How to understand the size of heaven and earth?

Yesterday afternoon, Professor Li Shuhua from the Department of Philosophy gave us a lecture entitled "Normative Transformation and Methodology Enlightenment of Contemporary Science", which should have ended on schedule at 15: 50. Professor Li gave us a lecture for three hours until 6:5438+07:00. Professor Li is full of energy, and her profound philosophy is no longer unfathomable in her eyes. On the contrary, her unique mastery, keen insight and creativity show everyone's demeanor and broaden our horizons. Although our professional research is not in the field of philosophy, these contents have immortal enlightenment to us. Maybe this is the real learning. Paradigm is one of the differences between science and non-science. We live in a sea of complex networks. Professor Li introduced the development process from dissipative structure theory to hypercycle theory to complex network, and the theoretical basis of fractal geometry, chaos, traditional Chinese medicine, generator theory and reductionism. Professor Li is very famous, and her explanation is as profound and convincing as China culture. The following content is taken from Professor Li's paper "The Logic of Generation and the Science of Connotation Value-Hypercycle Theory and Its Philosophical Enlightenment". Egan put forward the theory of hypercycle in 1970s. Different from Darwin's theory of evolution, hypercycle studies not the evolution law of macro-individuals, but the evolution law of micro-whole-"quasi-species" * at the molecular level. According to the hypercycle theory, the self-replicating unit (i.e. catalyst) as a "quasi-species" can not only catalyze the generation of similar cycles, but also couple these cycles into a larger cycle, thus further becoming a new larger cycle unit and giving birth to a higher level cycle. Supercycle refers to a two-stage or more catalytic cycle system. By analogy, an infinite self-nested cyclic growth system can be generated theoretically. According to the hypercycle mechanism, the evolution from inanimate to living is essentially a generation process, that is, the process of life occurrence and its completion. This is the process from instability to rebuilding new overall stability when the system is far from equilibrium. Different from the constructive whole, generation is not the combination of established "atoms" from entity to entity and from part to whole, but the process of information constantly selecting and organizing materials (information carriers), and materials are constantly born and died. The whole thus generated is not only irreversible in principle, but also irreversible (or irreversible in the classical sense). In order to clarify the difference between overall generation and composition, the author summarizes the mechanism or process of hypercycle into three main stages: self-selection, self-organization and self-stability: 1 Self-selection: that is, mutants with evolutionary advantages appear as accidental fluctuations and realize self-selection through self-replication. This self-replication mechanism is equivalent to "positive feedback" amplification. Through self-replication, information selection materials, the more mutants with similar functions are born, and they gradually gather, so that evolutionary information can be accumulated. Here, the emergence of mutant and its self-replication as a whole occur in an unstable state far from equilibrium, or the occurrence and growth of mutant is an act of breaking the original stability of the system far from equilibrium. 2. Self-organization: The selected mutants are functionally integrated through self-organization. Many selected mutants compete and cooperate with each other, and their functions are slowly coupled, and in the process, a negative feedback mechanism is gradually established, and finally an overall stable closed loop is produced. Obviously, the functional integration of several self-replicating units inevitably requires the establishment of catalytic links among all members, so that the mutant can become a whole through self-organization, thus entering a higher evolutionary level as a unit with greater circular functional integration. 3. Self-stabilization: In highly correlated tissues, the circulation of mutant tissues gradually stabilizes. Mutants can replicate, preserve, transform and transmit evolutionary information in new stable sequences. After multiple feedback cycles of causality, self-selection and organization, in the new stable sequence, the overall function of the system is constantly improved, information is continuously accumulated, and layers of transformation and transmission are formed, forming a multi-layer cycle with "long-range coherence". Finally, the whole system can grow steadily and evolve into a highly orderly macro-organization. As a scientific revolution, the most profound significance of hypercycle theory is that it introduces value into our basic understanding of nature for the first time, scientifically proves that the evolution of nature stems from valuable choices, and unifies the generation of facts and the realization of value in the same natural evolution process. The construction of science is based on people's understanding of nature. The proposal of hypercycle brings hope for mankind to build a science with intrinsic value. At this point, Bertrand's scientific turn finally has a further clear connotation: that is, from constitutive theory to generative theory; From exploring material entities to interpreting information