2020 has been really bad. It feels like just yesterday we were all wondering if there was something wrong with the way we were opening 2020, and now it's already Qingming Festival.
The whole human race is still going through a disaster. The number of COVID-19 infections and deaths is still rapidly increasing. So, let's talk about "death" on this Qingming Festival.
Nomadic Civilization and Agrarian Civilization
Obviously, living people can never know what the afterlife is like. Humans fear the unknown, but death is unavoidable, so humans have come up with many explanations for the afterlife.
The Abrahamic religions believe that God created the world and created humans in his own image. The human body will die, but the soul will not perish. Good people's souls will enter heaven after death, while evil people's souls will be cast into hell and suffer torment.
The Abrahamic religions include Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, and originated in the desert regions of Western Asia. Buddhism, which originated in ancient India, has a completely different view of life and death.
Buddhism believes that humans are constantly in a cycle of reincarnation. Based on the good and evil deeds done in their previous lives, they will be reborn in one of the six realms: heaven, human, asura, animal, hungry ghost, or hell, and the cycle continues.
In simple terms, Abrahamic religions believe that the world develops linearly, with a clear starting point and endpoint. Buddhism, on the other hand, believes that the world is a circle without a starting point or endpoint, constantly cycling. The Western worldview is like playing MapleStory, constantly fighting monsters and leveling up. The Eastern worldview is like playing Bubble Shooter, finishing one round and immediately starting another.
This difference is very interesting because it is likely caused by geographical factors. Western nomadic civilizations live in deserts, where the shape of the desert is never fixed. The appearance of the desert changes completely with a gust of wind, so the world is also like this, the process between the starting point and the endpoint is full of uncertainty. Buddhism originated in India, located in the southwest monsoon belt, with stable rainfall every year. The ancient Indian people lived in the fields of hope, with sunrise and sunset, spring plowing and autumn harvest. The world must be cyclical and full of certainty.
Small Bugs#
However, whether it is the idea of going to heaven after death advocated by the Abrahamic religions or the concept of reincarnation in Buddhism, upon closer inspection, they seem to have some small bugs.
Currently, there are 7.7 billion people in the world, and over 100 billion people have lived on Earth since the birth of humanity. This is a very large number. If there really is a heaven, wouldn't it be overloaded and experience high latency or even packet loss? Does heaven need to scale up or be restructured? Does heaven use PHP or Node.js...
And if we follow the concept of reincarnation, the current population is much larger than during the time of Tang Dynasty's Journey to the West. In the year 800 AD, the world's population was approximately 300 million. How did 300 million daily active users (DAU) in that era become 7.7 billion DAU through reincarnation? Does the cycle of reincarnation also involve user growth? Can there be user fission?! Where do the new users come from? The data keeps increasing, but there is no way to attribute it. The product manager is very anxious...
The Egg#
To solve these bugs, I read many books and came across a very fascinating science fiction short story called "The Egg" (link to the full text at the end of the article). The story is about the world being an egg. Don't laugh, that's really what it means. The story tells a very simple tale:
One day, the protagonist dies in a car accident.
He meets God and asks, "Am I dead?"
God replies, "Yes, you are indeed dead."
He asks, "So... am I going to be reincarnated next?"
God says, "Hey, don't be in such a hurry to be reborn. Let me show you around."
God takes him on a tour, showing him the lives of many people. God points to one of them and says, "Look, this is your next life. You will be a peasant girl in China in the year 540 AD."
The protagonist is stunned and asks, "What? Can I be reborn in the past?"
God replies, "Yes, indeed. You were previously Hitler, a Jewish person killed by Hitler. In the future, you will also become Lincoln, a black slave freed by Lincoln... You will experience the lives of all people! With each life, you will grow, become more mature, and gain greater wisdom. When you have experienced the lives of all people throughout all time, you will be mature enough to break out of your shell and be born..."
That's the story, very simple. In fact, this science fiction short story is more like a presentation of a worldview, with a simple story as its shell. But isn't every work a projection of the author's worldview? No problem with that.
Although the story is simple, I really like this concept: I will experience the lives of all people throughout all time. In other words, I am everyone, and everyone is me.
Upon further thought, there are no bugs. Although experiencing the lives of all people seems like a lot, it is still a finite number. Besides, does time really exist?
If the whole human race accepts this concept, the world will become a beautiful place, free from war. Why would I think of killing myself? There will be no poverty or jealousy. I will experience all the suffering and glory. There will be no more melodramatic stories. The person I envy will be my past life.
It's a wonderful concept, true equality of all beings, unity of humanity. But I think, given the stupidity of humanity, we are unable to fully comprehend its subtleties.
Day of the Dead#
The concept of life and death in the movie "Coco" is also very interesting. Death is not the end. After death, people go to the Land of the Dead, and during the Day of the Dead, they can return to the human world and reunite with their families. However, if no one in the human world remembers you, your soul will forever dissipate. Forgetting is the true death.
The concept of the Day of the Dead perfectly solves the bug of heaven being easily overloaded. Moreover, with a little explanation, this concept can also encourage people to do more good deeds while they are alive. People will forever remember the kind-hearted, and they will live happily in the Land of the Dead. As for individuals like Hitler and Stalin, people can remember and curse them, so they will be punished in the Land of the Dead.
The Day of the Dead even echoes the distant Eastern philosophy of Yangmingism: "When you have not seen this flower, this flower and your mind are both in silence. When you come to see this flower, the color of this flower suddenly becomes clear." The world exists completely in one's perception and imagination. If you completely forget something, then for you, it is no different from never having happened.
Forgetting is the True Death#
So, we must never forget!
We must not forget what has happened, what mysteries remain unsolved, and those who have sacrificed...
Those who donated all their hard-earned money for masks, those who whistle for everyone, those who have been fighting on the front lines, those who keep saying "I told you so"...
Image credit: Jason @Jerusalem
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2020/04/06 @Shanghai