(nameless, the origin of heaven and earth; Fame is the beginning of everything. )
The first chapter of Cool Laozi (17) Wittgenstein: Can't we live and experience death? 1、
First of all, this sentence is controversial, and it has been divided into two camps since the Northern Song Dynasty.
The sentences of the mainstream camp in academic circles are as follows:
Nothing is the beginning of the world. Yes, the mother of all things.
Supporters are:
Wang Anshi's Notes on Wang Anshi and Laozi (I)
Sima Guang's View of Moral Truth
Su Zhe's Lao Zi Jie
Yu Yue's "On the Scholars"
Second, the sentences of the non-mainstream camp in academic circles are as follows:
Unknown, the beginning of heaven and earth. Fame is the mother of everything.
Supporters are:
The official seal of Heshanggong is on the river.
Wang Bi's Notes on Laozi
Emperor's Moral Truth in Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty
Zhu's Zhuzi School
2、
I support the non-mainstream camp Why? Three pieces of evidence.
Evidence 1: According to grammar, the word "name" doesn't exist at all, so it can be directly pulled out and shot.
With Lao zi's unfathomable literary internal strength, you can write like this:
Nothing is the beginning of heaven and earth. Yes, the mother of all things.
Evidence 2: Lao Tzu said in Chapter 32 of Tao Te Ching:
"Tao is often nameless ... before it becomes famous." So anonymity should be Lao Tzu's original intention.
Evidence 3: The disjunctive syntax of "nothing and being" was initiated by Wang Anshi in the Northern Song Dynasty. That is to say, more than a thousand years before the Northern Song Dynasty, no one in Tao Te Ching had ever broken such a sentence.
Wang Anshi likes to be unconventional, not only in politics but also in literature. For example, when he came to power, he founded a school called "Gong Jing Xue Xin". Its main purpose is not to engage in scholarship, but to cultivate the implementers and successors of the new law, so his new learning monopolized the academic community for nearly 60 years. In other words, the reason why his works like to break the tradition and bring forth the new is to serve politics in the final analysis.
Later, Kang Youwei, who lived in the late Qing Dynasty, wrote the Textual Research on New Learning Pseudo-Classics with the same logic. It is the first thing to create momentum for the "Reform Movement of 1898" and the first thing to show off. It doesn't matter if the content is far-fetched, but it is only a political tool. From this we can infer that:
The syntax of "being or not" created by Wang Anshi is not credible.
3、
(1) Then why is "nameless" the beginning of heaven and earth? Because when everything in heaven and earth just grew up, the wisdom of ancient human beings had not yet germinated, and they could only live by instinct and had no ability of abstract thinking at all, so the "indescribable" state was the true face of heaven and earth.
Then why is "name" the mother of all things? In fact, if this sentence is translated into modern times, it means that "Ming" was pregnant and then gave birth to "everything" and became the mother of "everything".
That is to say:
First fame, then everything. No name, nothing. Everything is born in people's hearts because of its name.
Then, you must ask, if there is something without a name, doesn't it exist? My answer is:
"yes."
"Aren't you idealistic?" Whether this is idealism or not, I think it doesn't matter whether a person is "idealism" or "materialism". What matters is the process of thinking.
4、
We might as well think about such a question first:
What's the difference between a vegetable and a normal person?
First of all, explain:
The so-called vegetative state is usually defined as "persistent vegetative state" by the international medical community. Because people's cerebral cortex is seriously damaged, they are in an irreversible deep coma and lose consciousness, but the subcortical center can maintain spontaneous breathing and heartbeat.
Therefore, the vegetative state has completely lost its physical sense and self-care ability, leaving only the basic survival function, relying on the instinct of genes for metabolism and growth. Of course, there are also a few vegetarians who can perceive the sound with their residual hearing and then gradually wake up, but this is beyond my discussion.
After reading the medical statement above, I think you should have a less vague answer in your heart. Vegetarians have no perceptual ability, no thinking ability, only the instinctive will of genes. The great German philosopher Kant once gave this definition:
"Those things that do not depend on our will, but rely solely on natural will, if there is no reason, are called' things'; On the contrary, rational things are called people. " ②
If according to Mr Kant:
I'm afraid a vegetable can't be called a "person" because he has no reason and no thinking ability. He relies solely on the natural will of genes to grow and rest, which is equivalent to a plant or even a piece of wood.
