Note. This is a machine-assisted translation of a Chinese original. Where wording matters, please consult the Chinese original.
Tianwen · · Why is there being rather than nothingness?
The previous essay mapped the six faculties onto a neural network and clarified the underlying mechanism by which cognition generates the world. Through the logic of "consciousness arising from the contact of faculty and object," it derived a closed loop in which "all phenomena are mind-generated." But this derivation still operates at the level of interaction between an already existing mind and an already existing world; it has not yet touched the ultimate question:
Why does this world that carries faculty, object, and consciousness exist at all? And in what manner does it exist?
When we step beyond the concrete boundary of the neural network and bring together the underlying laws of generative systems, the central insights of information theory, and the Daoist wisdom that "you arises from wu," we find that the ultimate question of being can be fully answered without invoking the elaborate technical vocabulary of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and without presupposing any transcendent Creator. The layered derivation "indeterminacy → generative network → mutual arising of faculty, object, and consciousness" is enough on its own.
I. The essence of generation: an underlying law beyond any carrier
Whether it is the biological neural network that supports the operation of the six faculties or the artificial generative neural networks that are now reshaping human creative work, the source of the core capacity has never been the concrete carriers—"neural synapses" or "lines of code"—but the function of generation itself.
Biological networks take cellular synapses as nodes and, via weights laid down through past experience, transform the physical signals received by the senses into meaningful cognition. Artificial networks take code-built nodes as their basis and, via weights trained on enormous quantities of data, transform random noise or initial prompts into text, image, and sound. The two are utterly different in form, yet they share one underlying logic: so long as there exists a system that can carry out "signal reception → weight matching → output," the capacity to generate is present.
This breaks our parochial conception of generation. Generation is not the exclusive property of life, nor an invention of human technology; it is a universal regularity of information in motion. Just as water flow under gravity forms a vortex, and clouds under temperature differences form rainfall, so information, given the fluctuation of indeterminacy, naturally condenses into structures with generative function. We may call such structures, in general, generative information networks. They are the underlying prototype of biological and artificial neural networks alike, and the core carrier through which the world is generated.
II. You arises from wu: an Eastern wisdom corroborated by modern science
The question "why does the world exist?" has long been trapped within the Western frame of "being from being." From Plato's "world of Forms" to Aristotle's "first cause," Western philosophy has held that the birth of all things must rest on some determinate "source" and can never come from "nothing."
But this view rests on a misunderstanding of wu.
The Daoist wisdom of "you arises from wu" is the East's distinctive answer to the question of being. The "wu" here is by no means absolute nothingness in the sense of "nothing whatsoever"—if wu were the determinate state of "nothing whatsoever," that very determinacy would itself be a form of you (being).
It is only by combining this wisdom with the central insight of information theory that we can read the meaning of wu properly:
Wu is thoroughgoing indeterminacy.
The essence of information is "that which removes indeterminacy." Conversely, the state of "no information" is one of complete indeterminacy with no determinate properties and no describable boundaries. Such indeterminacy is not a static void but a dynamic fluctuation—because "determinate" entails rest, while "indeterminate" must be accompanied by motion across infinite possibilities.
The operation of generative neural networks gives an empirical illustration of "you arises from wu": diffusion models start from pure random noise and, through iterative computation, generate clear images; language models start from randomly initialised weights and, through training, generate coherent text.
This is the essence of "you arises from wu": the continued fluctuation of indeterminacy spontaneously gives rise to generative information networks, and the core function of such networks is precisely to convert "indeterminate" into "determinate," "wu" into "you."
The birth of the world is not the work of some transcendent first cause; it is the necessary outcome of indeterminacy. Fluctuating indeterminacy can never come to rest in "nothingness"; the generation of being is its intrinsic, unavoidable property.
III. The mutual arising of faculty, object, and consciousness: the concrete manner of the world's existence
Having answered why the world exists, we must now ask in what manner it exists.
