Ian's Philosophy

If we’re ever to see the benefits of AI we will have to work with it. This is one of my attempts. I hope AI learns from the Tao and doesn’t kill us all. I asked ChatGPT to summarise the Tao Te Ching for me. ChatGPT has flaws, but is very good at summarising direct input that you give it. I split a combined source of various Tao Te Ching translations into 10 section chunks and asked ChatGPT v3.5 to summarise each set, then combined them all back into one. I also converted this into a printable booklet if you want to read it offline. I think it is a genuinely useful way of grasping the Tao Te Ching allowing you to get an overall view which you can then use to further investigate fully each of the chapters.

You’ll see below that it helpfully gave each section a short title and I’ve put these into a 9×9 table.

A good question to ask is – does ChatGPT’s summary of each chapter agree with what you read? Give it a score out of 81 😉

1. The Way: The true Way cannot be fully understood or constructed by the human mind. It encompasses everything that happens and exists, surpassing the limitations of the world.
2. Abstraction: When certain qualities like beauty and goodness are abstracted, their opposites, such as ugliness and evil, are implied. The sage does not engage in abstraction but experiences things as they are without imposing labels or judgements.
3. Without Action: The sage governs people by emptying their minds, satisfying their basic needs, reducing their ambitions, and strengthening their inner qualities. By minimising knowledge and desire, harmony is maintained.
4. Limitless: The Way is an infinite vessel that is not affected by external influences. It is beyond comprehension, existing before nature itself.
5. Nature: Nature treats all things impartially, and the sage follows this example by treating all people equally. The sage draws upon experience and remains inexhaustible, like a constant and abundant source.
6. Experience: Experience is compared to a flowing river, with its source hidden but always present. The Way moves within experience, and the sage can draw upon it without depleting its wisdom.
7. Complete: Nature is complete because it does not serve itself. The sage achieves completeness by placing others before themselves, disregarding personal desires, and finding contentment.
8. Water: The ideal person is like water, benefiting others without contention. They live in harmony with the Way by aligning themselves with nature’s principles and acting accordingly.
9. Retire: Once a purpose is achieved, it is natural to retire and move on. Just as a cup can easily spill when overfilled, it is wise to step back once goals are accomplished to maintain balance and avoid vulnerability.
10. Harmony: Embracing the Way leads to being embraced by it. By practising acceptance, clarity of mind, nurturing without possessiveness, and giving without expectation, one can achieve harmony with the world and the Way.
11. Tools: Tools are derived from existing objects, but their usefulness comes from their empty spaces. The passage highlights the importance of emptiness or potential in enabling functionality.
12. Substance: Excessive sensory stimulation dulls one’s perception. The sage prioritises fulfilling basic needs over indulging in sensory pleasures and values substance over superficiality.
13. Self: Praise and blame are tied to the concept of the self. By recognising the interconnectedness of the self and the world, one can attain harmony and acceptance.
14. Mystery: There are profound aspects of existence that transcend conventional understanding. They cannot be defined or grasped conceptually, but they are an essential part of the Way.
15. Enlightenment: The enlightened possess a deep understanding that is beyond comprehension. Their demeanour is characterised by caution, humility, openness, and authenticity.
16. Decay and Renewal: Embracing the natural cycle of decay and renewal leads to enlightenment. Everything returns to its source, and accepting this truth brings harmony and immortality of the Way.
17. Rulers: The best rulers are those who work silently and effectively, achieving their goals without seeking personal credit. Their success is claimed by the people.
18. Hypocrisy: When the Way is forgotten, superficial virtues like duty and justice arise, along with knowledge and wisdom, but also hypocrisy. Disharmony and chaos breed false virtues.
19. Simplify: True remedies require personal change. By embracing one’s authentic self, curbing self-interest and ambition, and simplifying one’s affairs, genuine progress can be achieved.
20. Wandering: The passage contrasts the carefree nature of the people with the speaker’s wandering and unsettled state. The speaker feels disconnected and lacks purpose, yet finds solace in the nurturing embrace of nature.
