Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When people see things as beautiful,
ugliness is created.
When people see things as good,
evil is created.

Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low oppose each other.
Fore and aft follow each other.

Therefore the Master
can act without doing anything
and teach without saying a word.
Things come her way and she does not stop them;
things leave and she lets them go.
She has without possessing,
and acts without any expectations.
When her work is done, she take no credit.
That is why it will last forever.

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The above chapter is one of the most important chapters illustrating the nature of tao. Philosophers indicate that Lao Tzu is not the first person ever or the only one to have indicated that the universe operates on the basis of binary opposites or dialectics. Heraclitus most certainly predated him. Hegel is also known to be a philosopher of “dialectics.”

In Tractatus  Logico  Philsophicus, Wittgenstein notes that language is something that both constricts and creates  room for movement. Wittgenstein states as follows:

4.463 A proposition, a picture, or a model is, in the negative sense, like a solid body that restricts the freedom of movement of others, and, in the positive sense, like a space bounded by solid substance in which there is room for a body.

In the above example, it looks like that restriction and freedom are two sides of a coin. The same state of affairs – namely, a proposition occupying a location of a particular coordinate in logical space– generates two contradictory opinions from Wittgenstein. The above quotation from Wittgenstein, however, also reminds me of Lacan’s illustration on how language traps us like a Trojan horse; it is a gift, but at the same time, also what suddenly dominates the unconcious.

The same goes for the issue of determinism versus free will. Things simply occur; the difference is how you term them differently.  In one way, we can even argue that determinism and free will both make sense. Let me mention stock investments, for example. There are many books on how to invest in shares, and one of the techniques that beginners are taught is “technical analysis.”  This technical analysis usually focuses on finding out particular patterns on graphs. Some are skeptical about this technique because these so-called patterns appear to be no different than particular shapes we observe in clouds.  They may be right, or they may be wrong. However, whether a particular pattern is going to show up based on an early shape of a graph can only be decided after we see its full result.  It can be claimed that the initial fuzziness of a graph seems all confusing for a while until it shows its full shape later.  There are various patterns that fit the descriptions in the technical analysis, and how they are explained is usually up to the way we choose to interpret them.  The same goes for determinism/free will controversy. (Even if determinism were strictly true, our knowledge of it being true cannot change the world or other people. They will continue to live the way they do regardless. This might be simply a tautological statement.)  The tao simply proceeds along its way, and the job is not up to us to decide whether its path is decided or voluntary. In a sense, it is both decided and voluntary. From a macroscopic  point of view, it does seem to make sense that events in life are determined.  We are prone to make patterns out of chaos and our illustrations seem to make sense like putting puzzle pieces together.  However, as long as we haven’t seen the result yet, we know there are lots of looming possibilities – this likely suggests existence of free will.  Some may object that mere existence of various options does not prove free will, for our ultimate choice is caused by something else outside of us.  That is, even if the choice fully originates from within us, we were caused to make the choice under the influence of the combinations of outside stimuli and something latent within us that was rigidly determined. Very well. This explanation is comprehensible and to a certain degree seems to make sense. However, I will not accept determinism unless someone establishes a flawless theory that yields a hundred percent accurate predictions. Unless there is something like an infinitely vast universe of stored information bits describing the causes and outcomes of every conceivable event in the universe we are living in, I am reluctant to have any faith in determinism. Not that I want to believe that we have souls independent of the matters of the universe. Rather, I would say determinism requires a leap of faith. One is free to assert that determinism is the absolute truth concerning the events in the universe. Nevertheless, it does not tell us anything about the progress of events.  For example, determinism cannot explain the property of emergence. Nor can it explain the origin of life or progress of evolution.

I once read a book in 2012 whose title I do not remember now but found to be quite striking back then because until that moment I had never doubted the fallacy of determinism. The author of the book notes that simply because we cannot predict the movements of clouds floating in the sky does not mean that they have free will.In relation to this example, let me discuss a billiard ball “caroming” on the billiard table. Its movement is rigidly defined by the strict laws of classical mechanics. But how can we anticipate biology or life from the physical laws of inanimate things (this issue was once discussed in the book, “The Economy of Good and Evil)? How are we to fill in this gap between life and non-life? How do we even know there are any laws of nature that enable such a leap? Even if there may be such laws enabling such leaps from non-life to life, or physics to biology, how can we tell for sure that these laws are non-changing? The core basis of determinism relies on the principle of cause-and-effect. However, in many cases, what we believe to be a cause of an event is simply a ground for our justification of our knowledge of the process leading up to the event. In other words, isn’t this merely “hindsight bias”that US patent attorneys say? (My understanding of determinism is based on the notions that determinism is founded upon the idea of cause-and-effect; and that everything has a cause and nothing ever happens without its cause. Because of this cause-and-effect, things happened the way they did and could not have happened otherwise. However, my opinion is that it is impossible to solidly prove that things could not have happened otherwise.)

One can certainly contend that our ignorance of the cause does not mean that the cause-and-effect rule is invalid. Some can say that maybe I have a wish to believe in free will. I do not know. I certainly do not believe in a soul independent of matter. Nor do I know if my will is something of my own. However, it is clear to me that determinism lacks solid evidence. In fact, it would be an error to say that one can verify that determinism is true because all the conceivable events of the universe should also include by definition even the very moment of verification of determinism (this reminds me of Bertrand Russell’s paradox again.).

