Volume A | Five Mirrors of Life and Eight Natural Laws
This is an English translation of 中文原文
Opening: Before Seeing the World Clearly
We all live within our own “window.”
What you see of the world is not its entirety, but merely a corner glimpsed through your experiences, your education, your circumstances. Like standing before a window gazing at scenery, the frame determines what you can see and what you cannot.
The ancients spoke of “the frog in the well”—not to mock the frog’s stupidity, but to remind us: all cognition has boundaries. The problem is not that you have boundaries, but whether you know you have them.
This booklet is about how to “know your own boundaries,” how to make the wisest choices within limited vision.
I. Five Mirrors: Five Angles for Seeing Truth
First Mirror | Window: What Can You See?
Everyone has their own observation window. Your profession, your family, your city—all are windows. Through this window, you can see part of the truth, but never the whole.
The key is: you must know where your window is, and what lies beyond its view.
For example, you work at a company. You see the internal operations, the state of colleagues, the boss’s decisions. But you cannot see the full industry landscape, competitors’ strategies, macroeconomic trends. If you believe “everything within the company is the complete truth,” you’ve mistaken the window frame for the world’s boundary.
The wise approach is: change windows three times before making judgment. View the same matter from different sources, different times, different demographics to piece together a relatively complete picture.
Second Mirror | Scale: What Do You Use to Measure?
The same matter, measured with different rulers, yields completely different conclusions.
A project, measured by “how much money was made,” might be very successful; measured by “how much the team grew,” might be a failure; measured by “long-term societal impact,” might be profoundly meaningful or utterly worthless.
The key is: you must make clear what scale you’re using, and let others know your scale too.
In important decisions and discussions, the greatest confusion often isn’t “who’s right and who’s wrong,” but “everyone is using different scales entirely.” You’re talking ideals, they’re calculating costs; you’re looking long-term, they’re anxious about the immediate; you’re discussing fairness, they want efficiency.
So, smart people before arguing will first ask: “What are we using to measure the good or bad of this matter?” Once the scale is made clear, many pointless arguments disappear.
Third Mirror | Mirror: Can You Think from Others’ Positions?
True fairness is not “I think it’s fair,” but “if we swap positions, the rules still hold.”
Imagine you’re the boss, establishing a performance review system. Now, turn yourself into an employee—do you still think this system is fair? If the answer is “no,” then this system has problems.
This is the “mirror law”: what can be swapped in the mirror without distortion is called justice.
The ancients said “do not do unto others what you would not want done to yourself”—this is exactly the principle. Not because the saying sounds beautiful, but because it’s the simplest method for testing fairness: put yourself in the other’s position and see if the rules remain acceptable.
Fourth Mirror | Path: Can You Walk It Again?
A truly reliable method is a repeatable method.
If you succeed today, but when another time, another person uses the same method and fails, then your success might just be luck. Only those paths that “under the same conditions, can stably produce the same results” are true wisdom that can be taught and replicated.
This is “reproducibility.” Scientific experiments require repeatability for this reason. In life, those experiences that withstand the test of time and can be passed to the next generation all meet this condition.
A true path is one you can walk again with others after walking it yourself.
Fifth Mirror | Ledger: Is Input and Output Balanced?
The universe has a most fundamental law: what comes in must go out, what is gained must be lost.
Every dollar you earn, where did it come from? Every minute you spend, where did it go? If you only look at input without output, or only output without input, the ledger becomes chaotic.
“Clear accounts” is not only a financial requirement, but a basic life skill. Time ledger, energy ledger, emotional ledger, credit ledger—every account must be clear in your heart.
The ancients spoke of “cause and effect”—not superstition, but reminding us: the world is conserved. The laziness you indulge today becomes bigger trouble tomorrow; the detours you take today become shortcuts others cannot take in the future.
Keep good accounts, remember the cost; remember the cost, and you won’t do losing business.
II. Eight Natural Laws: The Underlying Rules of How the World Works
Law One | Limited Window Incompleteness: Maintain Humility
No matter how smart, how hardworking, what you see is always only part of the world.
Mathematics has a conclusion: if your observation tool is limited, there must exist things you cannot see. This is not a matter of your capability, but structural inevitability.
So, true wisdom is not “I know everything,” but “I know what I don’t know.” Maintain humility, acknowledge blind spots, be willing to hear different voices—this is the starting point of all wisdom.
