Home » The Crystal Hall » Character Discussions » Chou Lee
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| Re: Chou Lee [message #36836 is a reply to message #36830 ] |
Mon, 20 April 2009 05:25   |
 A. Lurker
Messages: 256
Registered: December 2008 |
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Well, as I've said before...so far, the only evidence that the Tao is as highly placed in the cosmic hierarchy as discussed here is its entry in the Field Guide to the Mythos. Which I'm inclined to consider descriptive, not prescriptive -- that is, it reflects canon 'knowledge' as of the time it was written, not necessarily Ultimate Truths (tm) set in stone forevermore. And the canon stories thus far have left the actual 'power level' of the Tao kind of vague (as is probably only appropriate). So, those of us who want to plant some epileptic trees regarding the Whateleyverse Tao being -- for example -- just some minor entity who latched onto the notion of Taoism only when humans came up with the concept and proceeded to grow from there after all are IMO still free to do so.
Also, as much as the Tao may notionally not be bound by human morality, there needs to be some valid reason why humans, specifically, would nonetheless consider following it a good thing. Failing that, Taoists might end up accidentally coming across as gullible, deluded fools not really better off than human devotees of some Mythos entity that doesn't care about them either...
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| Re: Chou Lee [message #36860 is a reply to message #36757 ] |
Mon, 20 April 2009 12:16 |
Violet
Messages: 368
Registered: July 2008 |
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| Anvildude wrote on Sun, 19 April 2009 20:34 |
Order and Chaos are very Physical concepts,and they're social ones, and religious ones,and mystical ones, and...
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While that is true, confusingly the physical concept of order and chaos is completely unrelated to any of the human ones. Its all stuff like measuring the amount of energy in a physical system which cannot be used to do work.
And remember the Tao is about balance, however the physical systems cannot be balanced, they're going to go from Order to Chaos and have been since the beginning of time no matter what happens.
| Anvildude wrote on Sun, 19 April 2009 20:34 |
Order: sameness, resistance to change. A rock is orderly. If a rock was floating in a vacuum, it would stay the same.
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Are you talking about the physical concepts or the human ones? If the human ones that's accurate; the physical concepts not so much:
The more Order something has the less resistant to change it is. Its easy to change a rock: throw it in a volcano and watch it melt, Smash it with a hammer.
Something Chaotic like heat energy that's escaped into the universe is impossible to change. True a rock sitting in a vacuum wont change, but it has the potential and that's what matters.
| Anvildude wrote on Sun, 19 April 2009 20:34 |
Chaos: Change, Destruction, creation, differences. A flame is Change. It takes one thing and turns it into another, constantly. A flame is never still, never not doing something. It is Chaotic.
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Again that works for the human concepts but not for the physical ones. A flame is a thermodynamic system, and since its working its creating more chaos out of order. Just like every single thermodynamic system in existence 
| Anvildude wrote on Sun, 19 April 2009 20:34 |
The point is, nothing is really constrained to a single thing. Everything affects everything else, in some way, shape or form. Even if you have something that does nothing, it's mere presense may affect something else to do something. That thing done might convince someone else to not do anything, etc. etc.
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While I agree with all of this, I'm not sure what your trying to say with this point. It seems unrelated to the rest of your post.
Dilbert: You were always a great hero of mine
Leonardo da Vinci: Is that so?
Dilbert: Yes I tried to model my carea after yours: Engineer, inventor, artist
Leonardo da Vinci: No no no, those were all sidelines, I am at heart a businessman
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| Re: Chou Lee [message #36876 is a reply to message #36868 ] |
Mon, 20 April 2009 13:24 |
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Bladedancer
Messages: 1161
Registered: January 2005
Location: Tennessee |
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| Sir Lee wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 12:36 |
Let me put it this way: one of the explanations regarding the apparent contradiction in the self-organizing feature of life and the overall universal trend toward increased entropy is that life is a dissipative structure -- that is, a local decrease in entropy that is "traded" for an overall increase in entropy.
So, life itself straddles the border between order and chaos -- it can only exist in the interface. If the Tao is linked to life (and it appears to be), then being an instrument of balance between order and chaos kinda makes sense. It can't favor either order or chaos, because pure order or pure chaos would mean the end of life.
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An excellent point.
And people also seem to keep thinking of Balance as a static thing, but it isn't. It is a dynamic, shifting thing that responds to alterations in whatever system it is working with. Before a large number of supers were around, balancing things would be fairly easy and only need one or two actual interventions to shift. As supers appear and gain more and more power to utterly change, well most everything the balancing would require a great deal more effort.
In a way, it is a mean to deal with issues like in the comic Miracle Man, where the supers in question pretty well disregarded anyone without powers and there was a lot of destruction. Things like that, which can cause changes in thinking, opinions, ideas, life in general need to be dealt with before they blow over into something else.
Remember the more "spiritual" parts of Braeburn, they pretty well stated that the doctor should find the Handmaid and help her. Hell if H1 knew about her and what she can do they might actually be okay with it, thinking she might cull the herd. But her role isn't purely destruction and that is something that I am working to show more of.
