What will happen if man does not die: A Question of Love, Time, and Death?

This article was originally published in Wenjing, No. 3, 2008, by Huang Yusheng, professor of the Department of Philosophy, Tsinghua University. Is an article written by the author to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the French writer Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). In the inscription, the author writes:

Fourteen years ago, when I was writing my PhD thesis on Heidegger's time problem, I first read Simone for leisure. Beauvoir's Man Is To Die (translated by Ma Zhencheng, Foreign Literature Publishing House, 1986). This novel, which I read as a casual time, left a deep philosophical impression on me, because its discussion of death and existence was a theme that I was thinking about at the time. She was the first female writer I had ever met with a real philosophical depth, and an outstanding writer who was able to discuss philosophical issues in depth in the form of literary experiments. The novel is worth reading and respecting because it conducts an existential experiment that focuses on the discussion of the problem of existence itself, not just the clever storytelling. In response to the friendly offer of Ms. Yang Lihua, editor-in-chief of Wenjing, I write this article to commemorate and respect Beauvoir.

What if a man does not die?

Text | Huang Yusheng

Source | Wenjing, No. 3, 2008

Transferred from | "Erha light reading" WeChat public account

01

For human beings, no matter how different the trajectory of life between individuals, they have a common destiny, that is, the end. Man, he will die. This is the common destiny of all. No one can resist this fate, and yet there is almost no one who has not resisted. Overcoming death and resisting death is, if not the pursuit of all, but also the yearning of many people. People are so reluctant to face death, accept the fate of death, so that they are afraid of death, avoid death, and hate death, which has become the norm in the world.

The resistance to death fundamentally implies the desire for immortality. This desire is so universal and intense that it not only pervades everyone's dreams, but also travels through the ages and throughout history; it not only inspires countless stories of seeking immortals and seeking the Tao, but also gives birth to a variety of Dan Dao and alchemy. Immortality, imagined to be such a beautiful thing, that death is regarded as a kind of misfortune for man, a punishment from heaven (the emperor) to man.

However, it is rarely taken seriously to imagine: what will happen if a person does not die?

Of course, it is easy to simply imagine, for example, if people do not die, the earth will not fit, and so on. But this question is not simply a question of external conditions of existence, but of our very existence: the way of being, the meaning of existence, and the hope of existence.

Here, we can discuss two situations: all people do not die, or only a few people, such as you alone do not die.

02

What if everyone didn't die? First of all, we will find that the difference between the husband and the future, the difference between the predecessor and the younger generation will no longer be meaningful. As a descendant, he no longer has the advantage of the future: he cannot have more opportunities to experience, participate in, witness future events and future happiness than his predecessors, because the predecessors have an endless future like the predecessors; his historical vision, theoretical depth, and knowledge structure cannot be more advanced than the predecessors, because the predecessors will always participate in the renewal of knowledge and the expansion of horizons with the predecessors. There is nothing ridiculous about a Chitose senior sitting in the same classroom as a teenager to receive the latest knowledge, as long as he wishes. Compared with the infinite years that followed, the difference between a thousand and a dozen is almost negligible.

Similarly, as a predecessor, he no longer has the advantages of the past: the past he experienced, participated in and witnessed was not impossible to repeat, not impossible to repeat once or even several times. If you like the Three Kingdoms era very much, and would like to have the experience of Cao Cao, in order to experience the adventure of fighting Yuan Shao at Guandu, and the excitement of confronting Sun and Liu at Chibi, then in the infinite years, you can find the same good to reenact the vicissitudes of the Three Kingdoms era for more than half a century. This does not delay you anything, in these endless years, you have nothing urgently needed to do, what is the point of playing a hundred years? Therefore, for the Events of the Three Kingdoms in the third century, you are not only listening to them in the twenty-first century, you can repeat them as long as you wish. I believe that it is much easier and calmer for undead humans to reenact the Three Kingdoms in their lives than it is for dead humans to reproduce it in dramas and movies.

