敬请期待…

敬请期待…

Note: This was a work in rush, thereby not of good quality.

Ultimate philosophy — cope with suffering. – Do not worry, there will be a day when all people are dead and everything will be equally unimportant.

On knowledge. – All knowledge seekers are essentially information collectors, and vice versa.[1]

The power of music. – The power of music to emotional arousal is unparalleled: It is not merely that music has the most intensive effect on emotional arousal, but also that only music can easily change one’s mood into the desired one as one wishes.

Philosopher’s pity. – The pity of a philosopher is that he cannot debate with philosophers before his birth or listen to the critiques from philosophers after his death.

Loneliness. – If no live person can understand you, then turn to the dead!

Immortality. – If time is infinite and a man can be immortal, then for any of his past decisions and actions if he does not completely forget them, he is bound to regret them.[2] If he is a homo economicus, he should not believe in anything other than absolute truths unless he can guarantee that he will forget what he believes before regret. He will have a day when he starts to love what he used to resent most and resent what he used to love most. His memory will be infinitely thin such that it is almost unmeasurable, just as rational numbers sporadically spread on the number line. He will gradually forget who he is, unless he records everything that happens on him, until his forgetfulness surpasses his recording speed. He lives forever and dies ceaselessly. Essentially, he no longer owns his memory, and he is no longer a human being. If all this is the case, the heaven that the devout believers long for will become an existence that is infinitely more terrifying than the hell, and I would rather the universe be short-lived so that all nightmares will end in the inevitable destruction.[3]

An Immortal man. – An immortal man is destined to commit suicide.

Do not be worldly. -Being worldly, including, but not limited to,  focusing on or paying attention to politics, society, news, money, fame, and career, makes one stupid, unsettled, shortsighted and mediocre. Beware that it does not mean one will become noble if one does not do so, but what one should do instead is focusing on his internal spiritual world.[4]

Suspicious Amor fati. Amor fati is such a good and enchanting faith; it is just such a pity that I cannot see the logical reasoning behind it — why should I believe, why should I believe, why should I believe, and what if I just do not believe?

Complaint from a writer. – Writing philosophical works in one’s second language destroys one’s ability to elaborate his thoughts and convey the exact meaning, which is especially a disaster for someone who is very picky about word choices and must always differ the nuances between words before writing.

On thinking. – Recalling oneself’s thinking process is an annoying thing, for not only is it not as entertained and thrilled as thinking per se, but also that one has to worry about whether any inspiration is missed.

On beauty. – Everyone likes beauty. It is a pity, however, that instead of beauty, what most people pursue are beautiful things. I used to think that I was more foresightful than most people in that I did not pursue beautiful things but beauty itself. Nevertheless, I gradually found that the action of pursuing beauty per se is suspicious, and even beauty itself is also suspicious[5]. Hence after consideration I decided to no longer pursue beauty.

On misfortune. – Life is filled with misfortune, while there are always some misfortunate people who like being mean to those who are more misfortunate.

Knowledge and gold. – From knowledge seekers’ perspective, knowledge is like gold. Just as some people can find happiness without using gold, but only by occupying gold, some others can feel content without using knowledge, but only by having knowledge.

The farsighted and the shortsighted I. – The farsighted tend to be pessimistic, while the shortsighted tend to be misfortunate, for the former are able to see all the possible hardship in the future and realize their incompetence, while the later tend to make shortsighted decisions which bring them misfortune.

The farsighted and the shortsighted II. – The farsighted tend to be fortunate, while the shortsighted tend to be happy — they are all adorable.

