**Links to**: [[Trypophobia]], [[Holes]], [[Xpectator]], [[Biology]], [[The Birth of Tragedy]], [[Biology]], etc.
 
>Theories pass. The frog remains.
>
>Jean Rostand, _Inquiétudes d'un Biologiste,_ (1967) 1973, p. 66.
 
# P̤̊i̤̊p̤̊å̤ P̤̊i̤̊p̤̊å̤
![[pipa pipa wikimedia.JPG]]
<small>Fig. 1. Pipa pipa, or: Surinamese toad, Naturhistorisches Museum, Braunschweig, DE, CC0 1.0.</small>
 
Thinking about [[Holes]]: planet Earth is, seen from here, now, probably one of the places where there are most holes, if we consider topologies such as [[The Human as a Torus]], or the structures on Pipa Pipa’s back, as holes (and therefore very much depending on how we understand the concept of hole, of course). If all structure—whether it be particles, objects, processes, etc.—can be said to hold a hole-like quality because of how it maintains spatiotemporal identity by self-relating, then Earth is not that special, it’s holes all the way down everywhere and anywhere.
> The pipes of earth, these are the hollows everywhere; the pipes of men, these are rows of tubes. Tell me about the pipes of Heaven. Who is it that blows the ten thousand differences, makes them their own, all of them self-chosen? What stirs these processes? _Zhuangzi_ 2:1.
add glass bead skull ref
add anthropic principle ref
add reza ref
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The other distinctive feature of Zhuangzi’s approach lies in his extension of this complex relativist orientation to discussing _dàos_ of language. These are social _dàos_ that are akin to a map’s legend. They add further complexity and dependence. Again, this is not to reject them, as much as to remind us of the plethora of possibilities. Graham interpreted a famous Zhuangzi trope (the pipes of _tiān_ [天 nature:sky]) as Zhuangzi’s way of positioning language as _tiān_ (natural) sound. And like social _dào_s, all of them are natural.
> The pipes of earth, these are the hollows everywhere; the pipes of men, these are rows of tubes. Tell me about the pipes of Heaven. Who is it that blows the ten thousand differences, makes them their own, all of them self-chosen? What stirs these processes? (_Zhuangzi_ 2:1)
Graham elaborates:
> These are apparently the holes in the heart through which thought courses and the mouths which utter it, so that the breath blown by heaven through the inner formations of different men issues in contradictory utterances. (Graham 1969:149; Ziporyn 2009 surveys five other interpretations)
Zhuangzi thus removes _tiān_ from the role of ultimate normative authority—the role it plays in both Mozi’s and Mencius’s side in the dispute. _Tiān_ cannot settle their dispute since it “blows equally out of both”. All social _dào_s that are actually available as choices are equally _tiān_ (natural). _Tiān_ (nature) generates _dào_s as it generates the _wù_ (物 thing-kinds (humans and other animals)) that find and follow them. The cosmos is the playground on which things interact, not the authority that tells them how to act. We self-realize (_zìrán_) one in the network of naturally possible _dào_s. _Dào_s are chosen from the menu found in nature, but none is nature’s choice for us—none of the _dào_s in nature is **the** _dào_ **of** nature.
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### Footnotes