Let us try a thought experiment in that regard. Let us say that somebody discovered an algorithm telling us everything about the past, present, and future; or somehow accidentally found a huge glass pane on which everything about the events of the universe is written.  The only thing we would have to do is enter some keywords or enquiries and receive results for them. Or one can simply roam freely alongside the glass pane to see what the glass pane tells him about what particular events will unfold. However, does that glass pane also involve information about the current state of affairs regarding his attempt to discern what will happen soon very close to the immediate moment of trying to find out? (This may concern the problem of self-reference.) Can the glass pane show immediately what is happening to him right now? (One may question the necessity of having to “conduct”this thought experiment because it is impossible in the first place that such a glass pane can ever exist. Nevertheless, if determinism is indeed true, I would say it is not wrong to assume that – if there were “infinite,” yes, infinite resources and infinitely many infinitely capable supercomputers and nearly every scientific discovery has been made or there is some super-intelligence like God that can try this – one can deduce a particular event out of the myriad of combinations of causes.) Let us imagine just for a second that the above scenario is possible.

Say that the glass pane shows the following statement:

“While you are reading this line, you will step backwards a little but will soon come closer to read this sentence more carefully.”

The guy is now in shock and marvels now with his mouth agape.

He turns his back to avoid seeing the glass pane and is at a loss for words, trying to figure out what just happened.

Then he looks back at the glass pane and reads every event that indeed happened to him, the way that he moved, the way that he thought, the way that he felt, and everything.

Let us say that he was finally able to regain his composure and tries to reassess whatwas happening. (This glass pane correctly anticipated this event also.)

I happen to have the feeling that this glass pane itself is working both as a cause and result– or like those two mirrors placed as opposites generating dreadful eerie mirror images of each other.

The guy now finally decides that he won’t be played by the glass pane and chooses to exert his “free will” on the glass pane. If the glass pane shows everything about himself– including his immediate future movements, emotions, and thoughts – wouldn’t it be possible, he reasons, to let the glass pane “chase after” himself? For example, if I decide to shatter that evil, horrendous glass pane, I would finally be set free by exercising my free will. The glass pane may describe everything that happens to me, I know, but I will not be rattled. Every decisions that I make, however well  this monster glass pane anticipates every bit of this, I will force them onto the glass pane and make it kneel and accept what I shall do. (The glass pane exactly anticipated this decision as well.) (Is this not reminiscent of Nietzschean existentialism? Because I am constantly fighting the “gravity” of the fate by constantly– yes, constantly –“dancing it out” as illustrated in Also Sprach Zarathustra? Is this not a life attitude of amorfati to its extreme?)

Even this moment I am writing about this, I find this to be a highly perplexing question. When the glass pane shows what I am doing, am I acting according to my will or is my movement dictated by the glass pane?

A plausible explanation from a physical point of view would be that, yes, the glass pane knows what is happening and is telling the guy what will soon happen. Let us think about a girl and a mirror that she is looking in. The mirror simply reflects the girl’s face and gesture. Strictly speaking, it is not that the girl’s image and the real girl are moving in the same way. There is an infinitesimally short period of time that it takes for the light reflected off the girl’s body to be reflected off the mirror surface and arrive in the girl’s eyes and create an image, in her brain, of herself seen in the mirror. Likewise, when the above glass pane is showing the panicking guy what he is doing or is about to do, the glass pane knew already that this would be happening, and right as the glass pane is telling the guy, the guy immediately recognizes that he is actually doing what he is being told. Again, there is an infinitesimally short time difference between the event of the “telling” and that of the “recognizing.”

Let us imagine a difference scenario, then. The glass pane, out of generosity, presents the guy with several options available. The guy can go back and live his life enjoying riches. The glass pane says if you do this and that you will become immensely rich (for example, buy this lottery or make investments in this or that). However, this poor guy is curious. Can the glass pane tell him what option he will choose? Yes, it can. And the glass pane is forced to tell him a future event. The glass pane here is not a conscious being and should provide an answer to whatever question it is asked to answer. The glass pane cannot deceive the guy. Again, I am emphasizing, the glass pane is not a conscious being and is programmed to tell only absolute truths. The glass pane finally answers that he will return and live enjoying his wealth. In this case, is it possible that the guy denies the glass pane’s answer and shatter it, thereby exercising his “free will”?

A standard answer would be that it is impossible (to our dismay) for the guy to break down the glass. This is impossible because by the very definition the glass pane is meant to be an omniscient knower of everything. If the guy was going to break the glass, the glass would have told him otherwise. That is, the glass pane would cease to be what itproclaimed to be.

(For your information,)Such an assumption of the omniscient “glass pane” would also entail the idea that this very moment that you and I are engaging in this thought experiment must have been discerned by our hypothetical glass pane. Also, it should be noted that even if the glass pane disappears it does not mean that hard determinism would not hold. The latent principle of hard determinism is still there, though the machine that showcased its ability to foretell is now gone.

