Talk:Yin and yang/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Fractal

Here is a cool image of a fractal I uploaded. It's animated if you view the source file directly. SharkD  Talk  04:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Image gallery?

Natürlich gewachsenes yin-yang-

I was checking out some images and I come across this great image and thought it look good on this page. My next thought was creating an image gallery like on Peace_symbols. Any thoughts? Blackash have a chat 01:05, 1 September 2011 (UTC) 198.110.194.251 (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC) Nobody has connected the recent science finding that at the center of the Milky Way is a supercooled 600 light year wide ribbon that is torqued in the center. And to boot is the slightly off center black hole 1/20 of a light year wide which fits the Tao form.

'Yin is often symbolized by water and earth, while yang is symbolized by fire and air'

Can I point out that this is NOT part of the Chinese beliefs. The 4 elements mentioned here are the ancient Greek elements. The ancient Chinese did not have the 4 elements system (In fact they used a system which had 5 elements, and I think earth wasn't even one of them). I really doubt there's any historical accuracy in that statement. It could be possible that connecting the 4 elements with Yin and Yang was a western idea; if this is the case it should be stated in the article.

Also there's no source linked to that fact, it should be (citation needed) anyway.

The "5 elements" in Chinese philosophy does't include air, but it does include earth, in the sense of "soil" -> metal, wood, water, fire, earth. I'm not sure that its meant for Yin and Yang to be directly representing the 5 elements. But yeah, its confusing here. Hope someone actually knowledgeable can clean it up.--tessc (talk) 22:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Remember that the 5 elements are states and transitions, however to transit from wood to earth, one needs air to kindle the fire. If you want to understand Tao and the elements, you have to forget science and go to logic. There is another 3 important elements (treasures), of which Chi is one: Chi = breath (air). Maybe that clarifies some. --Maddehaan (talk) 09:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It is also important to remember that nothing that exists is completely Yang or Yin. A substance or object can only be called Yin or Yang in relation to something else. For example, in the external environment, mountains are considered Yin in relation to water, which is considered Yang. This is because mountains don't move and water does. Chadedunham (talk) 14:34, 7 June 2010 (UTC)chadedunham


Under the five elements (five phases), earth is in the middle and it neither yin nor yang. Metal and water are yin, whilst fire and wood are yang. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.223.222.43 (talk) 05:29, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Question

I was under the impression that the Yin-Yang concpet could not be used for Good and Evil, yet in this article I found refernce to that. Can anyone explain? I thought the dualty of Good and Evil was used only in Manichæism. Here is a link to an article that talks about this: [1]

Thanks for pointing this out. I believe that the definition of yin and yang in the article is consistant with what you are suggesting. There was one example that used good and evil which seemed inconsistent with the rest of the article, so I removed it. I think that the following statement from the article is clear on this point:
Yin and Yang are equally important, unlike the typical dualism of good and evil. Sunray 09:46, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC)

The phrase "Yin and yang can also mean good and bad" had been reinserted into the lead; I removed it. Unless someone can cite a reference stating otherwise, it is my understanding that Yin and Yang do not have a "moral" aspect:

"In other words, yin and yang were never viewed as the forces of good and evil battling for supremacy in the universe. Further, by not being associated with good and evil, there is no resuidual meaning of evil associated with those elements of the yin." Illustrated Encyclopedia of Confucianism, Choy & Taylor 9780823940790

Yunshui (talk) 08:34, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually scratch that. Turns out the concept of yin and yang equating to good and evil was introduced by the Confucians (particularly Dong Zhongshu), so although it was never part of the original cosmology, the moral aspect of yin/yang has precendent. I've reinserted the original phrase to the article.

Pity, because the western concept of good and evil is that of a mutually opposed duality, precisely the viewpoint that the yin-yang concept corrects. There may be Confucian ideas that suggest that yin-yang is aligned with good and evil but that does not justify this edit. (a) Confucianism was in some ways opposed to philosophies--such as Taoism--that used yin-yang so they may have simply (mis) aligned yin-yang with their own view of the world (b) the concepts of good and evil in many cultures--including Judaism and possibly Confucianism--does not imply the good and evil dualism usually implied by the terms in Christian culture (c) there was constant corruption and degradation of ideas in ancient cultures; are you sure that that particular reference was to a view that is now accepted as orthodox?--174.7.29.185 (talk) 15:21, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

As you were * slopes away sheepishly* Yunshui (talk) 08:58, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Can the sun and the moon be use as symbols of yin-yang and if so are this related to yin-yang?

