David Deutsch on Multiple Worlds and Our Place in Them (Ep. 124)
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎回到与泰勒对话。
Today I am with David Deutsch.
今天我和大卫·多伊奇在一起。
David, welcome.
大卫，欢迎。
Hello!
你好！
Good afternoon.
下午好。
On the many-worlds theory
关于多世界理论
Now, I have a question.
现在，我有一个问题。
I am myself a metaphysical agnostic.
我自己就是一个形而上学不可知论者。
I’m unwilling to step into a Star Trek transporter machine because I’m afraid it would kill me and it’s a copy of me that would keep on living.
我不愿意踏入星际迷航运输机，因为我担心它会杀死我，而它是我的复制品，会继续活着。
At what price are you willing to step into a Star Trek transporter machine?
您愿意以什么价格乘坐星际迷航运输机？
I certainly wouldn’t want to be the first person, but I suppose you’re asking the question separately from do I think it would work technically?
我当然不想成为第一人，但我想你是在问这个问题，与我认为这在技术上可行吗？
Sure.
当然。
Assume it works as in the TV show, but metaphysically, there’s a question you face.
假设它像电视节目中那样工作，但从形而上学的角度来看，你面临一个问题。
You believe in many-worlds theory, right?
你相信多世界理论，对吗？
Yes, though I don’t think that is connected.
是的，尽管我认为这没有联系。
I think it’s more physicalism or something like that: that I believe that there’s nothing to me except this running program in my brain.
我认为这更多的是物理主义或类似的东西：我相信除了我大脑中运行的程序之外，我什么都没有。
If that program were to run somewhere else and stop running in my brain, then I wouldn’t notice anything, and I would, indeed, have traveled to that other place.
如果该程序在其他地方运行并停止在我的大脑中运行，那么我不会注意到任何事情，而且我确实会前往另一个地方。
Say the world forks and it’s possible both that you do and do not step into the machine.
假设世界分叉，你可能会进入机器，也可能不会进入机器。
Isn’t it the case that some version of the earlier you is still existing along one of the forks, so you have nothing to worry about?
难道早期的你的某些版本仍然存在于其中一个分叉上，所以你没有什么可担心的吗？
Some version of me .
我的某个版本。
.
。
.
。
whenever I make a decision which could go either way, some version of me will have presumably made the other decision.
每当我做出一个可能朝任何方向发展的决定时，我的某个版本可能会做出另一个决定。
Although that’s not as simple as it sounds, because both the other version of me and me are error-correcting entities.
虽然这并不像听起来那么简单，因为另一个版本的我和我都是纠错实体。
That’s the whole point of what human thought is: it’s error correction.
这就是人类思想的全部意义：它是纠错。
Therefore, it will take more than just a cosmic ray hit to make the difference between deciding something yes or no. This would have to be an inconsequential decision, which (unbeknownst to me) will have a large effect, and then later cause me to be a different person, and so on.
因此，要决定某件事是或否，需要的不仅仅是宇宙射线的照射。这一定是一个无关紧要的决定，它（我不知道）会产生很大的影响，然后导致我成为一个不同的人，等等。
That’s happening all the time, independently of Star Trek machines or anything like that.
这种情况一直在发生，与《星际迷航》机器或类似的东西无关。
That is the case and fortunately, it turns out — at least if ordinary decision theory is true in nonquantum cases, then it turns out that ordinary decision theory with randomness produces the same rational decisions as quantum decision theory with the multiverse.
事实就是如此，幸运的是，事实证明——至少如果普通决策理论在非量子情况下是正确的，那么事实证明，具有随机性的普通决策理论会产生与具有多元宇宙的量子决策理论相同的理性决策。
It shouldn’t make any difference to decisions, and that includes the decision whether to use the Star Trek transporter.
它不应该对决策产生任何影响，其中包括是否使用《星际迷航》运输车的决定。
Sure.
当然。
So as long as there’s a possible world where your atoms aren’t scattered and you just didn’t get into the machine, you don’t have to worry too much about your decision?
那么只要存在一个可能的世界，其中你的原子没有分散并且你只是没有进入机器，你就不必太担心你的决定？
I do, because when you say “so long as there’s a possible world,” that glides over the question, How many?
我愿意，因为当你说“只要存在一个可能的世界”时，就忽略了这个问题：有多少？
What proportion of the worlds is that going to happen in?