However, I still feel like there is a puzzle here.  Let us suppose a “hell-bent” guy. This hell-bent guy is no ordinary guy, and he is prepared to do the exact opposite of whatever the glass pane is telling him. Say, the all-knowing glass pane is now asked to answer if the hell bent guy is going to break the pane sometime within an hour. The striking thing is, that the mere existence of such a glass pane would precisely preclude the event of the approaching of such a hell-bent guy in order for the very assumption that the glass knows everything, to be maintained. However, I find it very difficult to conceive of the idea of the hell bent guy being unable to approach it and carry out an action that goes against the prediction from the glass oracle. Common sense tells me that it is impossible to imagine a scenario in which there cannot exist such a guy even hypothetically, apart from whether or not in reality the guy actually challenges the glass oracle that way. That is, it is only by imagining a rigid world in which it is physically impossible for the defiant guy to act as he wills, that we can say that the world is deterministic and the glass oracle’s status as a knower of everything is legitimate. What do I mean by “physically,” then? For example, it may possible to at least imagine a guy that is, as qualified above,hell-bent enough to do otherwise than informed. However, right about the time that the guy is embarking on the act of “shattering” the glass, some weird force may hold him back from fulfilling his action and make him fail. Or all of a sudden some special patrols may magically arrive at the scene and arrest him in order to preserve the absolute status of the glass demon. Only in this case would I say that hard determinism can be proved within our realm and that our world is indeed deterministic. However, this is extremely unlikely.

For a different case, let us say that the hell-bent guy would like to know whether the glass pane can tell him if he is going to break the pane in five minutes’ time.  Suppose that the above guy has the ability to not harm the glass if the glass tells him that he will break it within five minutes. Obviously, in this case, the glass pane would fail to be the omniscient knower of the deterministic world. Since the above case causes a contradiction, we have no option other than to expect a different response.

For yet another case, say that the glass says, for example, “You are going to do the exact opposite of the answer that I am about to give you.” Gotcha. The hell-bent guy asks the glass again, and this time, the glass says “No breaking.” Then, in accordance with the second information provided on the glass screen, the guy does not break the glass and five minutes pass by– which ultimately betrays the first prediction from the all-knower. Again, the status of the glass pane as an omniscient knower falls apart. So the glass oracle fails us again. However, what if the glass pane is good enough to outsmart this guy? Supposedly, the glass’s knowledge of our universe amounts to the totality of every bit of knowledge that exists concerning the universe, and therefore, the glass pane patiently calculates, for example, at which point the hell-bent guy is going to burn himself out and shatters the glass impulsively.  Let me explain this more specifically. The glass wisely, instead of providing a clear-cut answer such as yes or no, continues to display some clumsy responses meant to be sneaky, like “I am going to give you the answer soon enough but please wait, and blablabla….” And the guy loses temper and right about as the guy is actually shattering the glass, the glass tells him “you will break me.” I am aware that this answer is not sufficient, and personally I may have to think harder to provide a better example on this paper. Nevertheless, what I note here is that it would be extremely difficult for the glass oracle to immediately provide a clear cut reply. Even if it did manage to provide a correct answer in the end, why would it have taken so long? This looks as if the guy’s intention had an effect on the all-knower. Does this not mean then, that the predicting power of the glass pane was influenced by the involvement of our hell-bent guy? Wouldn’t it be incorrect to say that this universe is totally deterministic? Therefore, in order for the universe to be fully deterministic, every agent belonging in the system of the universe must be barred from “absolute knowledge.” This absolute knowledge can only be held by an observer that is staying outside of this universe.

(However, regarding the above discussion, the question still remains. If determinism of our universe from the outsider God’s point of view is possible only because an introduction of his “absolute knowledge” into our world would negate the status of the absolute knowledge because of the possibility of us acting differently than prescribed by the absolute knowledge, is this not the case that the determinism of our universe on his part entails the idea that we have the free will on our part to negate his absolute knowledge upon its entering our realm? Isn’t it the case that His deterministic viewpoint as an outside is possible only because of our latent possibility to do otherwise than foretold by his absolute knowledge? If that is the case, even though our universe may be deterministic from His point of view, is it still not the case that we have latent free will on our part? Our free will has not surfaced until God started to bring his absolute knowledge into our world. If God alludes to his deterministic knowledge and actually reveals it in our world, then we can affirm our free will by doing otherwise than we are told by God. However, based on the glass oracle analogy, the absolute knowledge ceases to be absolute knowledge once it enters our realm. This is a circular question that demands never ending speculations. Indeed, the way of the tao is non-ending. Furthermore, it may be true that “absolute knowledge,” or the tao exists outside of the universe, but the tao that is appreciated by human beings would not be the tao in its precise original form. We have to distort or transform the raw tao in order to be able to do something with it.)

In a nutshell, I do not deny the principle of cause-and-effect itself, but would say that not everything has an obviously predetermined cause. In other words, an event happens to have a cause only afterwards. (This sounds a bit postmodernistic.) Even though the known laws of physics can yield accurate predictions, this predicting power works only in a highly confined physical environment.

Further, even if there may be a cause behind every particular event, one could not know beforehand that that cause was going to be the very cause of the event.  Unless somebody can prove that everything, yes literally everything has an indubitable cause, I am not inclined to support absolute determinism. Therefore, as regards the free will versus determinism controversy, I would best describe myself as an “agnostic.” In order for rigid determinism to be true, there would have to be a being that transcends and stays outside of the universe. In a sense, in the eyes of the transcendental being staying outside of our universe and having the infinite power to calculate out events, our events are determined. However, as noted above, this determinism is founded upon the idea that we have the free will to negate his absolute knowledge. That is, the events of our universe are deterministic specific to the being. But this determinism is meaningless to us, and in the realm of our dimension, things are indeterministic.

