When you stare at the bright starry sky, when you look at the flowers, immersed in the realm of "people spend a long time looking at each other, speechless, intoxicated with early spring", when you are heartbroken by the indescribable beauty of girls, when you marvel at the mystery of life and the wisdom of human beings, doesn't the unparalleled wisdom of nature arouse your inner shock and awe?
Perhaps, the excess scientific knowledge makes you turn a blind eye to the things around you, thinking that science has completely exposed their secrets; Maybe you are busy and tired in the torrent of life, and have no time to see the flowers around you and the starry sky overhead ... In fact, there are countless beautiful things on both sides of the road of life, but we often forget to appreciate them in order to catch up with time. This is a pity. Then, let's temporarily abandon some "common sense", temporarily climb to the other side of life, re-examine the world, and reap the beauty and pleasure that should belong to us.
A drop of water can reflect the whole sun.
"A drop of water can reflect the whole sun" is just a common maxim, but it contains profound truth: the world is made up according to the principle of self-similarity or holography.
Everyone admits that nature is extremely complicated. But who would have thought that she actually composed music in the simplest way. The easiest way to construct a thing is to copy it according to a pattern, which is what nature uses. This method seems monotonous and simple, but nature has used it to create various miracles and create a colorful and vibrant world. This is the wisdom of nature.
The world thus constructed presents many magical phenomena.
A drop of water is just a tiny point in the universe, but it can reflect the whole sun. This means that the whole sun is "compressed" into a drop of water; Our eyes are only a few centimeters in size, but we can see the whole sky. Only by concentrating the information of the whole starry sky to every point in space can this be possible. So, when we face the dew on the green leaves in the morning, we seem to see countless suns dancing in the breeze; When we stare at the girl's eyes as clear as autumn pond, we seem to see an infinite universe.
Scientists used this principle to create holograms. Ordinary photos can't be recovered after being shredded, and the image is flat. Holography is different, its imaging is three-dimensional, and the objects are generally the same. If the picture is a dog's head, then the dog's head looks outside the picture. This kind of photo produces the same image as the real thing. If you look at the front of the photo, some scenes are blocked by the things in front, then you can see the things behind by leaning sideways and changing the angle. Another feature of this photo is that every part of it contains all the information of this image. Tear off its negatives, and each one can reproduce the original complete image. When the holographic film and holographic TV that scientists are developing come out, we can really experience the feeling of being there.
We originally live in such a holographic world, and people can see holographic shadows everywhere in their daily lives. The reason why we can watch TV and listen to the radio is that every point of electromagnetic waves carries all the information sent by TV stations and radio stations, so that we can see complete images and hear complete sounds in different places. In fact, at every point in space, there is information from all over the world and even the whole universe, but we can't feel it because it is hidden deep or weak. But as long as there is corresponding information display (such as astronomical telescope, TV, etc.). ), these information can be displayed. Therefore, we need to know the world without going out. As long as we translate or display the information in the surrounding space, the whole world and even the whole universe will appear in front of us. This is probably what Laozi said: "Don't go out to know the world, don't peek into heaven."
Not only in space, but also in time. Every existence embodies its own history, its own class history, and even the history of the whole universe. Each stage of historical development is precipitated as a level in the later and higher things in the evolutionary chain. Man is the highest level of evolution known at present, which includes all stages of evolution in the history of the universe. Neutrons, protons, atoms and other particles originally produced by the universe are the most basic substances that constitute our body; The basic unit of life is the cells formed in the early life; The process of human embryo development is the epitome of the whole biological evolution history; Our educational process is a replay of the history of human education, and every textbook is the condensation of the development history of this subject. The human brain also contains its evolutionary history, which consists of reptile brain, limbic brain (mammalian brain) and neocortex (the product of Neanderthal-Homo sapiens evolution stage). They correspond to the three stages of brain evolution, which are responsible for instinct, emotion and intelligence respectively. It can be seen that every paragraph in the development process of things is a microcosm of their evolutionary history. In terms of time, every moment of the universe contains everything in the past and everything in the future, because the present moment is a result of all the past times, otherwise it will not exist; The future depends entirely on the existence of this moment. If this moment disappears, the chain of time will be completely broken and the future will not happen. Therefore, the moment mentioned in Buddhist scriptures contains thousands of generations, and a moment is a thousand years, not religious nonsense.
