Chapter 57 Epilogue——From Fantasy to Philosophical Thinking

"Philosophy" is a term that everyone is familiar with, but its interior is a field that most people feel unfamiliar with.There is a popular joke in economics: If you ask ten economists for their opinions on an economic problem, you will get eleven opinions; because one of them will tell you: "From a certain point of view, so and so, and It's the same from another point of view." We wonder why a similar joke isn't popular in philosophy.If you ask ten philosophers, "What is philosophy?" you will probably get more than twenty answers; for each philosopher will come up with two or three answers which he thinks are reasonable, and which he himself cannot answer. Determine which one is the most correct.But this does not mean that philosophers do not know what they are doing, nor does it mean that the fields studied or the issues discussed by philosophers are different.In fact, many important philosophical fields and philosophical issues are common concerns of all schools of philosophy in the history of philosophy.An introductory book on philosophy is best started with these philosophical questions or schools of philosophy.However, the extremely abstract thinking in philosophy is not easy for beginners to understand, and a lot of strange philosophical terms are even more daunting.Therefore, the best way to guide beginners is to try to cite specific examples to clarify abstract theories, and to avoid entanglement in technical terms as much as possible.Jostan Judd's book has achieved these two points quite successfully, so that it has been able to publish translations in thirty-five countries, ranking first in bestsellers in eleven countries, and the Chinese translation once ranked first in Taiwan.This is a rare phenomenon in philosophy books.But the purpose of this book is to introduce the thoughts of some important philosophers in the history of philosophy, so it is more or less along the line of thought of those philosophers, and it is impossible to completely avoid mentioning the important terms that are original or commonly used by those philosophers .Jostein Judd's new book does both of these things more successfully.

In the book, the author did not systematically introduce the theories of philosophers or philosophical schools, nor did he discuss philosophical issues in depth.The author's purpose seems to be to lead the reader to philosophizing.He tells a whole story in the book.The main axis of the story is a boy and his father set off from Norway to Greece to find his runaway mother.During the development of the main axis of the story, the author interspersed with many illusory plots, which triggered many philosophical examinations.These philosophical reflections sometimes appear in the dialogue between father and son, and sometimes they are the inner monologue of boys.These impromptu philosophical reflections naturally appear along with the plot of the story, without a specific theme or systematic exposition.On the surface, the philosophical content is not as rich as the previous book, but it is more able to lead readers to the road of philosophical thinking unconsciously.Readers will find that philosophy is not so far away in the abstract world, but in everyday life.The illusory plot interspersed in the story can certainly lead to mysterious philosophical fantasies; however, the ordinary plot in the story is also enough to inspire personal philosophical thinking.For example: The boy's mother ran away from home in search of "self" and went to work as a model in the Greek clothing industry.When boys see photos of their mothers in fashion magazines, they feel that their mothers have not yet found their "self", because the poses and expressions she poses in front of the camera can be seen as deliberate imitations of others.Boys therefore think that it is easier to find their "self" by staying at home, and they lose themselves by wandering outside.The father of the child thinks that the more beautiful a woman is, the harder it is to find herself, and laments that people will drown in the mythical world.These philosophies are all experienced from daily practical life.

The father-son dialogues in the book occasionally feature quite deep and detailed philosophical analysis.For example: After the boy experienced a series of very coincidental stories, his father made a big comment, citing some historical facts as examples, pointing out that the probability that their father and son could be born in this world is really slim, but they still live in this world.He also goes further to talk about the "supernatural" and the question of whether the universe has a purpose.This wonderful dialogue can give readers a preliminary understanding of more in-depth philosophical analysis.Readers can do further thinking on other issues mentioned in the book in this way.Since many impromptu philosophical reflections in the book are just to the point, there are quite a lot of "exercises" for readers to think about further.Here are just two examples for reference.

The boy thought that human beings are very strange, very smart in many ways, they know a lot about space and atoms, but they don't know much about themselves. His father made a very interesting statement: it is not difficult for us to understand a simple brain.Example: We generally understand how the earthworm brain works.But our brains are so simple, too stupid to understand such a simple brain.Example: An earthworm cannot understand its own brain.Conversely, if we are very intelligent, the brain becomes so complex that even intelligent humans cannot understand it.We can examine this passage carefully to see if it proves that no one can understand his own brain? Is God so complicated that he does not understand himself? Does the above argument have to assume that the researcher must be more complex than the person being studied? Objects are more complex to understand? Can such a hypothesis be established? Why? The child's father believes that sooner or later scientists will create humans who can think like us.It is not stated in the book whether the brain of this "artificial person" is like a computer or made of brain cells.If it is just a very complex computer, does it have the same sentience and emotions as we do? Or does it only have emotions? On what grounds do we answer the above question? Some readers may not like this kind of tricky approach Come read this entertaining book.

In fact, many imaginative stories and dialogues in the book are enough to inspire readers' philosophical thinking.However, what we want to emphasize is: the illusory plots interspersed in the book are not philosophy in themselves, they are just fuses to inspire philosophical thinking. Lin Zhenghong October 1996