Spatial concept and future development

Space is not only a physical concept, but also has profound social and philosophical significance, and in-depth exploration of the meaning of space is conducive to the harmonious development of man and nature. The community of shared future for mankind is the space on which we all live, and we establish a correct view of time and space, world outlook and values. Only by correctly understanding space, rationally using space, protecting the environment, and saving resources can we correctly practice the path of carbon-neutral green ecological development, rather than deviating.

　　Since ancient times, human beings have explored space, hoping to find their companions, and sent various signals, but they have not yet been contacted, and they hope to find a "second home" beyond the earth, suitable for human survival or migration, unfortunately, both attempts have not yet been realized.

　　Since the Industrial Revolution, human beings have accelerated their pursuit of material consumption and wealth, wasted excessive resources, and destroyed the environment in which all things live. Human beings dig out the oil and coal formed over tens of millions of years and burn it, take out the heat for consumption, emit too much carbon dioxide, cause the temperature to rise, cause climate change, and trigger frequent natural disasters. Human beings should fear nature, respect objective laws, and understand that there is only one earth, and human beings have caused the destruction of the ecological chain, threatening their own survival and ecological balance. Humanity needs to reflect deeply, and only by protecting this beautiful and unique blue planet can human beings survive longer.

　　First, the physical properties of space

　　Space is the basic condition for human survival. With relatively sufficient space, you can live and work relatively freely, pursue your ideals, and create a colorful life. The space is a good size, and people will have a sense of comfort. Not enough space or crowding will feel squeezed, or psychologically stressed. The space is not necessarily bigger and better, according to oriental culture, it can't hold the aura.

　　Classical physics holds that space consists of three dimensions. With the length, width and height, the space in which we live is determined. With the progress of science, the scale of human cognition of space is getting larger and larger. The Big Bang theory says that the universe arose at a point 13.8 billion years ago. This point exploded, and there was the universe. Universe is space, and Zeus is time. The universe is now so big that it's measured tens of billions of light-years away, and it's expanding at an accelerated rate. Modern physics believes that there is still a lot of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, but it has not heard of "negative space", and perhaps dark matter dark energy also needs space. According to the second law of thermodynamics, the formulation of the principle of increased entropy, after tens of billions of years, the universe will fall into heat and death, and together they will cease to exist, and space and time will cease to exist. These are hypotheses, this model is too pessimistic, people are reluctant to accept, expect physicists to continue to study, give us an optimistic explanation. Fortunately, ten billion years is very far away, and ordinary people such as us can only live to a hundred years, or we should cherish the time and live well in the present.

　　The space can also be infinitely small. Classical physics says that particles can be infinitely divided, all things are composed of molecules, molecules are made of atoms, atoms are made of nuclei and electrons, and atomic nuclei are composed of protons and neutrons. Further down there are quarks, below which there are photons, and there are quanta. But at this level, classical physics and relativity are in contradiction, so scientists propose the "uncertainty principle" and "wave-particle duality". That is, all things have both material and energy properties. Observing at the very microscale, matter exists in space either as particles or as waves, or space is composed of particles or waves, which is a hot topic in modern physics.

　　How empty is the space? The density of a substance is the mass within a unit volume. For example, gold is heavier than iron, because the density of gold is greater than that of iron. If the city of Beijing were to be like an atom, the nucleus might be only as big as the Tiananmen Tower. Outer electrons may be one or more cars that run around the Sixth Ring road or more. Most of space is empty, but this is not absolute emptiness, just emptiness that we cannot recognize or observe. Modern science says that there is a lot of dark matter and dark energy in it, at least it means that they occupy space.

　　Ancient human cognition and living space is limited, fruit picking and hunting rely on sticks and stones, means of transportation mainly rely on their own hands and feet, driving BMW and foal will also travel thousands of miles a day and night to walk eight hundred, regional space is the main obstacle to the early development of human civilization. Geospace forms a natural barrier that objectively protects against beasts or enemies. For example, the Great Wall, one of the seven wonders of the world, effectively resisted the intrusion of peoples from the north, protected the cultivated land and poultry raised, and the agricultural civilization was developed. Whether in the West or the East, the main purpose of ancient warfare was to seize land. Whoever has the big territory will have more room for development. Traditional geopolitics and economics have continued to the present, forming the concept of national space, "every inch of land is bought with blood". From land to sea, from underground to sky, it is all about competing for the possession and control of space, and with space there are resources and geographical advantages. With a correct understanding of space, modern civilization has transcended the "geopolitical determinism", the global village of human beings is not very large, neighbors should get along with each other, communicate with each other, and build a community with a shared future for mankind. Only then can humanity progress, not turn back in isolation.

　　In the early years, the author was doing potash development and extraction in Canada, and learned that the concept of mineral rights held by the Indians extended down to the center of the earth in terms of surface area. The earth has a radius of about 6300 kilometers, and the mineral resources of the cone-like space below the area of the mineral rights are protected by law, called "Freehold property", which still retains the legal rights of the Indians to this day, which is the most scientific definition of space. With the development of science and technology, it is theoretically possible to drill down thousands of kilometers, and all mines are owned by the owners of the mines. Lenovo's real estate around the world is denominated in "square meters", which should be scientifically priced in "cubic meters", after all, the resources and energy consumed by decoration and maintenance are calculated by space.

　　The intelligent human civilization is developing at an increasingly rapid pace, and the physical space of human beings has been greatly extended, "daring to go up to the moon for nine days, and daring to go down to the five oceans to catch turtles." The five oceans of the Antarctic and the Arctic have no places that humans cannot reach. Cars, airplanes and high-speed rail are faster than birds, space shuttle space travel will be commonplace, everyone has a mobile phone to connect people all over the world, and there is no time difference in thousands of rivers and mountains. Sticks, cars, houses, and spaceships are the carriers and extensions of human hands and feet. Life is composed of matter and thought, and space is thus divided into physical space and thought space. Mobile phones, the Internet of Everything, virtual space and metacosm are the carriers and extensions of human thought. Physical carriers age or even die, while thoughts do not. Musk's chip can already be implanted in the human brain and connected to the data cloud. Humans can already physically send humans into space, quantum science engineering or the metacosm or spread human thought faster and farther and longer. Theoretically, the data is there, the mind is there; the body can disappear and the mind can live forever.

　　Second, the social attributes of space

　　Space has both physical and social properties. The origins of mankind are now about millions of years old, and most of the early times there were very few individuals, vast space, and scarce materials, and they needed to face many natural enemies in the natural world, which was primitive communism at that time, and everything was shared. Live in caves together, hunt together, live together, and thrive together.

　　The "private domain" and the "public domain" are opposites, and can be transformed into each other when needed, and can be distinguished from each other. This space is not only physical, but also psychological. With space and boundaries, human beings have a relatively independent scope of activity, and they also have private property, on the basis of which social norms and systems are formed. There were boundaries between people, and private property was born. In order to survive, early humans protected themselves, established tribes, and formed the space of their own ethnic groups. After the gradual development and growth of the group, it has to compete with other tribes for food and territory, and whoever has the space has a greater advantage in survival and development. From primitive society, to slave society, to feudal society, the concept of space was institutionalized and concretized. The "private domain" was the basis of the feudal social system. Individuals, families, tribes, and nations are all built on spatial and material foundations. The courtyard walls of the family and the borders of the country are sacrosanct. The privatization system establishes the spatial and property attributes of the individual, the modern social system protects the sanctity and inviolability of private property, and the ownership of property and space is quantified as finance and wealth, so that every social person establishes his position in society.

　　Zhuangzi's disciples respected the master very much, and before the teacher died, they asked, what kind of gorgeous coffin and jewelry do you need to accompany you in a hundred years? Zhuangzi said that no amount of jewelry can compare to the stars in the sky, and even the best coffin is not as good as being one with the earth. Lao Tzu's concept of space is vast and boundless, and his thoughts still shine today more than two thousand years later. Lao Tzu's excessive appropriation of natural wealth and space is the most valuable and precious wealth of mankind. Lao Tzu's worldview and values, the desire to control material possession, and the guidance of ecological green development have positive significance.

　　Third, the extension of physical space and ideological space

　　Human understanding of the material world and the pursuit of materials have gradually formed materialistic values. With the great abundance of human material goods and the interconnection of the Internet age, the value system based on material possession will change.

　　When you're in the office, your bedroom, kitchen, living room, and car are all vacant. A person can physically only appear in one place at one time, and the use of space is very inefficient. Can the bedroom only sleep? Can the living room only be used for guests? Can the office only be office? Can cars only be driven? In fact, the above are all spaces, various functions are OK, and now the Internet and the Internet of Things have realized function sharing. In the future, "meetings" do not need to go to the "conference hall", "watch movies" do not have to go to the "cinema", "go to work" does not necessarily go to the "company", smart buildings and the Internet of Everything can effectively regulate the "public domain" and "private domain", and achieve mutual transformation, the rational use of space wisdom, will greatly save the building area and material energy, the building hall does not need so much. Technology is changing our way of life and development patterns, which will conserve resources and energy, and will naturally not produce a lot of carbon dioxide.

