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The Adventures (of the Mind) of Chuang Tzu Chuang Tzu and Hui Tzu were strolling one day on the bridge over the river Hao. Chuang Tzu said, “Look how the minnows dart hither and thither where they will. Such is the pleasure that fish enjoy.” Hui Tzu said, “You are not a fish. How do you know what gives pleasure to fish?” Chuang Tzu said, “You are not I. How do you know that I do not know what gives pleasure to fish?” Hui Tzu said, “If because I am not you, I cannot know whether you know, then equally because you are not a fish, you cannot know what gives pleasure to fish. My argument still holds.” Chuang Tzu said, “Let us go back to where we started. You asked me how I knew what gives pleasure to fish. But you already knew how I knew when you asked me. You knew that I knew it by standing here on the bridge at Hao.” Optical
Illusions
It looks like it's moving, but it's not. (Trust me!) I don't know what to say about this one More Adventures of Chuang Tzu “If there was a beginning, there must have been a time before the beginning began, and if there was a time before the beginning began, there must have been a time before the time before the beginning began. If there is being, there must also be not-being. If there was a time before there began to be any not-being, there must also have been a time before the time before there began to be any not-being. But here am I, talking about being and not-being and still do not know whether it is being that exists and not-being that does not exist, or being that does not exist and not-being that really exists! I have spoken, and do not know whether I have said something that means anything or said nothing that has any meaning at all.” How has your computer changed your life? No comment (speaks for itself) Oh, so that's how it works!! Makes Sense, Right? Quote: True friends stab you in the front. Author: Oscar Wilde Quote: In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. Author: Benjamin Franklin In the first place God made idiots; that was for practice; then he
made school boards. Author: Mark Twain If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either. Author: Dick Cavett 64 = 65, Right? No? Ok, just watch this ...
One More Adventure of Chuang Tzu [Some say the disordered world can only be reformed by wise men. Let us consider that statement.] Suppose I am arguing with you, and you get the better of me. Does the fact that I am not a match for you mean that you are really right and I am really wrong? Or if I get the better of you, does the fact that you are not a match for me mean that I am really right and you are really wrong? Must one of us necessarily be right and the other wrong, or may we not both be right or both be wrong? But even if I and you cannot come to an understanding, someone else will surely be a candle to our darkness. Whom then shall we call in as an arbitrator in our dispute? If it is someone who agrees with you, the fact that he agrees with you makes him useless as an arbitrator. If it is someone who agrees with me, the fact that he agrees with me makes him useless as an arbitrator. [Someone who agrees with either both of us or neither of us will not settle our disagreement … and is therefore useless as an arbitrator. And where does this leave our wise men?]
"Adventures of Chuang Tzu" adapted from "Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China" by Arthur Waley, Doubleday & Doubleday, Inc., Garden City, N.Y. ... from the cover: "In the fourth century B.C. three conflicting points of view in Chinese philosophy received classic expression - the Taoist, the Confucianist, and the "Realist." The Taoists were indifferent to society, morality, law and order, and opposed to them a mystic self-fulfillment. The Confucianists, following the path of their great master, scurried from court to court, looking still for the philosopher king who would establish an order of goodness, righteousness and morality. And then there were the "Realists," who believed in neither man nor God, but simply that government must be based on "the actual facts of the world as they are," and who, following this principle, worked up a blueprint for a totalitarian society more thorough and more detailed than any the West was to know for 2000 years. The form in which these philosophies were expressed was peculiarly Chinese - legend, anecdote, parable, and maxim: what they had to say, however, was universal, and we find these points of view, or their equivalents, emerging wherever the fixed and unquestioned values of a great cultural tradition are disintegrating - which is why, perhaps, the three points of view strike a 20th [21st?] century Westerner as so remarkably modern..." |