世界上有多少比例会发生这种情况？
What I said just now about decision theory in the multiverse — the proportion of the multiverse that does one thing or another plays the same role in decisions as probability does in a theory where there’s randomness.
我刚才所说的关于多元宇宙中的决策理论——多元宇宙中做一件事或另一件事的比例在决策中所起的作用与概率在存在随机性的理论中所起的作用相同。
It really does matter.
这确实很重要。
Just because there are a few worlds in which x, y, or z happens, if there are very few of them, they shouldn’t affect my decisions at all.
仅仅因为 x、y 或 z 发生在几个世界中，如果它们很少，它们根本不应该影响我的决定。
How do we know what counts as a possible world?
我们如何知道什么才是可能的世界？
There’s a certain economy to a many-worlds interpretation of physics, but isn’t a lot of the complexity just being squeezed into this notion of what is a possible world?
对物理学的多世界解释有一定的经济性，但很多复杂性不是都被压缩到了可能世界的概念中吗？
Yes, and we’re used to that.
是的，我们已经习惯了。
I’m not used to it.
我不习惯。
You are when you realize that different times are special cases of other universes.
当你意识到不同的时间是其他宇宙的特殊情况时，你就明白了。
When you make an economic decision, you’re used to the fact that something you buy — some goods — have a different value in different universes — that is, at different times.
当你做出经济决策时，你已经习惯了这样一个事实：你买的东西 ——一些商品 ——在不同的宇宙 ——也就是说，在不同的时间有不同的价值。
Even to the same you.
哪怕是对同一个你。
You might be slightly different, but even if you aren’t very different, the value to you of something might be very different today from tomorrow.
你可能会略有不同，但即使你没有太大不同，今天和明天某些东西对你的价值可能会非常不同。
For example, oxygen, if you’ve got COVID, would be differently valuable.
例如，如果你感染了新冠病毒，氧气的价值就会不同。
Most things change their value gradually over time.
大多数东西都会随着时间的推移逐渐改变其价值。
You change yourself gradually over time.
随着时间的推移，你会逐渐改变自己。
It’s exactly the same in different universes.
在不同的宇宙中都是一样的。
In different universes, you value different things.
在不同的宇宙中，你看重的东西是不同的。
In some universes, you’re so different that it’s not worth calling you you anymore.
在某些宇宙中，你是如此不同，以至于不再值得称你为你。
Just like over time it might not be.
就像随着时间的推移可能不会一样。
I take it you don’t believe in many-worlds interpretations that there are 17 possible universes out there.
我认为你不相信存在 17 个可能的宇宙这一多世界解释。
You think there’s a very large number, right?
你认为数量非常多，对吗？
Yes.
是的。
Extremely large.
非常大。
Maybe you’ll consider this question a category error.
也许你会认为这个问题是一个类别错误。
But what is the process which filters what is a possible universe and what is not a possible universe?
但是过滤什么是可能宇宙、什么不是可能宇宙的过程是什么呢？
The laws of physics.
物理定律。
It’s exactly the same as what filters — let’s say if there’s an explosion, like a supernova, what determines the fact that different particles travel at different speeds and none of them travel faster than light?
它与过滤器完全相同——假设发生爆炸，比如超新星，是什么决定了不同粒子以不同速度传播，而且没有一个粒子的传播速度比光快？
Well, it’s all the laws of physics that determine what the distribution of speeds will be and what the limit will be.
嗯，所有的物理定律都决定了速度的分布以及极限是什么。
How do we know what are the laws of physics for the multiverse?
我们如何知道多元宇宙的物理定律是什么？
Should we assume they’re the same as for the universe we live in?
我们是否应该假设它们与我们生活的宇宙相同？
The universe we live in is demonstrably affected by things not in it.
我们生活的宇宙显然会受到不在其中的事物的影响。
This is the lesson of interference phenomena.
这就是干涉现象的教训。
Sure.
当然。
There’s no such thing as the laws of physics for our universe.
我们的宇宙不存在物理定律这样的东西。
There’s just the laws of physics.
这只是物理定律。
Of course, we don’t know for sure what they are, but our best theories — in particular, quantum theory — say that there are other such entities and how they affect ours and how matter behaves as a result of that.
当然，我们不确定它们是什么，但我们最好的理论——尤其是量子理论——说还存在其他这样的实体，以及它们如何影响我们的实体以及物质因此而表现出的行为。
Of course, it might be overturned one day, quantum theory, just like all our scientific theories, maybe.