Then please ask:
Our world, its scenery, music, food, emotions, everything that normal people can feel and enjoy, is it meaningful for vegetarians?
Or in other words, do we live in a perceptual world that exists or does not exist for vegetarians?
5、
If you say it doesn't exist. Well, there must be a lot of people pointing at your nose and saying:
You are an idealist.
If you say, of course it exists! After all, the vegetative state is in the same space with us, and the world we perceive is objective, both visible and tangible, but the vegetative state cannot perceive it. How can you say it doesn't exist?
Well, then, I have something to say:
You feel there because you can jump out of the limitations of a vegetative state and look at it from a higher dimension.
Then, compared with a vegetable, you are a person who has opened the perspective of God, and you can even say that you are a god. That is to say:
You answered this question by standing outside the boundaries that a vegetative person can think.
Then please ask:
Can we humans think about the world beyond the boundaries of the universe? Similarly, can we think about the time before the Big Bang, 654.38+03.8 billion years ago?
The answer is:
"I can't."
So I would say:
"Unknown, the beginning of heaven and earth."
It's not that I don't want to be named, but that I can't be named, indescribable and indescribable. Because we can't stand outside the universe and see our own world, and we can't think about time before it is born, just as we can't leave the ground by holding our hair.
In Wittgenstein's words, it is:
"Death is not a thing in life. We can't experience death while we are alive. " ③
Living and dying are completely different natures. You can't experience a completely isolated world at the same time. You can't experience death when you are alive, and you can't be resurrected after death. So this means:
Compared with God, or the mysterious origin of religion in the ultimate sense founded by all nationalities in the world, human beings on the earth are undoubtedly equivalent to 7 billion vegetarians.
In other words, the boundary we can think about is the boundary of our world. Then ask again:
Do we live in a world of subjective consciousness, or in a so-called "objective world" that can exist independently from consciousness?
I believe there are two ideas fighting in your mind now. Well, we will judge these two concepts in the next section.
References:
1, "Zhu Xiji? Volume 17? Reading Erchen's Remnants
2. Kant's moral metaphysical principle? Chapter two? From popular philosophy to metaphysics "
3. Wittgenstein's logic philosophy? 6.43 1 1》
Is materialism wrong in the first chapter of Cool Laozi (18)? Sakyamuni: Our heart is a "cup" and the material world is the "water" in the cup? 1、
We talked about in the last section:
The boundary we can think about is the boundary of our world.
So do we live in a world of subjective consciousness, or in a so-called "objective world" that can exist independently of consciousness? We might as well listen to the views of Buddhists again. Dharma, the first generation founder of China Zen Buddhism, has such a dialogue in Dharma disfigurement:
Someone asked, "The three realms are boundless. How can we avoid endless pain just by observing the mind? " Dharma replied: "Wrong! The three realms are not outside you, but inside you. " The man was surprised: "How can the Three Realms be in my heart?"
Dharma explained:
"The so-called three realms are three poisons. Greed is lust, and anger is lust. Mental disorder is colorless. If you can subdue the three thieves of greed and ignorance by cultivating your mind, you can jump out of the three realms and get rid of the suffering of the six divisions in the wheel of karma. "
From this conversation, we can see that the founder of Buddhism can be said to have directly picked up the golden hoop and broken the "appearance" of ordinary Buddhist disciples: those so-called three realms and twenty-eight heavens are simply things in our concept.
In other words, the three realms exist on the basis of "greed and ignorance" in our hearts, and they cannot exist independently without our subjective consciousness. So there is a saying in the Shurangama Sutra:
"All cause and effect, the world and dust are due to the heart." ①
It means:
Everything that happens logically has a cause and a result, from the world to the dust, it is the "heart" that makes the finishing touch and becomes a concrete, identifiable and nameable "thing".
That is to say, if you don't have a "heart" or you can "live without a heart", then cause and effect, the world and dust can't be called identifiable and nameable "things" for you. Just like without the sun and light source, there would be no darkness and shadow.
Make a metaphor:
The relationship between our "mind" and "thing" is equivalent to the relationship between "cup" and "water".
General materialists believe that:
Our heart is equivalent to "water" and matter is equivalent to "cup"; Our cognition is passive and a kind of thinking activity that conforms to things.
