? All academic disciplines and schools have their own views and opinions on life.
? The Encyclopedia Britannica defines life in this way: life consists of many interconnected open systems with organic reactions.
? Biology believes that life is an abstract concept as the essential attribute of biology. With the development of science, people's understanding of life has deepened, and protein-centered outlook on life and protein's outlook on life with gene control center have been formed successively. Modern biology clarifies that life is a complex system of protein and nucleic acid, which has the ability of self-renewal, reproduction and reaction to the outside world.
? According to psychology, life is a conscious self, which develops slowly from infancy. According to the law, life is the existence state or organic rest of animals and plants.
? There are at least three definitions of life in medicine: 1. Living state, manifested as metabolism, growth, reproduction and adaptation to the environment; The state in which animal and plant organs can perform all or part of their functions. 2. The period between the birth or origin of an organism and its death. Physically, a complete life begins with the fetus and ends in death -3. The sum of the characteristics that distinguish living objects (animals and plants) from inanimate, non-organic chemicals or dead organisms.
? In philosophy, the answer to the mysterious question "What is life" is mainly to discuss the function or functional characteristics of life. For example, Aristotle looked at life in the sense of an organism. The word "life" can have many meanings. As long as any of the following conditions exists, we can say that these things have life, such as reason, feeling, movement and stillness in position, or movement, generation and extinction of nutrients. " The Dictionary of Philosophy edited by Feng Qi defines life as: "There is a complex system of protein and nucleic acid. A special, advanced and complicated form of material movement ... According to the research results of modern biological science, the origin of life first generates organic small molecules from inorganic substances, then biological macromolecules from organic small molecules, and biological macromolecules form a multi-molecular system, and finally develops into primitive life. Life is a complex system with nucleic acids and protein macromolecules as the main components and cells as the most basic unit.
? In the philosophy of life, the philosophical significance of life transcends biology. Life philosophy holds that "life is the absolute and infinite origin of the world, which is different from matter and consciousness and is an active, diverse and permanent movement." Life cannot be understood by feeling or logical thinking, but can only be grasped by intuition or experience. "
? As can be seen from the above discussion, the definitions of life in various disciplines are based on a broad sense and can be roughly divided into two categories:
One is to regard life as the basic system existence of the world's creatures; The second is to turn life into a mysterious concept. Life in a narrow sense refers to human life.
? The life referred to in this article is mainly "human life". Besides the two basic characteristics of systematic existence and close contact with other individuals, the life characteristics of human beings have unique characteristics of self-transcendence, self-transformation and self-realization compared with other creatures. Therefore, human life should include the following meanings: first, human life is first manifested in biology, that is, the subject is "man", who is concrete, realistic, living and flesh-and-blood, and life is an internal system of man; Second: the exchange of material and value between human life and living environment. In this way, people are different from other creatures and completely depend on the living environment. As a living body, human beings can change and dominate the environment. Third, human life exists in practical activities. Without practice, people can neither maintain natural life nor gain social life. Practice is the only way for people to get a complete life.
Characteristics of life
? To explore the life characteristics in life education, we must start from the theoretical basis of life education and the theoretical basis of human nature, and grasp the characteristic factors in life closely related to the formation and development of life value and life education. Only by grasping these characteristics can life education be targeted and effective.
? The integrity of life
? Individual life is complete, which is the basic feature of existence.
? The integrity of life is first manifested in the fact that human life is a whole. As an internal system of human beings, life is a complex unity composed of several subsystems and thousands of interrelated and common growth factors. The intrinsic element of life is the original part of the whole life. Once you leave the whole life, you lose the meaning and value of existence. For example, if people's eyes leave the body, they will inevitably lose their serenity and light, which is useless. Therefore, the integrity of life inevitably requires that all components of life cannot exist in isolation, but * * * exists in a living body, * * * participates in any activity, * * * is related, and * * * develops in the form of a complete life. Ye Lan believes that human life is a multi-level and multi-faceted integration of physiology, psychology, society, material, spirit, behavior, cognition and value. People participate in any kind of activities in a complete way, instead of partial, isolated and one-sided participation and investment. The philosopher Jaspers also emphasized the integrity of life. He said: "There is no doubt that life is complete, with age, self-realization, maturity and possible forms of life. As a self-existence of life, it also longs for completeness. Life is complete only through the internal connection suitable for life. "
Secondly, the integrity of our life is also manifested in the unity of various life forms. Scholars divide life into different forms and levels in their research, such as secondary life and life-like things. Spiritual life and material life; Three levels of material life, spiritual life and social life "; There are four levels of natural life, spiritual life, value life and intellectual life. The basic internal premise is that life is holistic and all kinds of life forms are unified in an individual life. Each form and level are interrelated, mutually influenced, mutually contained and nested, mutually integrated and isomorphic to the complete life of adults.