Final thoughts. -Very soon, the day will come, when all of us will be dead, with our skeletons buried under earth and scary skulls never unmoved as if being lost forever in thoughts. The grades of this course will no longer matter, and what I have written here will be lost to the world. Nobody will know we ever existed; not even in the most humble way can someone tell our stories, the great debates that took placed in class, the small talks I had with classmates…… Very soon, the day will come, when human beings will extinguish, and there, in the whole universe, will not even have a tiny trace that can show there was an intelligence called human that has flourished somewhere in the cosmos, along with their grand stories……

[1] I am too lazy to lay out a detailed and well-defended argument, but let me give a concise one. For knowledge seekers (or we can define knowledge seekers as the followings, if you disagree), their sole ultimate mission is having all knowledge about this world, including both priori and posterior knowledge, which is essentially a sort of information (or at least, belongs to information). When time is limited, instead of trying to get all knowledge about the world, he should try to gain knowledge as much and as quick as possible before his death (deducted from the definition of knowledge seekers). Since some knowledge are more informative (i.e., the knowledge from which you can deduct new knowledge) than the others, for a rational knowledge seeker, he should try to gain those knowledge (instead of the others) if possible, since gaining as much knowledge as possible before his death is his mission. When the most valuable knowledge is gain, he should turn to the second most valuable knowledge, which by the definition, is less informative, i.e., contains less information. When the second most valuable knowledge is gained, he should turn to the third…… The process keeps going, which from the information collection’s perspective, is a process of collecting the biggest part of information out of all information at the first stage, followed by the second biggest one at the second stage…… Here, an isomorphic relation is built between knowledge and information, as they both goes from the “most” stage monotonically to the “least” stage. Finally, to obtain all knowledge about this world, the knowledge seeker must collect all information about this world, regardless of how trivial it might sound, for as long as there is some information can be collected but remains unknown, the knowledge seeker has not yet finished his mission, since he has not known about that part (i.e., the missing information) about the world.

The same argument can also be applied to the reversed direction: All information collectors are essentially knowledge seekers. (Hints: To collect as much information as possible before an information collector’s death, he must become a knowledge seeker and start with the most valuable knowledge if possible, since the most valuable knowledge contains most information.

[2] If he “revises”, “corrects” or “improves” his past decisions or actions, it means he regrets what he has done in the past — no matter how light his regret is.

[3] Memory belongs to information. Within a limited space, the information can be stored is limited, otherwise the materials storing the information will collapse to a blackhole and thereby lose all information. For a being to be smart enough at least at human’s level, the materials constructing it must have some not small mass density, which limits the space the being can occupy, otherwise the being will also collapse to a blackhole. Hence, both the space that a being occupies and the information that can be store in that space is limited, which results in the memory a being can have is limited.

[4] Yes, even people like Confucius, Alexander, Shakespeare, Ben Franklin, Gandhi,…, are stupid, unsettled, shortsighted and mediocre to some extent by my standard as discussed in the aphorism — it is not necessarily a shame. Or for a better word if you want, they are not wise, settled, foresightful, and good enough.

[5] We need to assume beauty is a subjective feeling/assessment rather than an objective existence, which is too big a topic to discuss or prove here (though I can prove it) — let’s just assume it as true for now. Since beauty is a subjective feelings/assessment, it totally depends on the aesthete’s aesthetic system. This means beauty is changeable over space and time — the beauty you “obtain” now is not necessarily still beauty in the future, and if time is long enough, it must be not, since given infinite amount of time anything possible to happen will happen by math. If the beauty your pursue is no longer beauty in the future, your effort is wasted during the process — or in a more precise word, your effort has a low return. Hence I no longer pursue beauty, a short-lived illusionary thing.

今天去711的时候，看见了一个女人穿着性感的黑丝袜，于是我便想起了几年前在中大上的福柯与法，想起了他的《规训与惩戒》，想起了他的《性史》，还想起了尼采的权力意志。女人性感精致的打扮，说到底是社会驯化的结果，然而，她是不自觉的：人即是这种无时无刻不被社会规范和基因约束与操纵然而又不自觉地以为拥有自由的动物。

你也许会争辩，认为她这样打扮只是为了追求美；并且，她追求美并不是为了给谁看，而只是让自己赏心悦目——正如知乎上“女人打扮的社会原因是什么？”和“女生打扮得漂漂亮亮，是为了彰显自己独立自信，还是为了迎合男权社会审美？”的某些答案所讨论的那样。如果你这样想，请你先别激动，我并无意论证她的打扮究竟是不是为了给谁看，我也更无意证明这样做是否是可鄙的——你可能认为这种迎合他人口味的展示一定是可鄙的，然而这并非你想象的那样显而易见，甚至，就连可鄙这个词本身都非常可疑。

