Scientific Enlightenment, Div. One Book 2: Human Enlightenment of the First Axial 2.D.1. The example of the Yijing Metaphysics of Sung Dynasty, China: Chapter 1. ACADEMY | previous section | Table of Content | next section | GALLERY

Copyright © 2003, 2005 by Lawrence C. Chin. All rights reserved.

During the Sung Dynasty, speculations on the structure of the cosmos, in the form of what we shall call the "Yijing metaphysics", were in such fashion and proliferated. These Yijing metaphysics had typically as their basis the 64 hexagrams of the Zhou-Yi (commonly known as Yijing or I-Ching) but synthesized these with the thinking of the Ying-Yang school, the school of the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, earth, with air as the under-lying), the Daoist trends, and the so-called "River Diagram" (河圖) and "Luo Document" (洛書). Fung explains that these metaphysical, cosmogonic systems are the derivatives from the Neo-Confucian synthesis of Chan Buddhism, traditional Confucianism, and religious Daoism. As said, the Yijing metaphysics constitutes the most elaborated numerological exposition ("system") of the structure of the cosmos and existence that has ever appeared among Homo sapiens sapiens in the functional perspective. In other words, we have seen (1.1 Ch. 2) that whereas all pre-modern cultures (from tribes to cosmological civilizations) have elaborated pretty much the same structure of the cosmos -- the axis mundi, the omphalos, the repetition of spatiality in temporality (or vice versa), and microcosmo-macrocosmic concentricism -- they have all articulated this structure only qualitatively, imprecisely. The yijing metaphysicians however articulate this structure of the cosmos (universal among pre-modern humankind) quantitatively, naming it, measuring it, with numbers, i.e. describing it more precisely. They are doing with the cosmos in the functional perspective what physicists today are doing with the universe in the structural perspective: the view of the "world" being given (a cosmos or a universe), how to quantitatively describe it.

           winter-north
                 |    
                 | 
autumn-west -----¤----- spring-east 
                 |
                 |
           summer-south

Here we want to reveal fully the experiential motivations behind the construction of these metaphysical systems, but, again, explain these in modern scientific terms -- notably the conservational principles. The example we choose here is The Common Explanatory Initiation into the Study of Yi (易學啟蒙通釋) by Hou Yu-Chai (real name: Hou Fan-Pin) of Sung. (The facsimile reproductions below came from the Ching Dynasty reprint [ca. 1700 A.D.] of the original Sung edition.)

The precursor of these systems, Fung says, was Zhou Duan-Yi (周敦頤 1017 - 1073). "Long before his time, some of the religious Daoists had prepared a number of mystic diagrams as graphic portrayals of the esoteric principles by which they believed a properly initiated individuals could attain to immortality. Zhou Duan-Yi is said to have come into possession of one of these diagrams, which he thereupon reinterpreted and modified into a diagram of his own designed to illustrate the process of cosmic evolution." (Fung, ibid., p. 269) The diagram is The Explanatory Diagram of Taiji (太極圖說). In it he explains cosmogenesis: "No Limit [Nothingness?] is the Uttermost Extremity [Taiji], Taiji moves and gives rise to Yang; having moved to extreme it rests, and resting it gives rise to Ying. Having rested to extreme it starts to move again. Moving and then resting, these two are mutually the origins of each other. Taiji differentiates into Ying and Yang, thus the two Yi are established." (See the explanation of this below.) Furthermore, "The change of Yang and the integration of Ying give rise to the five elements water, fire, wood, metal and earth. The five qi [air] thus permeate the cosmos smoothly, and the four seasons are set in motion. The five elements are united in Ying and Yang, and Ying and Yang united in Taiji, and Taiji originally is No Limit [Nothingness?]. The coming into being of the five elements means that each has its particular nature [i.e. the differentiation of the substrate Taiji and the particularization of these differentiated elements in difference from each other]." (Ibid., *p. 300)

The substance of these statements is borne out in Hou Fan-Pin's Common Explanation. Let us follow his presentation of cosmogenesis.

