Rhine River waves

Author: Zhao Xinsan
Editor-in-Chief: He Shengsui
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1996-12-01
Features: Excerpt: Language: The greatest wealth humans possess is language. Those who lack language have nothing. I would rather have a language than a million dollars in savings. When I arrived in Europe, I truly understood the importance of language. In Paris, I longed to talk with the street painter by the Seine River. However, he only spoke French, while I only knew German and English. I couldn’t communicate with him, and the pain of this was something I had never experienced before. This pain was immense. In the refugee camp in Germany, there were people who neither spoke German nor English, and as a result, I couldn’t talk to them either. I only felt regret and pain, losing the opportunity to communicate with Bulgarians, Romanians, and Turks. The world humans perceive and understand is actually within the scope of the languages they speak; people cannot perceive or understand the world beyond their linguistic abilities. Everything humans discuss falls within their linguistic range. Even their dreams do not go beyond this range, though they may be absurd and strange. In the first half of my life, I made many significant mistakes and misjudgments, or what I call carelessness. The greatest carelessness was not studying language from a philosophical perspective. I should have been a philosopher of language. Philosophers should take a keen interest in language and be immersed in exploring the subtle relationship between language and the world. This relationship is astonishing, yet it escaped my astonishment. In the thousands of years of Chinese philosophical history, there has never been a research topic called "philosophy of language." Yes, it is language that distinguishes us from other animals. Without language, humans would not have evolved to this level today. When I arrived in Europe, I realized: the central topic of philosophy should be exploring the relationship between language and the world. This would inevitably lead me to computers, to enabling machines to understand natural language (Chinese, English, etc.), to natural language processing, to human-machine dialogue, and to exploring the role of syntax, semantics, knowledge bases, and reasoning in building the foundation of language understanding systems. However, what is "understanding"? What is "truth"? What is "the world"? These are all philosophical questions, just like what "computation" is. The American linguist philosopher Noam Chomsky (N. Chomsky) was a pioneer who did a lot of groundbreaking work. The door was opened, and a vast, wonderful world suddenly appeared before me. I was both amazed and delighted, overwhelmed with mixed emotions. I had come late, but I could still make up for it. Starting from the topic of "natural language processing," from my great astonishment, wonder, and shock at it. The spirit of philosophy is originally astonishment. The first and last lesson of philosophy is astonishment, a shock at the essence of the world and its deep structure. My philosophical astonishment has been tested. Over 20 years ago, I stood alone on the desolate coast of western Liaoning, and my astonishment never wavered; today, by the Danube River, my astonishment has not diminished in the slightest. I also admit that life is like a journey, a journey through this mortal world, but my melancholic emotions have always been secondary. The one who always plays the leading role is my constant astonishment at the universal structure of the world. October 1993, Stuttgart, Germany. Postscript: "The traveler's heart is full of thoughts, solitary wandering covers a thousand miles"—let this serve as the postscript. November 2, 1994, Shanghai, study, rainy evening by the window. I am sitting at my desk, holding a pen. Last year on this day, I was writing my creative diary in a hotel in the Austrian Alps. It was a quiet valley surrounded by mountains on three sides, with snow-capped peaks, very magnificent. The six months of traveling in Europe were one of the most precious experiences in my life. The Albert Foundation gave me 2,500 marks each month. This was not a small amount and served as my financial support for exploring everywhere. However, rent and transportation costs were unbearable. As a result, I often spent the night at train stations, mingling with the homeless, gaining much information and experience from the bottom of society, which I considered a wealth, the reward for staying up late. To save on urban transportation costs, I also walked a lot, and my leather shoes were worn flat. The reward was that I carefully examined every street and building, some ancient ones, even touching them with my hands to deepen my impression, as tactile impressions are more real than visual ones. For nearly forty years, I had learned many things about Germany and Europe from books and films, and these gradually piled up in my mind like bundles of dry firewood. When I arrived in Europe, my thoughts were in a whirl, and everywhere was like sparks, proving the idiom "dry firewood and." I was burned by life and the world day and night. Yes, I came to Europe with a fully prepared mind. Except when I slept, I spent all my time feeling and absorbing information from the external world. Even a bird's chirp, the sound of falling leaves in the forest, or the vast twilight over the plains would ignite infinite thoughts and associations in my heart, forming ideas. At eight o'clock in the evening, when the bell of the ancient church in the Alpine valley rang, I would put down my pen, leave the hotel, and look at the familiar constellations twinkling above the snow-capped peaks. Was this bell the legacy of the "fire-extinguishing bells" of medieval Europe? It is said that at eight o'clock every night, during the Tang and Song dynasties in China, some places in Europe would ring bells to signal households to extinguish their fires, with severe penalties for those who did not comply. This custom is perfectly understandable. We all live on the same planet, so the Chinese can understand Newton, Shakespeare, and Beethoven 100%, and can also understand everything about European civilization, including its history. Today, in every residential area of Shanghai, there is a bell ringer who goes from house to house every night. At first, I didn’t understand the purpose of the bell. Later, I asked curiously, and the answer was: "Remind everyone to close doors and windows, turn off gas, and be careful with fire!" This is the universal structure of human society. Although the bells of European churches are far more solemn and imposing than today’s hand-bell ringing in Shanghai streets, the life of medieval Europe was monotonous, or is modern European civilization better? However, protecting the environment and never going to war again are essential. On the streets of Germany, I often see such political slogans, which can also be seen as a complete negation of the Nazi movement: "Germany can only thrive as a member of the European Community." How wise a political philosophy! All under heaven are brothers. This should have been the case long ago. Life is short and like a dream. I think back on my life. In the early 1970s, I was herding sheep by the coast of western Liaoning. After the snow melted, the sky cleared, and I took a walk on the beach at night. Exactly 20 years apart, the walk in the Alpine valley and the walk by the coast of western Liaoning were not fundamentally different. Both were conversations between my heart and the world; both were primarily about expressing my emotions; both brought joy followed by sorrow, a sense of the vastness of the sky and earth, and the infinity of the universe. Back at the hotel, I cooked a Dutch can: peas with meat, and as I ate, I wrote down a few lines of poetry: To build your kingdom, each has their own way, Each has their own unique skill. Some use swords, some use money, But in my hands, I only have two threads. Poetry is the warp, philosophy is the weft, And I will weave them into a net. Find a golden anchor point, And cast the net across the heavens and the earth. This net is invisible yet tangible. This collection of essays and notes is just such a net. The six months in Europe have provided me with a completely new perspective and vision for my future. I want to thank the Albert Foundation in Germany and Professor Yan Xiaobao, Secretary-General of the Shanghai European Studies Society, without their help, I would not have been able to go to Germany and Europe. Even if I die in the future, I will insist on burning this European experience and turning it into ash, taking it back to the vast and eternal world I come from.