Change in Reality: The I Ching

Abstract

We compare concepts of change in Western science and philosophy and the Chinese classics in relation to views of the nature of reality and the forms of human thought. The classic Chinese I Ching or Book of Changes has been used for purposes of divination, but we argue that its major function has always been to provide insight into the underlying regular hence logical nature of existence. Such a logic does not correspond to any standard Western propositional logic, bivalent or multivalent, modal, paraconsistent or paracomplete. This chapter summarizes key aspects of the I Ching that we consider relevant to our overall philosophical project. Specifically, we will see the close relationship between our Logic in Reality (LIR), which is a Logic of Energy, and the parallel concept in Chinese thought. In the West, no generally applicable theory of change has been developed that applies to the real, extant domain of complex interactive processes. In the next Chap. 3, we present our Logic in Reality as a logic of such processes, entities and systems (Logic in Reality; LIR), and show that it constitutes, among other things, a novel approach to physical, epistemic and emergent change, the basis for a ‘New Book of Changes’. Change and logic are discussed further in tandem in Chap. 4.