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让我们穿越现实的织锦，探讨这四大理论。
Let's go through the fabric of reality, the four theories.
你可以从任何一点开始讨论，但你认为构成万物理论的这四大理论中，特别是那些同行、同事甚至同时代人都未能完全理解或欣赏的关键点是什么？这些理论为何比初看时更深刻、更反直觉或更有趣？
Feel free to start wherever you like, but the four theories that you think comprise the theory of everything, and maybe especially what are the biggest things that even peers, colleagues, contemporaries don't understand or don't fully appreciate that makes each one of these deeper or perhaps more counterintuitive or more interesting than it might be at first glance?
嗯，我不确定。
Well, I don't know.
我们可以从计算机开始谈起。
We can start with computers.
但正如我所说，实际上很难在不提及
But as I said, it's it's hard to actually to speak about any one of those things without mentioning the
其他三项的情况下单独讨论其中任何一个。
other three.
但如果从计算机开始，我认为图灵发现或重新发现的某个根本性原理——毕竟巴贝奇和洛夫莱斯也多少理解这一点。
But if we start with computers, I think there's something really fundamental that Turing discovered or rediscovered because I think that Babbage and Lovelace also understood it more or less.
这就是计算的普适性。
That's the universality of computation.
计算在物理层面具有普适性。
That computation is physically universal.
这可以从多个角度阐述：比如计算机能模拟任何物理对象，或者说计算机能执行其他计算机的所有运算。
So there are several ways of putting this, like a computer can mimic any physical object or a computer can perform the computations that any other computer can perform.
用第二种表述时，听起来像是关于各类计算机的陈述，与树木、车库、窗户等无关，但实际上它关联着世间万物。
Now putting it the second way, it sounds like it's a statement about all kinds of different computers and has nothing to do with trees and garages and windows and so on but actually it has to do with everything.
因此直到今天，人们仍在追问：我们如何确定大脑就是台计算机？
And therefore people still even today are saying things like how do we know the brain is a computer?
你只是假设大脑是一台计算机。
You're just assuming the brain is a computer.
就像十九世纪人们认为大脑是蒸汽机一样，我认为塞尔就是那种会说或曾经说过这种话的人之一。
Like in the nineteenth century people thought the brain was a steam engine And I think Searle is is one of the people who says that kind of thing or has said that kind of thing.
要理解图灵的发现，你必须了解关于它的几个方面。
In order to understand Turing's discovery, you've got to understand several things about it.
其中之一是它是一种物理理论，而这几乎被数学家们全盘否定。
One of which is that it's a theory of physics, and that is denied almost wholesale by mathematicians.
数学家们习惯于将计算理论视为数学的一个分支。
So mathematicians are used to the theory of computation being a branch of mathematics.
他们热衷于你能证明的定理和无法证明的定理等等。
They love the theorems that you can prove and the theorems that you can't prove and so on.
只要他们不愿意承认，事情就不完全是这样。
And as long as they don't want to admit, it's not quite it.
学习成为数学家显然意味着接受某种世界观，这使得很难理解计算是一个物理过程，并受物理定律支配，而这些定律可能是不同的。
It's that learning to be a mathematician apparently means adopting a certain worldview that makes it very hard to understand that computation is a physical process and is governed by laws of physics, which could be different.
而他们认为逻辑定律不可能不同。
Whereas the laws of logic, they think, couldn't be different.
因此，像P是否等于NP、大脑是否是计算机等问题不是物理学的问题。
And therefore, the things like whether p equals n p and whether the brain is a computer and so on isn't a matter of physics.
但它是，而且我们所知的最佳物理理论（可能是错误的）表明计算机是通用的，从某种意义上说，图灵的计算机是通用的，从某种意义上说，量子计算机也是通用的，或者如果被建造出来就会是。
But it is, and the best physics we know, which could be wrong, says that computers are universal, that in a certain sense, Turing's computers are universal, and in a certain sense, quantum computers are universal or will be when they're built if they're built.
就这一点而言，我们怎么知道大脑是一台计算机？
Just on this, how do we know the brain is a computer?
图灵论文会指出所有物理过程都是可计算的。
Turing's thesis would say that all physical processes can be computed.
好的。
Okay.
所以一棵树的行为，我们可以编写程序，图灵机将能够捕捉到这一点。
So what a tree is doing, we can write a program and Turing machine would be able to capture that.
但树不是计算机，而大脑是。
But the tree is not a computer, but the brain is.
嗯，树不是通用计算机。
Well, the tree isn't a general purpose computer.
但你也可以反过来理解图灵的论文，无论你怎么称呼它。
But you can think of Turing's thesis, whatever you call it, the other way around as well.
因为他想要用纸张构建这个想象中的机器的原因，并非如费曼所说他本应去理解纸张，而是他想建立一个计算模型。他想能够断言，可以推测，任何可计算的事物显然都能被这张纸计算。
Because the reason he wanted to make this imaginary machine out of paper is not that he wanted to understand paper you know or as Feynman said he should have, but that he wanted to have a model of computation And he wanted to be able to say, to conjecture, that it is obvious that anything that can be computed can be computed by this paper.
这意味着他也在假设这张纸能计算一棵树所能计算的一切，因为你可以把树视为计算机。
Now that means that he's also assuming that this paper can also compute whatever a tree can compute because you could regard the tree as a computer.
然后图灵说，无论它能计算什么，都是图灵机能计算的子集。
And then Turing's saying whatever it can compute is a subset of what Turing machines can compute.
而图灵机是终极的。
And Turing machines are the ultimate.
没有什么能超越它。
There's nothing beyond that.
还有一点非常重要，当涉及到解释的普适性时，人们不理解，因为他们甚至不理解计算的普适性。
That's another thing that's really important that when it comes to universality of explanation, people don't get it because they don't even get the universality of computation.
他们不明白，如果有人问要是外星人来自半人马座阿尔法星，而且他们的电脑比我们的更先进呢？
They don't understand that if someone says what if the aliens come from Alpha Centauri and they have better computers than us?
这是不可能的。
It's impossible.
他们可能有速度更快、内存更大的电脑，但仅此而已。
They can have computers that are faster and have more memory, but that's it.
我们的计算机就是宇宙中任何事物可计算能力的极限。
Our computers are the limit of what can be computed by anything in the universe.
量子理论是错误的等等，但他们并不是在说这个。
And quantum theory is wrong and so on but that's not what they're saying.
他们并没有说也许量子理论是错的。
They're not saying maybe quantum theory is wrong.
他们没能理解图灵论证中物理对象与数学对象之间的联系。
They're failing to make the connection in Turing's argument between physical objects and mathematical objects.
这些都是想象中的纸张和其他类似树木的东西。
These are imaginary paper and anything else like trees.
我不确定这是否是人们常犯的错误，但这是我最近经常看到的一个问题。
I don't know if that's the thing that people tend to get wrong, but that's one thing that I've seen a lot lately.
这把我们引向了其他领域，包括认识论和量子理论。
And that leads us into the others, both epistemology and quantum theory.
让我们谈谈你认为的——尽管你可能否认——我认为你在计算之后最具原创性的贡献领域：认识论。
Let's go to your the one where even though you may deny it, I think you've made the most original contributions after computation, which is epistemology.
我们必须提到他的名字来指明方向，但要准备一个认识论体系。
We have to invoke his name just to point to it, but prepare an epistemology.
人们未能充分认识、或许忽视、误解或不理解的是什么？是否存在另一种方法能帮助人们理解基本原理？
What do people not appreciate or perhaps overlook or get wrong or not understand, or is there another way of approaching it that might help people understand the fundamentals?
是的。
Yeah.
这更像是另一种研究途径。
It's more of another way of approaching it.
人们确实将某些成就归功于波普尔，但与他真正的哲学发现相比，这些都微不足道，比如科学理论必须具有可检验性。
So people do credit Popper with certain things, but they are unimportant things by comparison with his actual philosophical discoveries, like that scientific theory is all to be testable.
你知道，这是真的，或者说99%是真的之类的。
You know, that's true, you know, or 99% true or something like that.
为了像波普尔希望的那样区分事物，比如区分基础物理学和马克思主义，这一点相当重要。
And it is reasonably important in order to distinguish things as Popper wants to do, to distinguish things like fundamental physics from Marxism.
因此这对区分事物很有用，但并非什么了不起的大事。
So it's useful for that, but it's not such a big deal.
我想我的同事马蒂亚斯·莱昂尼达斯去年说过，对他而言，波普尔理论中最重要的概念是'问题'的概念。
I think my colleague Matthias Leonidas said last year that to him, the most important concept in Popper is the concept of a problem.
一旦理解了波普尔所说的'问题'，你就能以另一种方式理解认识论等等。
Once you've understood what popper means by a problem, you have this other way of understanding what epistemology is and so on.
我想我已经逐渐认同这个观点，因为以往所有认识论都假定知识是——有时被称为'被证实的真实信念'。
I think I've come around to agreeing with that because all previous epistemologies assumed that knowledge is well, sometimes it's called justified true belief.
但我认为其内涵比这更广。
But I think it's wider than that.
我认为误解在于：我们追求知识是因为想要依赖它，因此无论知识从何而来（虽然来源很神秘），但最好也是可靠的。
I think the misconception is that we want knowledge because we want to rely on it, and therefore, wherever it comes from, which is mysterious, but that better be reliable too.
我认为这是大多数人以及千百年来大多数哲学家所持有的直观想法。
That's the intuitive idea that I think most people have and that most philosophers had over the millennium.
因此，你想问，那么，什么是绝对确定的？
Therefore, you want to say, well, what is absolutely certain?
是诸神或上帝的旨意吗？
Well, is it the sayings of the gods or of god?
是直接的感官知觉吗？
Is it immediate sensory perception?
还是像柏拉图试图阐述的那样，是我们对前世模糊的记忆？
Or is it our tenuous memories of a previous life like Plato tried to try to say?
因为我认为许多严肃的哲学家已经意识到感官并不完美且可能具有误导性。
Because I think many serious philosophers have realized that the senses are imperfect and can be misleading.
但他们接着说，好吧，如果不是感官，我们还能依赖什么？
But then they said, okay, well, if not the senses, what can we rely on?
于是伊曼努尔·康德提出，哦，纯粹理性。
And then the Immanuel Kant said, oh, pure reason.
你知道，你要依赖纯粹理性。
You know, you rely on pure reason.
这导致他得出了各种相当荒谬的结论。
And that led him to all sorts of rather silly conclusions.
而如果你像波普尔理解的那样看待问题——在波普尔的理论中，“问题”一词通常指好的事物（尽管也存在诸如苦难等负面问题）。
Whereas if you have the idea of a problem as Popper understood it, which is usually in Popper, the word problem refers to good things, although they there are bad problems as well, the problems of suffering and so on.
但他主要将科学中的问题视为尚未解决、尚未理解的趣事来使用。
But he mainly uses problems as used in science as an interesting thing which we haven't solved yet, which we haven't understood yet.
一旦你将科学和理性思维普遍视为解决问题的工具，你就会失去探讨其起源的冲动和必要，因为问题本身就是为了被解决，你追求的是解决方案，而非通过追溯第一原理来证明耶稣是大卫王的后裔从而论证其神子身份。
And then as soon as you think of science and rational thought generally as being about problems, then you lose the urge, the need to talk about where it comes from because problem is there to be solved and the solution is what you want, not the justification of the solution by going back to first principles and proving that Jesus is the son of God because he's a descendant of king David.
因为预言称他必须是大卫王的后裔，所以我们不得不暗中编造一条直通大卫王的族谱——现实中无人发现过能追溯如此久远的真实谱系。
Because the prophecy said he had to be a descendant of king David, therefore we have to secretly invent a genealogy that goes right back to David you know in real life and nobody has discovered a real genealogy that goes back that far, anywhere near that far.
而基督教的真理性并不依赖于此。
And the truth of Christianity doesn't depend on it.
这是理解基督教的一种错误方式，但当涉及宗教时，由于这种认识论谬误和对问题作为知识起源的彻底忽视，人们越想强调其认知的重要性，就越执着于论证其所谓起源。
It's a wrong way of thinking about Christianity but then when it comes to religions people then, because of this epistemological error and because of this complete disregard of problems as the origin of gross knowledge, the more important the the thing they want to say they know, the more they want to justify what they think is the origin of it.
于是你会看到，人们因对数千年前可能不存在之人言论的解读而发动战争、互相折磨至死——即便那人真说过那些话，其本意也与今人的理解大相径庭。
So, you know, you have people waging wars and torturing each other to death because of their interpretation of what somebody who may not have existed said thousands of years ago and probably even if he did say it, didn't mean it in the way they mean today.
我们对此心知肚明，因为人们对百年前逝者甚至当今在世者正是如此行事的。
We know because people do exactly this for people who lived a hundred years ago or indeed people who are alive today.
如卡尔·马克思所言，这既是闹剧，也是悲剧。
So it's a farce, but it's also a tragedy as Karl Marx said.
这个简单的认识论谬误导致了无尽的苦难，且是个普遍存在的错误。
The simple epistemological error leads to unlimited suffering, and it's a common error.
