To: pogohere who wrote (84263 ) 12/8/2011 12:17:31 AM From: Joseph Silent Respond to Perhaps, just perhaps, Rumsfeld found the Cliff-notes version some 2000+ years later. If One of Chuang Tzu's continuing interests was the issue of the interchangibility of appearance and reality. He sometimes asks (almost in a Cartesian way), 'How can we be sure of what we are seeing? "Those who dream of the banquet may weep the next morning, and those who dream of weeping may go out to hunt after dawn. When we dream we do not know that we are dreaming. In our dreams we may even interpret our dreams. Only after we are awake do we know that we have dreamed. But there comes a great awakening, and then we know that life is a great dream. But the stupid think they are awake all the time and believe they know it distinctly. "Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamed I was a butterfly and was happy as a butterfly. I was conscious that I was quite pleased with myself, but I did not know that I was Tzu. Suddenly I awoke, and there was I, visibly Tzu. I do not know whether it was Tzu dreaming that he was a butterfly or the butterfly dreaming that he was Tzu. Between Tzu and the butterfly there must be some distinction. [But one may be the other.] This is called the transformation of things."
