Xu Lingtai's Method of Reading Causal Arrows

Xu Lingtai’s Record of One Hundred Medicines from the Shennong Bencao Jing is used in this course to demonstrate how to extract causal chains from a master’s interpretation of the classics. We especially emphasize that modern AI systems are mostly probabilistic models and can easily err through correlation; therefore, when processing Chinese materia-medica content, the word causality must remain central.

The value of Xu Lingtai’s interpretation lies in extracting causal chains from brief materia-medica passages and checking them against classical rules.

Causes are often the invisible Yin side—Yin-Yang, the Three Yin and Three Yang, Five Phases, qi and blood, or zang-fu endowment. Results are visible manifestations—symptoms, effects, indications, and disease names. In organizing an ancient text, AI can be instructed to extract each cause → result arrow so that the Inner Canon rules used by Xu Lingtai become visible.

We demonstrate first defining cause and result, then asking AI to extract the reasoning logic for each medicine. Those inferences are then classified within the general framework of nature/flavor, form, clarity/turbidity, ascent/descent, and season. This makes it possible to see which “weapons” from the Inner Canon Xu Lingtai actually used when interpreting one hundred medicines.