This can not help but raise some questions worth pondering:
1. Why assign and divide colleges?
2. Is there any evidence to be divided into several factions and several colleges?
1. Why assign and divide colleges?
"There is no party outside the party, the idea of emperors; there is no faction within the party, there are all kinds of strange things." - Mao Zedong quoted from Chen Duxiu's "The Four Character Classic of the Kuomintang".
Human society was originally chaotic and indistinguishable, but since language, thinking, and concepts have emerged , we also have the thinking of "classification", things are divided into groups and people are grouped together. We divide human society into different categories of groups based on various reasons and weave various standards, and self-righteously believe that this is the destiny.
Perhaps the gender classification of men and women is one of our earliest classifications. But there is no doubt that, no matter how much we deceive ourselves, the gender classification of men and women is nothing more than a conception of our classification. Since even the so-called right and proper is only a product of ideas, we can see that we don't need to pay too much attention to other classifications. Although I have neither the time nor the interest to make a rigorous argument, I dare say that all classifications are products of the human mind, an idea created by us humans.
Are all categories optional? Of course not. I don’t care too much, but I don’t care at all, because human beings didn’t create these concepts when they were idle. As long as we don't take them as legitimate truths.
2. If factions must be assigned, is there any basis for dividing them into several categories?
As a science student who firmly believes in materialism, it actually takes a lot of courage to ask this question, because when they were exposed to the situational discussion in mathematics since childhood, teachers would emphasize that comprehensive and complete analysis is one of the scientific spirits: the premise of comprehensively considering the research object Next, reduce the number of classifications and optimize the classification structure. This is the foundation of our scientific training for many years. In other words, it is divided into several categories. But what I want to say today is this: In most real life, people prefer numbers like 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 60, 64, 81 and 360, They deeply affect our thinking because of their particularity, such as "say important things three times", "as a leader, add three points at the end", 3 is the most reasonable repeated number we think, but among the reasons behind, The most plausible explanation is the preference most of us have for 3. So I conclude that when we classify objects, there are several subjective factors:
1. It is easy to remember. The simpler the better, the more complex the harder to remember. Our rationality has a tolerance range for complicated and difficult to remember things. For example, a circle is divided into 360 degrees. In fact, if it is 2520 degrees, it will be more perfect than 360 degrees (interested students can ask why a circle is 360 degrees?), but In the balance between ease of use and memory, our ancestors abandoned 2520 degrees with slightly higher use value and chose 360 degrees with more memory.
Based on such utilitarian reasons, we have become accustomed to rounding in our thinking, that is, simplifying non-mainstream classifications.
For example, the gender mentioned above is strictly classified according to sexual characteristics. There are originally five types of people in the world, namely men, women, partial males, partial females and intersex people; strictly according to the classification of genes, there are also five types of people in the world, XY , XX, X, XXY, XYY; these two classifications are not exactly one-to-one correspondence, which means that if the two classification standards are combined, the gender classification in the world is more complicated than blood type, but why do we have gender in various tables One column is either male or female. This is simplification.
2, easy to use. The better it is, the more popular it is, and the harder it is to use it, the less it is used. For example, the angle classification of the circle mentioned above, 360 is 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 60, 90, etc. Common divisor, and it's close to the number of days in a year, so while it's more complicated than 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, it's more complex than 10, 50, 60, 100, 150, 200, 300 Works well with 365.
3. Self-righteous. We are always looking for a reason to prove that we are right. If we can't find a reason, we make up a reason. Logic is the rule of reasoning. Europeans have developed and strengthened the rule system of formal logic, so that it seems that only formal logic is logic; while our ancestors persistently used the logical thinking of images by analogy, of course, due to the long-term enslavement of our civilization, we have I'm sorry to say that we use logic, but as long as you observe some movies, novels and daily life that we can see, you will find that analogy is the main form of reasoning in ancient and modern China and abroad. But no matter what kind of logic it is, it is just a reason we find for ourselves. Of course, this reason should be made more complete and rigorous, and it cannot be too low.
Next, let's take a look at how common classification numbers are compiled:
(1) No classification
and no classification means the world is unified, which is 1; no classification means no attributes, which is 0. Symbol: Medium. In fact, a lot can be said here. The worship of "one" by human beings and the admiration of "China" by the Han people are not groundless. Next time, I will write an article to talk about the
advantages of "mysterious zero and one": no classification, no abandonment, all include . So "one" is the representative of "you", the biggest "you".