因此我认为，如果要指出多数人对认识论的最大误解，那就是知识的增长始于问题。
So that I think, you know, if I had to pick something that most people don't get about epistemology, it's that the growth of knowledge begins with problems.
让我们深入探讨这一点，更多聚焦于波普尔认识论中'问题'的概念——毕竟大多数人听到'问题'一词会联想到负面含义，但你已指出波普尔将问题视为积极因素。
Let's linger on that and focus a little bit more on the notion therefore of a problem in populian epistemology, given that most people will hear the word problem and think something negative, but you've already said that popper speaks about problems as a good thing.
我这样理解是否正确：问题本质上是观念的冲突，即不同观念对同一现象提出相异或竞争性主张？
Am I right in saying that it's somehow a clash of ideas or where ideas are making claims about the one phenomena but are making different claims about or competing claims about this phenomena.
正是如此，且不仅关乎现象，还涉及道德、纯数学等所有领域——你能想到的任何事物。
Yes, and not only about phenomena, about anything, know, about morality and pure mathematics and you name it.
确实如此，关于'问题'这一概念不可能有唯一的定义，波普尔也恰当地避开了定义。
So yes, there can't be any one definition of the concept problem and Popper doesn't do definitions quite rightly.
但我认为将问题视为冲突——必须是观点、解释或理论等之间的冲突——这种看法很有启发性。
But I think thinking of a problem as a clash and it's got to be a clash of ideas or interpretations or theories or so on is illuminating.
因为如果这样思考，你就会意识到它们不可能同时为真。
Because if you think of it that way, then you start with the idea that they can't both be true.
我的意思是，这就是问题的本质所在。
I mean, that's what the problem consists of.
关键在于认识到它们不可能同时成立。
It's realizing that they can't both be true.
重要的是要意识到两者可能都是错误的，而不是执着于必须找出正确的那一个。
It's important to realize they could both be false rather than say, you know, we've got to find the true one.
通常它们都是错误的，但通常也存在需要纠正的重要错误。
Usually, they are both false, but usually there are important errors to correct.
而且通常其中一方观点中的关键错误会比另一方更多。
And usually, there are important errors more in one of the clashing ideas than in the other.
霍珀还强调——这在讨论冲突时也很重要——即使观点冲突永远无法解决，即使持不同观点的人永远无法达成一致，这种思想碰撞仍然非常有益。
Hopper also stresses, and this is also quite important speaking of clashes, that a clash of ideas is very beneficial even if they are never resolved, even if the parties with the ideas never agree.
因为当观点相互冲突时，几乎在人们不知不觉或并非本意的情况下，这些观点就会发生改变。
Because when the ideas come into conflict with each other, almost without the people knowing it or wanting it, they get changed.
因为即使你在争论后心想'哈，我可把他们驳倒了'。
Because even if you come out of an argument saying, oh, I've really showed it to them.
对吧？
Right?
你的意思是，你想到一个新角度，这是在讨论之前所没有的。
What you mean is you've thought of a new angle, which you didn't have before going into discussion.
你对自己的观点想到了一个新角度，这让你比之前更加确信。
You've thought of a new angle on your own view, which makes you more sure of it than before.
虽然你知道，对事物过于确信并不好，但这种改变——将观点间的对抗视为有益，因为它们能引发观点的变化——也是波普尔问题概念的一个有益副作用。
And although, you know, it's not good to be sure of things, but this change, this way of changing the confrontation between ideas as being beneficial because they cause change in the ideas is also a beneficial side effect of Popper's concept of a problem.
我能听到反波普尔派甚至非波普尔派在说，等等，当你用望远镜观测水星时，那是一个观测。
I can hear the anti or even the non Popperians saying, but hold on, when you make an observation with a telescope of here's Mercury, that's an observation.
那不是你拥有的一个想法。
That's not an idea that you have.
它与现有经典引力理论图景的冲突，那不是观点的碰撞。
The fact that it conflicts with the existing classical picture of how gravity works, that's not a clash of ideas.
这是一个观测在与某个观点或理论发生冲突。
It's an observation that is clashing with, granted, an idea or a theory.
是的。
Yeah.
当时你有两个理论。
Well, you had two theories at the time.
它们各自有其追随者——广义相对论和牛顿理论。
Both of them had their adherence general relativity and Newton's theory.
还有其他相关观点，比如如果你相信牛顿理论，或者采用牛顿理论并想将其与观测结果调和，因为观测结果本身也是一种理论，你可以说天文学家错了——他们确实这么说过。
There were also other tangential ideas like if you believed Newton's theory or if you adopted Newton's theory and you wanted to reconcile that with the observations because the observations were also a theory and you could say that the astronomers are wrong which they did actually.
人们曾指责爱丁顿的观测有误，直到最近才毫无争议地发现，尽管观测极其困难，爱丁顿的观测实际上是对的，而他几十年来都未得到应有的赞誉。
People said about Eddington that his observations were wrong and it was only actually in very recent times that it was uncontroversially discovered that Eddington's observations were in fact right even though they were incredibly hard to do and he didn't get enough credit all those decades.
所以你们有关于观测的理论，然后又有修正牛顿理论的理论，比如可能存在我们尚未发现的行星这样的理论。
So you had theories about the observations, then there were theories to fix up Newton's theory, like the theory that maybe there's another planet that we don't know about.
你可以限定这个理论，指出行星必须位于何处，质量必须是多少，等等。
And you could tie down that theory and say where the planet has to be, what its mass has to be, and so on.
然后你可以逐渐排除这颗行星存在的可能性，同时牛顿理论仍然成立。
And you could then slowly rule out that this planet was there and Newton's theory still be true.
当然，如果牛顿理论是错误的，那你就可以随意放置这颗行星，并对牛顿理论做任何修改。
Of course, if Newton's theory was wrong, then you can put the planet anywhere you like and make any modification you like to Newton's theory.
所以事情不是这样运作的。
So that's not how it works.
我们需要的是好的解释。
We want good explanations.
在你所说的那个时代，牛顿理论是个很好的解释。
At that time you're speaking of, Newton's theory was a good explanation.
但它也存在一些问题。
It had some problems with it.
爱因斯坦的理论以及所有相关实验，如水星观测、日食观测等也都存在矛盾。
Einstein's also and all relevant experiments, the observations of Mercury, the observations of the eclipse, and so on.
所有辅助观测数据也都存在冲突。
And all the subsidiary observations as well were all in conflict.
通过争论改进这些理论，直到矛盾激化到爱因斯坦理论成为唯一剩下的合理解释。
And argument improved those theories until the clash was such that Einstein's theory was the only good explanation left.
而糟糕的解释则有无穷多个。
You had an infinite number of bad explanations.
他们总是被剩下。
They're always left.
但唯一靠谱的是爱因斯坦的理论。
But the only good one was Einstein's theory.
我知道你刚才一直在用望远镜观察那个非普佩里安星人，不过他现在应该已经走了。
And I know you you were looking over there through your telescope at the non Puperian, but I think he's gone now.
我们来聊聊剩下两个话题中的一个吧，量子物理还是自然选择进化论？
Let's talk about one of the the remaining two, quantum physics or evolution by natural selection.
嗯。
Yeah.
关于进化论，有个很简单的理解误区可以追溯到拉马克主义这类旧理论，还有伊拉斯谟·达尔文提出的渐进主义之类的学说。
So evolution is there's a very simple way in which people don't get it, and it dates back to the old theories of evolution like Lamarckism and I don't know what they called Erasmus Darwin's gradualism or whatever.
总之这些都是试图不借助超自然力量来解释我们周围世界的尝试。
But anyway these were attempts to account for the world around us without appealing to the supernatural.
无论是拉马克主义还是伊拉斯谟·达尔文的理论，我可能都没提到真正的理论创始人。
So both Lamarckism and Erasmus Darwin's theory, I am probably not crediting the real author of, you know, origin originator of that theory.
他们想在不诉诸超自然力量的情况下解释世界，这些思想至今仍在流传，只是不再用原来的名称。
They want to make sense of the world without appealing to the supernatural, and their ideas are still current, not under those names.
有时候马克思主义甚至仍保留原名。
Sometimes the Marxism even under that name.
当然还有李森科主义，它算是马克思主义的一个变种。
And of course there was Lisenkoism, which was a species of of the Marxism.
但如今大多数具有科学思维的人会说他们认同达尔文的进化论，然后紧接着就会说'适者生存'——毕竟显然适应能力强的才能存活下来。
But today, most scientifically minded people would say that they agree with Darwin's theory of evolution, and then they would immediately often go on to say that after all the survival of the fittest and, you know, obviously the fittest are going to survive.
这根本不是达尔文理论所说的内容。
And that's not at all what Darwin theory says.
但我实际上认为这场争论比创世论与进化论之争更重要，因为这是拉马克主义与达尔文主义或新达尔文主义之间的较量——随你怎么称呼它。
But I I actually think this battle is more important than the one between a creationism and evolution because this battle, the battle between Lamarckism and Darwinism or neo Darwinism, meaning whatever you want to call it.
再说一次，我们还没想出一个合适的名称。
Now again, you know, we can't think of a good name for it.
这关乎什么是科学解释，而创世论与进化论之争不涉及这一点。
This is about what is a scientific explanation, And creationism versus evolution is not about that.
那关乎我们是否想要科学解释。
That's about whether we want a scientific explanation.
所以如果有人从哲学层面寻求对世界的超自然解释，你就无法与之争论进化论。
So if somebody if their philosophy seeks a supernatural explanation of the world, then you can't argue with that person about evolution.
你必须针对那个观点本身进行辩论。
You've got to argue with that person about that.
那是哲学层面的争论。
That's a philosophical argument.
它与动物或进化论之类毫无关系。
It has nothing to do with animals or evolution or anything like that.
你必须用完全不同的立场和哲学论点来应对这种追求超自然的观念，而不是用进化论的论据。
You can you you have to engage with that idea of wanting the supernatural on completely different grounds and with different philosophical arguments to the ones that you would use about evolution.
我认为这更重要，不过这只是我的个人观点。
I think that's more important, but, you know, that's just my opinion.
所以你给我们抛出了诱人的线索——这与适者生存无关。
So you gave us the enticing tidbit that it's not about survival of the fittest.
说‘适者生存’有什么问题吗？
What's wrong with saying survival of
‘最适者’？
fittest?
嗯，如果要更准确地说，这其实是关于基因或基因变体的复制。
Well, it's about the replication of genes or gene variants, if you want to be more precise still.
这是关于基因变体的差异复制，这也正是它与认识论之间的联系所在。
It's about the differential replication of gene variants, which is what gives it its connection with epistemology as well.
所以这是‘最适应基因的生存’？
So it's the survival of the best adapted gene?
这是‘最适应’的生存
It's a survival the best
基因？
adapted gene?
嗯，除非
Well, unless
或者说，基因将知识封装为知识的增长，因此基因的复制就是这些知识的物理关联。
Or genes encapsulate knowledge as the growth of knowledge, and therefore, the replication of the genes is the physical association of that knowledge.
如果你把知识看作具有因果属性的信息，可以这么说，但并非所有人都这么认为。
You can put it that way if you think of knowledge as information that has causal properties, but not everyone does.
就像道金斯有个很好的说法——有些理论生物学家试图开发适应度的数值测量方法，这样他们就能说基因进化是为了最大化适应度，而适应度与你的孙辈存活数量有关，你知道这是非常复杂的数学问题。
So you can think, as Dawkins had a very nice way of so there are theoretical biologists who try to develop numerical measures of fitness so that they can say genes evolve to maximize fitness and fitness has got something to do with how many of your grandchildren survive and you know they're very complicated mathematical thing.
道金斯说过（我可能没他表达得那么好）：‘适应度就是当基因生存被最大化时，看似被最大化的那个量。’
And Dawkins said, now I won't be able to say it as well as he did, something like fitness is that quantity which appears to be maximized if what is actually maximized is the survival of genes.
所以从某个层面来说，这是个非常简单的理论。
So this is a very simple theory at one level.
前几天我说过，某种意义上达尔文本可以只用一页纸阐述他的理论，但却需要一本书来解释它，而且至今仍未完全成功。
I said the other day that in a sense, Darwin could have written his theory on one page, but it needed a book to explain it, and he still hasn't entirely succeeded.
新达尔文主义者不得不稍作改进，因为他当时还没有基因的概念，因为基因尚未被发现。
And the neo Darwinians had to improve on it a little because he didn't have a concept of gene because they hadn't been invented.
或许孟德尔已经发现了基因，但他们虽是同时代人，达尔文对此却并不真正了解。
Or maybe they had with Mendel, but he didn't really know that even though they were contemporary.
我从BEM Infinity中领悟到的一点——直到读完那本书才意识到——是我们对自然选择进化论的理解，远比大多数人认为的要浅薄得多。
One part of what I got from the BEM Infinity, which I didn't even realize until I read the book, was that we understand far less about evolution by natural selection than most people think.
