No text, but a visual code

[-JKP-]

You're right David. They thought about them differently and even though they were applied to many of the same things, they came at them from a different perspective.

I guess I should have said, "The western version of concepts of opposition and balance." The eastern notion was also of balance, not only of opposition.

Also, many of the western ideas were based on quantities of 4, 7 and 12 (not necessarily of 2), with four being very prevalent. The number three was especially prominent in many eastern cultures but less so in the west (at least in scientific circles, despite the idea of the Christian trinity).


Medieval Europe did divide almost everything. The entire culture was infused with the idea that the universe could be broken down into these basic units, wet/dry, masc/fem, hot/cold, etc. Stars, plants, personalities, anatomy. It's impossible to read a medieval manuscript describing the natural world without encountering it, sometimes on every page, sometimes in every paragraph, and also in many of the rota diagrams. Even if it's not explicitly labeled, the way they colored the rota was often based on these ideas, as well.