让我们从发问开始吧：她为什么要打扮？如果是为了给别人看，所谓的“展示”自己，无疑她已经掉进了社会规范设置的陷阱，不论她意图展示的对象是同性还是异性。这很好理解：当她按照她的方式所打扮（而非随意穿着）的时候，她即认为这样的打扮是好的，而好是一个价值判断，一旦什么牵扯到价值判断，事情就开始变得主观起来了。人并非天生就知道什么是好的，而是在后天身处这个社会中所习得的，于是她将不可避免地要受到周围世俗观念的影响。当然，世俗不会直接告诉她，女人就应该穿黑丝，而是通过她身边的人、她所见到的广告、她所从电视上所知道的名流的行为展示着某一类女人都穿黑丝潜移默化地影响她的，直到社会氛围要么渐渐地说服她她也应该并且喜欢上了这么做，要么给她施加某种隐约的压力，当她不这么做时她会因为感觉到被排除了这类女人的圈子而产生的压力而感到不适，而这种不适最终导致她这么做。注意，这是一个非常因人而异的事情，如果你是一位女性而你不喜欢穿黑丝并且准备反驳我，我并不接受你因此而产生的反驳，更有可能的是，即使你不在这方面受到社会规范的驯化，你也很有可能在其他方面——比如，所谓的高跟鞋，所谓的长发，所谓的温柔……几乎所有由性别产生的刻板印象都在可能范围之列。

另一方面，如果这种打扮只是为了取悦自己，那么，一个恐怕并不为多数人所想到的问题是，为什么取悦你的是这个而不是其他什么？而为什么它又能取悦你，而不是让你产生其它什么感觉？为什么她，或者说，主流的穿丝袜的女人，穿的是黑色而不是红丝绿丝？如果说，人人都随机地拥有某种偏好，并且社会上展现出平均的概率分布时，我们大概可以安心的说，这真的只是个人偏好罢了，然而当事情倾向于某种或者某几种情况时，我们便不得不变得谨慎起来。事实上，通过穿着来取悦自己或者别人本身包含着一种审美过程，而审美本身是非常主观并且严重受一个人的经历与环境影响的。唐代的时候女人以微胖为美，而春秋战国的时候则有“楚王好细腰，宫中多饿死”，当一个人精心打扮自己，并声称这么做只是为了让自己赏心悦目时，他实际上于无意识中陷入了社会规范所设置的陷阱：是他身处的社会潜移默化地告诉他这样是美的，那样是丑的，于是他选择了美的妆扮，并且在镜子前欣赏自己而感到满足。如果哪天社会潮流变了，昔日的美变成了今天的丑，那么他便会摒弃从前的妆扮而另谋他样。

亲爱的读者，也许你会说你是一个独立、倔强且谨慎的人，拒不服从社会规训，并处处提防世俗的审美对自己的影响而选择自己独立的审美（比如，你的打扮独树一帜），你可能会说自己通过某种方法免除了社会规范的约束与影响，并且最终告诉我，你的打扮仍然只是为了取悦自己。让我们先不讨论这件事情在理论上是否可能，而是先大方地假设你声称的事情是真的，即使这样，这并不代表着人在打扮，或者说审美这件事上，是自由的。

让我们依然从发问开始：何为美？美意味着什么？从进化的角度讲，美即健康。人们追求美丽或者英俊的人，因为这种美丽或者英俊表明着一个人很健康，健康即意味着更强的生存和生殖能力，而更强的生存和生殖能力即意味着更有可能保留后代的能力。于是，自然选择便会保留那些能够识别这种美的基因，拥有这些基因的人也就能在挑选繁育后代的对象时获得优势因而脱颖而出。斗转星移，有一天终于进化为几乎人人都爱美，他们不仅在选择对象时喜欢挑美的人，甚至在镜子前欣赏自己的美都能沾沾自喜。如此看来，人不过是基因操纵的玩偶罢了：基因决定人应该爱美，于是人人都爱美；基因让人在欣赏美时感到愉悦，于是便有人想方设法让自己变美，不仅愉悦自己顺便也在与他人的互动中获取某些优势。然而人是不自知的，并且基因用美让人感到的满足，简直就好像大人拿一些简单而粗糙的玩具就可以轻易让小孩感到的满足一样。