在中学阶段，你基本上被灌输的是：如果遇到自然选择进化论，喏，那就是理论了。
Going through high school, you're basically taught if you encounter evolution by natural selection, well, there's the theory.
它被包装得简洁明了。
It's wrapped up in a nice little bundle.
几乎就像牛顿物理学解释生物多样性那样面面俱到。
It's almost like Newtonian physics that explains everything about what's going on in biological diversity.
但你指出自然选择进化论几乎（虽不完全）处于同等地位，其核心存在谜团，就像关于人的本质及知识创造过程的核心谜团一样。
But you point out evolution by natural selection almost stands on equal footing, not quite, but there's a mystery there at the heart as there is the mystery of the heart of what a person is and how a person creates knowledge.
你能为人们阐明这一点吗？
Can you illuminate that for people?
你说我们并非真正了解进化论的全部是什么意思？
What do you mean by we don't really know everything about evolution?
嗯，我认为在这两种神秘现象中，进化论的神秘性对理论根基的重要性，远不及'人是什么'、'知识与人工通用智能的关系'这些问题。
Well, in both cases as a mystery, I think in the case of evolution, that mystery is not as important to the foundations of the theory as the question of what is a person, what is knowledge has to do with artificial general intelligence.
但就进化而言，一个事实是，尽管我们拥有巨大的计算能力，却仍无法在计算机上模拟出一个人工生态系统。
But in regard to evolution, it is a fact that we, despite having enormous amounts of computer power available, we do not know how to make an artificial ecosystem as a simulation on a computer.
每当尝试构建这样的系统时，模拟生物的功能会不断改进、改进、再改进，然后便停滞不前。
What always happens is when they try to make such a system is that the functionality of the simulated organisms improves and improves and improves and then stops improving.
而真正的进化绝非如此。
And real evolution is nothing like that.
真正的进化时刻都在进行，不断变化，产生新的分支。
Real evolution is going on all the time, changing, making new branches.
新物种持续涌现，进化速度越来越快，且看不到尽头。
There are new species evolving all the time and it's just going faster and faster, and there's no end in sight to it.
它是永无止境的。
It's open ended.
你在影片开头提到机械腿学习行走的过程。
You talk about the robotic legs learning to walk in the beginning of the finity.
它的进化是真正的生物进化。
It's evolution is genuine biological evolution.
虽然没有明确目标，但研究生用这些尚不能行走的机械腿，通过所谓的进化算法，经过多次迭代后最终实现了行走。
Doesn't have a goal in mind, but clearly with the graduate student, who's got these robotic legs that don't yet walk, but uses a so called evolutionary algorithm, such that the end of a number of iterations, is walking.
不过它被设定了行走的目标程序，这是
Well, it's been programmed with the goal of walking, which is
是的。
Yes.
我最初是在一场关于机器人行走的讲座中真正意识到进化论这一点的。
Not what's going I actually first realized this about evolution in a lecture that I was at about robots walking.
这就是我把它写进书里的原因。
That's why I put it in the book.
从某种程度上说，那是个令人惊叹的展示。
In a way, was an amazing presentation.
这是...我不确定具体时间，大概是八十年代或更早。
This was I don't know when it was nineteen eighties or something or maybe earlier.
那时候计算机还没那么强大，而这些人是在制造真正的机器人，不是模拟。
So computers weren't as powerful in those days, and these people were making actual robots, not simulations.
所以我刚才说的是模拟，但对机器人同样适用。
So what I said just now is about simulations, but the same is true of robots as well.
现在的机器人进步多了，但它们依然完全做不到进化能做到的事。
Robots have got much better now, but they still don't do this thing that evolution does even slightly.
我看了他们拍的机器人视频，从走路不稳到逐渐改善，最后走出了他们没预料到的步态。
So I saw the videos that they had of the robot, you know, not walking very well and then walking better and then walking in ways that they hadn't foreseen.
于是他们说：看啊，这就是进化中的创造力。
So they were saying, ah, you know, is creativity in evolution.
我当时就想，哇，要是一两年后再来，他们会做到什么程度呢？
And so I thought, wow, you know, if I come back in a year or two, what will they be doing then?
然后我突然意识到：除非研究生能想到新点子，否则他们根本不会有任何新突破。
And then I thought, oh, they won't be doing anything new at all unless the graduate student thinks of it.
它们没有自主产生问题的能力。
They don't have their own problems.
问题都是由外部强加的。
The problem is imposed from the outside.
因此，解决问题的关键在于从外部着手解决。
And so the problem with solving is just being solved from the outside.
这只是一个用于解决那个非常具体、非常聚焦的问题的工具。
It's just an instrument being used in the pursuit of solving that very specific, very focused problem.
是的。
Yes.
我用来解释这一点的另一个例子来自物理学，就是牛顿的万有引力理论中包含一个任意常数，我们现在称之为大写的G。
So another example I use to illustrate this, an example from physics, is that Newton's theory of gravity had an arbitrary constant in it, which we now call capital g.
我认为历史上它最初并不是G。
I think historically, it wasn't g.
它是地球质量乘以g或其他什么，那才是基本常数。
It was m g in the mass of the earth times g or something, which was the fundamental constant.
这并不重要，但它确实有一个牛顿当时不知道的常数。
It's neither here nor there, but it had a constant, which Newton didn't know.
后来卡文迪什设计了一个非常巧妙的实验来测定这个常数。
And then later, Cavendish invented this very clever experiment to determine this constant.
我认为牛顿的发现并不因为不知道这个常数就不完整。
Now I think Newton's discovery was not incomplete by not knowing that constant.
他的发现是一种解释，这种解释在卡文迪什实验前后都是一样的。
His discovery was an explanation, and that explanation is the same before and after Cavendish.
毫无疑问，卡文迪什运用了巨大的创造力设计了卡文迪什装置，使其测量g的精度之高会让你惊讶于那个时代竟能做到如此程度。
Cavendish no doubt used tremendous creativity to design the Cavendish apparatus and to make it measure g with an accuracy that you'd be amazed was possible in those days.
他做到了。
He did that.
这需要创造力。
That involved creativity.
但那与重力无关的创意。
But that wasn't creativity about gravity.
那是关于黄铜球的创意，你知道的，不管他用什么做的，电线之类的。
That was creativity about brass balls and, you know, whatever he did it with, wires and so on.
极其复杂精密。
Incredibly sophisticated.
科学实验的道路是艰难的。
The way experimentation in science is hard.
我不知道这在四个环节中是否有体现，但这是人们尚未意识到的另一件事。
I don't know if that comes up anywhere in the four strands but that's another thing that people just don't realize.
他们没意识到错误会不断发生。
They don't realize that mistakes happen all the time.
要做一个能得出合理解释的实验，确保你测量的正是你声称测量的对象，这非常困难。
And to do an experiment where you can form a good explanation that that you have measured the thing that you're saying you have measured is very difficult.
有时甚至超出我们当前的技术或知识水平。
And sometimes beyond our technology or our knowledge at the moment.
所以人们只是做了个糟糕的实验就发表了。
And so people just do a bad experiment and publish that.
这是人们未能理解的另一件事。
So that's another thing that happens that people don't get.
当我曾就观察方法请教你时，这很有趣。
It was interesting when I asked you about this once in terms of just making observations.
表面上，我们在这里进行一项实验，进行精确观察，实验者对仪器工作原理的了解超过任何人，但错误仍可能发生。
Ostensibly, an experiment is is here we're making a precise observation and the experimenter knows more than anyone about how the instrumentation works and yet still errors can go wrong.
奇怪的是，这种关于实验的整个讨论方式恰好适用于当前热议的话题，我想就是那些不明空中现象（UAP）、不明飞行物（UFO）之类的事情。
Weirdly enough, that entire way of talking about experimentation comes to bear on a topic du jour, I suppose, of these UAPs, the UFOs, and that kind of thing.
人们以为自己进行了这样的观察，但这并非在高度受控、所有人都理解的实验室环境中完成。
People thinking they've made this observation and yet it's not being done in a laboratory where it's highly controlled and everyone understands.
实际情况比这糟糕得多。
It's way worse than that.
这是一件无人了解的事情，而我们却在对它做出宏大的断言。
Here's a thing that no one knows about and yet we're making grandiose claims about it.
这是个很好的例子，当受到质疑时，人们总会直奔权威寻求支持。
That's a very good example and when challenged people will always make a beeline for the authority.
哦，你知道这是一位美国空军上尉，你在质疑他的地位，你在质疑他的诚信。
Oh you know this was a USAF captain you're impugning his status, you're impugning his honesty.
诸如此类吧。
Or whatever.
但事实真相是错误无处不在，人人都会犯错，我们能犯的错误数量没有上限。在科学实验中，几乎所有的努力都用于构建关于错误的理论，解释可能存在的错误，然后预防或测量它们。
Well the real truth is that mistakes are everywhere and everyone makes mistakes and there's no limit to the amount of mistakes we can make and in scientific experimentation almost all of the effort required to do a scientific experiment is forming theories about the errors, forming explanations of what errors there could be and then forestalling them or measuring them.
几年前，当我走进卡文迪许实验室地下室的实验室时，看到那些弗兰肯斯坦式的装置，了解到他们如何对单个原子进行实验，这让我非常震撼。
Again, know, was very impressed several years ago now when when I went to the laboratory underneath the Cavendish laboratory in the cellar of the Cavendish laboratory, sort of Frankenstein like apparatuses there, and I was led in to see how how they were experimenting on a single atom.
而且不仅仅是对原子进行研究。
And not just on the atom.
他们正在操控原子使其执行特定行为。
They were where they're making it do things.
所以这是在让它跳火圈。
So it was making it jump through hoops.
他们让它在一个量子比特上进行量子计算。
They were making it do quantum computations on on a single qubit.
我看着墙，墙上布满了误差图表。
And I looked at the wall and the wall was covered with graphs of the errors.
因此你可以把他们的整个实验看作是关于制造量子比特时产生误差的实验。
So you could regard their whole experiment as an experiment about the errors that happen when you try to make a qubit.
如果他们当时没有发现这些误差，如果他们没有改进实验来消除这些误差，而是按照论文后来描述的方式直接进行实验，他们可能会得到随机结果。
And if they hadn't had those, if they just set up the experiment as it's as it's later going to be described in the paper without making the improvements to remove those errors, they could have got random results.
他们很可能会得到他们希望得到的结果。
They would have probably got the results they were hoping for.
这就是当你做一个糟糕的实验时通常会发生的情况。
That's what usually happens when you do a bad experiment.
这种情况最近在寻找室温超导体半导体时再次出现，当你想要相信某个结果时，就会放弃应有的怀疑态度。
This showed up again recently in the whole room conductor semiconductor room temperature semiconductor hunt, where if you want to believe something and then you drop all of the skepticism that you should have Yeah.
在测量过程中，你几乎可以用不可复现的方式得到任何想要的结果。
Around the measurement, then you can get almost any result you want in a non replicatable way.
是的。
Yeah.
或者说你几乎能看到任何你想看到的东西。
Or you can see almost anything you want to see.
是的。
Yeah.
说到这个，有些事物显而易见却又视而不见。
Speaking of which, some things are obvious yet unseen.
是啊。
Yeah.
我想我们现在正讲到第四条脉络——量子理论，我认为这其实是人们理解最少的部分。
I think we're just getting to the fourth strand now, the quantum theory, which I think is the one that actually people understand the least.
也许吧。
Maybe.
没错。
Yeah.
它只是被视为所有学科中最深奥的。
It's just considered the most esoteric of the disciplines.
通常，大多数人甚至不敢说自己理解量子理论，因为他们觉得需要严格的物理学基础。
Normally, most people wouldn't even dare say they understand quantum theory because of the rigor and the physics that they think is required.
但你觉得人们是怎么误解这一点的？
But where do you think people get this one?
或许他们从错误的方向入手了。
Maybe they approach it from the wrong direction Yeah.
或者他们忽略了眼前显而易见的东西。
Or they're missing something in plain sight.
现在想来，关于量子理论的误解，虽然在某些方面类似于其他理论的误解，比如远离日常体验的相对论、宇宙学、黑洞等等。
Now that I think of it, the misconceptions about quantum theory, although in some ways they resemble misconceptions about other theories, the far from everyday experience like relativity and cosmology, black holes, and so on.
从某些方面来说，它只是陌生而已，因此人们听到的是他们预期听到的内容，然后更加固守自己的误解。
In some ways, it's just it's unfamiliar, and therefore, people hear what they expect to hear and then double down on their misconceptions.
这发生在所有基础理论中。
That that happens in all the fundamental theories.
但量子理论的根本问题，不同于我们讨论过的其他三个领域，是源于物理学内部本身。
But the basic thing that's gone wrong with quantum theory, unlike the other three strands that we've discussed, began inside physics itself.
而物理学家们对其误解的固执坚持，随后又被传递给了公众。
And it is the doubling down by physicists on their misconceptions, which has then been transferred to the public.
我认为我们甚至可能已经到了这样一个阶段——我不知道公众是否...
And I think we might even have got to the stage now when the public I don't know.
