The world is viewed through Astronomy, Feng Shui, and Geography


Book Description

Prologue. Hegel regards the Absolute Spirit as continuously developing dialectically. Hegel\'s insight into the development process of the Absolute Spirit through the dialectics of contradiction and opposition is remarkable, but it is a mistake to think that all spirits and things undergo infinite development. The spirit of modern Western civilization clashes sharply with the cyclical thinking of the East with its linear thinking. As material civilization reaches its zenith, just as spiritual civilization declines, cosmic spirit repeats its advance and retreat. Spirits and things intersect, advancing and retreating, following a proud flow. Feng Shui is a metaphysics of the land\'s vitality and resonance, nurturing the vitality of the land and people. In the historical time and space of where one resides, one gains macroscopic insights of metaphysics on the shapes of mountains and fields, the direction of the earth and water flow, through the perspective of Feng Shui. By knowing one\'s own Five Elements and the regional Five Elements, one seeks the wisdom of harmony and balance in the foundation of life. In the expanded realm of life in the global world, one broadens the range and scope of one\'s own Five Elements by utilizing the Five Elements of each country. In a world that requires temporal, spatial, and structural perspectives, space and geography are important concepts for understanding the environment in which humans live and for finding their center. While historians view the world temporally, economists and political scientists view it structurally, but geographers view the world spatially. In an international environment of technological revolution and unending competition at the speed of light, a geographical perspective imbued with the contingency of space is the macroscopic reasoning power that organizes chaos. The world is viewed through Astronomy, Feng Shui, and Geography.




Understand the Abstractness and Concreteness of Money


Book Description

Prologue. Money governs our values and judgments, harshly testing our perception and weight of life. Without a philosophical understanding of money, passion for money falls into pathological obsession and distorts into neurotic greed. Based on the philosophy of money, if life is constantly filled with fantasy and investment, the journey of life as Homo Ludens, the playing man, begins. Understanding money, which is both a concrete object and an abstract symbol, widely and deeply, is not easy, but it approaches money through the philosophy, symbols, wars, worlds, and aesthetics of money. Based on the philosophy of money, we examine the concreteness and abstractness of money, focusing on substance rather than pretext, as the basis of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. With wisdom and reverence for both the concrete and abstract aspects of money, we affirm the beauty of life.




View England, Japan, and France through their movie stories


Book Description

Prologue. Romanticism despaired over the destructive and dark aspects of reason that became evident after the French Revolution of 1789. When radical and cruel reason shattered and collapsed all principles and orders, it bred a deep distrust and skepticism toward reason. Amid the ruins of the mind, Romanticism turned inward, seeking individuality and emotion based on self-confirmation and human instinctive desires. While Romanticism clearly emerged as a reaction against Enlightenment and Neoclassicism, it neither ignored nor rejected reason. Instead, it viewed absolute and universal reason as something that evolves with historical flow, perceiving society as an organism undergoing birth, growth, decline, and extinction. Just as Romanticism rebelled against the norms of the Age of Reason, scientific rationalism, and the Industrial Revolution, Realism opposed the exaggerated emotionalism and subjectivism of Romanticism. Focusing on the unpleasant and ugly realities revealed by the February Revolution of 1848, Realism aimed to objectify the lives of the middle and lower classes. It posited that uncomfortable truths are inherent in human conceptual systems and linguistic practices. Realism concerned itself with how things appear in order to view unidealized subjects and events. Thus, it attempted to depict and faithfully express facts existing in third-person objective reality according to secular and empirical rules, without embellishment or interpretation. This book approaches 15 films from the UK, Japan, and France through the intersection of emotion and thought. It contemplates the universal human emotions and experiences contained within the precarious spectacles of these three nations\' histories. By breaking free from prescribed emotional lines and the uncomfortable framework of fixed thought, this book reads the UK, Japan, and France through their cinematic narratives. Even when the film ends, it remains an unsettling stimulus with an unknown conclusion.




The power of humanities trivia


Book Description

Prologue. Homer and Hesiod, who encapsulated human desires and ideals, as well as human limitations and imagination, highlight humanity through their mythological elements. Unlike Bulfinch, who viewed myths as tools for Enlightenment teachings, Homer and Hesiod prioritize human values such as honor, courage, and labor. For them, the Greek human is a curious being, questioning everything and exploring to understand, embodying a fantastical race. They challenge the authority of the gods by integrating the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences into a systematic conception of knowledge. Stripping away the myths shrouded in clouds, they reveal the clarity of all concepts under the bright Mediterranean sunlight. Dutch historian Johan Huizinga also illuminated the dark ages with his work "The Autumn of the Middle Ages" (1919), encouraging a deeper perspective on life through the living humanities. Through humanistic thought grounded in history, we come to understand and engage with the world. By probing into humanistic questions and answers, we uncover symbols of play embedded in the twilight and moonlight, filling life with fantasy. The quality of fantasy is determined by the accumulated knowledge and intellectual capacity of individuals. When the journey of fantasy is beneficial and enjoyable, it transforms into genuine play, yielding riches for oneself and others.




