I continued," Science tells us that the sky in the northern hemisphere looks like this. However, was this picture a description of the true appearance of the starry sky? Assuming we are fast enough to reach all the planets in a second, we might not even find one according to the location indicated on this map. Because what we see is only the light emitted by these stars tens of millions of years ago or even tens of billions of years ago, and at this moment, where these stars are, even God probably doesn't know.
(3) Knowledge is a corresponding relationship between observation phenomena and things.
We can't know what things themselves are, nor can we know what their true colors are. Doesn't this mean that we can't know the world? However, the fact is that we can not only understand the world but also transform it. So, what did we know? What do we mean by knowing each other?
1. Giving Things a Name
"In everyday life, knowing something means nothing more than giving it a proper name.”We cannot know what a thing is, but we can give it a name. What we know is just knowing its name.
2. Understand the corresponding relationship between things
The first was to observe the corresponding relationship between phenomena and things. Although the phenomenon of observation was not something that the external world itself had, there was a strict correspondence between it and the things. We don't know what things really are, but we know what we observe. By matching the observed phenomena with the external objects, we can understand the world. We think things are what we see them to be, and we store them in our memory. When they appear again, we compare them with the original memory, and if they are the same, we think they are the same thing.
Secondly, what we know is the corresponding relationship between things, including the relationship between the whole and parts, and between things and other things.
When you see a beautiful girl, you go up and say,""Miss, can I treat you to a meal?" At this moment, she would definitely be surprised."I don't even know you. Why should I eat with you?”This sentence sounded normal on the surface, but it was actually a very strange sentence. You were standing in front of her, and she said she didn't know you. Then what did she know? If you continued to say,"My head is 1.80 meters, my weight is 80 kilograms, and my three measurements…" She would definitely say,"I'm 1.8 meters tall.""Are you crazy?" Are you depressed when you encounter such a situation? How did she know you? At this time, if you say,"My name is Li Si, and I work in a certain unit."”She would say,"Oh…" The meaning of this "oh" was actually that she was getting to know you."My dad's name is Li Gang, and my family is rich!”At this time, you would hear her say,"You're amazing just because you have a few stinking money! You murderer!" Now, she finally knows you…From these conversations, you can see that the acquaintance she mentioned was actually referring to your name and various social connections.
(4) How do we understand the world?
How do we know this world? I believe that the process of cognition can be roughly divided into the following stages:
1. Observation and Detection
This stage corresponded to a person's sensory process. In this stage, people mainly probed the physical world outside, receiving external stimulation through the sensory system, generating various feelings.
2. Marks
It corresponded to a person's perceptual process. At this stage, we make a one-to-one correspondence between the observed phenomena and the external things, and we attribute it to the things themselves--we think that the external things are what we observe. For example, when we see a red apple, we think that the apple is "red". When we hear the sound of a violin playing, we think that the sound comes from the violin. When we see the waves, we think they are what we see.
At this stage, we still have to do one more thing--symbolization, which is to use all kinds of symbols to represent things. For example, giving things names. This stage was actually the process of attaching various sensory labels to things.
3. Explanation
It could roughly correspond to a person's thought process. At this stage, we have to complete two tasks. First, for the convenience of understanding, we divide and label things. For example, divide a bottle into mouth, bottom, and body. The second was to explain the causality between various observed phenomena and things. For example, when Newton saw an apple fall to the ground, he interpreted it as being affected by gravity.
4. Form a scientific cognitive system
He summarized his experience and accumulated various understandings of things to form a theoretical system. Then, he would use the theory to guide all kinds of cognitive activities.
From the above analysis, we can see that cognition is neither to explain what things themselves are, nor to reflect the true face of objective things. It is just a sign and explanation of things. In this regard, we can say that cognition is just a way for us to describe the world.
The world we know is not only related to the world itself, but also to the means we use to understand and describe the world. Different cognitive methods lead to different phenomena, different labels of the world, different ways of describing things, and different understandings of the relationships between things. Therefore, in actual work, we cannot equate knowledge with the objective world. The confusion of thoughts is mostly due to our misunderstanding of knowledge as the true face of things. For example, the debate between Reductionist, System Theory, and Holism. In fact, they are just a way for us to understand the world. The world doesn't become a whole just because we think things are made up of parts, nor does it really become a system just because we think things are individual systems…
(5) The standard to judge whether the cognition is correct or not
If cognition is just a way for people to describe the world, then how can we guarantee its accuracy? There were three criteria:
1. Evidence
Our labels and explanations of things must conform to the results of our observations. In one recognition, we might not be able to judge whether the recognition is correct or not, but as the recognition deepens, the wrong labels and explanations will inevitably appear inconsistent with the observation results. For example, for a long time, people had always thought that color was something that an object had. After the appearance of light, people found that the original understanding was wrong.
2. Self-consistent
A scientific theoretical system was formed on the basis of a summary of a large number of things. If some of the original understandings were wrong or unreasonable, it would inevitably contradict other labels and explanations within the system. If a theory was not self-consistent, it meant that its understanding of the world was unreasonable.
3. To promote the process of people's understanding
Since knowledge was only a mark and explanation of things, there was a problem: There were many ways to label and explain the same world-there were all kinds of descriptions (theoretical systems). In fact, this situation was very normal. For example, in various subjects, under normal circumstances, teachers would educate students like this: There was a general relationship between the various subjects. If one did not study Chinese well, it would affect one's ability to understand mathematics. Not being good at math would affect physics and chemistry because they required calculations…In fact, these explanations were only superficial. The deeper reason was that all the existing human disciplines were a unified whole because they were describing the same object, the world. The reason why each discipline was different was that they described the same object in different ways. The small teacup in front of us can almost unify all the disciplines: Philosophy, psychology, language, mathematics, physics, chemistry, geography, history, economics, art, logic, ethics…
In principle, as long as this description meets the first two conditions, we cannot say that it is wrong. Was there a standard for comparison between different descriptions? Of course there was. Although we can't say whether a theoretical system is right or wrong, we can still judge its advantages and disadvantages. A good cognitive model could promote people's cognitive process. It would make people's understanding of things simple, clear, and organized. A bad model would cause confusion in people's understanding.”
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