A Yijing view of world-system and democracy

Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Volumn 33, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 191-211

  Gunaratne, Shelton A ^a,b  

^a MINNESOTA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b MINNESOTA STATE UNIVERSITY MOORHEAD   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 50349093982     PISSN: 03018121     EISSN: 15406253     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6253.2006.00348.x     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. The Yijing model of yin-yang complementarity provided the onto-cosmological framework for Niels Bohr to formulate his complementarity principle associated with quantum physics. Psychologist Carl Jung was similarly indebted to Yijing for his notion of synchronicity. Jung, who felt that his psychology was bound up with the "whole practical use of the Yijing" saw the book as a vehicle or engine of Dao, synchronicity, and individuation. See Stephen Karcher, "Jung, the Tao, and the Classic of Change," Journal of Religion and Health 38 (1999): 291.
2. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry K. Gills, The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? (London: Routledge, 1993)
3. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974)
4. and Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004).
5. Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (New York: Doubleday, 1996)
6. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, 4th updated ed. (Boston, MA: Shambhala, [1975] 1999)
7. and Fritjof Capra, Hidden Connections: Integrating the Biological, Cognitive, and Social Dimensions of Life into a Science of Sustainability (New York: Doubleday, 2002).
8. Humberto Maturana, "Autopoiesis, Structural Coupling and Cognition: A History of These and Other Notions in the Biology of Cognition," Cybernetics and Human Knowing 9, no. 3 (2002): 5-34
9. and Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980).
10. Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1984).
11. Paul Prew, "The 21st Century World-Ecosystem: Dissipation, Chaos, or Transition?" In Emerging Issues in the 21st Century World-System Vol. 2: New Theoretical Directions for the 21st Century World-System, ed. Wilma A. Dunaway (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 203-19.
12. Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, The Quantum Society: Mind, Physics, and a New Social Vision (New York: William Morrow & Co. , 1994), 27.
13. Yong Pil Rhee, "Synthetic Systems Theory: Linkage between Western Theory of Physics and Eastern Thought," System Research and Behavioral Science 13 (1997): 211-221.
14. For the Buddhist perspective, see Matthieu Ricard, "On the Relevance of a Contemplative Science," in Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Grounds, ed. B. Alan Wallace (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 261-79.
15. Ricard says, "Buddhism set out the hypothesis that elementary particles are neither solid nor endowed with independent existence but exist only in dependence on one another . . . [It] is difficult not to be reminded of Heisenberg, who wrote, Atoms and elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts'" (274).
16. Buddhism, which rejects the theories of creation and the Big Bang, asserts that the universe and consciousness, which are interdependent, have coexisted for all times. However, the universe is not immune from the law of impermanence for it rises from an unrealized state to go through a series of cycles - birth, evolution, death, and a state of pure potentiality. See Trinh Xuan Thuan, "Cosmic Design from a Buddhist Perspective," Annals of the New York Academy of Social Sciences 950 (2001): 206-14.
17. Also see William S. Waldron, "Common Ground, Common Cause: Buddhism and Science on the Afflictions of Identity," in Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground, 145-91. Waldron says that a close affinity exists between the Buddhist theory of dependent coarising and self-organization theory and its close cousins, general systems and chaos theory.
18. Bifurcation means forking. See Katya Walter, Tao of Chaos: Merging East and West (Austin, TX: Holros Center, 1994). "The bifurcation tree doubles its branches at each new level of growth," Walter points out. "Fish, insects, plants, birds, mammals - all exhibit rhythmic, bifurcating patterns in their body structure . . . and also in their life cycles" (95, 97).
19. See Larry S. Liebovitch and Daniela Scheurle, "Two Lessons from Fractals and Chaos," Complexity 5, no. 4 (2000): 34-43. The authors define a fractal as an object in space that has an ever larger number of ever smaller pieces. It is self-similar in the sense that the smaller pieces are condensed copies of the larger pieces. A tree is such a fractal. It has an ever larger number of ever smaller branches. A fractal can also be a process in time. There can be an ever larger number of fluctuations of ever smaller amplitude. A fractal can also be a set of numbers from experimental data. There can be an ever larger number of ever smaller numbers.
