Experts in the humanities and sciences value benevolent people. Wang Defeng, the "philosopher prince" of Fudan University, wrote 5 words in his opening remarks
Wang Defeng, a professor at the School of Philosophy of Fudan University, known as the "Prince of Philosophy", gave the first lecture of the "Humanities Huali University Lecture Hall" on the 30th, which lasted for two and a half hours. At around 1 pm that day, outside the lecture hall of Shaw Building on the Xuhui campus of East China University of Science and Technology, college students lined up early to take their seats and share the wisdom of Chinese philosophy.
In the opening remarks, Wang Defeng "marked the key points" while teaching, and wrote five words on the whiteboard behind him, namely: original heart, benevolence, benevolence, Tao, and Qi. After analyzing the fundamental differences between Chinese and Western philosophy, he explained that Confucian philosophy talks about the principles of human nature, that is, benevolence.
In Wang Defeng's view, the foundation of Western philosophy is "speculation", which is also the premise of thinking in natural science; while the foundation of Chinese philosophy is actually a commonly used word: "experience", that is, understanding "Tao" from the mind and body. "Here The mind is the original heart and the benevolent body. "For Confucianism, the original mind is the word "benevolence".
Wang Defeng also mentioned the word "home" verbally. "家" is translated into Spanish, and there are at least three translations. The first is "house", which is the spatial location where home is located; the second is "family", which is the group of members with blood relationships; the third is "home" - he said, "Where is 'benevolence', Where is 'home'; if 'benevolence' is gone, 'home' is gone." If benevolence has nowhere to settle, it is "homeless".
Confucius said, "A benevolent person loves others." People say, "A peaceful heart is home." Although the Analects of Confucius ultimately did not provide a core definition of "benevolence", in Wang Defeng's eyes, "benevolence" is not a concept in people's minds like a scientific term, but a real emotion in life. Just as Confucius and his disciple Zaiyu discussed whether "three years of mourning" is too long, Confucius said "if it is safe, then do it", and Zaiyu said "safe" - as a result, he was considered "unkind" by Confucius.
In fact, Confucianism and Taoism complement each other. In the 5,000-word "Tao Te Ching", there is no positive definition of "what is Tao", but a negative explanation of "what is not Tao" because "Tao cannot be expressed in words". However, Wang Defeng told teachers and students that the "doing nothing without doing anything" advocated by Taoism is actually not "doing nothing", but hopes that people can "make subtractions" and reduce "human mistakes" outside of "Tao". Because man-made things are fake and artificial.” Ultimately, Taoist philosophy emphasizes: “Man follows the earth, the earth follows the heaven, the heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows nature.”
Philosophy is the study of Tao, and science is the study of tools. In essence, "tools" are "tools for practicing the Tao", and one cannot "see the tools and lose sight of the Tao". Interestingly, a reporter from Jiefang Daily and Shangguan News found that in discussions between science and education experts on the same day, in this era of rapid technological advancement, people are also the identity and subject that they emphasize. As Wang Defeng said, without "benevolence" as the master, science will also mutate into nihilism.
Shanghai Preschool Education College of Shanghai Normal University develops educational service robots. Photo by Xu Ruizhe
"We haven't had time to use GPT-4.0, or even have time to look forward to it. GPT-4o is coming out." "Artificial intelligence will replace all jobs that use people as tools." As the director of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, he was a physics teacher at Fuxing High School. Ni Minjing, of the Ministry of Education, bluntly stated at the annual meeting of the Yangtze River Delta Preschool Education Development Alliance on the same day that from translators to drivers, these positions as part of the "tools" will soon be replaced by autonomous driving, simultaneous interpretation glasses, etc. Even the "programmers" who write code will be replaced by non-machine language, natural language AI programming.
As human beings, if we return to humanity, what kind of world will we face? Ni Minjing said in comparison, "It took 13.8 billion years for the material world to start from the big bang to create atoms, and for carbon-based life to form the spiritual world; in the digital world, it only took 70 years for computers to start producing bits, and for silicon-based life to form general artificial intelligence." ” Therefore, today’s people, especially children, not only have a material world and a spiritual world, but also an unprecedented digital world and an increasingly larger universe from the moon to Mars.
Therefore, Ni Minjing said that the products of the 21st century economy are not factories, vehicles and weapons, but the human body, thinking and pleasure. Perhaps, in the face of the "partner" of artificial intelligence, human beings' own physical and mental development is more important than ever before. He suggested to the nearly 400 early childhood education workers present that they should focus on developing children’s senses and go to nature, because nature has the richest colors, the richest sounds, and the richest shapes. “Only with sensitive and powerful senses can we Have the foundation for discovery.”
Even though SORA has learned to generate "dreams" through "babble" and "dream" on behalf of humans, the natural world is far more fun than the virtual world. Ni Minjing said that physical experience is still irreplaceable and can reach directly into the soul; symbols, whether they are pictures, films, or digital technology, need to be transformed before they can be experienced. “The biggest difference is that physical objects are cross-language media and cross-sensory experiences, and their greatest function is rediscovery and multi-level discovery—everything can be studied.”