也许我有些偏颇，但我想说，或许现在公众对多宇宙量子理论的理解，比那些仍持反对态度的物理学家（他们占多数）更到位。因为这些反对的物理学家被他们的教育、强大的同侪压力、权威压制、对学生及其问题的粗暴对待等因素共同影响，导致他们用糟糕的哲学来为自己对量子理论的误解辩护。
Maybe I'm being unfair, but I was gonna say that maybe the public by now have got a better handle on what kind of a theory many universes quantum theory is than the physicists who still resist it, who are the majority, because the physicists who resist it have been led by their education, by very strong peer pressure and authoritative pressure and mistreatment of students and their questions and all sorts of nasty things have come together there to make people use bad philosophy as a defense of their misunderstanding of the science of quantum theory.
所以现在工具主义和实证主义在物理学领域，特别是理论物理学中占据了强势地位。
So you have now instrumentalism and positivism have their stronghold now in physics, in theoretical physics.
几乎没有哲学家还会为这些观点辩护了——如果有的话。
There are very few, if any, philosophers who still defend those things.
甚至行为主义也是。
Even behaviorism.
你可以采取各种手段来回避'现实由多宇宙及万物构成'这个结论。
There's all sorts of moves you can make along the road to avoid the conclusion that reality consists of many universes plus all things.
物理学家比普通怪人更倾向于采取这些手段。
That physicists are more driven to take those than ordinary cranks.
那么错误究竟在哪里？
So what is the mistake?
正如我所说，我认为最初只有一小群物理学家创立了量子理论，那里形成了一个亚文化圈，而这个圈子恰好容易受到某种实证主义的影响——这种实证主义比普通的更糟糕，因为它还容易沾染神秘主义色彩。
As I say, I think originally there was only a small community of physicists who originated quantum theory, and there was a little subculture there, and that subculture happened to be susceptible to a form of positivism that was worse than the ordinary positivism in that it was also susceptible to kind of mysticism.
例如关于观察者意识改变现实本质的所有这些说法，最初并不存在于对量子理论的错误解读中，即玻尔的诠释。
So all this stuff about, for example, the observer's consciousness changing the nature of reality, that was not originally in the bad interpretations of quantum theory, Bohr's interpretation.
玻尔从未说过那样的话。
Bohr never said that.
尼尔斯·玻尔确实说过许多糟糕的哲学观点，但他没说过那个。
Niels Bohr, he said a lot of things that were bad philosophy, but he didn't say that.
因此，基于那个试图维护单一宇宙世界观的错误基础，人们引入了实证主义、工具主义、神秘主义以及一种糟糕的经验主义形式——即‘只管计算，别问原因’。
And so what has been built on that foundation, an attempt attempted foundation to secure the single universe worldview has incorporated positivism and then instrumentalism and mysticism and a bad form of empiricism, which is shall happen, calculate.
但其中也存在纯粹的恐吓因素。
But there's also sheer intimidation.
我的意思是，那些研究不直接涉及对此表态的物理学分支的物理学家，往往不愿表明立场，因为这会降低他们在同事和记者眼中的地位——或者他们自以为会这样。
I mean, physicists who are working on branches of physics that don't directly involve taking a position on this are reluctant to take a position on it because it will reduce their standing with their colleagues, with journalists, and so on, or it will they think it will.
或许我不该进行心理分析。
Or maybe I'm wrong to psychologize.
其实我并不真正清楚这些事情为何会发生。
I mean, I don't really know why these things have happened.
虽然这是个惊人的结论，但确实可以得出：你看任何干涉实验，比如双缝实验，都能据此推断存在多个宇宙。
It's a spectacular, though true conclusion to reach that, you know, you look at any interference experiment, the double slit experiment, and you can conclude on that basis there are many universes.
但你也说过，多宇宙的存在其实是量子理论中最不令人惊讶和困惑的事情之一。
But you've also said the existence of many universes is in fact one of the least surprising and confounding things about quantum theory.
量子理论中还有哪些更反直觉的部分？
What are some of the other more counterintuitive parts of quantum theory?
是的，我认为量子纠缠要反直觉得多。
Yeah, I think entanglement is much more counterintuitive.
顺便说一句，我也提到过，我以为你会问量子理论相比相对论有多么反直觉。
By the way, I've also said, I thought you were going to ask how counterintuitive is quantum theory compared with say relativity.
我认为相对论比平行宇宙更反直觉，因为平行宇宙经常被拍成电影。
I think relativity is much more counterintuitive than parallel universes because parallel universes, they make movies with parallel universes in the plot.
很难把弯曲时空的情节拍成电影。
Very hard to make movies with curved space time in the plot.
我觉得《星际穿越》是唯一一部真正尝试过的
I think Interstellar is the only one I really even tried to
对，没错。
lose Yeah.
但即便如此，他们也避开了弯曲时空的部分。
My But even that, they avoid the curved space time bit.
只涉及黑洞。
Have the black holes.
是的。
Yes.
他们做了时间加速的部分。
And they do the accelerated time bit.
对。
Yeah.
所以
So
这是个很难理解的理论，与我们的日常经验大相径庭。
that's a theory that is hard to get your head around and is very very different from our experience.
即便现在我们头顶有GPS系统，它能比不考虑相对论时更精确地多次测量我们的位置。
And even where now that we have the GPS system over our heads measuring our positions many times more accurately than you could if you didn't take relativity into account.
人们只想工具性地采用相对论，但不会像量子理论那样陷入天马行空的幻想。
People want to adopt relativity only instrumentally, but they don't go into flights of fancy like is done in quantum theory.
这种现象似乎只出现在物理学中的量子理论里，我无法解释。
That is the thing that seems to only happen in physics in quantum theory and I can't explain it.
人类中心论的吸引力——认为我们处于万物中心的观念如此强烈，以至于现在它以观察者的名义重新出现。
It seems that the appeal of anthropocentrism where we're at the center of everything is so strong that it sort of reemerges now under the guise of the observer.
也许是这样，但从你自己的例子来看，人们确实接受了现代天文学的这个观点。
Maybe it's that, but from your own example, people did accept that from modern astronomy.
因此在二十世纪，我们发现即使银河系也只是众多星系中的一个。
So in the twentieth century, we discovered that even the galaxy is just one among many galaxies.
人们当时感到震惊。
And people were shocked.
但那些善于思考的人反应是：好吧，原来我错了。
But they, thinking people, reacted by thinking, okay, well, I was wrong.
要知道，我们不仅不是太阳系的中心，也不是宇宙的中心，我们根本不在任何事物的中心。
You know, not only are we not the center of the solar system, but we're not the center of the universe and we're we're not the center of anything.
而现在他们再次感到震惊。
And now they are now they're shocked.
就像我不得不推销我的书时说的：他们在某种意义上震惊地发现，我们确实是万物的中心。
As I had to plug my book, now they're shocked by saying, well, in a sense, we are the center of everything.
那我们就深入探讨这个问题吧。
So let's get into that.
现实结构的这四条线索，这四种理论，姑且称之为‘万有理论’。
So these four strands of the fabric of reality, these four theories, they form, for lack of term, the theory of everything.
现在有哪些新兴原则和概念是依赖于其中两条或更多线索的？
What now emerging principles and concepts can we talk about that rely upon two or more of them?
我们之前讨论过其中一个。
We were talking about one earlier.
让我们稍微正式一点地讨论它——知识。
Let's just get a little more formal about it, knowledge.
是的。
Yeah.
顺便说一句，这是已知万物的理论。
By the way, it's the theory of everything known.
没错。
Correct.
所以我们认知中存在明显的遗漏。
So there are things glaring omissions in what we know.
例如，我们不了解意识。
For example, we don't understand consciousness.
我们不了解创造力。
We don't understand creativity.
我们或许了解知识如何增长，但不明白它从何而来。
We understand maybe how knowledge grows, but we don't understand where it comes from.
确实。
Yes.
是的。
Yeah.
没错。
Exactly.
所以我们不理解那些事物，它们也不属于现实结构的四大要素。
So we don't understand those things, and they're not part of the four strands of the fabric of reality.
我是说那本书。
The book, I mean.
它们是现实的一部分。
They are part of reality.
知识。
Knowledge.
你的问题是关于知识的。
Your question was Knowledge.
对。
Yeah.
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它们之间的联系
It connections between
嗯。
Yeah.
它们之间的联系。
Connections between them.
所以那可以是知识，可以是财富，可以是乐观精神，可以是纠错机制，但这些都是基本原则。
And so that can be knowledge, that can be wealth, that can be optimism, that can be error correction, but there are all these principles.
我甚至怀疑认真对待孩子时，乐趣是个标准。
I even suspect the fun criterion in taking children seriously.
对。
Right.
没错。
Right.
普适的解释由此产生。
Universal explainer arise out of these.
哇。
Wow.
那可真是不少东西。
That's a lot of things.
是啊。
Yeah.
所以我列了个清单。
So I have a list.
别担心。
Don't worry.
对。
Right.
我得说明，这四根线里没有一根是我发明的。
Let me point out that of the four strands, I invented none.
而在四个事物之间的双向联系中，我只发明了一个。
And of the connections, of the two way connections between the four things, I invented one.
那么
So
就像一种计算。
Like a computation.
是的。
Yeah.
是的。
Yeah.
所以现实的本质实际上是一种，怎么说呢，对这些未被充分认识其真实性及相互关联性的概念的某种裂变。
So the fabric of reality is really a sort of, what do you call it, a rift on these things, on these ideas, which are true but haven't been appreciated and whose connections haven't been appreciated.
关于多元宇宙中的自由意志，我认为我在《现实的本质》中的表述非常不充分，甚至可能产生误导。
So with free will in the multiverse, I think what I said about that in fabric of reality is very inadequate and possibly misleading.
我并非想说多元宇宙解决了任何自由意志的问题。
I did not mean to say that the multiverse solves any problem of free will.
我只是用多元宇宙作为例子来说明牛顿力学同样不违背自由意志。
I just kind of used the multiverse as an example to show that Newtonian mechanics doesn't violate free will either.
这是两个独立的问题，无论世界是否具有确定性，你都能合理解释反事实条件。
Those are separate issues and that you can make sense of counterfactuals whether the world is deterministic or not.
顺便说一句，反事实条件与建构理论又是这些概念的另一个衍生品。
By the way, counterfactuals and constructive theory is yet another another spin off of these things.
让我退一步说。
Let me step back.
你在核心层面上理解这些概念。
You understand these things at a core level.
它们指导你在自己生活中的行为方式。
They inform how you operate in your own life.
是的。
Yeah.
所以你不必具体描述自己的生活，但通过这些四个方面的线索，你可以了解到一些相对真实或当前最佳认知的原则。
So you don't have to get specific about your own life, but principles that you sort of know to be relatively true or their best knowledge today because of these four strands.
是的。
Yeah.
关于自由意志的一个衍生观点是，尽管我们不知道知识创造是如何发生的，而自由意志似乎与知识创造密切相关，因此还有很多未知之处。
So one of the sort of spin offs in regard to free will is that although we don't know how knowledge creation happens and free will seems to be intimately connected with knowledge creation, so that there's a lot we don't know.
但再次强调，那种认为基于物理学原理、自由意志不可能存在的论点完全是错误的。
But, again, the argument that because of physics, let's say, will can't possibly exist is just wrong.
这只是对物理学的误解。
It's just a misconstruing physics.
其中一个被误解的观点是，由于经验主义及其导致的错误，人们再次认为所有解释最终都必须归结为从第一原理预测事物。
And one of the things it misconstrues is that it again, because of empiricism and that kind of error, it is thought that all explanations have to fundamentally boil down to predicting things from first principles.
因此，如果你无法从第一原理预测某事物，那么关于它的理论就不可能是根本正确的。
So if you can't predict a thing from first principles, then your theory of it can't be fundamentally true.
它可能只是一种幻觉。
And it might be an illusion.
这就是人们对自由意志理论的普遍看法。
And that's what people think theories of free will amount to.
他们认为自由意志只是我们自我安慰的幻觉，在最基础的层面上并不对应任何真实存在。
That free will is just an illusion that we tell ourselves, but doesn't correspond to anything at the lowest level.
热力学第二定律在最微观层面也不对应任何具体现象。
Well, second law of thermodynamics doesn't correspond to anything at the lowest level either.
你不能看着空气中移动的原子或分子，就说那个分子在不可逆地运动。
You can't look at an atom moving in in the air or molecule moving in the air and say that molecule is moving irreversibly.
它们都不是不可逆的。
None of them are.
它们都在可逆地运动，但整体组合却呈现不可逆性。
They're all moving reversibly, and yet the combination of them is moving irreversibly.
对此有严谨的科学理论，若试图违背就会被视为伪科学。
And there's a theory of that, a hard scientific theory of it, which if you try to violate, you are a crank.
这说明科学知识存在于多个涌现层次上。
So that's an example of the fact that scientific knowledge exists on several levels of emergence.
虽然涌现只是高层理论与底层理论关联的方式之一。
Although, emergence is actually only one of the ways in which high level theories can be related to low level theories.