It helps to consider a condition of two transitions, one a quick transition taking only a few days, and another transition taking several years. If the quick transition is part of the dynamic of the slow transition, it plays one role at the beginning of the slow transition, and a somewhat different, almost opposite role at the end of the slow transition. As well as the relatively quick transition of sunlight and shade, transitions can span centuries or more. Discoveries of the geological record and the exceedingly slow galactic rotation make it clear that evolutionary transitions often span millions of years. Most significant transitions have both light and darkness at the outset, and at the completion. 67.150.173.171 (talk) 07:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

taken over by bollocks

Yin and yang are symbols with actual religious significance and historical documents that could be cited. However this page has been taken over by new agey claptrap. See my recent two edits for two examples. Crasshopper (talk) 02:34, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

  • Agree, the page is pretty bad.Malick78 (talk) 20:59, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Never ever doubt how stupid humans (at least at Wikipedia) can become.

Origin of symbol?

How did the pretty symbol come about? Is it the shadow of the sun as claimed here (seems far-fetched, but I know nothing about this...), or a simplified diagram of the near side of the moon (my personal opinion)?Malick78 (talk) 20:59, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Bad example of Yin-yang

In the opening paragraph, an example of yin-yang manifested in the world is given: 

"Everything has both yin and yang aspects, (for instance shadow cannot exist without light)."

I'm afraid this is a poor example of yin-yang- yin-yang means that the two opposite entities are mutually co-dependent- that is, they both depend on one another necessarily, to exist. So, while it is true that a shadow cannot exist without light, it is not true vice versa- light does not need "shadows" in order to exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.122.217.250 (talk) 19:05, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Related to Hegelian concept of dialetic

Hegel is one of the few Western philosophers to really attempt to digest and articulate this profoundly occidental philosophical paradigm. In particular, the Hegelian notion of Aufhebeng (becoming and going away) is about as close as you get in Western philosophy to really describing the paradox of describing the stable process of constant change from thesis to antithesis.

Didn't know that but it explains Hegel's proposition of the relationship, thesis->antithesis->synthesis which can be directly aligned with yin-yang --174.7.56.10 (talk) 16:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

CrankyK

_______________________________________________________________

It's OK. That's what I've written in the French version on "Interprétations occidentales".

Ce "contraste harmonisé" du Yin-Yang est celui du chaud-froid, haut-bas, lumière-ombre, blanc-noir, femelle-mâle, des complémentarités antagonistes enchevêtrées avec les antagonismes complémentaires entrelacés. En optique physique, c'est le jeu de l'onde et du corpuscule en alternance et altercation réunies par la constante de Louis de Broglie. En chimie, c'est l'acidité et l'alcalinité réunies, séparées et contrastées au pH 7. En phiolosophie, c'est le verbe "Aufheben" de Hegel qui signifie, à la fois, "apparaître", disparaître et "conserver" (dans la composante alémanique Souabe), verbe utilisé par Freud pour décrire l'inconscient.

  • "[...] Change is the result of combinations and separations of the four indestructible elements, like a painter mixing colors, said Empedocles; it is governed by two cosmic principles, Love ( attraction or Aphrodite), the original source of organic unity and creative combination, and Strife (repulsion or Quarrel), the principle of diversity and differienciation. The life cycle of the cosmos thus oscillates in cycles between unity and diversity (Kahn, 1968). (In the Chinese tradition the cosmic principles are Yin and Yang, and the elements are five: earth, fire, water, wood, and metal. Aristotle reserved the fifth and unchanging element, the 'quintessence' or 'ether', whose 'nature' is to move in circles, for the heavenly bodies, which he held to be perfect and imperishable)". Anthony Wilden, "The Rules are no Game. The Strategy of Communication", p. 153, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 432 pages, London and New York, 1986.

