Foreword: Why should we explore?

Author/Dan Zhiqiang is selected from the preface of No.3 issue of chinese national geography 20 12. This magical photo was taken in the Lalu Wetland in the western suburb of Lhasa River. In order to better show this magic, the photographer specially placed the Potala Palace in the lower right corner of the picture, leaving a large space for a beautiful rainbow to rise from the back of the Potala Palace. Rainbow, like Oracle, illuminates Potala Palace and Maburi Mountain where it is located, but dims the northern mountain behind it. From the picture, the Potala Palace is far away and small, and the rainbow is very close and big, which is just the opposite of what the naked eye can see. This is a real scene, but it is invisible to the naked eye. With the help of telephoto lens, our photographer skillfully pulled up a rising rainbow in the distance behind the Potala Palace. Faced with this picture, we can ask a question: the scenery in front of us is caused by a long lens, and people at the scene can't see this scene. So, is this scene true? If what you see is the standard, then this image is false. But if the structure of our human eyes is like a telephoto lens, is this image real? Photography/Galen Lowell /c When an explorer meets a snowy mountain, the scene is actually very ceremonial. I remember an explorer saying that he likes exploring in order to leave footprints in places where humans have never set foot. Another explorer said that the attraction of exploration is that it can fill the gaps in the map. In fact, these explorers are talking about phenomena, but they don't say what is the driving force of exploration. Why is there a charm that people are willing to work hard and even pay their lives when they print footprints in places where no human has set foot, or when they appear in places where no human has ever appeared? Appear in a place that humans have never seen before. In fact, it is a place that humans have never seen before. Now you have seen it for the first time. Seeing a world that has never been seen before for the first time is what explorers pursue. Once in Shihua Cave in Fangshan District, Beijing, several people and I went down to the seventh floor underground. We paddled the rubber boat across the lake and landed. With the light of a flashlight, I saw that there was nothing unusual in the cave hall in front of me, but on the sixth floor just left, there was a hall filled with grotesque stalactites, stalagmites and other sediments, which made the hall look like a palace in a fairy tale. Suddenly, the tour guide said, "No one has ever been here." This sentence is amazing. I thought of what the explorer said earlier: leave footprints where humans have never set foot. Because of the tour guide's words, everything in front of me seems to have completely changed, from dull to shiny. I suddenly feel that this place is more attractive than the fairy tale hall on the sixth floor, because although the hall is as magnificent as a palace, someone has been there, and although it is dull, no one has ever appeared. I began to look at everything in front of me carefully: there was a white cylindrical stalagmite under the light of the headlights, which was as smooth as Hetian jade and faintly shiny. It turned out that there was a thin water film dripping from the nipple of a stalactite. If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of dripping water. This kind of stalagmite is very common and can be seen everywhere in caves. But now it has become extraordinary, because this is the first time it has met people, and people's eyes have seen it for the first time. A trace of joy swept through my heart. Some people may think that the scene of the first light in life is normal, but it is not. A cave explorer met waterfalls and stalactites in the cave. This scene is actually like a ceremony: the explorer is actually delivering a baby for this landscape on behalf of mankind. Before that, it has been hidden in the deep darkness for thousands of years, and we don't know what shape, color and so on it is. But since it met the seeker, it has been born with the image of white color, pouring water column and hard stalactites. Explorers knocked on their doors for the first time and used headlights to drive away the darkness that had enveloped them for thousands of years. Many cave creatures feel light for the first time in their lives. As a reward, they also presented their own residence: a beautiful cave palace that will never be seen on the ground, for the earliest explorers who arrived here. This is a silent but great moment. Photography/Li Jin now thinks about this, and I begin to reflect on its significance. The first time I saw stalagmites. What's the point? Why does it make me happy? Some people may say: when you didn't see it, it had been there for thousands of years. Yes, I admit, I am not a believer in the solipsist G. Becquerel in the history of philosophy. He thinks that when people don't perceive a thing, it doesn't exist. But I am puzzled by such a question: when I didn't see it, was it like this? This question can be put another way: when an object or a landscape is not seen by human beings, what form does it exist? Nature or the world, how she existed before people saw her, we don't know. For example, a snow peak, what is its