自由非理性的追求

猛然间看起了刚到英国时看的本爱情穿越网络小说《如果是在古埃及》，便会想起了三年前刚到英国和曹业宬以及沙特王子Mogham住在爱尔兰老太太房东家的情景，不仅有些感慨万千，清泪纵横。那年我才刚17岁，又小又单纯。

忽觉肚子饿，于是随手泡了碗方便面，联想到当年刚到英国时，国产方便面都是可遇不可及的美味。那时候每次去tesco只舍得买tesco自己牌子的最便宜的 27便士的杯面。那种杯面大概只有60克并且只有一个小小的粉包，因此可以说既远不够一顿的食量又淡而无味。就是这样的方便面我们平时也舍不得吃，只有等 到半夜饿极了才舍得泡上一碗。那时候在房东家吃饭已经是不求食物的口味只求能吃饱就行。有一回我和曹业宬同学一起偷吃了房东9个鸡蛋（曹业宬5个、我4 个），这是我印象中在布莱顿吃得最爽的一次。还记得又一次房东冰箱里有几根蒜，我就用土司面包夹着大蒜吃了下去，当时觉得美味无比。刚到英国时我们每次买 东西看到价格都会乘以15，那时我还总结并教给曹业宬一个简单的方法就是英镑价格后面加个0再加上现有物价的50%，这种计算人民币加个的习惯一直持续了 三四个月。

那时公交车单程是1镑5，天票是2镑8。我和曹业宬住得离学校远（近郊高速公路旁边）又舍不得坐公交车，于是我们就一人买了部二 手自行车，两人的车都是二、三十镑的，我们还要去买头盔，曹业宬买了二十多镑个滑轮头盔，我因为头大带不下，买了个39.99镑的自行车头盔，那时真是有 些心疼，买个头盔竟然比自行车还贵。我们的自行车质量都很差，先是曹业宬的自行车龙头是可以来回抽动，坐垫是可以左右晃动的。后来没多久我的自行车就爆了 胎。和英国大多数地区一样，布莱顿是丘陵地带，骑自行车下坡很爽，上坡却很累，因为要自己推。没骑多久我们就放弃了骑自行车，改而走路上学，每天我们都要 走2小时来回的山路。

那时我们住的房东家没有网络，只好偷隔壁的无线网络，而那网络的信号又很差，所以能连上网的机会很小很小。真得感谢网络小说，出国前我是不看网络小说的，但在布莱顿我的课余时间几乎都是看网络小说打发的，从下午一直看到睡觉。要是没有网络小说真不知道日子该怎么过。

布莱顿是个海边城市，那里的酒吧文化非常出名，海边的巴比伦酒吧我去过三次，但每次我都是自己跑出来躺在海边的石滩上，看着漫天的星星，感受着迎面吹来夹杂着海水滴的海风，呼吸着大海味道的空气，听着海浪的声音，那时多么惬意啊。至今我仍怀念那样的感觉。

布莱顿是英国的同性恋之都，记得同性恋大游行那天，我在一个公园里被一个英国同性恋者吃了豆腐，那是第一次我被吃豆腐。

布莱顿还有个叫Marina的小海港，那里停着许多游艇和小帆船，有一次和吴雨辰去的时候我感慨道：“真想在这里买条小帆船出海。”高中时我追求的生活是当个大学教授，钱只要正好够用就行，但在Marina我第一次理解原来钱还是挺重要的。

在布莱顿的语言学校学习了两个半月，随后我们便前往伦敦开始了两年充满辛酸的A-level学习。

    这个问题整整困扰了我将近一年。我曾经坚信“现实性在其展开过程中表现为必然性”，曾经坚信结果由原因导致，一分耕耘一分收获。但是在我慢慢经历了很多事 情之后，我开始怀疑，我逐渐发现有很多事情的发生是偶然的。休谟曾经问过这个世界是有序的还不是，但是他为了使他经验主义可行，他说这个世界是有序的。我 也希望这个世界是有序的，因为无序真的很痛苦。

    经历的很多事情让我不得不觉得无序似乎占有很大比重，这个世界、我们的人生是unpredictable的。最大的体会就是ucas申请大学，这经历让我提心吊胆，生怕什么东西稍纵即逝。