Yi has Taiji [i.e. "change" begins with the "uttermost extremity"] Taiji is that where the number [數] for Hsiang [象 the features] have not formed but their "reasons" [理] are already ready/ contained. [That is, Taiji is pure being, Being undifferentiated, the substratum, upokeimenon before its differentiated manifestations into the manifold of the things of the cosmos, i.e. before cosmogenesis. But although these differentiations, i.e. the things of the cosmos, have not appeared, the principles of the Taiji's differentiations into these things -- exactly corresponding to the Platonic forms, and thus these principles refer the laws of nature in today's physics -- are implicit within it. Number, as we shall see, refers to the quality, mainly intensity, of the existence of a particular cosmogonic constituent that is measured by an integer below 10 but above 5.] This is meant by the saying "shapes and mechanism [形器] are already ready/ contained but the reasons not yet visible". In the River Diagram and the Luo River Document these are still empty/ unfilled images/ features [象]. Zhouzi says: "No boundary yet [i.e. limitless: like Anaximander's apeiron] and so therefore the uttermost boundary [extremity; Taiji. This refers to the fact that the source of being, the in-finite, exactly corresponding to Anaximander's apeiron, is that beyond which there is nothing; Zhouzi apparently refers to Zhou Duan-Yi]. Zhaozi says: "Dao is Taiji." [I.e. Taiji, the source of being, is precisely what Laozi calls Dao.] He also says: "Xin [心 heart, mind = nous] is Taiji." [This may be the adoption of the Buddhist doctrine of the Universal Mind, i.e. the Buddhist version of the identification of atman with brahman, or that all reality is mind which is the same inside (the person) and outside (the cosmos); or this may mean the same as Presocratics' identification of the pantheistic substrate as nous, mind.] They are all referring to this.

We shall only comment here that, as already mentioned, the imagery of cosmogenesis as an undifferentiated whole -- air, air ball, chaos, chaotic primeval water, indeterminacy -- differentiating into heaven and earth, or whatever other binary constituents of the cosmos (such as Ying and Yang here), which started in creation myths and continued into historiogenesis (e.g. the Japanese Kojiki) and philosophy (e.g. Daodejing and here), is the imagery of the substratum as the function of the memory of Conservation becoming active. If there is never any destruction or construction, then there is only a consubstantial substrate re-shuffling itself here and there into this and that being. The differentiation of the indeterminate substrate into the first constituents of being is the beginning of this "self-shuffling".

Thus are born the two yi [the two modes]. Taiji differentiates in two, beginning to generate [give birth to] one odd and one even, thus one stroke giving two, as the two yi. Its number is: yang one and ying two. In the River Diagram and the Luo River Document they appear as the odd and the even. Zhouzi said of this: "Taiji moves [i.e. starts to differentiate, to temporalize and spatialize itself] and gives rise to Yang; having moved to the extreme, it [stops and] rests; having rested, it gives rise to the Ying. Having rested to the extreme, it starts to move again. Moving and then resting, these two are mutually the origin [lit. at the root] of each other. [Taiji moving and resting and thus] differentiating out Ying and Yang, the two Yi are established." [This is quoting Zhou Duan-Yi above.] Zhaozi's saying of "one dividing into two" also means this.

What does this mean? In Guerrièrean metaphysics Taiji's differentiation can be understood as the Emergence of Being, i.e. its temporalization and spatialization, for which Being must absence itself somewhat. The yang-yi (the odd) is the presence of Being and the ying-yi (the even) is its absence. The two yi are therefore constituents of the process of Emergence or temporo-spatialization of Being. Presencing of Being is therefore movement (Yang: Bewegung) and its absencing is the disappearance of the movement (Ying: Ruhe). When the presencing of Being reaches its limit (e.g. it has materialized into a being), it absences itself (to complete the temporal and spatial boundary of this being). Then it starts its presencing again, e.g. starts materializing into another being. Presence is odd, i.e. indivisible; absence is even, i.e. it is division, the gaps in Being that gives rise to beings, i.e. to their separateness.

A thermodynamic reading would understand this same process of becoming, of the first (synchronic) stage of genesis, the beginning temporo-spatialization from the arche of the Eternal (Tai-Ji; Nothingness?), as thus necessarily conforming to the principle of conservation and in such a way relate it to physics.