当然，也许有一天它会被推翻，量子理论，就像我们所有的科学理论一样。
There’s no such thing as the laws of physics for our universe.
我们的宇宙不存在物理定律这样的东西。
There’s just the laws of physics.
这只是物理定律。
Of course, we don’t know for sure what they are, but our best theories — in particular, quantum theory — say that there are other such entities and how they affect ours and how matter behaves as a result of that.
当然，我们不确定它们是什么，但我们最好的理论——尤其是量子理论——说还存在其他这样的实体，以及它们如何影响我们的实体以及物质因此而表现出的行为。
Of course, it might be overturned one day, quantum theory, just like all our scientific theories, maybe.
当然，也许有一天它会被推翻，量子理论，就像我们所有的科学理论一样。
This is, again, maybe a question that you would consider a category error coming from commonsense realism.
这又可能是一个你会认为是来自常识现实主义的类别错误的问题。
How should I think about splitting universes in a manner consistent with the conservation of matter and energy?
我应该如何考虑以符合物质和能量守恒的方式分裂宇宙？
Because there seems to be a multiplication.
因为好像有乘法。
Yes, this splitting-universes idea — although that kind of terminology was used by the pioneers of many-universes quantum theory, such as Everett himself and Bryce DeWitt, Everettians nowadays don’t speak of splitting.
是的，这种分裂宇宙的想法 ——尽管这种术语被多宇宙量子理论的先驱者使用，例如埃弗里特本人和布莱斯·德威特，但现在的埃弗里特人并不谈论分裂。
I myself prefer a picture where there’s a continuum of universes, just like you might say there’s a continuum of times or there’s a continuum of geological strata underneath our feet.
我自己更喜欢一幅宇宙连续体的图画，就像你可能会说时间连续体或者我们脚下地质层连续体一样。
When a stratum splits in two, there’s no definite point at which there was one here and two there.
当一个阶层一分为二时，并没有一个明确的点，这里有一个，那里有两个。
What happens is that the stratum becomes two strata gradually.
所发生的情况是，该层逐渐变成两个层。
There’s no “point of splitting,” and the number of universes, as it were — although it might be infinite — but the measure of how many there are remains constant.
不存在“分裂点”，也没有宇宙的数量——尽管它可能是无限的——但宇宙数量的衡量标准保持不变。
What happens during what used to be called a split is that some of them gradually changed to one thing while others gradually changed to another thing.
在过去所谓的分裂中发生的情况是，有些人逐渐变成一种东西，而另一些人逐渐变成另一种东西。
How do you think the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics relates to the view that, just in terms of space, the size of our current universe is infinite, and therefore everything possible is happening in it?
您认为量子力学的多世界解释与以下观点有何关系：仅就空间而言，我们当前宇宙的大小是无限的，因此一切可能发生在其中？
It complicates the discussion of probability, but there’s no overlap between that notion of infinity and the Everettian notion of infinity, if we are infinite there, because the differentiation (as I prefer to call what used to be called splitting) — when I perform an experiment which can go one of two ways, the influence of that spreads out.
它使概率的讨论变得复杂，但是如果我们在那里是无限的，那么无穷大的概念和埃弗雷特的无穷大概念之间没有重叠，因为微分（我更喜欢称之为过去所谓的分裂） —— 当我进行一个可以采取两种方式之一的实验时，其影响就会扩散。
First, I see it.
首先，我看到了。
I may write it down; I may write a scientific paper.
我可以把它写下来；我可能会写一篇科学论文。
When I write a paper about it and report the results, that will cause the journal to split or to differentiate into two journals, and so on.
当我写一篇关于它的论文并报告结果时，这将导致期刊分裂或分化为两个期刊，等等。
This influence cannot spread out faster than the speed of light.
这种影响的传播速度不能超过光速。
So an Everett universe is really a misnomer because what we see in real life is an Everett bubble within the universe.
因此，埃弗雷特宇宙实际上是一个用词不当，因为我们在现实生活中看到的是宇宙中的埃弗雷特气泡。
Everything outside the bubble is as it was; it’s undifferentiated, or, to be exact, it’s exactly as differentiated as it was before.
泡沫之外的一切都保持原样；它是无差别的，或者，准确地说，它和以前一样有差别。
Then, as the bubble spreads out, the universe becomes or the multiverse becomes more differentiated, but the bubble is always finite.
