The
“Understanding System” of Chu bang Fu.
About 25 years ago, when Chu was in Brazil working for a printing company, he experienced vividly how Chinese characters were much more difficult to manipulate in the printing process, especially after its computerization. He concluded that if this impediment was not overcome, characters will become obsolete and Chinese Culture will receive a fatal blow.
Chu noticed that what appeared to be the weak point of the Chinese language-i.e. its graphic nature, could in fact be a unique strength and resource that no other language had on the planet.
That’s how Chu started to analyze the shapes of thousand of characters and produced a classification system that, programmed on the computer, became the Cang Jie input method, with a typing speed equal to that of alphabetical languages. Chinese and computers were no longer incompatible.
In the course of this research, he discovered that most of the parts of characters that he was using as classification keys, actually contained the main meaning of the character. That is to say, the first unit -the "Head"- of the character could be used as a semantic-key in a classification system, while the rest of the character (often the phonetic component) would give indications about the "field of application" of the key component.
It appeared to him that about 500 of these “basic key parts” were “meaning modules” or “genes” representing fundamental concepts used not only in China but by humans in general in their inter-reaction with their environment. And, as these “meaning modules” were found in various combination with other character components to form all Chinese characters, it appeared to him that ,the Chinese language, properly classified in an order akin to the Yi-Jing theory, could be used, even better than alphabetical language, as a base for a computer Natural Language.
Joining this unexpected advantageous feature of the Chinese language together with the wisdom exhaling from the universal sources of Chinese culture and philosophy in order to create a benevolent “Understanding System” is the ultimate goal of Mr. Chu.
Chu describes his theory for such artificial intelligence program in two books :
1) “Engineering the Basic Elements forming Chinese characters”:
§ The Chinese original version of this book (漢字基因工程) can be downloaded by clicking here. The English translation will soon be completed. In the mean time, as a working document, the first 4 chapters will soon be downloadable from here.
2) The Nine Discourses on the Study of Wisdom Study "智慧學九論"
This is Chu's theory on the universe and make an understanding computer system:
In very brief: the theory assert that the universe is full of energy which, through the action of a unique type of force from pressure of the environing energy, is continuously moving and transforming into higher forms of energy, from particle energy to consciousness energy. Humans are also the result of this transformation and their further ascent to higher levels of evolution will depend on how they succeed to control the energies built up in their “core-self” and disregard individualistic profit for a fusion with the Entirety.
Download the English summary
ENGLISH SUMMARY (PDF 172 KB)We welcome any comments.
Chu Banfu and tai chi chuan energyà