Third, the integrity of human life is also reflected in the vertical overall process. Yesterday, today and tomorrow, life is a continuous and complete process. No one's interpretation of life can stick to a certain fragment or aspect, but must focus on the whole and whole process of life. To implement life education and explore the value of life, we must proceed from the whole of life.
? (B) the uniqueness of life
Everyone's life is unique. There are no two identical leaves and no two identical people in the world.
Life exists as an independent individual, which is first manifested in the uniqueness of life. Everyone's life is unique, based on their own unique genes. After the father's sperm and the mother's egg successfully formed a zygote, a unique person was born. Parents give each fertilized egg 23 genetic information units, namely chromosomes. Each pair of these chromosomes contains 20,000 genes, which determine and influence the carrier of personality characteristics. According to the mathematical probability, the total number of possible combinations is 167772 16 different forms. Therefore, it is impossible for two people to have the same distant transmission factors, even if they are brothers and sisters with their parents. The only exception is identical twins, who come from the same fertilized egg and have the same chromosomes and genes, so they have the same genetic endowment. Because of the differences in living environment, education and practical activities, fraternal twins often develop differently and form different individuals. Psychological research has proved this conclusion.
Secondly, the uniqueness of life lies in its non-repetition. Life is a one-way ticket. From the day a person is born, life is a "continuous process", which is constantly developing and generating. Without circulation, people can't come back after spending their time. Personal time has no fixed essence.
Bergson thinks that man is a temporary existence. Time is flowing and life is continuing. Life at this time is different from life at that time and cannot be repeated.
? Third, the uniqueness of life is also reflected in the form of personality. People often use "this person and that person have completely different personalities" to express the difference between two people. Personality here is not only a psychological quality in narrow psychology, such as ability, temperament, personality psychological characteristics and needs, motivation, interest, world outlook and other personality psychological tendencies, but also the sum of a person's unique psychological characteristics. All external influences are reflected through the internal conditions of personality, forming a unique life individual. Individuals living in the same society all have their own unique life style.
? (C) the finiteness of life
? Life is limited because man is an organism. The existence of any living thing is always limited and temporary, and the finiteness is always absolute in front of the individual life. There is time to live and time to die, and no one can escape the end of death. In Zhuangzi's view, life and death is a natural process, where there is life, there is death, which is independent of people's subjective will. "Life and death, life also, its night and often, day also. What people don't agree with is also the love of things. "
? First of all, the finiteness of life is manifested as the condition, relativity and finiteness of being a natural rest, which is limited by time and space. Marx pointed out that "the first premise of all human history is undoubtedly the existence of living individuals." Therefore, the first thing to prove is the material organization of these individuals and the resulting relationship between individuals and other nature. "We, together with our flesh and blood and brain, belong to coexist in nature. As a body that naturally exists in the world, the limitation of human beings is mainly manifested as follows: the existence of life is based on the existence of the body, and the disappearance of the body means the end of life. The existence of the body is limited in the dimension of time, and this is life span. As far as human life is concerned, the time of life is very limited. People's natural life span-generally speaking, 70-80 years old. With the development of modern life science and medicine, people continue to develop anti-aging and life-delaying technologies, but the longest life span of people is only 100 years old. The existence of the human body as an organism has insurmountable natural limitations. " As soon as human children are born, they lack instinctive adaptation to nature and physical strength. He is the most incompetent of all animals and needs longer protection than any other animal. "From the perspective of the vitality of the human body, the living space and viability of human beings are limited, and even far inferior to animals in some aspects. For example, the basic vitality such as running, jumping, listening and watching is much weaker than some animals.
? Secondly, the finiteness of life is also manifested in the contingency, transience and irreversibility of life. "There are unexpected events in the sky, and people are doomed." Human life is like a fragile reed. A drop of water in one breath is enough to kill him. According to the existentialist point of view, human existence is accidental, but human death is inevitable. Life in this world is fragile, not only discontinuous factors can change the course of life, but also uncontrollable diseases, disasters, accidents and other accidental events may make individual life more limited or even end. In addition, due to the irreversibility of time, people only have one life. Once a person has gone through his own life, he can't start over. There is no afterlife and reincarnation. The theory of reincarnation in the afterlife is only a subjective need and expectation of human beings, and it is precisely a reflection of human understanding of the finiteness of life.