We remember that in Physics symmetry underlies the creation of things, because of the principle of Conservation. Thus in the example we have repeatedly used of the creation of electron ex nihilo due to the conjugate pair DEDt > or = h-cross of the uncertainty principle, it has to be accompanied by the simultaneous emergence out of nothing of positron to have its extra charge cancelled (conservation of charge to maintain the overall conservation of the fermionic number in the universe) and it has to disappear within the allotted time Dt (= h-cross/1 MeV [2 electronic mass or energy]) to have its mass/energy cancelled. The origin of symmetry, balance, in the natural world lies in the first law of thermodynamics.¹ Another example we can cite is the spin of electrons. Recall that if a stream of electrons is shot into the interval between a magnet north and magnet south, exactly one half of them will be deflected up (spin up) and the other half down (spin down), with the amount of deflection up and down exactly the same. The spin of a group of electron (eventually of the whole universe) is conserved to zero, up and down cancelling each other out. Here again, the symmetry up-down is the result of Conservation. The amount of everything must be constant, i.e. 0. So, as we have seen, the memory of the first law has prompted the ancient Homo sapiens sapiens of the functional perspective to engage in praxis (e.g. sacrifices to the Ancestral Ghost) and to construct philosophies that are like the happenings of the subatomic world written large onto the macroscopic world of functional entities. And it is in this way that we shall try to understand the symmetries and balances that form the foundation of Yijing metaphysical cosmogony -- i.e. through the memory of the first law, that is, through a thermodynamic reading.

The movement of the Taiji -- the manifestation of the eternal substrate (upokeimenon) -- has to be balanced out by its symmetrical opposite, i.e. rest in order to preserve the equilibrium, conservation. So Yang cannot come without Ying and vice versa, just as an electron cannot come into being without the positron during quantum fluctuation. But a problem seems evident here: rest is not the symmetrical opposite of movement. It should be negative movement, i.e. movement in the negative fashion that cancels out the positive movement called Yang. Thus the opposing charge of electron is not the neutrino, but positron, and that of proton is not the neutron, but electron. A binary opposition is always a double binary opposition (see the graph below).

 (0)Ying ----------- Yang(+)      being
              |                     |
              |                     |          
              |                     | 
              |                     |
          (-)Yang             negative being            

 rest ---------------- movement
 (lack of being)        (being)  

                                              lepton
(-)electron ----------- electron neutrino(0) (particle)
                 |                               |
                 |                               |        
                 |                               |
                 |                               |
(+)positron ----------- positron neutrino(0)  anti-lepton
                                             (anti-particle)
movement ------------------ rest
(charge)                 (no charge)

Moreover, the balance or mutual cancellation of charge between positron and electron is only in the world of positive energy; that our world of positive energy (made up of all the quarks and leptons, of matter and anti-matter) is further cancelled out by a world of negative energy has not even been mentioned yet. This flaw of the Yijing metaphysics comes about because it is incomplete, only half-way, in its conception of Being: Being, here, has not yet begun its passage to non-Being. It is positive Being just like in the philosophies of Hellas. In other words, what is to be conserved here through the introduction of symmetry, binary opposition, that is, the balance of opposites is not the absolute conservedness of zero, nothingness, but existence, something, i.e. positivity above zero. Yang, which means Being, the presence of Being, the manifestation of the eternal substrate as the source of being, hence movement, genesis, growth of being (physis or Aufgehen), is to be balanced by Ying, the lack of Being, the lack of existence, lack of movement or growth of being rather than by negative Yang, i.e. negative existence, so that existence is merely circumscribed to not reach full being (i.e. absolute Being in the Guerrièrean sense as Eternity and Singularity of existence, i.e. the Parmenidean Being) rather than reduced to nothingness. Because, then, the Yijing metaphysics is "ordinary" metaphysics, like the Hellenic, i.e. it has not yet reached its logical conclusion of nothingness, it coincides well with traditional Western (e.g. Guerrièrean) metaphysics: the symmetry between Yang (Being or its presencing or movement) and Ying (the [of course, incomplete] absencing of Being or lack of movement) corresponds with the necessity of presencing and absencing of Being in order to give rise to temporal and spatial manifestation of Being (Singularity).

