If we examine the field of the eight trigrams of the I Ching (Chinese Book of Changes) and their relationship to brain function, we discover that the Mountain trigram appears to emphasize ego functions arising from top line yang and and the Left Hemisphere Frontal Lobe and its “interpreter” function rooted in the middle line yin particular fact orientation of the Left Cerebral Hemisphere and the bottom line yin information processing function of the cerebral cortex. Its opposite, the Lake trigram, appears to emphasize id functions, collective unconscious functions out of the parietal lobe and temporal lobe and occipital lobe sensory association areas (top line yin) of the right hemisphere (middle line yin) and their connections to the thalamus, hypothalamus, limbic lobes, ventral tegrmentum and reticulate system (bottom line yang neural energy processing).
These are the associations that are strengthened in dreaming and they complement the waking world of Mountain. Unlike Mountain, which is conscious and rises into the Sun, these belong to dreamtime and plunge deep into the water and mud of the Lake trigram. Just as Mountain is Mount Olympus ruled by Zeus, the Ego god, the Narcissistic elitist, and his paranoid wife Hera, so Lake is the universal collective unconscious ocean depth ruled by Poseidon, and the space time system tied to Demeter and her connections to Dionysus and madness and Persephone, wife of Hades, god of the underworld.
Mountain belongs to the Impressionistic temper of art that is conscious and careful and egotistic in its observations, looking at the world from its high peak. While Lake belongs to the various Post-Impressionistic schools from Fauvism and Primitivism to Surrealism, schools of art that develop the Symbolic aspect of the Romantic temper towards Expressionism, as they explore the depths of the collective unconscious realm.
The Earth trigram is yin in all its aspects. The top line yin of the association areas of parietal touch, temporal hearing, and occipital lobe seeing. The middle line yin of the Left Hemisphere language and fact centered thought system, the bottom line yin of cerebral information processing. This is the realm of the body and the physical objects it touches, sees, and hears. This is the realm of the Realistic Temper.
The opposite of the Earth trigram is the Heaven trigram that is yang in all its aspects, Right Hemisphere, Frontal Lobe connections to the reticulate system and the limbic lobes, particularly to the Nucleus accumbens and the dopamine neurotransmitter system that generates the phenomenon of craving. This is the realm of the Romantic temper. This is the energy that supports new endeavors, the will to power. If the Earth trigram is the body, the Soma, and the environment associated with it, the Heaven trigram is the power, energy and passion that drive and animate the body to succeed, to move, to feel, to explore the world. This is the libido that gives energy to the Id and to the body as a manifestation of the Id.
If Zeus and Hera rule Mountain and Poseidon rules Lake, Uranus rules Heaven and Hestia, Gea rules Earth.
The energy of the limbic lobes and thalamic and hypothalamic connections to the cingulate gurus, the energy generated by dopamine releasing neurotransmitters is controlled and focused by standards established in the Wind trigram, the parental voice, the Super-Ego that monitors the Ego, centered in top yang Frontal Lobes and middle yang Right Hemisphere and bottom yin cerebral cortex information processing. The Wind trigram rules the metaphor and meaning executive functions of the Right Hemisphere Frontal Lobes. This is the realm of the Classical temper, rule by Athena, goddess of wisdom and Hephaestus, goddess of skill. Athena rules the conceptual aspect of art and Hephaestus rules its skillful practice, thus ideal knowledge and ideal craft.
The opposite of the Classical temper ruled Wind trigram and the Right Hemisphere Frontal Lobes the execute its metaphors is the Left Hemisphere association area connections to the thalamus, hypothalamus, limibic lobes, reticulate system, etc. This is the realm of the Thunder trigram, of the Expressionist temper. It is the realm ruled by Aphrodite, goddess of touch and sexual stimulus, by Ares, god of warlike response, and Hermes, god of communication.