And no...the Tao isn't an Alien entity. But it is an interesting idea.
"...or I swear by my pretty floral bonnet that I will end you." Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly.
My LJ name is poetheather. Come, read, enjoy?
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| Re: Chou Lee [message #36883 is a reply to message #36868 ] |
Mon, 20 April 2009 14:08 |
Violet
Messages: 368
Registered: July 2008 |
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| Sir Lee wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 12:36 |
Let me put it this way: one of the explanations regarding the apparent contradiction in the self-organizing feature of life and the overall universal trend toward increased entropy is that life is a dissipative structure -- that is, a local decrease in entropy that is "traded" for an overall increase in entropy.
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I agree, that's a known fact.
| Sir Lee wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 12:36 |
So, life itself straddles the border between order and chaos -- it can only exist in the interface.
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Its more like Life is one of the interfaces, think of it as an input/output system.
[Order] ---> <Life> ---> [Chaos, more life]
really though, as far as life is concerned only Order is needed, Chaos may as well not exist out side physics theories. The definition is after all "stuff that's useless for anything".
And while too much Order won't allow life (think before the planets were formed), that's not really a problem, just wait and it will fix itself.
| Sir Lee wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 12:36 |
It can't favor either order or chaos, because pure order or pure chaos would mean the end of life.
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Considering that the "delicate" balance between between Order and Chaos can withstand an ever increasing amount of Chaos for another 10^12 to 10^14 years before the Big Freeze. Why bother balancing it, you can just ignore it and its still going to support life for nearly forever.
Besides if you did try to balance it, where are you going to get extra Order from?
| Bladedancer wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 13:24 |
And people also seem to keep thinking of Balance as a static thing, but it isn't. It is a dynamic, shifting thing that responds to alterations in whatever system it is working with.
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You've mentioned that a few times, but until we have an idea just what the balance is between I'm not sure what diffrence it makes.
| Bladedancer wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 13:24 |
In a way, it is a mean to deal with issues like in the comic Miracle Man, where the supers in question pretty well disregarded anyone without powers and there was a lot of destruction.
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I'd have thought such problems are usually self correcting. Either other, nicer, supers allow society to rebuild as fast as the maniacs destroy, a new society forms that works around the problems, say super ruled fudal states (I didn't say it was nice, but it might work). Or Mankind basically wipes itself out and something new evolves from the ashes (a valid solution once you drop pro-human bias).
[Updated on: Mon, 20 April 2009 14:15]
Dilbert: You were always a great hero of mine
Leonardo da Vinci: Is that so?
Dilbert: Yes I tried to model my carea after yours: Engineer, inventor, artist
Leonardo da Vinci: No no no, those were all sidelines, I am at heart a businessman
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| Re: Chou Lee [message #37884 is a reply to message #37877 ] |
Wed, 29 April 2009 09:23 |
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Sir Lee
Messages: 3069
Registered: May 2005
Location: São Paulo, Brazil |
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By the way, I'm not a student of Taoism, but I think a mistake most Westerners make is to think "balance" as "halfway between good and evil". I don't think it's an appropriate interpretation.
I think a better way to put it would be "balance=good", "too much yin=evil," "too much yang=evil".
So the Tao IS in the side of "good", for a given value of "good" as defined by Taoism philosophy, which might not be quite the same as conventional Western thought would put it.
The closest I can think, in Western terms, would be the "virtue in moderation" maxim. Take red wine, for instance... medical research strongly suggests that drinking a *little* red wine is better than being a teetotaler, which of course is no excuse to get roaring drunk and ruin your liver.
Don't call me Shirley. You will surely make me surly.
--
Sent from my Bugs Industries® bPhone™
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| Re: Chou Lee [message #37888 is a reply to message #399 ] |
Wed, 29 April 2009 11:14 |
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Bladedancer
Messages: 1161
Registered: January 2005
Location: Tennessee |
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Sir Lee, that pretty well summed up the nature of the philosophy that Chou is working under. Between you and nocte it explains what Chou is doing. I am going to be explaining it more in Five Elements Dancing (coming soon to a theater near you).
Trying to balance Yin and Yang, the five elements, the eight tones of the I Ching and so on, is not an easy task. Human activity throws that current pretty wide. Chou is there to keep the boat from drifting too far towards either shore, or for those not boat oriented, to keep the car from swerving too much.
So it is good, from a certain point of view (to quote Ben Kenobi). Remember, Jedi Knights, the whole philosophy of the Force and such were all based off of Taoism. So...not bad, just different.
"...or I swear by my pretty floral bonnet that I will end you." Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly.
My LJ name is poetheather. Come, read, enjoy?
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| Re: Chou Lee [message #37904 is a reply to message #37888 ] |
Wed, 29 April 2009 13:32 |
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Bookworm
Messages: 1576
Registered: July 2008
Location: Houston |
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| Bladedancer wrote on Wed, 29 April 2009 10:14 |
Chou is there to keep the boat from drifting too far towards either shore, or for those not boat oriented, to keep the car from swerving too much.
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Oh man... With Toni doing the driving, that car's going to look like a three day drunk in a stock car race.
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