Note two more correspondences with the philosophies of Hellas. Recall that Pythagoreans also use two binary oppositions as the elemental constituents of reality (as the principles for the genesis of the cosmos): the odd and the even and the limited and the unlimited. These two binary oppositions, as constitutive of the structure of the cosmos, are two sides of the same thing, so that the even is associated with the unlimited and the odd with the limited. The Pythagorean even corresponds exactly to the even here, i.e. Ying, the feminine, and their odd to the odd here, Yang, the masculine. More details of correspondence will be mentioned later as occasions come up. Another correspondence of the two yi here is with Parmenidean cosmogony, as already hinted at. The constituents of the cosmos in the Parmenidean cosmogony are light (faoV) and night (nux), which are equivalents with Yang and Ying. The Parmenidean binary is itself just a better formulation of the Anaximenean air thinning itself into fire, but thickening itself in density to become wind, water, and finally earth. Insofar as the Parmenidean opposites (and the Anaximenean rarefaction and condensation) are material (physical) constituents, and derived from the differentiation of generalities from functional entities, i.e. what all things have in common, as noted, they share the same experiential origin, no doubt, with the originators of Ying-Yang thinking. As professor Joseph Adler has noted with regard to the experiential origin of Ying-Yang thinking -- and this returns us once more to the imagery of cosmogenesis as an originally undifferentiated whole differentiating, i.e. the memory of the first law of thermodynamics: "Ying and yang, whose root meanings are 'shady' and 'sunny' (or dark and light), are not substances or things but rather functional modes of qi [air]. Ying is qi in its dense, dark, sinking, wet, condensing mode, and yang denotes the light, bright, rising, dry, expanding mode [the same Anaximenean rarefaction and condensation of the originative air]. Together ying and yang represent the principle of bipolarity or complementarity, which was almost universally considered in China since the Han dynasty to be the most fundamental ordering principle of the cosmos -- in Neo-Confucian terms, the most fundamental, universal li (principle, pattern, or order). Zhu Xi called this most fundamental, universal ordering principle 'Taiji,' a term with largely Daoist roots that had been used by the Northern Song Confucian Zhou Duanyi (1017-1073). Thus Taiji, as understood by Zhu Xi, is best translated as 'Supreme Polarity' (although it is usually translated 'Supreme Ultimate')." ("Varieties of Spiritual Experience: Shen in Neo-Confucian Discourse", 1997.) The last statement really refers to the persistent domination of the simple and original functional perspective in the cosmogonic tradition of Chinese philosophy, to the detriment of other emergent trends, especially those of the structural perspective (e.g. Wang Ch'ung of Han; c.f. "The Transition from the Functional to the Structural Perspective in the Eastern Ecumene") -- and this functional perspective, as said, takes for granted, i.e. as the actual reality, the surface, macroscopic effects of the underlying microscopic molecular movement: the molecules of whatever substance with high kinetic energy and thus flying about produce on the macroscopic level appropriate to humans the light, gaseous, thined, transparent state which gets taken as the rarefaction of qi (air), while the same molecules with low kinetic energy and thus not moving but stuck together produce the solid, sinking, opaque state taken as the condensation of qi. But ignoring the binary meaning of Taiji for the moment, it however needs to be commented that here in this Yijing metaphysics Ying and Yang are -- abstracted -- still metaphysical constituents, and so not the result of differentiation in the realm of physis, but posited as the means for the transition from the source of being to being/ becoming. When Yang and Ying later crystallize into elements, i.e. fire and water, they become Parmenidean equivalents, and can be interpreted as derived from the same differentiation. The process is complicated, however, since, as will be seen, the 5 elements themselves have the tendency to be abstracted into the 5 phases, i.e. the 5 "forces" or "primary qualities" merely exemplified by the 5 elements, thus interposing more abstractions between the source of being and the beings finally produced.

Two Yi give rise to four Hsiang [feature, image] On top of each of the two Yis are generated one odd and one even, thus giving those with two strokes, totalling four. Such are the four Hsians. Their positions are: Ultra-Yang [two odd strokes] one, Lesser-Ying two [one even on top and one odd at bottom], Lesser-Yang three [one odd on top and one even at the bottom], Ultra-Ying four [two even]. Their numbers are: Ultra-Yang 9, Lesser-Ying 8, Lesser-Yang 7, Ultra-Ying 6. From the perspective of the River Diagram, 6 [-] 1 is 5; 7 [-] 2 is 5; 8 [-] 3 is 5; 9 [-] 4 is 5. From the perspective of the Luo River Document, 9 is 10 - 1; 8 is 10 - 2; 7 is 10 - 3; 6 is 10 - 4. What Zhouzi meant by water, fire, wood, and metal, and what Zhaozi meant by 2 divided into 4, both refer to this.