Associated with the Classical temper and the Wind trigram, is the Baroque temper and the Water Pit trigram. The Water Pit trigram unites the middle yang of the Right Hemisphere with the bottom and top yin of information processing in the parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes of the Right Hemisphere association areas. Water Pit is the place where the skillful actions of Hephaestus are guided by the space and time systems of Demeter in the Parietal lobes and Hestia in the Temporal lobes. Water Pit carries out the repression ordered by the Wind trigram Super Ego, symbolized by the capture of Demeter’s daughter Persephone by Hades, the wounding of Hephaestus, and the replacement of Hestia at the council of the gods on Mount Olympus by Dionysus. But, the real ruler of Water Pit is Chronos, or Saturn, and the Fates, the three spinners that control even the fathers of the gods.
The opposite of the Water Pit trigram is the Flame trigram and the DaDa temper. The Flame trigram is ruled by the titans and monsters out of Tautarus that threaten the order of the gods. The DaDa and Cubist art that assaults the order of the Baroque. This trigram is formed of the top line yang that is the Frontal lobes, the middle line yin that is the Left Hemisphere, and the bottom line yang that is the reticulate system, thalamus, limbic lobes etc. This is that area of the Left Frontal lobe cingulated gyrus that gives the Ego its feeling of Free Will, of the ability to control, to be indeterminate and free. Its connections to Mountain, to Mount Olympus, to the Ego are ruled by Apollo, the Ego as a focus of attention and Artemis, the wild background, the unconscious forces that support or thwart the Egos power.
We have a central core of information processing functions, Ego (Mountain trigram) in Left Hemisphere Frontal lobes connected to Super Ego in Left and Right Hemisphere executive functions (Wind trigram) connected to Right Hemisphere association areas and repression (Water Pit trigram) connected to the Body (Soma) and its environment as Earth trigram. The opposite of Ego and Mountain is Lake and the Unconscious (Id). The energy of the Id spreads out in various forms of libido. The life force itself (Heaven trigram) and its manifestation as the will to power (Flame trigram) and its expression in daily life (Thunder trigram). Water Pit attempts to repress the Flame aspect of this Libido. Wind attempts to control its expression in Thunder. Heaven attempts to give it the energy it needs to maintain life inspite of the resistance of Earth.
Now there are problems with this model, but in general it is functional enough to show some relationship between the tempers, the trigrams of the I Ching, and cerebral physiology and it would be possible to extend them to the metaphysical oppositions of Kant with the Ego as simple and the Unconscious as complex, the will of the Ego as indeterminate and the repression of the Unconscious as determinate, with the Super-Ego as necessary ideal being and the expressed libido as unnecessary excess. With the life force as infinite and its manifestation in the Soma (Body) as finite.
Metaphysics becomes a form of conceptual art (Earth) designed to display (Thunder) the structure of the assumptions that are necessary (Wind) to human neurology and human thought (Mountain), to show the box that we are trapped by (Water Pit) and the weak points where it might deconstruct (Flame). To show its mutant sources (Heaven) and their various recombinant forms (Lake).
These oppositions are subject to fuller refinements. The Wind trigram and the Classical temper represent the Air Element and have Neoclassical relations with the Baroque temper and the Water Pit trigram, Mannerist relations with the Heaven trigram and the Romantic temper and Renaissance relations with the Mountain trigram. Thunder is the opposite of the Wind trigram and Expressionism of the Classical temper, Happenings and Process Art are the relations of Expressionism with the Flame trigram and the DaDa temper and Process and Happenings are the opposite of Neoclassism. Naturalism represents the relationship of Expressionism and Thunder with Earth and Realism and Mannerism is its opposite. Fauvism represents the relationship of Expressionism to Lake and Post-Impressionism and Renaissance is its opposite.
The Flame trigram and the Dada temper represent the Fire element. Flame and Dada transition to Mountain and Impressionism through Abstraction and Minimalism. They transition to Romanticism and the Heaven trigram through Surrealism and Fantasy Art and transition to Expressionism and the Thunder trigram though Process Art and Happenings. The Fire Element and Flame trigram is the opposite of the Water Pit trigram and the Baroque temper. Process Art and Happenings are the opposite of the Neoclassical transition to Wind and Fantasy and Surrealism of the Barbazon transition to Earth and Realism. Abstract Art and Minimalism are the opposite of the Rococo transition to Lake and Post-Impressionism. Impressionism represents separate efforts by individual artist taking and analytic point of view toward their observations. The Post-Impressionist opposite in the synthesis of these individual points of view with fads, schools, movements, symbol systems and the aggregation of symbols rather than their separation and abstraction, thus, minimalism vs. rococo.