一旦你认可了我上面所说的事，追求美这个行为便变得可疑起来：基因决定了我会喜欢美，我便一定要追求美吗？我一定要追求基因让我追求的东西吗？诚然，欣赏美的体验是好的，它能给我们带来愉悦感，从快乐的角度来讲我们似乎没有什么理由拒绝美。然而追求美是费力的，它需要很高的成本，时间上的、金钱上的、心理上的，甚至有时候会招致灾祸。太美的人可能会被同性嫉妒，而不够美的人却会因为缺乏外在美而苦恼，追求美的人在追求美的过程中花费了本可以花在其他事情上的时间，诸如此类。不仅如此，一旦你决定追求什么，你变会被它所牵制：你追求美时也即丧失了选择不美的自由。也许你会争辩，即使丧失了这种看起来没什么用处的自由你也无所谓，如果美是客观存在的，那么你的争辩听起来多少有点道理。然而一旦你意识到或者认可美是主观的[1]，事情便变得棘手起来，这意味着今日你所求可能就是明天你所恶，而在这之间，除了收获了半衰期很短的愉悦感以外，你的精力都浪费了，而你并没有在这个过程中积累到什么长期的东西。

让我们暂时撇开话题来讨论一个有意思的思想实验：有没有可能存在这么一个世界，那个世界里人人都追求丑？你也许会说，如果人人都追求丑，那么那个世界的丑就变成了他们的美，因此他们还是在追求美。这里我并不打算玩这种文字游戏，我们知道，美的一个核心特点便是它能给人带来愉悦感，我们因此不妨定义丑的核心特点是它能给人带来厌恶感。那么，有没有可能存在这么一个世界，那个世界人人都追求能给他们带来厌恶感的丑？每个人都希望自己越丑越好，从而能恶心到尽可能多的人；而最丑的那个人在最大程度上恶心到所有人的同时也成为了所有人所嫉妒的对象。也许你会觉得这个例子很荒谬，然而它并不是你想象的那样荒谬。比如，在动物世界，动物可能会追求一种凶狠的面貌以恐吓异类以及同类，尤其是同性的同类。在我们看来，老虎头上的王字以及它的外貌与斑纹可能显得很酷，然而在它的同性同类眼里，那样的面貌可能不仅凶狠还使那些力量不够强大的同性感到厌恶和恐惧，与此同时，每一只老虎又渴求自己能够像他们之中最凶神恶煞的老虎那样凶狠。这里我并没有暗示老虎拥有进行这些思考的能力，我只是举一个例子罢了，然而这种例子其实不是不可能的，比如在远古时期的人类中可能就有这种追求凶狠的社会氛围存在，只是现代的法律最大程度上保障了人的安全，因此这种恐惧才渐渐消除。

综上所述，人其实远没有自己想象的那样自由；人不仅时时刻刻地受社会规范的影响和约束，也被基因影响着一举一动。那么，我们有没有可能打破这种桎梏，追求更大的自由？我们又要如何打破这种桎梏？问题一旦谈到追求，正如在我前文所讲的那样，我们便不得不变得谨慎起来。一旦我们追求什么，我们其实就预设了那样东西对我们是好的，而好又是这样一个主观的判断，它因时因地可能都会变化，它可能不会长久甚至会反转，比如今天的好可能就是明天的坏。那自由是好的吗？答案并非你想象的那样显而易见，至少，证明它为真要比想象的要困难得多！因此，不仅追求美是可疑的，甚至追求自由也变得可疑起来：人为什么要追求自由？人为什么会追求自由？人一旦追求自由，是不是就丧失了保持现状或者保持不自由的自由？这些都是非常值得讨论的问题。而问题回到桎梏：如果我们设法“打破”了这种桎梏，那么我们想方设法打破桎梏这个过程本身，是否被诸如“人要勇于反抗”这类我们被教导的精神所控制着，以及被人渴望自由这种刻在基因里的本性所牵制着，以至于我们陷入了一个新的总是要打破加在我们身上的桎梏的桎梏？如果确实如此，是否意味着人永远无法挣脱这种束缚，因为挣脱旧束缚本身其实是陷入新束缚的开始？

————————

[1] 我并不打算论证美是主观的，这是一个太大的话题，需要太多篇幅。

Ultimate philosophy — cope with suffering. – Do not worry, there will be a day when all people are dead.