But Sakyamuni does not agree with this statement. He thought:
Our heart is a "cup" and matter is equivalent to "water"; Our cognition is to actively build a system and then make things conform to our thinking mode.
So, which statement do you think is more true?
2、
I think most people can't accept Sakyamuni's idea. After all, he didn't find the process of proof in Buddhist scriptures. So, we might as well think about a simple question first:
The so-called cause and effect, the world, and dust, what are the prerequisites for their existence?
Let's talk about cause and effect, which is cause and effect. Its main feature is that two things happen in time, so it is necessary to take "time" as the premise of existence. Then there is the world and dust, whose main feature is volume, so "space" must be the premise of existence.
That is, if we can prove:
Time and space are pre-existing cognitive patterns in people's minds, rather than objective existence in the material world. Doesn't that just prove that Sakyamuni's remarks in the Shurangama Sutra are self-deception?
That's right. How can we prove it?
First, let's imagine two different scenarios:
First of all, imagine a scene that has no space or time at all, but has concrete matter. Specific substances can be arbitrary, such as apples, bicycles, houses and so on.
Excuse me, can you imagine?
Second, imagine a scene that has no concrete matter at all, but has space and time.
Excuse me, can you imagine? In any case, personally:
I can't imagine the first scene at all, and the second scene seems to be imaginable.
If the second scenario can be imagined, it means that time and space first exist in our ideas and then are applied to the material world. Just to be clear:
This proof method of imagining two different scenes is not my exclusive originality, but an argument method put forward by Kant, a great German philosopher, in Critique of Pure Reason more than 200 years ago.
But I'm still not sure:
Is the pure void in our minds acquired through experience or brought by nature?
Therefore, Kant's argument method does not seem to be 100% convincing. Of course, he used another method, which was unprecedented. Like a dazzling lightning, it cuts through the night sky of philosophy, illuminates the future of western philosophy and completely changes the direction of western philosophy.
What method is this? Let's reveal the secret in the next section.
References:
1, shurangama sutra? volume one
Cool Laozi (19) Chapter 1: Kant's antinomy: Is space and time both finite and infinite? The third sentence:
㊣ nameless, the beginning of heaven and earth; Fame is the mother of everything.
(nameless, the origin of heaven and earth; Fame is the beginning of everything. )
1、
In the last section, we talked about:
Kant also proved in another way that time and space are pre-existing cognitive models in human mind. This method is unprecedented, like a dazzling lightning, which cuts through the night sky of philosophy, illuminates the future of western philosophy and completely changes the direction of western philosophy.
What method is this?
It is four famous paradoxes in philosophy. Strictly speaking, it is called four groups of "antinomy".
The so-called "antinomy" is:
There are two recognized laws that are correct, but at the same time they run counter to each other and contradict each other.
Here only say the first group (about the finiteness and infinity of time and space):
Topic: The universe has a beginning in time and a boundary in space;
Inverse question: The universe has no beginning in time and no boundary in space.
I have to say that these two propositions often appear in my mind and beat me from time to time, but I can't help it. Of course, I'm not the only one who can't help it, and so is Zhu, a master of Neo-Confucianism in the Southern Song Dynasty.
2、
According to historical records, when Zhu was five years old, he pointed to the sun and asked his father:
"What's attached behind the sun?"
The father replied:
"It's connected to the sky!"
Young Zhu stare big curious eyes, continue to ask:
"What was posted behind that day?" ②
This question directly silenced the learned father. Seeing that his father couldn't answer, Zhu Xiao Xi became more curious, thinking day and night, thinking hard, even thinking about tea and rice, which once became a disease and almost became his lifelong heart disease. Until his later years, 67-year-old Zhu was still worried about the question "What is outside the world?"
So, how did Kant unify these two contradictory propositions?
3、
This is his analysis. Let me say one more thing:
Because Kant's writing is too rigorous and boring, I decided to describe it in my own language, which may be different from Kant's original text, but on the whole it is absolutely in line with Kant's original intention and will not exceed the daily words of the general public.
Ok, let's look at the first proposition in the topic:
The universe has a beginning in time.
So let's reason:
Since time has a beginning, it means that there is a "period without time" before time appears. Because there is an end, there is a beginning. Only when this "time-free period" ends can time begin to run.