    曾经有过的准确的第六感的经历，让我现在的神经过于敏感，任何一点点感觉都不自觉的扩大化再加上些杞人忧天，这让我好累好累。

    昨天和一个法律系的学姐辩论了些终极问题，她找到了自己的Fundation——上帝。但我觉得形而上的问题超越了我们的认知范围，因此只存在讨论的价 值，不存在相信的价值，因为无法验证和严密的推导。但是，我们需不需要一个fundation? 我选择了回避，可是不管怎么回避，形而上的问题总是纠缠着我。

    我曾经觉得想这类问题很有意思，可是现在觉得很痛苦，想着想着就会和自己的生活联系起来。我不知道活着的意义是什么，这个世界的规律是什么，本质是什么。 为什么我会认识某些人而不是另一些人？为什么我和你会认识？什么是缘分？什么是因果？亦或许像休谟说的那样本来就没有因果，只是一个个facts的罗列， 那这些facts之间有什么联系？有规律吗？能predict吗？休谟说：能！因为我们有经验。可是我们的经验可靠吗？我们看见太阳升起了一万次，可是明 天太阳还会升起吗？

   太多的事件的发生打破了我经验，如果不是我偶然写了一封信给布里斯托，我现在不是就得去港大？英国的升学规律不也是超验的吗？或者直接了当的说是无序的。

   我恨选择，尤其是理性无法推测的选择。有时希望比绝望还要痛苦，但是我们就真的可以没有希望吗？

   总而言之，言儿简之，这些想得我很痛苦：这个世界是有序的还是无序混乱的？

                Does all knowledge come from experience ?

Q 12

Tao Zhang

tz8562

Knowledge can come from experience but not necessarily all truths. Rational deduction is another method of learning knowledge and it has some problem which is valid to do some comparison with empiricism hence discuss the meaning of knowledge. Finally to conclude that knowledge is worth and usually come from the combination of both two methods.

Belief from empiricists

Hume and other empiricist claimed that knowledge are come from experience. They emphasize the role of experience and evidence is the proper way of getting knowledge in almost all the cases. They also emphasize the sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas.

Knowledge can come from experience. We can first obeserve or to feel the process of events, than find out the reasons and results, hence to conclude and induce the relationship between these reasons and results of the events. Therefore we gain the knowledge. We can not a priorily and rationaly deduce the fire can produce light and heat; TNT can be exploded; magnet can provide magnetic field. We can only induce all these causal phenomenons by experience.

The induction of causal phenomenons give as a proper method of getting knowledge, by the induction of experience we can have a knowledge of habite that is we can know that what will happen next when we obeserve an origin or we can find the the reasoning when we only obeserved the consequence.

This method of acknowledge has been already widely used in scientific research, actually this is the essential, nessecary and basic technique of scientific research. Scientists need to prove their theory by scientific experiement, sometimes even they do not know the theory but just conclude a complitly new theory after a series of experiement. The theory can only be valid unless the experiement can be done repeatly. This repeatable experiement creat a kind of certanty to the theory that is it is universally valid in some extent.

   To what extent does knowledge from experience are necessary truths ?

Sun has already rised thousands of times in every day’s morning, but how can we make sure that the sun must be rise at tomorrow morning? The thousands rises does not necessarily means it will and should or must be rise next time at the same period of the day and from the same direction(east).

In the area of science subjects, almost all the theory have a sphere of application. Newton’s Law of Motion valid on normal world mechanics. The theory of Newtion’s Law of Motion are come from many experiements he did and hence induced. This theory has been checked by handrad years and enable human beings made a lot of useful machines hence creat the industry revolution. However it have many problem in either macro physics world or micro physics world. In astronomy, time space and motion can be twisted by gravity. Newton’s thinks all the motion on this world is regularly and the universe is well and clear and straight structed either time or space. If we believe our experience of the law can be succussfully apply on the earth and simply apply Newton’s law on astronomical obeservation and research, we would make some mistake. Therefore, Einsten discovered relativity theory which has been used in astrophysics and quantum physics.

Not only in sicientific area but also in art research. Karl Marx’s historical materialism says the development of human society base on the proper sequence i.e. primitive society, slavery society, feudal society, capitalist society, etc. this theory of development can be applied to European society very well. Therefore some historian simply apply it to Chinese history according to their experience, however, many other historian think chinese feudal society ended at the age when Emperor Qin (The First Emperor of China) united China. From then on until Republic of China the type p f chinese society of the integrate centralized empire which have not got feudal noble land lord. Only the system of empire’s central government and its extention of local governments. In my opinion this theory is more suitable to chinese history.