Disadvantage: Not easy to use. No attribute, "zero" is the representative of "nothing". In fact, non-classification is the "chaos" in Zhuangzi, the central emperor who died when his seven orifices were suddenly opened. According to Hebrew legend (Bible culture), chaos is disorder. God created order from chaos. Since order was created by God, it has some kind of fragility. The dangers of the chaotic state of the past. When people break the "covenant" against God's will, terror will come. This is the ideological root of Divergent. From these two prophecies, we can see the differences between the two sides. One side affirms and admires the state of chaos, while the other side insists on and relies on order.
(2) Two
yin and yang, black and white, good and bad, high and low, up to standard and not up to standard, qualified and unqualified, master slave, worthy of life and unworthy of life, etc. Representative symbol: yin and yang fish.
Advantages: easy to remember and easy to use, and who made the earth have only one moon, so heaven and earth and sun and moon are mysterious proofs of the dichotomy. Yin and Yang come from this, noble and lowly come from this, and male and female come from this.
Disadvantages: Too succinct classification, completely abandoning the middle area, in fact, deliberately creating opposition and creating contradictions. Most human struggles and intolerance also stem from dichotomies.
The ideal social model built on the basis of dichotomy in history has failed now, because intolerance leads to poor system flexibility and cannot withstand the antagonistic pressure brought by ethnic groups.
(3) Three talents
, heaven, earth and people, upper, middle and lower, left, middle and right, good and bad, XYZ, and separation of powers. Symbol: Triangle.
Pros: One of the numbers we all prefer. The human sensory system can establish the experience of three-dimensional space. The geometric characteristics of triangles that are not easily deformed tell us that the stability of the rule of thirds is the best. Do you know why diamonds are so hard and expensive?
Disadvantages: In the ideal society experiment, the rule of thirds is widely used, and the separation of powers of legislation, law enforcement and judiciary in Western democratic systems is still very stable. The disadvantage of the rule of thirds is also that it is too stable. Although the system has good pressure resistance, it also limits the disturbance balance of the system. Once the system is destroyed, it is prone to shattered collapse.
(4) Four elephants
From east, west, north, south, and four directions, people naturally propose the four poles (four pillars supporting the earth), and then according to the astrological signs, produce the four-sided mythical beasts of the blue dragon (wood), the white tiger (gold), the vermilion bird (fire) and the Xuanwu (water) and the emperor in charge of the sky, and then contact In the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, the abstract symbols of Shaoyang, Sun, Shaoyin and Taiyin in Zhouyi are formed with the help of Yin and Yang symbols, and the worship of nature is elevated to a theoretical deduction. Guanzi's four-dimensional thought (propriety, righteousness, integrity) also originated here. Confucianism accepts all the documents, and cooperates with Wu Lun and Wu Chang to interpret social and political philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophers liked to use air, earth, water, and fire to describe the four elements of the origin of the world, which became the four roots, which are also similar to our four poles. The representative symbol is a quadrilateral.
Advantages: It enriches the diversity of combinations and enhances the flexibility of the system.
Disadvantage: unstable. An ideal social model constructed according to the four-symptom model will exacerbate internal struggles and divisions due to external conflicts. Therefore, there will be a long-term confrontation between three factions and one faction at Hogwarts.
(5)
The palm of the five elements has five fingers, which is a boundary of our regular counting. Ancient astronomy has long grasped the motion characteristics of the five planets, and China has built a five-element culture of metal, wood, water, fire and soil. This is also the most striking difference between Chinese culture and Western culture based on ancient Greece. Symbol: Pentagram.
Advantages: The unique mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition not only enriches the stability, but also increases the flexibility of the system, and there are various combinations that can be developed.
Disadvantages: The complexity of the theoretical model is greatly increased, making the system control more difficult, and the causal relationship has exceeded linear thinking.
(6) Six lines
6 represent comprehensiveness. The image thinking of the hexahedron stimulates the rise from the plane thinking to the three-dimensional thinking. In addition to focusing on static structures, Liu Yao thinking extends to the whole process and flexibility. 6 and 7 are turning points, which are the turning points of our memory capacity. Below 6 is easier to remember, and above 7 is easier to forget. For competitions with more than 6 parties, the structure already has a typical nonlinear process, that is, the external conditions are extremely sensitive, and the system state is difficult to predict in the long term. Symbols: Snowflakes and Honeycombs.