Thus, every existence is a small universe, a microcosm of the whole universe. This is also the fundamental reason why organisms can be cloned. Because each cell of an organism already contains all the genetic genes or all the information of the whole organism, each cell can re-grow into a new individual. Cloning technology is not an invention of human beings, but a "technology" that nature has already skillfully used, because all life is naturally cloned. She cloned another cell from one cell and another life from one life. Every part of the universe also contains all the "genes" of the universe, and every substance contains all the attributes of the universe, that is to say, it not only contains all the discovered and undiscovered material characteristics, but also includes all life forms such as plants, animals and humans. As long as certain conditions are met, any substance will evolve various life forms from itself. From this point of view, a grain of sand is not smaller than the universe. As long as the conditions are met, a grain of sand can clone a universe, because our present universe is only cloned by nature from a cosmic "singularity" that is countless times smaller than sand.
Thus, a wonderful structure is produced: each layer of the universe is similar to another. For example, the eyes of the hippocampus consist of 29 spiral arms. Microscopically, we can find that each spiral arm is composed of a small hippocampus, and this small hippocampus is composed of a smaller hippocampus. Everything else in the universe is constructed in this way. The structure of galaxies is similar to the solar system and atoms, and the structure of human society is also similar to the solar system. Galaxies also have rings. Galaxies of different ages have different structures and shapes, while galaxies of the same age have similar structures and shapes. Those young galaxies show great vitality, while those ancient galaxies seem to be breathing sadly.
In this way, everything in the universe is independent and forms a whole. When I presented such a picture in my mind, I seemed to see everything in the universe dancing in harmony, and * * * played a cosmic chorus together. The song of this universe resounds through endless space and spreads through the ages. The notes of this universe are also beating in my heart and my little pulse.
We humans have dreamed of interstellar flight since very distant ancient times, and the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon is one of them. Although this dream has come true, it seems almost impossible to fly out of the Milky Way, because the universe is so big that we can't imagine it, which makes us shudder: even if we fly at the speed of light, it will take tens of thousands of years to fly out of the nearest place in the Milky Way; It will take 20 billion years to fly to the farthest place we have observed so far! Besides, as far as human science and technology are concerned, it is absolutely impossible to fly at the speed of light. The vast sea of the universe is always out of reach for us.
Facing mankind, I not only want to ask: drifters who have set sail and are ready to sail, where are you going? Are you going to travel to the depths of the universe? We also have an equally vast universe in our hearts!
Since we are doomed to never realize the dream of flying between galaxies, let us listen to the voice of the universe lingering in our hearts, the call from the distant universe, the breath from ancient times and the silent whisper from nature with sincere heart.
Everyone is sacred.
The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard said: "The whole existence surprises me. From the smallest fly to the mystery of God's incarnation as Christ, everything is difficult for me to understand, and the most difficult thing is myself. "
In my opinion, everything is mysterious and difficult to understand because of its holographic nature, that is, because of its infinity. Any tiny thing contains infinite information of the universe, and our knowledge is always insignificant relative to the infinite universe. Our limited knowledge can not only exhaust the big universe, but also exhaust those small universes, things we take for granted, such as a fly, a stone and even ourselves. What we see is just a bubble in the endless ocean of information. Even if it is a very simple thing, we can't exhaust all its properties if we study it further. What we know is only a tiny part of its infinite nature, and there will always be an infinite unknown ocean before us. Therefore, for us, any existence is mysterious, because we can never fully understand it.
Even, we know nothing about whether our knowledge is correct, because we don't know the relationship between our knowledge and the unknown world, the position of the known world in the unknown world, and the nature of the known world in the infinite world. Fundamentally speaking, what we call knowledge is just some nouns. People's cognitive activities are only naming activities. Things that we know already exist. We gave them a name, so they became knowledge, such as locust trees, parrots, atoms, the law of gravity and so on. We don't know what these things are.
