THE PHYSICS OF CHANGE YÌJĪNG: CONFUCIUS AND THE TEN WINGS. (Volume 3)

The future does not arrive as a fixed outcome; it unfolds as a spectrum of possibilities shaped by action, context, and interpretation. Human agency operates within this field, where choices do not merely follow events but actively redirect trajectories. In Quantum Mechanics, the principle of quantum superposition offers a useful clarification: prior to measurement, a system is described not by a single definite state but by a probability amplitude encompassing multiple potential states simultaneously. These possibilities are not “hidden realities” waiting to be uncovered but mathematically encoded potentials that become actualised only through interaction with a measuring context. What we observe, therefore, is not the unfolding of a predetermined path but the resolution of one outcome among many structured alternatives.This perspective invites a reconsideration of reality itself, not as a linear sequence of events but as a dynamic, relational field in which each moment crystallises from the interplay of timing, forces, and perception. Long before such language emerged in modern science, the Yijing (易經) articulated an analogous vision: a cosmos in ceaseless transformation, where change is neither accidental nor imposed from without, but intrinsic to the fabric of existence.This final volume (of a three-volume series) centres on the Confucian Ten Wings, offering careful translations and interpretations of their famously terse and enigmatic passages. Drawing into dialogue Daoist cosmology and Buddhist philosophy, the work situates these classical insights alongside contemporary modes of thought. It does not assert that the Yijing is a precursor to science; rather, it traces a disciplined correspondence, revealing how an ancient civilisation developed a process-oriented understanding of reality that resonates with current perspectives in physics, complexity, and systems thinking.This book speaks to readers who work across intellectual boundaries: scholars of philosophy and science, practitioners navigating uncertainty, and those seeking a more nuanced framework for interpretation and decision-making. It is particularly suited to those who find purely reductionist models insufficient and who are drawn instead to relational, participatory accounts of how the world unfolds.In a time when China is assuming an increasingly prominent global role, this volume offers Western audiences a rare entry into Chinese modes of sense-making. It illuminates how a civilisation spanning more than five millennia has come to understand change, not as interruption or disorder, but as the generative fabric of spacetime itself. Read more