20. See Chung-ying Cheng, "The I Ching as a Symbolic System of Integrated Communication," in Communication Theory: The Asian Perspective, ed. Wimal Dissanayake (Singapore: Amic, 1988), 79-104
21. and Walter, Tao of Chaos.
22. Gun Hov Siu, The Man of Many Qualities: A Legacy of the I Ching (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1968), 3.
23. The complementarity principle states that in the special case, wave and particle theories of light are not mutually exclusive but complementary. In the more general epistemological case it holds that two descriptions of reality can coexist. See E. Samuel Overman, "Policy Physics," in Quantum Politics: Applying Quantum Theory to Political Phenomena, ed. Ted L. Becker (New York: Praeger, 1991), 154.
24. For example, the more certainly a particle's position is known, the more uncertain must be knowledge of its momentum. Thus, it is impossible to determine the exact nature of reality.
25. Chris J. Lofting, The Recursive I Ching, 2002. (Retrieved February 2, 2005, from http://members. austarmetro. com. au/∼lofting/myweb/icrecurse. html).
26. John Urry, Global Complexity (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2003), 27. Urry"s explanation relates to strange attractors. Its extension to the hexagrams is mine.
27. Chung-ying Cheng, "Inquiring into the Primary Model: Yi Jing and the Onto-Hermeneutical Tradition," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 30, no. 3-4 (2003): 289-312. Cheng clarifies, "All trigrams and hexagrams are images or symbols that iconically and indexically stand for real situations in nature or life" (294).
28. The Confucian Ten Commentaries (Shiyi) philosophize about the original text of forms (xiang) and judgments (ci) in Yijing. Cheng says that the Shiyi provide the insights to interpret the three subsystems of Yijing: forms, meanings, and numbers. All three subsystems "form a creative unity" to provide a "matrix of meaning" (Cheng, "The I Ching," 86).
29. Leibniz, the inventor of the mathematical binary code, admitted in 1713 that the yin-yang binary code of Yijing paralleled his own: (- - = 0) and (- = 1). These two symbols made up all sixty-four hexagrams.
30. No-knowledge is not the same as "having-no knowledge (ignorance). " No-knowledge is "one of ultimate enlightenment and universal sensibilities. " See Ralph Gun Hoy Siu, The Tao of Science: An Essay on Western Knowledge and Eastern Wisdom (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1957), 76.
31. Urry, Global Complexity, 26.
32. Siu, The Man of Many Qualities, 5.
33. The second law of thermodynamics asserts that a closed system would become paralyzed where negentropy = entropy (used-up energy). Entropy cannot decrease because of irreversibility. Dissipative structures need not meet this fate because they are open to their environments. See Prigogine and Stengers, Order Out of Chaos.
34. For a detailed analysis of autopoiesis and cognition, see Shelton A. Gunaratne, The Dao of the Press: A Humanocentric Theory (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2005), 52-58.
35. Also see Capra, The Web of Life.
36. Richard J. Lynn, trans. , The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 15.
37. Also see Tzi-ki Hon, "Human Agency and Change: A Reading of Wang Bi's Yijing Commentary," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 30, no. 2 (2003): 223-242.
38. Interpreted from Zohar and Marshall, The Quantum Society, 54.
39. Maturana, "Autopoiesis, Structural Coupling and Cognition. "
40. Maturana and Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition.
41. Zohar and Marshall, The Quantum Society (North Yorkshire, UK: Quill, 1995), 74.
42. However, one should note the many variations of world-systems analysis - labeled continuing, comparative, evolutionary, engulfing, etc. - that have emerged since Immanuel Wallerstein's original formulation. See Robert A. Denemark, J. Friedman, Barry K. Gills, and George Modelski, eds. , World-System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change (London: Routledge, 2000)
43. and Thomas D. Hall, "World-System and Evolution: An Appraisal," Journal of World Systems Research 2, no. 4 (1996): 1-43. Disagreements also exist on the definition of world-system and its historical beginning.
