Robin Ince: Science versus wonder?
科学毁了幻想？
I'd like to apologize, first of all, to all of you because I have no form of PowerPoint presentation. So what I'm going to do is, every now and again, I will make this gesture, and in a moment of PowerPoint democracy, you can imagine what you'd like to see.
首先我想先和大家道个歉，因为我没有准备幻灯片，所以接下来的演讲中在需要幻灯片展示的时候，我会作这个手势，你可以自己去发挥想象。
I do a radio show. The radio show is called "The Infinite Monkey Cage." It's about science, it's about rationalism. So therefore, we get a lot of complaints every single week -- complaints including one we get very often, which is to say the very title, "Infinite Monkey Cage," celebrates the idea of vivisection. We have made it quite clear to these people that an infinite monkey cage is roomy.
我有一个电台节目，节目叫做"无限的猴子笼."。是个关于科学、理性的节目。因此，我们每个礼拜都被投诉--其中被投诉最多的就是节目名称"无限的猴子笼"，称其倡导活体解剖。我们向这些投诉者明确解释，一个无限大的猴子笼是够宽广的。
(Laughter)
（笑声）
We also had someone else who said, "'The Infinite Monkey Cage' idea is ridiculous. An infinite number of monkeys could never write the works of Shakespeare. We know this because they did an experiment." Yes, they gave 12 monkeys a typewriter for a week, and after a week, they only used it as a bathroom.
还有些人说“无限的猴子笼”的名字太荒唐了，无数的猴子根本无法写出莎士比亚的著作。我们这么说因为他们做过一个实验”。确实，他们给12个猴子一个打字机，一个星期后，猴子只把它当厕所用。
(Laughter)
（笑声）
So the main element though, the main complaint we get -- and one that I find most worrying -- is that people say, "Oh, why do you insist on ruining the magic? You bring in science, and it ruins the magic." Now I'm an arts graduate; I love myth and magic and existentialism and self-loathing. That's what I do. But I also don't understand how it does ruin the magic. All of the magic, I think, that may well be taken away by science is then replaced by something as wonderful.
我们接到的主要投诉，我最为担心的是有人说“为什么你们坚持要戳穿幻想？你们带来了科学，却摧毁了幻想”。我现在进修艺术研究生，我热爱神话和幻想，也喜欢存在主义和自我厌恶，我就是这样的，但是我还不明白这怎么就毁了幻想了。我认为所有可以被科学所解释的幻想，是被同样奇妙的东西所代替了。
Astrology, for instance: like many rationalists, I'm a Pisces. (Laughter) Now astrology -- we remove the banal idea that your life could be predicted; that you'll, perhaps today, meet a lucky man who's wearing a hat. That is gone. But if we want to look at the sky and see predictions, we still can. We can see predictions of galaxies forming, of galaxies colliding into each other, of new solar systems. This is a wonderful thing. If the Sun could one day -- and indeed the Earth, in fact -- if the Earth could read its own astrological, astronomical chart, one day it would say, "Not a good day for making plans. You'll been engulfed by a red giant."
比如，占星术：像许多理性主义者一样，我也是双鱼座：）。如今的占星术--我们去除了一些陈腐的东西，比如可以预知生命之类的，你今天也许会遇到一位幸运的人，他会戴着一顶帽子，现在没这些了。但是，如果我们希望通过观星象预测，还是可以的。我们可以据此预测星系的形成，预测星系碰撞成为新的太阳。这非常棒，如果有天，太阳--甚至是地球--如果地球可以读懂它的天文图的话。某一天就可以说“今天不是吉日你将被一个红巨星吞没”。
And that to me as well, that if you think I'm worried about losing worlds, well Many Worlds theory -- one of the most beautiful, fascinating, sometimes terrifying ideas from the quantum interpretation -- is a wonderful thing. That every person here, every decision that you've made today, every decision you've made in your life, you've not really made that decision, but in fact, every single permutation of those decisions is made, each one going off into a new universe. That is a wonderful idea. If you ever think that your life is rubbish, always remember there's another you that's made much worse decisions than that. (Laughter) If you ever think, "Ah, I want to end it all," don't end it all. Remember that in the majority of universes, you don't even exist in the first place. This to me, in its own strange way, is very, very comforting.
