In fact, if you think about it, how are humans different from any other species on earth? The only difference, perhaps, is that humans believe things that don’t exist. And will be the kind of illusory things so hard, hard. For example, the development of science and technology, is not the human imagination in the realization of things, aircraft, ships, home appliances, computers and so on, all is not. Just as the textbook says, human species, the biggest difference is the use of tools, so that they stand out from the thousands of species, standing at the top of the food chain.
If you think about it this way, it sounds like humans are really something. But the most remarkable thing about human beings, I think, is not the use of tools, but the fact that human beings create and believe in things that they already know to be false, and religion is an example of that. Everybody knows that God doesn’t exist, and maybe he does, but at least nobody’s seen him, but a lot of people believe in him, and everybody knows that.
But if you think about it, we live in a village, and when we meet, this is our village; When I went to the city, I saw my fellow villager, who belonged to our county. When we leave China and meet Chinese people, we are one nation. But how to distinguish a village, a city, a country? Aren’t these invented by man? But we are willing to believe, nay, to believe, even in a subconscious way. We have a sense of belonging in our hearts, since childhood: village, county, city, province, country, these are not imaginary! It is this fictional story that binds hundreds of millions of people together. If no one believes it, it is estimated that the largest tribe in the world is only more than 100 people.
Another example is the Renminbi. RMB is just a piece of paper, but everyone thinks it is valuable. If you use money to buy rice, you can buy it because the rice seller believes that money and rice are drawn equal and he can use the money to exchange for other needs. If one day, people do not recognize the value of money, then it really becomes a piece of paper.
Even law, merit, propriety, justice, shame, etc., the society we live in, the relationships around us, and our daily experiences are all fictional stories.
And what’s really hard is not to create these stories, but to have someone who believes deeply, not just one person who believes these fictional stories, but all of us, all of us.
We all live in a dream, in a story we create and believe in, in a bubble.
But I think, good!