User:GreySmith Institute/GreySmith Institute/new/Admin Lab/Naive Tactical 1

Naive Tactical Analysis Protocol
The I-Ching is a chinese Augary based on a 64 hexagram design, that was originally meant to be done with 12 sticks called Yarrow. It has also been translated to work with three Pennies thrown six times to form the patterns from which the hexagram will be built.

Of especial interest is the "Changes" that allow this Augary to predict situations that are changing.

It is based heavily on the concepts of Yin, or womanly essence, and Yang or manly essence. The details of setting up a prediction are made simple by the presence on the network of a free site, that lets you use computer generated random numbers to simulate yarrow or coins.

A Prediction consists of essentially 5 parts.
 * 1) The Hexagram for the present
 * 2) The changes where noted
 * 3) The hexagram for the future
 * 4) The Most Obvious influences
 * 5) The hidden Influences.

Essentially the "Throws" are used to define numbers which are built up from the bottom of the Hexagram. 6's and 9's are where all three of the coins have the same face, (In the case of coins) These are the change lines, and are assumed to change either from Yin to Yang, broken line to unbroken line, or from Yang to Yin, unbroken line to broken line. Each line of the six lines has a unique meaning, sets of three at the top and the bottom of the hexagram have meanings for the influences, and it is assumed that in the case of the changes, the current hexagram is the base case, and the future hexagram is the end case of the transition.

To add to the confusion, it is all written in early chinese proverbs which are not likely to mean quite the same thing to a westerner as they do to someone in China.

The value of such an augary lies in its pseudo-random nature and the tendency of the reader to read value into the predictions, from their own sub-conscious mind. Being written in Chinese proverbs is actually a positive factor in that it forces the mind to stretch a little further in interpreting the prediction.

Essentially what we are doing is using a heuristic based on random numbers to force the mind to do a better tactical analysis. But it feels like we are using the I-Ching to predict how the business will work, and so we can fool ourselves into taking the augary for valuable even though at some level we know it is just random.

To do a reading we must first express the reading as a question of the form will this be better, is this a good move, will this work, or some such question.

then we must have a system of evaluation for the answers we get from the Augary.

Obviously Obstruction as an influence is wrong. Less obviously, following and penetration are probably wrong More obviously Joy and Approval are right More obviously warmth and acceptance are right Danger and the unknown are probably wrong Productivity and creativity are right, and so on

Anything that says we will gain, is right The bigger the gain probably the better unless the changes sound a warning Anything that says we will lose, is wrong If it talks about a criminal it is probably wrong

Warnings may be good or bad, but are probably an indication of something only slightly wrong

Using an arbitrary system of judgements like this, it is possible to Optimize a plan to fit the current random selections by moving stuff around until it maximizes the gain predicted. This is by no means the last time we will tune the plan, since refactoring is expected, so it doesn't matter that we are working against a random solution set, what matters is that we stretch our imagination to find a solution that meets the random solution set, and still works for us. Essentially we ask an arbitrary question the Augary gives us an arbitrary answer which we interpret and use to decide to make arbitrary changes to an arbitrary plan, that we simply do not know enough to plan better. The result it often seems is a better plan with more tactical detail than the original plan might have had if we dealt only with what we knew. The planning prediction cycle can be fairly fast if we are planning on one screen and predicting on another.

example SRF Plan