The numerology, as decoding the structure of the cosmos, is derived through conservational principle and so denotes symmetries among the constituents of the cosmos differentiated out of the source (Taiji). The differentiated cosmos maintains in its differentiatedness a balance (symmetry) of 5 which is therefore the equilibrium (conservation), and so the stability, of the cosmos thus maintained. The 5 in the most fundamental sense is the cosmological directionality of center, north, south, east, and west. Recall the structure of the cosmos according to Eliade and Voegelin, that a cosmological civilization imagines human society as a microcosm of the cosmos, and that the structure of the cosmos in terms of space is the four cardinal directions plus the omphalos (axis mundi) at the center. The 5 is the "cosmological constant" in another sense, in that the elements are five in number: water, fire, wood, metal, and earth (with air as the source, Taiji itself); i.e. the original substrate is spread out, to constitute distinct things differing from one another, always five-wise, both spatially and materially. 5 is the constant of spatialization and materialization. That is, 5 is part of the "magic politea." The five elements in fact each correspond to one directionality: fire = south; water = north; wood = west; metal = east; and earth, as the balancing state of the four, actually the source of them all, is at the center. (Note that air, qi, is the real source of all five elements, so that while the four elements are reducible to earth, earth itself is reducible to air.) As we shall see, these -grams (from the unigrams of Ying-Yang through the trigrams to the hexagrams) are the constituents of the cosmos in its material, spatial and temporal dimensions. This is how the "magic politea" of microcosmo-macrocosmic concentricism, marked especially by 5 in the Chinese mind and whose structure is sought by the Chinese in these -grams, shall manifest itself in every aspect of the cosmos (temporal, spatial, and material). These four Hsians, the duo-grams, first taken as the constituents of the spatiality of the cosmos, must, however, in the distinctness of each from the other, not cause any overall imbalance, inequilibrium, i.e. must maintain conservation of the whole, lest the stability of the whole cosmos be disrupted and the cosmos disintegrate (into disorder). We are talking about the internal equilibrium of the cosmos like that of human body, its order. Since to produce anything at all, things must be un-equal to each other, so that the differentiation of the conserved, self-same source has to be into constituents asymmetric to (different from) each other -- hence the opposite, asymmetric Ying and Yang -- and yet the stability of the whole of things depends on equilibrium, the problem of cosmogenesis is therefore the balance and symmetry between the constituents: the protruding disruption of the equilibrium by one constituent is to be cancelled out by the depressing disruption by another.

The Ultra Yang, the most moving, most energetic, most hot, most light (light weight and bright) -- remember that higher temperature corresponds to greater kinetic energy and so to the gaseous state, intense molecular movement, and light weight -- that is, most existent, is manifested in the spatiality of the cosmos by the South (since Chinese, living in the northern hemisphere, took the south as objectively the "hot zone", unawares of the existence of the southern hemisphere). This is position 1, presumably meaning the most privileged position. (In ancient Chinese architecture the front door of palaces, etc., invariably faced south.) As the most be-ing, it is number 9, just 1 less than "total existence", Taiji itself, number 10, presumably eternal existence before its temporalization (shrinkage). It faces directly Ultra Ying, position 4, the least privileged, the North, since Ultra Ying is the least existent, almost resting, and so the coldest -- remember that lower temperature corresponds to lesser kinetic energy and so less movement, greater solidity and "heavier" weight. Such positioning of the two balances each other out, as expressed in the numerological symbolism 9 (intensity of Ultra Yang) - 4 (position of Ultra Ying to which it faces) = 5 (the "cosmological constant"). Similarly, Ultra Ying, with the lowest intensity of existence "measured" at 6, just 1 above the bare minimum of 5,² by facing the privileged position of Ultra Yang, 1, achieves the mutual cancellation of the protrusion of Ultra Yang and the depression of Ultra Ying in respect to the equilibrium of the cosmos denoted by the cosmological constant, 5: 6 - 1 = 5. The same for Lesser Ying (intensity 8) which, facing Lesser Yang (position 3, i.e., East), maintains the cosmological constant 5: 8 - 3 = 5. Then Lesser Yang (intensity 7), facing Lesser Ying (position 2, i.e. East): 7 - 2 = 5. All is swell, the (inequilibrium) intensity of existence of one constituent is cancelled out by the (inversely inequilibrium) position (the inverse of intensity) of its counterpart, and the equilibrium of the cosmos remains un-disrupted, despite the inequalities among its constituents.

