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Western and Chinese Traditional Elements

lpetrich

lpetrich

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Western and Chinese Traditional Elements (narrated) - YouTube -- a video that I have made. It is about the prehistory of the chemical elements, what people thought they were before modern times. Both sets of elements have five each, though they differ, and they are related in different ways.

The five Western elements are a 2*2 grid of four terrestrial elements and a fifth, celestial element: aether or quintessence. The four terrestrial elements form a grid:
[table="class: grid"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]Wet[/td]
[td]Dry[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Hot[/td]
[td]Air[/td]
[td]Fire[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Cold[/td]
[td]Water[/td]
[td]Earth[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
Some late-medieval alchemists added mercury and sulfur, and also salt.

The Chinese ones ( Wu Xing) are coequal, and they can be placed on the vertices of a pentagon. Each one generates the one that is ahead of it, overcomes the one that is two ahead of it, insults the one that is three ahead of it (or two behind), and destroys the one that is four ahead of it (or one behind). Here goes:

Generating:
  • Fire leaves behind ash: Earth
  • Earth gets refined to get Metal
  • Metal holds Water
  • Water nourishes Wood
  • Wood fuels Fire
Overcoming:
  • Fire melts Metal
  • Metal chops Wood
  • Wood parts Earth
  • Earth blocks, absorbs Water
  • Water extinguishes Fire
Insulting:
  • Fire boils Water
  • Water erodes, covers Earth
  • Earth buries Wood
  • Wood dulls Metal
  • Metal pokes Fire
Destroying:
  • Fire burns up Wood
  • Wood soaks up Water
  • Water weakens, corrodes Metal
  • Metal infiltrates Earth
  • Earth smothers Fire
That last one is from The 5 Elements ~ A Feng Shui Perspective - YouTube
 
The four medieval 'elements' seem to be much the same as the four most commonly known physical states of matter - Solid, Gas, Plasma, Liquid; Earth, Air, Fire, Water.

We now use the word 'element' differently, but the basic concept is still sound. I don't think we can fault medieval and other pre-enlightenment people for not being aware of Bose-Einstein condensate. ;)
 
Yes, the traditional Western elements correspond to states of matter:
  • Fire: plasma (ionized gas)
  • Air: gas
  • Water: liquid
  • Earth: solid

I've seen a rather whimsical correspondence between the traditional Western elements and the constituents of the Universe:
  • Aether: dark energy
  • Fire: cosmic microwave background (photons)
  • Air: cosmic neutrino background
  • Water: dark matter
  • Earth: baryonic matter (the familiar sort of matter)
 
Logic applied to observation without what we call science.
 
lpetrich said:
Western and Chinese Traditional Elements (narrated) - YouTube -- a video that I have made. It is about the prehistory of the chemical elements, what people thought they were before modern times. Both sets of elements have five each, though they differ, and they are related in different ways.

The five Western elements are a 2*2 grid of four terrestrial elements and a fifth, celestial element: aether or quintessence. The four terrestrial elements form a grid:
[table="class: grid"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]Wet[/td]
[td]Dry[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Hot[/td]
[td]Air[/td]
[td]Fire[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Cold[/td]
[td]Water[/td]
[td]Earth[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
Some late-medieval alchemists added mercury and sulfur, and also salt.

The Chinese ones ( Wu Xing) are coequal, and they can be placed on the vertices of a pentagon. Each one generates the one that is ahead of it, overcomes the one that is two ahead of it, insults the one that is three ahead of it (or two behind), and destroys the one that is four ahead of it (or one behind). Here goes:

Generating:
  • Fire leaves behind ash: Earth
  • Earth gets refined to get Metal
  • Metal holds Water
  • Water nourishes Wood
  • Wood fuels Fire
Overcoming:
  • Fire melts Metal
  • Metal chops Wood
  • Wood parts Earth
  • Earth blocks, absorbs Water
  • Water extinguishes Fire
Insulting:
  • Fire boils Water
  • Water erodes, covers Earth
  • Earth buries Wood
  • Wood dulls Metal
  • Metal pokes Fire
Destroying:
  • Fire burns up Wood
  • Wood soaks up Water
  • Water weakens, corrodes Metal
  • Metal infiltrates Earth
  • Earth smothers Fire
That last one is from The 5 Elements ~ A Feng Shui Perspective - YouTube
Click to expand...

