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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 6382843" data-attributes="member: 16760">Very well put!Quite right.  I remember how shocked I was when reading the Gord the Rogue books (hey, I was young - and no, I can't recommend them now) and the protagonists were promoting 'Balance' between solars and demons.  The sheer insanity of it took me aback.Sigh.  Like I said, the analysis is more difficult in this case. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I have degrees in chemistry and physics, so I'm aware of the information-theoretical issues...Cosmological chaos (or D&D chaos, if you prefer) is assuredly not deterministic chaos as studied by mathematicians.  It's more like entropy, regarded as a thing.  Which I'm not at all sure is really a coherent idea, but it does exert a powerful mythopoeic influence.  Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, and so on - we have to struggle to maintain the order we create.Of course this raises the painful fact that D&D chaos is not at all well-defined - what does 'love of liberty' have to do with 'entropy', anyway?I don't know nearly enough about eastern philosophies to comment in any substantive way here.  But while they emphasize balance in many different respects, do they really advocate balance between good and evil?  All the ones I have any familiarity with encourage good conduct.I can certainly agree that balance is an excellent idea in matters of ontological indifference.  That's just Aristotle's Golden Mean - virtue lies between two extremes, both of which are bad.  But Aristotle also said there is no mean between virtue and vice.  And while I could well be mistaken and am open to correction, I'm not aware that any eastern philosophers would fundamentally disagree.Even if they did in theory, it's hard to see how they could in practice.  Attempting balance between virtue and vice must inevitably lead to the ruination of any person or society that attempts it.Yin, after all, isn't *evil*, is it?  It's passive, cold, feminine - none of which are bad in themselves.It's interesting that you bring up Star Wars.  I hadn't thought of it in this light before, but you're right - the Dark Side is all about unbridled passions, lack of control.  It's the antithesis of balance.  Of course, Jedi philosophy is so utterly incoherent in so many different ways, it's probably best to leave it there. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />One might also add that the Jedi of the prequel films are so amazingly stupid, they probably would have been shocked to see the sun rise in the east...</blockquote>

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