Arificial Intelligence (AI) and Cellestial Intelligence (CI)

October 15, 2025

In the Ten Wings section of the Yi Jing - “Appended Remarks” (*Xici Zhuan 繫辭傳) it is said:

CHAPTER II. History of Civilization

1. When in early antiquity Pao Hsi ruled the world, he looked upward and contemplated the images in the heavens; he looked downward and contemplated the patterns on earth. He contemplated the markings of birds and beasts and the adaptations to the regions. He proceeded directly from himself and indirectly from objects. Thus he invented the eight trigrams in order to enter into connection with the virtues of the light of the gods and to regulate the conditions of all beings.

Therefore the great Book of Changes was created by careful observations of Heaven and Earth. So what was it exactly that the sage Fu Xi (伏羲, also written Fuxi or Paoxi 庖犧) was observing in Heaven and on Earth during his investigation of nature?

He was looking for patterns. Patterns that he used to "enter into connection with the virtues of the light of the gods and to regulate the conditions of all beings".

For example, by observing the night sky he probably noticed the endless procession of the constellations while the Pole Star (Beiji 北极, "North Pole") did not move at all.

The Pole Star was seen as the Great Ultimate (Taiji 太极), the unmoved mover, the supreme celestial emperor sitting in his palace (the Purple Forbidden Enclosure, 紫微垣) around which the entire bureaucracy of heaven operated, also as the central axis (Du 度) linking Heaven and Earth.

This pattern is established as a celestial archetype and applied to practical phenomena in social life (like the role of the ruler) or in Daoist meditation (as the inner axis of our spiritual being), it gave rise to the primary duality of the broken and solid lines (later represented by the concepts of Yin and Yang) in the Yi Jing, in the Mandala of the Luoshu (Luò shū Square 洛書) it was represented by the number 5, for example...

Similarly, Fu Xi must have observed important patterns on Earth, such as the life cycle of plants: their germination stage; their initial struggle to develop into viable life forms; their growth into full-grown plants; and their withering after producing seeds, which continue this cycle.

At the same time, he must have realised that all life on Earth and its patterns are governed by the energy received from the Sun — even the rain that fell from the clouds depended on the will of Heaven. The pattern of Heaven and Earth being inextricably linked was therefore established.

Hence the primary role and status of the hexagrams Qian and Kun.

The Yi Jing is the book of patterns. To help us, ordinary people, Chinese sages gave those patterns tentative names (卦名 Guà Míng) for each hexagram (卦象 Guà xiàng). Line text (爻辭 ; 爻辞 yáo cí) further elucidated on the deep meaning of those patterns expressed through the hexagrams.

The art of the Yi Jing divination can be understood as the art of matching patterns of someone's life (if the question asked has to do with someone's life) with the corresponding patterns of change in the Book of Changes, symbolically represented by the hexagram images. If one is not able (or willing) to look for and find those patterns the Yi Jing won't speak to him.

The purpose of consulting the I Ching is not to discover a 'fact', but to discern the pattern of the present moment: the point at which the unceasing flux of changes in the universe and in someone's life intersect.

By casting the hexagrams, one intentionally aligns with the cosmic pattern and receives a model that reveals the underlying patterns/principles (Li) at work in his unique situation. The hexagram judgment (卦詞 Guà Cí) and line texts are explanations of that particular Li, guiding the user on how to act in accordance with it to achieve harmony (to obtain good-fortune and avoid bad-fortune).

It is very hard to overestimate the importance of pattern recognition in the Chinese philosophy.

Li (理 Lǐ), translated as principle or pattern, is something that is inherent and immanent (original meaning of this Chinese character was grain or pattern in a piece of jade). Li is not necessarily transcendent in the Platonic sense (it does not exist in a separate realm like the Idea or Form (εἶδος - eidos; ἰδέα - idea in Plato's philosophy, which are believed to be the eternal, perfect, and unchanging archetype of which perceived objects are imperfect copies). For the Chinese Li, inseparably linked to Qi (氣 qì, or vital energy/matter), can be found in all things. Matter (氣, qì) gives form and concreteness; Li (理 Lǐ) gives structure and intelligibility.

Here is a question in comparative metaphysics: what do Chinese concept of Li (理) – “Pattern,” “Principle,” or “Intrinsic Order”, Plato’s Idea or Form (εἶδος / ἰδέα) and Greek concept of Logos (λόγος) – “Reason,” “Word,” or “Principle” have in common?

All three of them aim to explain the rational, intelligible order underlying reality, by positing that the invisible is governing the visible, and that change follows something that is not subject to change itself. They come in pairs and the Chinese have a word for it: 偶 (ǒu) as the "Pairing Principle", which is the glue that holds the Yi Jing together. Interestingly enough 偶 (ǒu) in modern Chinese also means coincidence, chance.

If represented by the Yi Jing trigram I would say that Li (理) would be the bottom line of the trigram, Idea or Form (εἶδος / ἰδέα) would be the middle line and Logos (λόγος) would be the top line in such trigram.

Another question: what do you call someone who is very good at pattern recognition? You call him or her an intelligent person. Effective pattern recognition is an essential quality of human intelligence.

What about machines - can they recognize patterns and learn from those patterns?

And after a long introduction finally we come to the core of our present subject of investigation: machine learning.

Well, it appears machines (computers) are increasingly efficient in recognizing patterns, learning from that activity and later even creating novel patterns when asked to do so.

By now you must have heard of and used at least some of the following: ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok, MS Copilot, Gemini...

It's been just a couple of years since neo-serfs got access to those technologies and it is quickly changing the landscapes in business, health, education, information acquisition etc. Let's not fool ourselves, if the average Joe has access to ChatGPT 4 his overlords have access to something 100 times more powerful (which they probably already employed to coordinate activities during the Covid pLandemic 5 years ago).

Today social media is flooded by basically two types of predictions about AI technologies:

1) One group of people is praising it and finding all sorts of ways how to use it productively and making tons of money along the way, and

2) The second group of people is predicting mega-doom-and-gloom: basically they think it is just a matter of days before AI wipes the humanity off the face of the Earth. In their estimation the AI menace will come to an inevitable conclusion: humans are just to big a liability for something so intelligent. Terence McKenna spoke about it, very eloquently, in 1998.

So really what will happen when one day (not so far in the future) machines become capable of spotting patterns which are way to abstract for the human mind to be conceived and processed? Will they (the machines) use it to our benefit or their own benefit (which may not coincide with our benefit)?

That is the question that does not have clear-cut answer at the present time, so for that reason I decided to ask the Yi Jing what will the development in the field of AI technology look like in the next 10-20 years.

Let's employ the Original Intelligence (OI) to answer the question regarding the terrestrial AI.