From this perspective, the world is far from being as simple as what we see. It seems that the world only exists as the object we know, as people generally think. As the object we know, it is only a tiny part of the world, and that infinite world can never be the object we know, let alone the object we conquer. Therefore, the world is always mysterious to us.
So I advocate that agnosticism is the highest philosophy. What I mean by unknowable is absolutely unknowable, that is, the essence of the world, the meaning of its existence, why it exists like this, why it produces so many things, and why it has such a law, which we can never solve. Knowledge is only relative, and we only have relative cognitive ability, that is, what we know is only what our existing organs can recognize. If you change a set of other organs or look at other creatures, the world will be completely different. We can only live in the world we know.
Every creature is not only mysterious, but also sacred. It is sacred because every existence is the result of the evolution of nature for hundreds of millions of years and contains the essence of heaven and earth. There is an "anthropic principle" in cosmology, which explains the relationship between man and the universe: the reason why the universe has such a law and presents such a picture is because it is impossible for anyone to study the universe in other ways, that is, the universe is for the evolution of mankind and the universe exists for mankind. Astronomers use this principle to explain some physical laws, such as physical constants. The basic physical constants are as follows: c = 2.99792458×1010 cm. sec - 1，h = 1.054589× 10-27g . cm 2 . sec-65438+。 E =1.60219×10-19 coulombs, me = 9.10953×10-28g, MP =/kloc-0. Physical characteristic scale of everything in the universe, such as atomic size, atomic density, nucleon size, nucleon density, ionization energy, molecular interaction energy, etc. , are composed of these basic physical constants. People and everything else are just the result of coupling these physical constants. Any physical constant changes slightly, even if there is a change of 0.000000 1, people can't produce it, and neither can the universe. If the temperature is too high and the biochemical reaction is too fast, people's life span will be too short. If the temperature is too low, the reaction will stop and life will not exist. If g is too large, the sun will soon evolve to a high temperature stage, and there is no suitable temperature and enough time to evolve life and human beings; If g is too small, the sun can only be in a low temperature stage and life cannot be formed. Only by taking the existing value of g can we provide conditions for human evolution … and so on. All the laws of the universe and the earth just meet the conditions of human beings, so life and human beings were born. In other words, the reason why the universe takes the current value of physical constants is to meet the conditions of human existence. It can be said that human beings embody or contain all the laws of the universe.
This principle can be further extended to the multi-choice principle, that is, if you change the subject of observing the universe, it can be said that the universe exists for that thing. If it is a dog, it can be said that the universe exists for the appearance of dogs; Ants also have reason to say that the reason why the universe has such a physical constant is because of its appearance; Stone can also be said that the universe exists for it. Everyone can also say that the universe exists for me. Because, if the universe didn't exist like this, there wouldn't be me, ants, dogs and stones.
In this way, I am not me, and I (and everything else) am not an independent existence. I'm just the embodiment of all kinds of laws, and I'm just a work of art of nature.
Therefore, my relationship with the universe has become one: I am only a small part of nature, a tiny link in the cosmic chain; Similarly, I am not just made up of my body, but the whole universe. The universe is a part of my body, and the vast starry sky can be regarded as an extension of my body, because without the universe, there would be no me. So, to fear the universe and nature is to fear myself.
From this perspective, human beings have no special position in the universe. They are just an ordinary link in the chain of nature. Kant once told a fable in An Introduction to the Development of the Universe, which is very enlightening to read: those creatures who grow in the forest above beggars have long regarded their dwellings as a huge earth and regarded themselves as masterpieces of nature. Later, one of the naturally clever lice happened to see a noble's head. He immediately called all the funny guys in the house together and told them with ecstasy: We are not the only creatures in the whole nature; You see, this is a new continent, where there are more lice. From a natural point of view, we humans are no more noble than this louse. The only difference is that we humans are not lice on beggars' heads, but lice in the universe. Man thinks he is the spirit of all things. It seems that this view is not much smarter than this louse. At the banquet of nature, human beings are not special guests. Lice, flies, sand ... all have the same status as people and are indispensable. Every existence has its meaning, which is irreplaceable by other existence. Although we humans have more powerful abilities than other creatures, we can never experience the world experienced by ants. If other guests are driven away, human beings will also disappear from nature.