shape? What about the color? ..... someone said, "Just like when we saw her later." I don't think this view can stand analysis. This view is not based on experience, but on the reasoning that since I met Xuefeng for the first time, if I see her again, she will still be like that. Therefore, before humans have seen her, she should look the same as after we saw her. However, this reasoning is problematic. The problem is that he has set some premises, such as the sun has not changed, the air has not changed, and more importantly, people have not changed. If these premises change, for example, you change, your eye structure changes, and the appearance of Xuefeng will definitely change, which is definitely not what you saw before. Therefore, it is a mystery what Xuefeng looked like before human contact with her. If there is an eagle hovering over her head, the snow peak in the eagle's eye is the same; If a pika ever looked at her, the snow peak in that pika's eyes may have become another look. This involves exploration. What was Xuefeng like before the explorer appeared? It was a very important moment when the explorers first appeared in front of this snow peak. Because the explorer at this time represents all mankind, because his body structure and cultural background are consistent with ours (of course, if he is color blind, he cannot represent mankind). When the explorer meets the snow peak, the scene is actually very ceremonial: at the moment when the explorer's eyes touch the snow peak, the snow peak gets its shape and color. At this time, the eternal mystery of "what was Xuefeng like before human contact with her" suddenly slipped away. In the words of philosophers: "Existence disappears and existence appears." Explorers, on behalf of human beings, "shape" and "color" create a snowy peak, making existence exist, making mystery common sense and revealing secrets. At this point, this snow peak is no longer mysterious. Mountaineers' greatest honor and pleasure is to climb Mount Everest. In fact, the real Mount Everest is not a mountain that no one has climbed, but a mountain that explorers have never seen. Any mountain that meets an explorer is not virgin peak. I remembered the story of the seven fairies. The fairy who took a bath was seen by the cowherd and put on her clothes. Most of the world we see is fairies in clothes. Only the seeker went to the nearest place to the fairies, which was the critical area between the gods and the people. But fairies are fairies after all. As soon as the explorer saw her, she put on her clothes. Therefore, the "danger" in the word "explorer" can be understood as "almost seeing the mystery", which is the source of my understanding of why explorers are happy, and it is also the intrinsic motivation for explorers to rush into danger and not be afraid of sacrifice. What kind of knower, what kind of world. What was it like when the explorer, the representative of human beings, did not reach a snowy peak? Or what was the world like before human beings appeared? When it comes to the topic of ecological protection, people oppose anthropocentrism and hope that people can consider the problem from the perspective of animals. But when it comes to what the world is, anthropocentrism has never been questioned. Philosophers used to talk about what the world is, mostly about the world seen by people. The philosopher's "what is the world" is actually "what is the world for people". On this issue, it is absolutely people-centered. From Socrates' "Man is the measure of all things" to Heidegger's "The world is the echo of the four combinations of heaven, earth, god and man", where is the status of animals? Once resting by a glacier at the foot of Mount Hishabangma, I saw an eagle hovering in the fog. It broke through the clouds and soared on the top of the snow-capped mountain, shining like a diamond. Suddenly, it stopped and dived almost vertically. I guess it found its prey. But at this moment, I am thinking: what does this snow peak look like in the eyes of an eagle? What is the world it sees? What is its prey? In my eyes, Mashan Mountain in Xixia State is towering into the sky, and its snow peak is a combination of several peaks. It looks like a pyramid from one angle and a sleeping beauty from another. Snow peaks are dazzling white. I'm guessing, what shape and color is the snow peak in the eagle eye? Eagle's eyes are amazing. When it dives to catch prey, it can always focus accurately, otherwise it can't catch prey. The eagle moves freely in its world, and it has a set of methods to deal with the world. Who can see the beautiful view of the top of the mountain first? Before the explorers came to Xuefeng, the eagle liked the scenery here long ago. Moreover, they will constantly switch flight directions, enjoy the snow-capped mountains from different angles, and even overlook the top of the snow-capped mountains from a height. The snow-capped mountains in their eyes must be very different from those in the eyes of explorers and ordinary people. It should be said that they are the owners of the top of the snow-capped mountains, or at least frequent visitors. Humans just send their own representatives-explorers and mountaineers to meet Xuefeng and find a world completely different from the world in the eyes of eagles. Isn't the world in the eagle's eyes a world? This