Thirdly, the finiteness of human life is also reflected in the social finiteness of human being as a social person. People exist in society and are subject to social laws. Only in this way can man become a free man in society and a civilized man in modern society, so as to keep people away from animal instinct and barbarians.
Simply looking at the finiteness of life, life is "waiting for death", which makes human existence tragic and tends to be pessimistic about life. The finiteness of life is a unique finiteness. Only by recognizing the finiteness of cow's life can we realize the infinity in finiteness. It is the finiteness of three people's lives that urges people to think hard and work hard, so as to transcend the finiteness of life and move from infinity to infinity. In this sense, the finiteness of human life is the most fundamental, powerful and ultimate motivation for people to transcend infinity. It is in this sense of pursuing infinite possibilities that Heidegger understands that "life is to die". Therefore, to get out of the pessimistic complex of the finiteness of individual life, we must put the finiteness of life into the overall structure of life. Although individual life is limited and has the end of death, human society is the relay of individual life handed down from generation to generation, transforming the limitation of individual life into the continuation of group or human life. Therefore, to understand the finiteness of life, we should not only see that the finiteness of individual material life is absolute; We should also see that people are limited and relative in the process of infinite pursuit and continuous transcendence of life; Incorporating the finiteness of individual life into the long history of human development, the finiteness of individual is endowed with infinite eternity. Therefore, life is a contradictory existence, and we can only understand the finiteness of life through transcendence.
(D) the value of life
Man is the existence of value, and value is the foundation and basis of human existence. Man is the subject of life value, and the existence and attributes of life can only produce value if they meet people's needs. People here refer to individuals, people and all mankind. They will establish a value relationship with the existence and attributes of life, and life is the object of life value. The existence of life is not only the satisfaction of people in all aspects, but also the source of development and progress in all fields of society and the embodiment of life value.
First of all, the value of human life lies in the truth of one's own life.
Secondly, the value of life is manifested in the self-transcendence of human life. "People will not be satisfied with the instinctive life dominated by life, but always use this natural life to create the value and meaning of life. The essence of people as' people' should be said to be a meaningful existence and a valuable entity. " Man is the only thing in the universe that can be "not what it is" and "not what it is", and everything except man exists "what it is". The duality of human life leads to a series of contradictions in the development of life. The process of contradiction is the process of realizing transcendence and life value. The self-transcendence of life is manifested in: 1. Transcendence of human spirituality over human biology. Man is not a pure animal. Under the control and polishing of spirituality, people have changed from pure animals to social people. 2. Infinite life transcends limited life. The real existence of human beings stipulates the finiteness of human life, but the pursuit of human beings is infinite, and the process of life is an infinite process of constantly reaching stage goals and pursuing new goals. People always pursue the value of life in infinite efforts. 3. It may be beyond reality. The essence of human beings is not pre-formed, but generated. People affirm themselves in reality and experience, but human nature also makes people live in ideals. The yearning for the future and the pursuit of possibility make people transcend the present and history. 4. Freedom transcends rules. Man is a social person, and he must first get the stipulation given by society, but he also creatively transforms the environment and society, creates himself and transcends the established self. The process of creation is to constantly transcend one's own stipulation and move towards the freedom of life. "It can be seen that the self-transcendence of human life means that people realize their limitations in life, thus consciously endowing their limited lives with rich connotations, consciously realizing their potential and mission, and seeking to create and enhance their own life value.
Third, the value of life is embodied in people's objective activities. The existence and attribute of life is the relationship between subject and object based on the all-round development of human beings and the all-round progress of society. This relationship is the first significance of the existence of life and its attributes to meet people's all-round development and social progress, and it is the most essential attribute that distinguishes human life from animals. Only when people consciously control and control their own life activities in practice and realize their own will and purpose can they go beyond the limited life and enter the realm of eternal and infinite significance. Without human practice, the value of life can be produced without development. Therefore, the value of life exists in people's practical activities, and people's real self-activity is the process of forming and creating the value of life.
