Deep Culture of China: reflections on neoConfucianism, China's future and the Tree of Life

Here is my response to message from Yeshua ben David which introduces these topics: ======================================================== ========================================================= I met Martin Zwick's in the 2017 IEEE conference in Hawaii. We had a good time exploring the systems similaritires between ancient Israelite wisdom (The Tree of Life) and ancient Chinese wisdom (The Supreme Pole). I am providing to you two links to his work that combine very delicate systems science to access a potential isomorphism between the two symbolic structures of these two bodies ancient of wisdom. A book chapter - Symbolic Structures as Systems: On the Near Isomorphism of Two Religious Symbols: https://www.pdx.edu/sites/www.pdx.edu.sysc/files/symbol_stt.pdf A shorter essay on the same subject - The Diagram of the Supreme Pole and the Kabbalistic Tree: On the Similarity of Two Symbolic Structures: https://www.pdx.edu/sites/www.pdx.edu.sysc/files/symbol_rew2s.pdf In the following link you will find a full list of Martin Zwick's publications on other areas of research: https://www.pdx.edu/sysc/faculty-martin-zwick-publication-abstracts -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Biological Physics and Meaning" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to Biological-Physics-and-Meaning+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Biological-Physics-and-Meaning/98768c24-ab28-430c-bcac-7ef5c9fcc794%40googlegroups.com. =============================================================================================================== ============================================================================================================ Thank you, Yeshua! Does Martin have access to these discussions now? (I hope so, because I prefer to give people access to what others say about them at this level. If his interests here are just PSI or a subcode of PSI, the presence of other things which do not interest him should be minimum burden on him.) I thank you and Martin, for making me aware of Zhou Dunyi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Dunyi All through its history, China has been divided between those who believe in what I call "PSI" (either soul or at least some kind of paranormal human abilities beyond the mundane view of humanity which Stan associates with the standard model of physics"), those who believe it exists but is not really relevant, and those who take it as seriously as we do. Simplified stories of China discuss four great worldviews -- Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Maoism, all of which still exist and are still important inputs to serious actionable research in Cosmos and History. Simplifiers once said that Taoism and Buddhism both embrace PSI while Confucianism was a state religion trying to eliminate it, or at least keep it out of power. But I have learned a lot about Confucianism through the years. I was very happy a few years ago to visit the world headquarters Confucius Institute in Shandong Province a few years ago. I was delighted there to learn the full depth of the concept of ZHENG QI, the Confucian concept of INTEGRITY, and to learn that the full, official and higher version of Zheng qi DOES INCLUDE one of our PSI topics, the full development and expression of PSI. I talked about that and gave citations in my paper for Henry Stapp's Festschrift, thanks to Stan Klein for making that happen: Quantum Measurement, Consciousness, and the Soul: a New, Alternative Position By the way, this morning I see that my webpage werbos.com/religions.htm now includes that links AND to my three followon papers this past year elaborating and giving more details, such as the Cosmos and History paper giving my theory of what the noosphere IS and how it works. In Shandong, I was delighted to be guided by a descendant of Confucius (aka KungFuTzu) who showed us the life sized statue of an eagle which his ancestor used as a symbol of his kind of qi and mental efforts. There is a long history of such eagles!! And I was delighted to visit the inner sanctum teaching room of Mencius (aka MengTzu), who was in a way to Confucius what St. Paul was to Jesus. My paper cites the seminal book The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy, which explains how MengTzu thought about his type of higher qi. Even that Chinese author found it hard to understand what MengTzu was talking about, but I was happy to recognize it immediately, something which fits so well both my experience and my understanding of how the noosphere works. Mundane it wasn't. (They also asked me to give talk to a thousand people in Lin Yi on Neural Networks and Confucianism, explaining how they fit together. I probably posted a link to those slides somewhere on my web pages under www.werbos.com.) HOWEVER: MengTzu and KungFuTzu were all Before Christ. The important Song Dynasty which Martin refers to, circa 1000AD, created NEOConfucianism and the system of examinations which rule China to this day. ZHU XI (who was to Confucianism what Constantine was to Christianity, more or less) taught in the Thousand Year Academy still there in Changsha. It was entertaining to be asked to sit in his teaching chair, and then visit the dormroom of Mao Tse Tung who wrote essays on just what was wrong with the limited views of Zhu Xi. So much of what people do to implement Confucianism is indeed anti-PSI,within the effective and well-organized but stifling limits of Zhu Xi's thought. Zhu Xi had something of a scientific world view (like a recent ruler Jiang Zemin), but as you know some people push science into narrow channels which can be dangerously restrictive. To this day, the errors of Zhu Xi are a major impediment to the growth of China. This explains why I am so grateful to learn of Dunyi, a DIFFERENT neoConfucian in China, who might even be the very center of authentic spiritual growth in the Confucian part of China at the time of the Thousand Year Academy (which includes today). I have not studied the details further, but it looks like a good lead, important not only to Chinese history but to the cukture and spirit today. Dialogue with China is an important part of the spiritual development of humanity as a whole. ============ Of course, Yeshua also mentions the Tree of Life, another subject which several of us could write many pages on, crossing from ancient sea peoples to Israel and even to Shinto (as in werbos.com/religions.htm). The Great Tree is an important archetype in our noosphere which is like a word with MULTIPLE IMPORTANT DISTINCT DEFINITIONS each requiring focused attaention and appreciation. ONE of the meanings of that tree for me.. is as a symbol for our noosphere, the noosphere of this solar system, of which we all are part. Especially after our mundane body dies away, what lives on is PART of that great tree. Our very life depends on how well we connect with other parts of that tree. Some of us may be like the great long-distance cells in a brain, which connect all the way from the roots far below (where the Disney cartoon Coco is sited) to the very top where sun and sky are located. (In my view, the sun is basically PART of that tree, as is the earth.) none of us can be EVERYWHERE in that tree, or connect directly to every other cell which inhabits it, but the connections we build are an essential part of keeping the system as a whole integrated and connected (and perhaps someday capable of zhengqi). Thanks again, and best of luck... Pual