Thank you for your generous response. Upon rereading my comment, parts of it sounded overly strident and accusatory, and I retract the tone of my comment. I was overly critical and didn’t mention the good parts of your post. I’ve edited it slightly to downplay those and have added portions to emphasise that your post is an overall good for LessWrong. There’s not enough discussion of these things, and I hope that my earlier post makes it clearer that I think your contribution is valuable.
I’d welcome anything further on these that you write here, especially the possible posts on Xunzi and Mozi! I hope my comments haven’t discouraged you. I’d like to see more of your work.
Our main disagreement
Our main disagreement perhaps came from the fact (only realised after reading your comment) that you were focusing on steelmanning the I Ching, while I focused on interpretations of Xunzi as a rationalist. Yes, I would have liked you to explain Xunzi better and more fully grapple with the philosophy in ways mentioned above. But now I realise that this wasn’t your main aim and that it was uncharitable of me to ask you to do so.
Xunzi on ritual
I’ll quote Berkson’s paper in The Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi:
Li is not merely repetitive, instrumental action (as might happen on an assembly line, or when we brush our teeth every day), but has a symbolic element. It is also essentially social, and so would not encompass what we might call “private rituals” that we create for ourselves. We do not invent li, we inherit them from the sages. By participating in and investing ourselves in the rituals, we are engaged with tradition, and in turn preserve and transmit that tradition.
[. . .]
Xunzi argues that rituals accomplish the following things—
(1) create and sustain social order, fostering right relationships with others (ritual’s ordering function);
(2) harmonize human beings with the larger natural order (ritual’s ecological function);
(3) enable the cultivation of good character in individuals, in particular virtues, right attitudes, emotions, and ways of thinking (ritual’s developmental / cultivative function);
(4) connect people with and educate them about their history and tradition (ritual’s pedagogical function);
(5) provide the means of transition from one period of life or status to another, i.e., rites of passage (enabling ritual to create a new status, an example of its performative function);
(6) allow the appropriate expression of feelings and attitudes (ritual’s expressive function); and
(7) beautify our lives (ritual’s aesthetic function, e.g., turning the act of nourishing ourselves through eating into a beautiful family meal).
[. . .]
Chapter 27 of the Xunzi is filled with examples of particular rituals. They include how one responds when being summoned by one’s superiors, what clothes are appropriate to wear given the occasion and one’s position, how ambassadors should comport themselves when on missions, words to be said at a wedding, the appropriate gifts for different occasions, and even how to stand and where to look when in the presence of others. In chapter 20, there is an extended description of a village wine ceremony.
Is ritual exclusively social? All of Xunzi’s examples of rituals are social, rituals must be socially handed down and taught, and one of their main purposes is to sustain social order. It’s not conclusive, but if rituals could be individual, it seems strange that Xunzi didn’t give a single example of one.
Our minor disagreements
The question of mental horsepower is a very subjective one. The reason I bring it up is the possibility that due to your comment readers would unfairly prefer Xunzi over other authors without knowing much about them. (“Oh, Xunzi? I’ve heard he’s good. Very rationalist. Mencius, Mozi, Laozi? Probably not so good. Vaniver doesn’t think they have as much mental horsepower.”)
I do think you read Xunzi as a rationalist. My concern was that other readers would read your post and come away with the false implicature that there were no other rationalists in China, or that no-one else considered the possibility of the I Ching being used for perspective-taking. I apologise for the phrasing of “Nothing, except that it stunts true learning.” It comes off as overly sarcastic and I’ve edited it in the original comment.
I was concerned about the mindset of readers more than their likelihood of reading Xunzi. Ignorance is not contagious, but framing is. The impression given by the post is that almost everything Xunzi says about the I Ching was said indirectly by Brian Eno. What reason, then, is there to read Xunzi? My concern is that readers would take the implicature that Xunzi adds essentially nothing new to Eno and so there’s no real reason to read Xunzi at all.
Once again, I want to reiterate that I think your post is a net good. I misunderstood what you were aiming for, and your post succeeds very well in steelmanning divination. My criticisms only relate to the parts on interpreting Xunzi. I hope that my comments came across as useful rather than dispiriting, and I hope one day I’ll be able to read your posts on Xunzi and Mozi.
Thank you for your generous response. Upon rereading my comment, parts of it sounded overly strident and accusatory, and I retract the tone of my comment. I was overly critical and didn’t mention the good parts of your post. I’ve edited it slightly to downplay those and have added portions to emphasise that your post is an overall good for LessWrong. There’s not enough discussion of these things, and I hope that my earlier post makes it clearer that I think your contribution is valuable.
I’d welcome anything further on these that you write here, especially the possible posts on Xunzi and Mozi! I hope my comments haven’t discouraged you. I’d like to see more of your work.
Our main disagreement
Our main disagreement perhaps came from the fact (only realised after reading your comment) that you were focusing on steelmanning the I Ching, while I focused on interpretations of Xunzi as a rationalist. Yes, I would have liked you to explain Xunzi better and more fully grapple with the philosophy in ways mentioned above. But now I realise that this wasn’t your main aim and that it was uncharitable of me to ask you to do so.
Xunzi on ritual
I’ll quote Berkson’s paper in The Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi:
Is ritual exclusively social? All of Xunzi’s examples of rituals are social, rituals must be socially handed down and taught, and one of their main purposes is to sustain social order. It’s not conclusive, but if rituals could be individual, it seems strange that Xunzi didn’t give a single example of one.
Our minor disagreements
The question of mental horsepower is a very subjective one. The reason I bring it up is the possibility that due to your comment readers would unfairly prefer Xunzi over other authors without knowing much about them. (“Oh, Xunzi? I’ve heard he’s good. Very rationalist. Mencius, Mozi, Laozi? Probably not so good. Vaniver doesn’t think they have as much mental horsepower.”)
I do think you read Xunzi as a rationalist. My concern was that other readers would read your post and come away with the false implicature that there were no other rationalists in China, or that no-one else considered the possibility of the I Ching being used for perspective-taking. I apologise for the phrasing of “Nothing, except that it stunts true learning.” It comes off as overly sarcastic and I’ve edited it in the original comment.
I was concerned about the mindset of readers more than their likelihood of reading Xunzi. Ignorance is not contagious, but framing is. The impression given by the post is that almost everything Xunzi says about the I Ching was said indirectly by Brian Eno. What reason, then, is there to read Xunzi? My concern is that readers would take the implicature that Xunzi adds essentially nothing new to Eno and so there’s no real reason to read Xunzi at all.
Once again, I want to reiterate that I think your post is a net good. I misunderstood what you were aiming for, and your post succeeds very well in steelmanning divination. My criticisms only relate to the parts on interpreting Xunzi. I hope that my comments came across as useful rather than dispiriting, and I hope one day I’ll be able to read your posts on Xunzi and Mozi.