We often talk about those "low-level" beings in a dismissive tone, and often talk about other animals and plants as just a kind of food, as if nature created them for us to eat. This is really a blasphemy against nature, because they are also the embodiment of nature's wisdom! And from the perspective of evolutionary history, those "low-level" creatures and inanimate creatures are still our ancestors. Without them, human beings would not appear. Therefore, disrespect for them is disrespect for their ancestors.
Every existence-a fly, a flower, a stone, a grain of sand ... is sacred and worthy of our awe, because every existence is a masterpiece of nature, a crystallization of its wisdom, and contains all the secrets of the universe; The fundamental reason and significance of their existence is unknown to us. They always have countless unknown properties in them, that is to say, they are always mysterious to our knowledge. So, in front of them, what can we do except fear?
Human wisdom and natural wisdom.
People often oppose man and nature and claim to conquer nature. This is really arrogant, because in front of nature, human beings are always naive children, but he wants to be the master of nature! He is just an ordinary part of nature's body, just like a grass is just an ordinary part of her body, who is qualified to oppose nature!
If the wisdom of nature is the sea, then the wisdom of human beings is just a drop of water in the sea. Although this water drop also reflects the sea, it is not the sea after all. However, people want to use this drop of water instead of the sea.
Looking at this superficial performance of human beings, nature is bound to laugh to herself-just like a mother laughing at an ignorant child. Human works fly into space, opening up a microscopic world, so human beings are complacent and think they have uncovered the secrets of nature. However, from a natural point of view, the huge space where human beings fly up and down is not far away, just like the emu written by Kun Peng, between the Artemisia selengensis. Even from the development history of human wisdom, there is no reason for human beings to be too proud: compared with their ancestors, human knowledge has indeed made great progress, and it seems that they have the capital to laugh at the ancients; However, I don't know, for future generations, we are also ancients. Ten thousand years later, people will still laugh at us. Perhaps in their view, our scientific concept is completely wrong. In their eyes, our spaceship is just a very simple children's toy. The history of human cognition seems to be a history of correcting mistakes, correcting the mistakes of predecessors from generation to generation, so when we open the history of science, we will find that the history of science is just a history of making mistakes. Then, what reason and qualification do we have to laugh at the ancients and show off our cleverness in front of nature?
Man is an imitator of nature, but he imitates it badly. He invented various tools to dig out the treasures accumulated by nature for hundreds of millions of years-coal, oil, natural gas and other minerals. Mankind rejoices in these achievements. However, who can say that those messy mines will not be dug by humans themselves? Who can say that we are not on the road to death?
As the saying goes: decent people, decent people, villains often cut their mouths. So is wisdom. Little cleverness is arrogance, great wisdom is humility. Human wisdom is by no means the only wisdom in the universe, and it is far from the highest wisdom. What qualifications does arrogance have?
In the universe, there must be creatures that are far smarter than us in nature. Because "our" solar system is only more than 4 billion years old, intelligent creatures have evolved; The universe is at least 20 billion years old, and in those galaxies older than ours, more advanced creatures must have evolved a long time ago. The wisdom of these creatures is beyond our comparison. Perhaps, they look at us as we look at ants, and even the great people among us can't compare with them. The great poet Pope once said:
Everyone upstairs is watching recently.
People on the ground are acting strangely.
Someone has discovered the laws of nature.
Do such a thing
They are looking at our Newton.
Just like we're enjoying the bobcats.
Our Newton and Einstein, in their eyes, are clever monkeys at best.
