Zhang Shuangnan, director of the Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hello everyone, I am Zhang Shuangnan. Let's go back to the Needham puzzle and traditional Chinese culture.
Needham's Dilemma: A question posed by the British scholar Needham: "Although ancient China made many important contributions to the development of human science and technology, why did the scientific and industrial revolution not take place in modern China?" ”
1. Einstein: Lack of logical systems and experimental science
Albert Einstein once answered Needham's dilemma:
The development of Western science is based on two great achievements.
One was discovered by Greek philosophers, primarily the system of formal logic in Euclidean geometry, which is very closely related to Aristotle's metaphysics.
The second was the experimental science that developed during the Renaissance, represented by Galileo Galilei.
Based on these two, there was the development of Western science.
In ancient China, there was neither a logical system nor experimental science, and only a few people did experiments, not systematically, so it is not surprising that Chinese did not produce science.
2. Yang Zhenning: The I Ching is the culprit
Mr. Yang Zhenning also answered this question, but he did not answer it positively, but from another angle.
Earlier, I talked about whether the unity of heaven and man and the five elements of yin and yang are not sciences. Many people in China still think it is science, but Yang Zhenning is very opposed to this view.
The Unity of Heaven and Man: A doctrine of the relationship between heaven and man in ancient Chinese philosophy. It means that the relationship between heaven and man is closely linked and inseparable. Emphasize the connection and unity of heavenly path and humanity, nature and man-made. The Theory of the Five Elements of Yin and Yang is a simple materialistic philosophy in ancient China. Yin and yang refer to two forces that are both opposed and interconnected, and the five elements refer to the operation and change of the five basic substances of "wood, fire, earth, metal, and water".
Mr. Yang Zhenning believes that the reason why science has not arisen in China is the I Ching.
If you want to find a culprit for China's lack of science, this culprit is the I Ching. Of course, there are other factors, but the I Ching is the most important reason.
Why is the I Ching not scientifically linked to China?
Mr. Yang Zhenning explains:
First, there is a lot of induction in the I Ching, but there is no logical reasoning, especially no deduction.
Second, the concept of the unity of heaven and man in the I Ching.
Aristotle proposed that man and nature must be separated, that man and nature are independent, and that man observes nature and derives the laws of nature. This separates philosophy from science.
However, the concept of the unity of heaven and man holds that nature and man are closely related.
Man's actions affect nature, and nature affects man. Under this conception, it is impossible for man to obtain independent laws of nature.
Therefore, in Chinese culture, there has never been an independent natural law, not one.
Yang Zhenning believes that this is very critical, and the I Ching has deprived Chinese culture of the fundamental motivation to explore the laws of nature.
Greece began to consider this problem in the sixth or seventh century BC, but China did not think about the laws of nature until modern science came to China.
In fact, doctrines and viewpoints similar to the unity of heaven and man and the five elements of yin and yang also existed in the early days of ancient Greek civilization.
For example, in the earliest days, the four elements theory also emphasized the interaction between the four elements, and even put the role of love and hate in it, but it was completely abandoned very early.
The four elements are the ancient Greek theory of the material composition of the world, and the four elements are earth, air, water, and fire.
When we talk about the history of science, we will also mention the four-element theory, but it is not about how the four elements are successful, but how the four-element theory was abandoned in the process of development, and finally formed today's science, which is a very important difference.
However, it is not that the theory of the five elements of yin and yang and the theory of the four elements have similarities, and the five elements of yin and yang can have the same status as the theory of the four elements in the history of science.
When we talk about the four elements, we mean how they abandoned the four elements and entered science, but when we talk about the five elements of yin and yang today, we want to say that the five elements of yin and yang are still correct.
We are completely on the opposite path to science.
I'll tell you two little stories to see what it's like in Chinese culture.
1. Replace sophistry with questioning
The first story, two children arguing.
This story is known to everyone, that is, two children arguing whether the sun is close to us in the morning or the sun is close to us at noon.
It looks big in the morning, but cool. It looks small at noon, but it's hot.
So the two children had a point, and they went to ask Confucius, "Aren't you very knowledgeable?" Do you say it's near morning or near noon? ”
Confucius said, "Then I don't know."
This is the end of the story, and there is no subsequent result.
There is also this story in our language textbook, and the standard explanation given by the teacher is that these two children are good at speculating, using dialectical thinking, and so on.