But the problem is that since there is no time in the period before the start of time, then this matter will certainly not change. Since matter has not changed, how can something new be produced and a new universe be born? In a word:
If time had a beginning, it would not have evolved into the universe, so-time has no beginning.
Ok, the first proposition is over.
4、
Then look at the second proposition:
The universe has boundaries in space.
So let's reason:
Since the material space has boundaries, it means that there is an invisible "empty thing" outside the tangible material space. Because there are restrictions, there are boundaries. Only this "emptiness" limits the material space, and the material space will have boundaries.
But the question is, since there is an invisible "empty" space outside the tangible material space, how can it limit the boundaries of the material space? Since "nothing" cannot limit the boundaries of the universe, won't the universe become infinite? In a word:
If there is a boundary in material space, it must not be restricted by "emptiness", so-space has no boundary.
It can be seen that it seems correct that we start from two topics, carry out logical deduction, and finally find the inverse problem (time has no beginning, space is unbounded).
So, is this really the case? We might as well continue to try to deduce the inverse problem in the same way.
5、
Let's look at the first proposition of duality:
The universe has no beginning in time.
Well, if time has no beginning and is infinite, it means that before our present, the past time is infinite.
But here's the problem. Since "the past time" is infinitely long, it will never "go" to the present. Since "doing" is less than the present, how can there be material and people? In a word:
If time has no beginning and is infinite, then the "past time" will never reach the end of the road of infinity, and there will be no our "present". So-time has a beginning.
You see, we can also deduce from the first proposition of duality that the first proposition of the topic is correct.
6、
Then look at the second proposition of duality:
The universe has no boundaries in space.
Well, if the universe is boundless, it means that every part of the universe is boundless. But obviously, this is impossible. Why? It's simple.
Because we humans and animals and plants, as well as mountains and rivers, the earth and the Milky Way, are all limited things. Can you form an infinite universe with limited things?
No matter how much sand is used, it is just a big desert; No matter how many deserts you use, the combination is just a super desert; How can you combine the boundless desert with the vast sand?
Finite things and infinite universe are two completely different things. Can you grind bricks into mirrors? Of course not.
In a word:
If the universe is boundless, then every part of the universe must be boundless. Excuse me, how can such a universe produce such a limited thing as "matter" So-the universe has boundaries in space.
You see, starting from the second proposition of duality, we can also deduce that the second proposition of the title is correct.
7、
Well, we just climbed up and down from Kant's antinomy, don't you think it's incredible? The same truth is both right and wrong, neither wrong nor right.
To paraphrase the Buddhist sentence is called:
"Right is wrong, right is wrong."
And have you found that these two propositions can be demonstrated endlessly, just like a cat biting its tail and turning in circles. So in the Buddhist system, Sakyamuni refused to answer such a question, so there is a famous tradition in Buddhism called:
14 are not recorded.
What do you mean? The so-called "no memory" means neither affirming nor denying. It means:
"In the face of fourteen questions of infinite loop argument, I just ignored them and smiled without a word."
More than 2000 years ago, the "Fourteen Wonders" of Buddhism included the question "Is time and space limited or infinite?". So why on earth is there such a contradictory paradox? Is it the problem of the world or our thinking?
We will reveal the answer in the next section!
References:
1, Kant's critique of pure reason? Part two? Volume two? Chapter two? The second part: pure rational theory.
2. Zhu Chuan in Song Dynasty
3. Zhuzi school? Volume 94 "
4, zhen "xishan reading secretary? Volume 3 1? Yi Bangjia's Chronology of Ziyang
The first chapter of Cool Laozi (20) Copernicus in philosophy: The world revolves around people's hearts, just as the earth revolves around the sun. The third sentence:
㊣ nameless, the beginning of heaven and earth; Fame is the mother of everything.
(nameless, the origin of heaven and earth; Fame is the beginning of everything. )
1、
As we said in the last section, the Buddhist "Fourteen Wonders" more than two thousand years ago included the question of whether time and space are limited or infinite. So why on earth is there such a contradictory paradox? Is it the problem of the world or our thinking?
In fact, the answer is obvious:
There is something wrong with our thinking.
The reason why we fall into the trap of "antinomy" is that we mistakenly regard time and space as objective existence independent of our subjectivity and mistakenly think that we can reflect their true colors with the critical eyes of "thinking". Only to find that:
Our minds seem to have met a "ghost", and we can't see each other's whereabouts even with our eyes wide open. I can't see whether space has boundaries or whether time has a beginning.