(7) Seven colors, seven days, seven days and seven political affairs
7 represents the turning point and it is the fourth prime number. It is also the average working memory of adults. (But it should also be noted that the average working memory of children under 10 years old is 2, so ask the child to ask for more than three requirements, he cannot remember it.) Seven days, you must rest. There are two interpretations of the Seven Lights, which correspond to the Seven Politics, and I believe it corresponds to the Big Dipper. Let’s talk about Qi Jiguang’s mandarin duck array, but it is much more practical than Mr. Jin Yong’s Big Dipper array. Except for Huang Yaoshi’s magical attack “The Song of Chaos in the Blue Sea”, most masters can’t do it. Representative symbols: rainbow, Big Dipper.
(8) Eight trigrams
are divided into eight, which originates from the use of scales and the equal division of the circle. The 0th power of 2 is 1, the 1st power is 2, the 2nd power is 4, and the 3rd power is 8 and 4th power. It is 16. Octal and hexadecimal are inherently closely related to binary. In ancient China, a pound is equal to 16 taels. Now, a pound is equal to 16 ounces in the imperial system. Their origins are all related to weighing. The Chinese abacus also has unique advantages when performing operations in octal and hexadecimal. Explain that in agricultural society, in terms of weighing, hexadecimal is more convenient. Of course in industrial civilization, base 10 has become the standard. Representative symbol: gossip.
(9) Jiugong
9 is the largest single digit in the decimal system, and has the greatest meaning in various cultures. This is evident from the architecture of the courtyard house. Basin, safety, survival and reproduction, we all perceive from 9. The former well-field system in agriculture was considered by Confucianism to be the best ideal system.
(10) Sky
stems come from ten fingers. Decimal is the most common system used by humans.
(11) Earthly Branches
From 12 months or the joints of our fingers. Decimal also has many advantages in computing because it is the common divisor of 2, 3, 4, and 6, and is still widely used today, a dozen. 12 is a high composite number, and 2, 3, 4, and 6 are all factors of it. Because of this, decimal is easier to use than decimal in some cases (except 1 and 10 themselves, 10 only has 2 and 5 as its factors). In addition, since its factors 2 and 3 are prime numbers, all integers that can be decomposed into 2 and 3 (such as 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9...) are finite decimals in the decimal system. And the five most commonly used fractions (1/2, 1/3, 2/3, 1/4, and 3/4) also all have very simple representations in dodecbinary (0.6, 0.4, 0.8, 0.3, respectively). and 0.9). 12 is the smallest base with this property. With the exception of sexagesimal, decimal is more convenient than other commonly used bases such as decimal, binary, 20, octal, and hexadecimal for representing fractions.
(12) Jiazi
60 system is compatible with the advantages of decimal system and 12 system, making 60 system widely and long-term use. Not only the Chinese people use the Jiazi chronology, but most ancient civilizations in the Middle East maintain the use of 60 bases, and through geometry, 60 bases are easy to use and record. The astronomical measurement activities of the ancients promoted the development of geometry, and in the process they often needed to bisect angles, bisectors, thirds, and quarters. . . (The ruler and compass drawing in middle school was handed down from this ancient geometry.) Of course, they must first solve the case where the number of equal parts is small, from two, three, four, and five. . At the beginning, if 60 is used, since 60 is the common divisor of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, these angles can be equally divided, but if 100 is used, thirds and sixes cannot be achieved. The reason why the ancients set the angle as hexadecimal is very simple, it is for the convenience of measurement and drawing. Another is the ease of writing and recording.
(13) In the end, the auspicious and unlucky 13
Christian culture makes us feel that 13 is very mysterious, and Black Friday will be considered very unlucky.
But in Buddhism, 13 is an auspicious number, representing the perfection of merit, and the Potala Palace has 13 floors.
The symbol of the hexagram in Judaism, in which 13 is regarded as the Trinity.
Traditional Chinese civilization, 13 is also a more popular number. 13 classics, 13 sisters, 13 aunts, 13 Taibao. (14) It is said that there are 365 days in a year and
360. In ancient China, the day of the week was divided into 365.25 degrees.
The value 360 was used later because it is easily divisible. 360 In addition to 1 and itself, there are 22 true factors (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 45, 60, 72, 90, 120 , 180), so the angles of many special angles are integers. The definition of other angles is also determined according to the definition of the circumference.
Of course, our questions are far from over, such as why everyone thinks that the four houses of Hogwarts are reasonable, but the five factions of the Divergent are very anti-human? Why does the existence of dissenters threaten the peace and harmony of the five factions? Apart from the ideal social model among the Divergents, is there a better design?
We will also encounter these problems in later book reviews.
View more about Divergent reviews