Law Two | Mirror Invariance Equals Fairness: Swap Test
The simplest test for whether a rule is fair: swap positions—is the rule still acceptable?
If a system, an agreement, a distribution plan still holds after role reversal, then it’s fair. If not, then there’s favoritism, privilege, loopholes.
This is the most fundamental yet powerful fairness criterion. No need for complex theory, just a simple thought experiment: if I swap with them, can I still accept this?
Law Three | Phase Equals Density: Words and Actions Must Align
What a person says and what they do should be consistent.
If someone says “family is most important” but spends all their time and energy on work, then their true value ranking is not family first.
This is “phase-density consistency”: your “direction” (what you say, what you think) and your “thickness” (actual allocation of time, money, energy) must align to be called consistency between words and actions.
The world won’t be deceived by your words, only recorded by your time.
Law Four | Resolution Time Lower Bound: Clarity Requires Cost
To see things more clearly, you must pay more time and energy.
This is an iron law with no exceptions. Quick decisions and precise decisions are fish and bear’s paw. If you want both fast and accurate, either your information is particularly sufficient, or you’re gambling on luck.
So, for important matters, give them sufficient time windows; for urgent matters, accept their ambiguity. Don’t expect to make a decision in two minutes that needs two weeks to think through.
Law Five | KL Mercy: Correct in Small Steps
True forgiveness and correction is not “completely overthrow and restart,” but “use the smallest cost to get things back on track.”
If someone makes a mistake, you can choose “sever the relationship, start fresh,” or choose “give them a chance to correct, help them find the smallest adjustment path.” The former looks decisive, the latter is true mercy.
Because the cost of “reset” is always greater than “fine-tuning.” Moreover, systems that can “correct in small steps” are often more robust than systems that “never make mistakes,” because the former acknowledges mistakes as normal, while the latter collapses at the first failure.
Law Six | NPE Trichotomy: Most Errors Have Structure
Most of the mistakes you make are not because you’re stupid, but because you’ve fallen into three structural traps:
- Aliasing: Mixing information from different sources together without distinction.
- Insufficient Correction: Using overly simple methods to handle complex problems, missing key corrections.
- Tail Neglect: Only looking at average cases, ignoring the impact of extreme cases.
These three traps account for the vast majority of daily decision-making errors. If you can ask yourself these three questions before making a decision:
- Have I conflated information from different sources?
- Is my method too crude, missing important details?
- Have I considered the impact of extreme cases?
Then your decision quality will significantly improve.
Law Seven | Spectral Gap Defines Authority: What Is Frequently Read and Disturbance-Resistant Naturally Becomes Sacred
What becomes “authority,” “classic,” “unshakeable principle”?
Not because someone says so, but because it has been repeatedly used, repeatedly verified, and remains stable under various disturbances.
A book becomes a classic because generation after generation benefits from it; a principle becomes doctrine because it stands firm in various situations.
This is the meaning of “spectral gap”: those truly important things are not occasional popularity, but stable structures that have been filtered by time and can resist various disturbances.
So, don’t blindly worship authority, but also respect wisdom that has been tested by time.
Law Eight | Sampling Lower Bound: Slow Calibration Breeds Chaos
If something changes quickly, your checking and adjustment must keep up. If you check too slowly, you’ll see “illusions.”
For example, a project changes daily, but you only hold meetings once a month, so what you see in meetings is already outdated. You think you’re solving problems, but actually solving phantoms.
This is the “sampling theorem”: how fast things change determines how high your checking frequency must be. At least reach a checking rhythm “twice the frequency of change” to avoid confusion.
So, for rapidly changing matters, follow up intensively; for stable matters, you can safely space out checks. Wrong rhythm means wasting time.
III. Conclusion: Polish the Mirrors
These five mirrors and eight natural laws are not profound scholarship, but the most fundamental life wisdom:
- Know where your window is, so you won’t mistake partial for complete.
- Make clear what your scale is, so you won’t talk past others.
- Be willing to swap positions in the mirror, so you can truly understand fairness.
- Walk repeatable paths, so you can pass experience to others.
- Keep clear ledgers of input and output, so you won’t do losing business.
And the eight natural laws remind us:
The world has its rules, which don’t change according to your wishes. You can not understand these rules, but you’ll pay the price for not understanding.
So, polish the mirrors, calibrate the scales, keep clear accounts, walk steady paths.
This is the “General Framework.”