Takima 21:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Introduction very pedantic

I think the introduction making determinations such as yin and yang are complimentary rather than competitive is shallow and pedantic, sometimes they do compete. The language here I think will alienate most readers and not understand yin and yang clearly in such a way that they can readily recognize various instances of the nomenclature. The point of yin and yang is, that is simply the way things are. A Taoist mentality is to understand his or her surrounds accurately and simply, so to over conceptualize the idea and pack the opening section with rigid classifications is inherently anti-Taoist. What I think the reader should know upon reading the introduction is first some examples of yin and it's yang compliment, when one increases the other decreases and if one increases too high it begins to decrease. Also not to be too dogmatic about yin and yang assignments, for example if one side of a coin was yin and the other side yang, the raised parts one side of the coin would be yang and the lowered parts yin. Also yin and yang are inseparable, meaning is yang is removed half of yin would be the new yang.

Concerning not being dogmatic about yin yang assignments: A better example than the coins is one can consider an arrow as yang and a bow as yin, also a sword as yang and a shield as yin. However when one compares a sword and shield together to a bow and arrow together, the sword and shield are yang and the bow and arrow are yin.

Perhaps we could include yang is competitive and yin is cooperative, and initiaion is yang and responding is yin. Also that Taoism is an inherinetly feminine religion in that it emphasises responsing and "yield and overcome" so to speak rather than a direct attack. (direct being yang and indirect being yin).

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.2.246 (talk) 20:31, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

References

  • Mathematical medicine magazine in 1999 .

oct, 13, 2008 — 13:36, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Nutritional Aspects of yin and yang

I recently posted this information below, and it was taken down due to irrelevance and "bad formatting." I wonder what others think?

The concept of Yin and Yang is related to the foods one eats, just as it relates to oneself and the universe. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the status of ones health stems from the foods they eat. Deficiencies occur within oneself, causing one to become yin or yang imbalanced. To understand this further one must understand what it means to be yin or yang imbalanced. A yin imbalance means that one has too much yin within them, so they are deficient in yang. Yin imbalanced people may have one or more of these symptoms: tendency to feel chilled, clear urine, dresses warmly, likes heat, loose stools, pale complexion, slow metabolism, overly tired, tendency to feel depressed, health becomes worse in cold weather, quiet, and withdrawn. Yang Imbalanced people may exhibit one or more of these symptoms: tendency to feel warm, to be talkative, uncomfortable in hot weather, dark urine, common headaches and/or nose bleeds, high blood pressure, craves cold drinks, restless sleep, tendency to be impatient, irritable and/or angry, tendency to be constipated.

People can categorize themselves as being imbalanced, or having a deficiency in one of the constituents. It is believed in traditional Chinese medicine that what you eat, causes these imbalances, but can also balance oneself out. If one is yang deficient, this means that in order to reach an equilibrium in their yin & yang constituents, they must eat more yang foods. Yang foods include but are not limited to: foods high in fat, protein, calories, and sodium, meat such as chicken, pork, and beef, warm spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger, alcoholic beverages, eggs, and rice. Yin foods tend to be soy products like tofu, some meats such as crab and duck, fruit such as watermelon and star fruit, cold drinks, vegetables such as watercress, cucumbers, carrots, and cabbage. Coffee, as well as sweet and processed foods are considered yin foods. There are also cooking methods that are characterized yin and yang. Yin methods include boiling, poaching, and steaming. Yang methods include deep-frying, roasting, and stir-frying.'

Hirsh103 (talk) 19:26, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes it is badly formatted but no it is not irrelevant. This article is distinctly deficient in discussing how yin and yang relate to traditional medicine and diet. So the text should be reinstated. The main format issue is the use of external likes rather than links to pages within Wikipedia and a lack of inline references. This should be easy to fix. Rincewind42 (talk) 05:34, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

No Etymology

Be good to know why is it Yin yang and not yang yin or yan ying or ying yang. Is there an etymology behind these words? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.49.11.59 (talk) 03:26, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