然后，随着泡沫的扩散，宇宙或多元宇宙变得更加分化，但泡沫总是有限的。
How do your views relate to the philosophical modal realism of David Lewis?
您的观点与大卫·刘易斯的哲学模态实在论有何关系？
There are interesting parallels.
有一些有趣的相似之处。
As a physicist, I’m interested in what the laws of physics tell us is so, rather than in philosophical reasoning about things, unless they impinge on a problem that I have.
作为一名物理学家，我感兴趣的是物理定律告诉我们的是什么，而不是对事物的哲学推理，除非它们触及了我遇到的问题。
So yes, I’m interested in, for example, the continuity of the self — whether, if there’s another version of me a very large number of light-years away in an infinite universe, and it’s identical, is that really me?
所以，是的，我对自我的连续性感兴趣——如果在无限的宇宙中，在数光年之外，有另一个版本的我，并且它是相同的，那真的是我吗？
Are there two of me, one of me?
有两个我，一个我吗？
I don’t entirely know the answer to that.
我不完全知道答案。
It’s why I don’t entirely know the answer to whether I would go in a Star Trek transporter.
这就是为什么我不完全知道我是否会乘坐星际迷航运输车的答案。
The modal realism certainly involves a lot of things that I don’t think exist — at least, not physically.
模态实在论当然涉及到很多我认为不存在的东西——至少在物理上不存在。
I’m open to the idea that nonphysical things do exist: like the natural numbers, I think, exist.
我对非物理事物确实存在的观点持开放态度：我认为，就像自然数一样，存在。
There’s a difference between the second even prime, which doesn’t exist, and the infinite number of prime numbers, which I think do exist.
第二个偶素数（不存在）和无穷多个素数（我认为确实存在）之间是有区别的。
I think that there is more than one mode of existence, but the theory that all modes of existence are equally real — I see no point in that.
我认为存在的方式不止一种，但所有存在方式都同样真实的理论——我看不出这一点。
The overlap between Everett and David Lewis is, I think, more coincidental than illuminating.
我认为，埃弗里特和大卫·刘易斯之间的重叠更多的是巧合，而不是启发性的。
If the universe is infinite and if David Lewis is correct, should I feel closer to the David Lewis copies of me?
如果宇宙是无限的，如果大卫·刘易斯是正确的，我是否应该感觉更接近大卫·刘易斯的我？
The copies or near copies of me in this universe?
这个宇宙中我的复制品或近似复制品？
Or the near copies of me in the multiverse?
还是多元宇宙中我的近似复制品？
It seems very crowded all of a sudden.
一下子显得非常拥挤。
Something whose purpose was to be economical doesn’t feel that way to me by the end of the metaphysics.
在形而上学结束时，我对以经济为目的的东西不再有这种感觉。
It doesn’t feel like that to you.
你不这么认为。
.
。
.
。
.
。
Well, as Wittgenstein is supposed to have said (I don’t know whether he really did), if it were true, what would it feel like?
好吧，正如维特根斯坦所说（我不知道他是否真的说过），如果这是真的，那会是什么感觉？
It would feel just like this.
感觉就像这样。
On genetics and explanatory power
关于遗传学和解释力
What about the alternative view that it’s a big, sprawling mess; we’re not capable of understanding an integrated theory; there’s maybe some Darwinian principle operating across some different kind of multiverse?
另一种观点认为这是一个巨大的、蔓延的混乱，那又如何呢？我们无法理解一个综合的理论；也许有一些达尔文原理在某种不同类型的多元宇宙中起作用？
Our universe persists just because it works well enough, a bit like a bad used car; we’re never going to grasp it.
我们的宇宙之所以能够存在，只是因为它运行得足够好，有点像一辆劣质的二手车； we’re never going to grasp it.
There’s not a unified theory, and here we are.
没有一个统一的理论，但我们就是这样。
OK, well, that’s a mixture of the anthropic principle, which I disagree with, and the idea that some features of reality are inherently incomprehensible, which I also disagree with.
好吧，这是我不同意的人择原理和现实的某些特征本质上不可理解的观点的混合体，我也不同意这一点。
I can’t think of a connection between the two.
我想不出两者之间有什么联系。
Well, if you want me to go into this, I can go into either of them, but —
好吧，如果你想让我讨论这个，我可以讨论其中任何一个，但是 -
Take the incomprehensibility of the universe (and possibly multiverse).