world is completely different from what people think, but can we say that the eagle's world is not real? Obviously not. The world in its eyes and the world in people's eyes are equivalent in so-called authenticity, so there are two worlds. In fact, there are as many perceivers of life as there are, and the mode of the world is infinite. For example, a color-blind person has his own world, and no one is qualified to say that the real world is the world in his eyes. The question "What is the world" can only be discussed among a group of creatures with the same physiological structure and culture. Once in Zhangjiajie, we walked in the forest at night, and the fireflies in the forest were flashing. They look very happy, as if they were dancing, and as if they were playing or partying. I wonder, what is the world in the eyes of fireflies? Once again, in a cave in Sarawak, Malaysia, bats swarmed out of the cave at dusk, like a black smoke, curling away outside the cave. In the morning, they will come back like this. What is the world of bats at night? "Night" is our human concept, but it is precisely the "day" of bats. In recent years, some scientists began to pay attention to the world in the eyes of animals, and they found many interesting phenomena. For example, fish's eyes are like wide-angle lenses. In the eyes of fish, the world has become a sphere, and the distance between various things has become closer. For example, pigeon eyes can distinguish millions of different colors. There are many more conical cells in birds' eyes than people's eyes, and they are also considered to be the animals with the best color discrimination on earth. As you can imagine, the world seen by birds is much richer in color than that seen by humans. The horse's vision is also extremely broad, but because the horse's eyes are distributed on both sides of his head, he can't see the area between his eyes, that is, right in front, so the horse always lowers his head when walking. If we have the vision of a horse, have you ever had the experience that when you tried to "tease" a good horse from behind, you were clearly standing behind it, but you were kicked by its hind leg very accurately? Why? This is because its eyes can see the back directly. Like herbivores such as cattle and sheep, the eyes of horses grow on both sides of the skull, but protrude slightly outward. It is said that its eyes are the largest and widest of all mammals on land-the range can reach 360 degrees. When it gallops on the vast grassland, its eyes don't have to "look around" like humans, so it can observe the appearance of the enemy and the movements of predators in all directions, and it doesn't have to turn around to see the situation behind it. If humans can have the sight of horses, what kind of scenery will we see when we walk on the grassland again? Primula in the eyes of bees, because of different eye structures, has different visual effects even when faced with the same thing. This photo shows the visual contrast between humans and bees facing the same primrose. The primrose with fresh stamens and bright yellow petals in people's eyes has become a primrose with deep stamens and is particularly eye-catching in bees' eyes, which is the result of bee eyes' choice of light. Flowers of different colors will reflect ultraviolet rays of different ranges and intensities, which cannot be recognized by human eyes, but bees are very good at it. It is by recognizing these ultraviolet rays that it chooses its favorite flowers. But another question followed. What kind of real primrose do people and bees see? Photography /Juck Zhang has what kind of media, what kind of world. I have a colleague who always likes to see the world under a microscope. There is a way to photograph what he sees under the microscope. I've seen his pictures of sand all over the world. It turns out that the sand in every place is different, and every grain of sand is different. The composition of sand is coral debris, tiny shells, mica and glass ... it's really "one sand, one world, one flower and one bodhi". This is the world brought to us by the microscope. "Media is information", which is the viewpoint put forward by Canadian communication scientist McLuhan. This subverts the popular view in the past: in the past, the media was regarded as a means of communication, just a means to an end. Actually, it is not. In the end, the media will turn away from customers and bring us a new world. What kind of media is used, what kind of world will be seen, and the media is the creator of the world. Of course, the "media" here is broad, newspapers, radio and television are all media, and electric lights, mobile phones, computers, cars and cameras can also be understood as media. Such as a camera. When you use it, it will create a new world for you. Wide-angle, standard, telephoto and macro lenses can make you see a different world. Our eyes are actually a standard lens, and the standard lens is just a kind of camera lens. A telephoto lens can compress the distant world and nearby objects together, and the distance between them seems to be shortened. I saw many amazing pictures created with telephoto lenses. One night, photographer Lu Linglong took a wonderful photo on Zhaxika grassland in shiqu county, Sichuan: several white-waisted deer stood on the hillside with a bright