In the book "The Three-Body Problem", Bai Mulin and Ma Gang have such a dialogue:
How long did it take you to sawn down this tree? ”
Less than ten minutes. ”
How old is it? ”
I don't know, count its rings. ”
I counted, three hundred years old, more than three hundred years, it was still the Ming Dynasty when it sprouted, how many winds and rains it has experienced, how many things have been witnessed, but you only sawed it down in a few minutes, you really don't feel anything? ”
What do you want me to feel? Isn't it just a tree? The most important thing in this forest is trees, and there are more old pines than it! ”
The original intention of this passage in the book may be to express the conflict between two civilizations - one more advanced civilization can take advantage of the other civilization for its own interests, or even exterminate the species, and the advanced civilization can easily establish a self-righteous and lofty values and moral standards for its selfish behavior, which can certainly justify its own civilized behavior. This phenomenon is not to be said to be universally applicable to the universe, even if it is the same earth, and the history of the development of human civilization has fully verified the selfishness and aggressiveness of this civilization -- is not the history of the development of the Western world the history of aggression and plunder of another backward civilization by an advanced civilization of mankind? The point is that Western civilization has so much introspection and self-blame until now? It's not that I'm relishing and complacent about this history.
When it comes to the clash between two or more civilizations, the question is too profound and complex for the writer to be able to convey the meaning and the reader to be in a fog. In fact, not to mention that analyzing the conflict between civilizations from the perspective of the whole universe like "The Three-Body Problem", even if it is only from the perspective of human beings themselves, it is a headache and a headache to avoid when examining the struggle of values and behaviors between different civilizations or between interest groups—people always deliberately avoid the entanglement of interests and conscience, and people are always unwilling to calmly face the selfishness and narrow-mindedness of human nature. Therefore, for the dialogue between Bai Mulin and Ma Gang in "The Three-Body Problem", the author does not want to analyze it too profoundly, so as to exceed his own depth and accumulation of thoughts, which is not only difficult to control, but "worrying about the new words". Let's detach myself from the content of "The Three-Body Problem" and just write a little daily perception from the content of the dialogue itself - this is inevitably taken out of context, but this may be more in line with the ideological height that my limited knowledge can reach.
So, what do you write about something ordinary? Let's write about the understanding of life.
Now that it has been developed, many anecdotes have spread very quickly. Therefore, it is common to see such news - "the angler caught a fish of several hundred catties", "who dug up a hundred-year-old He Shou Wu or ginseng", "* and picked a huge wild yam" and so on. Every time I see such news, I always feel a trace of regret: how many natural and man-made disasters have been avoided by such a life that has absorbed the essence of heaven and earth for thousands of years, and how much chance and luck this is. And then just like Bai Mulin in "The Three-Body Problem", "......."More than 300 years, ah......How many storms it has experienced, how many things it has witnessed, but you sawed it down in just a few minutes, and you really didn't feel anything? "Isn't it a shame that after hundreds of years of careful and difficult steps, it only takes a few minutes or seconds to destroy it completely? Of course, my thoughts are consistent with Bai Mulin's thoughts, which are based on the respect for life and the cherishing of a certain opportunity under the restraint of human nature and selfish desires. Ma Gang's thinking logic is more perceptual - "Isn't it just a tree? The most important thing in this forest is trees, and there are more old pines than it! "That's right, isn't it just a tree, I can cut it when I need it, isn't the tree just for cutting? And what is the difference between cutting down a tree that is three hundred years old and cutting a tree that is three years old? I don't care why I cut down a three-year-old tree and cut it down, but cutting down a three-hundred-year-old tree still needs to be brewed - is it a problem to cut down a three-hundred-year-old tree without any feelings? Although this logic of "demand is reasonable" is a little superficial and somewhat selfish and domineering, the key question is whether this logical idea is irrational? Not necessarily. Grabbing resources to survive is also a natural law of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Following the laws of nature as a guideline of action is itself a very rational way of thinking. And if we have to argue about respect for life, what about the 300-year-old tree and the annual sapling? Should the grass and ants everywhere be protected? This kind of selective respect is undoubtedly imprecise and even hypocritical. And if we choose to respect everyone equally, not to plunder natural resources, not to kill animals, how can human beings survive and develop? This concept undoubtedly does not stand up to scrutiny, and even some sanctimoniousness. Therefore, when we look at the same problem, we do not simply distinguish between "rational" and "emotional" methods. "Rationality" is to put our behavior under the control of the active consciousness, which is of course a higher level than the "instinct" that puts the behavior under the control of instinct, but many times this is also "taking off the pants and farting" or simplifying it into complexity and asking for trouble? It's like a man who is hungry and always has to eat. Do we have to collect and edit a piece of thought before we can eat? Even if we adopt the same rational way of thinking, the difference in value and aesthetics will determine the difference in their position, and we can only use the universal value standard of "the minority obeys the majority" to measure the right and right. But are universal values necessarily true? I'm afraid it's probably not possible - we don't dare to refute it openly, we just don't dare to be the enemy of the worldliness of the public. Therefore, from the perspective of logical rigor and understanding and expectation of the content of "The Three-Body Problem", the author feels that Bai Mulin's rhetorical question of Ma Gang's "Three Hundred Years and a Few Minutes" may not only want to express the superficial meaning of "respect for life", but may want to express "the cognition and thinking of the relationship between individual life and time, as well as a certain regular mechanism of interaction between individual lives and between individual lives and time".
