I Ching, The Book of Changes

According to C. G. Jung in the foreword of the Book of Changes by Wilhelm, in science, causality is considered to be self-evident and unquestionable when observed; however, we know that what we call observed causality (natural laws) are basically statistical truths and naturally they must allow for exceptions. We can not and do not know all factors that are contributing to the occurrence of a phenomenon, and unless we conduct an experiment in a highly controlled laboratory environment, we cannot fully guarantee the outcome of the experiment due to factors that are unbeknownst to us. We call these unknown factors chance since we cannot really make much sense of them. Thus, as Jung puts it, “if we leave things to nature, we see a very different picture: every process is partially or totally interfered with by chance, so much so that under natural circumstances a course of events absolutely conforming to specific laws is almost an exception.”

The eastern man's mind (e.g., Chinese) seems to be merely concerned with the chance or unknown aspect of events, unlike the mind of the western man, who is primarily concerned with controllable aspects of events (causality). It probably makes sense from our perspective to regard the chance aspect of events as trivial and inconsequential and thus dismiss it instantly. But considering the immense amount of human effort that goes into controlling and fighting the dangerous effects of chance in what we set forth to do, tells us that chance is not trivial and inconsequential after all. In many events taking place in the natural world, chance has more effects in determining the outcome than the discovered causality. This is especially true with events that involve human (or animal for that matter) interventions.

To illustrate, most of the psychological theories can explain 45% to 60% of the variance in results. For example, we know from the Technology Acceptance Model that ease of use and usefulness of technologies are the two most important factors in them getting adopted and used by a target population; at the same time, we know that this only accounts for less than 50% of factors affecting a technology adoption decision. We may have some educated guesses for the rest of the factors, but that’s about it. There are too many factors affecting the outcome with too few effects to make them detectable and measurable. This is also true for natural phenomena; for example, consider a crystal of quartz which is a hexagonal prism. However, it is almost impossible for one to find two quartz crystals that are exactly the same. What makes each crystal different from the other is what we call chance.

It seems that the actual form and the actual outcome are more appealing to the minds behind I-Ching than the ideal one predicted by scientific theories. It feels that this ideology has accepted human mind limitation in understanding the jumble of laws and factors affecting an outcome (the whole picture), and instead of focusing on limited causal explanations, it focuses on the actual outcome itself. According to Jung, “The manner in which the I-Ching tends to look upon reality seems to disfavor our causalistic procedures. The moment under actual observation appears to the ancient Chinese view more of a chance hit than a clearly defined result of concurring causal chain processes. The matter of interest seems to be the configuration formed by chance events in the moment of observation and not at all the hypothetical reasons that seemingly account for the coincidence.” Thus, unlike the western mind that tries to carefully make sense of events by only letting one, two, or a very few factors vary while keeping the rest constant in order to discover a causality, the Chinese mind looks at the event as a whole and tries to account for every nuisance and nonessential factor that is involved in making up an observed moment.

Therefore it appears when one selects a hexagram through the use of 6 chance events (e.g., coin toss), these chances enter into the picture of the moment of observation and become a part of it which seems very insignificant to us but not to the ancient Chinese mind. To us, and in fact, to most minds, it would be meaningless to say that whatever happens in a moment possesses qualities that are specific to that moment and not any other moment. It is easy to pass the last statement as an abstract one with no practical use. However, as witnessed by C. G. Jung, there were (maybe still are) wine tasters who could tell you about the origins of a wine (site and year) just from the wine's appearance, taste, and behavior. There were astrologers who could tell you about the zodiac sign and position of the sun and moon at the time of your birth without having any previous knowledge of your nativity and birth. In light of such observations, one can assume that moments can leave long-lasting traces.

It appears that the inventor(s) of I-Ching believed that the hexagram which appeared in the moment of consultation coincides with the later moment of outcome in quality. In other words, they share a quality but not time. To the inventor(s) mind, the hexagram consisted of six binary chances was a truthful part of the moment it was cast as much as it was part of the situation moving forward from its moment of origin. According to ancient Chinese philosophy, this book's ying-yang base is the principle behind every change that takes place, and this book can account for all changes taking place in this world. Interestingly, this knowledge has inspired Leibniz’s in his development of the binary mathematical system, which is the basic idea behind how computers operate. Theoretically, all the information available in the universe could be coded as ying-yang (0 and 1). The assumption that current and future moments and what composes them (beliefs, feelings, and events) are interrelated and could be revealed through binary chances is called synchronicity by C. G. Jung.