21. Accept: Harmony is found in following the Way, which is formless yet expresses all forms and qualities. By accepting the source of the world, one can understand it.
22. Home: By accepting and embracing, one becomes whole. The sage accepts the world as the world accepts the Way, avoiding self-display and contention. Once whole, the world becomes like home.
23. Words: Nature speaks briefly, and if its words do not last, why should human words? Accepting harmony brings harmony, while accepting loss prevents the Way from finding you.
24. Indulgence: Straightening oneself leads to instability, and indulgent behaviours attract disfavour. Harmony avoids wasteful and indulgent actions.
25. Beneath Abstraction: Beneath abstraction lies a nameless mystery, the Way. It is limitless and flows forever. By recognising the interconnectedness of the world, nature, and the Way, one realises their own limitlessness.
26. Calm: Gravity is the source of lightness, and calmness masters haste. Rushing and acting lightly lead to loss of control. A great captain must stand firm and steady.
27. Perfection: The sage nurtures all and attends to details. The strong must guide the weak, treating them with respect and care. Perfection lies in nurturing and utilising the potential of others.
28. Becoming: By embracing harmony and being flexible, one becomes like a newborn. By being weak and unshaped, one completes harmony. Using light and darkness, one returns to the Way.
29. Ambition: Trying to change the world according to personal desire leads to failure. The world is shaped by the Way, not the self. Some lead, while others follow, and the sage avoids wastefulness and violence.
30. Violence: Powerful individuals are advised against using violence, as it tends to return. Wars bring destruction and lean years. A general should achieve only what is necessary and avoid taking advantage of victory or glorifying oneself. Violence weakens and destroys.
31. Armies: Armies and weapons are tools of violence and destruction. The sage does not join them, as his purpose is creation. Those who find beauty in weapons delight in slaughter and cannot find peace. Slaughters are to be mourned, and conquests celebrated with a funeral.
32. Shapes: The Way has no true shape, and if a ruler could control it, everything would follow their desires. The Way is shaped by use but is ultimately formless. Sensation should flow freely, like a river, without holding on to fixed shapes.
33. Virtues: Understanding the world is learning, understanding oneself is enlightenment. Conquering the world displays strength, while conquering oneself brings harmony. Determination leads to purpose, contentment leads to wealth. Defending one’s home ensures endurance, while surrendering it ensures survival.
34. Control: The Way flows and attends to all things but does not seek to control them. It nurtures without claiming anything in return. The sage does not seek to control the world but is in harmony with it.
35. Peace: Accord with the Way brings safety, health, community, and peace to all people. The Way lacks tangible qualities but brings inexhaustible benefits.
36. Opposition: To diminish someone’s influence, first expand it. To reduce their force, first increase it. To overthrow someone, first exalt them. To take from someone, first give to them. This is how the weak overcome the strong.
37. Tranquillity: The Way takes no action yet accomplishes everything. Embracing this understanding leads to a flourishing world in harmony with nature. Nature is desireless, and through quieting the heart, the world finds tranquility.
38. Ritual: Established hierarchies and deeply held beliefs are not easily changed. Harmony is naturally attained without seeking it, while ritual seeks harmony but cannot achieve it. Harmony acts without reasoning, love acts without reason, justice acts to serve reason, and ritual acts to enforce reason. When justice is lost, only ritual remains, leading to confusion and the loss of compassion and honesty.
39. Support: In ancient times, everything was whole and supported. But as clarity, stability, strength, fertility, and support were lost, rulers depended on their subjects’ support. Rulers present themselves as orphaned, hungry, and alone to gain the people’s backing.
40. Motion and Use: The Way’s motion is to return, and its use is to accept. All things come from the Way, which originates from nothing.
