The Philosophy Of Zhou Dunyi: Through The Prism Of Quantum Theory

Widely acclaimed as the founder of the idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming dynasties(‘lixue’), Zhou Dunyi and his thought were championed and popularised by Zhu Xi, and thereby played a pivotal role in the overall development of both Ruist metaphysics and Ruist philosophy more broadly. The doctrines of this very central figure, Zhou Dunyi, provoked widespread contemplation and passionate debate amongst the various schools of later Ruists, and that continues to this day. Despite the fact that his philosophical treatises were extremely short in length, Zhou nevertheless left a reasonably complete metaphysical system to posterity.Henry Stapp, a physicist who as a youth studied under some of the founders of quantum theory, proposed a quantum theoretic explanatory model which gradually took shape around the turn of this century, and has the action of consciousness upon the wave function at its core. The inseparability of subject and object, the unity of mind and matter, the holism of the universe, the effective agency of human choice and the indeterminacy of the future evolution of the universe-- in Stapp’s model, these and more questions of deep philosophical import receive treatment from a quantum theoretic point of view.With regard to the aforementioned questions, the final verdicts passed by both Stapp and Zhou display an extraordinary degree of similarity. For this reason, this essay seeks to: interpret Zhou’s philosophy and its metaphysical underpinnings through the prism of Stapp’s quantum theoretic model; describe the transcultural and diachronic affinity between the two; attempt to show the superiority of this prism as a tool for interpreting Zhou’s philosophy when compared to the paradigm of classical physics. In order to do so, this essay will focus on the exposition of Zhou Dunyi’s theories of the tao of tian, and the tao of humanity. Concepts belonging to the former include‘shen’, and ‘xingshang xingxia’; concepts belonging to the latter include ‘ji’, ‘cheng’ and ‘the continuity between the numinous and the human’. Respectively, we contend that:Shen can be interpreted as the uncollapsed wave function: in the words of Zhou Dunyi, “(it) moves and yet does not move,(it) is still and yet is not still”, “shen is subtle and cannot be perceived, it is ubiquitous and cannot be delimited”; in the words of Zhu Xi, shen is “shapeless yet governed by order”; in the words of Heisenberg, shenis “a tendency toward reality”. The xingshang can be interpreted as an ontological fundament both extant and dynamic, viz., the universal wave function which is influenced by human choice. The xingxia can be interpreted as the substantial manifestation of that ontological fundament which “cannot be depended on for constancy on the basis of conditional knowledge or calculation”. The relationship between xingshang and xingxia is bidirectional, which is in contradistinction to the transcendental ontological fundament which often appears in the western metaphysical tradition.Zhou Dunyi’s notion of a ji which is “moving yet formless, between existing and not”, can be interpreted as the interventions of human consciousness or intentionality into the quantum state during the critical period of choice. Stapp’s model proposes a potential mechanism for these interventions, takes the brain to be the node between the quantum and classical worlds, and further discusses the impact of the quantum Zeno effect on this process of ji. Human choice at this crucial process of “entry from non-existence to existing”, from the perspective of this quantum theoretic model, provides a basis for both Zhou’s doctrines of cheng and “the continuity between the numinous and the human”, and constitutes a contemporary explanatory model for interpreting these ideas.In summation, the thought of the Ruist tradition as represented by Zhou Dunyi and the worldview which is presented by quantum theory seem cut from the same cloth. The central participation of humans in physical processes is intrinsic to both, and in this age where determinism and behaviourism still flourish unchecked, Ruist thought and the philosophy of quantum physics should surely become interlocutors or even allies. This humble offering hopes to encourage the launch of this dialogue.