Talk:The Project

Aran / Milan,

My grandfather, Vladimir Tomek, has a keen interest in The Project, as well as a very good understanding of some of the philosophical issues discussed. Here are some comments below for reflection and further dialogue. A deeper discussion of The Project can be found here Project Discussion --Dan 20:41, 5 Apr 2006 (NZST)

Questions:

1. How can one draw a line between tao-chia and tao-chiao, the philosophical and the religious aspects of Taoism? Is it not impossible?

Philosophcal-Taoism is the about class, the ba-gua themselves, religeous-taoism is a partcular context onto which the general principles of the ba-hua have been mapped. Other such mappings of the ba-gua are Tai-chi, Feng-shui and chi-healing techniques.

2. Whose ideas outside Lao Tzu's have been accepted as representative of philosophical Taoism? (Original ideas, not 20th century interpretations.)?

I'm not really a philosophologer, I have only studied specific scriptures in my search for understanding the core algorithm. Most of my Taoist study has been of Chu Hsi and the ten-wings of the Yi. A lot of understanding of these principles has come from Nisargadatta Maharaj, as Advaita vedanta also describes the same structure of system of space-time resulting from the perception-creation cycle.

3. If we select only specific ideas of Taoism as basis for our philosophical outlook, can we still talk about a Taoist network? It is difficult to imagine that there will not be ideas taken from other faiths. Note that your examples of Taoist teaching are rather general.

The project does not believe in naming itself, but provides a naming mechanism for concepts defined within it, including the complete concept of itself, but its own names depend on language, locale and individual preference.

4. How should we take into account that there is no technique for following the Tao? This must make application in practice rather difficult.

Such words are misleading, in reality the Tao is as easy to learn as any thing, and its growth simply requires a modest effort applied persistently. The process can be accelarated by being complimented by our information systems.

5. Original Taoist ideas of ecology do not conform easily to Western notions of what is important for ecology. How is this taken into account, without using wide-ranging interpretations?

True understanding of every discipline relies on the understanding of the perception/creation cycle

6. What specific Taoist teachings can be used as a basis for the modelling of our approach to ecology?

There are no teachings I am aware of that can easily obtain such knowledge from, it's taken me many years to understand the principles clearly enough to describe them as an algorithm. Our plan is to use the algorithm ability to describe itself in its own terms, to describe itself in our terms.

How can be applied in practice such sentences as 'incorporating the Taoist principle of change into the network allow all processes, no matter how large or complex, to be seen by the network in terms of energy', or 'the Taoist network is built in awareness of the cyclic nature of change'?

In practice incorporating this principle involves understanding it clearly enough to program into a computer. The core algorithm which has been developed is freely available, and not very amazing. In fact every part of it is already within other existing data structures which we often link to in Wikipedia such as the Trie data structure. Paradoxically, its power comes from not being as powerful as the others. This lack of power allows for a very simple and symetrical model, which applies to a more generic context by encompasing the fundamental systems

For exmaple our core algorithm exhibits the concept of a list, but unlike normal list concepts ours doesn't have the power to tell you how many items are in it, or how to pick the nth item from the list. But by not being able to do this, our list can be used in a layer more fundamental than that exhibiting the concept of number.

6. How can I Ching be used in ecological considerations? Note that I Ching does not mention Tao.

The I-Ching itself is not of particular interest, its the structure of the hexagrams and the way those structures and their changes map to the listed meanings that is important. That structure is the key to sustainable organisation, but the I-Ching is not useful to us now that the core algorithm has been developed.

7. What help can we get from faithfully translating the principles contained in the I Ching into computer software, thereby creating a uniform network based on ancient Taoist principle of perception and creation?

The help we can get from it is sustainable and scalable organisation freely accessible to all

8. Which are the deep philosophical foundations of Taoism to be introduced into a computer network dealing with ecology?

All the principles are dealing directly with ecology by addressing the fundamental issues such as eternal-sustainability and infinite-scalability - these are the principles that need to be addressed to define the way space-time works. By working with the Way, you work in accord with all things, but any deviation from it results in various problems for the life existing within that context.