道教文化對科技、創新與管理、藝術的影響

The Influence of Taoism Culture and Spirit on Technology, Innovation , Governance and Art

開創研究中華科技文明史的李約瑟（Joseph Needham），六十年前親身造訪中國大陸，啟發了他從《道藏》經典裏去研究中華科技文明發展史，成一家之言。由於他對於道家科技史的情有獨鍾，他的中文譯名，採用同於道家始祖李聃的“李”，而他的中文字號中，也曾撰用與道家有關的“丹耀”和“十宿子”（近似他英文名字中Joseph的譯音）。在他那部經典之作的《中國之科學與文明》中，他率先指出道家思想是“中國科學的源頭，奠定中國科學的基礎”，而且感慨而略有偏心地說：“世界上的神祕主義學說，無不頑固地反對科學，唯獨道家思想例外，可謂前所未見。”
儒、道、釋組成中國三大主要思想體系。道教和佛教則是中國的兩大宗教。這三者之間有著對立、平衡與重疊的關係。其中最本土的儒家是“入世”的思想，教人如何上下、左右相處。與儒家相對的是外來的佛家的“出世”思想，它教人忘我捨住，要瞭解因果、前緣，重視未來能往昇西天極樂世界。而道教先後受到儒、佛兩家的影響，它與儒、佛各有所同，也各有所異。道家一半入世、一半出世，既是本土衍生，又是“西學為用”；既講無為和無累，也講當下發財享受與肉身長生不老。如果把儒、道、釋與天、地、人三境界對照，佛家重天，儒家重人與地，而道教則在天、地之間作逍遙遊。
現在臺灣自由進步，科技發達，道教也在各地蓬勃發展。儒道釋這三種深植於中華文化中的思想系統，它們之間的關係，如何與較晚傳入的基督、天主教互動，及影響社會思維，國際關係和世界和平？有遠見的文史哲學者們應該“與時俱進”地加以思索。此外，國際間流行的多元化思維，與高科技裏的硬體創意發明、軟體策劃執行與本土道教又可能有什麼關聯？中華國畫及文藝曾如何受到仙道文化的影響，其中還有新天地嗎？受到道教文化的潤透，臺灣的管理思想與其他區域文化會如何不同？這些我認為都值得從新的角度加以探討。然而以有限的知識和篇幅試圖探討這四大領域，當然所得有限。但說到古希臘畢達哥拉斯對數學、天文、音樂與哲學的探討，道家和牛頓閉門煉丹，他們不怕失敗，但奮力從舊知識中找出新問題的精神，或許也是天下探索者的用心。

Nearly sixty years ago, British biologist Joseph Needham, when he was visiting China during the WW2, surprisingly and happily found a ''gold mine of science and technology history'' recorded in ancient Chinese ''Collection of Taoism Writings''. From studying the technical and philosophical contents in those ancient Taoism texts, he had pioneered and opened a new territory about the real history of Chinese science and technology, and had became the founder of a new school. Because he liked the technical contents in Taoism so much, Needham had adopted the founder of Taoism, Lee Er's family name, as his Chinese family name, and had used ''Dan Yao'' and ''Shih Shu Zi'' ( close to the pronunciation of his first name, Joseph), as his nick names. In his classical book series, ''Science and Civilization in China'' , Joseph Needham pointed out that Taoism was a major source and foundation of ancient Chinese science. He also praised the Taoism was much more open-minded than other mysterious school of thoughts around the world. In his opinion, they were more or less stubbornly against science, while Taoism was an exception in that regard.
Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism had been the three major religions or thinking schools in China. Although these three major ''religions'' are quite different than each other in their beliefs, they also have some similarities and in many areas even overlapping with each other. Among these three major religions, Confucianism emphasizes on education and humanity. Confucianism teaches people how to handle the relationship vertically and horizontally, with rules for order and guidance for behavior to achieve a harmonious society. While Buddhism looks into the future, downplay the suffering of the present and relates people's fates to past deeds and lives. Taoism sits between the two, it lives half in the earthy world and half wondering in burden-free heaven. Taoism is a native born religion and yet it has absorbed many foreign thoughts and evolving continuously. Taoism philosophy emphasizes using the least effort and rules to achieve the most, and it teaches people to live in balance between nature and earthy society, to achieve longevity and to enjoy happiness in this very life, not in future life. That last part distinguishes itself strikingly from most of the major religions.
In summary, when we compare the key emphases of these three ''religions'', we will find that Buddhism's goal is future happiness in heaven, Confucianism stresses on harmony of people and gentlemen hold responsibilities to support their society with feet on the ground, while the Taoism advocates freedom from material burden and flying happily between the sky and earth. In Taiwan's rather open and free society, Taoism is booming from village to city with popularity more than the sum of other major religions. How these three major ''religions'' will interact with each other and with Muslim and Christian, and how they will affect the society's culture and the world peace, those are all worth scholars' efforts to investigate through multi-disciplinary ways and teams.
In this paper, the author intends to explore the influence of Taoism to Chinese science and technology's innovation, management and aesthetic philosophy. The author also tries to look at possible relationship between high-tech ideas' development and Taoism mind-set through their hardware and software functions' similarities. Although trying to explore these four huge areas in a short paper with limited knowledge is definitely too ambitious to achieve any appreciable result, but looking back at the history of Taoism and Newton's private experiments at home, may I say, isn't this is also the very spirit of Taoism ? Maybe this is also not too far away from the spirit of Greek's Pythagoras' studies on hidden relationships between geometry, music, science and philosophy , or Newton's private exploration between mechanical physics and alchemy mysteries. Even they failed in most of the accounts, their failures did paved the way for future explorers as this author is hoping for this paper.