"Well, would you like to tell us what you know?" I was overjoyed to see this and asked further.

Hu Yanzhi lowered his head and looked at me with a strange expression from the blank space above his glasses in a somewhat distorted posture.

After a while, he finally nodded.

"Yes. Since Mina called you here, I'll tell you some secrets about this world. ”

Hu Yanzhi always looked back at us in that distorted posture, and in the current situation, he didn't seem to plan to change his movements.

Worried that he would hurt his bones, I said, "Well, do you need me to help you move the stool?" Do you feel very uncomfortable like this? ”

"Yes, uncle, let's help you move the stool so that you can talk to us, so that you can also relax." Zhang Qiang also agreed.

"No, no, no, I'm not uncomfortable, let's get to the point now! Why would I agree with Mina's statement that the world is false. Hu Yanzhi waved his arm tied like a dumpling by the restraint belt, but his expression was very serious.

"Well, you say, we're all listening." I nodded cooperatively.

"Do any of you know what Hume's problem is? Or is it Hume's paradox? Hu Yanzhi put his hand on his chin with difficulty and made a wait-and-see posture.

Although now he looks a little funny.

"Hugh, Hume? What is it? Zhang Qiang turned his head to look at Du Deming with an expression of his head down.

"I remember that in my freshman year, in Ma Zhe's class, the teacher seemed to have mentioned this, it was a question raised by a philosopher of the idealist school, but the course was so addictive that I wanted to sleep at that time, so I didn't hear the key part, but I just vaguely knew that there was such a mention." Du Deming pondered.

As he spoke, he turned his head to look at Zhao Qiqi: "Qiqi, do you know?" ”

"Well, I've probably heard of it, but I don't know exactly about it." Zhao Qiqi showed an embarrassed look on her face for the first time, and she turned her gaze to my position: "Aren't we a graduate student in philosophy here?" Just ask him no! ”

"Don't expect too much from me." Listening to her words, I suddenly felt a lot of pressure, and as I spoke, I tried to recall what I had learned before: "Hume's problem, it should be David. Hume raised a question of cause and effect. I remember him as a skeptical philosopher, and although he made a series of various ideas, the most famous of which was the 'Hume problem'. ”

"Wait, I'll interrupt first, what do you mean by skepticism?" Zhang Qiang put his hand on his forehead, trying to understand what I was saying.

"Skepticism is agnosticism, and those who hold this view believe that the world is unknowable and its laws cannot be grasped by humans. The opposite of skepticism is agnosticism, and they both belong to epistemology. Epistemology is still mentioned by the teacher at that time, which is a philosophical doctrine that explores the nature and structure of human cognition, as well as the relationship between cognition and its objective existence. Materialist epistemology insists on moving from matter to consciousness, while idealistic epistemology preaches and becomes aware of matter. Am I right? Du Deming said suddenly.

"Yes, that's it. Hume's question is a formulation based on idealistic epistemology. I nodded: "To put it bluntly, Hume's question is whether the 'value proposition' can be deduced from the 'factual proposition', or in other words, whether the 'ought' can be deduced from the 'is'. To put it more simply, it is whether 'cause' can lead to 'effect', and whether there is a necessary connection between cause and effect. Do you understand? ”

"I roughly understand what you're saying, and you mean that the philosopher Hume is questioning whether a cause must be absolutely connected with its effect, is that right?" Wang Yi was the first to speak.

"That's right. You're smart. Hu Yanzhi listened to the conversation between us, nodded with great satisfaction, and as he spoke, he turned his gaze to me: "You seem to have a good understanding of philosophy, what major did you study?" ”

"Well, I happen to be a philosophy major." I smiled a little embarrassedly and said.

"Oh? Studying philosophy? It's no wonder. Hu Yanzhi looked at me with a little more temperature in front of him, a little less guarded, and he glanced at the other people: "I see that the rest of you still don't seem to understand, so let's give you a simple and easy-to-understand example." For example, Lao Zhang drove drunk one night, and then hit a person named Xiao Wang, and then Xiao Wang was sent to the hospital and died, according to the law of the world, Lao Zhang must be sentenced, right? Because it's a natural thing for everyone. It was precisely because Lao Zhang drunk drove into Xiao Wang that Xiao Wang lost his life. However, if we look at Hume's argument, there is no necessary connection between all this. ”

"There is no necessary connection? What do you mean, isn't this the obvious responsibility of Lao Zhang? Situ Cao was also a little puzzled.

Hu Yanzhi smiled, undeniable.

He looked at me and continued: "For example, if the water in the pot is boiled over a fire, the water will become hot; For example, if I slap you, your face will feel pain; For example, if I jump from a tall building, I will inevitably die...... Wait, do these examples sound like a no-brainer? ”

"yes, it's a matter of course, isn't that all common sense?" Du Deming nodded solemnly, not knowing what Hu Yanzhi wanted to say.

Hu Yanzhi smiled, his expression full of some mystery.

"This is one of the world's biggest secrets. The reason why we can take these things for granted is based on the observation of human society thousands of years or even more in the past, because it has always been like this, so it has become a necessity, but is it really the case? Hume proposed that our conception of cause and effect is nothing more than a subjective idea of what we expect from something. That is, it is a simple empiricism. For we have observed a thing for many years and can only prove that it has turned out to be that way in the past, which is a priori view derived from the problem of induction, but none of you can say that it will be so in the future. ”

Hu Yanzhi sighed and continued: "Just like the example just now, we just saw the two independent facts of 'Lao Zhang's car and Xiao Wang's contact' and 'Xiao Wang died later', but in fact, we can't deduce the 'value proposition' that Lao Zhang is one of the key reasons for Xiao Wang's death from these two independent 'facts', you think about it carefully, in fact, there is no inevitability between the two, only based on the probability in the inductive sense. It's just a habitual association of us humans. ”