但笼统来说，可以称之为涌现现象。
But, you know, in general terms, can call it an emergence.
一旦你犯下否定自由意志的错误，就会对道德理论等高层理论产生深远影响。
So once you make this mistake and you say there's no free will, that can have drastic implications for other high level theories, such as theories of morality.
有人说我们都是由原子构成，无法控制原子的行为。
So some people say, well, we're all made of atoms, and we can't help what those atoms do.
因此杀人犯和其他人并无本质区别。
Therefore, murderers and they're different from other people.
所以我们不该审判杀人犯或将其关进监狱等等。
So we shouldn't be putting murderers on trial or sending them to jail or whatever.
另一方面，这种论点的反面推论是：既然杀人犯杀害了他人，那么必定是其原子结构或原子排列中存在某种特质使其成为杀人犯。
And on the other hand, the inverse of that argument is well because a murderer has murdered people, there must be something in their atoms, in their arrangement of their atoms, makes them a murderer.
因此他们本质上应该被永久监禁，因为虽然我们能改写部分基因组，但多数时候我们都是基因的奴隶——由于经验主义、由于不存在自由意志，再加上这些错误或糟糕的哲学理论，最终导致政策建立在荒谬的论据之上。
And therefore they are to be kept in jail forever basically because we can override some things in our genome, but most of the time we are slaves of our genome because empiricism, because no free will, and some because of all these mistaken and or bad philosophical theories, end up ending up with policy backed up by rubbish arguments.
当然可能存在充分的理由来释放囚犯、监禁他们、在监禁期间或释放后对他们实施X、Y或Z措施。
Now there may be there are excellent arguments for letting people out of jail, for putting them in jail, for doing x Y, or Z to them while they're in jail or when they're not in jail.
这些论证完全属于哲学的有效范畴，也确实有人从事这类哲学研究。
Those arguments are perfectly valid domain of philosophy, and some people pursue that kind of philosophy.
其中可能有人是错的，有人是对的，也有人半对半错。
And one could be wrong, one could be right, one could be half right and so on.
但若从物理学角度对此进行说教——我该称之为什么——这属于范畴错误。
But to pontificate about it from the perspective of basically physics is what shall I call it is category error.
这根本就是错的。
It's just wrong.
有人认为不赋予人们自由意志是仁慈的，理由正是你所说的这些。
Some say that it's compassionate to not subscribe free will to people because of exactly what you've said.
杀人犯本身也是受害者，他们无法控制自己的行为。
The murderer is a victim and they cannot help do what they do.
有些人未必从物理学角度论证，而是基于某种民间心理学观点。
There are those who don't necessarily argue from physics, but from some sort of folk psychology.
或许不是民间心理学，而是
Maybe not folk psychology, but
某种特定的心理学理论。
a certain psychological theory.
是的。
Yeah.
我想确认一下我是否正确理解你的意思，如果有误请纠正我，我想弄清楚这一点。
Think there if I understand you correctly, and correct me if I'm wrong, please, I want to understand this.
我认为你在这里表达了两层意思。
I think there's two things you're saying here.
其一是某些理论只在特定层级显现，在较低层级是不可见或无法获取的。
One is that some theories only emerge at certain levels, they're not visible or available to you at lower levels.
热力学就是个例子，单独观察一个分子或原子不会告诉你任何关于不可逆性或统计不可逆性的信息，这些只能在宏观层面即更高层级才能观察到。
Thermodynamics is an example, watching a single molecule or atom in isolation will not tell you anything about irreversibility or statistical irreversibility, and that can only be seen at a macro level, so at a higher level.
因此某些理论在各自层级同样有效且无法进一步简化，但它们在本层级具有同等效力。
And so some theories are equally valid and they're not capable of being reduced any further, but they're equally valid at their own levels.
即便可以简化，热力学就是这类案例，或者化学可能是更好的例子——即使能将其简化为更低层级，仍存在仅适用于更高层级的解释和定律。
Even if they can be reduced, thermodynamics is sort of a case of this or maybe chemistry is a better case, even when they can be reduced to a level lower level, there may be explanations and laws that only exist at the higher level.
所以我们认为化学完全源于物理学，基本上仅用物理学（加上计算机解方程）就能预测化学性质。
So we think that chemistry is entirely due to physics and we can make predictions about chemical properties using only physics basically, physics plus computers to solve the equations.
此外还存在诸如酸这样的概念，你可以建立相关理论并用其解释世界，而无法通过底层物理原理来解释。
In addition, there are such things as acids, which you can have theories about and which you can explain the world in terms of where you could not explain the world in terms of the underlying physical reason.
无论你拥有多少计算能力都不行吗？
No matter how much computation power you had?
这取决于我们所说的'无论多少'具体指什么。
Well, depends what we mean by no matter how much.
我是说
I mean
在宇宙中寻找，在宇宙的界限之内。
Find it within the universe, within the limits of the universe.
在宇宙之中
Within the universe in
时空。
space time.
是的。
Yes.
可能存在一种数学计算，其规模远超宇宙本身。
There may be a mathematical computation that is enormously bigger than the universe.
我认为
I think
你的意思是让人们指向，好吧，这都是粒子碰撞。
what you're saying is so people point to, well, it's all particle collisions.
对吧？
Right?
粒子碰撞解释了一切。
Particle collisions explain everything.
所以因为粒子碰撞，这个人去谋杀了另一个人。
And so because of particle collisions, this man went and murdered another man.
但你可以说，不，有些事情必须在那个解释层面上运作。
But you could say, no, there are some things that have to operate at that level of explanation.
是的。
Yes.
因为你既无法计算它，也无法理解它。
Because you can't both compute it and also because you can't understand it.
是的。
Yes.
是的。
Yes.
是拉丁语。
It's the Latin.
我说的是拉丁语。
It's the Latin that I'm talking about.
对。
Yeah.
因为即使你能预测（虽然你不能），但仍然没有解释。
Because even if you could predict, which you can't, but even if There's no explanation.
没错。
Yeah.
你依然缺乏解释。
You still lack the explanation.
是啊。
Yeah.
就像我在《无限起源》中用多米诺骨牌理论说的，你可以追踪每一块骨牌撞击另一块骨牌的过程，推算出某块骨牌永远不会倒下，这样你就预测了结果。
As I say in, beginning of infinity with the domino theory, you could follow through every single domino striking every other domino and work out that this one domino will never fall over, and then you will have predicted it.
但你依然对质数一无所知。
But you still won't understand anything about prime numbers.
你不会知道这是由质数引起的。
You won't know that it's due to prime numbers.
有些多米诺骨牌的排列方式无人知晓。
There are arrangements of dominoes where nobody knows.
未来一万年也不会有人明白，为何偏偏是这块骨牌立着，而其他没有。
Nobody will know for the next ten thousand years why a particular domino stands up and, not the others.
某些情况下，我们将永远无从知晓。
And some cases, we will never know.
这些情况都涉及持续添加骨牌，但改变不了事实：这些骨牌行为的解释与骨牌本身无关。
Those cases all involve continually adding dominoes, but that doesn't change the fact that there is an explanation of things that these dominoes do that doesn't have to do with dominoes.
那么你愿意简要说明你对自由意志的最佳解释吗？还是我们直接跳过这个话题？
So do you care to give a summary explanation of where you think your best explanation of free will, or should we just skip that?
这是个敏感话题。
It's a loaded topic.
我其实没有确切的解释。
I don't really have an explanation.
而且我认为自由意志与新解释的创造密切相关。
And I I think that free will is intimately connected with the creation of new explanations.
因为从哲学角度看，我们期待自由意志理论能提供创造的概念——就像牛顿物理学所缺乏的那种新事物诞生的可能性。
Because I think philosophically, the thing we want from a theory of free will and which doesn't seem to be present in like Newtonian physics or anything is the ideas of creation, of something new being created.
在牛顿物理学出现之前，只要哲学还存在，人们就会谈论上帝从虚无中创造宇宙。
Before we had Newtonian physics and as long as we still had philosophy, people would talk about the universe having been created by God out of nothing.
某些宗教和创世理论认为，上帝从虚无中创造了宇宙。
In some religions and some theories of creation, God creates the universe out of nothing.
他并非像用泥土或其他材料那样将某物塑造成宇宙。
It's not that he makes something into the universe like mud or whatever.
有些人确实没这么说过，但另一些人认为上帝是从虚无中创造了宇宙。
Some really didn't say that, but some of them say God created the universe out of nothing.
根据常识性民间心理学，当人类有了新的解释性想法时，他们就能无中生有地创造事物——这就是为什么我们会区分以下两种情况：X将Y推到了铁轨上（当时两人都站在站台上）。
Now common sense folk psychology, humans create something out of nothing when they have a new explanatory idea, and that's why we make a difference between person x pushes person y onto the railway line where they they're both standing on the platform.
而X是蓄意将Y推下站台，还是X本人被Z推了一把？
Whilst person x intending to push person y onto the platform or was person x himself pushed by person zed?
在这两种情况下，X推Y都是由于物理定律的作用。
In both cases, person x pushed person y because of the laws of physics.
但直觉告诉我们这两种情况天差地别，你可能很难轻易判断是哪一种，因为目击者也不清楚。
But, intuitively, we know that the two situations are chalk and cheese, You might not be able to tell very easily which it was because the eyewitnesses won't know.
所以你需要其他解释性知识，而不仅仅是观察结果来判断情况——但在法庭上，这种判断会被视为真实存在的事实。
So you need other explanatory knowledge, not just observations to tell you which it was, but which it was is considered a real thing in a court of law.
我认为这确实是真实存在的，其关键转折点在于：创造新解释本身就是创造真实事物。
And I think that it is a real thing, and the pivot on which this turns is the fact that creating new explanations is creating a real thing.
当爱因斯坦解决了狭义相对论如何与引力相容的问题，发明广义相对论并写下理论时，广义相对论并非早已隐含在爱因斯坦大脑中、或百年前的地球上、或是宇宙大爆炸里。
When Einstein solved the problem of how special relativity is consistent with gravity and invented general relativity and wrote down theory of general relativity, it's not the case that the theory of general relativity had already been implicit in Einstein's brain or in in the world on planet earth a hundred years before or in the big bang.
在爱因斯坦从无到有创造这一知识之前，它从未在任何地方隐含存在过。
It had never been implicit anywhere until Einstein created that knowledge out of nothing.
这就是自由意志的典型体现。
That's the quintessential act of free will.
这个行为是由爱因斯坦创造的，而非他人，也不是自然界的盲目力量所为。
It's an act that was created by Einstein and not someone else and not the blind forces of nature either.
这是他创造的。
It was created by him.
所以人们有时会用一个不同的例子，我认为这个例子无助于你尝试想象一个随机数。
So people sometimes use a different example which I think is not a helpful example of you try and think of a random number.
人们会说，想象一个1到100之间的随机数，你试着去想它，然后你绘制人们选择的数字，结果发现它们远非随机。
People say well think of a random number between one and a 100 and you try and think of it and then you plot the numbers that people choose and they're nowhere near random.
如果你让人说一个随机数，从来没有人会说1或100之类的数字。
If you ask a random number, no one ever says one or a 100 and so on.
而试图模拟随机数生成器的行为恰恰与自由意志相反。
And now trying to simulate a random number generator is the opposite of free will.
这是在用一个与自由意志相反的例子来说明人们对自由意志的理解。
That's using an example which is the opposite of free will to illustrate what people mean by free will.
爱因斯坦那天写下的内容是不可预测的，因为没有人面临他那样的问题情境。
What Einstein wrote on that day was unpredictable because no one else had his problem situation.
如果没有他面临的问题情境，要说想出这个解决方案需要宇宙年龄的时间都算是严重低估了。
And without his problem situation, would have taken you know saying it would have taken the age of the universe is gross understatement.
我的意思是，没有那个问题情境的人根本不可能想出那个解决方案。
Mean there's no way that somebody without that problem situation could have come up with that solution.
所以这就是自由意志的典型表现。
So that is the quintessential act of free will.
那种从你内心产生但不可预测的行为。
The one that emerges out of you but not predictably.
它不可预测的原因不在于它是随机的。
The reason it's not predictable is not that it's random.
恰恰相反。
It's the opposite.
这与随机性完全相反。
It's the opposite of being random.
因为它是那个问题的解决方案。
It's because it is the solution of that problem.
所以必须存在问题。
So there had to be a problem.
问题需要解决方案。
The problem required a solution.
解决方案是通过创造性方式得出的。
The solution was arrived at creatively.
是的。
Yes.
这个解决方案创造了知识，是真实存在的。
The solution creates knowledge, is a real thing.
是的。
Yes.
它在环境中具有因果效应，从GPS卫星到火箭等各种事物中自我复制，持续发展，从根本上改变了我们所在宇宙的运行本质。
Which is causal in the environment and causes itself to get replicated in everything from GPS satellites to rockets and continues on and fundamentally changes the nature of the universe that we operate in.
完美。
Perfect.
我说不了这么好，至少没法这么快说出来。
I couldn't have said it that well, or at least not that fast.