The Water Element and the Lake trigram and the Post-Impressionist temper transition to Heaven and Romanticism through Symbolism, the Baroque through the Rococo and the Expressionism through Fauvism. Mountain is the opposite of Lake, the Salt that dissolves in Water, and Impressionism of Post Impressionism. Neoimpressionism is the transition between Impressionism and Realism and Symbolism is its opposite. Abstract Art and Minimalism transition to Flame and Renaissance to Wind.
The Earth Element and the Earth trigram and Realism are the opposite of Heaven and Romanticism. Earth transitions to impressionism through Neoimpressionism and to the Baroque through Barbizon and to Expressionism through Naturalism. Surrealism is the opposite of Barbizon. Mannerism of Naturalism and Symbolism of Neoimpressionism. Thus, we have the twelve edges that frame the eight faces of the octahedron cube that is the eight trigrams and three yin to yang opposition of the I Ching.
The top yang line is creative and the top yin is imitative. The middle yang line is boundless totality and the middle yin is bound partial particular (many broken parts). The bottom yang line is fluid energy and flux and the bottom yin line is fixed information systems. These are the six sides of the cube of eight trigram corners, the vertex points of the octahedron of the eight trigram faces. So the Heaven Romantic trigram is the boundless total creative flux and its Earth Realistic opposite is the fixed information systems in a many parts imitation mode. The Flame Dada trigram is the many parts creative flux and its Water Pit Baroque trigram opposite is the boundless totality of fixed imitation. The Lake Post-Impressionistic trigram is the boundless totality of fluid imitation and its Mountain impressionistic opposite is the creative fixed information system of broken parts. The Classical Wind trigram is the Idealist boundless totality of creative fixed information and its Thunder expressionistic opposite is the many parts of fluid energy flux imitation. So Wind and Classical are principle and Thunder and Expressionism are entropy and waste. Heaven and Romance are limitless supply and Earth and Realism are limited product. Mountain is creative separation and Lake is imitative combination, the creative artist as impressionist and the imitative school of artists as post-impressionists. Dada Flame is creative fluid break ups and Baroque Water Pit is imitative fixed totalities. Revolution against Reason and Regulation.
This way of looking at things can be seen by referring to page 266 of the Bollingen Series of Princeton University Press volume, The I Ching, or book of Changes, Wilhelm/Baynes, which gives a translation of the Shuo Kua discussion of the trigrams and presents the trigrams in the “Earlier Heaven” or “Primal Arrangement.” This does not really give the true character of the trigrams because it is two dimensional, and the trigrams are really a three dimensional system in which each yang to yin opposition generates a new dimension resulting in a octahedron cube like the great pyramids of Egypt, octahedrons buried in hidden cubes, the Heaven yang aspect as triangular faces and the Earth yin aspects as square faces.
Even so, some notion of what is going on can be seen by the opposition of Heaven at the top and Earth at the bottom, Flame (Sun) on the left and Water Abyss (Pit, Well) (Moon) on the right. Lake changes to Heaven with a top line yang and Heaven changes to Wind by gaining a bottom line yin line and to Water Pit-Moon by gaining a top line yin.
Now we begin with the polar opposite of Lake, Mountain and change it to Earth by adding a top yin line and to Thunder with a bottom yang line and finally to Fire-Sun with a top yang line
If this were evolution, Lake would be the gene pool, Heaven mutation in the gene pool, Wind would be an adaptive peak, and Water Pit would be the mechanism that maintain that peak
Mountain would be the species isolation of adaptive phenotypes, Earth, and Thunder would be maladaptive expression, burned away, in turn, by natural selection in the Flame trigram, which is also the sun light of environmental change and competition (as opposed to moon and internal, tidal, feedback and homeostasis).