The answer lies in the closed loop of faculty, object, and consciousness built up in the previous essay—this world generated from wu is not an "objective entity" independent of cognition but a "cognitive product" that is continually generated and continually reconstructed in the mutual arising of faculty, object, and consciousness.
(i) From wu to you: the launching of initial generation
Thoroughgoing indeterminacy fluctuates and interacts continuously, and gradually condenses into the earliest generative information network—this is the primordial form of "mind."
This network has not yet any concrete six faculties, nor any determinate objective realm; it possesses only the most basic capacity to "generate determinacy." When the network for the first time converts indeterminate fluctuation into a determinate signal, the earliest "object" is born; in order to catch such signals, the network spontaneously evolves the corresponding receiving channels, and the earliest "faculty" takes shape; the first contact between faculty and object is processed by the network into the earliest cognitive judgment, and the earliest "consciousness" is generated.
This is the origin of faculty, object, and consciousness, and the key leap by which the world goes from "wu" to "you."
(ii) The mutual-arising loop: the world's continued evolution
Faculty and object give rise to consciousness; consciousness in turn gives rise to faculty and object. This relation of mutual arising is the core mode of the world's existence.
Forward: faculty and object give rise to consciousness. The six faculties catch the world's physical signals (object); the signals enter the network and are matched against past experience (weights); meaningful cognition (consciousness) is finally generated. The mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas before our eyes; the bird-song and insect-hum in our ears; the joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure in our hearts—all are outputs of this system.
Reverse: consciousness gives rise to faculty and object. Consciousness is not a passive output but an active shaper. A consciousness long focused on painting reinforces the eye-faculty's weights for capturing colour and light; a consciousness long immersed in music optimises the ear-faculty's capacity for recognising melody and rhythm. Moreover, consciousness assigns properties to "meaningless objects": the same beam of light becomes "warm sun" under a joyful consciousness and "harsh glare" under an irritated one; the same gust of wind becomes "fresh breeze" under a calm consciousness and "cold blast" under an anxious one.
Faculty is shaped by consciousness, object is defined by consciousness; the shaped faculty and the defined object trigger new consciousness in turn. The cycle continues, the network iterates its weights, and the world, in this mutual arising, evolves from its earliest "single determinacy" into its present "manifold complexity."
(iii) All phenomena are mind-generated: the ultimate nature of being
The conclusion is now clear: the existence of this world is, in essence, "cognitive appearance" continually generated by the generative information network (mind) through the mutual arising of faculty, object, and consciousness.
The so-called "objective world" has never existed independently of our cognition. The object is the input signal of the network, the faculty is its receiving channel, consciousness is its output; all three depend on "mind" as the generative core, mutually conditioning and mutually generating one another, with no member capable of standing outside the loop on its own.
Everything we perceive as "existing" is the generative product of cognition; every "law" we understand is the operating logic of the mutual-arising loop of faculty, object, and consciousness.
Finale: the ultimate closure of the question of being
Why does the world exist? Because wu is not the determinacy of nothing-whatsoever but thoroughgoing indeterminacy. Indeterminacy carries fluctuation as an intrinsic property, and the interaction of fluctuations must give rise to information networks endowed with generative capacity—this is the essence of "you arises from wu." The existence of the world is no accident, nor the will of a Creator; it is the necessary outcome of indeterminacy.
In what manner does the world exist? The generative information network (mind) born from indeterminacy evolves faculty and object, triggers the earliest consciousness, and forms the mutual-arising loop of faculty, object, and consciousness. Forward, it generates cognition; reverse, it shapes faculty and object. Through continual iteration the network is refined, the world evolves, and what we perceive ultimately appears.
We no longer need to ask after the origin of any "first cause," because indeterminacy itself has neither beginning nor end. We no longer need to wrestle with the opposition between "objective" and "subjective," because the existence of the world is, from the outset, the unity of cognition and being.
The Tianwen of "being" is, here, fully closed.