Me, I still don't see where consciousness would fit in there. Surely, people have always been aware they were conscious!

So, I guess they thought of the "elements" as those they could observe in the physical realm. The fifth element would be the "spiritual" one, whether you call it morality, the mind or God.

So, I guess we all agree exactly the same here. :D
EB
 
Speakpigeon said:
Me, I still don't see where consciousness would fit in there. Surely, people have always been aware they were conscious!
Click to expand...
That's a whole issue in itself.

So, I guess they thought of the "elements" as those they could observe in the physical realm. The fifth element would be the "spiritual" one, whether you call it morality, the mind or God.
Click to expand...
The Western fifth element, aether, is the celestial element, and it also is physical.
 
Consciousness is not an element, but all conscious beings must contain an appropriate balance of all the elements to survive and be healthy; this concept is fundamental to understanding traditional medicine in both cultures. Medieval alchemy had the perfect balance of the elements within the self (and thus unity with God) as its ultimate goal.
 
That "balance of elements" is pure woo-woo. Furthermore, the Western and the Chinese traditional elements differ, so they cannot both be right. Their traditions had lasted some 2000 years without much change, a rather interesting curiosity.

Steve Farmer proposes that correspondence cosmologies were common in premodern belief systems. However, it is hard for me to find some easily-accessible introduction to his hypothesis. But it is evident that both Western and Chinese astrology and alchemy are based on such correspondences, and some of them I had mentioned in my video. Yet Western and Chinese ones are different.
 
There is a supernatural element to Chinese traditions.

Balance indicated by the Yin Yang symbol. Too much aggression is yang, to much softness is yin. Disease is caused by a yin yang imbalance. If I remember right traditional Chinese medicine characterized plants and remedies as yin or yang. If your health is too yang take a yin remedy. I expect it was in part observation in matching remedies to ailments. Some of it bogus.
 
The idea of those kind of elements seems silly nowadays, but was a step on the path to the understandings we now have. As scientists studied, hypothesized and experimented to try to understand how Elements might be controlled and used, they invented and discarded a lot of ideas because they didn't work - anyone remember Phlogiston? But they led to what is modern Chemistry.

Even the idea of balance finds an echo in Valency, where stable configurations happen with 8 electrons. The fact that it's 8 as opposed to another number can be calculated from QM (but not by me!).

Personally, I prefer the English author Tom Holt's view that the 4th element is actually custard. :D
The book is "Earth, Air, Fire and Custard".
 
I find it hilarious that Democritus got so much right with his primitive version of atomic theory, then got it hilariously wrong when he tried to identify the different kinds of atoms without a shred of evidence to go on.
 
Each finger has one of the five Chinese traditional elements:
Chinese%20Element%20Fingers.jpg


Each compass direction also has an element:
Chinese%20Element%20Directions.jpg
 
There is a complete system associated with Taoism going far back in China. Mystical and supernatural energies and forces. At the highest mystical level in Rai Chi one can kill with one's chi, or life force, Like The Force in star wars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian

Historically the first detailed description of the lower Dantian is in the Laozi zhongjing 老子中經 from the 3rd century CE, it refers to the Cinnabar field where Essence and Spirit are stored, it is related to regeneration and sexual energy, menstruation and semen.[3] Traditionally, a dantian is considered to be a center of qi or life force energy.[1][2] The dantian are important points of reference in neidan, qigong, neigong, tao yin, Taoist sexual practices, Reiki[4] and other self-cultivation practices of exercise, breathing, and meditation, as well as in martial arts and in traditional Chinese medicine. The lower dantian is particularly important as the focal point of breathing technique as well as the centre of balance and gravity. Dantian are focal points for transmutation of the three treasures Jing, Qi and Shen. Qi can be seen as a substance when it is stored in the form of Essence or Jing, this can be refined by heating in these cauldrons into more rarefied states such as Qi which is insubstantial and further still into Shen which is more like the Western concept of Mind although it is more often translated as Spirit.[5]

Taoist and Buddhist teachers often instruct their students to centre the mind in the navel or lower dantian. This is believed to aid control of thoughts and emotions. Acting from the dantian is considered to be related to higher states of awareness or samadhi.
 
lpetrich said:
Yes, the traditional Western elements correspond to states of matter:
  • Fire: plasma (ionized gas)
  • Air: gas
  • Water: liquid
  • Earth: solid
Click to expand...