以宇宙（可能还有多元宇宙）的不可理解性为例。
We would both agree it’s incomprehensible to your cat, right?
我们都同意你的猫无法理解这，对吗？
Or to the local raccoon…
或者去当地的浣熊……
Yes, but everything is incomprehensible to a cat.
是的，但一切对于猫来说都是无法理解的。
I don’t think that’s true.
我认为那不是真的。
No. Dogs understand human social life pretty well.
不，狗非常了解人类的社会生活。
Dogs have genes which contain knowledge, but it is fixed knowledge, and it is not the kind of knowledge that constitutes understanding.
狗有包含知识的基因，但它是固定的知识，不是构成理解的知识。
Understanding is always explanatory.
理解总是有解释性的。
You can write a book on canine behavior and look in chapter 37 and it will tell you what a dog will do when such and such happens to it.
你可以写一本关于犬类行为的书，看看第37章，它会告诉你当这样那样的事情发生在狗身上时，它会做什么。
Sometimes it will say, “Some dogs will do this; some dogs will do that.” There is no such book for humans because chapter 37 will be blank.
有时它会说：“有些狗会这样做；有些狗会那样做。”人类没有这样的书，因为第 37 章是空白的。
It’ll say, “Humans are going to do something that neither we nor you can predict.”
它会说：“人类将会做出一些我们和你都无法预测的事情。”
I feel I can predict humans better than cats often.
我觉得我经常比猫更能预测人类。
But do chimpanzees understand, in your view?
但你认为黑猩猩能理解吗？
No one knows.
没有人知道。
They show virtually no sign of understanding anything.
他们几乎没有表现出任何理解的迹象。
There are some really nice experiments on wild gorillas by Richard Byrne, who’s both a theoretical and very practical animal behavior expert.
理查德·伯恩（Richard Byrne）对野生大猩猩做了一些非常好的实验，他是一位理论和实践动物行为专家。
He was wondering how gorillas transmit their memes — that is, their culturally inherited behaviors — from one gorilla to another.
他想知道大猩猩如何将它们的模因（即它们的文化继承行为）从一只大猩猩传播到另一只大猩猩。
One thing is, the first answer is very slowly.
有一件事是，第一个答案非常慢。
It takes absolutely ages, months and months, for a gorilla to be able to copy another gorilla’s behavior well enough to do something complicated.
一只大猩猩绝对需要数年、数月、数月的时间才能很好地模仿另一只大猩猩的行为来完成一些复杂的事情。
They can copy “wave hand” and that sort of thing, but to copy a complex behavior like required to open a difficult kind of nut which no other animal can open (this is why they have memes, because that’s a very useful ability), it takes them a long time.
它们可以模仿“挥手”之类的动作，但要模仿复杂的行为，比如打开一种其他动物无法打开的困难坚果（这就是它们有模因的原因，因为这是一种非常有用的能力），它们需要很长时间。
Then he did some ingenious experiments, or rather observations.
然后他做了一些巧妙的实验，或者更确切地说是观察。
(He didn’t interfere with the gorillas.) He did some observations to try to determine whether they understand why they are doing each particular action.
（他没有干扰大猩猩。）他做了一些观察，试图确定它们是否理解为什么要做每个特定的动作。
It involves — I don’t know what it involves — grabbing with both hands and twisting in one way and then pulling another way, and so on.
它涉及 —— 我不知道它涉及什么 —— 用双手抓住并以一种方式扭转，然后以另一种方式拉动，等等。
Apparently, these gorillas are prone to a certain injury which disables their thumb.
显然，这些大猩猩很容易受到某种伤害，导致拇指残疾。
They can’t move their thumb, which is quite disabling for them, just as it is for us.
他们无法移动拇指，这对他们来说是非常困难的，就像我们一样。
The thing is, when you’ve disabled your thumb, one of these motions becomes irrelevant and the others become less effective.
问题是，当你失去拇指时，其中一个动作就会变得无关紧要，而其他动作也会变得不那么有效。
But the gorillas which have learnt how to do the thing will make the motion, the ineffective motion, again and again, every single time.
但是学会了如何做这件事的大猩猩会一次又一次地做出动作，无效的动作。
(He explains this better than I do.)
（他比我解释得更好。）
That’s like human beings borrowing at high interest rates, right?
这就像人类以高利率借款，对吧？
They’ll do that many, many times in a row.
他们会连续这样做很多很多次。
It’s not just like it.