Fourth, the value of life lies in the human spirit. The human spirit is the highest value and the most ontological value of human life. "Only people can transcend instinctive life, establish the white self of personality, consciously dominate and control their own life activities to realize their own will and purpose, and then lead a limited life to an eternal and infinite realm. This is the value of human existence. In the final analysis, the existence of human life should pursue "one breath, noble morality, firm belief, rich soul and spiritual sublimation." "
? Life is complete and unique, limited, transcendental and valuable, which is the basic connotation of human life and the basic perspective of life. Only by clarifying the basic characteristics of life can life education have a solid foundation and a reliable starting point.
Third, lifestyle.
As for the existence of life, scholars have given different forms and different levels of classified research results from the philosophical point of view. Such as two levels of life and life-like ":three levels of natural physiological physical life, spiritual life related to natural physiology but beyond natural physiology, social life related to human body and spirit and with some objective universality; There are four levels: natural life, spiritual life, value life and intelligent life. This paper intends to regard life as a "thing" with naturalness, spirituality, sociality and value, and analyze the length, width, intensity, temperature and clarity of life from the perspective of physical philosophy.
? (A) the length of life
Facing a concrete and realistic person, our first concern is personal physical life. "How long is life?" Actually, it means how long can you live? Generally speaking, how long a creature can live is the moment from birth to death, and the length of this time is the length of life. Understanding the length of life in the dictionary sense, life can be simply explained as "the life span of existence". The Dictionary of Concept History has two explanations for life expectancy: one refers to life expectancy, that is, the average life expectancy at birth. When this value increases, it represents the progress of disease control; The other refers to the total length and limit of life, which is the key point that medicine and science hope to break through. In the Japanese film "The Desire of Life", a civil servant who has been engaged in postal work for more than 30 years does the same thing every day, stamping. After he was promoted to monitor, his career reached its peak, but he didn't really feel alive until he knew that he had stomach cancer for less than half a year. From this film, we can see that the length of life has a third meaning besides the explanation given by the dictionary above, that is, the length of life is a subjective attribute, which is produced in the process of consciously acquiring the meaning of life. Therefore, the definition of life span not only refers to "how long can you live" at the physiological level, but also includes being able to live healthily and profitably within a limited life span, and realizing your own meaningful life span from subjective consciousness activities, which embodies the life display of life span in three aspects: physiology, psychology and spirit.
(B) the width of life
The original meaning of "width" is a noun indicating the distance between two sides. In the case of the same length, the larger the width, the stronger the accommodation capacity. The width of residential place is a metaphor in this paper. Life is a road, everyone walks on his own road, and the distance on both sides of this road is the width of life. Of course, each of us hopes that our life path will be unimpeded and extremely broad. The width of life has a broad connotation and also has the significance of expanding the width of life. The width of life can be understood from the following four dimensions. Tolerance: Only by caring can we be happy. Relax: Encourage yourself and stay optimistic. Generosity: Dance your heart, more energy. Broadness: Career development begins with happiness. "It can also be understood as inclusiveness, knowledge, diversity of values, flexibility and so on. It includes a person's knowledge connotation, way of thinking, values and personality traits. In other words, the width of life means that a behavior is intentionally "open". " Where does the width of life come from? The generosity of behavior comes from inner sincerity, knowledge judgment and personality cultivation. Therefore, expanding the width of life lies in growth, that is, the growth of people's knowledge, ideas, thinking, ability and personality, so as to accommodate more affairs, live more flexibly and transform difficulties. We must pay attention to the interaction between ourselves and the environment, interpersonal communication, self-reflection, constant experience and so on.
(3) the intensity of life
The intensity of life is an expressive force, a powerful force that life shows, and it shows hidden vitality in the process of constantly exploring the limits of life. This expressive force is often revealed in some special situations, such as adversity, danger, disease and so on. First of all, the intensity of life is a manifestation of perseverance, and the goal is determined to move forward unswervingly; Secondly, the intensity of life is based on hope, knowing that it is impossible, but it is only reckless. Only under the guidance of the goal of "one chance for life" can the intensity of life truly show its vitality; Thirdly, the intensity of life shows strong toughness, which can transform life setbacks in time in difficulties and adversity and make life regain vitality; Finally, the interpretation of life intensity also shows flexibility and adaptability. People often have the potential to face the changes and tests of various life situations in life. The clothes in life show elasticity, and they can be prepared for prosperity and not surprised by adversity. No matter what the environment, they can always face it calmly. Where does the intensity of life come from? Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Frank and others all regard will as an inherent primitive power or an inherent spiritual function of human beings, which is possessed by everyone and the initiator of human behavior realization. For example, Schopenhauer put forward that "the world is my representation", the world is constructed by the subject, and "I" is the foundation of the representation world, which is presented through the will of "I". The will here is the will in a broad sense, covering all the processes of desire and realization. This paper holds that the strength of life is the expression of willpower, which includes the strength of reason, emotion or persistence, the realization and transformation of attachment to reason, emotion and desire.