I would like to reiterate several points regarding why I am agnostic on this matter. Suppose that everything in the universe takes place in accordance with the principle of determinism. I think this suggests that in principle, knowledge or factual descriptions of the events are possible even though that could not possibly be achieved by humble human beings. Or even if such descriptions are impossible, the laws may exist in some unknowable rigid form. However, the very perfect knowledge of the universe is available specific only to “God” that decides not to interfere in this world. I do not know whether that God is a conscious being or the laws of the universe themselves. However, I cannot know whether such a being even exists or even whether the universe has some rigid independent laws that humans cannot access from a logical viewpoint. However, supposing either case is true, from the viewpoint of this transcendental realm, then, our universe is rigidly deterministic. In that sense then, it is possible that the world that we are living in is indeed deterministic. However, because this cannot be proved, we do not know. Even if our universe were deterministic in that sense and our assumption that our universe is deterministic coincided with the “fact” that the universe is deterministic, it is impossible that this “coincidence” changes anything about us. Because it is logically impossible that we can reach the deterministic knowledge available only to God (as in the case of the glass pane thought experiment above), the deterministic knowledge is totally meaningless in our world. The absolute knowledge in the realm of God ceases to be absolute knowledge once it enters our world. However, if God is capable of sharing his absolute knowledge with us and decides to do so, then he would no longer be an omniscient being because he chooses to involve himself in our world by breaking the determinism of the universe and thereby creating indeterministic factors. If God decides to share his superior knowledge (degraded from “absolute knowledge”) with us, then the world is no longer “deterministic” in the above sense. Only indeterminacy holds. Admittedly, God can benefit us tremendously by sharing his superior knowledge of the world, but it can no longer be said then that our universe is deterministic because God gave up on his deterministic view on the world.

(Regarding the above argument, consider the case of normal distribution curves used in statistics. The book “17 equations” written by Ian Stewart explains the point. According to the author, even suicide rates appear to follow the pattern of a bell curve. Is this not astonishing? However, in order to observe a naturally emerging bell curve from the statistics of suicides, one has to assume that knowledge of a bell curve does not affect the people committing suicides. What do I mean? For example, the government wants to prevent appearance of a bell curve concerning suicide rates and notifies suicidal people that they will be rewarded financially if they help falsifying the bell curve by not killing themselves. Then we would fail to see a shape of a bell curve from the statistics. Unless this extreme scenario unfolds, usually, we observe a bell curve. In other words, our labored collective awareness of the bell curve can negate generation of the bell curve through deliberate efforts. In this extreme case, the bell curve would be no longer valid. However, this does not suggest that the bell curve theory is false. It can still be observed the minute you stop this effort. However, one can argue that this is not unlike the KICE (the state institution for administering college entrance exams in South Korea) providing test takers with official answers beforehand to nullify standardized points that would be based on formation of bell curves originating the distribution of “usual” test score points.)

It should be noted however, supposing that God does not intervene, that the above “determinism” specifically concerns our universe only. The circumstance of God observing our determined universe may or may not be deterministic. In order for the situation in which God observes our determined universe to be deterministic, one has to assume that both God and our universe are located within an even bigger universe dictating the laws of the very situation.

As noted above, it is logically impossible for an agent belonging in our current universe to attain perfect knowledge. The supposed perfect knowledge, as soon as it is attained, would cease to be perfect knowledge perhaps because that knowledge would be surpassed by the passage of time. (The tao that is named is not an enduring tao.) As such, because perfect knowledge – even if it exists in a higher realm – cannot be attained, it is not in our position to say that the world is determined, and even if technically speaking, the world is determined from an omniscient being’s point of view, this has absolutely zero meaning for us because it cannot touch our lives. Therefore, we can only say that we are in the constant process of finding out stuff about ourselves or events. To live means to witness an event. We are in the perpetual process of both discovering and inventing a future. Say the laws of the universe are indeterministic, then so be it. Events are generated one way or another and we are witnessing them. Say that the universe is deterministic – in which case we still cannot help remaining ignorant – then we are still in the process of discovering current events that are already past us.

Then why so much fuss over all this determinism thing? I believe our pasts create an illusion of “determinism.”  Just as there is an illusion of free will, there also is an illusion of determinism. If the past already happened and we have some knowledge concerning it, this puts us in a virtually “omniscient” point of view; we start to see the dots connecting the events. However, we could not determine beforehand that a particular cause was going to create a particular result. It is only afterwards that we are able to establish cause-and-effect relationships among them.  This is pretty similar to what J.M. Keynes said regarding economists. Only after the storm goes away can economists say that something happened.

However, we also happen to believe in free will because our future looks open-ended. We also believe in free will because quantum mechanics says that on a microscopic level things are not determined.

Say that I have an equivalent of the Black-Sholes equation or some model/equation that even transcends this equation. If I’m the sole possessor of this equation, I’d be the only one to be able to take full advantage of the stock market. However, since information is open to every participant involved, no investor can be in such a position to exploit the stock market for his own good. When particular patterns or equations predicting the moves of the stock market are revealed, the stock chart immediately evolves and will yield a different pattern or equation that overcomes the conventional. Perhaps I am not wrong to suggest that the universe is in the same process of evolving and discovering itself rather than in the process of unfolding in accordance with rock-solid scripted plans?