full moon behind them. In fact, to the human eye, the white-rumped deer is still far away from the moon, but the telephoto lens overlays several white-rumped deer with the moon, and several white-rumped deer look like they are looking out from the moon. This is the difference between a telephoto lens and the human eye. If our human eyes can be like telephoto lenses, so can the world we see. Nocturnal Animals, by hearing and smelling, the photographer met several white-waisted deer in shiqu county, Sichuan on a bright night. Although they are not typical Nocturnal Animals, they can also adapt to living in low light. Most nocturnal animals have a keen sense of smell and hearing, although it is difficult for their eyes to distinguish colors. The way they perceive the world is beyond human understanding. For example, in the world of bats, the world is made up of various radar signals. In the eyes of cats and dogs, the world is based on the sense of smell. Photography/Lu Linglong air, water, glass, etc. It's all the media In fact, the sun is more important than these media. Plato has a famous metaphor in the Republic: comparing human beings to cave prisoners. First of all, the prisoner can't turn his head. The self-righteous world he saw was actually just a shadow. It was the torch behind him that projected the shadows of people and things moving on the stage onto the cave wall. Later, the cave prisoner released the chain. He turned around and saw the fire behind him and people and things moving on the stage. But the world he saw was still not real until he walked out of the cave and saw everything in the sun. Plato thought that only in this way could he see the real world. Fire is man-made, and the light emitted by fire is artificial light. The world illuminated by artificial light is unreal, and only the world illuminated by sunlight is real. I think anyone who has been to a tourist cave will agree with Plato. Under the management of some laymen, some flickering colored lights are often arranged in the cave, which makes the scenery in the cave strange. Walking out of the cave, there is a feeling of returning to the world. Because of the invention of electric light, the night in the city has become the same as the day. Now there is a new concept-light pollution. Although this concept was first put forward by astronomers, it is impossible for them to observe the starry sky because of the flood of artificial light. Now this concept has been extended to all levels, and the flood of artificial light should arouse vigilance and resistance. Why not treat artificial light as light pollution instead of sunlight? My understanding is this: first of all, from the beginning of mankind to the present, the world we see is the world presented under the sun. One of the most important reasons why we can communicate with each other and gain knowledge is that we have the same sun. This is the same standard for human beings to measure everything. But artificial light is different from the sun. It is diverse and changeable, and the world it presents is naturally chaotic. If left unchecked, it will ruin our common understanding of the world. In addition, human eyes evolved from sunlight. How does artificial light affect the eyes? This is worthy of attention. X-rays with insight into everything Almost everyone has the experience of taking X-rays in a hospital. This is an electromagnetic wave with short wave length and high frequency, which can distinguish substances with different densities. It can "see through" many opaque substances, has strong penetrating power and can see scenes that people can't see. Under its illumination, the original brightly colored flowers suddenly lost their fresh life and became picturesque static structure diagrams (above /Heinz Wuchner). If the flowers have a different aesthetic feeling, when the human body is irradiated by X-rays, only skeleton-like bones remain (below //Astapkovich Vlandimir). If God lets us all have a pair of X-ray eyes, we will see such a world. After talking about the sun, let's talk about the media that spread the sun. The atmosphere we live in is called the troposphere, and the propagation of light in it is scattered by air, water vapor and dust, so we see such a world. If you reach the upper stratosphere dozens of kilometers away, where the air is thin, everything will change. If it is higher in the ionosphere, smaller ions are distributed in space. For example, astronauts live in the ionosphere, and the earth they see is blue, but the sky is black. What will everything outside the atmosphere look like? I haven't studied it, and I haven't checked the information about it, but what is certain is that it must be different from what we see on earth. Finally, I want to say that what the world is depends at least on the following elements: First, who is the knower? The second is what is the light source? Third, what is the media? As long as one of these elements changes, the world will take on a different look. What's the point of this analysis? At least we can get rid of the arrogance of knowing the real world, let us face the world with humility and awe, and admit that there are other people's worlds besides me, and even the world in the eyes of other creatures. We can never grasp the mystery of the world. Whenever we think we have won, the mystery has left.