One of the oldest usages would be in the I Ching from about 3 thousand years ago, which is mentioned briefly in this article. Details of the etymology are probably and sadly lost to antiquity. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 22:57, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, you got me to reading the I Ching again, and I found that one of the first mentions of the light-and-dark terms is in the intro on page lv. And there, they are referred to as "yang and yin". So while the two terms seem to have come down to us in a similar manner to, say, "to and fro", unlike those two the yin and the yang have the same meanings whichever "comes first" (I doubt many have heard "fro and to" much). Another thing... when we look at the Taijitu, the symbol for yin and yang that shows two fishlike characters side by side, we see that the white (yang) is on the left side, and the black (yin) is on the right side – "yang and yin" or "yin and yang"; I think the important thing to grasp is that, while they appear to be opposites, they are actually complementary; their connection to each other is so strong that "you can't have one without the other". Joys! – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 00:49, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
I've just started a new section with etymology and other linguistic aspects. Help would be appreciated. Keahapana (talk) 02:11, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Intro

The following sentence seems to me to be conceptually very confused:

"Many natural dualities (such as light and dark, high and low, hot and cold, fire and water, life and death, male and female, sun and moon, and so on) are thought of as physical manifestations of the yin-yang concept."

Certainly the first three dualities are not "natural" - they are conceptual. The concepts "light" and "dark" simplify the natural phenomenon of varying levels of candela. "hot" and "cold" are likewise not "natural" - they are human concepts denoting various differences in temperature. I'll not labour this point, suffice to say that the article seems to have already "bought into" the yin-yang idea - in that it (both the article and the idea) posit such things as "natural dualities". Hundovir (talk) 20:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps "natural" is not the most correct term to use here; however, when I think of "conceptual" I think of "abstract". How abstract is "hot" after you've touched a hot stove, or "cold" when a child touches their tongue to a school flag pole on a very cold morning? Since the comparison here is to the abstruse yin-yang concept, which I agree that the sentence you note above makes sound as if it is an "unnatural" concept, maybe a phrase like "Many tangible dualities..." would be more clear? – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 10:44, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Other slight changes are also called for:
Many tangible dualities (such as light and dark, high and low, hot and cold, fire and water, life and death, male and female, sun and moon, and so on) are thought of[by whom?] as physical manifestations of the duality of yin and yang. (or maybe just a {{Citation needed}} to follow the sentence, although the {{By whom}} template specifically recognizes the "weasel words") – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 12:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the response Paul. I think I'm not expressing myself clearly. Even with your examples of e.g. the stove and the flag - these are not "dualities". A flagpole in winter is not the "opposite" of a lit stove. Nor are our experiences of touching them "opposite" experiences. My point is that there are no "opposites" in nature at all. "Dualities" and "opposites" are part of our human conceptual framework for handling the world. A man is not the "opposite" of a woman, though the concept of maleness is often treated as the opposite of femaleness. And, indeed, the sunlit side of a hill is not the opposite of the shadowed side.
To refer again to your examples: "hot" and "cold" are indeed abstract concepts even though the physical sensations accompanying the actions you describe are not abstract. My point is that to believe that there are opposites in nature is already to share the yin/yang outlook—to believe that our abstract concepts are features of the world "out there".Hundovir (talk) 14:44, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Extra!: These dualities are certainly not "tangible" either! You can't touch "opposites". Hundovir (talk) 19:29, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
 "Paul"? <sigh> (No blame.) Never meant for my examples of hot and cold to be taken as a duality, Hundovir. They merely exemplify the duality of hot and cold, i.e., "hot stove and cold flagpole. Interesting that you should focus on that, because what is "cold" but a "lesser heat"? Yes, the actual abstract concepts are the extremes of the dualities themselves; however, those extremes, those apparently polar opposites, can become much more than mere concepts, as I hope I have demonstrated.
 One of the most difficult aspects of yin and yang to grasp is the fact that these particular concepts only seem to represent the extremes of polar opposites. What yin and yang actually represent (as a duality) are the complementary (not opposite) aspects of duality. That is the point most people miss when they read about yin and yang. "Love and hate" is a duality of terms, neither of which would have any meaning without the existence of the other. I submit that, while individually these two terms are quite abstract, the duality, "love and hate" is a tangible and even "natural" physical manifestation of yin and yang. "Opposite" would imply that they "oppose" one another. Yin and yang teach us that there is only the illusion of opposition. Like complementary colors – red and green, blue and orange, purple and yellow, etc. – the duality of yin and yang comprises two abstract ideas that complement each other in ways that are often tangible, real, natural. So the whole (the duality) becomes greater than the assembled parts.
 You gave no opinion as to whether "tangible" is clearer than "natural" in the sentence you questioned, so I have gone ahead and made the edit to see what others think about it. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 19:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it would help to see this better if we look at a not-so-obvious example – the two elements sodium and chlorine. Each by itself is a very poisonous substance, sodium an alkali metal and chlorine a toxic gas. The two occur in Nature as a "duality", sodium chloride, and together the whole becomes different (to us, "different" in this case also means "greater") than the assembled parts. This tangible and natural duality is common table salt, used to flavor our food and to also preserve it. In a similar way, other dualities can be very different than the parts that compose them. So read the word "greater" not necessarily in its sense of "better", but in its sense of "different". – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 19:02, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The divided circle symbol