对我来说也很棒，如果你觉得我担心世界末日。那么多世界理论--最棒、最吸引人、有时又让人恐怖的理论之一出自量子力学解释--是个很棒的东西。在座每一位，每一个你今天作出的决定、每一个你生命中做过的决定，并不是你作出了那个决定，而是那些决定的每一个其他可能已经被做出，各自将在新的宇宙中发展。那是个很棒的想法。如果你曾经想过你的生活毫无意义，记住还有其他的你，做出了比你现在还要糟糕的决定：）。如果你曾想过“啊，我想自杀”，不要那么做。记住在无数宇宙中的大部分里，你首先就根本没有存在过，对我来说，这虽然有点离奇，但是非常非常令人欣慰的。
Now reincarnation, that's another thing gone -- the afterlife. But it's not gone. Science actually says we will live forever. Well, there is one proviso. We won't actually live forever. You won't live forever. Your consciousness, the you-ness of you, the me-ness of me -- that gets this one go. But every single thing that makes us, every atom in us, has already created a myriad of different things and will go on to create a myriad of new things. We have been mountains and apples and pulsars and other people's knees. Who knows, maybe one of your atoms was once Napoleon's knee. That is a good thing. Unlike the occupants of the universe, the universe itself is not wasteful. We are all totally recyclable. And when we die, we don't even have to be placed in different refuse sacs. This is a wonderful thing.
转世，这是另一个废弃的概念--来生，但也没完全废弃。科学实际上也认为我们将会永生。不过有一个限制性条件，我们事实上不会永生，你不会永生，你的意识，你、我本身--都终将会逝去，但是每一个组成我们的部分，每一个原子已经创造了无数的不同的事物，并且还将继续创造无数新事物。我们曾经是山脉或苹果或脉冲星或是别人的膝盖，谁知道呢？也许你其中的一个原子以前曾经是拿破仑的膝盖，那很好，不像宇宙的居住者们，宇宙本身并不浪费。我们都是可循环的，当我们死后我们甚至都不用被垃圾分类，这是件很棒的事情。
Understanding, to me, does not remove the wonder and the joy. For instance, my wife could turn to me and she may say, "Why do you love me?" And I can with all honesty look her in the eye and say, "Because our pheromones matched our olfactory receptors." (Laughter) Though I'll probably also say something about her hair and personality as well. And that is a wonderful thing there. Love does not die because of that thing.
对我来说，理解这些并不会失去幻想与乐趣。比如，我夫人可以问我“你为什么爱我？”我也可以诚实地看着她的眼睛，说“因为我们的外激素比较适合对方的嗅觉器官。”：）也许我还会说些其他的，比如她的头发和个性什么的，这是多好的事情啊，爱并不会因此而变淡。
Pain doesn't go away either. This is a terrible thing, even though I understand pain. If someone punches me -- and because of my personality, this is recently a regular occurrence -- I understand where the pain comes from. It is basically momentum to energy where the four-vector is constant -- that's what it is. But at no point can I react and go, "Ha! Is that the best momentum-to-energy fourth vector constant you've got?" No, I just spit out a tooth.
痛也同样不会消失，这就不怎么好了，即使我了解痛苦。如果有人给我一拳--由于我的个性，这是最近经常发生的事情--我知道疼痛来自哪里。基本上就是动量到能量的过程中，四维矢量是恒定的--就是那样。但我不可能说，“哈，这就是你能使出来的最好的动能四向量恒量吗？”我不知道，我只是掉了颗牙。
(Laughter)
（笑声）
And that is all of these different things -- the love for my child. I have a son. His name is Archie. I'm very lucky, because he's better than all the other children. Now I know you don't think that. You may well have your own children and think, "Oh no, my child's best." That's the wonderful thing about evolution -- the predilection to believe that our child is best. Now in many ways, that's just a survival thing. The fact we see here is the vehicle for our genes, and therefore we love it. But we don't notice that bit; we just unconditionally love. That is a wonderful thing. Though I should say that my son is best and is better than your children. I've done some tests.