I've always found the fire=plasma association interesting as fire not particularly ionized (especially red fire), and more of an aerosol than a gas (it does not fill the space like a gas due to the density of the gas/solid mixture). Especially with the fact that at ambient conditions: air is a gas, water is a liquid and earth is a solid. I know that plasma can cause fire, but the association of fire and plasma will always bother me.
 
PJPSYCO said:
lpetrich said:
Yes, the traditional Western elements correspond to states of matter:
  • Fire: plasma (ionized gas)
  • Air: gas
  • Water: liquid
  • Earth: solid
Click to expand...

I've always found the fire=plasma association interesting as fire not particularly ionized (especially red fire), and more of an aerosol than a gas (it does not fill the space like a gas due to the density of the gas/solid mixture). Especially with the fact that at ambient conditions: air is a gas, water is a liquid and earth is a solid. I know that plasma can cause fire, but the association of fire and plasma will always bother me.
Click to expand...

Surely incandescence in a flame is almost entirely a result of ionization? Sure, red hot coals are mostly black-body radiators, but visible flames are visible because of ionization - or am I mistaken?

My understanding is that simple fires (eg Hydrogen-Oxygen) that produce little ionization tend to burn 'invisibly', and that visible flames are a plasma phenomenon. So perhaps it's more accurate to say 'flame' than 'fire', but given that we are discussing ancient ideas that are only a partially explored description of the natural world, I think we can offer a little leeway here - If we accept 'Earth' as analogous to 'Solid', and 'Water' and 'Air' as analogous to 'Liquid' and 'Gas' respectively, then 'Fire' as analogous to both 'Flame' and 'Plasma' seems reasonable to me.

The whole value of fire to the ancients was that it both is, and causes, deviations from ambient conditions.
 
bilby said:
Surely incandescence in a flame is almost entirely a result of ionization? Sure, red hot coals are mostly black-body radiators, but visible flames are visible because of ionization - or am I mistaken?

My understanding is that simple fires (eg Hydrogen-Oxygen) that produce little ionization tend to burn 'invisibly', and that visible flames are a plasma phenomenon. So perhaps it's more accurate to say 'flame' than 'fire', but given that we are discussing ancient ideas that are only a partially explored description of the natural world, I think we can offer a little leeway here - If we accept 'Earth' as analogous to 'Solid', and 'Water' and 'Air' as analogous to 'Liquid' and 'Gas' respectively, then 'Fire' as analogous to both 'Flame' and 'Plasma' seems reasonable to me.

The whole value of fire to the ancients was that it both is, and causes, deviations from ambient conditions.
Click to expand...
The ionization of the coals should be similar to carbon which would be UV band. I would need to correct for the reaction with oxygen but the thing that is glowing is the aerosol and coals (with the fire being the aerosol's color banding). So, I'm thinking white flame probably, but unless we see UV banding there just isn't enough energy in the molecules to be ionized. The heat is IR which is way to low and any of the color spectrum is also too low. Black-Body radiators are not ionized by definition but help us to formulate the energy differentials needed to explain ionization as an escape from the "final" orbital (read "final" as last coherent or the one with an energy not appreciably different from the next highest). i.e. You can put energy into things without ionizing them. The thermal energy involved is enough to overcome the gravity of a small particle (kT>Gmm/r I do believe) without removing electrons.

There does seems to be a flame = spark equivalency and definitely I agree that sparks are white/UV flames, but fire = plasma universally is something I can't seem to find absolute evidence for. That is why I stated that it bothered me, but it is kind of loose as you noted with the others. I just feel as if we are being extra loose to make the last one work (especially seeing as there are way more than 4 states that a molecule can be in and a bunch aren't limited to the phases of pure materials i.e. solid, liquid and gas).
 
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