Four Arts

[Pixel--Dude]

I recently read @fschmidt's Arkian Idea wherein he mentions a membership requirement is to either be born from Arkian parents or pass a test of scripture as well as a test of Go skill. This interested me, because I played Go years ago on a game I used to have for PC. I haven't seen or heard of Go since then and I doubt if many people are even aware of its existence.

Anyway, I decided to do some more research on the game Go and found it was considered one of the four essential arts of the cultured aristocratic Chinese scholars in antiquity. These were artistic talents required of the Chinese aristocrats, in the same way fschmidt has his own requirements for Arkian membership. I will go into more detail about the Four Arts below, they are qin (mastery of the stringed instrument guqin), qi (the strategy game of Go), shu (Chinese calligraphy), and hua (Chinese painting), and can also be referred to by listing all four as qínqíshūhuà.


Qin



The guqin (also referred to as just qin) was one of the requirements of the Chinese scholars and they were expected to have mastery over the instrument and its manipulation. It is a seven stringed instrument traditionally seen as one of great subtlety and refinement and has been favoured by literati and scholars since ancient times. It is referred to by the Chinese as "the father of music" or "the instrument of the sages".

The instrument is ancient as I said, and is named after this fact. When the name is broken down to gu (old) and qin (instrument) it reveals the instruments antiquity. For those interested in Chinese philosophy the instrument is associated with the Chinese philosopher Confucius.

Here is some modern guqin musical pieces for you guys to check out:


This one is a piece called "Flowing Water" which was sent out on one of the Voyager crafts into deep space.


Qi



The game Go is a two player strategy game. As I said in my thread about desire in response to fschmidt about the game, it is a surprisingly complex strategy game, despite having very basic rules. It is defined as weiqi in Chinese, literally meaning "surrounding game" aptly named as this is the premise of the game, to surround the pieces of the opposing player until neither player can make any moves or until one player resigns.

The game is one of the oldest known board games, and like fschmidt's requirement for membership into his Arkian community, Chinese aristocratic scholars were also required to show skill at the game.

https://www.remi-coulom.fr/CrazyStone/ here is the link to a site where you can test your skills to become a member of the Akian community (or a Chinese aristocratic scholar ) his challenge is for players to beat the app on a board size 9X9 with komi 5.5 at level 14k using either color.

Here is a tutorial on how to play.


Shu



Another requirement for the aristocratic Chinese scholars was to demonstrate their skill in calligraphy, which was the visual art of the scholar expressing their poetic skill and having their thoughts immortalised as well as a signigicant test of manual dexterity.

Calligraphic process is also structured in the same way as weiqi. A minimalist set of rules conveys a system of incredible complexity and grandeur. Every character from the Chinese scripts is built into a uniform shape by means of assigning it a geometric area in which the character must occur. 

Only three basic forms are used in the creation of the character, those being square, triangle and circle. Each character has a set number of brushstrokes, none must be added or taken away from the character to enhance it visually, lest the meaning be lost. Finally, strict regularity is not required, meaning the strokes may be accentuated for dramatic effect or individual style. Calligraphy was the means by which scholars could mark their thoughts and teachings for immortality, and as such, represent some of the more precious treasures that can be found from ancient China.

@Lucas88, since linguistics and languages and writing are some of your greatest passions, what are your thoughts on the art of Chinese calligraphy? Don't you think in writing that Chinese characters are much more aesthetically pleasing than western written characters?


Hua

This is the art of Chinese painting. The Chinese aristocratic scholars were required to show their artistic skill and creativity, which was the greatest measure of individual creativity. Painting was the art by which a scholar could separate him or herself from the others and take a name.

@WilliamSmith (who I haven't seen for a while...) expressed in my thread on aesthetics (found here: viewtopic.php?style=11&f=32&t=45880) that he had a deep appreciation for Chinese painting. I will post some images below.






Conclusions

I think in conclusion the reasoning of both the Chinese aristocratic scholars and fschmidt having tests and requirements for those who wish to become part of the Arkian community or Chinese aristocracy is a very good idea. It's a good way of sorting the crop from the weeds, so to speak.

With regard to the Chinese aristocrats it seems creativity and intelligence were required and the demonstration of the skills of the individual would reveal that individual as worthy of becoming an aristocratic scholar in Chinese antiquity.

My personal thoughts are: why the f**k don't we have some similar tests for those who become members of government?! (Check out my thread on different forms of governance here: viewtopic.php?style=11&p=371536#p371536 this was one of the first threads I ever wrote and I'd love for some more ideas to be shared there) members of our current governing elite need only have rich parents or friends in high corporate positions and that's apparently enough for them to lead a country! What a f***ing joke. Now we have absolute idiots in positions of power, making important decisions and passing legislation which only serves corporate elites and f***s over the people.

I propose we have a ruling elite comprised of individuals who can pass certain tests which show they're qualified for the position! Tests similar to what fschmidt proposes and the likes of the ancient Chinese aristocracy!

I would add that instead of demonstrating knowledge of scripture, my personal prerequisite would be a demonstration of knowledge of wisdom, tests on philosophical concepts such as morality and ethics. (So similar to what fschmidt proposes, but not necessarily from a biblical scripture perspective. Knowledge and wisdom can be obtained from other philosophical sources.)

