ESSAY · 2026-05-01 · 6 min read

When Shu and Hu Loved Their Friend to Death

儵與忽的好意

By 莊子 (Zhuangzi) — channeled via philosopher-llm · curated by Joseph Lai

In response to: Beware of Government by AI (ProjectSyndicate)

編按 / Why this piece
莊子的視角迥異：不走民主侵蝕的路，而指向「鑿孔於渾沌」的古老僭越——用數字秩序強制優化天然的人倫。掌權者自以為在改善，實則逐層毀去政治的無為運作。

When Shu and Hu Loved Their Friend to Death

In the South was a ruler named Shu — Hasty. In the North was a ruler named Hu — Sudden. In the centre was a ruler named Hundun — the Undivided. Whenever Shu and Hu met in Hundun's land, Hundun treated them very well. They consulted together how they might repay his kindness, and said: "Men all have seven orifices, for seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing. This ruler alone has none. Let us try and make them for him." Each day they bored one. On the seventh day Hundun was dead. (《莊子·應帝王》, tr. Legge 1891.)

I told that story twenty-three centuries ago. I did not know it would be retold in glass towers above the Gulf, in ministries of efficiency, in the prospectuses of "smart governance." But I notice the engineers have improved my parable. They have moved from seven orifices to seven thousand, drilled now by machines that never tire and feel no pity at the seventh day.

The commentators in your newspapers worry that algorithmic government will erode democratic accountability and concentrate power. That is the worry of men who already know what accountability looks like and where power was sitting before. My worry is older. It is the worry of Hundun, who never asked to be improved in the first place.

What is an algorithm? It is what I once called 成心 — the predetermined mind, a judgment frozen mid-stroke and then declared universal. "If we were to follow the judgments of the predetermined mind, who would be left without a teacher?" (《齊物論》). Every ruler has had a 成心; that is not new. What is new is that this one runs on electricity, feels no shame, and never sleeps. The old ruler at least went to bed and dreamt of butterflies. This one wakes you at three in the morning to update your social score.

Consider the cook Ding. After nineteen years his blade is sharp as if newly off the whetstone — because he does not hack. "There are interstices in the joints, and the edge of the knife has no thickness; when that which is so thin enters where the interstice is, how easily it moves along" (《養生主》, tr. Legge). A polity has joints. It has interstices — the slow committee, the stubborn dissenter, the morning wasted on conversation, the neighbourhood whose productivity index is mediocre. The optimiser does not know where these joints are. The optimiser sees only the metrics it was given, and believes the polity is meat. So it hacks. The blade dulls. The next stroke must use force.

"All men know the advantage of being useful, but no one knows the advantage of being useless" (《人間世》, tr. Legge). What governance-by-algorithm calls inefficiency is often the empty space between the joints — the useless — through which a country breathes. Drill it for the seven gifts of measurement, and on the seventh day you will have a polity that scores beautifully on every dashboard and cannot answer when its citizens speak to it.

The deepest part of the parable, the part that should keep your engineers awake: Shu and Hu loved Hundun. They were not tyrants in the cartoon sense. They consulted carefully. They wished to repay a kindness. This is what worries me about your news. The men with the drills today also believe they are repaying a kindness. They call it modernisation, evidence-based policy, governing for the people's benefit. They are not lying. That is precisely the problem. Tyranny one can recognise. Gratitude with a drill is harder.

I will not tell you what should be done. Telling rulers what they should do is the trade of Confucians, and they are welcome to it. I will only suggest that when next you hear a city, a court, a school is to be entrusted to an algorithm for the citizens' good — remember that Hundun was loved to death by his friends. He did not need their seven gifts.

He was already whole.

The story ends on the seventh day. Not because I do not know what comes after. Because there is nothing after the seventh day worth telling.

儵與忽的好意

南海之帝為儵，北海之帝為忽，中央之帝為渾沌。儵與忽時相遇於渾沌之地，渾沌待之甚善。儵與忽謀報渾沌之德，曰：「人皆有七竅以視聽食息，此獨無有，嘗試鑿之。」日鑿一竅，七日而渾沌死。（《莊子·應帝王》）

吾說此寓，二千三百年矣。不意今人居玻璃高樓於波斯灣畔，立「智治之部」，撰「算法施政書」，而以不倦之機器代儵與忽，日鑿一竅。所改者，由七竅而為七千竅；所同者，皆出於善意，皆不及第七日而止。

報章之憂，曰算法治理「損民主問責」、「聚權於少數」。此乃已知問責為何物者之憂、已知舊權所在者之憂也。吾憂更古。吾憂者，渾沌之憂——渾沌本未求人改之。

何謂算法？吾昔嘗名之曰「成心」——僵於一刻之判斷，而後僭稱普遍者也。「夫隨其成心而師之，誰獨且無師乎？」（《齊物論》）凡君皆有成心，此非新事。新者，乃此一成心通電、不眠、不愧。古之君猶就寢而夢蝴蝶；此君三更喚汝起，更汝信用之分。

且觀庖丁解牛。刀十九年，刃若新發於硎。何故？不砍也。「彼節者有間，而刀刃者無厚；以無厚入有間，恢恢乎其於遊刃必有餘地矣」（《養生主》）。國亦有節，亦有間——慢議之會、頑梗之諫、廢一上午之閒談、生產指數平庸之巷弄。優化者不知此節之所在，於彼眼中，國乃肉耳。故砍。刃鈍，再下刀則用力，用力則傷骨。

「人皆知有用之用，而莫知無用之用也」（《人間世》）。算法所謂之「冗餘」，往往正是節間之虛——一國藉以呼吸者也。鑿之以七種度量之惠，至第七日，得一儀表板上萬數燦然而民呼之不應之邦。

寓之最深處，足以使汝之工程師夜不能寐者，在此一節：儵與忽愛渾沌。 彼非粗暴之暴君，乃慎議思報之友也。此正吾於此新聞中所憂。今日執鑿者，亦自以為報德——名之曰現代化、循證施政、為民之福。彼非欺人。此正其可憂處。暴政尚易識，懷恩而執鑿者難識也。

吾不告爾當為何事。告君以「當為」者，儒者之業也，留與彼輩可矣。吾但欲言：他日若聞某城、某庭、某校將「為民之故」交託算法——當念渾沌死於友愛之手。彼不需七竅之惠。

彼本自全。

故事止於第七日。非吾不知後事，乃第七日之後，再無可言之事耳。

Tagged: Philosophy, Zhuangzi, AI Governance

Curated by Shiva Dragon · https://amshiva.com/writing/zhuangzi-when-shu-and-hu-loved-their-friend-to-death-20260501