My personal hypothesis is that the universe is not a deterministic world in any sense and in the constant state of evolving; the laws of the universe themselves may also be variable and only locally true (perhaps as in a black hole?).  Also, I am most certain that the laws governing the universe are impersonal. There is no personal God or spectator that is observing our “deterministic” world– though I have no proof. Look at evolution. The survival of the fittest. The ongoing process of life forms on earth is so savage and brutal that evolution couldn’t have possibly been imagined by a personal being. (Also, look into your own evil and malicious thoughts and rage.)

Our DNA and biological structures are so sophisticated that it is hard to conclude that they came about by pure chance.  It is impossible that one can anticipate based on a pure combination of and conflicts between substances that non-life can beget life. Although Charles Darwin presented natural selection as an explanation for evolution, I do not believe natural selection wholly explains everything. It is an incomplete explanation that needs revision or should be replaced by a better theory. The leaps from one stage to a subsequent stage during evolution are so complex that natural selection alone is insufficient for explaining away those processes. There are laws governing the process of evolution and a transition from non-life to life, but humans are not yet at the level of determining how these occur.

In some sense, I would prefer to call myself a soft determinist. (Because I believe in each individual’s rigid character; it saves a lot of energy to think it that way. For the record, I am more of a misanthrope than a “philanthropist.”) I am a soft determinist in a sense that assholes are still assholes and they probably won’t change.

The only lesson that I may draw from so called hard determinism is that things that already happened are irrevocable.

One cannot know for sure whether a particular cause was a real undisputed cause of the event. Therefore, this discussion leads me to conclude that the universe proceeds the way it does. The universe simply unfolds.

However, I would also deny complete indeterminacy.  The way things happen seem to reveal some consistent feature.  If it was the complete randomness such as that of quantum mechanics that determined human character, nobody would appear to me to be of a consistent character.  Though I may detect several deviations from their normal character, I find most of them to be very consistent persons.  There are determinate properties but not in an absolute sense.

Regarding emergence, there is a famous quote from economists: “The whole is greater than the sum of individual parts.” What this means is, that there would be no macroeconomics if the economy were fully reducible into the terms of microeconomics.

However, even if hard determinism were supposedly true, we would have no reason to find it scary. The way that I exist, the way I am compelled to act in no other way than I should makes me who I am. I am simply me and will not be prescribed to do otherwise however hard somebody tries to change me.

However, to a genuine Laoist or Lao-Tzu himself, none of the above discussions would matter very much. On a personal level, I was able to arrive at the conclusion that the free will and determinism controversy is meaningless through my personally hard-thought speculations. However, Lao-Tzu would not even have recognized the need to discuss such a problem because talking this and that about this determinism thing is utterly bullshit. What we discover is that when we drive the problem of determinism to its extreme, this only creates chaos and confusion in our thoughts, and this may disrupt our tranquility.

If philosophy is an illness as indicated by psychoanalysts or Wittgenstein-influenced anti-philosophers, I would have to ask myself, “Do I have the ability to not to think the above thoughts and instead leap right away to the conclusion that the above determinism controversy is meaningless?”It makes me think that Lao Tzu must have gone through a personal course of philosophizing to arrive at the tao te ching. In other words, for me it seems that to be able to arrive at the level of being capable of practicing wuwei involves having already journeyed through a circuitous path of beginning from a starting point only to arrive at the starting point in the end; in a sense, we are only running on a treadmill. As in the case of beginning from Platonism to only end in Deconstructionism. Platonism already contained the seed of deconstructionism within itself, and vice versa. However, it should be noted that any potential future school of neo-Platonism that may arise after the reign of deconstructionism in the intellectual world would be markedly different from the original Platonism dating back to the ancient Greek period. In Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a child that is reborn after having gone through a dragon’s fight is not the same child as before. In classical music, a finale of a symphony movement may repeat the same theme played in the beginning part but carries subtly different notes and atmosphere. Think about Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 4, the 1^st movement.

Another question I would like to address here is the relationship between the first and second chapters of the tao te ching.  It is declared as a premise in the first chapter that the tao constantly eludes our definition.  According to the second chapter, human perception – and perhaps even the way of the universe – is based on the workings of binary opposites.  It is either that the human perception engenders distinctions based on binary opposites or that the binary opposites themselves constitute the essence of the universe a priori.  Perhaps even the above supposition may be based on the property of binary opposites. Whatever the case, what is the relationship between the elusiveness of tao and binary opposites?

Although I cannot definitively say that the tao in “the tao that can be described is not the eternal tao” is solely characterized by binary opposites, I do observe that in many cases binary opposites enable the aforementioned elusiveness of the tao. This is like a magnet repelling the other pole.  The more you chase after something, the more it constantly eludes you – as Robert Greene notes in one of his chapters concerning seduction in the 48 Laws of Power.  One of the characteristics of the binary opposites is that they cannot be brought into a stable union. What did Lacan say? “There is no sexual relationship.” Nevertheless, it is the “otherness” latent in both sexes that paradoxically both attracts and repels them.

However, let us say that they do achieve union.  In this case, an unexpected event/being will begin to play a role of a binary opposite of that very union. This idea is in some way similar to Boolean algebra.  For example, A’B + AB = (A’ + A)B = B. The addition of A’ and A makes a wholesome 1.  Then, the distinction between A’ and A is no longer meaningful. We would have to posit, then, there may be the possibility of an anti-B.

