I Ching and DNA
Has anyone looked into this? From what I can tell, there seem to be roughly only three books published on this topic: DNA and the I Ching: I Ching & the Genetic Code: The Hidden Key to Life by Martin Schonberger, The Tao of Life by Johnson F. Yan, and The Hermetic Code in DNA: The Sacred Principles in the Ordering of the Universe by Michael Hayes.
I've consulted the I Ching for a little over a year, via a generous interpretation by Brian Browne Walker, which is heavily Taoist, and have just recently received the more classic Wilhelm/Baynes edition, which I'm in the process of digesting (and of course consulting).
As far as I can tell, the idea is that DNA language makes up for 64 possibilities, as do I Ching hexagrams. The implication being that ancient wisdom is connected to modern science. A simple walk in the park, really. :joke:
I've consulted the I Ching for a little over a year, via a generous interpretation by Brian Browne Walker, which is heavily Taoist, and have just recently received the more classic Wilhelm/Baynes edition, which I'm in the process of digesting (and of course consulting).
As far as I can tell, the idea is that DNA language makes up for 64 possibilities, as do I Ching hexagrams. The implication being that ancient wisdom is connected to modern science. A simple walk in the park, really. :joke:
Comments (40)
If you do the research, you'll see that that's not a valid response to this thread.
Also, if we consider the simplest character set for a computer keyboard in the English language capable of basic discourse and elementary arithmetic we get:
1. Lower case English alphabets: 26
2. Upper case Enlgish alphabets: 26
3. Math functions {+, -, ×, ÷, ^, (, ), <, =}: 9
4. Basic punctuation (., ?, space): 3
Total = 64 characters
Did ancient Chinese scholars know English would, one day, become the lingua franca of the world?
You bring up an interesting point which applies to eymology. All too often a scholar will believe a coincidence to be something casual instead. Have you ever researched aliens and what the probability is that they exist? I mean actually to put a percent on the likelihood they are here and have visited earth. Once we break things down technically like that, it's not hard to see that finding causality in these matters is far harder than one might initially think.
I'm acquainted with Carl Jung's concept of synchroncity, defined as meaningful coincidences. Notice what Jung did there. He denies causality hence, coincidence but, in the same breath, retains meaning hence meaningful.
Since you brought up the matter of probability there's Litttlewood's law:
[quote=Wikipedia]Littlewood's law states that a person can expect to experience events with odds of one in a million (defined by the law as a "miracle") at the rate of about one per month.[/quote]
Then there's Apophenia:
[quote=Wikipedia]Apophenia (/æpo??fi?ni?/) is the tendency to mistakenly perceive connections and meaning between unrelated things.[/quote]
When one consults the I Ching with the yarrow stalks, the first thing one does is to lay one stalk aside. This represents the unchanging aspect of being, the ultimate unity of all. One is interested, for the moment, in the changing aspect - the ephemeral. The book itself is unchanging, but one reads a different section each time, and each section describes a way of things changing in terms relevant to humanity.
So it is psychological in character, and describes the laws of thought, or information theory. The close relation to DNA and to computers is not an accident or coincidence, but a necessary feature of all things algorithmic.
The West dismisses its own adage, "As above, so below." as mere superstition, but the self-sameness at different levels of fractals falls out of the mathematics of self- referential definition and reiteration (change).
Incidentally, it's more that the Tao is heavily Ching-ist; Lao Tzu draws heavily on the imagery of the I Ching in the Tao, and inevitably so as the Tao is, as it were, the missing piece of the I Ching, the stick that was laid aside.
DNA codons are arrangements of three bases, and there are four different bases, making for 4[sup]3[/sup] = 64 possible codons.
No deep mystery here, just a very simple structural property.
I know fuck-all about I Ching, but I suspect that the similarities don't go much deeper than that (without some very creative interpretation). Do some of the I Ching hexagrams mean the same thing? Because DNA "language" is highly redundant, with 61 codons specifying only 20 different amino acids. And the other three codons denote start and stop sequences - the equivalent of punctuation. Do I Ching hexagrams include punctuation?
Anyway, I think such numerology is very silly. As is this perpetual canard about "ancient wisdom" somehow prefiguring modern science. Despite numerous alleged connections, I can't think of a single instance in the entire history of human civilization where some "ancient wisdom" led to a scientific insight. The connection is invariably discovered in retrospect by some amateur numerologist with a book to sell.