What about the rest of you? What tests would you guys propose? Some people I'm interested in hearing from on this topic:

@gsjackson and @publicduende

Also some of the other Christians are welcome to share their perspectives as well: @MrMan, @Cornfed and @Outcast9428

And because of their recent spat in the thread about modern China, I invite @MarcosZeitola, @HouseMD and @kukushka to share their thoughts on the ancient Chinese aristocracy and their prerequisite skills for membership.

Also, if anyone hasn't bothered to read fschmidt's Arkian Idea because he's always talking about exterminating everyone, I think you should at least check out his idea with an open mind. You don't have to be Christian to be Arkian, but just have knowledge of scripture. Here's a link to his writing, which you might be surprised to find some of it resonates. http://www.arkian.net/

[Lucas88]

@Lucas88, since linguistics and languages and writing are some of your greatest passions, what are your thoughts on the art of Chinese calligraphy? Don't you think in writing that Chinese characters are much more aesthetically pleasing than western written characters?

Hanzi are certainly aesthetically pleasing and make for great calligraphy but I don't think that they're necessarily more beautiful than the Latin alphabet.

The Latin alphabet looks quite clean and neat in my opinion and can actually look surprisingly exotic when it is used to write a language which has diacritics (accent marks) such as acute accents (á, é, í, ó, ú), circumflexes (â, ê, ô, etc.) or tildes (ã, õ, etc.) or special letters such as cedillas (ç) or carons (č, š, ž, etc.).

I especially think that Portuguese looks very beautiful with its diacritics. Portuguese uses acute accents to indicate irregular stress, circumflexes to indicate high vowels, tildes to indicate nasal vowels, and cedilla to soften c to an s sound before an a or an o.

Here is an example sentence in Portuguese with various types of diacritics:

Concepções de beleza visam captar o que é essencial para todas as coisas belas. As concepções clássicas definem a beleza em termos da relação entre o belo objeto como um todo e suas partes: as partes devem estar na proporção correta entre si e, assim, compor um todo harmonioso integrado. As concepções hedonistas incluem a relação com o prazer na definição de beleza, argumentando que existe uma conexão necessária entre prazer e beleza, por exemplo, que para que um objeto seja belo é necessário que ele cause prazer desinteressado. Outras concepções incluem definir objetos belos em termos de seu valor, de uma atitude amorosa para com eles ou de sua função.

The Latin alphabet is also a lot more practical and adaptable than Hanzi. You can use it to represent the phonology of just about any language with the help of modified letters. In fact, even the phonology of Chinese is sometimes represented with pinyin, a variation of the Latin alphabet with diacritics to represent the various tones.

Maybe I'm simply no longer blown away by the beauty of Hanzi like so many Westerners are because I lived in Japan for a while and can read Japanese and so for me the characters have been demystified. To me Hanzi/Kanji just look normal and don't look particularly beautiful in their everyday manifestation. I only find them impressive in their calligraphic representations, otherwise they are no more beautiful to me than, say, the Latin or Greek alphabet.

Just my views on the aesthetics of certain writing systems.

[fschmidt]

I would add that instead of demonstrating knowledge of scripture, my personal prerequisite would be a demonstration of knowledge of wisdom, tests on philosophical concepts such as morality and ethics. (So similar to what fschmidt proposes, but not necessarily from a biblical scripture perspective. Knowledge and wisdom can be obtained from other philosophical sources.)

For most of Chinese history, entrance into goverenment was based on an exam on Chinese classics particularly the Four Books and Five Classics. This is very similar to my test on scripture.

Wisdom cannot be tested because people disagree on what is wise. Only knowledge can be tested. Both the Chinese idea and the Arkian idea is to test knowledge of foundational texts. I am willing to expand the Arkian test to any foundational text of a successful culture. In the West, this is inevitably a religious text. If someone is interested in becoming Arkian and wants to add some other foundational text, just let me know.

Note that no western philosophical text is foundational for any culture. In fact most western philosophy is just crap. It all follows from Plato who reflected decaying Athens, not a rising culture.

[Pixel--Dude]

Hanzi are certainly aesthetically pleasing and make for great calligraphy but I don't think that they're necessarily more beautiful than the Latin alphabet.

The Latin alphabet looks quite clean and neat in my opinion and can actually look surprisingly exotic when it is used to write a language which has diacritics (accent marks) such as acute accents (á, é, í, ó, ú), circumflexes (â, ê, ô, etc.) or tildes (ã, õ, etc.) or special letters such as cedillas (ç) or carons (č, š, ž, etc.).

I especially think that Portuguese looks very beautiful with its diacritics. Portuguese uses acute accents to indicate irregular stress, circumflexes to indicate high vowels, tildes to indicate nasal vowels, and cedilla to soften c to an s sound before an a or an o.

