The preface of Introduction to the General Law of Being Author: Ye Chen

In December 1998, Dongyue Wang, a polymath master of obscurity and seclusion, with almost no engagement in the academic community, published his work A Unified Theory of Evolution (Original: Chinese), in which he constructed a brand-new hypothetico-deductive cosmological system – a model of existence that unifies every being with an extremely simple, yet subversive universal law. Miraculously, this ingenious fundamental theory takes its root in China, with almost no soil of philosophy to breed it. While the literature of Laozi, Confucius, and the Hundred Schools of Thought are commonly recognized as Chinese philosophy despite the lack of deductive steps, no trace of philosophy can be found thereafter for over 2000 years, until Wang appeared with his magnificent philosophy that explains ultimate principle of all beings, including the reason behind the occurrence of these historical facts. Tragically but quite expectedly, more than 20 years after the book was published, few readers or scholars in China have been able to understand it. The book has had little impact in the Western world either, given its natural characteristic of Chinese literature leading to inevitable language barriers, and its opaque and specialist philosophical terms under different cultural frameworks. Some of its relatively few readers ascribe its unreadability to the poor quality of translation, while other scholars criticize the book for not adopting an academic format. This is because Wang’s writing, permeated with extraordinary Eastern charm that naturally streams out from his soul, cannot be transmitted across cultures. Nonetheless, this shouldn’t be the case with his core ideology, the universal law of existence that extends beyond borders.

I am grateful to Michael Chiao for introducing me to The Tree of Knowledge (Humberto R. Maturana & Francisco J. Varela) a book little known in China and with no Chinese translation. I felt a deep sense of excitement when I found the book holds a similar and prominent fundamental ideology to Wang’s theory, making it a perfect bridge for global readers to comprehend Wang’s thinking. This strengthened my confidence and confirmed my determination to re-illustrate and re-organize Wang’s ideas in the most understandable way possible, so that the system can be smoothly presented to global readers. Although my writing style might not be as naturally vivid as a native English speaker, my goal is that each idea is communicated and demonstrated to readers in a rigorous and scientific manner.

But before starting all this, we need to reach a consensus on the standard of models that can be viewed as “valid”, “true”, or “correct”, according to Wang (Wang, 1998, p.205):

1.????The entire system of the model must be logically coherent in itself, with no contradictions or anomalies being produced.

2.????The model must be consistent with other acknowledged models or systems. This means that the model either covers the past models, or combines well with them. If it doesn’t, it must recognize the defect of the past model and falsify it.

o??-?Models it is consistent with: All laws of nature (e.g., relativity theory, the second law

of thermodynamics), Kant’s transcendental idealism in general, Schopenhauer’s theory of will in general, and so on... (Literature review will be written to pick up the topics raised by past western philosophers, reveal the limitations of their approaches, and eventually re-position their theories in Wang’s model.)

o??-?Models it contradicts: Wittgenstein’s conclusion, Darwinism (some part of the natural selection), Hegel’s dialectical idealism...

3.????The model must be continuously consistent with facts emerging in the future; this means that the model should be universally true to facts through all times.

It must also be noted that the model has no intention to explain what it is in the “thing in itself”; rather, it provides the readers with an enormous but finite cosmological picture covering the "thing in itself", in which every nature of being is celebrated. Owing to the universal validity of the model and uniqueness in the approach adopted, I contend that this is what the development of civilization urgently demands. As a fundamental theory, the model will definitely add fresh blood to all fields; most likely it would enlighten new thoughts and facts across disciplines, or point out the direction of a new era.

Comparing to the translated version, my work will focus more on the building-up of the unique ideology that one must hold to read Wang’s theory, as an essential part of the deduction process. In my perspective, the degree of difficulty one has in understanding Wang totally depends on how strong this ideology is borne in one’s mind; in other words, the form of thought. This is like one needing a pair of 3D glasses when watching a particular film, without which the scene would just look senseless. Thus, I aspire to help the reader develop this required form of thought, get rid of a conventional and mechanical approach (as we shall discuss in the first chapter), and embrace a much broader, deeper, and thorough outlook. In addition, I have re-constructed the deduction process, grounding the statements on the important ideology addressed in The Tree of Knowledge, while following rigorous reasoning steps under western academic norms. Meanwhile, due to the difference between the English and Chinese vocabulary, many words or terms need to be re-defined, with the range of their implications being specified. This is why I have made notes on many seemingly apparent words to demonstrate propositions more precisely. To present specific points more intuitively to readers, I have also drawn additional pictures to demonstrate the abstract ideas – but please remember that they are only for inspiring, enlightening and guiding the reader’s thought, with no other significance.