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?

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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?

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