Article丨云海

What is the meaning of life? Where do we come from? Where are we? Where should we go? How should we realize the value of our lives? Faced with these issues related to the value of life, some people took half their lives to wake up, some were confused all their lives, and some were always searching. In addition to personally understanding the true meaning of life through years of experience, if we read through books, we will find that there are actually many answers. For example, biology points to the continuation of genes, sociology emphasizes the inheritance of ethnic groups, psychology explores the happiness of the soul, philosophy pursues human self-realization, and religion teaches the cause and effect of the afterlife... We can have many surprises from the sparks of wisdom thought by our predecessors. Harvest.

『1』

Humans through natural selection

Darwin was the first to make a coherent and defensible analysis of the meaning of life and the purpose of life. Foot elaboration. Today, the theory of natural selection and evolution of "natural selection, survival of the fittest" is as well known and accepted by people as the principle of the earth's revolution around the sun. Biologists generally agree that the primary driving force behind the evolution of humans and all other organisms is natural selection. Due to this driving force, human ancestors separated from chimpanzee-like primates and gave rise to Homo sapiens within 5 million or 6 million years.

Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins explains in his book "The Selfish Gene" that if we want to understand our own characteristics, we must understand natural selection, and genes Non-random differentiated reproduction is natural selection. In the view of this evolutionary biologist who supports Darwin's theory of evolution, we are all survival machines—robots as delivery vehicles, blindly programmed to permanently preserve selfish factors called genes. Based on this, Dawkins gave a definite answer to the meaning of life: the task of individual organisms is to strive to expand the success rate of passing on genes.

Edward O. Wilson, a leader in American biology who is known as the "contemporary Darwin", further extended the concept of "gene-culture co-evolution" based on the main thrust of evolution by natural selection. "The thrust. Wilson proposed in the book "Integrated Knowledge: Science and Humanities in the 21st Century" that natural selection adds cultural evolution in parallel to genetic evolution, and that the two forms of evolution are interrelated. We are not only limited by our genes, but also by our culture. The latter refers to religion, mythology, art, technology, sports and all other systematic knowledge passed down from generation to generation. Wilson advocates understanding human nature from the perspectives of neuroscience, psychology and evolutionary biology, and is committed to expanding sociobiology into social sciences, trying to build a bridge across science and humanities to explore the possible future development of human society. . Wilson points out that in the future, understanding biology will give us the power to reshape ourselves.

However, the development of biology will also lead to challenges to natural selection. As the young Israeli geek Yuval Noah Harari warned in the book "A Brief History of Humankind: From Animals to God", although starting from the Stone Age, the evolution of Homo sapiens has followed the natural evolution of living things. The law of selection and the limitations of biological factors seem naturally difficult to break. However, with the development of bioengineering, bionic engineering and inorganic life engineering at the beginning of the 21st century, we can now not only transform the world around us, but also the world within our own bodies and hearts, and the speed of development is extremely fast. This makes it possible for humans to create superhuman beings in the future, and will also bring huge challenges to human ethics, social and political order.

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Embrace the randomness of nature

Selfish genes drive people to make choices that are best for themselves. Human beings always try to gain some kind of certainty in order to benefit from predicting the future. However, there are more and more signs that nature and even our human society are full of randomness, unpredictability, and opacity, and attempts to predict accurately often encounter frustration.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a researcher at New York University, pointed out that complex systems are full of imperceptible interdependencies and nonlinear reactions. Man-made complex systems often trigger out-of-control chain reactions, which can make things go wrong. become more unpredictable and lead to mega-events. In fact, most of history stems from unpredictable "black swan" events that occur irregularly and cause widespread and serious consequences.

Taleb further proposed in the book "Antifragility: Profiting from Uncertainty" that antifragility (the antonym of fragility is not strong, but antifragile) prefers randomness and uncertainty. Sex, it can help us deal with unknown things and solve problems we don't understand, and it is very effective. By mastering the mechanics of antifragility, we can develop a systematic and broad guide to making non-predictive decisions in the uncertain world of business, politics, medicine, and life in general. Therefore, Taleb put forward a subversive point of view: a complex system does not require complex management mechanisms, regulations, and intricate policies, because complex mechanisms can lead to unexpected chain reactions. In fact, simpler is better.