Read the Economic Code of Wealth


Book Description

The daily average foreign exchange transaction volume in 2023, as announced by the Bank of Korea, is $65.9 billion. Excluding spot and forward exchange transactions, most of the transactions are conducted by forces aiming for currency speculation. Funds move at the speed of light, and if 0.1% of $3 billion moves, it results in a profit of $3 million. Due to financial liberalization through globalization, exchange rates are determined not only by the movement of goods and services but also by the flow of capital. International financial transactions precede trade transactions, and money exceeding fifty times the real economy seeks higher returns, searching every corner of the globe. As it becomes harder to find good returns due to overinvestment and overproduction, companies rely on 'technical trading' and 'momentum investing' for very short-term gains rather than investing based on long-term outlooks and intrinsic value. Thus, a financial crisis in a specific country spreads to our exchange rate fluctuations or financial crises. Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the asymmetry of information and the imperfection of markets. Market imperfections arise from game-theoretic environments caused by gaps in information, leading to interactions between uncertain elements in the understanding of markets and events. Our decisions, based on human knowledge, result in unintended consequences, but the amount of information gained from failure is greater than from success. Based on a philosophical understanding of wealth, we read the codes of the economy, amplifying the bidirectional feedback mechanism of error and recursion.




Implosion!!!


Book Description




Living in Heritage


Book Description

Yongding County in southeast China is famous for its large, multistory communal vernacular buildings known as tulou, translated "rammed earth building." These structures were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. Living in Heritage introduces readers outside of China to this classic example of local Chinese architecture in the context of contemporary heritage preservation and tourism. Focusing on the Yongding Hakka Tulou Folk Culture Village, which is part of Hongkeng Village, author Lijun Zhang examines the on-the-ground processes and effects of heritage-making, UNESCO-inspired tourism, and how locals negotiate the dramatic transformation of their daily, social, and economic lives. Within an age of cultural change beginning at the start of the 21st century, Living in Heritage explores how the tulou phenomenon as heritage has and continues to be transformed into cultural, economic, or political capital. Through her careful study, Zhang reveals how the blurring of formerly distinct domains—private and public, local and global—gives rise to a living museum that now relies on insiders and outsiders to preserve their way of life. Living in Heritage offers an in-depth ethnographic account of the people dwelling and working within traditional tulou architecture in the 21st century.




The Gift of Spirit


Book Description

In The Gift of Spirit Tina Coluccio chronicles her journey from heartbreak to healing, and spiritual illumination. In the process, Tina offers personal stories, accessible suggestions, and straightforward explanations of spiritual concepts to help readers cultivate more joyous, spiritually guided lives, no matter their circumstances. Before Tina was in High School, she lost her older brothers in two separate but equally tragic accidents and her father to disease – leaving behind Tina and her mother who both suffered from unimaginable loss and loneliness as a consequence. Tina’s mother never rebounded from the devastation of such loss, and she passed on when Tina was in her mid-thirties. Tina took a different more soulful path, turning her life from one of sorrow into one of hope, strength, and renewal. The Gift of Spirit meaningfully captures one woman’s inspiring grace during her darkest hours, and provides guidance for others to find hope and healing during their own.




Feng Shui: Teaching About Science and Pseudoscience


Book Description

This book provides a richly documented account of the historical, cultural, philosophical and practical dimensions of feng shui. It argues that where feng shui is entrenched educational systems have a responsibility to examine its claims, and that this examination provides opportunities for students to better learn about the key features of the nature of science, the demarcation of science and non-science, the characteristics of pseudoscience, and the engagement of science with culture and worldviews. The arguments presented for feng shui being a pseudoscience can be marshalled when considering a whole range of comparable beliefs and the educational benefit of their appraisal. Feng shui is a deeply-entrenched, three-millennia-old system of Asian beliefs and practices about nature, architecture, health, and divination that has garnered a growing presence outside of Asia. It is part of a comprehensive and ancient worldview built around belief in chi (qi) the putative universal energy or life-force that animates all existence, the cosmos, the solar system, the earth, and human bodies. Harmonious living requires building in accord with local chi streams; good health requires replenishment and manipulation of internal chi flow; and a beneficent afterlife is enhanced when buried in conformity with chi directions. Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on the proper manipulation of internal chi by acupuncture, tai-chi and qigong exercise, and herbal dietary supplements. Matthews has produced another tour de force that will repay close study by students, scientists, and all those concerned to understand science, culture, and the science/culture nexus. Harvey Siegel, Philosophy, University of Miami, USA With great erudition and even greater fluidity of style, Matthews introduces us to this now-world-wide belief system. Michael Ruse, Philosophy, Florida State University, USA The book is one of the best research works published on Feng Shui. Wang Youjun, Philosophy, Shanghai Normal University, China The history is fascinating. The analysis makes an important contribution to science literature. James Alcock, Psychology, York University, Canada This book provides an in-depth study of Feng Shui in different periods, considering its philosophical, historical and educational dimensions; especially from a perspective of the ‘demarcation problem’ between science and pseudoscience. Yao Dazhi, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China




The Conceited Soldier King In City


Book Description

A generation of weapons specialists returned to the city to find their childhood sweetheart, only to find out that her girlfriend was already someone else's. After going through so many humiliations, Qin Hao met the foreman at night. Elder sister, don't be afraid, come with me. Big brother Hao was powerful and domineering. Qin Hao began his new life.