In fact, the teacher's interpretation of this story is completely wrong.
Is it near morning or near noon? Why is it cold in the morning and hot at noon? Behind this is a series of serious scientific questions.
But for more than 2,000 years, China has not conducted a thorough study of these issues, and on major occasions they have been used as dialectical arguments, without pursuing the reasoning behind them.
Of course, it is not that no one in Chinese history has ever thought about this, there must be. But mainstream culture didn't think about it.
This shows that when we tell this story with relish, we are using sophistry instead of asking questions.
The so-called application of dialectics here is sophistry, to win the debate instead of the pursuit of truth.
The two children debated, and originally one of them tried to convince one side, but neither of them could convince the other.
In the end, Confucius was found and won the debate on Confucius, and the two children finally left very happily.
Although the debate was won, the truth was not obtained by the two children.
On many occasions, Chinese argument is arguing for the sake of arguing, not arguing for the sake of reason, I just have to argue you to death.
Chinese philosophy is full of this kind of wisdom, but this wisdom is not for the wisdom of the pursuit of truth.
2. Replace the bottom line with self-justification
Second, it is a matter of alarm.
The impact of this story on Chinese culture is even more profound.
There is a person who worries all day long that the sky is going to fall, the ground is going to sink, and so on, so that he suffers from depression, can't eat, can't sleep.
He had a good friend, similar to today's counselor, and he said to him, don't worry, every day here, I didn't see it collapse, why are you worried about it collapsing?
He said, then even if the sky does not fall, what if the stars in the sky fall? It's hard to hit people.
Friends said that the stars in the sky are the light, the light is falling down is okay, and I have never seen it fall, don't worry.
Then he said, what if the earth is going to fall?
My friend said, you get off the bed and stomp a few feet to see how strong this ground is, how can it sink?
As soon as he listened, sure enough, the depression was lifted.
Later, we have been using the fable of unfounded worries to ridicule unrealistic people.
But in fact, why didn't the sun, moon, and star collapse, and why didn't the earth sink?
These are all a series of serious scientific problems, and if any scientific problem is studied in ancient China, it will be several Nobel Prizes.
But for more than 2,000 years, we haven't done any of them, and to this day we're all treated as jokes.
This is a self-justification instead of a matter of asking questions. Because it does not collapse, it does not collapse, because it does not collapse, it does not collapse.
Replace the pursuit of truth with pragmatism. It's good not to collapse and not to fall, don't think about it, this is the essence of traditional Chinese culture.
Therefore, our Chinese philosophy and Chinese culture are flawed in this regard.
Of course, I am not completely denying China, I am very patriotic and proud of Chinese civilization.
But we have to reflect on why China hasn't produced science.
Because there is no element of science in our culture at all.
Let's look at ancient Chinese science.
We often say that the four major scientific inventions of ancient China were very great.
We made it so early, but I think all four are technologies, none of them are science.
And we've never cared about the principles behind them, we haven't studied the laws behind these technologies.
So these technologies did not develop into science, so that the advanced technologies of the time were later surpassed.
The paper, magnets, compasses, explosives, and printing techniques we use today were all later imported from abroad, and the technology of our ancestors has long been lost.
I myself do astronomical research, and I am quite familiar with the history of astronomy, and our astronomical observations in ancient China are actually more developed than in the West.
But when I just said that science originated from Greek astronomy, why didn't we mention ancient Chinese astronomy at all?
Because it's really not worth mentioning.
Not only do we have no contribution to the establishment of the heliocentric theory, but in fact, we have done nothing about the seven leaps in human understanding of the universe.
In this regard, the contribution of Chinese is not almost 0, it is absolutely 0, without any contribution.
7 leaps in human understanding of the universe: 1. Heliocentrism replaces geocentrism 2) The solar system is not the center of the universe 3) The Milky Way is not the entire universe 4) The universe is expanding 5) The Big Bang produced the universe 6. The universe is expanding at an accelerated pace 7) There may be other worlds and civilizations
What has China's so developed astronomy done?
Two things were done, the theoretical aspect for astrology and the technical aspect for agriculture.
Astrology is simply fortune telling, but in fact astrology is much higher than the level of fortune telling, but it has not developed into astronomy.
There have been great advances in technology, and we pay great attention to the application of astronomical technology in agriculture.
Twenty-four solar terms are the result of our astronomical observations, which is very useful.
Unfortunately, we didn't develop anymore.