Why on earth is this? There is only one possibility:
In other words, time and space are our thinking itself and a part of our thinking.
Just like our eyes can never see our pupils, just like Tu Longdao can never cut his own blade. We can never measure the essence of time and the end of space by thinking.
So our "heart" is the cup, and all the material world we can feel is the water in the cup. As for the "water" that can't fit outside the cup, Kant calls it "the thing itself" (to some extent, it is equal to the "Tao" that Laozi said).
This is Kant's contribution.
2、
So Kant has a nickname called "Copernicus in philosophy", which was originally named by him in the preface of the second edition of Critique of Pure Reason:
Copernicus successfully proved that the center of the universe is not the earth, but the sun, and the universe revolves around the sun; Kant successfully proved that the subject of time and space is not the objective world, but people, and time and space revolve around people.
Yes, with this, Kant is definitely an epoch-making philosopher. I was going to write something to persuade Kant to lay low. After all, in Buddhist scriptures, his conclusion has long been common sense. But on second thought, forget it.
Because I found that neither the Huayang Sutra nor the Shurangama Sutra recorded the reasoning process of Sakyamuni about "three realms of idealism, all laws are known". In the Buddhist system, I'm afraid only Mahayana Zhizong, who developed in the later period, made a very detailed discussion on the nature of time and space, but contrary to Kant, Zhizong's conclusion is self-consistent, and they think:
The smallest unit of space is "infinitesimal", which cannot be subdivided. Converted into modern numbers, its length is about 0. 1 nm, which is equivalent to the diameter of atoms. The smallest time unit is "instant", which cannot be subdivided. Converted into modern numbers, the duration is about 0.0 18 seconds.
As for whether these two conclusions are scientific or not, I won't talk about them here for the time being. The question is, why did the original Buddhism refuse to answer such a question? I think there are two reasons:
First, people's acceptance is too low to understand such fine concepts and abstract reasoning. Second, Sakyamuni himself believes that even if you know these concepts and paradoxes, they are of no essential use to life.
Can you get rid of the "antinomy" and become a Buddha? I'm afraid not. It's just an argument As an absolute philosophical giant, Kant completed a great subversion in philosophy-"Copernican turn", but he is also an ordinary person in life, such as:
The neighbor kept a rooster, and he said it affected his thinking and had to buy it and kill it.
The neighbor planted a poplar tree, and he said it would affect his view of the scenery and let others cut it down.
It can be seen that Kant in reality is an ordinary person with more problems than ordinary people.
3、
So, we now know through the above argument:
Time and space are a set of cognitive models and thinking frames that we have brought into our brains since birth, which Kant called "innate perceptual form".
It's like playing online games. The sense of time and space is our natural passive skill, which can not be mastered by active learning the day after tomorrow.
So we know:
Our heart is like a cup, and the material world is like the water in the cup.
In other words, the shape of the cup determines the shape of the water. If you use an image metaphor to express:
The mother's genes determine the child's genes.
14、
Well, finally, let's do a simple reasoning:
Our minds are born with the concepts of time and space. Then, the existence of time and space makes it possible for a thing to move in time and space. Then, we have the concept of "cause and effect" and the consciousness of reasoning.
What is the essence of reasoning?
Yes, it is logic.
What is the form of logic?
Yes, it is language.
Therefore, Wittgenstein will repeatedly emphasize one sentence:
"The boundary of language is the boundary of the world." ②
So Heidegger will constantly declare a point:
"Language is the home of human existence. Without language, nothing can exist."
At this point, the truth is basically clear. Isn't the so-called language the name we give to everything and countless phenomena? Now, let's go back and read Laozi's sentence "It's called the mother of all things". Is there a problem?
References:
1, "Give up the theory completely? Volume 12 Maha Monk Law? Volume 17, the solemn classic of the party? Volume four? The twelfth of modern art "
2. Wittgenstein's logic philosophy? 5.6~5.62》
3. Heidegger's letter about humanism in 1946.
4. Is Heidegger on the road to language? The Essence of Language —— A poem published by the poet Georg in the issue of Art 19 19.
Author: Zi Xia Wolf, born after 90, the night is like ink, and the moonlight is like me.