I Ching

Form is that which changes

The Book of Changes

This page represents yet another attempt to map change in FaerieMUD to the Chinese classic, The Book of Changes. This would seem to be a fairly easy task: Both FaerieMUD and the I Ching represent change as a transformation between two states. In FaerieMUD these states are called EcoRelations?. In the I Ching these states are called trigrams. Both have eight different states which can be changed (from and to). Each result in 64 types of change.

So far, so good.

All we have to do is map the EcoRelations? onto the trigrams. Seems easy enough, but this is where Scotus has failed in the past. Reading the descriptions of the trigrams, he found them too enigmatic to find easy connections to the EcoRelations?.

New Tactic

To overcome this problem, I will try a new approach. Since both the trigrams and the EcoRelations? have been mapped onto the seasons of the year, we can use these mappings to map them onto the other.

The weakness of this approach is that the I Ching offers two different mappings of the trigrams onto the season. My tactic will be to try both and see which works better. "Working better" will be defined as producing hexagrams (and trigrams) which seem to make a better match with the Chinese oracle. (Note that this is fairly similar to the method used in devising the Faerie Tarot. If worse comes to worse, we can devise our own Faerie Ching which will have little to do with the Chinese oracular work.)

Looking at the two mappings:

Sequence of Earlier Heaven

Season		Trigram	Meaning	Additional	"Is"		EcoRelation
Winter		K'un	Earth	The Receptive	devoted		Synnecrotic Conflict
Spring		Chen	Thunder, Shock	The Arousing	movement		Sacrificial Satisfaction
Spring		Li	Fire	The Clinging	light-giving		Evangelical Predation
Summer		Tui	Lake	The Joyous	pleasure		Commensal Laudation
Summer		Ch'ien	Heaven	The Creative	strong		Symbiotic Cooperation
Summer		Sun	Wind	The Gentle	penetration		Benign Warding
Autumn		K'an	Water	The Abysmal	danger		Depressed Parasitism
Autumn		Ken	Mountain	The Keeping Still	standstill		Angry Sadism

Sequence of Later Heaven

Season		Trigram	Meaning	Additional	"Is"		EcoRelation
Winter		K'an	Water	The Abysmal	danger		Synnecrotic Conflict
Spring		Ken	Mountain	The Keeping Still	standstill		Sacrificial Satisfaction
Spring		Chen	Thunder, Shock	The Arousing	movement		Evangelical Predation
Summer		Sun	Wind	The Gentle	penetration		Commensal Laudation
Summer		Li	Fire	The Clinging	light-giving		Symbiotic Cooperation
Summer		K'un	Earth	The Receptive	devoted		Benign Warding
Autumn		Tui	Lake	The Joyous	pleasure		Depressed Parasitism
Autumn		Ch'ien	Heaven	The Creative	strong		Angry Sadism

A quick analysis of this suggests both sequences make a pretty good match (each has one bad mismatch -- Lake to Depressed Parasitism in the Later Heaven; Mountain to Angry Sadism in the Earlier Heaven). So, we must next compare some representative hexagrams. It will be important to include the eight hexagrams which have the same trigram above and below. It will be good to have the 15 (each) which contain Tui and Ken (the two mismatches) and eight which contain neither:

• Eight Stasis Hexagrams
  • Earth
  • Thunder
  • Fire
  • Lake
  • Heaven
  • Wind
  • Water
  • Mountain
• 15 Lake (Tui) Hexagrams
  • Lake
  • Treading?
  • Following?
  • Approach?
  • Preponderance of the Great?
  • Wooing
  • Opposition?
  • Decrease?
  • Breakthrough?
  • Working Together?
  • Oppression?
  • Molting
  • The Marrying Maiden?
  • Limitation?
  • Inner Truth?
• 15 Mountain (Ken) Hexagrams
  • Mountain
  • Youthful Folly
  • Modesty
  • Decay
  • Grace Pi
  • Splitting Apart
  • Taming Power of the Great
  • Corners of the Mouth
  • Wooing
  • Retreat
  • Obstruction
  • Decrease?
  • Development?
  • The Wanderer?
  • Preponderance of the Small?
• Eight Other Hexagrams
  • Difficulty at the Beginning
  • Taming Power of the Small?
  • Enthusiasm?
  • Biting Through?
  • Duration?
  • Power of the Great?
  • Progress?
  • Darkening of the Light?

Results from the Sequence of Earlier Heaven

Trigrams		Earth	Thunder	Fire	Lake	Heaven	Wind	Water	Mountain
Earth		C
Thunder			D
Fire				C
Lake					C
Heaven						C
Wind							C
Water								C
Mountain									B

Results from the Sequence of Later Heaven

Trigrams		Water	Mountain	Thunder	Wind	Fire	Earth	Lake	Heaven
Water		C
Mountain			C
Thunder				C
Wind					C
Fire						C
Earth							C
Lake								B
Heaven									D

C = Close Match D = Decent Match B = Bad Match

Looking at these two results, we can note close matches on all of the trigrams with the exception of one bad match and one decent match in each sequence. An obvious solution is to switch the locations of the bad matches in each sequence. Switching them in The Sequence of Later Heaven doesn't improve things much. But switching Mountain and Thunder in The Sequence of Earlier Heaven gets us two good mappings: Thunder maps to Angry Sadism, and Mountain maps to Sacrificial Satisfaction. Let's call this mapping The Sequence of Middle Heaven.

Sequence of Middle Heaven

Season		Trigram	Meaning	Additional	"Is"		EcoRelation
Winter		K'un	Earth	The Receptive	devoted		Synnecrotic Conflict
Spring		Ken	Mountain	The Keeping Still	standstill		Sacrificial Satisfaction
Spring		Li	Fire	The Clinging	light-giving		Evangelical Predation
Summer		Tui	Lake	The Joyous	pleasure		Commensal Laudation
Summer		Ch'ien	Heaven	The Creative	strong		Symbiotic Cooperation
Summer		Sun	Wind	The Gentle	penetration		Benign Warding
Autumn		K'an	Water	The Abysmal	danger		Depressed Parasitism
Autumn		Chen	Thunder, Shock	The Arousing	movement		Angry Sadism

Now let's use this sequence to map all the hexagrams and see how good the results are. They should be pretty good since all hexagrams are composed of two trigrams and we have a close match on all eight trigrams.

Results from the Sequence of Middle Heaven

Trigrams		Earth	Mountain	Fire	Lake	Heaven	Wind	Water	Thunder
Earth		C	C
Mountain		C	C		C	C		C
Fire			C	C
Lake					C
Heaven			D			C
Wind			D				C
Water			C					C
Thunder			D						C

C = Close Match D = Decent Match B = Bad Match

— Scotus - 25 Jan 2004