(4) the temperature of life
? "Temperature" is a sense of moderation between hot and cold. It is hot when the temperature is high, and cold when the temperature is low. Only moderation is appropriate. In life, some people are extreme, fanatical, stubborn, violent and extreme.
Some people are mean, slow, heartless and cold-blooded. The former is too hot, the latter is too cold, and the appropriate temperature represents the heat of life, pointing to light, enthusiasm and hope. Words are often used to express enthusiasm, emotion, happiness, sunshine, positivity, health, vitality, warmth, gentleness and so on. Therefore, the temperature of life in this paper refers to the level of emotion, which plays a fundamental role in the all-round and harmonious development of human life. Without emotion, life is just a regular behavior. In the golden mean, people's emotions-emotions, joys and sorrows-are regarded as inherent components of people. "Don't send the joys and sorrows, call it; This is all in the middle of the festival, which is called summer. " "Psychological research also shows that there are about 8- 10 kinds of emotions that human babies get from racial overkill, which are called basic emotions, such as happiness, interest, surprise, disgust, pain, anger, fear and sadness. All these emotions are uncoded and can be learned without learning, and they gradually differentiate, adapt and develop through coping with success. In the whole process of human growth and development, we must rely on the emotional adaptation mechanism, that is, we must have a suitable living temperature, including correctly identifying and reading other people's emotions and understanding other people's feelings to meet the needs of society, including controlling the external expression of our emotions to adapt to the cultural environment, and also including realizing interpersonal communication and emotional identification with the help of emotional expression functions. The temperature of life has innate components, but emotion, as one of the important areas of human development, must be influenced by education to promote people's emotional level to constantly produce new qualities and move towards new fishing heights; At the same time, we should coordinate people's emotional mechanism, physiological mechanism and thinking mechanism to achieve the best functional state, and explore the value and significance of life from the height of unity of truth, goodness and beauty.
(5) clarity of life
Those who are "clear" are clear, bright and clear, and the clarity of life refers to the inner clarity, brightness and clarity of the "things" of individual life. The clarity of life lies in the state of mind, including clarity and purity of life, simplicity and sincerity, freshness and refinement, integrity and honesty, meditation and freedom. The dialysis and mastery of life clarity mainly comes from one's own "awakening and understanding". Feng Youlan, a later scholar, divided the differences in life into four types from low to high according to the thought of "one family has a master" and the pursuit of life: natural realm, utilitarian realm, moral realm and heaven and earth realm. People are in the natural realm, and their behavior is "learning", learning personal habits and social customs. This kind of person "has no clear purpose, and he doesn't know the sacred significance of what people do." Children sucking milk and primitive people's "what they say must be done" belong to the natural realm, as does the realm of ordinary people. " "People who follow the lesson" do what they have to do and stop at what they have to do. "Such people are often" ordinary people ",and they have no consciousness of self-reflection and self-choice about the meaning of today's life. People in the realm of utility, their behavior is "utility". Such people's behavior, or the pursuit of increasing their own property, or developing their own career, or enhancing their own glory, is for their own self-interest. " The difference between it and the natural realm is that people in the natural realm have nothing to do with their own behavior and don't know what they mean, while people in the utilitarian realm have definite months and can understand what they mean. ""People are in the realm of morality, and their behavior is' things'. This kind of person understands that man is not only a part of society, but also a part of the universe. "His career not only contributes to society, but also contributes to the universe, and' long life, the sun and the moon shine together'. Feng Youlan's theory of realm has an important enlightening effect on understanding the improvement of clarity in life. He pointed out that people's understanding of cosmic life directly affects people's moral level, and the "enlightenment" connected with it is a very clear and feasible method to improve the clarity of life. In the chaotic life, only by constantly awakening ourselves can we clearly grasp our behavior direction when we are lost, let us understand the true meaning of life in a happy, depressed and complicated life, and keep ourselves in a clear and clear state, thus constantly giving life positive motivation.
Life is a five-dimensional synthesis of "physics" that is long, wide, strong, soft and clear, in which each dimension is holographic, including humanity, spirituality, sociality and value, permeated with the value pedigree of seeking existence, seeking depth, truth, goodness and beauty, seeking holiness, and the isomorphic adult life.