"Science" in the modern sense should be said to have originated in modern Europe. But it is undeniable that the historical starting point of science and the starting point of human culture are homologous. The related research of cultural anthropology shows that there is no obvious boundary between science and witchcraft in primitive society. "Witchcraft and science are similar in understanding the world, and both believe that the continuity of events is completely regular and certain, so it can be accurately predicted and calculated. For those who know the cause of things and have access to the mysteries of the universe, both witchcraft and science seem to open up infinite possibilities for him. As a result, witchcraft and science strongly stimulated the pursuit of knowledge. " Witches are the earliest summarizers and masters of human knowledge, and their occupations are related to astronomical phenomena and topography, which constitute the basic framework of people's spiritual world in time and space; Their concern and related practical activities contributed to the formation of China's early knowledge system. These knowledge include: astronomical calendar related to "heaven", astrological observation of qi, choice of forms and methods, divination of turtles, and five tones of wind angle; The shape related to "ground"; People-related dreams, evocation, aversion to disintegration, feeding, housing, guidance and so on. Obviously, this knowledge is the original source of China's ancient astronomy, geology, medicine, mathematics and other disciplines, and the Book of Changes is the philosophical summary of the cosmology and methodology embodied by these specific knowledge.
The nature of Yijing, especially Yijing, has always been a controversial topic, which has a lot to do with the richness and complexity of Yijing itself. As far as the hexagrams in the Book of Changes are concerned, no matter what interpretation angle you choose, you can't deny and ignore the obvious divination elements. Based on the archaeological discoveries in recent decades and the research results of ancient documents, it is reasonable to think that the multi-level and multi-dimensional interpretation and extension of the Book of Changes in previous dynasties is a typical embodiment of the witch history tradition as the origin and core of the spirit of Chinese civilization. The so-called "vast, all-encompassing, covering astronomy, geography, music, art of war, phonology, arithmetic, is the fire outside the party, and all can not help the thinking of Yi, while those who are good at Yi can help Yi advance, which is easier said than done" [2]. Today, this knowledge system called "Yi-ology" is difficult to be classified as a specific knowledge according to the current discipline classification standards. The reason is that Yi Dao's experience of "being well prepared, well informed and fully involved" based on the methodology of "looking up at the sky, looking down at the earth, observing the articles of birds and beasts, walking in the right place, getting close to all things and getting far away from all things" has been processed and refined by highly intelligent philosophers, and finally formed a set of "graphic" relations about the world on which man and his survival depend with the circulation, circulation and endless life of Yin and Yang five lines of gossip as the core content. Such a "graphic" structure system is a concrete embodiment of the concept of "harmony between man and nature" rooted in the deep spirit of the Chinese nation, and closely combined with the historical tradition of witchcraft, forming a unique cognitive structure and way of thinking. After the Han Dynasty, with the establishment of the hegemonic position of the Five Classics as the meta-code of China's thoughts on the right to speak, the above-mentioned thoughts and structural patterns contained in the Book of Changes, the first of the Five Classics, have been continued and developed, and influenced the formation and development of other knowledge categories in a wider scope.
Judging from the history of the development of Yi-ology, there is an obvious interactive relationship between Yi-ology and the development of other knowledge. As a part of the creative thinking of mathematical scientists in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the mathematical philosophy developed in the discussion of numbers and images, numbers and reason, numbers and things or qi by the Mathematical School, Neo-Confucianism School and Qi School in the Song Dynasty has become a great power source to push mathematics and physics to the peak of traditional science in China. Some important achievements of China's science and technology in the Ming Dynasty, such as Li Shizhen's Classification of Materia Medica and Nature, Zhu Zaixiang's invention of Twelve Equal Laws, Xu Xiake's Theory of Terrain Observation and Analysis, the great development of acoustics in Song Dynasty, and Fang Yizhi's Optics, are all closely related to this.