不只是像这样。
You might like to draw analogies, but it’s not the same thing.
您可能想进行类比，但这不是同一件事。
When a human being repeats a behavior that another human being thinks is unwise or counterproductive or will not achieve its purpose, and you ask them or you show them, they will have an explanation, which you might not like — it may be stupid.
当一个人重复另一个人认为不明智或适得其反或无法达到其目的的行为时，你问他们或向他们展示，他们会得到一个解释，你可能不喜欢这个解释——这可能是愚蠢的。
But the ape perfectly well wants this thing to work, but doesn’t know why it is doing the actions.
但猿猴非常希望这个东西发挥作用，但不知道它为什么要这样做。
It’s a thing that’s very hard to take on board because we are used to intentional behavior.
这是一件很难接受的事情，因为我们已经习惯了有意的行为。
We’re not used to the overt behavior of humans being unintentional.
我们不习惯人类无意识的明显行为。
Humans tend to explain themselves, even irrationally, and they act according to their explanation.
人类倾向于解释自己，即使是非理性的，他们也会根据自己的解释采取行动。
Whereas there’s no evidence that any other animals have those explanations.
然而没有证据表明其他动物有这些解释。
There’s also the case of squirrels, which is, in a way, even more amazing.
还有松鼠的例子，在某种程度上，这更令人惊奇。
You know squirrels bury nuts so they can dig them up later.
你知道松鼠会把坚果埋起来，以便以后可以把它们挖出来。
Well, some people did a very cruel experiment.
那么，有人做了一个非常残酷的实验。
They put a squirrel, given some nuts or something (I don’t know how they set up the experiment), on a concrete floor.
他们把一只松鼠放在水泥地板上，给了一些坚果或其他东西（我不知道他们是如何进行实验的）。
The squirrel did exactly the same behavior with its hind legs with the nuts and put the nuts there and so on.
松鼠用带有坚果的后腿做了完全相同的行为，并将坚果放在那里，依此类推。
Even though it was having no effect whatsoever.
尽管它没有任何效果。
We see the point of scrabbling with your hind legs and then nudging the nuts over there and so on, but it doesn’t.
我们看到用后腿乱抓，然后轻推那边的坚果等等，但事实并非如此。
It’s just a program being enacted by its genes.
这只是由其基因制定的程序。
What is the underlying physical assumption that makes humans different in having explanatory power?
使人类具有不同解释力的基本物理假设是什么？
One would expect it to be a continuum if you’re an atheist, right?
如果你是无神论者，人们会期望它是一个连续体，对吧？
What break occurs, at some stage in evolution, that’s a discrete break?
在进化的某个阶段发生了什么断裂，这是一个离散的断裂？
Or why aren’t we just back to it being a continuum?
或者为什么我们不回到它是一个连续体？
I don’t think it can have been a discrete break because evolution would have happened gradually.
我认为这不可能是一次离散的突破，因为进化会逐渐发生。
My best guess — we don’t know this.
我最好的猜测是——我们不知道这一点。
Actually, we have very little knowledge about the prehistory of ideas because there’s no evidence of it.
事实上，我们对思想的史前史知之甚少，因为没有证据表明这一点。
All we see is the stone tools.
我们看到的只是石器。
We don’t even see the wooden tools because they’ve decayed away.
我们甚至看不到木制工具，因为它们已经腐烂了。
I think what happened is that the capacity of the brain to store memes, to store programs in the brain rather than in the genes, increased, for some reason, very fast because, for some reason, these memes are very valuable.
我认为发生的事情是，由于某种原因，大脑存储模因、在大脑而不是基因中存储程序的能力增加得非常快，因为出于某种原因，这些模因非常有价值。
We know that the gorilla memes are very valuable because they allow them to gain knowledge of things like how to open nuts and so on, which no other animal in their environment has.
我们知道大猩猩模因非常有价值，因为它们使它们能够获得诸如如何打开坚果之类的知识，这是其环境中其他动物所没有的。
That gives them access to food that no other animal has.
这使它们能够获得其他动物所没有的食物。
The capacity for memes increased rapidly, and there’s very little, now .
模因的容量迅速增加，但现在却很少了。
.
。
.
。
Sorry, I left out a step.
抱歉，我遗漏了一步。
Once memes get beyond a certain complexity, they cannot be copied.
一旦模因超过一定的复杂性，它们就无法被复制。
We don’t have the ability to download a program from another person’s brain.