This means that there can be countless Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan in history, and there can be countless Three Kingdoms eras, which further means that after the Three Kingdoms, it is not necessarily the return to the Jin Dynasty, but it is still possible to return to the Three Kingdoms, as long as you want, you can even return to the Spring and Autumn Warring States. In fact, if people do not die, then it is even impossible to have the succession of dynasties such as Xia, Shang, zhou, and even Qin, Han, Jin, and Sui. To go further, if man does not die, mankind will have no time and no history. Because everything can be repeated, there is no real beginning and end. The real beginning is unrepeatable, and there is no real end if it cannot be repeated. But in the case of the immortality of all men, every man can open and fulfill all possible wills and actions in his waiting and hope, for he has infinite years. No matter how strong and great the will and action of others are, how brilliant and dazzling, you can also have that will and action. Because as long as you are willing, you can use the inexhaustible years to cultivate and cultivate such a great will and do such a great deed. This means that all creation is repeatable. So not only is there no real beginning and end, but there is also no real greatness, because once all greatness becomes a cause that everyone can do, it is no longer great.

The absence of a beginning and an end means that there is no time and history, because time and history have both an origin and a transcendent end.

We are always calculating time, adjusting and arranging our lives by calculating time. The reason why we calculate time is fundamentally because each of us has limited time. If everyone's time is inexhaustible, why do we always come and go with a tired look? Why don't we find a warm place to sleep for fifty years, so that the bloodshot eyes can be restored to innocence and clarity? The reason why everyone always has to "seize" time is that time is always limited for everyone.

This limited time is between being from nothing to being and being from being to being. The finiteness of a finite time is limited in the existence or absence of it. If from nothing is the beginning of origin, then from being to nothing is the end of transcendence. Although each of us can enter death in advance with the help of thought (consciousness), and go back and forth between existence and non-existence through "birth into death", this cycle between existence and non-existence is not a simple repetition, but each cycle has new content, which is premised on the previous cycle and begins with the previous cycle. Therefore, each cycle between each of us is certainly a new beginning, but this beginning is not a repetition of the initial beginning. This means that we have an absolute beginning, just as we have an absolute end. The so-called absolute end, that is, once we have it, we lose everything. We begin our existence at the absolute beginning, we begin our existence, and at the absolute end we lose everything we have, we lose the world.

For each of us, the real beginning is not a distant origin in the historical-archaeological sense, but the present awareness of ourselves from nothing, or more precisely, the awareness of ourselves from nothing to be thrown into existence. Each of us does not begin our existence from ancient times, but from the appearance of each person's own unpredictable, unattainable, and unpavable consciousness - a will to start our own existence; and only in this way do we begin our own existence, and we will have a sense of origin to inquire about the origin in the sense of history-archaeology, so that there will be a "past" in the sense of history. If we cannot give the present moment from the conscious (manifestation) of our consciousness, and cannot begin to exist from the will (choice) of our will, we will not be connected to the distant past; the past is closed and non-existent to me. I am for me, everyone is for everyone, because everyone carries a nothingness, which is consciousness. The manifestation of consciousness and the willingness of consciousness is the beginning of each of us from nothing. From this, we also realize that my existence is a world where there is another, and that my existence is always confronted with the presence of the other who is greater than me that cannot be reduced to me. This means that our existence, which begins from nothing, opens up and maintains an other dimension. Simply put, my existence is a being with the dimension of the other. To open the dimension of the other is, fundamentally, to open the dimension of the past, to open the dimension of origin. The other indicates my origins and my connection to ancient times.

So, without our existence starting from nothing, we can't even open the past, and our existence doesn't even have the dimension of the past. But when we begin our existence with a sense of manifestation and willingness, it also means that we give some hope, we are in some expectation. And to put yourself in some kind of expectation, is nothing else, is to open up your own future, to let your existence have a dimension that has not yet been, is an open uncertainty. This shows that we have no future without beginning our own existence. So, fundamentally, the reason why we have time, the reason why we exist in time, is not because of anything else, but because we started our own existence from nothing, from consciousness.