Curious axiom. Why not, "As Westward, so Eastward." The polarity of up and down was pretty straightforward because when you look down you see your feet (if one can discern feet) and when you look upwards you see the heavens (if one sees the heavens). But who looked upwards and downwards and made a habit of it and what were they seeing?
There are comparisons structure/geometry between domains. There are bewildering tiny spheres and there are bewildering large spheres. Who imagined scaling phenomena except with relation to distance from an object. As one walks forward it grows but nothing is seen as one walks backwards, unless one walks backwards and sees things recede into distance.
Why would any ancient ever want to draw a triangle if such an algorithm is novel. What functions have triangles played in the course of humanity's scientific progress and was there ever magic associated with them as opposed to what isn't categorically magical(?).
Did the (night sky) have color for really ancient peoples? One can discern color in mars with naked eyes. What else is red on Earth may belong the to category Mars, which is just to presume a connection based on likeness (sympathetic magic).
The annual and monthly motions of the sky structured by incidents and accidents of coincidence (becoming dogmas and institutions) affairs on Earth. But cosmologists/astronomers are still looking at stuff because of the necessary connection. We must know something worth knowing... but what is worth knowing?
How does one impose meaning on a meaningless object? Or do meaningless objects impose meaning on themselves? Are there any meaningless objects? Or are there necessary connections to be made for the sake of living like a person lives.
Here's the evolutionary version of the axiom:-
"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." 'Why?' you will ask, and I will not know except that informational systems are mechanical systems and self-referential programs build complexity from simplicity.
The physicists version of synchronicity, by the way, is "spooky action at a distance".
I'd suggest consulting it (with an open mind) for a few weeks.
Luckily the allied forces and Josip Stalin did consult I Ching. Phew, close call. :smile:
I contest that the two are compatible. It either predicts, or it directs. Which one? You have to choose one or the other, as the two are different. You yourself denied that it has executive powers; you are in contention with the Japanese. Once you choose one of DIRECTIVE or else PREDICTIVE, then please don't ever, EVER switch over to the other one.
It is true; the Japanese obviously do not understand the I Ching. It's an aid to understanding the times, not a magic lucky charm.
For Europeans, it does not matter, really, that essentially. Both are far away places. Both are out of reach of experiencing directly. Both are almost entirely unknown for their culture. Both are huge and famous.
Reminds me of an old joke. Two people are drinking at a bar: a Jew and a Chinese man. They get a bit slushed. The Jew stands up, and slaps the Chinese man on the face. "What was that for?" Asks the Chinese man in surprise. "For Pearl Harbour," Says the Jew. "Well, that was done by the Japanese, not by the Chinese." The Jew, inebriated, says, "Chinese, Japanese, same difference." They drink a bit on, and the Chinese man stand up and slaps the Jew in the face. "What was that for?" Asks the Jew in surprise. "For sinking the Titanic," replies the Chinese man. "But that was done by an ice-berg," says the Jew. "Goldberg, Iceberg, same difference," says the Chinese man.
When an apophenist is bereft of creative fantasy, he or she will always revert the prediction or past-telling to something s/he is familiar with, and that is always blatant and obvious and commonplace. Nobody was named Joseph S. Rachmeier Jr in a previous life, an ordinary coopersmith's gofor boy who was the secret lover of his wife, and liked to gamble. NO, everyone was either Napoleon, or Julius Caesar or Marie Antoinette. No Bible ever originated in Kapuskasing, Northern Ontario, or in Nimh Hu Teng, a suburb of To Peng Hai, in North Laos; they originated in India, China, or by the ancient Inkas. (Wherever those lived. Most people can't name the country. I can't either.)
The books are The bible in India by Louis Jacolliot and The Discovery of Genesis by Kang and Nelson.
Here's a joke, sorta: what's my favorite passage in the Bible? When the snake turns into the staff in the hand of Moses because of the burning bush. Wink..
It you really look at it, we know almost next to nothing about dinosaurs. What can a group of scattered petrified bones tell us other than that they're bones? Most of what's written in paleontological books and journals are people filling in the gaps in the data with whatever strikes them as a good guess. The bottom line is when the distance between us and something, temporally and even spatially, is huge, absolutely nothing can be ruled out.
It's not a religious text. It predates religion in China. Yes, it's used religiously, but also secularly; it's associated with Tao, yes, but again, predates it. It's also not generally used for predicting the future; it's used to derive wisdom for what to do in current circumstances; the underlying concept is that everything is in flux, always changing, and consultation is said to describe what course of action you should take in the constantly changing experience of life. I expected basically no one other than @Unenlightened to have a grasp on it, and I'm not surprised. It's not for everyone, and this thread is in "Interesting Stuff" anyway. Ah well.
Ah, more jokes. I haven't read the books I mentioned in the OP, so I was just wondering out loud if anyone had, or had read any other interesting related sources; I wasn't looking for dismissive jokes about the I Ching; I get that when I mention to people in real life that I consult it, so I've learned to shut up, which I should probably do here as well; wrong crowd.
My point was just that 64 codons of DNA and 64 I Ching hexagrams is a completely unsurprising coincidence, because there are 4 DNA bases (A, C, T, and G) and codons are have length 3, so 4^3 = 64, while hexagrams have two bases (sometimes written 1 and 0) and hexagrams have length 6, so 2^6 = 64 as well. It's unsurprising that 4^3 = 2^6 because 4 = 2^2, so 4^3 = (2^2)^3 = 2^6.
The number of triplets of classical western elements (earth, air, wind, and fire) is also equal to the number of chords it's possible (if not advisable) to play on a six-string guitar, for exactly the same reason. (And the number of each is exactly the same: 64).
I guess we just have different temperaments, or whatever (or rather most people here have a different temperament to mine). I don't find the coincidence "unsurprising", I find it fascinating; I just haven't done the research, so posted this in "interesting stuff" for the hell of it. It's interesting to note that most people posting seem to have a better understanding of DNA than I do, while I seem to have a more informed understanding of the I Ching...again, temperaments...or perspectives. Maybe what I'm looking for is someone with an actual understanding of both, which would probably warrant less dismissal. I guess any inquiry involving ancient texts and modern science will generally be met with an attitude of dismissal, which is expected.
Six thousand years ago people noticed these kinds of repetitive structural features of the universe without the benefit of computers to model them because they were just as intelligent as you and I.
Unbelievable nonsense!
Why do you think it appropriate to air your prejudices about religious people here? Why not have a look at the book we are talking about and see if you can find any mention of God or religion in it? You suffer from the hubris of modernity, which is a relic of the Colonial hubris. Take your god theorising to a thread where it is vaguely on topic.
I've already put the theory out there that the I Ching is inherently a religious book
Justify it. I've put the theory out there that you are a religious person, justified by your obsession with religion as evidenced on this thread. What does the I Ching say that is religious?
You've been very defensive on this thread. My sole point in the post earlier is that modern people are accused of being overly rationalistic, when in reality religious people try to rationalize every thing too, the I Ching being a perfect example. (I only consider it a religious text because it seems plagued with apophenia)
I don't discourage you from reading those books though. If there is something to it, maybe you'll be the one to figure it out
When I have studied something a little, and have a certain respect for it, I like to defend it, quite unnecessarily, from people like you who think they know better without having even looked at the text. I have no ambition to be the one who figures anything out. I accuse "modern people", including you and other contributors here, of of a complacent arrogance that presumes to pronounce on things they know nothing about on the basis that anything old is bound to be superstitious nonsense. I'm not defensive at all, I'm attacking ignorance.
[quote=I Ching] Mang (hexagram4) (indicates that in the case which it presupposes) there will be progress and success. I do not (go and) seek the youthful and inexperienced, but he comes and seeks me. When he shows (the sincerity that marks) the first recourse to divination, I instruct him. If he apply a second and third time, that is troublesome; and I do not instruct the troublesome. There will be advantage in being firm and correct.[/quote]
(Legge translation)
Well I'm sorry if I did anything wrong. I have a very religious side and a very secular side. Jungian psychology might say my Ego is somewhere in the middle
Good read.
Legge translation.
[quote=Frank Sinatra]That's life (that's life), that's what all the people say
You're ridin' high in April, shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune
When I'm back on top, back on top in June[/quote]
:fire: