Chapter 6 five destiny

Believing in fate seems to be beneficial to people. The strong can use it to deceive others, and the weak can use it to masturbate. There are far fewer people now than in the past who believe in fate, because, according to those who do not believe it, it is superstition. ——“Unbelief” is also a kind of “belief”. Could this also be superstition?There must be convincing reasons for being right and wrong, and this cannot be solved with a few words.In the past, some people used to predict the future of others as a profession, such as divination, fortune-telling, face-to-face, and word-testing.It is superstitious to believe in the predictions of such people, because they cannot know the future.So this auspicious theory is because the materials they use to infer the future (such as birth date, face, etc., which are called "A" here) are related to the future of others (such as Tengda, poverty, disease, etc., which are called "A" here). B") there is no necessary connection, strictly speaking, there is no causal relationship between A and B.False causes cannot deduce real results, which proves that their words that they can know the future of others are false, and believing false words is naturally superstition.

This problem is relatively simple and easy to solve.But the problem cannot stop here, because our arguments can only prove that it is false for them to predict the future based on "such" materials, but not that they are false in predicting the future based on "any" materials.Is it impossible to predict the future based on any material?In common sense, obviously, no one thinks this way, because we can know with certainty that a certain situation will occur on the basis of certain materials; and, if this is not the case, our daily life will be unimaginable .In this way, it can be seen that we, whether consciously or not, still believe that the future can be predicted.Is this essentially the same as believing in fate? The term "fate" was mysterious in the past, and it is easy to cause misunderstanding.Here is another way of saying, "All the encounters in a person's life are pre-determined", or as some people say, "The encounters in a person's life, all kinds of activities, and even the smallest details are the inevitable results of heredity and environment." .Is this true?Obviously, there are many theoretical difficulties in denying such a statement. The most important one is that we must have another view on causality.According to current scientific common sense, most people think that.The world we live in is a unified whole, and any individual thing in it is maintained by the chain of causality, that is to say, it is the effect of the antecedent, the cause of the effect, and there is no phenomenon of self-destruction without cause.If this understanding is correct, it is obvious that all kinds of encounters in a person's life are determined by antecedent causes, and they are indeed pre-determined.

Causality, or the law of cause and effect, makes many people believe in determinism.Some people say that if there are enough materials, he can predict the infinite future of the whole universe through calculation according to the law of cause and effect.Some people even imagine that the universe we live in may be all finalized as soon as it becomes "existent". We think it develops and changes in the order of time, which is just a form of subjective cognition.Time is indeed a subtle and incomprehensible thing. Here we have to settle for common sense and admit that things develop and change in the order of time. The crux of the problem is whether there can be individual things without a cause in this order of time.

People who firmly believe in the law of cause and effect say, no.Some people have doubts about such firm belief, because the so-called law of cause and effect is what people try to use to "explain" existence, and now it is exalted to the status of "ruling" existence, is there no danger?Hard to say.But we seem to have to admit that it is not easy to push it down, at least it is very inconvenient.An easy way of looking like a refuge is to say only that there are occasional exceptions to the movement of life.However, this is equivalent to saying that a new system suddenly appeared in this world, which is not so unified, and the problem is too big, so let's ignore it.A person who firmly believes in the law of cause and effect will probably not give in. He may insist that the activities of life are no exception. For example, the will, you think it is spontaneously thinking about something, but it is not spontaneous, because you want to do this and not to do that. There is a reason.

This way of using the law of cause and effect to explain everything, and even govern everything, raises two questions: first, whether it is right; second, whether it is good or not.The former problem may be left to future philosophers to solve, and only the latter one will be discussed here.The question of whether it is good or not is most prominently manifested in the activities of life, or more strictly speaking, in the aspects of human life.If you believe that all human experiences and every tiny activity are determined by previous causes, then: first, "self-improvement" will become meaningless; second, the "personal responsibility" required by morality and law will lose its basis , because, anyway, it is doomed and cannot be changed. What can an individual bound by the law of cause and effect do!If this helpless mood really becomes a shadow imprinted on the heart, it will have the power to destroy "ideals" and "interests", which is not a small practical problem.Probably because of this, there are many sages in history who came up with various reasons to prove that although the world is governed by the laws of cause and effect, "human beings" have freedom of will.This kind of view is easy to accept based on common sense, because: first, according to our own experience, there are indeed so-called "what I want" and "what can I do"; second, the requirements of morality and law are not without effect .Naturally, here again the question of whether the freedom experienced is real or not.This, as has already been said, is difficult to solve, because we do not know enough about the nature of the universe as a whole; and, moreover, the feeling of freedom of the will, which is real from one side, cannot be denied to us on the other. On the one hand, volitional activities are also in the order of time, and it is difficult for us to prove that it is completely free from the influence of antecedents.

Regarding the issue of destiny and man's destiny, if you find out which is right and which is wrong, you will encounter a dilemma.The nature of existence may be more complex than we can imagine.Since we can't solve it for the time being, it's better to be content with not knowing. Fortunately, from the perspective of practice, it doesn't matter too much, because food can't be eaten until the nutrition theory is understood.If we want to live, we have to hope that there is a better and feasible way.I think the feasible way to do this is to "assume" that self-improvement will produce effects, that is, to admit that there will be "self-generated causes" in will activities, which are not born of antecedent causes, but can break into the sequence of time and produce consequences.This is just a hypothesis. It may fail, but it may also become a reality. Before the truth is fully clarified, it is inappropriate to lose the latter possibility.From a positive point of view, with this assumption, everyone firmly believes that refining stones can really mend the sky, and they can rely on their "ideals" and "interests" in life, and the shadow of helplessness cast by fate will fade or even disappear completely.Naturally, this assumption is not to give up the law of cause and effect, but to rely on the law of cause and effect, because if you can't get melons if you plant melons, it is meaningless to strive for self-improvement.Our life is probably like this, and we are often in a dilemma: we can't understand some things, but we have to trust our own eyes, choose a path, and move forward.