I was hoping to find some info analogous to Swastika#Geometry to see if some version of the symbol is "more correct"; in particular, whether there are any guidelines for the curve dividing the two colors to be an S shape (as in the flag of South Korea) or a backwards S (as in the old logo of Northern Pacific Railroad), and whether the partition should be left-right (an upright S) or top-bottom (a sideways S). Based on Google Image, all variants occur in practice. While we're at it, are there any guidelines for whether to include the opposite-color dots, and if so, how big should they be? Joule36e5 (talk) 20:41, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Ubac | Adret

While it may be that the English words "ubac" and "adret" are "synonyms" respectively for "yin" and "yang" in their geographical signification, it's hard to imagine a worse set of well-meant translations for these ancient concepts of Chinese philosophy. The paragraph devoted to these obscure English words should be removed. It is a piece of trivia superfluous to an understanding of Yin and Yang. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.175.189.66 (talk) 04:37, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Distinction between simple linguistic facts and philosophical waffle

Disclaimer: I speak Japanese, but not Chinese.

This article rather conflates two entirely different things: the morphemes (陰 and 陽) which are simple bits of language, and the philosophical stuff. I understand that the philosophical stuff is full of Mystery, from outside the Material Realm (etc etc), but the words are just ordinary words, so the "linguistic" section seems to me to be misplaced. For example, they are said to be "semantically complex", which I think is the reverse of the truth: they are so semantically simple they can be represented by just three strokes in English: + and -. What has been misrepresented as "complexity" is just the fact that there are no simple equivalent English morphemes to represent the same range of (basically "opposite") distinctions: for example, they correspond to an- and cath- in the terms for opposing electrodes; terms which in Chinese, Japanese, etc are represented by 陰 and 陽, and which of course are utterly part of the empirically determined real world, as far from philosowaffle as it is possible to get.

I suggest that the "linguistic" section could be reduced to a brief paragraph and a link to Wiktionary, but invite comments first. (Personal remark: I do not disguise my contempt for the vacuosity of the philosophical stuff -- see the section "Nature" for spectacular examples -- but I am not trying to remove this at all, rather trying to remove the implications of linguistic mystery. There should be an article, but it should describe the history, origins, and so forth of the beliefs in a dispassionate way.) Imaginatorium (talk) 05:27, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't understand why we should dumb down the article. Would you please explain? What in the current section implies "linguistic mystery"? How is "+" semantically equivalent to the nine meanings "① [Chinese philosophy] positive/active/male principle in nature ② the sun ④ in relief ⑤ open; overt ⑥ belonging to this world ⑦ [linguistics] masculine ⑧ south side of a hill ⑨ north bank of a river"? Keahapana (talk) 22:06, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
I don't want to "dumb down" anything. I removed this claim again, because it is not only not helpful to reference very obscure terms, but because 陰 and 陽 on their own do not mean "ubac and adret". The seemingly "complicated" list of meanings is misleading: these two characters bring just the +/- distinction to whatever is being discussed: in respect of openness or overtness, 陽+open means "yes+open", while 陰+open means "no+open". In the specific example of sides of a mountain, I tried a French-Chinese dictionary for 'ubac', and got nothing, because presumably the word is fairly obscure in French (this Larousse entry for udret shows its Alps-specific nature; a different word 'soulane' is used in the Pyrenees). So I looked up 'hinata', Japanese for "sunny side (of a mountain)" in a handy Japanese-Chinese dictionary, and it gives 太阳地儿 (literally 'sun' + 'land'; the second character is the simplified form of 陽). No sign of 陽 as a separate word -- not surprising when you look at the dictionary entry cited in the article which says "Bound morpheme". (Again, there is a certain amount of confusion between the *meanings* of the two characters, and their *etymological origins*: the latter, as already described above, is indeed about sides of "mounds", or whatever you call the left hand radical 阝.) Imaginatorium (talk) 14:34, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
Yes, 阝 on the left is used for Radical 170 "hill; mound", which is why it was added to logographs for yin and yang in their basic "adret" and "ubat" senses. Fortunately, Wikipedia is based upon WP:RS and there's no need to make up imaginary plus/minus languages. Neither *yinkai 陰開 nor *yangkai 陽開 is a Chinese word. Yangwu 陽物 doesn't mean "plus thing", yindao 陰道 doesn't mean "minus way", etc. As for the twice-deleted statement and Wiktionary links being "not actually true", here's a link for you. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 20:44, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Opposites?