But we can not only come from nothing, but also from existence to nothing. The consciousness we carry is nothing, not only because it is an abyss that cannot be fully seen and prescribed, but also because it is an enlightenment that ends and dies. The awareness or understanding of death allows us to be liberated from all existence, from all the riches of this world, and back to consciousness as nothingness before it comes as an event. Only by cutting off all the wealth of this world and ending all hope of this world can we cross this world and open the hope of "another world". Such an end is the end of transcendence, which makes our existence have both a real end and a real new beginning, a new hope.

On the one hand, this means that the world we exist in is a limited world, a world that needs to be grasped, and on the other hand, it means that we always have to withdraw from this world, and this world has a way out - to end it and start a whole new journey. It is precisely because there is a way out and a new hope that everything in this world is meaningful and can be endured. In other words, there is a way out of this world completely, there is a new hope of completely getting rid of this world, and it is possible to understand and examine this world from another perspective beyond this world, and all the events and processes of this world have acquired a certain meaning and direction, and thus appear as "history", not just a pile of events that have no direction and can be repeated continuously.

Therefore, time and history are premised on having a beginning and an end. But if man does not die, every beginning he begins is in vain, not a real beginning, because he can and must repeat itself. He has infinite years, unlike the man we will die with only one life, but there are countless lives, as long as he wants, he can start again; more importantly, in contrast to his immortality, everything he wishes for in this world is temporary, but he can never withdraw from this world, he has no way out in this world, so he has no new course, he cannot understand and see everything in this world with a new hopeful eye, so that the temporary things of this world appear to be a certain and precise, Absolute meaning. For him, everything in this world is nothing more than a constant change of form, dreamlike and without reliable meaning. Therefore, the "being" that he came out of nothing has no absolute meaning for him. In this regard, he cannot even really start from nothing, he cannot really start, so he has no time and history.

For those who have no time and history, what they do in this world can be repeated and can be replaced by each other. Whether it is the arrogance and hegemony of Qin Shi Huang, the great talent of Emperor Wu of Han, or the ignorance and stupidity of Empress Cixi, people can reproduce it in any era without being considered to move against the times. Because for people who do not have time and history, the times do not matter whether they are progressive or not. Even if there is a distinction between progress and backwardness, the backward person does not need to rush to the progressive era, because he always has the opportunity to enter and will not miss it; and the advanced person has no reason to prevent him from retreating to the backward era after entering the progressive era, as long as he wants. It is as if a person, after escaping from the tyrannical state in which he grew up, has no reason to prevent him from returning from a free country to a tyrannical country to travel or live, in order to re-experience the absurdity of tyranny and the preciousness of freedom, or even if it is just for fun. And that doesn't diminish the years he's enjoyed his freedom—he has countless years.

Since all actions are repeatable, the differences in the roles that man plays in this world will disappear. Qin Emperor Han Wu, not only can his position be replaced, but also his business can be repeated. No one's deeds, nor what he does, are unique or absolute; in the long course of life (not history), there will be no clear distinction between great and small, between great and mortal, and the only clear difference is facial features. Just think, in such a human world, who would have the desire for great honor? Who else has the ambition to strive for excellence?

In fact, in the case of everyone not dying, not only will everyone's "greatness" and everyone's "prominence" be copied, repeated, and thus smoothed out, but also because of the infinite years of each person, everything in this world is nothing more than an obscure fungus, and it really does not have any reliability or absoluteness, so the richness of the world will also be smoothed out - it has no clear and absolute value for anyone, it is dispensable. In other words, everyone is interested in everything in this world and has no interest. If it is said that from nothing, that is, from consciousness there are things that manifest this world, that there is a will in this world, which means the beginning of their own existence, then it is difficult for the immortal to even begin his own existence, or more precisely, there is no interest, no passion to start his own existence. How can you, the immortal, plunge yourself with all your passion into a world without absolute meaning? How can you, who are hungry and immortal, go after an antelope with the hunger wolf-like desire to kill itself in the blink of an eye? How can you, immortal, grasp with the impulses that come from every nerve in your hands that are bound to decay in your hands? In a word, how can you embrace the vanishing nothingness with full enthusiasm?

