The "Unity of Heaven and Man" Doctrine — The Greatest Breeding Ground for All Chinese-Style Pseudoscience!

2006/3/28 14:21:38

The historical evolution of the meaning of "天" (Heaven/Sky): the top of a person's head → the high sky above the ground → a position at the top or high place → the natural world → the ruler of all things or its dwelling place, etc. The historical evolution of "合" (Unity/Joining): to close → to match → to gather, coordinate → to be in accord, etc. The historical evolution of "一" (One): the smallest positive integer → all, full, entire → pure, focused → identical, etc. Of course, all these definitions were produced by the "人" (humans) not listed here.

When it comes to Chinese culture, the four characters most frequently invoked are probably "天人合一" — "the Unity of Heaven and Man." What exactly is this "Unity of Heaven and Man"? Probably no one can explain it clearly. In ancient times, the Hundred Schools of Thought argued endlessly about it. Precisely because no one could explain it clearly, infinite interpretive possibilities emerged. The most laughable contemporary interpretation links it to environmentalism, then grandly proclaims: "Look, our ancestors were promoting environmentalism N thousand years ago — way earlier than the West!" Absolutely ridiculous.

For all Chinese-style pseudoscience, performing a so-called metaphysical interpretation of "the Unity of Heaven and Man" is their common trick — bamboozling people with talk of "macrocosm and microcosm." In fact, in scientific terminology, the "macrocosm and microcosm" proposition attempts to assert that the world has a fractal structure, that the large structure and small structure are isomorphic. May I ask: who gets to make such an assertion? The absurdity of making assertions about the world was already fully revealed by Kant.

Even "Being" can only be within the world — so what nonsense is there to spout about "the Unity of Heaven and Man"? The doctrine of "the Unity of Heaven and Man" is the greatest breeding ground for all Chinese-style pseudoscience and must be thoroughly criticized. Besides cultivating so-called masters, this language game based on infinite interpretive possibilities can only be a language game that misleads the nation and its people. When the atomic bomb detonates, you don't need any master — even the nonsense of "the Unity of Heaven and Man" gets "unified" along with everything else.