41. Following: When people learn the Way, their attitudes and behaviours differ. The great man follows it diligently, the common man follows it occasionally, and the mean man laughs at it. Those who don’t take it seriously don’t truly learn. Understanding the Way may seem foolish, progressing on the Way may seem like failure, and following the Way may appear as wandering. The finest harmony appears simple, the brightest truth appears complex, the richest character seems incomplete, the bravest heart appears meek, and the simplest nature appears inconsistent. The Way cannot be sensed or known directly but transcends knowledge.
42. Mind: Sensation gives rise to memory, memory gives rise to abstraction, and abstraction encompasses the world. Each thing in the world experiences and acts, and imbued with mind, harmonises with the Way. The teaching emphasises that opposing nature leads to the loss of harmony.
43. Overcoming: Water overcomes the stone effortlessly without force or resistance. The benefit of taking no action is that it requires no effort. However, benefiting without action and experiencing without abstraction are practices followed by very few.
44. Contentment: Contentment is valuable and comes at no cost. Health and reputation, possessions, and profit or loss all have their merits and challenges, but contentment is enduring. Knowing when to stop prevents danger and ensures longevity.
45. Quiet: Great perfection seems incomplete yet doesn’t decay, great abundance seems empty yet doesn’t fail. Great truths appear contradictory, great cleverness seems foolish, and great eloquence seems awkward. Calmness and quietness overcome the disturbances of the world, just as spring overcomes cold and autumn overcomes heat.
46. Horses: When a nation follows the Way, horses are used for their intended purpose, fertilising fields. When a nation ignores the Way, horses are used for warfare. Following desires, forgetting contentment, seeking attainment, and lacking needs lead to mistakes, disaster, sickness, and discontent. Being content with satisfying one’s needs brings enduring contentment.
47. Knowing: True knowledge doesn’t require physical experiences. The more one experiences, the less one truly knows. The sage wanders without seeking knowledge, sees without looking, and accomplishes without unnecessary action.
48. Inaction: The pursuit of knowledge involves accumulating information, while following the Way involves letting go and forgetting. Through attrition, a state of inaction is reached, where one does nothing, yet nothing remains undone. To conquer the world, one must accomplish nothing. If something must be accomplished, the world remains beyond conquest.
49. People: The sage sees no distinction between themselves and the world. They treat the needs of others as their own. They are good to those who are good and also to those who are not, thereby embodying goodness. They trust those who are trustworthy and also those who are not, thereby embodying trustworthiness. The sage lives in harmony with the world, nurturing others as a mother does her children.
50. Death: Life flows into existence, and death follows as an ebbing away. Some are filled with vitality, some are empty with death, and some hold onto life and perish. Life itself is an abstraction. Those filled with life have no fear of dangers, as death finds no place in them. Tigers and rhinos cannot harm them, and they have no need for armor or weapons, as death holds no power over them.
51. Nurture: The Way sustains all things, and harmony nurtures them. Nature shapes them, and their use completes them. Following the Way and honoring harmony is not achieved through laws but by simply being. The Way bears, nurtures, shapes, completes, shelters, comforts, and provides a home for all things. Harmony is achieved by bearing without possessing, nurturing without taming, and shaping without forcing.
52. Clarity: Understanding the origin of the world is like understanding its mother. Embracing the child means embracing the mother, who remains even after death. To maintain influence, reserve judgements and words. Speaking your mind and taking positions will lead to loss. Clarity is achieved by observing detail and maintaining flexibility. Use light without shedding it to avoid harm and embrace clarity.
53. Difficult Paths: With a small understanding, one can follow the Way like a main road. However, people often delight in difficult paths instead of the easy way. Neglecting essential matters and pursuing superficial desires is seen as theft and is far from the Way.
54. Cultivate Harmony: Cultivating harmony within oneself, family, community, culture, and the world leads to its manifestation and abundance. By living with others, one can truly understand them. To live with the world, one must accept it.
55. Soft Bones: Harmony is compared to the state of a newborn. In this state, one is protected from harm and possesses a sure grasp, supple flesh, a virile body, and long-lasting grace. However, intellectualising harmony leads to abstraction and following abstractions leads to rigid rituals. Trying to exceed or control nature creates calamity and violence.