这整合了你所说的现实结构中的所有线索。
And this combines all of the strands of the fabric of reality that you're talking about.
是的。
Yes.
因为我们有一个普遍的解释者，以创造性的方式生成知识，并使这些知识在多元宇宙中复制。事实上，爱因斯坦的理论越接近正确，相对论在多元宇宙中的复制就越广泛，几乎形成了跨越多元宇宙的知识晶体结构。
Because we have a universal explainer creatively creating knowledge and then causing that knowledge to be replicated into the multiverse, and in fact, the closer Einstein is to being correct, the more the theory of relativity is replicated across the multiverse and it forms almost a crystal structure of knowledge across the multiverse.
是的。
Yes.
是的。
Yes.
因为在其他宇宙的其他大学里，其他的爱因斯坦们也会提出相同或非常相似的理论。
Because the other Einsteins in the other universities would have come up the other universes would have come up with the same theory or very nearly the same theory.
即使在爱因斯坦不存在的宇宙中，最终也会有人遇到并解决那个问题。
And even in the universes where Einstein didn't exist, somebody would eventually come across that problem and solve it.
当他们解决时，就会与其他宇宙的发现融合。
And then when they did, that would have merged with the other
正确。
Correct.
他们只有在遇到问题时才会解决并创造知识。
They would only solved it and only created the knowledge if they had the problem.
是的。
Yes.
如果没有遇到那个问题，如果是一台计算机被指定解决不同的问题，它
If they didn't have the problem, if it was a computer being told what problem to solve and it was a different problem, it
不会
would not
有 是的。
have Yes.
实际上，在爱因斯坦出现之前，人们是否意识到他们存在问题？
And actually, before Einstein came along, did people even think they had a problem?
其他人是否认为存在问题？
Did other people think there was a problem?
嗯，
Well,
所以爱因斯坦并非唯一思考这个问题的人。
so Einstein wasn't the only one wondering about this problem.
粗略地说，其他人确实也面临这个问题。
At a crude level, other people did have this problem.
事实上，正如常被提及的，数学家大卫·希尔伯特在听完爱因斯坦的演讲后，甚至亲自写下了爱因斯坦的方程。
In fact, as is often pointed out, the mathematician David Hilbert actually went as far as to write down Einstein's equations after listening to a lecture of Einstein's.
于是爱因斯坦向他阐述了这个问题。
So Einstein told him the problem.
他——可能是当时世界上最伟大的数学家——回到家，拿出一张纸，草草记下爱因斯坦花了数年才推导出的方程。
He, being possibly the greatest mathematician in the world at the time, went home, took out a bit of paper, jotted down Einstein's equations, which it took Einstein like years to work out.
但他并不知道自己写的是什么。
But he didn't know what he was writing.
他并不理解自己刚刚写下的内容。
He didn't understand what he had just written down.
19世纪的人们出于不同原因，曾思考过空间弯曲的可能性。
And other people in the nineteenth century had thought about the possibility of curved space for a different reason.
但高斯确实曾带着灯笼登上山顶，试图测量三角形内角和是否为180度。
But Gauss apparently actually went out with lanterns on hilltops and tried to measure whether the angles of a triangle add up to a 180 degrees.
他未能成功，因为所需精度要达到十亿分之一。
He couldn't do it because the accuracy required is one part in 10 to the eight.
不过十亿分之一的精度距离实现并非遥不可及。
But one part in 10 to the eight is not that far away from being possible.
我常想现在是否有人能用激光实现这个实验
And I I've often wondered whether somebody might actually be able to do it now with laser
就像桌面实验那样。
Table top like that.
诸如此类。
And so on.
那么我们来聊聊知识这个话题。
So let's talk a little bit about knowledge.
在你由这四大要素形成的世界观中，知识是什么？
What is knowledge in the your worldview formed by these four?
是的。
Yeah.
在我的哲学探索过程中，我形成了关于知识的几种不同概念，我认为它们都指向同一事物。
In the course of my philosophical meanderings, I've settled on several different conceptions of knowledge, which I think are they all refer to the same thing.
这只是对同一事物不同角度的描述，但本质上是相通的。
It's just a different way of characterizing what that thing is, but I think they all come to the same thing.
根据构造理论，我最近发现最有帮助的观点是：知识是一种信息形式，是实现物理转变的必要条件。
What I've recently found most helpful, thanks to constructor theory, is that knowledge is a form of information which is necessary for a physical transformation.
因此，如果某种物理转变只有在特定类型信息存在时才会发生，那么我就称这种信息为知识。
So if if a physical transformation will only happen when a certain type of information is there, then I call that information knowledge.
这很好地聚焦于基因中的知识和思想中的知识。
And that nicely focuses on the knowledge in genes and the knowledge in ideas.
还有其他形式的知识，比如存储在计算机或书籍中的知识。
And there's other knowledge which is stored knowledge like in computers or books.
知识可以被创造，但迄今为止我们所知的创造者只有进化和人类思维。
Knowledge can be created, but so far the only things we know of that can create it are evolution and human thought.
令人深思的是，地球上曾有多种具备这种能力的物种，但除了我们，它们都已灭绝。
It's very tantalizing that there were once several species on earth that could do this, and they all went extinct, all but us.
有趣的是，你刚才提到的构造理论中关于知识的观点也涉及转变，而这正是你在谈论财富时使用的术语。
Then interestingly, you take that notion that you've just mentioned about knowledge under constructor theory as being about transformations, but that's also the word that you use when you talk about wealth.
财富同样关乎转变。
It's also about transformation.
从构造理论角度看，无论是个人、国家还是整个世界，其财富都可以定义为：它能够实现的所有可能转变的集合（在它愿意的情况下）。
The wealth of an entity, whether it's of a person or of a country or whatever or of the world, can be defined as, in constructive theoretic terms, as the set of all the possible transformations that it could bring about, like in brackets, if it wanted to.
它永远不会实现所有这些转变，因为数量呈指数级增长或实在太多。
It's never gonna bring about all those because they're exponentially more or exponentially too many of them.
它必须遇到合适的问题。
It has to have the right problems.
如果遇到合适的问题，它就能利用拥有的知识加上物质资产来引发物理转变。
And if it has the right problems, then it can use the knowledge plus the physical assets that it has to cause physical transformations.
那么如果它遇到了正确的问题并找到了明确的解决方案，就能茁壮成长。
And then if it had the right problems and clear the right solutions, then it grows well.
而如果在这个过程中需要更多创造性的突破，它就会积累知识，从而也积累财富。
And if in the process it has to make more creative leaps to do so, it grows knowledge which also grows wealth.
是的。
Yes.
嗯嗯，确实如此。
Well well, that is true.
对。
Yes.
这强调的一点是：财富不能用数字来量化。
So one thing that this stresses is that wealth can't be quantified as a number.
财富是一系列转变的集合。
Wealth is a set a set of transformations.
因此我无法用这种绝对标准来判断，莫扎特是否比内森·罗斯柴尔德在这种根本意义上更富有。
And so I can't say whether in these sort of absolute terms whether Mozart was more rich in this fundamental sense than Nathan Rothschild.
内森·罗斯柴尔德拥有他从无到有创造的银行业知识体系。
So Nathan Rothschild had knowledge of banking, which he had created out of nothing.
而莫扎特则拥有他从无到有创造的音乐美学知识体系。
And Mozart had knowledge of musical beauty, which he had created out of nothing.
这两种情况下，他们都在前人基础上进行创新——就像所有知识创造那样——但他们都创造了前所未有的东西。
And in both cases, they were improving on previous ideas, like all knowledge such, but they they had created something that was not there before in both cases.
但你无法比较他们谁的知识更丰富，因为这两个知识集合的领域截然不同。
But you can't say that one of them had more knowledge than the other because the sets overlap Fairly distinct.
是的。
Yeah.
或者别重叠。
Or don't overlap.
是的。
Yeah.
你刚才提到，实际上这已经是第三次了。
You said there and in fact, that's the third time.
爱因斯坦从无到有创立了广义相对论。
Einstein created general relativity out of nothing.
莫扎特也是凭空创作出他的作品，但我能听到反对的声音在坚持。
Mozart created his work out of nothing, but I can hear the objections that hold on.
他们并非凭空创造。
They didn't create it out of nothing.
他们利用了已有的知识，并将其融合重组，某种程度上就像ChatGPT那样。
There were preexisting knowledge there that they have used and mashed up together rather like chat GPT.
所以广义相对论只是爱因斯坦基于已有几何学的即兴发挥，只是这些几何学此前未被应用于物理学。
So general relativity was just Einstein riffing off geometry that was there, but hadn't been repurposed for physics.
那么你如何回应那些反对这种创造观点的人？
So how do you answer those opponents of this idea of creation?
同样的，你知道，就说他们只是在做那件事。
The same, you know, saying that they were only doing that.
他们并非在凭空创造，而是在整合其他知识的片段并进行变奏。
They weren't doing that, but they were putting together bits of other knowledge and varying them.
他们所做的远不止这些，因为如果你现在尝试去做，你根本做不到。
That's not all they were doing because if you try and do that now, you won't do it.
这就像说人类只是原子的论点一样。
It's the same argument as saying humans are only atoms.
确实，人类只是原子，树木也只是原子，诸如此类，但人类的重要之处不在于他们是原子构成的。
Well, yeah, humans are only atoms and trees are only atoms and so on and what's important about humans is not that they're atoms.
也许有一天我们会将意识下载到硅基而非碳基载体中，到时候人们可能会说'哦，你只是硅基的'之类的话，或者说'我们只是硅基的'。
One day maybe we'll download our minds into silicon and not not carbon and then maybe people will be saying, oh, you're only silicon or something, or we're only silicon.
文明本身以及周遭的一切都在呼唤一个解释。
Civilization and just looking around cries out for an explanation.
如果你要否认人类的特殊性，那就解释为什么创造文明的是人类而非蜜蜂——
If you're going to deny that humans are special, then explain why it is humans and not the bees that are creating the
或者换个说法，仅凭拥有某些工具就能发现相对论的组合概率之低，就像不是给猴子打字机，而是给猴子计算器，指望它们能推导出相对论。
Or another way to put it, the combinatorics of discovering relativity just by having some tools that's so large, it's instead of monkeys with typewriters, now it's monkeys with calculators, and they're gonna come up with relativity.
这仍然是不可能的事。
That's still an impossibility.
我们谈过财富，也讨论过知识。
We talked wealth, we've talked knowledge.
噢，让我们来谈谈乐观主义吧。
Oh, let's talk optimism.
《无穷的开始》开篇就提出了乐观主义原则，或在很早期就引入了这个概念。
The beginning of infinity starts out with the principle of optimism or enters into it very early on.
这似乎是该书的核心纽带原则——关于知识增长的无穷开始。
This seems to be the fundamental binding principle of that book is the beginning of infinity of the growth of knowledge.
因此，乐观主义原则、错误修正、宇宙解释者，所有这些似乎都紧密相连。
And so the principle of optimism, error correction, universe explainers, all of these seem to go together.
乐观主义原则，这是我们从这一切中最重要的收获吗？
Does the principle of optimism, is that the most important takeaway from all of this?
这是最重要的综合吗？
Is it the most important synthesis?
它是否构成了我们应如何构建社会与生活的哲学基础？
Is it the philosophical basis for how we should probably structure our societies and live our lives?
它又是从何处产生的？
And where does it emerge from?
是的。
Yeah.
或许不该由我来说。
Maybe not my place to say.
有人告诉我，正是这个概念让他们理解了这本书。
It is one of the things that people have told me that it's that concept that makes them understand the book.
我写作时并未刻意考虑这一点。
I didn't write it with that in mind.
对我而言，它更多关乎认识论以及创造在物质世界中的作用等等。
For me, the it's more about epistemology and the role of creation in the physical world and so on.
而乐观主义原则只是其必然推论。
And the principle of optimism was a corollary of that.
但这些事物彼此关联如此紧密，你几乎可以从任何起点出发，通过发现最初关注的事物具有更广阔的背景，从而理解整个体系。
But all these things are so connected that you can start almost anywhere and get to the whole thing by seeing that the thing you were originally interested in has got a wider context.
这个更广泛的背景很重要。
This wider context is important.
因此，看待利他主义原则的另一种方式是，它只是建设性理论的基本原则——这里除了我们人类别无他物。
So another way of looking at the principle of altruism is that it's just the basic principle of constructive theory that there ain't no one here but us people.
如果你思考那些能够实现和无法实现的物理变化集合，在能够实现的那些中，绝大多数——再说一次这都算轻描淡写了——只能由人类来实现。
If you think of the set of physical transformations that can be brought about and can't be brought about, of the ones that can be brought about, the overwhelming majority, and again that's an understatement, can only be brought about by people.
由那些创造知识的人类实现，因为他们想要促成那些事情。
By people who create knowledge because they want to bring that thing about.
如果宇宙中没有人类，这些能够实现的事物集合将会极其微小。
And if there weren't people in the universe, this set of things which can be brought about would be tiny.
再说一次，说微小都是轻描淡写了。
And again tiny is an understatement.
那几乎等于零。
It would be almost nothing.
