Huang Aihe (Interview): “Drift—The Story of Peking University Scholar Liu Huajie”

8,852 characters2006.02.19

Huang Aihe (interview): “Drift—The Story of Peking University Scholar Liu Huajie,” Hebei University Press, September 2001

I happened upon this today in Guolinfeng, outside my reading plan, hehe~~

Ahem~~ Any fans of Liu Huajie out there~~? This book is so cute! Hehe, I’m not anyone’s fan, but I very much admire Teacher Liu~~

Page 4 Journalist: I saw in a newspaper that when you were little your family lived in a small mountain valley on Changbai Mountain?
Liu Huajie: The full name was “Bahao, Seventeenth Team, Sidaojiang Brigade, Yuanyuan Commune, Tonghua City, Jilin Province.” My family wasn’t even in the team’s settlement area; we lived by ourselves in “Banmiao Valley,” which was still a long way from the team.…………Within a radius of more than ten li there was only our one household. There, running east-west side by side, was a cluster of deep mountain valleys; the one behind Banmiao Valley was called “Back Valley,” and the one in front was called “Murder Valley,” because, they say, someone had been killed there. Banmiao Valley was about 4 kilometers long.…………

Page 7
At that time my family lived in nature: step outside and there were mountains, there was a little river; in today’s terms, humans and nature were fused into one. Back then, my love for plants came naturally, and it was different from now. Now it seems one deliberately goes looking for something; then it wasn’t like that.
Human beings are born loving nature, I think there should be no doubt about that, but after being “civilized,” many people do not like nature. It is like forgetting one’s mother, which is of course sad. Loving nature does not mean one cannot take from it, just as a child would not feel embarrassed to ask something of its mother; so long as it is natural and harmonious, there is no problem with humans taking from nature.

Page 72
I started writing the book Fractal Art at the end of 1996, and it took a little over two months to finish. Before that, I had been waiting, always thinking that surely someone else would write this book; surely there should be people in our country doing this kind of work. But no one ever wrote it, and in the end I had to step in myself. By now it was already the year 2000, and similar books had also been published in China. Not to brag, but my book was still the better written one. It seems I really should have written this book myself. If I didn’t write it, it would also be hard for others to write it. ////——Hehe, I found the electronic version, let’s take a look~:

http://www.phil.pku.edu.cn/personal/huajie/fractalart/html/book.htm

Pages 95–96
My first anti-pseudoscience article was published in 1989, and it was directed against the “cosmic holographic unification theory.” …………At the earliest there was a man named Zhang Yingqing who invented “holographic biology,” and later Wang Cunzhen, Yan Chunyou, and others kept going in the “mystical” direction. They wrote articles everywhere.…………I picked a relatively specific “point” to refute them: they said the “holographic unification theory” could be proved using mathematical topological theory, so I countered their fallacies from that point.……////——Indeed they were “writing articles everywhere.” I still clearly remember that in the New Chinese Reading Book I read in high school there was an article by Yan Chunyou, seemingly called “The Wisdom of Nature.” At the time, our Chinese class asked us to choose an article and write a response to it, so I wrote a critical piece in response to this article. At that time, our lovely Chinese teacher seemed quite attracted by “holographic theory” and immediately and kindly pointed out that my argument might be too extreme, but I was unconvinced, and I carried on the discussion in several consecutive pieces of miscellaneous writing afterward (we were required to write one two-page essay per week). At that time my popular science level seems to have been fairly decent (in ninth grade and then in first year of high school I read more than ten popular science books from the First Push and Philosopher’s Stone series in succession), and I also specially searched online for some knowledge about holographic technology. At the time I pointed out that Yan Chunyou had “mystified” holography, and that his deliberately cryptic style of writing was simply anti-scientific! But the teacher still seemed unable to accept this, believing that the cosmic holographic unification theory was a very good philosophical idea. The one who ultimately ended this round of debate between my teacher and me was precisely Teacher Liu Huajie—at the time I did not know who he was, but if one looked through my miscellaneous writings, one should find that I had quoted Liu Huajie (I should have written the three characters “Liu Huajie” too, but I’ve forgotten) — I searched online and found Liu Huajie’s self-description, and I remember quoting him as saying, “My earliest anti-pseudoscience work was aimed at the cosmic holographic unification theory,” “I countered it from their mathematical topological theory,”