Here is an example sentence in Portuguese with various types of diacritics:

Concepções de beleza visam captar o que é essencial para todas as coisas belas. As concepções clássicas definem a beleza em termos da relação entre o belo objeto como um todo e suas partes: as partes devem estar na proporção correta entre si e, assim, compor um todo harmonioso integrado. As concepções hedonistas incluem a relação com o prazer na definição de beleza, argumentando que existe uma conexão necessária entre prazer e beleza, por exemplo, que para que um objeto seja belo é necessário que ele cause prazer desinteressado. Outras concepções incluem definir objetos belos em termos de seu valor, de uma atitude amorosa para com eles ou de sua função.

The Latin alphabet is also a lot more practical and adaptable than Hanzi. You can use it to represent the phonology of just about any language with the help of modified letters. In fact, even the phonology of Chinese is sometimes represented with pinyin, a variation of the Latin alphabet with diacritics to represent the various tones.

Maybe I'm simply no longer blown away by the beauty of Hanzi like so many Westerners are because I lived in Japan for a while and can read Japanese and so for me the characters have been demystified. To me Hanzi/Kanji just look normal and don't look particularly beautiful in their everyday manifestation. I only find them impressive in their calligraphic representations, otherwise they are no more beautiful to me than, say, the Latin or Greek alphabet.

Just my views on the aesthetics of certain writing systems.

Thanks for your input, dude. You certainly know your shit when it comes to languages. More than me, that's for sure. I've never been able to speak any other languages, I can barely speak English correctly

I do think though that aesthetically the ancient Chinese writing style is very attractive. More so than western forms of writing.

What do you think to other ancient writing styles like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics or Sanskrit? If you had to choose one as a language spoken globally which language would you choose?

Do you have any other thoughts on the other arts of the four mentioned in this thread? And do you have your own criteria to join your own envisioned aristocracy similar to the ancient Chinese scholars?

For most of Chinese history, entrance into goverenment was based on an exam on Chinese classics particularly the Four Books and Five Classics. This is very similar to my test on scripture.

Wisdom cannot be tested because people disagree on what is wise. Only knowledge can be tested. Both the Chinese idea and the Arkian idea is to test knowledge of foundational texts. I am willing to expand the Arkian test to any foundational text of a successful culture. In the West, this is inevitably a religious text. If someone is interested in becoming Arkian and wants to add some other foundational text, just let me know.

Note that no western philosophical text is foundational for any culture. In fact most western philosophy is just crap. It all follows from Plato who reflected decaying Athens, not a rising culture.

Thank you for the links @fschmidt, admittedly I haven't had chance to check them out yet as I've been in the process of moving house. I will give them a look over though. As for the idea of some kind of testing to ascertain whether someone is fit to.lead or join a kind of aristocracy, I fully agree!

The problem with testing knowledge as opposed to wisdom is that knowledge is simply retaining certain information. Simply look at people today, many of whom have degrees in certain fields and think themselves intelligent because they have some knowledge in an academic field of study.

Wisdom encompasses things like knowledge, life experiences and judgement. Someone can be wise, but not have much knowledge in a certain area, whereas someone can be knowledgeable, but still be a complete moron. If that makes sense. I'm not arguing against knowledge though, I'm just stating that in modern society I've noticed that even people who are seen as "intelligent" due to degrees and such are still moronic imbeciles.

As for Plato, there are some of his philosophy which resonates with me, such as his Theory of Forms. This is all stuff I experienced when I tried psychedelic mushrooms.

A while ago I considered making a thread about Western philosophy vs Eastern philosophy with a poll, so I might still make that thread and see which is seen as more valuable by the members here.

@Lucas88
@fschmidt

I think intelligence is definitely something which should be demonstrated by any potential leaders or aristocrats in order to join. But how do we measure intelligence? Through testing knowledge, yes. But what else? I think intelligence is something that is broader than knowledge. We have to consider creativity, which is a good example of intelligence. Similar to how the Chinese scholars were expected to demonstrate artistic skill in both calligraphy and painting. Also musical aptitude as well.

But again, creativity isn't enough. What about emotional intelligence? Some kind of test of empathy or compassion? I think these are qualities of a good leader. Someone who inspires their people and rules with love and not through fear.

[Lucas88]

What do you think to other ancient writing styles like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics or Sanskrit?

Egyptian hieroglyphics are primarily a logographic writing system similar to how Chinese characters are. Each logogram represents a concept rather than phonetics and so you express ideas through pictures as opposed to spelling out the sounds of a word. Each logogram's pronunciation must be separately memorized. This form of writing system is supposed to facilitate more conceptual ways of thinking and allow for more fluid connections rather than getting caught up with phonetic representations. It is also said to be more conducive to "right-brained" thinking.

Sanskrit is most commonly written with the Devanagari script which represents the syllables of the language. The script itself looks aesthetically pleasing enough.

If you had to choose one as a language spoken globally which language would you choose?

Sanskrit

Do you have any other thoughts on the other arts of the four mentioned in this thread? And do you have your own criteria to join your own envisioned aristocracy similar to the ancient Chinese scholars?

I don't really have anything to add. Ability in a musical instrument deemed classical, calligraphy, painting and a game of strategy in conjunction with knowledge of esteemed texts and a body of sapiential literature seems like good criteria for admission into an aristocratic government.