世界上可能只存在几十种事物，比如不同类型的恒星，仅此而已。
There'd be like a few dozen things in the world, different kinds of stars, and that would be that.
因此这是理解乐观主义的一个切入点——你会明白除非某件事物是可能的，那么它要么会像恒星或黑洞那样自然形成，要么将被主动实现。
So that's an entry point to the idea of optimism because you can see that unless so if something is possible, then either it's gonna happen spontaneously like a star or a black hole or it's gonna be brought about.
而如果它将被实现，几乎可以肯定是通过知识实现的。
And if it's gonna be brought about, it's almost certain to have been brought about by knowledge.
这些知识要么由进化创造，从长远来看几乎肯定是由人类创造的。
And knowledge will have been created either by evolution or almost certainly in the long run by people.
因为目前我们在所掌握知识的精妙程度上，或许仍在追赶进化，或刚刚超越进化。
Because at the moment we're kind of maybe still catching up or have just moved ahead of evolution in the sophistication of the knowledge that we have.
所以我认为你的意思是，如果你观察无生命的宇宙，只有少数几种基本力以已知的几种方式在作用。
So I think what you're saying is that if you look at the inanimate universe, there's only a few fundamental forces acting in a few known ways.
尽管它在巨大尺度上重复出现，但那里的知识多样性相当低。
And although it's replicated at huge scales, the diversity of knowledge there is quite low.
是的。
Yeah.
然后是通过进化创造的知识，相对于人类而言，进化有很长的时间运作，所以展示了一些令人印象深刻的事物，如草、树和人类本身。
And then after that comes the knowledge creation through evolution, which has had a long time to work relative to humans, so there are some impressive things to show like grass and trees and humans themselves.
但这种知识增长速度非常缓慢，你可以想象人类知识增长得更快，一旦开始在星际间传播，将成为解释宇宙结构时需要解释的主要事物。
But the growth of that rate of knowledge is very low and you can imagine human knowledge growing much faster and once it begins to spread amongst the stars, being the primary thing that needs to be explained to explain the structure of the universe.
完全正确。
Absolutely.
因此，我们正处于知识无限增长的起点，因为现在人类创造知识的速度和多样性远超以往任何事物，而且作为普遍的解释者，任何可以解释的事物我们都能解释，任何可以创造的事物我们都能创造。
And so we are at the beginning of the growth of an infinity of knowledge because we have humans now creating knowledge at a rate and diversity that's much greater than anything that's come before, and because we're universal explainers, anything that can be explained, we can explain anything that can be created, we can create.
是的。
Yes.
嗯，我很乐观。
Well, I'm optimistic.
任何物理上可能的转变都可以实现，而这需要知识。
Any transformation that is physically possible can be brought about, and it requires knowledge.
那么你试图用构造理论解决什么问题？
So what is the problem you're trying to solve with constructor theory?
我们在这里涉及到物理学。
We get into physics here.
物理学有几个主要领域。
So there are several areas of physics.
在研究基础物理、试图发现自然法则的人群中，存在一种默契共识：物理学理论乃至一般科学理论，本质上包含初始条件和运动定律两部分。要理解宇宙，就必须理解初始条件是什么以及运动定律是什么。
There is a sort of tacit consensus among people who study fundamental physics in the sense that they're looking to find out what the laws of nature are, that level of fundamental, that a theory of physics or in general a theory of science in general consists of a theory that says there are initial conditions, there are laws of motion, and to understand the universe, you have to understand what the initial conditions are and what the laws of motions are.
其余一切都由此衍生。
And everything else is derivative.
如果这些人相信解释力，他们也可以用同样的逻辑构建关于解释的理论。
If such people believe in explanation, they can make the same story about explanation as well.
虽然这种说法可能稍欠说服力。
They may be a little less plausibly.
但问题在于，并非所有科学理论都遵循这种模式。
But the trouble is that not all scientific theories are like that.
事实上，从某种角度看，大多数科学理论都与之大相径庭。
In fact, in some sense, most scientific theories are very unlike that.
我最喜欢的例子是达尔文的进化论——这个理论并非用于预测大象的存在。
My favorite example is Darwin's theory of evolution is not a theory that predicts the existence of elephants.
它是解释大象为何存在的理论，而这种解释力远胜任何预测可能达到的效果。
It's a theory that explains the existence of elephants, and the explanation does more than any prediction possibly could.
假设你用超级计算机模拟非洲草原（大象的进化地），当某刻它输出一张大象图片时，这并未解释任何关于事件成因或过程的实质问题。
Like if you could somehow run a supercomputer about the plains of Africa where elephants evolved and it predicts you know at one point it prints out a picture of elephant, It hasn't explained anything about what has happened or why.
而达尔文即便没有计算机也能得出真知——
Whereas Darwin who did not have a computer could have had one.
要是巴贝奇当年勤快点的话，他本可以拥有计算机的。
He could have had one if Babbage had pulled his finger out.
达尔文在没有计算机的情况下也理解了这一点。
Darwin understood it despite not having a computer.
因此，构造理论试图摆脱科学、知识等领域中的这种类别划分，努力建立一个统一的框架，用以表达物理定律、一般科学定律乃至超越科学的规律。
So constructor theory tries to get out of this class distinction among the sciences, among knowledge, and so on, and tries to make a uniform framework in which laws of physics and scientific laws in general and even beyond science can be expressed.
顺便说一句，当前看待基础科学的主流方式中，另一个极其显眼的问题是它不具有时间对称性。
By the way, one another thing that really stands out like a sore thumb in the prevailing way of looking at fundamental science is that it's not symmetrical in time.
它认为存在初始条件和运动定律，然后一切从初始条件开始向前演化。
So it says that there are initial conditions and laws of motion and everything is then evolved forward from the initial conditions.
但运动定律是时间对称的，所以你同样可以从宇宙的终点出发，说我们需要一个关于宇宙终点的理论。
But the laws of motion are time symmetric, so you could just as well start at the end of the universe and say we need a theory of the end of the universe.
我们希望宇宙的终点将包含大量知识，或许是无限的，但根据定义我们无法形成这样的理论。
Well, end of the universe we hope is going to contain lots of knowledge, perhaps an infinite amount, and there's no way we can form a theory of that by definition.
我的意思是，这是整个创世过程中我们最难以形成理论的事物。
I mean that's the thing we can least form a theory about in in the whole of creation.
更糟的是，我们还可以这样表述主流理论：要理解世界，你必须在十月的某一天理解当下的世界，然后才能用运动定律向前后推演以理解宇宙的其他部分。
And even worse, we could also frame the prevailing theory as to understand the world you have to understand it today on a certain day in October and then we can use the laws of motion to work backwards and forwards to understand the rest of the universe.
这显然行不通。
Well this is no good.
我是说，这显然无法解释任何事物，而初始条件和运动定律居然能用来解释事物本身就是非常例外的现象。
I mean, this obviously can't explain anything, and it's really exceptional that initial conditions and laws of motion are useful at all in explaining things.
碰巧它在解释太阳系等方面很有用，在制造微芯片、理解如何制药和化学等领域也很有用。
So happens it was useful in explaining the solar system and so on, and it's useful in making microchips and understanding how to make drugs and chemistry and so on.
不过好吧。
But okay.
这些确实是很大的领域。
So those are actually big fields.
但与我们尚未知晓的相比，这并不算多。
But compared with what we have yet to know, that isn't much.
而且我们已知的一些内容已经不再以那种形式存在，比如热力学。
And some of the things we already know are already not in that form, like thermodynamics, for example.
说一个好的解释应该是永恒或相对永恒的，这是否要求过高了？
Is it fair to say there are too much of a leap that a good explanation should be timeless or relatively timeless?
它不应该如此依赖于时间变量T。
It shouldn't be so dependent upon the T variable.
是的。
Yeah.
嗯，它不应该依赖于特定时间。
Well, it shouldn't depend on a specific time.
对，完全正确。
Yes, absolutely.
所以当你讨论初始条件和运动定律时，这在很大程度上是受时间限制的。
And so to the extent that you're talking about initial conditions and laws of motions, it's very time bound.
这看起来非常受限。
It seems very restricted.
是的。
Yes.
而且你无法向前推进太多，因为根据定义你无法预知知识的增长，而向后追溯又过于简化了。
And you can't go too far forward because you don't know the growth of knowledge coming up by definition, and going backwards is too reductive.
归根结底，我们只在那个时间点了解它。
It reduces down to we only know it at that point in time.
我们没有根本性的解释。
We don't have the underlying explanation.
正如你所说，回溯并声称我们理解十亿年前的宇宙，就像吐出一张大象的图片。
It's as you said, going back and saying we understand the universe a billion years ago is like spitting out a picture of an elephant.
这种解释应该适用于任何时期的任何物种。
The explanation should apply to any species at any time.
是的。
Yes.
因此从这个意义上说，构造理论试图更具永恒性。是的。
And so constructor theory is, in that sense, it's trying to be more timeless Yes.
更少预测性，更多解释性。
And less predictive and more explanatory.
对。
Yeah.
它对预测没有立场，但希望具有解释性。
It has no opinion about predictive, but it wants to be explanatory.
有时预测是解释的一部分。
Sometimes predictions are part of explanations.
所以，是的，它想要解释。
So, yeah, it wants to explain.
构造理论的理念不是孤立地看待一个物理系统，仿佛其他都不存在，然后问它会做什么？
And the idea in constructor theory is not to look at a physical system in isolation as if nothing else existed and say, what will it do?
要知道，我们拥有这些能预测其行为的方程式。
You know, we have these equations that say what it will do.
有时它们甚至能解释其行为原理。
Sometimes they even explain what it will do.
但构造理论所做的是告诉我们：这里有一个系统。
But what constructor theory does is say we have a system.
我们能对它做什么？
What can we do to it?
它可以被施加什么操作？
What can be done to it?
必须谨慎定义'可施加操作'的含义，因为某些看似可执行的操作实际上作用于更大的系统——比如当你说特斯拉能做什么时，充满电的特斯拉可以每小时行驶100英里。
You have to be careful in defining what we mean by what can be done to it because some of the things that we might think of as what we can do to it means that we're actually acting on a bigger system where if you say what can be done to a Tesla, you say a fully charged Tesla can roll along at a 100 miles an hour.
所以这是它的能力之一。
So that's something it can do.
它可以被施加什么操作？
What can be done to it?
需要特别注意，比如充电在构造理论中不算作'可施加操作'。
Well, that you've got to be careful that, for example, charging it doesn't count in constructive theory as something that can be done to it.
因为这种情况下你必须说明'特斯拉和电力组合体'能做什么。
Because there you would have to say what can be done to a Tesla and some electricity.
这个组合体能够实现的是将人类从牛津运送到伦敦。
So what can be done to that is that it can transport a human from Oxford to London.
所以这就是这些事物能够实现的其中一项功能。
So So that's one of the things that can be done with those things.
但如果你进行的转化涉及消耗其他资源，那么这就是对事物和该资源的共同转化。
But if the transformation you're doing involves depleting some other resource, then it is a transformation on the thing and the other resource.
而构造性理论仅处理事物与该资源的关系。
And constructive theory only deals with the thing and the other resource.
仅处理
Only deals with the
所以它仅针对你所考虑的转化目的处理完整系统。
So it only deals with complete systems for the purpose of the transformation that you're considering.
当你讨论转化时，它涉及该转化中的所有相关因素。
When you're talking about a transformation it deals with everything involved in that transformation.
具体而言，它像主流观念那样处理孤立系统——基本上只处理孤立系统，但广义上它会处理你想进行的任何转化所涉及的所有要素。
So in particular it deals with isolated systems like the prevailing conception only deals with isolated systems basically but in general it deals with everything that's involved in whatever transformation you want to do.
那么你可以制定法则，规定某些转化无论如何都不被允许。
Then you can say you can have laws that say that certain transformations are not allowed no matter what you do.
比如假设你有辆特斯拉汽车，想让其达到1.1倍光速，我们可以断言：特斯拉或任何物体都无法达到1.1倍光速。
Even if you so if you have let's say a Tesla and you wanted to go at 1.1 of the speed of light, then we can say a Tesla and anything cannot be made to go at 1.1 times the speed of light.
这就是'无法超光速'的构造性理论表述——实际上这个直观陈述非常简单，人人都能理解。
That's the constructive theoretic statement of you can't go faster than light, which actually is the intuitive statement you can't go faster than light is very simple and everyone can understand it.
要用现有基础物理学方式完整表达这个内容其实非常困难。虽然你可以轻松写下'若质量为m的物体获得能量...'这类陈述，但要对可操作事项进行预测，就需要建立关于所有可能操作的理论体系。
To express the full content of that in physical terms given the existing way of doing fundamental physics is actually very difficult because although you can write down easily a statement like if a mass m is given an energy and so on but you actually predicted in terms of things you can do, you would have to have a theory of all the possible things you can do.
关于光速恒定的真正法则是一条超越性法则。
The real law about the constancy of the speed of light is a transcendent law.