Ultimate psychology. – All human beings are essentially utilitarians.[1]

On knowledge. – All knowledge seekers are essentially information collectors, and vice versa.[2]

The power of music. – The power of music to arise one’s emotion is unparalleled.

Philosopher. – One without one’s own philosophy do not deserve to be a philosopher.

Philosopher’s pity. – The pity of a philosopher is that he cannot debate with philosophers before his birth or listen to the critiques from philosophers after his death.

Loneliness. – If no live person can understand you, then turn to the dead!

Immortality. – If time is infinite and a man can be immortal, then for any of his his past decisions and actions if he does not completely forget them, he is bound to regret about them. If he is a homo economicus, he should not believe in anything other than absolute truths unless he can guarantee he will forget what he believes before he regrets. He will have a day when he starts to love what he used to resented most and resent what he used to love most. His memory will be infinitely thin such that it is almost unmeasurable, just like how rational numbers sporadically spread on the real axis. He will gradually forget who he is, unless he record everything happens on him, until his forgetfulness surpasses his recording speed. He lives forever and dies ceaselessly. Essentially, he no longer owns his memory, and he is no longer a human being. If all these are the case, the heaven that the devout believers long for will become an existence that is infinitely more terrifying than the hell, and I would rather wish the universe be short-lived so that all nightmares will end in the inevitable destruction.

An Immortal man. – An immortal man is destined to commit suicide.

Do not be worldly. -Being worldly, including but not limited to,  focusing on or paying attention to politics, society, news, money, fame, and career, makes one stupid, unsettled, shortsighted and mediocre. Beware that it does not mean one will become noble if he does not do so, but what one should do instead is focusing on his internal spiritual world.

Foresightful Morality. – Foresight! Foresight! Had one had a bit more foresight, one would have known the real morality had never existed at all!

Suspicious Amor fati. Amor fati is such a good and enchanting faith; it is just such a pity that I cannot see the logical reasoning behind it — why should I believe, why should I believe, why should I believe, and what if I just do not believe?

Complaint from a writer. – Writing philosophical works in English, some writer’s second language, destroys his ability to sophisticatedly elaborate his thoughts and convey the exact meaning, which is especially a disaster for someone who is very picky on word choices and must always differ the nuances between word and word, and syntax and syntax, before writing.

Final thoughts. -Very soon, the day will come, when all of us will be dead, with our skeletons buried under earth and scary skulls never unmoved as if being lost in forever thoughts. The grades of this course will no longer matters, and what I have written here will be lost to the world. Nobody knows our ever existence; not even in the most humble way can someone tell our stories, the great debates taken placed in class, the small talks I had with classmates…… Very soon, the day will come, when human beings will extinguish, and there, in the whole universe, is no even a tiny trace that can show there was an intelligence called human that have flourished somewhere in the cosmos, along with their grand stories……

[1] I have a great argument to prove this, but that will take many pages.

[2] Ditto.

(draft)

Abstract

For those who are inexperienced and not good at dealing with interpersonal relationship, especially intimacy relationship, sorting different people around them into groups of different intimacy in an unambiguous way can be difficult and struggling. I thereby proposed an information sharing-based classification model to help sort people into groups of different intimacy under clear standards, the application of which can reduce the entropy of one’s social circle and keep it clean and neat. In this model, interpersonal relationships are classified into 7 levels in rising intimacy order depending on the information that is shared or can be shared interpersonally without hesitation and uncomfortableness: Strangers, Acquaintances, Friends, Good Friends, Close Friends, Best Friends, Zhiji. This classification may sound familiar and trivial to you, but what really matters is not the classification itself but a clear, practical, simple and well-motivated standard that can be put into use, which will be discussed in details in this paper.

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