To prevent getting lost, the elevator goes directly to the safety island to report Liu Yadong A
Source: Dad talks about science
Author: Wu Xingchuan
Why wasn't modern science born in China?
This is a complex issue, and this article will discuss only one of the reasons.
In the traditional culture of the mainland, a lot of the content is illogical.
One of the basic principles of logic is to avoid the use of vague and ambiguous language, and the way things are described in traditional culture is often vague and ambiguous.
The ambiguity and ambiguity of the doctrine, for example, make it applicable to a variety of fields, including the study of martial arts, feng shui, physiognomy, divination, numerology, and even fighting (tai chi), which seems to be profound but has no practical value.
Not to mention the obviously superstitious non-scientific culture of physiognomy, divination, numerology, and feng shui, even if there is some fitness value of Tai Chi, you will find that if you remove the yin and yang five elements words of the empty head and brain, it will not affect the fitness function of Tai Chi itself.
In today's society, due to the promotion of the revival of traditional culture, so that all kinds of liars under the banner of traditional culture are endless, such as the very fashionable five-element class in some areas of the south, the tuition fee of a student in a class is even as high as thousands of yuan, this is not a one-on-one course, but a class with dozens or even hundreds of people.
In the same way as the liar in the emperor's new clothes, the teacher who taught this course often gave students a vaccination: to master the five elements of yin and yang, you need to have "understanding" yourself.
And some students who have learned the five elements of yin and yang will also say: "Without a certain amount of social experience and life experience, you can't understand the theory of the five elements." ”
In fact, the reason why the five elements of yin and yang make people feel "useful" is precisely because of their vague and ambiguous characteristics, like a big set, any content into the set, it is likely to be set.
For example, some people with sufficient social experience and life experience, after doing a successful thing, will put on the set of yin and yang five elements, and then strengthen their cognition: the five elements of yin and yang are really useful - although the reason for success is actually his experience and experience.
Those that are not trapped are either ignored intentionally or unintentionally because of survivorship bias. Either it means that your "understanding" is too poor.
Anyway, it's not this set of knowledge.
A similar way of thinking also influences Chinese's language arts.
For example, the way of speaking of certain leaders or "masters" is often cloudy and ambiguous, although this kind of language art is considered by many people to be very clever, but the beneficiaries of this "cleverness" are often only the speaker himself, as well as his sycophants and echo worms.
Like the routine of the emperor's new clothes, the listener will sigh at the unfathomable profundity of the leader or the master, and the listener will not understand it, indicating that he has poor understanding, anyway, it is not the speaker's problem, he will never be responsible.
However, whether it is the five elements of yin and yang, or the language art of leaders or masters, this kind of zero-sum game internal friction, in addition to making oneself appear unfathomable, is not only useless for solving practical problems in work or life, but also reduces work efficiency.
This is why "Western learning for use, middle school for the body" could not avoid the demise of the Qing Dynasty, because its essential problem lies precisely in the root of "middle school".
A netizen said it well:
"Ambiguity and ambiguity are manifestations of underdeveloped language. Especially in ancient Chinese, a short sentence can translate a large paragraph, and can translate several versions, I used to think this was very awesome, but in fact, the language is underdeveloped. Just as a baby can only pronounce a few simple sounds, and each sound expresses many meanings, you can't say that baby language is awesome. The underdevelopment of language not only limits the formation of logic, but also limits the depth of thought and scientific research. ”
Many people lament that after more than 100 years, ignorance and superstition are still prevalent in this society, and Mr. Sai has not yet fully arrived, and the reason is that Mr. Sai's root is that one is logical and the other is empirical, and those anti-logical thinking patterns in traditional culture are Mr. Sai's mortal enemies.