carriers; From reductionism to "restoration theory"; From mechanical logic to life logic; From value neutrality to value immanence. Obviously, the science developing in this direction is contradictory to the current scientific basis, and it needs a new natural philosophy or metaphysics to open the way for it. "The light comes from the East and the law comes from the West." It is the thinking and questioning of these questions that makes the author suddenly turn to China culture. China's ancient natural philosophy and science are just a kind of value-based holism and generative theory, which will provide us with an important metaphysical foundation and wisdom enlightenment for trying to build a science with intrinsic value today and in the future. Tracing back to the source, Aristotle started from the exploration of "existence" and founded the "four causes theory". He formally adds materials to a thing, and external forces push the object to move to restore its natural position to understand existence and process. In essence, this is a manufacturing principle of mechanism or constructivism, which lays the methodological foundation of modern western science. Mr. Mou Zongsan pointed out: "China people don't understand' existence' and' being' (what is it), while China people talk about existence from' existence'." The author found that there was also a "four-cause theory" about existence in ancient China, and Laozi's "Tao Te Ching" profoundly revealed this point: "Tao gives birth, livestock morality, material shape and potential." (52) This is a generative theory of "four causes". Laozi regards Tao, morality, things and potential as the four major reasons for the formation of all things. Among them, "Tao gives birth to it": Tao is the origin of life, and the so-called "great things are done, everything begins", and the change of trunk roads represents the founding or original motivation of cosmic life; Virtue of Animals: Virtue is the carrier of life. As the saying goes, "It is best for Kun Yuan, and everything is born". What Kunde carries can be said to be the materials that preserve life and make life born. From the beginning, "Tao" and "virtue" are the source of life creation, or everything originated from "gan" and "Kun" of connotation value; The Shape of Things: Things make life tangible. It should be noted that China people take "Qi" as their material basis, and the generation of "Qi" is a process from intangible to tangible. Once gas condenses into things, it is naturally tangible; Therefore, shape and matter are inseparable. "potential life": since life has been born, it will naturally grow, thus realizing and eventually completing its own life. "Long-term cultivation, the poison of the pavilion, and its recovery. ..... is called "Xuande", (52) this kind of natural growth is the moral purpose of natural ontology. According to Laozi's four causes, before the birth of mankind, there was obviously a creative principle rooted in the universal goodness of nature. " The great virtue of heaven and earth is called "life" ("I"), and the value tendency of the whole universe is "life", and this natural value is the fundamental basis for us and everything today. Obviously, Laozi's theory of four causes is very different from Aristotle's theory of four causes. From the perspective of modern science, we can interpret "Zhi" in Laozi's four factors theory as information, thus explaining the hypercycle theory, that is, "Tao" can be interpreted as information creation, "virtue" can be interpreted as information carrier, "thing" can be interpreted as mutant, and "potential" is only "once-forever". Along this new road, we can further explore the understanding of change and its laws in China's culture and philosophy. "The name is Yi", but in the Book of Changes, it is changed to reference. If nature can choose, it prefers "good life" and "life" is the value of the universe-yin and yang are the Tao, people who follow the Tao are good, and successful people are also people. (copula 5) Inheriting the fundamental law of generation and keeping all things "endless" is the great virtue of heaven and earth. As far as the formation process is concerned, Zhouyi said: "It is easy to have Tai Chi, which means that two instruments are born, two instruments are born with four images, and four images are born with gossip." Laozi said, "Tao gives birth to one, two, three and everything." (42) Here, Tao is nothingness and the ultimate cause, and Taiji is the starting point or "source" of the creation of all things in the universe. It is worth noting that from the very beginning, Taiji unified the two opposing and complementary forces or trends of Yin and Yang into a "one" whole, and vividly expressed the dynamic relationship between Yin and Yang, which was mutually inclusive, rooted and nurtured. Therefore, "everything is born with one" (39) Taiji is not only the origin of everything, but also the universal law of everything. Everything makes the opposing factors coexist harmoniously through qi: "Everything holds yang as negative, and rushing qi as harmony." (42) The most basic law of generation: "One yin and one yang is the Tao" or "anti-Tao movement" (40) obviously follows dialectical logic. People in China say that solitary yin is not born, and solitary yang is not long. In my opinion, this law is the earliest generation law with information connotation, which is unknown. Interestingly, both Chinese and western science respect simplicity, while simplicity in western science refers to simplicity in logic or form, while China refers