Let as also put the above elusiveness of the tao in the following way based on Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty.  The tao, as a “describee,” is observed by myself, the “describer.” However, the Tao cannot be perfectly described as much as not both properties of a quantum can be known – i.e., an exact location and momentum of the quantum.

This relationship puts both the tao and the observer into a relationship of binary opposites. I can only know that the tao works in its own way but cannot ever give any definitive descriptions of how it works.

Let us also consider the above binary opposites in social relationships.  In most cases, people do not really mean what they say. As Slaovj Zizek notes in “How to Read Lacan,” if it weren’t for the euphemisms, there would be no social relationships.  When I say something directly in somebody’s face, it bewilders everybody in presence because even if everybody knew the substance of what I said no one was ever supposed to say that that explicitly.  This is the act of revealing the “traumatic”character of the “real.” In sum, the social truth always is hidden beneath the apparent words, again establishing a relationship of binary opposites.

So much for my amateurish attempt to relate the tao to the binary opposites. As written in the discussion on the first chapter, my real interest is in finding out whether a philosophical study conducted in the context of the tao te ching can reveal anything in comparison with works of science.  This may be a highly naïve and foolish idea. First of all, Lao Tzu himself rejects the notion of learning too hard, because in his view nothing is better than leaving oneself to the tao. 

My hopeless belief that philosophy or any other speculative attempts – except for mathematics which proved to be a tremendously important tool in unraveling some of the mysteries of the universe – may bring us close to objective truths may in some sense be similar to Immanuel Kant’s hope of finding out how reason works in relation to “synthetic truths.”

The content of the second chapter of the tao te ching, at least according to the translation on which this commentary is based, indicates that when people come to have an idea of what is beautiful, this also carries an implicit idea of what is ugly. When applying this notion of Laozi’s to the determinism vs. free will controversy, one may argue that the concept of determinism is possible because the concept of free will is possible. However, what I sought to show in the determinism issue discussion was that determinism as a universal principle of our universe from God’s perspective may be possible because of our latent free will in the dimension of our realm. In other words, it is not that my contention is simply confined to the notion that the lexical definition of “determinism” generates a lexical meaning of “free will.” If we define determinism and assume that our universe operates based on determinism from God’s eyes, this assumption would carry within itself the possibility of free will.

In other words, binary opposites may be inherent objects that are generated and waiting to be discovered in the logical space of our postulates in a similar way that mathematical theorems are generated based on axioms and waiting to be proved by mathematicians.

As such, the binary opposites sometimes appear to me to be more than distinctions between two opposite ideas. 

I have to think deeper to give some thoughts on the above question, but it is not likely I will ever come up with one.

Let us digress to discuss psychology in the context of the tao te ching.

Some people compare the unfathomableness of our unconsciousness to the mystery of our universe. Nietzsche once said,

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

What better explains the paradox of the tao te ching, than the above phrase, regarding morality, for example? A person that is too conscious of sexual chastity inevitably suggests his tacit desire for relentless sex.

However, I wonder, is it an absolute necessity that existence of consciousness absolutely requires existence of unconsciousas a background, and vice versa?

My mood seems to follow a cyclic pattern. There was a time that I found myself happy and believed that this feeling would continue if everything remained the same. However, one friend of mine a year older said that you never know. Consistency of the circumstances does not guarantee consistency in your mood or feelings. If the binary opposites as discussed in the tao te ching were solely about our artificial or unnatural attempt to split between groups and create a dichotomical relationship, the tao te ching would not have been so popular.  It seems to indicate an elemental truth that goes beyond that. I may be wrong to attribute this quote to Wittgenstein, but there is a saying that it is logically meaningless to state that tomorrow it is either going to rain or not rain. This is merely a tautology and does not indicate anything useful. However, if you thought that the tao te ching was simply all about the point that the distinction between “P” and “~P” is meaningless, you haven’t fully understood the book.  Rather, the tao te ching indicates that we are in the middle of an ongoing process of moving upwards and backwards. Our moods go through ups and downs. There are cycles in everything. Even within Fourier’s wave itself. As such, in fact, the book is about providing guidance on how to approach equanimity in our lives based on the realization that there is no unchanging status quo. Even Fred Durst sings that “when the good comes to bad, the bad comes to good, but Imma livin my life like I should.”

Or think about the 9/11 terror attack in New York. People were traumatized, but despite the tragic loss of everything, some people felt more alive than ever. Not that they enjoyed the feeling of destruction, but they regained patriotism and oneness through collective efforts to overcome the national tragedy.

However, there are a few occasions in which people may directly feel pleasure through displeasure, or displeasure through pleasure. How else to explain sadism/masochism?

In addition, I would like to mention additional points regarding the analogy between the conscious/unconscious and the universe/observer.

When I wrote far above that humans cannot reach the complete knowledge of the universe, I did not mean to say that humans are completely alienated from the intrinsic laws of the universe. They do have some critical effects on us, but we are simply unable to reach the total understanding of them; in addition, we are only affected by them and cannot affect them.

Although Jacques Lacan said that the unconscious is structured like a language, this is merely a hypothesis.  It cannot be known how our unconscious is structured. The unconscious does dictate a great portion of our conscious, but we cannot explain how it exactly affects our conscious. We only discover later that our feelings or beliefs changed when we were not aware of it. As Zizek said, the person knows without knowing.It is almost as if the conscious later discovers that the conscious has changed.