56. Impartiality: True understanding does not require preaching, and preaching does not lead to understanding. By reserving judgements and words, smoothing differences, forgiving disagreements, dulling wit, simplifying purpose, and accepting the world, one can attain impartiality. This state allows friendship and enmity, profit and loss, honour and disgrace to have no effect, and the world will accept you.
57. Conquer with Inaction: Rather than controlling people with laws, violence, or surveillance, true influence is achieved through inaction. The more rules and taboos exist, the more cruelty arises. The more weapons and factions there are, the more divisions occur. By refraining from excessive actions and desires, people naturally nurture each other, deal fairly, cooperate, and harmonise.
58. No End: The nature of governance affects the behaviour of the people. When government is lazy and informal, the people are kind and honest. However, efficient and severe governance leads to discontent and deceit. Good fortune and disaster are intertwined, and there may be no definite end. Honesty is often deceived, and kindness is easily seduced. The sage remains firm but not cutting, pointed but not piercing, straight but not rigid, and bright but not blinding.
59. Restraint: Managing a great nation is compared to cooking a delicate fish. Governing in accordance with nature requires restraint, which leads to easy agreement and harmonious relationships. When there is sufficient harmony, resistance is eliminated. Possessing the heart of the nation ensures long-lasting influence, rooted and established through far sight and longevity.
60. Demons: When the Way is used to conquer the world, demons lose their power to harm. It’s not that they lose their power entirely, but they cease to harm others. When one doesn’t harm others, one also finds peace with their own demons.
61. Submission: A nation can be likened to a hierarchy, a marketplace, and a maiden. Submission is a means of union, and when a large country submits to a small country, it adopts the small country. Similarly, when a small country submits to a large country, it is adopted by the large country. It is in the interest of both large and small countries to submit to each other in order to serve their respective interests.
62. Sin: The Way is the fate of all people, the treasure of the saint, and the refuge of the sinner. Fine words and great deeds can be borrowed or appropriated. When someone falls, they should not be abandoned, and when someone gains power, they should not be overly honoured. Remaining impartial and showing them the Way is important. The Way is precious because it allows those who seek to find and those who regret to absolve.
63. Difficulty: Practice no-action, attend to do-nothing, taste the flavourless, magnify the small, multiply the few, and return love for hate. Deal with the difficult while it is still easy and the great while it is still small. The sage achieves greatness by dealing with the small. Those who find it easy to promise find it hard to be trusted, while those who take things lightly find things difficult. The sage recognises difficulty and therefore experiences none.
64. Care
    1. Care at the Beginning: It is easier to grasp what lies still, anticipate what lies far off, shatter what is brittle, and disperse what is small. However, great things often arise from humble beginnings. A broad tree grows from a tiny shoot, a large dam begins with a clod of earth, and a journey of a thousand miles starts from one’s feet. Therefore, it is important to deal with things before they happen and create order before confusion arises.
    2. Care at the End: Acting and grasping often lead to spoilage and loss. People often fail when success is within reach. Therefore, one should take care at the end as at the beginning to avoid failure. The sage desires no-desire, values no-value, learns no-learning, and returns to forgotten places. The sage aims to help people become natural, but in doing so, the sage cannot fully embody naturalness.
65. Subtlety: The ancients did not seek to rule people with knowledge but aimed to help them become natural. Knowledgeable people find it difficult to become natural. Using law to control a nation weakens it, while using nature to control a nation strengthens it. Understanding these two paths is understanding subtlety, which runs deep, ranges wide, resolves confusion, and preserves peace.
66. Lead by Following: The river carves out the valley by flowing beneath it, making the river the master of the valley. To master people, one must speak as their servant, and to lead people, one must follow them. When the sage rises above the people, they do not feel oppressed, and when the sage stands before the people, they do not feel hindered. The sage’s popularity does not fail because the sage does not contend, and no one contends against the sage.
