Chapter 3 hapless anonymous mathematician

The so-called "virtue", this "virtue" refers to morality, the so-called "destiny is permanent, only the virtuous live in it", it can be seen that we Chinese have been talking about governing the country by virtue thousands of years ago.As for "sex", it refers to attributes.Virtue is the attribute of morality, the attribute of state power. The West pays attention to "divine right of kings", while China pays attention to "receiving orders from heaven". Although the two seem to have similar meanings on the surface, they are very different in practice.No matter how invisible the Western gods are, the Trinity has a real aspect after all, while the Chinese "heaven" is a completely empty concept.Just like "Tao", illusory and ubiquitous, like the big brother in the movie, peeping at the behavior of the monarch at any time, if the monarch does something nonsense, it will be windy, rainy, thunderous, or noisy. Some things like floods and plagues; if the monarch does more good deeds, God will naturally shine with sunshine and the world will be peaceful.

The ancients believed that human beings and nature are closely connected and inseparable, and this connection and influence are not one-way, but two-way.That is to say, it is not that there are severe droughts and floods for no reason that lead to poor harvests in the world, or that thunder strikes in the sky and the unfilial sons in the world are struck by lightning. thunder.In particular, the only monarch in the world is the "Son of Heaven". Since he is the son of Heaven, the will of Tian Laozi will be conveyed to the son at any time, and the behavior of the son will directly affect the various visions of Tian Laozi.So when we read history books, we often see that whenever a disaster occurs, the emperor hastily issued a "crime edict" to write a self-criticism, and cut down on food and clothing to stop building buildings and buildings.At worst, he had to order his main assistants, the prime ministers, to resign.

Since there is telepathy between heaven and the monarch, then this telepathy should have rules to follow.So the great sages or idlers in ancient times thought about it. Their principle is to gain insight into this law and theorize it; if there is no such law, then they will invent one. If you want to gain insight into the laws between two things, of course you must first understand what the two things themselves are all about.The emperor is easy to say, even if there are a large group of sycophants digging out the divinity in the emperor all day long, basically, this divinity is still hidden, and it is rarely revealed, and 90% of what is exposed is human nature.We are all human beings. Even if it is difficult to study in detail what is human, the general structure is correct.But what the hell is going on?Man is made of elements such as nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus, but what elements is the sky made of?What attributes does the sky have?

I mentioned "element", which in ancient China meant the most primitive and original things.However, the meaning of the word "element" in modern Chinese comes from the West, and refers to the most basic elements that make up the universe.The earliest theory of elements originated in ancient Greece—the philosopher Thales, who was honored as one of the "Seven Sages of Greece", believed that water was the mother of all things, and another thinker, Anaximenes, believed that air was what made up all things. Heraclitus, known as one of the founders of dialectics, believed that all things were born of fire.Later, the natural scientist and doctor Empedocles thought that the above-mentioned words were all reasonable, but they were not comprehensive. He used water, air, and fire as doctrines, and added a kind of earth, which he called the four elements.

This is the most basic four-in-one ancient element theory in the West. There are other four-element theories of heat, cold, dryness, and wetness, and the three-element theory of salt, mercury, and sulfur. The impact is not so far-reaching.The ancient Indians held the same idea as the ancient Greeks, and they probably passed on from ancient Greece, but they changed the names of the four elements to earth, water, fire, and wind—and in another theory, they added emptiness to become earth. , water, fire, wind, and space are the five elements. Then, how did the ancient Chinese view the illusory and mysterious "heaven" and the elements that make up the universe?

Compared with the ancient Greeks, the thinking of the ancient Chinese was much more metaphysical, just like the sky is more invisible and intangible than the gods.The origin of the universe that was first proposed by the ancient Chinese is also utterly empty. It is called Tai Chi. What is Tai Chi?Tai is big, which is the most important thing, and extreme is the apex, which is the most fundamental. Unlike earth, water, fire, and wind, you can feel it even if you can’t see it. Can you see Tai Chi?Can you feel it? The concept of Taiji first appeared in "Book of Changes". As the main body of "Book of Changes", "Yi Zhuan" said: "There is Taiji in Yi, which produces two forms. Two forms produce four images, and four images produce gossip." According to the history According to the explanations of idlers, the so-called Tai Chi is the nothingness of the universe, or the chaotic state before this nothingness is transformed into all things.The gods and gods are chattering, making people confused.Well then, after Tai Chi, there will be Liangyi. The so-called Liangyi is Yin and Yang. Although it only has a symbolic meaning, a Chinese will know that the sun is Yang, the moon is Yin, men are Yang, and women are Yin.No matter how bad it is, you will know what yang is after being exposed to the sun for a while, and you will know what yin is when you hide under the shade of a tree for a while to cool off.

Is there anything more specific?Liangyi produces four phenomena, which seem to be a bit close to earth, water, fire, and wind, maybe it is easier to understand?You are wrong, Sixiang is even weirder.The original four elephants are not the green dragon, white tiger, red bird, and basalt that were added later. The original four elephants refer to Shaoyin, Shaoyang, Laoyin, and Laoyang, which are as empty as Yin and Yang.Four elephants produce eight trigrams, and the eight trigrams are Qian, Kun, Kan, Li, Xun, Zhen, Gen, and Dui, or in layman's terms, they are heaven, earth, water, fire, wind, thunder, mountain, and Ze. They don't seem to be talking about the basic elements that generate the universe, but the various forms of things after the universe has been formed.

In fact, the "Book of Changes" system is basically playing a math game.Regardless of Tai Chi, the so-called Liangyi are 0 and 1, which form the most basic "Yao Xiang" of the "Book of Changes" system - 0 is Yin, which is two "horizontal sticks" juxtaposed; 1 is Yang, which is a single Root "horizontal stick".The upper and lower two groups of yaoxiang form four images, that is, the upper and lower yin are old yin, which is 0; the upper yin and lower yang are shaoyang, which is 1; the upper yang and lower yin are shaoyin, which is 2; Yang, it is 3.Three groups of yao images form eight trigrams, arranged from 0 to 7... Six groups of yao images form sixty-four hexagrams, arranged from 0 to 63.

In 1687, Bo Yingli, a Jesuit, wrote the book "Chinese Philosopher Confucius", in which a total of thirteen pages were used to introduce Fuxi's Eight Diagrams.The German philosopher and mathematician Leibniz bought a book and flipped through it-my God, isn't this the binary I am studying!Since then, the invention of the binary system has been attributed to Leibniz, while the original Chinese mathematician who first formulated the "Book of Changes" system has been submerged in the vast ocean of history.There is no way, his method is too metaphysical, and few people have been able to understand it for thousands of years.

The path of "Book of Changes" is no longer feasible, so is there any other cosmology in ancient China that is relatively more abstract and easier to understand?Are there any elemental theories that are more easily accepted by the general public like earth, water, fire, and wind?Although it appeared a bit late, it still exists, and that is the Five Elements Theory.