Compared with the wisdom of nature, the wisdom of human beings is really dwarfed. Whether it's disgusting flies and mosquitoes or beautiful flowers and green grass; Whether it is the daunting starry sky or the insignificant dust, it is a beautiful work of art of nature, showing the profound and superb wisdom of nature. Nature has created such colorful life with "dead" substances, but human beings can't even create the simplest creatures. As far as we know, human itself is the highest embodiment of natural wisdom and one of her most outstanding works. There are more than one trillion cells in the human body, so many cells can not only coordinate with each other, but also have a unique and special division of labor, and each cell has its own specific work, which will never be confused, thus making the whole human body in a highly orderly state. In the past hundred years, although human cells have been replaced many times, this order will not change. Perhaps the most incredible thing is our brain, which makes people have emotions, emotions, thoughts, understanding and imagination. Nature also "understands" aesthetic principles, and applies various laws of beauty, such as symmetry and harmony, when creating everything and our bodies, so that human bodies and flowers present indescribable beauty. I'm afraid it is difficult to create such a person with all the wisdom of human beings, and it is beyond the wisdom of human beings to make those one trillion cells work together.
It may be meaningful for nature to create a thinking creature. In my opinion, the reason why the universe creates intelligent creatures is "for" self-awareness and "for" appreciating its own magnificent beauty. Man is the advanced stage of natural development, and man's wisdom is the advanced form of cosmic wisdom, and its advanced point lies only in his thinking, understanding and self-awareness. The wisdom of human beings and the wisdom of the universe are different stages of the same wisdom. The universe or nature sees itself through my eyes, expresses itself through my mouth, and says things that I wanted to say for hundreds of millions of years but didn't say. From this perspective, it can be said that my wisdom is the wisdom of nature, my understanding of the universe is the universe's understanding of itself, my thinking is the thinking of the universe, my pain is the pain of nature, and my laughter is the laughter of the universe. So people's little wisdom is also given by nature, not their own. He's just a tool for the universe to know itself. Therefore, people's misunderstanding of nature may be nature's misunderstanding of itself.
In this way, I am just a part of the universe, an organ, just like the brain is an organ of our body, and man and the universe are inherently one. The universe is a big life, and I am only a part of it. Then, let's love nature as much as we love our bodies.
Who says the universe is lifeless? The universe is a huge and eternal life. Isn't the eternal movement and evolution the embodiment of her vitality? If there is no life in the universe, how can a splendid flower of life emerge from it? Life is hidden everywhere in this universe, there are buds of life everywhere, and there are silent voices everywhere. Didn't you hear the cry of life in the stone? Didn't you listen attentively to the friendly greetings from distant galaxies?
Even those seemingly lifeless substances are a part of life in the universe and a form of life. Those advanced life forms are produced from this "dead" substance. In other words, advanced life, including us, is just another way of existence of matter. In matter, there are countless lives in deep sleep, and once they appear, they will wake up from their deep sleep.
Therefore, human beings are not alone. They are our brothers in the universe.
Therefore, we should no longer regard other parts of the universe as only the objects of our conquest, and other creatures as only our food. On the contrary, we should first regard them as equal lives with us, as creations of cosmic wisdom, and as exhibitors of the beauty of the universe. We should respect them first, just as we respect ourselves. To be afraid of them is to be afraid of the universe, nature and ourselves.
When we have to eat those "inferior" creatures, we should also be humane or moral to them, just as we should be humane to people themselves. When we eat other creatures to survive, we should not torture them, but let them die as soon as possible or as painlessly as possible. In this regard, there are a lot of extremely cruel and barbaric behaviors in human food culture. For example, frying live fish, drinking live monkey brains, scalding live dogs (boiling water into your mouth is said to make the best dog meat) and so on. They are also a kind of life, and they also have feelings and pains. How would we feel if someone treated human beings like this?
If it is understandable to eat other creatures for our survival, then another kind of human behavior is absolutely unforgivable: some people kill ants, frogs and other animals for no reason, or kill plants, which is not good for them. This is a very vicious act. You know, the life of ants is the same as our life, only once, and it is impossible to come back from the dead; You know, it also has parents and brothers. What would we think if a huge animal treated us as ants and whipped us at will, and our brother or parents were killed by him as soon as they went out and never came back? What's more, you died of a work of art that took billions of years for the universe to create!
Almost all religions teach people to fear the universe and life. The reason is that religion always regards everything as mysterious and incomprehensible, as the embodiment of natural wisdom and as sacred, so it deserves our deep awe. Buddhism teaches people not to kill, that is, to fear life. If a person can be kind to life and nature, then he is not a Buddha and is not far from it.