我称之为物理原理而非定律——我对原理和定律做了明确区分。
It's what I call physical principle rather than a law and I distinguish between principles and laws.
这一物理原理旨在阐述尚未被发现的定律。
And the physical principle purports to make statements about laws not yet discovered.
因此，如果有人发现了新的基本粒子、暗能量等，这个关于光速的原理将表明暗能量也无法超越光速。
So if somebody discovers a new fundamental particle, dark energy, and so on, principle of this about the speed of light will say that dark energy can't move faster than light either.
我举了个不太恰当的例子，因为在某种意义上它确实可以。
I share a bad example because there's a sense in which it can.
所以我们换成暗物质来说吧。
So let's make it dark matter.
我和同事基亚拉·莫莱托以及我们这些研究构造理论的人认为，现有的所有物理定律要么可以用构造理论术语重新表述，要么就是那些能精确用构造理论表述的理论的近似。
We think that I and my colleague Chiara Moleto and those of us who are working on constructive theory think that all the existing laws of physics can either be re expressed in constructive theoretic terms or be approximations to theories that can be expressed exactly in constructive theoretic terms.
我们还认为，像热力学这样目前只能用传统术语近似表述的理论，也能用构造理论术语精确表达。
And we also think that theories like thermodynamics, which is at present only expressed approximately in conventional terms, can be expressed exactly in constructive theoretic terms.
再次强调，因为在构造理论中，你的定律会包含那些你可能需要对某物施加操作的要素。
Again, because in constructive theoretic terms your laws are going to include the things that you might need to do something to something.
因此你可以对可能需要用于某目的的物体做出普遍性陈述，而禁令则会表明无论你带来什么，都无法实现某某操作。
So you can make a general statement about things that you might need to use for something and the prohibition would say no matter what you bring, you won't be able to do so and so.
比如，你将无法违反第二定律。
You won't be able to violate the second wall, for example.
那么除了这种整体性、统一性的研究路径外，构造理论是否能解释某些传统物理学无法解释的现象？
So besides this sort of holistic or unifying approach that it seems to be taking, are there any explanations that constructive theory can explain something that cannot be explained by conventional physics?
嗯，确实可以。
Well, yes.
基亚拉·莫莱托提出了一种构造理论版本的热力学，它解释了第二定律在微观层面成立的含义。
Chiara Moleto has a version of thermodynamics, which is constructive theoretic and which explains what it means for say the second law to hold at a microscopic level.
我们之前说过，观察一个原子时，无法判断它是可逆还是不可逆的。
We said earlier that looking at an atom, can't tell whether it's reversible or irreversible.
因此在构造性理论中，我们可以参考她论文中提到的——回归到约百年前提出的卡拉西奥多里热力学版本，该理论基于绝热与非绝热过程的区分。
So what we can do in constructive theory, she wrote a paper about this, is you can go back to a version of thermodynamics invented like a hundred years ago called caratiodori, which depends on distinction between an adiabatic process and non adiabatic process.
而他并未试图用物理对象来表述这一理论。
And this he didn't try to express it in terms of physical objects.
他只是直接断言：某些过程是绝热的，某些则不是，绝热过程具有这些特性，非绝热过程则具有那些特性。
He just said by fiat, some processes are adiabatic, some not, and the adiabatic ones have these properties and the ones not have those properties.
由此可以进行定义。
You can define from that.
你可以界定功与热的区别。
You can define the difference between work and heat.
可以定义热力学第二定律和第一定律。
You can define the second law and the first law.
顺便说，基娅拉理论的一个优点在于，它用信息术语表述第一定律，而传统统计热力学仅能用信息术语表述第二定律。
By the way one of the nice things about Chiara's theory is that it expresses the first law in terms of information whereas ordinary statistical thermodynamics only manages to express the second law in terms of information.
但蒂亚拉理论同时涵盖了第一定律。
But Tiara's theory does the first law as well.
我们仍不清楚该如何理解第三定律。
Still don't know what to make of the third law.
比如，我们内心其实并不完全明白'某种转变不可能实现'具体意味着什么。
Like, we're not really clear in our own minds about what it means for a transformation to be impossible.
现在每当我听到'能'或'不能'这类词，就会自动联想到构造性理论。
Whenever I hear the word can or can't now, I'm automatically put in the mind of constructive theory.
当我们听到乐观主义原则时，你知道，如果存在邪恶或问题，只要有正确的知识，我们就能解决它。
So when we hear the principle of optimism, you know, if there is an evil, if there is a problem, then we can solve it given the right knowledge.
这就是从你工作中体现出的乐观观点。
And that's the optimistic view that falls out of your work.
现在有一整个运动在进行。
There's a whole movement now.
你可能已经在X或Twitter上注意到，这个技术乐观主义运动和自称加速主义者的人，我99%赞同他们。
You may have noticed gets about on X or Twitter, this techno optimism movement and the accelerationists as they call themselves, which I'm 99% with them.
但他们除了你所拥有的之外，或者说可能是减法，还带有一种必然性的色彩。
But what they have in addition to what you have, or maybe it's a subtraction, is a flavor of inevitability to the whole thing.
所以与其说'我们能解决这些问题，情况会变好'，不如说'必须或必将如此'。
So rather than that we can solve these problems and things can get better, it's more a will or they must.
看看过去，情况确实变好了，这是不可避免的。
And look at the past, things have gotten better, it's inevitable.
你对我们处境的必然性有什么看法吗？
Do you have anything to say about the inevitability of our circumstances?
是的，当然，我认为认为进步是必然的这种想法。
Yeah, well, of course, I think thinking of progress is inevitable.
这是非常危险的。
It's very dangerous.
它会导致人们忽视危险。
It causes people to ignore dangers.
未来如何取决于我们自己。
What will happen is up to us.
这不取决于法律、物理、上帝或其他什么。
It's not up to law or physics or god or something.
我们可能会搞砸。
We can screw up.
如果我们做出错误的选择，我们可能会自我毁灭。
We can destroy ourselves if we make the wrong choices.
就像我之前说的，你知道，这里除了我们人类没有别人。
As I said earlier, you know, there's no one here but us humans.
我们可能会全盘皆错。
We could do it all wrong.
而在过去，我们经常犯下全盘皆错的错误。
And in the past we often done it all wrong.
所以这种乐观主义并未阻止雅典的衰落或佛罗伦萨的衰落等等。
So it's not as though this optimism didn't stop the fall of Athens or the fall of Florence and so on.
没有什么能阻止我们文明的衰落。
And nothing like that is gonna stop the fall of our civilization.
我们必须行动起来。
We've got to do it.
是啊。
Yeah.
这似乎是一种技术乐观主义和进步必然性中隐含的悲观主义，因为它暗示我们只是随波逐流。
It seems like this is almost a sense in which techno optimism and inevitability of progress has pessimism built in because it says that we're just along for the ride.
我们别无选择。
We don't have a choice to make.
无论那台伟大的机器是什么，那智能机器、超级智能正将我们拖向某个更好的地方，而人不过是附带产物。
And so whatever the great machine is, the intelligent machine, the super intelligence that is dragging us towards some better place, well, people are by the by.
但我认为这也误解了人类的普遍性。
But I think it also misunderstands the universality of people.
所以这与我的两个问题密切相关，这些问题将话题拉回个体和某种哲学层面。
So this is very related to my two questions, which are just bringing it back to the individual and somewhat philosophical.
你可以选择将其个人化或保持客观，但作为当今世界的一个个体，若你想通过改变创造更美好的世界，这些原则和现实结构的四大要素应如何指导你的思考？
And you can even make it personal or not, but if you're an individual in the world today, and if you want to make a difference to make a better world, how should these principles and these four strands of the fabric of reality inform your thinking?
你应该做些什么来创造更美好的世界？
What should you be doing to make a better world?
然后你该为自己做些什么来过上更好的生活？
And then what should you be doing for yourself to live a better life?
好的。
Okay.
这不是两个问题。
Those are not two questions.
它们是一个问题。
They're one question.
我认为这种表述本身就有些误导性，因为只有当世界的良善与否在你的问题情境中占据重要位置时，你才会想要改善世界。
And I think the formulation is already a bit misleading because I think that you will want to make a better world if the goodness of the world, the goodness or otherwise of the world, figures large in your problem situation.
就像发明了绿色革命的诺曼·博洛格那样。
Like Norman Borlaug who invented, you know, the green revolution or whatever.
对他来说，他的问题是如何提高农业生产力，而这本质上是个全球性问题。
For him, his problem was to make agriculture more productive, and that is inherently a world problem.
因此，他本质上是在创造性地思考，他必须考虑对植物进行的改造是否会成本高昂或低廉，以及是否容易受到病害影响等问题。
And so he inherently what he was thinking creatively about was the he had to take into account whether the modification to plants that he was thinking of would be expensive or cheap and whether it would be susceptible to disease and so on.
所以他必须解决这一系列问题。
So he had to solve that range of problems.
法拉第同样通过发明电磁感应拯救了世界，但他并非刻意为之。
Faraday, who also saved the world by inventing electromagnetic induction, was not trying to.
他试图解决的是关于电、磁、世界构成方式以及世间万物如何在基础物理层面相互影响等问题。
He was trying to solve problems about electricity, magnetism, and how the world is put together and how the different strands of the world affect each other and so on at a level of fundamental physics.
我认为他当时根本无法想象，一百年后发电机竟会成为生死攸关的事物。
He wouldn't have been able to conceive, I think, that electrical generators would be a matter of life and death a hundred years later.
他当然也不是一开始就问：怎样才能造出一台百年后关乎生死的机器？
And he definitely did not start out saying, how can I make a machine that will be a matter of life and death in a hundred years time?
他实现了这个目标，但并非有意为之。
He achieved that, but he wasn't intending to.
他全力以赴地解决自己的问题，而这个问题恰好也是那个时代最重要的科学难题之一。
He was going flat out trying to solve his problem, which by the way also turned what also happened to be one of the most important scientific problems of the age.
但他甚至都没刻意尝试，他并非一开始就说：我要先找到当代最具科学价值的问题，然后全身心投入其中。
But he wasn't even trying again, he didn't set out to say, first I'll find the most scientifically interesting problem of the age and then I'll devote myself to it.
事实并非如此。
That's not how it went.
事实证明那个问题确实具有重要科学意义，但他想解决它纯粹是出于兴趣。
It turned out to be that that problem was scientifically important, but he wanted to solve it because he was interested in it.
他对那个特定现象及其可行性充满好奇。
He was interested in that particular thing and whether it would work.
我认为牛顿那句名言，说他在海边捡拾特别漂亮的鹅卵石，其实讲的是同一件事。
And I think Newton's famous quote about being a boy walking along the beach picking up pebbles that looked particularly nice to him, I think he was talking about the same thing.
他性格古怪，谁知道他究竟想对这个世界做什么。
He had a strange personality and who knows what he was trying to do to the world.
可能没什么好事。
Probably nothing good.
但在他那些科学发现中，他确实如自己所言。
But in his scientific discoveries, he was like he said.
他试图解决那些他认为有趣的问题。
He was trying to solve the problems that he thought were interesting.
我认为在日常生活中，任何偏离这一原则的行为都很危险。
And I think in one's everyday life, I think any deviation from that is dangerous.
出于多种原因，我不想坐在这里给人建议。
I don't want to sit here giving advice for many reasons.
但你可以给年轻的大卫·多伊奇一些建议，他当初差点没选择物理这条路。
But you could advise a young David Deutsch who perhaps didn't go into physics.
是啊。
Yeah.
我宁愿告诉年轻的大卫·多伊奇那些他真正想知道的具体事情。
Well, I I'd rather tell the young David Deutsch specific things than he wanted to know.
追随别人的问题，或是追求那些在个人认知之外被定义为重要的问题，这很危险。
It's dangerous to follow someone else's problem or a problem that one thinks is important in a sense other than that it figures large in one's own mind.
我说危险，并不是说这一定会导致不幸，就像在我看来做正确的事也未必就一定能带来幸福一样。
When I say it's dangerous, it's not guaranteed to produce unhappiness, even just exactly the same way that doing the right thing in my view is guaranteed to produce happiness.
两者都无法保证。
Neither is guaranteed.
没有任何事情是确定的。
Nothing is guaranteed.
我们可能做了正确的事却遭遇灾难，也可能做了错事却获得成功。
We can do the right thing and still have a disaster or we can do the wrong thing and succeed.
所有这些情况都会发生，但如果你想通过这种思维过程来解释事物如何产生，就会得出某些结论，比如乐观主义，以及你之前提到的追随基金。
All these things happen but if you want to explain how things come about by this process thought then it leads to certain conclusions such as optimism and such as as you said earlier following the fund.
这是另一种看待问题的方式。
That's another way of looking at it.
我认为诺曼·博洛格所做的就是追随基金。
I think following the fund is what Norman Borlaug did.
法拉第也是如此。
It's what Faraday did.
牛顿也是这样做的。
It's what Newton did.
我想可能也有人没有这样做却依然解决了重要问题，但那只是侥幸。
I think there are probably people who didn't do it, who still solve important problems, but it was a fluke.
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