『3』

Understand the laws of individual success

Edward Wilson pointed out that innate inheritance and acquired efforts jointly promote human evolution. So, in the cultural category of acquired efforts, what factors can lead to individual success? In fact, success is influenced by a wide range of factors, including emotional quotient, IQ, wealth, family education, personality, inexplicable luck, etc. How much these factors contribute to success is a topic that scholars are concerned about, and it will also provide more valuable and clear guidance for the growth of ourselves and the next generation.

Daniel Goleman, a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University, pays attention to the impact of EQ and IQ, and puts forward the view that EQ is more important than IQ in the book "Emotional Quotient: Why EQ is More Important than IQ" . He pointed out that people with high IQs can also do very stupid things, largely due to a series of abilities called "emotional intelligence", including self-control, enthusiasm and tenacity, and the ability to self-motivate. . Goleman believes that social and emotional learning, that is, by helping children enhance their self-awareness and self-confidence, regulate disturbing emotions and impulses, and cultivate empathy, can not only improve children's behavior, but also significantly improve their academic performance. This idea has been proven by scientific research. From this, Goleman pointed out that emotional intelligence can help us control emotional impulses, understand the deepest feelings of others, and skillfully handle interpersonal relationships. It can play a role in maintaining interpersonal relationships, achieving career success, and ensuring physical and mental health and happiness. key role. Today, emotional intelligence traits such as self-awareness, control of destructive emotions and empathy have become one of the criteria for employee recruitment and promotion, especially essential qualities for leadership.

Writer David Brooks elaborated on the same point of view from a rational and emotional perspective. In "The Social Animal," Brooks points out that what economists call "non-cognitive skills" are the deeper keys to success, rather than what rationalists such as Plato believe are rational. In modern society, schools are emphasizing on training students' survival skills, while neglecting to cultivate people's moral values ??and emotional abilities. For such really important life issues as who to marry, who to make friends with, what to like, what to hate, and how to restrain impulses. Children are almost left to figure it out on their own. Based on multidisciplinary research results, Brooks pointed out that emotions are more important than pure rationality, social relationships are more important than individual choices, personality is more important than IQ, flexible organic systems are more important than linear and rigid mechanical systems, and group intelligence More important than individual thinking.

In another masterpiece, "The Road to Character," Brooks pointed out that in addition to pursuing success in the workplace, one should also pay attention to the cultivation of inner morality. Otherwise, we may be busy working hard in the workplace all day long, but we may not be able to clearly understand the meaning of life. He pointed out that there are two qualities in our nature. The external nature is geared toward the workplace, and the ambitious side tends to build, create, produce, discover, and pursue prominent status and success; the internal nature hopes to possess certain moral qualities, calm thinking, and a firm view of right and wrong.

Our society encourages us to think about how to be successful in the workplace but neglects the cultivation of inner character, which will lead us to easily slide into a place of self-satisfaction and mediocrity. Therefore, in the book, the author shares some people's successful experiences in cultivating excellent character to help people temper their moral core, cultivate a wise heart, and save their souls.

Different from Brooks's self-salvation, Harvard University professor Michael J. Sandel focuses on the pursuit of social justice and advocates cultivating everyone's virtue. In "Justice: What's the Right Way to Do It?" In the book, he discusses how to live a just and kind life. Sandel rejected the utilitarian path and the liberal path to achieve social justice. He pointed out that we cannot form a just society simply by maximizing utility or ensuring freedom of choice. In order to form a just society, Sandel proposed a third way, which is to reason together about the meaning of a good life and create a fair culture to accommodate the various differences that will inevitably arise.

『4』

Conclusion

People’s life situations and experiences are different, but they can always find guidance in the vast ocean of humanities and social science knowledge. Your own light. In a sense, classic works provide a shortcut to capture the light of wisdom.

The above eight influential classics in the field of humanities and social sciences (recently selected as humanities and social science classics in the "CITIC Classics Series") use their rich interdisciplinary knowledge reserves to explore the value of life from multiple angles. The question provides us with multi-dimensional thinking about the value of life.