it is, thus, part of rather than apart from the Way. In another, it has to do with the necessity of making determinations from the perspective of what and where we are. Any attempt to orient ourselves in accord with the Way is actually an attempt to orient ourselves from the perspective of what we imagine the Way to be. As a result some will take one path and others another and both will insist that they are right and others wrong. At another level it has to do with making our way in the world of human beings, that is, understanding their ways.

Fooloso4 :" In one sense, all that happens happens within the whole, it is, thus, part of rather than apart from the Way"

Is this like "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances" ? (Shakespeare)

Fooloso4 : " In another, it has to do with the necessity of making determinations from the perspective of what and where we are"

Is this like how we categorise our impressions such that for instance if we are coping with fear of foreigners we sometimes demonise them ? And perhaps with echoes of Mark1955 who refuses to accept other people's "boxes" as the only "boxes".


Fooloso4 "At another level it has to do with making our way in the world of human beings, that is, understanding their ways"

Perhaps this is a sort of toleration that others see various perspectives, or as the saying goes, we dance to different drummers , and a knowledge of what those perspectives are with a view to cooperating with others if at all possible ?
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Alec Smart
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Alec Smart »

Spiral Out wrote: Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
This could be a description of the course of my life, apart from the last bit.
Smart by name and Alec by nature.
Fooloso4
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Fooloso4 »

Belinda:

Is this like "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances" ? (Shakespeare)
As with all analogies, it eventually breaks down. We might consider, for example, the distinction between the actor and his or her stage persona. To be genuine, from a Daoist perspective, would be to do away with the persona.
Is this like how we categorise our impressions such that for instance if we are coping with fear of foreigners we sometimes demonise them ?
If I understand the question it is not a matter of categorizing impressions but of the categories giving rise to impressions, as, for example, happens with stereotypes.
And perhaps with echoes of Mark1955 who refuses to accept other people's "boxes" as the only "boxes"
.

I am not sure whether you mean he accepts or rejects more than one set of boxes. From a Daoist perspective there is Zhuangzi’s story of the butcher whose knife is still sharp after nineteen years because he cuts between the joints instead of hacking, that is, he knows the natural division of things. From a Western perspective there are Kant’s categories of the understanding, which are universal and fixed. Some contemporary philosophers have rejected fixed categories in favor of historically, culturally, and idiosyncratically determined categories. In Zen we find the idea of direct, unmediated seeing of the “suchness” of things, that is, the elimination of categories, classifications, or boxes.
Perhaps this is a sort of toleration that others see various perspectives, or as the saying goes, we dance to different drummers , and a knowledge of what those perspectives are with a view to cooperating with others if at all possible ?
Zhuangzi says:
If right were really right, it would be so different from not-right that there would be no room for argument.
Tolerance and cooperation are of concern but so is seeing things from a perspective above those that lead to disputes regarding right and wrong. Some take Zhuangzi’s relativism to be a rejection of such distinctions, but we can find plenty of examples where he maintains the difference. The point, as I understand it, is that each side speaks from a limited perspective they call right and thus cannot see why for this reason they are wrong.
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Re: Taoism- Actionless action

Post by Belinda »

I had read Greta's post:
let go and let the deity/nature pulls the strings. Throughout history people have always observed that we can always operate more effortlessly and, thus, more efficiently and reliably. The hard part is letting go, which is an act of courage.
Before I read that of Jaded Sage, above.

Jaded Sage is saying, if I understand right, that if it's easier to let go then it accords with the Way. If the latter is what wu wei is then whence morality? Is Taoism opposed to Confucianism?
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