Five elements, also known as the theory of five elements, is the basic way to understand the world. Through the evolution of Yin and Yang, the meaning of the five elements contains five basic trends: gold (for convergence), wood (for growth), water (for infiltration), fire (for disillusionment) and earth (for integration).
Ancient philosophers in China used the theory of five elements to explain the formation of all things in the world and their relationships. It emphasizes the whole and aims to describe the movement form and transformation relationship of things. Yin and Yang are ancient theories of unity of opposites, and the five elements are primitive system theories.
The concept of five elements began in Shangshu, which simply refers to five common natural substances: water, fire, wood, gold and earth. After the development and evolution from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Han Dynasty, on the basis of mutual development and mutual restriction, the elements of Yin and Yang, four seasons, five parties and five virtues were added to form a complete five-element system model.
Mutual development refers to the relationship between two things with different attributes that help and promote each other; Specifically: wood fire, fire produces soil, native gold, gold produces water, aquatic wood. Mutual restraint, on the contrary, means that the relationship between two things with different attributes of the five elements is restrained; Specifically: Mu, Tuke water, water, Huo, Jin Kemu.
Theoretical application of five elements;
The theory of five elements is the core of China traditional culture. Everything in the universe is composed of the movement and cyclic changes of five basic elements, namely wood, fire, earth and water, which is generally regarded as ancient naive materialism's philosophy. The theory of five elements was originally created by the working people in ancient China, and its brilliant philosophical thoughts played an extremely important role in promoting the development of science in China.
The essence of the Five Elements Theory holds that the world consists of five basic material characteristics: wood, fire, earth, gold and water. The development and changes of various things and phenomena in nature are the result of the continuous movement and interaction of these five different conditions.