4. What is Essence

4.1 Concrete Essence

Essence can refer to concrete things or abstract Dao Li. The definition of essence in Section 4.4.1, Chapter 4, Part 7 of Taiji Evolutionism is that essence is attributes of things related to interests of people.[4]

For example, the actual flight path of the Malaysia Airline plane MH370 before it crashed is unknown, and investigators have only been able to draw a possible range for the plane based on the time it exchanged data with satellites. The flight path of the plane is related to the interests of the families of the victims, so this route is the essence. The actual flight process of the plane is a specific event in the objective world, which belongs to the internal structure of the objective world. The picture drawn by the investigators is a model of the world structure in the subjective world.

According to Barthes, the actual flight route of Malaysia plane did not exist, which is certainly not true. But this actual route is not the source of our knowledge, nor is it the basis for testing truth. The test of truth is based on direct experiences, such as the time records of the Malaysia plane and satellite data exchange, the location of the Malaysia plane wreckage was found and other direct experience.

The Malaysia plane is a substance(Wu), and its flight is an event(Shi). There are substances and events that we can observe directly, and others that we cannot. Whether concrete things can be observed or not, as long as they are relevant to our interests, they can be regarded as essence. When you can't directly observe, the artificial model is the essence.

In many cases, essence refers to those things that cannot be directly observed, such as electron, meson and other microscopic matter and distant celestial bodies, as well as people and objects in the past such as the First Emperor of Qin and Epang Palace. Our understanding of them depends largely on reasoning and conjecture, then making models. They may be regarded as objectively existed, but since they cannot be directly observed, they are not the direct source of knowledge, nor the basis and standard for testing truth. The artificial model of them are the essences.

4.2 Abstract Essence

When we begin to understand something, we observe only a few phenomena, and take these phenomena as its attributes and essence. Then we observe more phenomena of it, such as a lot of phenomena of a person growing up. In our subjective world, we group all these phenomena and attributes into a set, which corresponds to this person. The essence of the person is the generalization of these phenomena. There may be contradictions between these phenomena. For example, Jone has done a lot of good things and some bad things, so we say that the essence of Jone is both a good person and a bad person. The essence of him can contain contradictions. The person's essence is no longer a concrete thing, but an abstract commonality, which is Li.

No abstract things of objective world can be observed directly. The generalization, description, or model of these abstract things are the essences. These essences are the Dao Li in the subjective world. The greater the scope of application of a theory, the greater its value. The scope of application of abstract things are greater than concrete things. So the essence as abstract thing is much more valuable than the essence as concrete thing. The essence mentioned by Essentialism mostly refers to the abstract essence, that is, the abstract Dao Li.