Shower Thoughts: Yin and Yang, Matter and Form

The topic of metaphysical gender has been something I’ve been starting to think about lately; I want to jot down a “shower thought” I had about it this morning. I have a lot of reading and studying to do in this area, and I know one particular source to investigate is Chinese philosophy, and especially Taoism.

The famous Chinese and Taoist symbol of the Taijitu is probably something most of us are familiar with:

It is a very rich symbol that brings to consciousness the dynamic cooperation of oppositions, polarities, and complements that inform the energetic flow of life. Interestingly, each pole contains a kernel of its opposite.

When we think in Aristotelian terms of form and matter, traditionally form is associated with masculinity and matter with femininity. There is something to the etymological excavation of the words associated with one another in this cluster of meanings. We have the English “mother”, the Latin “mater”, the Spanish “mamá”, the Russian “мать”, the Sanskrit “ma”, the ancient Egyptian goddess Ma’at, and so on, all sharing the “ma” root, like “matter”. In traditional metaphysics, the masculine gives form and the feminine receives form.

It is interesting to me, though, that just as the yin side of the Taijitu contains a kernel of yang, and vice versa, in the study of physical matter the distinction between form and matter takes on a dynamic image. That is, whether the object of study appears as form or matter depends on the level of magnification, an observation made by the great Alan Watts. At a certain focus the structure of an material really seems like a homogenous mass; at a different focus it appears as a repeating, crystalline pattern of discrete forms. So it goes all the way down to molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, photons (“masculine” particles when measured one way, “feminine” waves when measured another), and quantum events. Indeed, look closely enough and you end up getting the “spooky” phenomenon of non-local entanglement, suggesting a very deep union between discrete events within the field (masculine) and the field itself (feminine). I need to flesh this out further, but I think it’s an interesting line of thought.