to "easy to understand" and "easy to follow". Simplicity is beautiful in the west, but it is very good in China. The so-called "simple goodness and virtue match". China's epistemology developed along the route of value-oriented practice and intuitive "inductive theory", which was naturally created by foreign teachers and the heart came from the inside. First, it emphasized the communication and correspondence between "virtue" in human mind and "virtue" in heaven and earth, actually controlled cognitive orientation with value orientation, and adopted a lot of analogical deduction methods. To sum up, China culture can not be separated from modern western mechanistic science. It can be said that the Book of Changes hindered the birth of modern western science in China. However, The Book of Changes gave birth to the unique generative science in ancient China. As a model to understand and explain the world, which is more reasonable, the metaphor of organisms and even life or the metaphor of machines? More important? This problem involves another major difference between Chinese and western science. Besides, are there any differences in the research level between the metaphors of western science and the metaphors of traditional culture and science in China? Can the "truth" in nature have different levels? If so, how can we understand the world more essentially or reasonably? As we all know, since modern times, western science has used the most basic and lowest material and mechanical movements as metaphors and machines as models to understand the world. China's traditional culture and science, on the other hand, take human life as a model to understand the world, which is the highest product of the evolution of the universe. They are based on two different principles of cosmology, ontology, epistemology and methodology. Who can judge them? If we divide the so-called "truth" into different levels, then the nature mentioned in modern western science is what people know, so its "truth" is the "truth" of sensibility and concept, which mainly depends on experiments and formal logic. But after the 20th century, its authenticity was constantly questioned. The problem is that low-level truths often turn a blind eye to high-level truths, and mechanical metaphors and their models obviously have their limitations and one-sidedness. It is difficult to explain life phenomena at present, but it is more dangerous to explain human society. Therefore, if we try to cover everything with basic materials or machinery, it will inevitably lead to ecological crisis and moral crisis, which has triggered the crisis of the whole western culture. China traditional culture stresses nature, and nature is "things in it". Nature is not only good, but also "there is great beauty in heaven and earth without saying anything", which is the unity of truth, goodness and beauty. It is actually the highest state or ideal of human beings. China culture and science take human life as a metaphor and human body as a model to understand the world. As the saying goes: "Everything in the world is still a human body" (the beginning of Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals). Its formal logic is underdeveloped, and it mainly relies on dialectical and analogical reasoning. It is worth noting that the metaphor or model based on people must be the most comprehensive and inclusive. Because human beings are the highest and most comprehensive in the evolutionary sequence of the universe. Xunzi said: "Fire and water are full of life; Plants are born ignorant; Animals have knowledge but no meaning; People are angry, lively, knowledgeable and upright, so they are the most expensive in the world. Shao Yong said: "If you are biased against animals and plants, it is better to accept all its (human) temperament." ""everything is in one person, but by contrast, everything is ready. " From this, we can understand why the Book of Changes "takes the proximity of many bodies and keeps the distance of many things", but it can "wait for the transformation of heaven and earth without leaving everything behind" (copula V) "In terms of words, it is ready-made between heaven and earth." (6) The author thinks that "generative theory" and "human metaphor" are the fundamental reasons for the inclusiveness and persistence of China culture. However, its disadvantage may be that once the most basic material needs and intellectual framework are ignored or even replaced, it will eventually lead to hypocrisy and cultural decline due to lack of basic support. Different from the above two, hypercycle theory is a theory between inanimate and living. It should be said that taking primitive life as a metaphor and taking the occurrence and generation process of life as a model is a mode of understanding the world. Is it possible for the future science of mankind developing in this direction to integrate the advantages of Chinese and western cultures and science and open up a scientific road with both intrinsic value and empirical basis? The development of science also follows the law of generation and evolution. The future development of science will certainly inherit the achievements of today's scientific development, absorb China's holistic and generative natural philosophy, and transform this philosophy into a modern science about the generation and evolution of the world. Only in the process of making its own contribution to world civilization and science can China culture prove its value and significance, gain modern life and embark on its own road of innovation.