Of course, there are two layers of connotation here, from shallow to deep. The first connotation is the most direct and obvious, that is, respect for some special living individuals. Those hundred-year-old tortoises, a few people-thick trees, and hundreds of pounds of big fish ......It can often make people awe and not bear to kill it. The news of those big fish and giant tortoises** being released after being obtained, and the strange flowers and trees being spontaneously protected by the villagers can often be seen in these years. Of course, we can often see those who take pictures to show off when they catch hundreds of pounds of fish, and we can often see the short** that is openly peddled when they dig up a century-old ginseng. By comparison, it is true that we cannot say that those who are caught and released are necessarily more moral than those who hunt or peddle, because it may not be a question of moral quality, but only a different concept of the treatment of animals and plants. Even if we have to regard "liberation" as some kind of concrete behavior manifestation of the moral quality of "caring for nature", it is actually difficult for us to distinguish whether those who release life really have the consciousness of "loving nature" in their hearts or whether it is simply because of superstition and speculative thinking - believing that long-lived creatures possess some kind of divine power, and killing them is not good for themselves. However, in any case, the author always believes that the realm and cultivation of those who "release" are indeed higher than those of "killing". Whether it is genuinely respectful of life or based on some kind of speculation, at least being able to restrain one's greed and sacrifice the interests that have fallen into one's hands is a great breakthrough in human instinct.
The second layer may be a little deeper. Its focus may no longer be on whether we respect or cherish certain special living beings—that is, we are not entangled in the question of "release" or "killing", nor on the life and death of individual living beings. It may be more about thinking about the significance of time to individual life, the mechanism of interaction between various life forms in time and space, how we view the interrelationship and primary and secondary positioning of various life forms, and the value and significance of life existence. These questions involve not only the objective field of natural science, but also the materialism and idealism of the subjective fields such as philosophy and theology, theism and atheism, etc., which cannot be summarized in just a few thousand words, nor can the author's limited knowledge be exhaustive, so it is better to give some examples that are not too appropriate to express these too abstract meanings. For example, we often rejoice that a long-lost dog has suddenly returned on its own, and secretly vow to treat it more kindly in the future. We are often thrilled by a carrier pigeon that travels hundreds of kilometers to return home with an injury, and we are deeply impressed by this spirit ......of life and faithFor animals, it is actually instinct to return home or return home, but we humans always like to give their instinct to a subjective spiritual belief, because this way of understanding may be more in line with our human value aesthetics. This kind of over-interpretation or imposition of a certain consciousness is of course idealistic and not objective, but this kind of respect and admiration, exaltation and admiration for life should not be all idealistic, and the psychological basis should probably be materialistic - any organic life form is less than a flick of a finger relative to the time of existence in the vast universe, and the longer the life exists, or the more unlikely it is, the more it is a small probability of existence, and the smaller the probability, the more worthy of amazement and cherishment; Does the whole process of the birth, growth and disappearance of any life follow some objective and determined laws and processes? This in itself is specious and difficult to determine: it is random and chaotic, and it seems to be predestined in the dark. This concept of time, rules, etc., is inherently materialistic. No one can answer these questions accurately, whether they are materialistic or idealistic, or what the answers to these questions are, but the relationship between different living beings (such as humans and animals) is entangled under an inexplicable mechanism of action, and human thoughts and perceptions are also born and developed under this entanglement. This feeling can only be understood, but not expressed. It's like the wind blowing on the face, but it's hard for you to answer the question of the wind on the face? Such an answer may not even satisfy you.
Finally, let's reminisce about the conversation between Bai Mulin and Ma Gang - the more profound the words, the more unreasonable, it may just be a superficial cup but no substantive connotation; The more people who perceive, the more they may not have depth, they may be in the wrong direction and ask for trouble. However, it is never wrong to constantly think and perceive, even if we temporarily find the wrong direction, even if we only add to our troubles. For example, now I am following Bai Mulin's words and thinking about it: Why did you and I meet? Did you meet me or did I meet you? Why does it take years for people to build a good relationship, but it only takes a few seconds to destroy a relationship......Ahh (*on the Internet).