The point is that the five-fold differentiation of the Source (Taiji) is able to generate all the multivarious beings of the cosmos, and that this five-foldness in spatialization results in the four cardinal directions with the omphalos at the center, which stretches into 2 axes, north-south and east-west. In materialization the five-foldness results in the five elements. Since the principle of differentiation is the same (i.e. into Ying and Yang which then recombine), the system of material composition of the five elements when superposed on the five directionalities of space coincides with the latter exactly. The 4 Hsians are therefore the principles of differentiation, of genesis, so that each of course corresponds to a cardinal direction of spatiality, and moreover to an element: Ultra Yang = fire; Ultra Ying = water; Lesser Ying = wood; Lesser Yang = metal. The center is the source of extension, so that earth, at the center, stretches into fire-water continuum corresponding to the north-south axis, and into the metal-wood continuum corresponding to the east-west axis. The cosmological constant 5 at the center stretches into Ultra Ying with intensity 6 and Ultra Yang with positional privilege 1: the equilibrium 6 - 1 = 5 is then necessary as it is the result of the binary extension of 5. That the intensity of one minus the spatiality, position, or rather the positional privilege in the hierarchy of spatiality of the other equals 5 is the reflection of the self-extension of 5. Please note what is happening here: the self-extension of 5 in one direction results in the intensity of existence 6 and in the other spatial privilege of 1, and that the conservation of the original amount is achieved through the intensity of existence (of one) minus the spatial privilege (of the other). The presupposition here is therefore that space is the inverse of the intensity of existence, that the space of one cancels out the existence of its counterpart. This means that spatial privilege is negative existence, spatiality is the negation of existence: 6 <- 5 -> -1; and so 6 + (-1) = 5. Thus the Yijing metaphysics contains a fundamental insight into the truth of existence, that space-time is the negation of existence so that existence is possible only as spatial and temporal in order to have its existence cancelled at the same time in accordance with the law of Conservation.³ The rest is then plain: the intensity of existence 9 carried by Ultra Yang is cancelled out by the negative existence of the spatiality privilege (and therefore spatial intensity) -4 of Ultra Ying. Spatiality privilege is therefore the inverse of spatial intensity, that is, privilege 1 is the least spatial, and this is why the least spatiality of Ultra Yang is needed to cancel out the least existence of Ultra Ying, while the most spatiality of Ultra Ying is needed to cancel out the most existence of Ultra Yang. The cosmological constant 5 therefore has a two fold stretch: when it stretches north to give rise to the existence 6 of Ultra Ying it also stretches south to give rise to the spatiality -1 of Ultra Yang so as to conserve the stretching to nothing (0); but stretching into Ultra Yang it gives rise also to the existence 9 of Ultra Yang -- it has to, because giving rise to spatiality -1 is also giving rise to existence 9 -- so that it stretches north to give rise to spatiality -4, which, of course, corresponds to, is the mirror image of, existence 6. Note also that the most existence (Ultra Yang of 9) is the result of its least spatiality -1: it "has fallen" from the absolute, eternal existence of Taiji (10) through spatialization by only 1: fall = -1. For this reason, too, intensity cannot reach 5 downwardly nor 10 upwardly since 5 cannot stretch itself binarily beyond the two extremes -- and differentiation, self-extension, i.e. creation is necessarily binary, symmetric, i.e. conservational. The superposition of the three -- principles of differentiation, their manifestation as space and their manifestation as material (ulh) -- is diagrammed either in the square or circular fashion to be seen.

To take stock, we have dealt with the metaphysical image (hsiang) and the numerological number (shu). In the preceding system of Shao Yung, where the hierarchy of reality, somewhat in the Platonic way, is Taiji descending to spirit (shen), then to number, then to image, then to things, "[i]mages [hsiang]... are an abstract and concise way of ordering the ten-thousand things. Yet prior to image is number, a still more abstract and powerful way of ordering images..." (Smith, ibid., p. 106) These are more or less the senses in which image and number are meant here. Or "Shao uses the term 'images' (hsiang) to indicate the structure through which the multiplicity of heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things emerges." (Ibid.) The 4 hsiangs, made up of the atomic ying and yang, are the basic constituents of the cosmos, and in this sense the cosmogenesis just encountered here parallels the original differentiation (of whatever it is) into fermions and bosons and of fermions into quarks and leptons as in the structural model -- and in both the process of differentiation generates the effect of symmetry because in both cases, as in all, it has to conform to conservational principle.

