Hidden Wisdom Behind the Meaningless Symbols

Hidden Wisdom behind the Meaningless Symbols

      In common occasions, people say a phrase; “It’s just a coincidence.”   The very manner people say this phrase shows how people take a coincidence as meaningless.   It also reveals that our way of thought is heavily ruled by the notion of causality, the foundation of classic physics and all the other natural sciences.   While the principle of causality keeps its position as the axiomatic truth “in the West from the time of Aristotle down to the present,” the ancient Chinese had a different notion of perceiving the world (Li 715).   The Book of Change, or I Ching in Chinese, had been used mainly for a purpose of oracle.   However, the thought regarding this book of divination has evolved though time, such that it is regarded as the Book of Wisdom among sages in China.   How does a collection of abstract symbols possibly lead us to wisdom?   Just as the idea of coincidence is meaningless to the majority of people, so has been the I Ching’s interpretation—at least to people in the western world.   However, with the drastic change of notion, which took place in the modern physics, and its correlation with Jung’s idea of synchronicity, this antique suggests a possibility for a new perspective of the truth.
In Jung’s definition, synchronicity means “the occurrence of a meaningful coincidence in time” (Jung 282).   Although the principle of causality does not allow a room for it, the existence of coincidences is an undeniable fact of the world.   The problem arises in a scientific mind, for it is impossible to find out the objective cause of such incidents.   When a coincidence happens, it is impossible to reproduce the similar effect by applying the similar cause.   Let’s consider the moment of divination by using the method of I Ching.   I get into a quiet room with an oracle.   The oracle gives me three coins, and I throw them.   Then, there they are, the words of wisdom.
Now, if I get into the same room with the same oracle...