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Coincidence, but this is also the first lesson in the Tao Te Ching! :) The lesson is our desired things (beauty, wisdom, wealth) are defined by their contradic
by gen220 7y ago
Coincidence, but this is also the first lesson in the Tao Te Ching! :)
The lesson is our desired things (beauty, wisdom, wealth) are defined by their contradictions, and are therefore not self-standing. The only thing which is self-standing is contradiction itself.
When you step back, it argues, you see that contradiction (distinction) is that from which all things stem. The operative distinction that motivates most peoples’ actions is “desire”. Hence, the distinction between desirable and undesirable determines the meaning of more material adjectives like beauty, wise, wealth.
It goes on to say that if you remove “desire” from your perspective (to be more like nature/Tao), you can see things for what they are: mystery. Removing desire from your actions, however, is not very desirable in practice!
The recommendation (i.e. the behavior of the sage) is to practice doing nothing, and not-talking. The implication (IMO) is that, without their contradictions, action and speech have no meaning.
What is new is old :)
- jessermeyer 7y agoThis is not a coincidence! There is the Tao, and then there are the 10,000 things! It's on the first page of the Tao Te Ching. :)
- avindroth 7y agoYeah naming things makes it easy to talk about them but also draws arbitrary lines that influence the people dealing with said named objects Science is one thing, but science also obfuscates what you are trying to talk about by applying a specific kind of 'grid' or 'form' which reveals certain patterns in the content but also hides certain patterns (re: Foucault)
- galaxyLogic 7y ago> without their contradictions, action and speech have no meaning. This makes me think of waves. Moving your hand in water creates waves. A wave is a distinction between higher density vs. lower, or higher field-amplitude or not. Waves could not exist without such a distinction. In physics everything (?) is made of waves. But similarly in semantics words can only have meaning by describing both what they refer to and what they don't refer to by a given word or sentence. So, "meaning" is a sort of wave I guess.