I’ve been struggling with the same inchoate problem since early 2006. It appears to center on the meaning of the I Ching trigrams, but in fact the I Ching has only provided a form for approaching the problem. The interest I’ve have in the I Ching has been a by-product of struggling with this problem.

One thing I’ve noticed is that my interest in trigrams seems to move in step with my interest in pragmatist philosophy. I think what the trigrams mean is best accounted for in pragmatist terms. The trigrams are better understood in terms of how they are used than by what they represent. The use of the triads is unification and stabilization of the experiential flux. The trigrams are a typology of interpretive schemas used to unify experience.

This quote by C. S. Peirce always belongs with this diagram:

“Philosophy ought to imitate the successful sciences in its methods, so far as to proceed only from tangible premisses which can be subjected to careful scrutiny, and to trust rather to the multitude and variety of its arguments than to the conclusiveness of any one. Its reasoning should not form a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link, but a cable whose fibers may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected.”