那就是所有不同的事情--对，我孩子的爱，我有一个儿子，叫阿奇。我很幸运，因为他是最好的，我知道你们肯定不这么想，因为你也许也有自己的孩子，心想，“我孩子才是最棒的”。那是关于进化论的很棒的事--偏向于相信自己孩子是最好的。在很多不同方面，那只是个生存问题，我们在这看到的是，基因的传承，所以我们才会偏爱。我们忽略了一点，我们是无条件的爱。那很棒，虽然我会说我的儿子最好，比你们的孩子更好。我做了些测试。
And all of these things to me give such joy and excitement and wonder. Even quantum mechanics can give you an excuse for bad housework, for instance. Perhaps you've been at home for a week on your own. You house is in a terrible state. Your partner is about to return. You think, what should I do? Do nothing. All you have to do is, when she walks in, using a quantum interpretation, say, "I'm so sorry. I stopped observing the house for a moment, and when I started observing again, everything had happened." (Laughter) That's the strong anthropic principle of vacuuming.
所有这些对我来说，给我带来了很多快乐、兴奋，且让我惊讶，甚至量子力学可以给你一个家里凌乱的理由，比如你已经独自在家一周了，家里凌乱不堪，你的另一半就要回来了。你想，我该做什么？什么也不做。你需要做的是，当她走进来的时候，用量子学解释说，“实在对不起，我已经有段时间没观察过房子了，当我再开始去观察它的时候，就变成这样了”：）那是带有强烈人为意识的真空学理论。
For me, it's a very, very important thing. Even on my journey up here -- the joy that I have on my journey up here every single time. If you actually think, you remove the myth and there is still something wonderful. I'm sitting on a train. Every time I breathe in, I'm breathing in a million-billion-billion atoms of oxygen. I'm sitting on a chair. Even though I know the chair is made of atoms and therefore actually in many ways empty space, I find it comfortable. I look out the window, and I realize that every single time we stop and I look out that window, framed in that window, wherever we are, I am observing more life than there is in the rest of the known universe beyond the planet Earth. If you go to the safari parks on Saturn or Jupiter, you will be disappointed. And I realize I'm observing this with the brain, the human brain, the most complex thing in the known universe. That, to me, is an incredible thing. And do you know what, that might be enough.
对我来说，这是非常重要的事，甚至是在我来这的路上--我每次来这的路上都充满欢乐。如果你真的认为，你不相信虚幻，其实仍然会有些很奇妙的东西。我坐在火车上，我每一次呼吸，我无数次的吸进氧原子。我坐在椅子上，甚至想，我知道这个椅子是由原子构造的。因此，理论上就会有许多空隙，我发现这很有趣。我看着窗外，意识到每一次我们停下来注视着那扇窗外，有框的窗户，不管我们在哪，我是在观察比超越地球的已知宇宙的总和还要多的无数生命。如果你去土星或者木星的徒步公园，你会失望。当我意识到我是在用大脑观察人类的，大脑是在已知的宇宙中最复杂的东西，那对我来说是不可思议的事情。你知道吗，那也许就够了。
Steven Weinberg, the Nobel laureate, once said, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless." Now for some people, that seems to lead to an idea of nihilism. But for me, it doesn't. That is a wonderful thing. I'm glad the universe is pointless. It means if I get to the end of my life, the universe can't turn to me and go, "What have you been doing, you idiot? That's not the point." I can make my own purpose. You can make your own purpose. We have the individual power to go, "This is what I want to do." And in a pointless universe, that, to me, is a wonderful thing. I have chosen to make silly jokes about quantum mechanics and the Copenhagen interpretation. You, I imagine, can do much better things with your time.
史蒂芬·温伯格，诺贝尔奖得主，曾经说过“宇宙越是呈现出可理解性，就越显得没有意义。”如今有些人将此理解为虚无主义，但对我来说，不是那样的，那其实挺好的。我很乐于认为宇宙是无意义的。即如果我到了生命尽头，宇宙不会跟我说：“你都干了什么，你这个笨蛋？不该那么做。”我可以有自己的目的，你也可以给自己定目标。我们都有自由意志：“这是我想做的事情”。一个没有意义的宇宙，对我来说，其实是很棒的事，是我选择了讲些关于量子力学和哥本哈根诠释的傻傻笑话。那么我想你可以更好地利用你的时间做更好的事情。
Thank you very much. Goodbye.
十分感谢，拜拜。
(Applause)
（掌声）