Why is life happy without being disturbed by philosophy, I heard Professor Yang Lihua of Peking University say this sentence before, I think it is very reasonable and touching, because the more abstract we think, the less real perception of life may be.
Does the human experience of the world come from the mind or the senses? Many people think that it comes from the direct senses, but in fact it is not, and our experience of the world comes more from the mind.
As an example, when we are drinking a cup of coffee, are we drinking the coffee itself? In fact, not necessarily, what we drink may be petty bourgeoisie or quality of life, not just coffee itself.
When a child who does not have the concept of coffee drinks coffee, he can perceive the original taste of coffee, which is bitter and sweet, and once we have the concept of coffee, and this concept is linked to petty bourgeoisie, quality of life, etc., we perceive not only coffee itself, these concepts will reconstruct our experience of things.
In other words, our real experience comes from knowing and understanding coffee as a thing, not directly perceiving it.
This is what the philosopher Baudrillard said that what we consume is not the commodity itself, but the symbolic value of the commodity. Things are abstracted into symbolic symbols, and it is the symbolic value that determines our experience, not the thing itself.
The use value is simple and direct, but the symbolic value will be presented in a network of symbolic meanings, not alone, nor determined by our unique perception, it may be determined by the eyes of others, social values and culture, etc., and these symbolic values are precisely the result of imagination, the result of thinking, not real perception.
Therefore, to a certain extent, the higher the level of cognition and the richer the ideological concepts, the more likely it is to fall into the network of meanings constructed by symbols, and stay away from real things and real perceptions themselves.
Schopenhauer said that what really distinguishes people from animals is the strong ability to perceive, not reason, the ability to perceive is manifested as spiritual power, its abundance brings us the pleasure of experience, the stronger the perception ability, the greater the pleasure obtained, those who do not have any selfish desires to experience the world, through strong perception ability, to obtain joy and happiness, such as participating in valuable work, high-quality socialization, and warm family gatherings will also bring us happiness.
In fact, most of man's troubles are the result of thinking, not of perception. When we know a concept, a conclusion, and an idea, it is difficult for us to get rid of it and perceive things truthfully, especially when this idea is a kind of narrowness and prejudice, which often brings us pain and entanglement. For example, love is beautiful, until we take love as an object of thought, and find meaning and value in love, love becomes a kind of comparison, calculation, transaction, and utilitarian purpose, and love loses its original appearance.
So, how to achieve happiness? Returning to the real world and using real perception to build experiences may be a better choice.
Okay, that's all for today's topic, more exciting topics to discuss and philosophical speculation, welcome to join our cognitive evolution camp reading club, and we'll see you in the next issue.