Experience can be a very useful way of getting knowledge, on the other hand the knowledge can be truth in some extent but hardly universally truth.

                   Belief from Rationalism

Another method of getting knowledge is rationalism which is a completely oppersite to empricism. Rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" (Lacey 286). In more technical terms it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive" (Bourke 263). Different degrees of emphasis on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position "that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge" to the radical position that reason is "the unique path to knowledge"(This difinition comes from Wikipedia).

People want to exclude the effect of experience from getting knowledge, they think experience can be wrong or biased or illusory or inveracious. We can only know the superficial modes of things and matters. Our sence can provide biased or misleading information. What we seeing or feeling my not the essences of matters. So, knowledge come from experience my not truths.

Descartes thinks it is not impossible that all of our experience can be created by evil demo, only the cogito is surely existing. Based on this theory he deducted other existences.

On the other hand, each person has difference sense system, they can experience one same matter and come out different feeling or conclusion, but the matter is still that one assured matter. One thing can only have one same essence and modes. An essence should be a essence, if different people conclude different feelings or conclusions, those feelings and conclusions must be biased. Therefore, experiences are can not provide valid knowledge.

Further more, colour blindness people or colour weakness people can feeling less various of colours than normal people. We may think that colours of the world is the colours seen from our normal people’s eyes not colour blindness eyes. But we can make a similar comparison and conclude that the real colour of the world my be much more variable than what we seen, we just can not detect them, or there is no colour at all it is just an information provide by our imagination which generated by different external signal. Thus used to differing different modes. Actually by the scientific research people find that colours are human feelings of different wave lengths of electro-magnetic radiations. The obeservable light is just a small part of whole spectrum.

Pure rationalist method is used in Mathmatics Logic religious philosophy theology etc. These kind of subjects has nothing strictly related to the real world. All the knowledge should come out by deduction rather than induction. Mathmatics is just relations between numbers and mathmatical signs, it can even exist without the existence of the universe. Theological program can only be done by deduction due to all the questions are a priori questions.

In modern science the rational proportion is getting larger and larger, especially in theorietical physics more and more knowledge are first come out by deduction. e.g. relativity. Rather than the people doing experiments in ealier physics study.

Rationalism’s problems and the comparisons with empiricism and the meaning of knowledge

However, the development of the world is not idealised, many things are unpredictable. Deductions may not valid in real world especailly in predict some things. It is not all the deductions are very accurate. Sometimes rational deduction may not as useful as empricism induction. In Ptolemaic system people experience that earth is the centre of the universe and sun is orbiting around the Earth. Copunicus deducted Earth is orbiting around the Sun. However some prediction of change in season or motion of stars from Copunicus are not as accurate as Ptolemaic system. Until Kepler deducted the orbit is ellipse rather than a circle, the prediction then become relatively accurate.

Actually due to the relative motion of mechanics we can say the Sun is orbiting around the Earth or the Earth is orbiting around the Sun. But the geocentric theory is too complicate to study so we normally use heliocentric theory.

Platonism believes there is a real world which is the opposite to this illusory in veracious and faked world. This theory can only done by rational deduction. But Nietzsche thinks it is never mind whether there is another real world or not, this world where we living is worth for us to experiencing and enjoying. The truth may not important. By and by, there may be actually no truth or matters have not got any essences, modes of matters or biased information is just the basic elements and structures of the the world and whole universe or universes.

    The co-orperation between two method when we studing knowledge

In conclusion, we can use two method together when we study. Actually most knowledge we getting are involved in both of these two ways. Most subjects are use both this two methods, the difference is just the amount of ingredient. Scientists tend to make deductions first then doing experimenst for prove the theory or deduct theories after done the experiments. Only a few subjects use one pure method as I mentioned earlier.

Even some a priori questions, although the question is a priori which may already inside our mind but has been hided, before the succesful deduction it may need a period time of experiencing. e.g. Before Siddhartha Gautama realized the final wisdom and became the Buddha, he experienced significant pain from this world.

The co-operation can be used to solve the Hume’s question which is “will the Sun rise tomorrow ?”. From experience we know the current situation of the solar-system and we can deduct that before the death of the Sun or unless the there is a disaster collision which can cause a significent change in structure of solar-system, our Sun will rise tomorrow.

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