44. Wallerstein, The Modern World-System.
45. Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis, 16.
46. Zohar and Marshall point out that each community has a core and a periphery, a particle aspect and a wave aspect (The Quantum Society, 191).
47. The complement of a hexagram is its mirror image: Each broken line is replaced with a solid one, and vice versa. So the opposite of Hexagram 33 [Withdrawal] is Hexagram 19 [Overseeing]. The hexagram of contrast is usually generated by turning the original hexagram upside down. So the contrast to Hexagram 33 is Hexagram 34 [Great Strength], Hexagram 1 [Pure Yang] and Hexagram 2 [Pure Yin] have only complements. For seven pairs, the complement and the contrast are the same.
48. Those inclined toward nomothetic empiricism could match nation-states with a multidimensional country-comparison index incorporating factors such as population size, per capita income, IT infrastructure, religious-cultural complexion, political complexion, etc.
49. The sixty-four hexagrams do not signify a limit. Computers can apply titration to "refine" the units into 4096 qualities (64 × 64) or even 16 million + qualities (4096 × 4096). However, such mind-boggling refinements are not needed because then we lose the capacity to grasp distinctions.
50. For further elaboration, see Gunaratne, The Dao of the Press; and also Shelton A. Gunaratne, "Public Diplomacy, Global Communication, and World Order: An Analysis Based on Theory of Living Systems," Current Sociology 53 (2005): 749-72.
51. David Held, Models of Democracy, 2nd ed. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996).
52. David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995).
53. Gunaratne, The Dao of the Press.
54. See Ted L. Becker, ed. , Quantum Politics: Applying Quantum Theory to Political Phenomena (New York: Praeger, 1991)
55. and Ted L. Becker and Christa D. Slaton, The Future of Teledemocracy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000).
56. Ethan J. Leib, Deliberative Democracy in America: A Proposal for a Popular Branch of Government (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004), 1.
57. John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Chicago: The Swallow Press, [1923] 1954)
58. Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984)
59. and Benjamin Barber, A Place for Us (New York: Hill and Wang, 1999).
60. Jon Elster, ed. , Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)
61. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, trans. William Rehg (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1996).
62. Peter Dahlgren, "In Search of the Talkative Public: Media, Deliberative Democracy and Civic Culture," Javnost - The Public 9, no. 3 (2002): 5-26.
63. Carolyn Hendriks, The Ambiguous Role of Civil Society in Deliberative Democracy (refereed paper presented to the Jubilee conference of the Australasian Political Studies Association, Australian National University, Canberra, October 2002).
64. Joshua Cohen and Charles Sabel, "Directly-Democratic Polyarchy," European Law Journal 3, no. 4 (1997): 313-42
65. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1996).
66. Seyla Benhabib, "Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy," in Democracy and Difference: Contesting Boundaries of the Political, ed. Seyla Benhabib (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 67-94
67. James Bohman, Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity, and Democracy (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996)
68. John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
69. Hendriks, The Ambiguous Role, 1.
70. Joshua Cohen and Charles Sabel, "Directly-Democratic Polyarchy"
71. (cited in Leib, Deliberative Democracy, 1).
72. James S. Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991).
73. Becker and Slaton, The Future of Teledemocracy, 45.
74. Deliberative democracy, Wikipedia, (n. d. ). (Retrieved February 20, 2005, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Deliberative-democracy).
75. Joanna Macy asserts that the systems view of mutual causality illustrated in the Aggańńa Sutta has been recognized as the first expression in Indian political thought of a theory of social contract. The story presents self, society, and world as evolving by interaction and progressive differentiation. Buddha traced the origin of kingship to Mahāsammata, whom the people chose to act on their behalf. See Joanna Macy, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).
76. The following is a tentative suggestion: {Table presented}