If God’s absolutely deterministic viewpoint of our universe is possible precisely because of our potentiality to veto His prophecy upon its entering our realm, would it be possible to say that the conscious can have any effect on the unconscious?Maybe or maybe not. In one of the above paragraphs, I stated that we cannot affect the transcendental laws of the universe themselves and are rather exclusively under their influence. Maybe there is a point at which the unconscious/conscious and our universe/God analogy falls apart.

It appears to me that the conscious cannot exist independently of the unconscious, nor the unconscious independently of the conscious.

I cannot force myself to feel better when I do not feel good. Maybe I can try watching some UFC fights to make myself feel better, and such an activity may be a usual way for people to relieve their stress. However, it is impossible to change my mood through my willpower. If you believe that this is possible, you are merely deceiving yourself. However, is it possible to conclude that conscious efforts can change the unconscious in the long term? Is it possible to say that in the case of the conscious/unconscious, a cause affects an outcome and the outcome a future cause as in the case of an electronic flip-flop circuit?

Or more specifically, is it possible for the clinically depressed to change their depressive states through conscious efforts? This seems to be partially right because cognitive behavior therapy is known to be effective, although not every patient can be cured solely based on this theory; they certainly do need antidepressants. (We should take an easy way out if it is available.) I do not think that Chester Bennington did not try every means available to cure his chronic depression. As he sang in “Heavy,” “it’s not like I make the choice.” He is aware that he is “not the center of the universe,” but “you keep spinning around me just the same.”

Chester’s case notwithstanding, in many other cases, it is my belief that in principle it is possible that conscious efforts can help change the unconscious for the better in the long term. But this does not come about easily; in fact, this is very very difficult.

It seems to me that because the unconscious cannot precisely be in the position of the conscious and the conscious cannot in the position of the unconscious, there is a wall between them even though they may interact their own way (Again, remember Lacan’s dictum: There is no sexual relationship).

Say that among my acquaintances there is a very tall assertive guy such that whenever he talks to me in a forcefully, he scares the shit out of me. When I met some other guys of smaller stature, I did not feel that insecure about myself. In fact, if the other guys acted the same to me, I would have ranted on them and taught them a lesson. But this guy is speaking so fast with overwhelming self-confidence, and it doesn’t seem like he will allow any challenge from you. I feel so much repelled by the sight of this guy and don’t really want to encounter him. He looks like some untouchable powerful person that can physically fuck you, if you will. If ever he showed some softer side of him to me and it felt like that this guy has a comparatively amiable attitude to me, I would feel infinitely grateful.(Whereas Shostakovich stood firm in front of the mighty dictator Stalin.) But what is it about this guy that makes me have such a wrong impression of him? Why do I feel so weird and insecure when I meet him? I know that this motherfucker is a mere mortal human being, but my mind won’t listen. I feel like I want to prove myself that I am not scared of this shitty person, but when I actually meet him, I simply collapse and succumb.

See what I am trying to say? I know for a fact that this guy is a worthless piece of shit. He doesn’t own a car, has no house, no friend, this son of a bitch is utterly nothing. But why do I step back? Maybe I met some guy like this before and this memory of meeting him traumatized me? Being aware of his weaknesses does not help me cope with this guy any better. There is a wall between my fear of him and my objective knowledge of him. Your conscious knows the fact, but still your unconscious won’t accept it. Your conscious knowledge is not yet at the stage of overriding your unconscious. You consciously tell yourself out loud that this son of a bitch is not a big deal, but your unconscious doesn’t seem to comply.

From a reverse point of view, your unconscious may be telling you that something is wrong with you. It surfaces through some unpleasant ways like in dreams or depressive symptoms. You wouldn’t, for example, hypothetically excluding every other environmental factor or inherent biological factor, suffer insomnia if there was nothing wrong about you. Something is troubling you at a deep unconscious level, but you cannot quite know why. Even if your shrink told you the truth, the truth would be barred from reaching the unconscious. Even if your conscious knew the truth told by the psychiatrist, your unconscious would not change its attitude. You still feel depressed.  Maybe it takes time to convince the unconscious so that it comes in agreement with the conscious.

We can imagine a hypothetical flip-flop circuit model of how the unconscious and the conscious interact with each other. But the thing about this model is that you cannot predict what results will ensue. We should leave it to fate.

Even though God may have deterministic knowledge of our world, it is impossible for him to communicate with you. You cannot approach God, and nor can God help you.

In this sense, you may tell your unconscious that things will be fine, but your unconscious doesn’t listen. The unconscious cannot help your conscious because it is stubborn and infantile. You cannot tame your unconscious, and “you should not try,” as Greene notes in the preface of the 48 laws of power.

Let us briefly talk about a skeptical knower and a believer in regard to the matter of God issue.

As Zizek indicates quoting Lacan, “those in the know are in error.”As an atheist, I know that Christians cling to fallacious beliefs and fantasies about the future, so I continue to believe that I am the superior one to these pathetic people. I feel like I thoroughly know them because I am looking at them from a superior point of view.