　　The car is a space to move. There are about a billion private cars in the world, and the average use time is about two hours, less than one-tenth the efficiency of use. A car weighs about two tons, a person is calculated at 70 kilograms, the mass efficiency is about 3.5%, and the congested cars in large cities waste a huge amount of energy and crowd out huge spaces. The Internet and the Internet of Things have enabled the driverlessness of cars and the liberation of people from the steering wheel. In the future, the car can meet, rest, work out and play, and the only thing that is not needed is driving. The car has all the functions of a house and can also move. Informatization has opened up the shared interconnection between buildings, automobiles and transportation, and the functions between mobile space and real estate are gradually merging. After the car takes the guest to the destination, it does not have to enter the parking lot, and intelligently picks up the next guest. If the use time of the car increases from the current average of 2 hours to 12 hours, the efficiency will increase to five times. The intelligentization, reduction and sharing of transportation by driverless vehicles will greatly reduce the footprint, resources and energy consumption of automobiles, which is one of the directions and goals of green development.

　　Material-based values are changing, and the future of houses and cars may not be the most valuable. What is the most valuable, or what should be pursued? Maslow's theory divides the level of human happiness into five layers, the lowest of which is the satisfaction of material bases, such as eating, wearing, and living. On top of this, there should be love, there should be understanding, honor, joy and happiness, etc. The higher the level, the less it seems to need to occupy more resources and energy, and does not require much physical space. Now mankind is gradually realizing that the world is neither materialistic nor idealistic. Materialism and idealism are just two perspectives of knowing the world. In the vast universe, human beings are a stream of sand, and individuals are only fine particles in the sand. Although life is as short as a summer flower, everyone wants to be colorful. Scientific and technological progress has created a better carrier for human beings, but the meaning of life needs to be explored more deeply, and more cognition of the universe can guide us to live happier and better.

　　Fourth, the metacosm, virtual space and future development

　　The metacosm is first and foremost a concept of virtual space. Opinions on the specifics are currently divergent. Virtual space can also be called thought space. In the metaverse era, everyone can open a variety of virtual spaces in the cloud, carry out a variety of life and work that they like, and pursue their own happiness. The metaverse may bring us more convenience, greater efficiency, more happiness and life experience. At that time, the space of human activity and thought will be greatly extended, the length, breadth and depth of life will increase significantly, and human beings may be close to immortality.

　　Metacosms are also known as parallel universes, i.e. two or more dimensions of physical space and virtual space. The physical world is responsible for the basic material energy requirements of eating, wearing, living and traveling, ensuring the normal operation of the material carrier of life, and the mind can gallop in the infinite virtual space. Just like the seventy-two changes of Sun Wukong, which appear in many virtual reality at the same time, you can immerse yourself in virtual reality, perceive and touch the sound and smile in the virtual space, experience multiple lives, and feel happiness that is almost extreme. In the biography of Liezi, it is recorded that King Mu of Zhou rode eight horses to Yaochi in Kunlun Mountain to meet the Queen Mother of the West, and felt that he had enjoyed all kinds of glory for three years, but when he woke up, the ministers reminded King Mu that he had not left, but had just had a dream. This beautiful story has been passed down for thousands of years, and now the metaverse era is possible. The cloud universe can take you back to a good childhood, you can go to meet your crush girlfriend, maybe this time she agreed. It can make up for your experience of being admitted to Peking University but not selling pork, and you can transform into two stones with your life confidant and wait for the sea to dry up. The cloud universe switches to the past and the future at any time, bringing humanity into the four-dimensional world. The human brain capacity obviously cannot hold so much information, and human thoughts are in the cloud universe. But it should be recognized that the metaverse can create the same level of suffering as it can create. Just as there is matter and energy, there is dark matter and dark energy.

　　The metaverse will rely on huge computing power and data storage, which may still need to consume a lot of resources and energy, but at least save energy and wasted time consumed by commuting traffic congestion. Nowadays, human beings are inseparable from mobile phones and the Internet, and it can be said that they have entered the cloud universe to varying degrees and cannot turn back. Lifestyles have changed and future development patterns are irreversible. The COVID-19 pandemic, which is raging around the world, has warned of the need for ecological green development. China and other countries in the world are working together to "reduce carbon emissions and reach the peak of carbon neutrality", which is to protect the space on which mankind depends, and the community of human destiny is not illusory. In the future, virtual space will certainly not be priced in terms of "square meters" or "cubic meters", and perhaps it can be priced according to the degree of happiness and happiness? The ancients took "self-cultivation, family unity, governance of the country, and peace in the world" as a human life concept, and "a thousand acres of good land and a thousand family wealth" could not be passed on for hundreds of lifetimes. After meeting the basic living conditions, health, happiness and happiness are the direction of human civilization, and future values will be built on this basis. Heavy responsibilities. (The author is a bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University, a master's degree and doctoral student from the University of Ottawa, Canada, a director of the Tsinghua Alumni Association, the vice president of the 6th Council of the European and American Returned Scholars Association, a former president of the Canadian branch, and the executive dean of the Returnee Entrepreneurship College.) He has won the Tsinghua University Laboratory Achievement Award and the Third Prize of the Scientific and Technological Achievements of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China. ）