To smooth oneself, to smooth out the world, there is no way out, so that there is no interest in existing, this is the end of everyone's immortality. So, what if you're the only one who doesn't die? Whether it was the Qin Emperor Han Wu or many others, the immortality they longed for was actually that he did not die alone, trying to use his own immortality to gain advantage and permanent domination over all others. But would it be better to be alone than the end of everyone not dying? Will it really be as good as people want it to be?

03

If only you don't die, then The situation of Raymond Fosca (the protagonist of Beauvoir's novel Man Is To Die) is yours. And Fosca sees his situation as a kind of "heavenly punishment", despairing of his endless years. He was also a dying man, born in the 1370s. As the ruler of Carmona, a small Italian city-state, Fosca was full of responsibility and pride in the safety, happiness and honor of Carmona, and had bravely charged for it. However, when he bravely drank the immortal medicine from Egypt, he lost not only his bravery forever, but also all the nobility and beauty that a dying man could have. His former pioneer was bravery, but now he has nothing to do with bravery, because before he, like all people who will die, was prepared to pay a one-time life behind his heroism, and now he, no matter how heroic his behavior seems, is empty behind it, without any risky price. The immortal you help and humility of others is also difficult to relate to self-dedication and self-restraint, because you do not delay you or lose anything. You can't give generously, because you have spent endless years to get rich (this article is pushed by Huitian Philosophy). You are abstaining from food and clothing, simple and unpretentious, and it is difficult to be known for moderation, because eating is not a necessity of your life, and being exposed to the ice and snow is not a problem for you. You have been far-sighted, and you have saved mankind from many stupidities and tragedies, and it is difficult to say that you are wise, because that is only a special wealth left to you by the long years that have passed in you. Even your freedom is unsound because you are thrown into this world and you do not have the freedom to choose to leave this world and let go of this world. Therefore, not only have you lost the absolute right to prove the truth to the world like Socrates or Jesus, but you have actually lost the true dignity to face the world, because you cannot draw a bottom line for your life, and any struggle and defense you can hardly avoid not being regarded as a play - because you know that all humiliation and injustice to you are like a flying insect bite, fleeting.

In fact, once you don't die, you're almost no longer the kind of person who will die. Although you still live among them and still have a common external image with them, you can no longer understand and see the world with their eyes and emotions. In your opinion, the tsubaki trees that have been used for spring and autumn for a thousand years are just obscure funguses like the cockroaches that have not experienced spring and autumn. Therefore, you will not have the same reverence for the Tsubaki tree as we do, and you will not be curious and mysterious about the traces that the years have left on it. You also won't be excited and worried about an uncertain future, because your future is endless, but it's "blinking" on. We are passionate and loving for hope outside of this world, and you must be indifferent to it, because no matter how far you look, you can't see the end of this world, and your life will always be closed in this world.

You and Fosca cannot even understand why freedom, equality, and fraternity are so precious and important to us. We are going to die, we must take our own end, no one can replace our own death; being thrown into death is the fate of each of us. And this fundamentally means that we bear our own freedom and must also assume our own freedom. For in this state of being thrown into death, in this unfreedom, each of us gains our own freedom to assume the freedom to either complete death as an event, or to forget death as an event, or to guard death as a possibility. Whatever possibility is entered, it is each man's own free decision, and each of these decisions is a prerequisite for every man to enter into other decisions, that is, to enter into other freedoms. Freedom, therefore, is the nature of the dying man, the way of being of the dying man. The damage and deprivation of liberty is fundamentally dehumanizing. "Not to be free, rather to die" is ostensibly for the sake of rights, but fundamentally for the sake of preserving nature. That's why shouting it is so sonorous and powerful that it travels through history, across oceans and borders, and still inspires people around the world who will die.

