The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[rikforto]

Far from conflating things, I am identifying the animating assumption that binds those four points together: You believe there are readable (Western) degrees on that diagram. I see you trying to move off this, but that was the thing that informed your reading, and it still animates how the parts fit together.

I will go through your four part division, but my contention is they are each undermined by two points of my own.

1. The 360-point division is ahistoric, especially, but not uniquely, if it is the (Western) degree. I do not see a need to recapitulate this.
   
2. The solar term is not a spatial unit prior to 1645. This second point was raised by you in a previous post, but the significance cannot be overstated. It was not historic practice to identify the solar terms with stars, but with fractional days.
   

As for your organization:

1. "Aries and Taurus are split in two halves of 15 "things" each." In isolation, the anomalous Taurus and Aires diagrams seem like a reasonable launching point and I will concede are the most grounded of the 4 points. But your argument they add up to a whole is predicated on the 30-point division. Western, not Chinese, astronomy explains this. You have been at some pains to say day counts don't explain this, which is the unit that the COT would predict in 1420.
   
2. "All the full diagrams have exactly same number of "things" (30)." This is the straightforward prediction of the assumption that the Western degree counts add to the size of the Western signs they count. Prior to 1645, solar months were irregular counts of days.
   
3. "The VMS year has 360 "things" -- not 365,not 365.25." This is a straightforward prediction following from assuming a Western origin. Specifically it may be paranadellonta, but it needn't be to be, you know, a great circle on a sphere like you already posit it is. In 1420, a Chinese solar year did not add up to degrees, but rather 365.2425 days.
   
4. "The Zodiac starts with Pisces, labeled February" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. albeit without a fully proved explanation. (Note the specific post, the topic of the thread, and the references to Jesus elsewhere in it.) This is the only one which requires substantial further discussion beyond the two points above. First, correspondence to the solar year predicts a January start for the Solar year prior to the missionary era. Your interpretation was a February start. Second, counting from Lichun starts the year in Aquarius, but the diagram indicates Pisces. Third, that counting not only runs into the problem again that it is ahistoric, but, fourth, it logically indicates the first Aires diagram is in Pisces and the first Taurus diagram is in Aires. Your interpretation was that these would match the solar terms and zodiac sign.
   

These points are self-reinforcing; the fact that the half-signs are measured in degrees is open to speculation that the degree definition of the solar term was anticipated, but the fact that assuming that leads to disaster when trying to interpret the calendar deeply undercuts it. The fact you have to get it through the door with speculation makes it all the more speculative when you try and rescue the failed interpretations by positing scribal error.

So I'm sorry, from what I can tell, there is nothing here that is both attested and from before the missionary era. The closest you get is the half signs, but you can only justify reading them as half signs by assuming a definition of the solar term that is 200 years too late and thoroughly Westernized.