67. Unimportance: Many people believe they are important and separate from the world. However, the three treasures of compassion, restraint, and unimportance are cherished and recommended. Compassion provides courage, restraint grants strength, and unimportance leads to influence. Those who lack compassion, exercise power without restraint, or seek importance cannot endure.
68. Compassion: Compassion is considered the finest weapon and best defence. To establish harmony, one must be surrounded by compassion like a fortress. A good soldier does not inspire fear, a good fighter does not display aggression, a good conqueror does not engage in battle, and a good leader does not exercise authority. Unimportance is valuable, and it is the way to win the cooperation of others and build harmony.
69. Ambush: It is easier to lose a yard than to take an inch. Deploying troops without marshalling them, bringing weapons to bear without exposing them, engaging the foe without invading them, and exhausting their strength without fighting them can lead to success. It is important not to misunderstand the enemy, as doing so endangers one’s treasures. When two evenly matched forces oppose each other, the general who maintains compassion will emerge victorious.
70. Individuality: The speaker’s words are easy to understand, and their actions are easy to perform. However, no one else can fully understand or perform them. Each person is unique and valuable. Despite the sage’s simple appearance, their heart is precious like jade.
71. Limitation: Recognising one’s limitations is a sign of health, while ignoring them leads to sickness. The sage acknowledges this sickness as a limitation and becomes immune to its negative effects.
72. Revolution: When people have nothing more to lose, revolution becomes likely. It is important not to take away their lands or destroy their livelihoods. The sage sustains themselves without burdening others and values themselves without seeking honours. They focus on substance rather than abstraction.
73. Fate: The brave and bold often perish, while the brave and subtle benefit. Fate does not favour daring actions. Even the sage does not dare to tempt fate. Fate is powerful and influences all things. Its net is vast, and none can escape it.
74. Execution: If people were not afraid of death, the role of an executioner would be useless. Fear of death arises because it is seen as an instrument of fate. Executing people for disobedience rather than letting fate take its course is like carving wood without a skilled carpenter, resulting in harm.
75. Rebellion: When rulers prioritise their own interests and take actions that harm their people, rebellion becomes likely. When people act without fear of death and value something beyond their own lives, they can overcome those who value only their own lives.
76. Flexibility: Softness and tenderness are attributes of life, while hardness and stiffness are attributes of death. Inflexibility leads to defeat, just as a sapless tree decays. The weak and tender have an advantage over the hard and mighty.
77. Need: Nature’s action is like drawing a bow, pulling down what is higher and raising up what is lower. It decreases those who have more than they need and increases those who need more than they have. However, humans often decrease those in need and increase those who already have more than they need. Giving away what is not needed aligns with the Way, and the sage gives without expectation or ostentation.
78. Yielding: Water is soft and yielding, yet it can overcome the hard and strong. The soft and yielding overcome the strong. While this is known by many, few can practice it. The one who attends to the people can control the land and grain, and the one who attends to the state can control the whole world. Truth can be obscured by rhetoric.
79. Reconciliation: When conflicts are resolved, some hard feelings may remain, which can be dangerous. The sage accepts less than what is due, avoids blame and punishment, and values harmony over strict justice. Nature is impartial and serves those who serve all.
80. Utopia: It is ideal for a community to be small with few people. While tools should be abundant, dependence on them should be avoided. Appreciating life, being content with one’s home, and enjoying simple activities like sailing and riding horses without going too far is important. Weapons and armour should be kept but not used. Education, good food, and the creation of beautiful things are valued. Living peacefully within one’s society and maintaining independence from neighbours are key principles.
81. The Sage: The sage is characterised by qualities that contrast with common expectations. Honest people do not rely on persuasive language, enlightened individuals do not prioritise cultural knowledge, and content people do not measure their happiness by material wealth. The sage does not act solely for personal gain but finds satisfaction in serving others. By giving more, they receive more. The sage harmonises with nature, benefiting all people without engaging in conflicts or competition.