The Qin Emperor Han Wu sought immortality, mainly because he wanted his own deeds and dynasties to continue for a long time and firmly grasp them in his own hands. However, if they did not die, they would soon discover that the so-called deeds they were proud of were probably the cause of their later failures, or were obscured by later historical events. You march south and north, the king comes to the world, the supreme glory, but the immortal will find out like Fuska that the things under the heavens are not really carried out as your will alone, because the people of the world will never take your will as your own will. Although in the eyes of you, who are powerful and immortal, the sentient beings who have only a few decades of life are really just flying insects, they will always have their own will, and they will always act according to their own will. Therefore, they will never pursue and enjoy the happiness that the emperor, the king, the lord, or any other type of ruler has designed for them. It is impossible for anyone to design happiness for others. Therefore, the dynasty in your hands is not what they must have, so your supreme honor is false after all, and your power cannot be perpetuated by your immortality. In fact, once you are immortal, you will quickly lose interest in maintaining your power and superiority over a group of impermanent beings.

Once you are immortal, you will also lose the best thing in this world– love, unless you hide your secrets. Fosca has trained herself a lover, Beatrise, but she can never love him because she knows his secret: he can't die! She loves his dying son, Antona, who is brave because he is passionate about the country, for human affairs, and with impatience and anger, he longs to participate in the affairs of this world, including war. All of this exudes the fragrance of existence and the flame of life. In contrast, the old Foska who could not die looked like a dead man, a dead man who could not die. If you are immortal, then, no matter how young you look, your voice will sound as if it comes from a bronze mirror of a distant age, perhaps very gentle, but as if the temperature has been filtered out by a long time, unable to impress your beloved. In fact, once your lover knows that it is a pair of immortal hands that embrace her, she will not only not feel happy and proud, but on the contrary, it will be fear and scream. Because relative to the body that will die, a pair of immortal hands is like a bottomless abyss, a black hole without boundaries. Most importantly, no one is willing to exchange their complete love for pieces of love, and no one is willing to match the love of "moments" with the love of their whole life. Simply put, no one is willing to deal with the relative love of polytheism with their own monotheistic absolute love. Mariana married Raymond Fosca without knowing that he could not die, and when she learned the secret, the reason why she wept bitterly and was so sad was that she discovered how unfair her love marriage was! She explicitly told Fosca that she regretted their love marriage!

For you who can't die, even if you can get her love from others, you can't really understand the joys and sorrows of the dead lover in this world, including her love and hate for you.

Whether you are in the immortal country where everyone does not die, or in the country where everyone will die, you are not in a very good situation if you can't die. People pursue immortality in order to enjoy the good things of this world for a long time. What people do not expect, however, is that once immortal, they lose not only all the good things of this world, but also all hope outside of this world. For things in this world are beautiful precisely because we are going to die; the reason why we open up hope outside of this world is precisely because we have an end. Death is the innermost possibility of each of us, because it is neither agent nor inalienable in relation to other possibilities. We only have to embrace this possibility to open up the future, understand the present, and relive the past. Although we always bear this possibility, we do not always bear it in a protective way, but often forget it in an escaped way. The pursuit of immortality is an extreme way to escape death. And the reason why we escape death is because we always want to show existence from nothing, and usually prefer to have more than nothing; to escape death and forget death by sinking into the colorful existence. The escape and oblivion of death is essentially a cover for nothingness, a cover for our source, and at the same time a obsession with the world. This obsession, commonly called stupidity, is because it leaves one with no place to retreat, unable to see the truth and the future.

People are going to die after all, that's why the world is so beautiful and the hopes elsewhere are so fulfilling. Only by maintaining this awareness can we always have the room to retreat, to truly take a step back from the sea and the sky, to truly examine the world freely, and to have the courage to exist and act! In this sense, it is a kind of human luck to die.