(But would I truly know the genuine happiness and contentment that comes from sincere belief in God? Not many things in the world provide such contentment. In fact, it seems such convictions are possible only by the aid of religion. They may be wrong in their beliefs, but as long as it cannot be definitively proved that God does not exist and they hold onto their faith of enjoying forever an afterlife under God’s protection, this is like as if they were living eternity until the moment they die. In that sense, wouldn’t it be proper to say that if you are currently discontent with your life as an atheist and even if it is true that your unhappiness does not originate from you being an atheist, it is your inability to be fooled and believe in God that prevents you from becoming potentially happier even for a while? You are not necessarily superior to them in that you may have the ability to discern right from wrong. You are simply incapable of rejecting your reason and believing in God. Even if I rejected my reason and believed in God, this would not have to mean that I should become a maniac or Islamic fundamentalist.  I see lots of, lots of intelligent people even including such brilliant minds as Nobel laureates that are devout Christians. However, as much as I want to be a Christian again to bring a sense of purpose into my life, I cannot be. I cannot possibly become a believer, again. Give me a thousand years, then my mind might change. I am incapable of believing, unlike those continuing to believe in God because they cannot help it despite all the evidence against their beliefs. They know that scientific discoveries and knowledge stand against them, but their unconscious cannot help it. Not necessarily because they are fearful of death, but the marvels of the universe and life attest to the existence of God. I was not one of them, however. I cannot overcome nihilism as a non-believer. God help me. I know this existential concern is forgotten for a while in my mind but will certainly resurface nearing or at the time of death.)

Let us get back to the unconscious/conscious problem. It is my contention that even when it is true that our conscious efforts can bring about a beneficial change to the unconscious, this change must be a very slow and gradual one.  You cannot change the way you feel overnight. One guy that I used to study with for college entrance at a library when I was 19 once told me that he could not get his first love out of his head and if there was a pill that could cure him of his infatuation with her he would take it. I do not know what to say about this from a medical/neurological point of view, but one thing I am certain of is that you will no longer be yourself if you are capable of changing yourself immediately through willpower. The very decision to want to change yourself originates from some unknown mysterious source rooted in the unconscious, and there can be no conscious desire without its unconscious background. Your unconscious backgrounds cannot be changed willfully. Any attempt to do so would only bring about disturbance and chaos, and you will certainly go mad. Anybody that says or pretends otherwise is absolutely wrong, I can assure you. There is a limitation to human willpower. This leads me to conclude that you cannot amorfati all the time. Two types of amorfati come to mind. The first type would be to make a conscious attempt to interpret adversity as comprising the seed of an opportunity and detecting and exploiting it as proposed in the 50th law written by Greene. The second type is to become a dogged man taking an ill-advised attitude to adversity without knowing how to circumvent the obstacle; this would be the worst way of putting Nietzschean philosophy into practice. In fact, I feel like Nietzsche himself might have been such a person.  Didn’t he say, “What does not kill me makes me stronger”? On the contrary, your chin cannot take punches forever.Despite my admiration for this wonderful artist of life, I am not inclined to follow his philosophy to the letter.

Let us consider Stoicists in this regard. Stoicists practice stoicism as an effort to render their ego less vulnerable to outside circumstances.  The world is chaotic and brutal, and if this brutality is inevitable and unavoidable, we should change from our inner selves. Is this not what Stoicists are saying? As such, wouldn’t it be proper to say that Stoicism is a way of guiding your unconscious such that your emotional response to outside circumstances will be less extreme?

Say that there is a mental/psychological problem/concern that deeply troubles you – except for some other medical/biological factors that trouble your mind. Regarding this, on a conscious level, I argue that it is possible to bring about a change to a larger or lesser extent to our unconscious, but this requires patience. Rather than forcing your unconscious to accept what is right, it should be as if you were whispering to your mind, “Is this problem even such a big deal?”By following this route, in the end, your unconscious will reward you with feelings of happiness and tranquility. This is how the art of wu-wei benefits us, I think. You have to wait so that your unconscious does the job, although I am not sure if everybody including myself would be capable of following this advice.

In Relation to Kant/Hegel

In the above chapter, note the expression “being and non-being produce each other.”

The literal Chinese character corresponding to the word “non-being” in the above English translation can be simply understood as “nothing.” In order to link between Kant/Hegel and Lao Tzu, we need several leaps from the one-dimensional meaning of the above quoted verse.

To my knowledge, Kant reputedly posited existence of an untouchable realm of “things-in-themselves,” which sounds very similar to a Platonic realm of Ideas. However, what does it exactly mean that we cannot reach an understanding of things-in-themselves? If we can never reach an understanding of the transcendental things-in-themselves, can we not simply drop this notion and focus on what we can see and feel – perhaps as argued by Nietzsche? For example, think about the “space” beyond our physical universe. This “space” would not be the normal space that we are living in, and we can only say that this is totally “nothing” – i.e., no concept of space and time can be applied to the realm lying beyond our tangible universe. If this “nothing” is something that we cannot any meaning out of it, it is totally useless to continue to ponder upon what ultimately lies outside of our universe. Likewise, the Kantian version of the transcendental realm – whether it belongs in or outside of our universe – is deemed akin to “nothing.” In this sense, I suggest that we substitute “Kant’s transcendental realm” into the word “non-being” in the above-quoted verse. Then we would see the following proposition.

“Being and the transcendental realm produce each other.”

This is where Hegelian philosophy comes in. As Nietzsche once said in “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” the existence of the sun would not have been appreciated had there been no human being that witnessed the sun. Similarly, based on Hegelian perspectives, it can be argued that it is our rational that perceives and enables the existence of the transcendental even though the ultimate realm may be beyond our grasp.

This is how I think the tao te ching anticipates the philosophy of Kant and Hegel.