We see hence that although the Yijing metaphysics falls short of the truth of existence as nothingness -- achieved, it seems, only in Buddhism -- it nonetheless contains a fundamental insight into how existence is possible at all given the inexorable bind of the law of Conservation: through spatialization and temporalization, i.e., in physics, the rise of the arrow of time in the initial CPT symmetry-breaking that has made the existence of the Universe possible.

Footnotes:

1. We might take the chance here to understand better -- to visualize -- this process of creation ex nihilo and the necessary symmetry accompanying it. Recall that Einstein's equation for the equivalence between (rest) energy and mass E = mc² is contracted from E² = m²c⁴ + p²c². This means that energy E (the square root of E²) can be both positive and negative, E = + or - mc². "When energy levels are calculated in the relativistic version of quantum mechanics, there are two sets, one all positive, corresponding to mc², and the other all negative, corresponding to -mc². Electrons ought, according to the theory, fall into the lowest unoccupied energy state, and even the highest negative energy state is lower than the lowest positive energy state. So what do the negative energy levels mean, and why didn't all the electrons in the universe fall into them and disappear? Dirac's answer hinged upon the fact that electrons are fermions, and that only one electron can go into each possible state (2 per energy level, one with each spin). It must be, he reasoned, that electrons didn't fall into the negative energy states because all those states are already full. What we call 'empty space' is actually a sea of negative energy electrons! [Recall that the total energy level of the Universe, in accordance with the law of Conservation, is zero, i.e. nothing. For every electron with positive energy there is a hidden one with negative energy to cancel it out to preserve the nothingness of the Universe: symmetry as the function of the necessity of Conservation. Now the question is, should the negative energy of these hidden subatomic particles be equivalent to the gravitational energy of those with positive energy, or create negative gravitational energy (i.e. positive) cancelling out the positive (i.e. negative) gravitational energy of the latter?]... Give an electron energy, and it will jump up the ladder of energy states. So, if we give an electron in the negative sea enough energy it ought to jump up into the real world and become visible as an ordinary electron. To get from the state -mc² to the state +mc² clear requires an input of energy of 2mc², which, for the mass of an electron, is about 1 MeV and can be provided quite easily in atomic process or when particles collide with one another [in our case, by the uncertainty principle]. The negative energy electron promoted into the real world would be normal in every respect, but it would leave behind a hole in the negative energy sea, the absence of a negatively charged electron. Such a hole, said Dirac, ought to behave like a positively charged particle [absence of negative charge in the sea of negative energy = presence of positive charge in the world of positive energy]." This is the antiparticle of electron, positron, of the same mass as electron but with positive charge. In this "visualization", the conservation and so symmetry involved in the creation ex nihilo therefore is: energy out of nowhere, negative energy electron climbs into the world of positive energy, the hole in the negative world appears in the positive world as "positron", then after time Dt the extra energy is returned, reconserved to zero, and the electron falls back into the hole in the negative world so that the impression of "positron" disappears as well. Here the positron, as merely the shadow of the absence of the electron in the negative world, is no longer there to conserve the overall fermionic charge, which, rather, is conserved after Dt by the disappearance of the electron just as the overall energy of the Universe is conserved in such fashion.

2. It is not sure if there is a connection between this 5 as the bare minimum (presence) of being (Being) opposing the maximal (total presence) of being (Being) 10, and the 5 as the cosmological constant. What is sure is that the intensity of being has to be between 5 and 10, otherwise the numerology of mutual evening-out between an element's intensity and its counterpart's position would not work out. See below. The numbers 5 and 10 are, as Kidder Smith, et al., have noted in regard to Shao-Yung, the poles of being (yu) and non-being (wu). (The Sung Dynasty's Use of I Ching, p. 122)

3. Recall that gravity is negative energy, and so that, insofar as gravity is the curvature of space-time continuum, space-time curvature -- and so space-time itself, since the mass of anything, i.e. the existence of anything, causes curvature in space-time -- is the negation, cancellation of any existence within it in order to conserve the "original amount" of existence (energy level) to zero.