Since modern times, although China culture has confronted with western culture, the foundation of China culture is still very solid, and the mainstream discourse represented by Confucianism can still control the ideology of the whole society. Therefore, the cultural exchange between China and the West in this period can only be carried out under the guidance of the concepts of "Western learning comes from China" and "Chinese style and western use". Because of the irreplaceable position of Yi-ology in the field of traditional thought, it has always been the main direction of people's efforts to combine Yi-ology with modern western science. Among them, Xu Guangqi, Fang Yizhi, Jiang Yong and Jiao Xun are the representatives. For example, Fang Yizhi, like Newton, sought the scientific view of three laws from scientific practice, and only found mysticism as a weapon to improve western learning from Zhouyi, Hetao and Luoshu, so his attempt failed. From a modern point of view, Fang Yizhi's failure is a profound manifestation of the cultural conflict between China and the West, and his personal shortcomings are the reflection of some defects in the whole culture, which is quite universal. Judging from the current research situation of science and technology, there are roughly three tendencies: one is to study the relationship between ancient science and technology; Second, reinterpret the traditional Yi-ology with some achievements of modern and contemporary science; The third is the comparison between modern science and traditional Yi-ology.
The so-called science is a kind of human knowledge system, which is characterized by using categories, theorems, laws and other forms of thinking to reflect the attributes and laws of various phenomena in the real world. The development of science, as Einstein pointed out, "is based on two great achievements, namely, the formal logic system invented by Greek philosophers (in Euclidean geometry) and the discovery that causality can be found through systematic experiments" [4]. Logical thinking is the basic way of thinking in science, which is characterized by abstracting the characteristics and essence of things to form concepts, and judging and reasoning with the help of concepts in the process of cognition to reflect the real process. Therefore, if all kinds of sacred auras and veils of man-made science are lifted, "science is just the manifestation of perception, the explanation of intention, the perfection of common sense and the accuracy of language expression". In other words, science is one of the modes of human cognitive structure.
As pointed out at the beginning of this article, the 20th century is a century of great changes in China society. Scientific concept quickly landed in the Central Plains with strong material strength, and with the disintegration of the original economic base of society, it occupied a dominant position in the new social ideology. Under such circumstances, it is natural that some original thoughts and discourses can survive, or actively or passively "update" their own discourses in order to gain a new "consensus" in the new context. From this point of view, many developments in the 20th century, including textual research and historical textual research, are the same as Neo-Confucianism's attempt to reinterpret Yi-ology with science (which fundamentally changed Fang Yizhi's efforts to interpret Western learning with Yi-ology). Consciously or unconsciously, they are all an effort to reposition Yi-ology in the new discourse system under the guidance of the scientific concept of seeking truth from facts.
Although many people have given positive responses to the research methods of science and Yi-ology, although science and Yi-ology have the same ancient witchcraft source, and there are indeed many fields that can be mutually compatible and explained, we must face up to such an essential difference: Yi-ology and science are strictly two different cognitive structures under two different modes of thinking, and they are different perspectives that human beings choose to look at the world. The most important link in scientific thinking is the logical analysis of observation results, which is carried out under the guidance of a series of strict rules, and these rules have passed the test of maximum consensus, thus ensuring the verifiability of analytical reasoning results in consensus. The ideographic dimension, which is essentially different from it and represents the most typical feature of Yi thinking, is image thinking, which is largely unanalyzable, and its evolution result has a strong personal color, which is the understanding obtained by individual thinkers under the special psychological state that cannot be explained at present. In Yi Zhuan, the so-called "Yi has no thought, no action, no movement, and a sense of the world" is the unique "sense" feature of Yi Xiang's thinking. This way of thinking is the most fundamental embodiment of the concept of "harmony between man and nature", and "harmony between man and nature" itself is not so much a concept as a "realm", so the author of Yi Zhuan went on to say: "If it is not the supreme god in the world, who can match this"? There are many things in the traditional Yi-ology that seem mystical today. To a certain extent, the realm of thinking in images is unique. A certain phenomenon, state or feeling is "mysterious" because it is beyond the understandable scope of "consensus" defined by reality.
From the perspective of "sole knowledge" and "common understanding", we have a relatively objective understanding of Yi-ology. It should be said that Yi-ology is a reinterpretation of traditional Yi-ology in the new context, and a new "consensus" foundation is established for Yi-ology. Although there are some elements such as "ugliness" and "pseudoscience" criticized by scholars, it has gained a new foothold in the new situation, which provides a practical way for more and more people who have grown up under the influence of scientific discourse to know and understand the Book of Changes, and also provides a new way for the integration of Chinese and Western cultures.