The opening of this article says that Yin and Yang is about how "opposites" and "contradictory forces" are complementary and interdependent. Is this actually accurate? Every source I've seen says instead that nature is composed of complementary forces that appear opposite and contradictory but are interconnected and interdependent. This may sound like the same thing, but it most certainly is not. The way it's stated in the article's introduction it sounds like the principle postulates that any two opposing forces must be interdependent and complementary, while the way I'd heard it simply says that anything in nature has two sides that appear opposite. This becomes particularly important when you're dealing with the concept of good and evil. The definition in the intro would suggest that this principal demands good and evil be complementary and depend on one another, that good cannot exist without evil and vice versa. The definition I'd previously been given instead says that good can be divided into aspects and principles that seem to oppose one another but depend on one another. If yin and yang does not directly imply that all opposites are interdependent, I believe this intro should be altered just a bit to be a little more clear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.197.193.213 (talk) 12:13, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I "softened" the lead intro just a bit, as you requested; however, that doesn't alter the fact that in Chinese philosophy, all seemingly contrary or opposite natural forces are, without a doubt, complementary, interconnected and very much do depend on each other for their very existence. The forces of good and evil are notable examples, because if one can imagine a world where one force is abolished, how would one know what the other force, the new, "normal" way of things, is called? If good were suddenly gone, and all that is left is what we call "evil", then philosophically speaking, evil must also cease to exist, just as the shadow disappears when the light goes out.  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  18:09, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Ubac and adret

Why on earth is it important to note that Stein used an obscure word in his translation of "sunny side of a mountain?" -165.234.252.11 (talk) 17:01, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Why is it important to have an article on obscure Chinese terms? The importance is in the learning, which tends to make obscurity recede.  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  17:48, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
Is it a widespread thing, or is it one guy's idiosyncrasy? -165.234.252.11 (talk) 15:35, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
It is merely a comparison of terms from those used in Chinese philosophy to those used in geography. Both sets are inventions to describe discoveries – symbols given meaning to describe Nature. Neither seems very widespread, and both are (or began as) idiosyncratic. What matter? Should readers be denied because of this?  Temporal Sunshine Paine  09:20, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
Well... no, yin and yang are pretty widespread; no, people may have idiosyncratic interpretations of yin and yang but the words and concepts are not themselves idiosyncrasies; maybe, but I'm not here to regurgitate abbreviated links to policies, I'm seriously just wondering what the deal is. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 16:35, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes, well the reason yin and yang are pretty widespread is probably because (1) they've been around so long (I think it was Confucius or perhaps even someone before him who idiosyncratically coined the terms), and (2) because of the general rise in public interest over the years. I honestly don't know how long ubac and adret have been attached to English geography, and since no public interest has, to my knowledge, been generated in regard to these little gems of scientific jargon, they do appear more like "one guy's idiosyncrasy". I don't think the sinologist Stein coined the terms, though, I think he just made the connection with yin and yang, perhaps after reading the I Ching or some other book on Chinese philosophy. So IMHO it's fair to say that expressing that reliably sourced fact is useful in this article. If other sciences have similar terms, I'd be interested in reading about those, too. I still say as I did in my first response to you that "the deal" is all about learning, or in the encyclopedic sense, the deal is about the spread of knowledge.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  17:27, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Penis | Vagina

According to the "meaning" section, yin means Vagina, while yang means male genitals.