Science is concerned with explaining events through causality. This causality is typically theorized through observations and is evidenced through statistical analysis of the relationship between factors and outcomes. What we find is merely a statistical truth, not the absolute truth and not the whole truth. Our findings are basically working hypotheses of how events evolve out of each other. Synchronicity, on the other hand, in addition to acknowledging the complicated interdependencies of objective events (while not trying to explain these interdependencies), assumes that not only external objective events are interdependent among themselves, but they also depend on the subjective (psychic) states of the observer(s).

The interplay of objective events with the subjective state is at work even in western science. This is most evident in physics, where models of atoms and the cosmos are all abstract thoughts that happen to explain how things function and are supported by related math. The latest proposed subjective model that was confirmed by objective evidence is Einstein's theory of gravitational waves. There are still plenty of other models of the cosmos proposed by physicists that are waiting to be confirmed objectively or proved wrong either subjectively (through competing theories) or objectively. Thus at best, these models are psychophysical structures that have roots both in math and the subjective (cognitive and emotional) states of the author.

Unlike the causality that explains the sequence of events, synchronicity deals with the co-occurrence of events. The causal view tells us a story about how an outcome (D) came into existence. It tells us that D came from C, and C came from B, and so on and so forth. Synchronicity, on the other hand, tries to produce a meaningful picture of co-occurrence. It tries to answer why a bunch of events (A’, B’, C’, D’, etc.) happen all at the same moment and in the same place. It assumes that all events happening at the same moment and place are of the same quality. Objective events of A’ and B’ are of the same quality as subjective events of C’ and D’. It further assumes “all [events] are the exponents of one and the same momentary situation,” meaning that they all come from the same truth but take on different objective and subjective realities (polymorphism). In the context of consulting with I-Ching, one of these events (for example, C’) could be the chance events leading to one of the I-Ching’s hexagrams.

The basic sixty-four hexagrams of I-Ching each provide meaning to a different yet typical situation. The lines (chances) of these hexagrams each can change to another one, thus creating 64 x 64 outcomes that, according to I-ching philosophy, comprise all possible changes that can take place! These interpretations of moment/situation are equivalent in their function to that of causal explanations from this philosophical perspective. The difference is that a causal explanation can further be validated through experimentation and statistical analysis, while situations/moments are unique and cannot be recreated for the purpose of validation. Thus it is not possible to design experiments that can potentially demonstrate that synchronicity is wrong. Thus this theory is not a scientific one but rather a pseudoscientific one when considered from the philosophy of science perspective. However, in the I-Ching philosophy, the only condition of validity of randomly chosen interpretations (hexagrams) is the observers’ opinion that the text of the hexagram amounts to a true rendering of their mind (psychic condition). It is assumed that the randomly selected hexagram is what “it necessarily must be in a given situation/moment in as much as anything happening at that moment belongs to it as an indispensable part of the picture.” Based on this view, anything that happens in a moment is an indispensable part of that moment. For example, if a handful of nuts is thrown on the floor, they form a pattern specific to that moment.

So What?

As stated, the theory behind this worldview is considered pseudoscience. Thus, it is not appealing to a critical mind that is looking for a cause-and-effect type of relationship and experiments to validate the hypothesized relationship. However, I-Ching might be attractive to people who want to look at the world from the ancient Chinese perspective.

As Jung noted, the outlined argument is not what the Chinese believe in it. They simply believed that I-Ching works because of “spiritual agencies.”. The explanation and arguments elaborated on here are simply projections of the western critical mind in its quest for theorizing how I-Ching works.

It is interesting to note that using a random pointer to help us make a decision is not limited to ancient Chinese culture and can be seen across a variety of cultures and schools of thought. For example, Muslims also have a tradition of consulting with the Quran in a similar manner to Chinese consulting with the I-Ching in that both are initiated with random selection (a page in the Quran vs. a hexagram in I-ching). Muslims use this process when facing a difficult situation where logic cannot guide them any further.

References:

• The I Ching or Book of Changes (Bollingen Series (General) 170) 3rd Edition, Kindle Edition; by Hellmut Wilhelm (Editor, Preface), C. G. Jung (Foreword), Richard Wilhelm (Translator), Cary F. Baynes (Translator)
• Mungello, David E. (1971), Leibniz’s Interpretation of Neo-Confucianism, Philosophy East and West, 21(1), pp 3–22
• Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 319–340.