Poo Noname
As a Chinese saying goes, a stone from a remote mountain can compete with jade. When the Western world comes to an inflection point, why not look towards the East for wisdom. The West builds all knowledge on logic while the concept of logic does not even exist in Chinese culture. In lieu of logic, the Chinese way of thinking is Dao. Dao is a paradox. However, it is a self-consistent and self-explanatory paradox.Dao asserts that the ten thousand things, which is, in Daoism, a terminology that literally means everything, are neutralizing themselves. If we assume Dao is true, because Dao is also a member of the ten thousand things, it needs to follow the rule of Dao by neutralizing itself, therefore Dao is false. However, if we assume that Dao is false, this means that there is, at lease, one thing that will not be neutralized. Is it humanity, the earth, the sun, the galaxy or the universe? Apparently, none of them can withstand the test of time! Since, in the sensible sphere, even if we exhausted all samples, nothing is really constant and eternal, we realize that the only candidate that can pass the test of time is the statement that 'the ten thousand things are neutralizing themselves'. Therefore, Dao is true. In short, if Dao is true, Dao is false, while if Dao is false, Dao is true. Dao is a paradox.However, Dao is not the kind of paradox that people normally run into because it is a self-consistent and self-explanatory paradox. If you ask why 'if Dao is true, Dao is false', it is because the assumption of Dao being true is neutralizing itself making Dao false and meanwhile, if you ask why 'if Dao is false, Dao is true', the same rule applies. Since Dao is capable of justifying its own behavior, Dao is the origin of the universe and the ultimate Truth in the world. As a reason and result, we can use Dao to explain all existing phenomena and predict the evolution of any existent. For example, we can use Dao to predict God’s behavior by explaining the God paradox: if God is almighty, can God create a mountain that he cannot lift? If God answers 'no', it is God who abandons his own defining feature of almighty. However, if God answers 'yes', since the mountain that God cannot lift was also created by God, it is still God who creates a hurdle that makes it impossible to defend himself. Either way, God has no choice but to neutralize himself, but why does God constantly reject his own identity? Apparently, it is because God, as a member of the ten thousand things, is also subject to the rule of Dao and therefore needs to neutralize himself.People usually see the world through the lens of logic and the book provides ordinary people with a new lens of Dao to see the same world that we are kind of familiar with. It is interesting that, even if you look at the same scene, the landscape will appear entirely different when you see it through another lens.