Is this a mistake? Why does yin mean penis? How is penis opposed to or in a dichotomous relationship with male genitalia? --188.104.131.205 (talk) 21:54, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

"Every explanation has to stop somewhere," Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein. There is no explanation for why a single sound carries multiple, possibly contradictory meanings — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.175.189.66 (talk) 04:27, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

It is not a mistake. The fact that "yin" refers to the female gender and "yang" refers to the male gender is a natural ramification of the dichotomy. The fact that "yin" can refer to the genitals of both sexes may seem to be a mistake, but this usage actually stems from the sense "hidden" of "yin" -- the private parts of both sexes are concealed from others. MaigoAkisame (talk) 01:00, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

According to my understanding the penis and vagina are feminine or WET organs, the anus is a masculine or DRY organ. The number one is representative of the penis and the number zero of the anus, this is a reversal of the sex in line for for the 1 is male and the 0 is female due to being curved. But this is or should be covered in a section about how to interpret two yin yangs facing each other. Earthy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Earthyspirit (talk • contribs) 01:08, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


the difference of genres is the foundation of yin yang theory but can be a little more convenient in a more scientific language

--Iching4096 (talk) 13:06, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

It is right. Yin and yang are relative, not absolute.
Yin is for female and yang is for male, so "yīn jù" (yin tool) means vagina, and "yáng jù" (yang tool) means penis.
Yin is for hidden things and yang is for exposed things, so "yīn bù" (yin part) means the pubic organs such as "yīn jīng" (yin stem) as a modern biological term for penis and "yīn dào" (yin tube) as a modern biological term for vagina, and yang means somewhere exposed such as your head. --Yejianfei (talk) 17:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Yin and yang: proper nouns?

Hi, there's currently a discussion ensuing on Turkish Wikipedia as to whether the first letters of the words "yin" and "yang" should be capitalised due to them being proper nouns. There aren't really any active users on Turkish wiki who are particularly knowledgeable in this area, so I came here to ask about this and I hope nobody will mind helping out. Are "yin" and "yang", indeed, proper nouns, such that their first letters would require capitalisation? Even reading the lead section of the article here I've noticed that capitalisation (or lack thereof) hasn't really been applied consistently, so why is this not the case on English wiki? Bambi'nin annesi (talk) 14:11, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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What are Booling and Cranking?

As in "Many natural dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting, and booling and cranking) are thought of..."

Quick google search didn't turn up anything about that phrase exactly, although cranking (in English) is the verb for using a crank. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.14.162.93 (talk) 19:01, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Accuracy of yang 陽 character explanation

From the Characters section: "The second phonetic yáng 昜 'bright' originally pictured 日 the 'sun' with 勿 'rays coming down'"--I am unsure where this gloss of 勿 is coming from. It's not in Wiktionary, nor in ZDIC, which identifies it as a pictogram based on the image of a flag/banner. The source cited is Wenlin Software for learning Chinese, which leads me to believe that the editor who wrote that line mistook a mnemonic provided by Wenlin as its actually etymology. That being said, is there a way to explain the presence of 勿, or does the article err in trying to break the phonetic 昜 down any further? WhinyTheYounger (talk) 02:32, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Clarification: Yin and Yang -- related or not to Good and Evil?

I am very interested in Chinese culture, and hope asking for clarification here is OK. I had assumed the dark, hidden side is the male side, and was surprised to read in the definition of Yinyang that the dark, hidden side is female.

I think the following is where my confusion comes from. In Western culture, Light represent Day (Good) and Dark represents Night (Evil). In many other cultures, (including, I now suspect, China) neither Light nor Dark represent Evil; both are Good.

In Western culture, Light/Dark are rarely associated with the male and female genders. However, when they are, it is the dark side that is male, and the dark side increases conflict. A perfect example of this is the Star Wars films by George Lucas. There are many things in Star Wars that show that the Dark Side is the male side, but the most obvious is that the main Dark Sider, Darth Vader, is the male parent of Luke and Leia. His name (Vader) is an early version of the English word "father." George Lucas has a bad habit of appropriating Asian culture. So, I assumed his Good, Light (Jedi/Republic) side and his Evil, Dark (Sith/Empire) side were taken from the Asian concept of yinyang. Now, I think they are simply the Western concepts of Day and Night. What do others here think?

I actually think this Western idea of dark as evil is perhaps the biggest source of conflict between the US and China. Chinese culture forbids both open criticism of the government and open competition between politicians. As I understand it, though, (and it seems to me, absolutely no other Westerner understand this) the PRC is not actually forbidding political discussion, nor competition between politicians. It is just that politics must be handled privately. What I am reading here is that in China, private is hidden and dark. But, as far as I can tell, these dark hidden things are not evil. In Western culture, though, hidden things represent Night and are therefore evil.

Question: In China, is the hidden, dark, female principle a way to reduce conflict? I know an important issue is China is not letting, say, Genghis Khan, know that there is conflict within China. But, is politics in China also kept hidden because the female principle reduces conflict?

The main article says that there is a "moral dimension" to yinyang. It later says that in the teachings of Confucius, the male principle is superior, and therefore only men should rule. I suspect most Westerners would interpret this statement about "moral dimension" to mean that yang, Light, is Good and yin, Dark is Evil. Similarly, the light principal being "superior" might be interpreted to mean that the dark principle is evil. I suspect, though, that this would be a mistake. (And if it is a mistake, the article needs to be made more clear.) As I understand it, the central concept in Confucianism (and in Chinese culture in general) is children's responsibilities to their parents. However, this does not mean that one's sons and daughters are evil. Instead, Confucius taught the for harmony, it was necessarily to have a social order in which everyone understood their roles. And, he further taught that for this to happen, society must be ordered from high to low. But, this doesn't mean one's descendants are evil or that women are evil. Instead, they must take on a subordinate role to maintain order and harmony. Am I correct in this?

Also, I know Earth and Sky are both important, and both are good in China culture. (The Earth and the Sun are both needed to grow food.) There is evidence that many cultures started off with a concept of Light as Sky and Dark as Earth, and both were good. Many cultures either believe humans were created by an Earth deity, who is Female and creates life from Her own body, or a Sky deity, who is Male and creates life with His mind. I realize that literally, yin, dark, is shade and is the Moon, not the Earth. Still, how strongly is yin associated with earth as opposed to sky? The idea that roots grow in the earth and are yin -- how important is this? Are goddesses (female deities) in Chinese culture associated with the earth, and gods (male deities) associated with the sky? And, an editor here said that in yinyang, the head is male. Is the mind also male? Is the body female?

Sorry to go on at such length, but I really want to understand Chinese culture. So much conflict between the US and China is because Westerners don't understand Chinese culture. I haven't done much editing on Wikipedia and don't know if there is a way to contact me privately here. If there is, I am interested in hearing from Chinese people who are willing to explain their culture to me. JSaraya (talk) 17:49, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

It isn't so much that Yin-yang is related to good and evil, but both are related to the dualist life philosophy. If you meant "related to the knowledge of good and evil", then yes. It is merely described differently by the Christian philosophy and the Daoist philosophy. According to some philosophies, mind is everything. That is defined as monism and can be reached by following Buddhist/Christian/Jung's modes of individuation. So the dualist appearance is an illusion that can be dissolved.2A00:23C7:598A:B300:451:6A82:2AAE:603 (talk) 23:02, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Geometric orientation

Does the geometric orientation/direction of the symbol matter? Are there certain traditions associated with, for instance, white being on top, and black on the bottom, or the clockwise/anticlockwise rotation? Thanks. (I just skimmed the article. Sorry if I missed it and it was already explained. But I didn't see anything.) ➧datumizer  ☎  22:08, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

diodes

It seems that the Chinese names for anode and cathode of electrical diodes are named after yang and yin. I had to figure out common yang LED displays. Should the article mention this? Are there other science and engineering uses that are similar? Gah4 (talk) 06:30, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

The "Historical" section

It was added by user Cmchan1995. Same user later cited a book titled "由《輔行訣臟腑用藥法要》到香港當代新經學]", written by Chun Ming Chan (振銘 陳), who is characterized as an "historian expert in Hong Kong" by IP user 119.246.81.65, whose IP address is located in... Sheung Shui, Hong Kong. Erminwin (talk) 01:26, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

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