People like to think of the world in terms of black and white. We think in terms of absolutes, in binary terms, in terms of "yes" and "no". We like to reduce things to such simple terms because it make it easier to understand.
Yet nature rarely follows this simple concept of black and white. Even the concept of yin and yang is not about two absolutes; while yin and yang represents two extremes, they also evolve into each other in a continuum that covers everything in between. A look at the taiji circle makes it very clear that yin and yang is not just about two absolutes, but rather a whole spectrum covering the two extremes.
It is just like the seasons cycling through each other. We don't have hot summer days which suddenly turn into snowy winter ones. The days gradually get cooler, turning into autumn, and then winter, which then slowly get warmer, bringing about spring, and the back to summer. There is a spectrum of seasonal types between the two extreme ends of hot summer and cold winter.
Even our traditional concepts of binary sex/gender is challenged by the existence of the intersexed and the transgender. People are not just male or female, masculine or feminine. There is a whole spectrum in between.
Light and dark may look like two extremes, but there are many shades of darkness as we all know. And while we talk about the seven colours of the rainbow, these are not discrete colours; they are seven distinct colour groups that blended into each other across a spectrum.
We like to classify people into simple terms like tall and short. Yet there is no such thing as all tall people are 190cm and all short people are 150cm. People come in all heights spread across a continuum, and tall/short is a relative concept. Just like dawn is brighter than night, but noon is brighter than dawn. But does that mean dawn is not bright? No, because dawn is still brighter than night.
So while we like to think in simple terms, while we like to classify things into broad groups, we need to remember that the real world is not simple as we would like it to be.
Yet nature rarely follows this simple concept of black and white. Even the concept of yin and yang is not about two absolutes; while yin and yang represents two extremes, they also evolve into each other in a continuum that covers everything in between. A look at the taiji circle makes it very clear that yin and yang is not just about two absolutes, but rather a whole spectrum covering the two extremes.
It is just like the seasons cycling through each other. We don't have hot summer days which suddenly turn into snowy winter ones. The days gradually get cooler, turning into autumn, and then winter, which then slowly get warmer, bringing about spring, and the back to summer. There is a spectrum of seasonal types between the two extreme ends of hot summer and cold winter.
Even our traditional concepts of binary sex/gender is challenged by the existence of the intersexed and the transgender. People are not just male or female, masculine or feminine. There is a whole spectrum in between.
Light and dark may look like two extremes, but there are many shades of darkness as we all know. And while we talk about the seven colours of the rainbow, these are not discrete colours; they are seven distinct colour groups that blended into each other across a spectrum.
We like to classify people into simple terms like tall and short. Yet there is no such thing as all tall people are 190cm and all short people are 150cm. People come in all heights spread across a continuum, and tall/short is a relative concept. Just like dawn is brighter than night, but noon is brighter than dawn. But does that mean dawn is not bright? No, because dawn is still brighter than night.
So while we like to think in simple terms, while we like to classify things into broad groups, we need to remember that the real world is not simple as we would like it to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment