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Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#91

Post by sizzle »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #83
panarky wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is straight-up Baudrillard simulacra/simulation. The moment you say "Dao" (or "Agile", or "methodology"), you've already moved from the thing-in-itself to a sign living inside a sign system. That sign can be useful, but it can't be identical to what it points at. > “The Agile that can be PM’d is not Agile.” That’s exactly the stages of simulacra in miniature: - Faithful copy: "Agile" names a set of lived practic…

Jean Baudrillard is a fraud/charlatan. Semiotics is a fake field. Him and all his friends (i.e. Foucualt, Derrida, DnG, Althussar, etc) are at Chiropractors/ Homeopaths for the mind and at worst actual useful idiots for western intelligence agencies.

What about Steven Pinker

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#92

Post by tasuki »

thadk wrote: post #89
culi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one of those threads a user, thadk, posted their really cool tool that shows a side by side comparison of English translations for each verse https://thadk.net/sbs/#/display:Code:gff,sm,jhmd,uklg,jc,rh/... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40887305

Glad it was a helpful remix! Since that post, the original tool author added UKLG's full version to the tool: https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh,uklg/sectio...

The original author is a little surprised how little traffic this receives considering how often he sees people linking to it all over the internet :)

Around 5k visits a month, including scrapers for LLM training. Somehow I still don't feel this "LLM scrapers have destroyed my website". Seems they don't care about any of my websites. I'm not sure if I should be happy about that, but I feel somewhat slighted - are my websites not good enough to be constantly scraped?

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#93

Post by mbivert »

sifar wrote: post #86
mbivert wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the opening bit has always seemed straightforward to me the a/symmetry of the opening bits in Chinese, visually echoes a taiji: > 道可道， > 非恆道； > 名可名， > 非恆名。 given the diversity of translations available for those bits, I think it's fair to say that there's room for debate regarding their exact meaning − dare I say amusingly, by being certain one understand what it means, somehow one really does not. Lao-Tseu may…

Exactly. It subrly hints at the limitations of language in capturing true understanding. This is something I was impressed with. Almost every other ancient text starts of being full of certainty or being the authoratitve truth.

> It subtly hints at the limitations of language in capturing true understanding

and that's still one interpretation ^_^

> Almost every other ancient text starts of being full of certainty

I can't say for sure about ancient texts, but famous wise men certainly (always?) encouraged a fair amount of humility (e.g. Shakyamuni, Socrates, Jesus, Confucius). But few actually wrote.

however, in general, their followers − and popular interpretations − embarrass themselves much less with humility.

in case this isn't known to you − I find this delightful − note that the (respectful) "子" suffix used in names (e.g. Lao-tseu is 老子, Confucius is 孔夫子) means "small thing", "seed", "child".

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#94

Post by akomtu »

TZubiri wrote: post #41

I have 0 confidence that I could understand the Tao even if I read the best most classical translations available. Take the bible, which is translated from languages that are closer to mine, and which refers to a culture which is closer to mine, with family and scholars whose interpretation I can understand directly. Still I don't have much confidence that I understand the bulk of it, it takes years of reading and li…

Dao is the way of life, it teaches the proper way to live. This teaching exists in every culture. Westerners call it the Way, Indians call it Dharma, Chinese also call it Fa. The simpler it looks, the higher its level. Its written forms have many layers of meaning because readers are of different levels. A well known example is statements like "love your enemy." It has a surface level meaning, a deeper meaning and so on. What you can ultimately see corresponds to your character level. To raise your level you need to apply what you've learned into practice, to live in the Dao, in other words. Intellectual understanding isn't enough, it must change the way you live. Then you can read the Dao again and see a higher level of meaning.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#95

Post by fatherwavelet »

TZubiri wrote: post #41

I have 0 confidence that I could understand the Tao even if I read the best most classical translations available. Take the bible, which is translated from languages that are closer to mine, and which refers to a culture which is closer to mine, with family and scholars whose interpretation I can understand directly. Still I don't have much confidence that I understand the bulk of it, it takes years of reading and li…

This is nonsense.

You can't understand the tao because there is nothing to "understand".

That is the whole point. If you walk in the woods on a beautiful day and hear birds chirping, there is nothing to "understand". It isn't an intellectual exercise.

Quibbling about translations of the Tao Te Ching is really quite comical. A better taoist "teaching" would be to throw your copy in the garbage and go for a walk in the woods. This is where the cultural problems come in though. That is not really what is meant by the English word "teaching". Then you are expecting to "learn" some kind of new symbolic representation when the whole point is to get rid of symbolic representation.

The idea you can't understand concepts from other humans because you were born into a different cultures is really stupid.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#96

Post by TZubiri »

fatherwavelet wrote: post #95
TZubiri wrote: post #41

I have 0 confidence that I could understand the Tao even if I read the best most classical translations available. Take the bible, which is translated from languages that are closer to mine, and which refers to a culture which is closer to mine, with family and scholars whose interpretation I can understand directly. Still I don't have much confidence that I understand the bulk of it, it takes years of reading and li…

This is nonsense. You can't understand the tao because there is nothing to "understand". That is the whole point. If you walk in the woods on a beautiful day and hear birds chirping, there is nothing to "understand". It isn't an intellectual exercise. Quibbling about translations of the Tao Te Ching is really quite comical. A better taoist "teaching" would be to throw your copy in the garbage and go for a walk in the…

That's exactly what someone that doesn't understand a text would say.

Not saying thay you don't understand it or that your interpretation is wrong, but it is indistinguishable from misunderstanding, and you could get it from any text you don't understand.

The idea that you can throw the text and still understand it just shows how connected to the text you are.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#97

Post by TZubiri »

akomtu wrote: post #94
TZubiri wrote: post #41

I have 0 confidence that I could understand the Tao even if I read the best most classical translations available. Take the bible, which is translated from languages that are closer to mine, and which refers to a culture which is closer to mine, with family and scholars whose interpretation I can understand directly. Still I don't have much confidence that I understand the bulk of it, it takes years of reading and li…

Dao is the way of life, it teaches the proper way to live. This teaching exists in every culture. Westerners call it the Way, Indians call it Dharma, Chinese also call it Fa. The simpler it looks, the higher its level. Its written forms have many layers of meaning because readers are of different levels. A well known example is statements like "love your enemy." It has a surface level meaning, a deeper meaning and so…

I checked and "love your enemy" is not in the Tao Te Ching. Sounds very christian.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#98

Post by cindyllm »

akomtu wrote: post #94
TZubiri wrote: post #41

I have 0 confidence that I could understand the Tao even if I read the best most classical translations available. Take the bible, which is translated from languages that are closer to mine, and which refers to a culture which is closer to mine, with family and scholars whose interpretation I can understand directly. Still I don't have much confidence that I understand the bulk of it, it takes years of reading and li…

Dao is the way of life, it teaches the proper way to live. This teaching exists in every culture. Westerners call it the Way, Indians call it Dharma, Chinese also call it Fa. The simpler it looks, the higher its level. Its written forms have many layers of meaning because readers are of different levels. A well known example is statements like "love your enemy." It has a surface level meaning, a deeper meaning and so…

[dead]

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#99

Post by anthk »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #67
anthk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Spanish we say "caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar" (roamer, there's no path, the path it's built upon walking".

To clarify, that sentence is not from a Spanish translation of the Tao Te Ching; it is a fragment of Antonio Machado's poem 'Caminante no hay camino' : Caminante, son tus huellas el camino y nada más; Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace el camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante no hay camino sino estelas en la mar.

Yep, but everyone said similar stuff and got parallel ideas across centuries. Especially in Math and Logic.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#100

Post by akomtu »

TZubiri wrote: post #97
akomtu wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dao is the way of life, it teaches the proper way to live. This teaching exists in every culture. Westerners call it the Way, Indians call it Dharma, Chinese also call it Fa. The simpler it looks, the higher its level. Its written forms have many layers of meaning because readers are of different levels. A well known example is statements like "love your enemy." It has a surface level meaning, a deeper meaning and so…

I checked and "love your enemy" is not in the Tao Te Ching. Sounds very christian.

It's the Christian version of the Dao.
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