Page 118
Strong scientism: science is omnipotent; that is to say, science is sufficient and necessary for the maintenance and development of future human society, both individually and collectively. Weak scientism: science is at least a neutral intellectual activity, and scientific achievements have a positive effect on human survival and development; natural scientific knowledge, methods, and spirit are beneficial for understanding complex psychological and social behavior, and even for philosophical thinking; a limited degree of scientific reductionism is necessary and possible; for China, where feudal ideas are deeply entrenched, advocating scientific thought and method and developing science and technology are extremely necessary and urgent.…………Weak scientism contains many reasonable elements, and I hold this view (at least it is no weaker than this formulation, and therefore I have also received kind criticism from colleagues). ////——Judging from Teacher Liu Huajie’s formulation, I basically support this view as well. I believe an important reason for the prevalence of contemporary “science-can-do-anything” thinking is precisely the lack of popular science education. Of course, I do not want to be called a “scientist” — just as I do not want to be called a “humanist” either. As Teacher Liu Huajie also pointed out, people often like binary divisions—either enemy or friend; either materialist or idealist; either scientism or humanism. In fact, these concepts are very vague.

Page 121 Journalist: Then why do you not take the position of scientism?
Liu Huajie: I am increasingly finding that scientism has serious flaws. Scientistic views can lead to some terrible consequences. They are easily exploited by “bad people.” Scientism is a kind of overly confident rationalism. It easily produces dogmatism and despotism. It easily leads to intolerance in scholarship. Because it is in conflict with pluralism and diversity. And diversity is truly important; it is a prerequisite for the long-term, smooth continuation of the evolutionary sequence of life.
Journalist: Since there are so many problems, why not take the position of humanism?
Liu Huajie: Mainly because “humanism” is defined even more vaguely; its reference and meaning are not clear, and this is also related to the current level of development of the humanities and social sciences in China. Compared with the natural sciences, the development level of China’s humanities and social sciences is more backward than that abroad, but for a long time we have been unwilling to admit this fact. Because of this situation, those in society who loudly proclaim humanism may in fact not have much in the way of humanistic attainment, and their degree of rationality and logical reasoning ability are also problematic.
Actually, as for me personally, I do not advocate dividing science and the humanities, much less setting them in opposition. In terms of origin, the two are the same, and in development they also promote each other. The humanism of the Renaissance helped propel the rise of modern science, while the great development of modern science also promoted the liberation of human nature, and even influenced new understandings of human rights and human freedom, and also influenced the formulation of modern legal codes. ////——I agree.

Page 123 Journalist: In an interview with the Guangming Daily, Wu Guosheng mentioned that scientific research has forbidden zones; this was questioned by the internet expert Fang Zhouzi, and China Reading News published a rebuttal article by Fang De. Which side do you support?
Liu Huajie: I basically agree with Wu’s viewpoint. In the era of Big Science, scientific research should have forbidden zones; scientific research must be constrained by many social factors and cannot do whatever it wants. Even if one believes that science is ethically neutral, one can still think that scientific research has forbidden zones. The problem is that we cannot easily draw a line and stipulate that this side is allowed and that side is not. This issue is more complicated and cannot be made clear in a few words. ////——I feel the same.

Page 125
Pure science itself may not have forbidden zones, but technology does have forbidden zones; the problem is that it is very hard to distinguish modern society from technology. ////——I had a similar formulation in my notes yesterday. Notice that Teacher Liu here also cautiously adds the word “may.” Regarding my notes from yesterday, someone suggested that I “could still think further about whether there are forbidden zones in the scientific spirit of seeking truth. At the very least, do not treat this as a settled premise.” Actually, I was originally holding a reserved stance; after that, I boldfaced the word “perhaps” and added a parenthetical note indicating my reservation. Discussing whether “pure science” has forbidden zones is rather complicated, and it is not urgent either, because the reality now is that science and technology have already become this inseparable “superstructure.” Swapping the question of whether “science and technology,” or “specific scientific research,” should have forbidden zones for the question of whether “pure science itself” has forbidden zones is a trick for changing the subject.

February 19, 2006