With the different tasks of understanding the objects of the objective world, the required knowledge or the cognitive requirements for us are also different, or there are many levels of mental states in society, which can be roughly divided into the following three levels:
One is the level of life. The so-called "life level" is only able to cope with real life, also called the most basic, popular or intuitive, experiential level, which is characterized by the fact that the language used does not need to be strictly defined, only to seek a rough idea, and only to experience it in life practice. Therefore, anyone, including the illiterate, can live a normal life as long as they know the appropriate language. For example, counting "number" is a very common behavior in life, and everyone understands it, so no one among the "ordinary people" has ever asked whySimilarly, mechanical phenomena such as the principle of levers, friction, and the principle of lifting objects on inclined planes in life, as well as some abstract emotional concepts in interpersonal communication, such as "love" and "resentment", seem to be understood by everyone, but if you really ask why or ask for something to say something, you will be dumbfounded.
The second is the scientific level. To put it simply, it is to ask another "why" at the level of life, that is, to enter the scientific level. Its obvious feature is that it emphasizes the clarity of concepts, or the kind of inaccurate concepts that only stay at the level of life, which is no longer sufficient for reality, because science is an activity to explore the laws of nature, and "laws" are hidden in reality and abstract, which require careful observation and strict reasoning to be discovered;Obviously, this is not the case with an intuitive concept.
For example, since ancient times, everyone has known that boiling water has to boil, but only people with a certain amount of scientific knowledge know the "why".Although it seems that everyone is the same at the level of life, it is different in the mind of a "scientific person", for example, he can also ask him to increase the boiling temperature (pressure cooker), he can use steam to do work, and so on. Another example, the "solar terms" in the lunar calendar, from the perspective of the level of life, are nothing more than the meteorological characteristics that have been there every year since ancient times, like a cycle and a non-cycle, "Heavenly Dao", but in ancient times, there were more than that, so they entered the scientific level, and then accumulated through the times, and finally had an accurate lunar calendar and its "solar terms".In particular, there are not only big laws in solar terms, but also "small laws".
The third is the philosophical level, when the object of investigation transcends the material object of nature, including the material object to the appropriate level, it is impossible to only use the empirical method of the scientific level, at this time the thinking people often will neither give up, but will not retreat to the level of life, but directly do speculative **, although it is only a qualitative understanding, but the emphasis is on thoroughness, logical rigor, which enters the philosophical level.
Essentially, the above three levels come from the abstract spatial hierarchy. From the perspective of spatial level, the latter is higher than the former. In the meantime, the scientific level not only has the reality and practicality of the life level, but also has the profundity and rigor of the philosophical level, and has its most important "empirical nature", which is an important level directly related to the well-being of mankind. It may be said that it seems that the philosophical level should be lower than the scientific level, because it is only qualitative and not realistic;It's just speculation, not strict.