我们没有能力从另一个人的大脑中下载程序。
All we can do is look at the behavior and guess what the purpose was.
我们所能做的就是观察行为并猜测其目的是什么。
Complex memes have to be transmitted like that, rather than by aping, which is a different process mediated by (what are they called?) mirror neurons and that kind of thing.
复杂的模因必须像这样传播，而不是通过模仿，这是一个由（它们叫什么？）镜像神经元和类似的东西介导的不同过程。
That will only do for very simple behaviors.
这只适用于非常简单的行为。
Then there came a moment when our species was capable of explanatory knowledge, but they never used it for further tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
然后有一天，我们的物种有能力解释性知识，但他们在接下来的数万年或数十万年里从未使用过它。
They just use it for this meme transmission.
他们只是用它来传播模因。
I’m still puzzled as to why you think it’s so unlikely that the universe is not comprehensible.
我仍然很困惑为什么你认为宇宙不太可能是不可理解的。
Take a simpler system, like the distribution of prime numbers.
采用更简单的系统，例如素数的分布。
I’m quite sure I can’t understand that.
我很确定我无法理解这一点。
Even if various conjectures were proven or not proven, I think, at the end of the day, I still am not capable of understanding that — even how certain motors work, or markets for copper.
即使各种猜想被证明或未被证明，我想，归根结底，我仍然无法理解 ——甚至某些电机是如何工作的，或者铜的市场。
Why can’t that apply to the universe also?
Why can’t that apply to the universe also?
Again, this is the wrong standard.
Again, this is the wrong standard.
That is true of everything.
That is true of everything.
There’s nothing that we can fully understand in that sense, in the sense that you want to fully understand prime numbers all the way up to infinity.
从这个意义上说，我们没有什么可以完全理解的，从你想要完全理解素数一直到无穷大的意义上来说。
That’s not what we mean by understanding things, and that’s not what I mean by the universe or mathematics being comprehensible.
这不是我们所说的理解事物的意思，这也不是我所说的宇宙或数学可理解的意思。
I mean that there is no barrier, there is no limit set by the universe, that so far you can go and no further.
我的意思是，没有障碍，没有宇宙设定的限制，到目前为止你可以走得更远。
So we can understand things better; we can never understand things fully.
So we can understand things better; we can never understand things fully.
I think thinking that there is such a barrier is absolutely logically equivalent to believing in the supernatural.
我认为认为存在这样的障碍在逻辑上绝对等同于相信超自然现象。
Because everything that’s past that barrier is just the same as it would be if Zeus reigned and determined what everything after that barrier is.
因为越过那道屏障的一切都与宙斯统治并决定那道屏障之后的一切一样。
Worse, the stuff outside the barrier, of course, is going to affect us even if we can’t understand it.
更糟糕的是，障碍之外的东西当然会影响我们，即使我们无法理解它。
It’s exactly the same as believing in a universe with supernatural beings who have it in for us because they put up this wall that we can’t cross.
这就像相信宇宙里有超自然的存在一样，他们为我们筑起了这堵我们无法跨越的墙。
If they took down the wall, we could cross it, couldn’t we?
如果他们拆掉了墙，我们就可以穿过它，不是吗？
How do you think about the various paradoxes of self-reference that arguably underlie number theory, set theory — right?
您如何看待可能构成数论、集合论基础的各种自指悖论——对吗？
There’s also Gödel’s theorem.
There’s also Gödel’s theorem.
Any other results?
还有其他结果吗？
I’m sure you know them better than I do.
I’m sure you know them better than I do.
I think Gödel’s theorem, for example, with its roots in self-reference paradoxes, shows us that even within pure mathematics, there is no such thing as a solid foundation for all our knowledge.
例如，我认为哥德尔定理的根源在于自指悖论，它向我们表明，即使在纯数学中，也不存在我们所有知识的坚实基础。
And therefore there’s no such thing as fully comprehending everything.
因此，不存在完全理解一切的事情。
We might think that we’re pretty sure what the laws of arithmetic are.
我们可能认为我们非常确定算术定律是什么。
We’re pretty sure that we can see that three times seven is the same as seven times three by just laying out beads on the table.
我们非常确定，只需将珠子放在桌子上，我们就可以看到三乘七与七乘三相同。
But we can’t ever lay out beads on the table to tell us that x times y is the same as y times x regardless of what x and y are — and yet we can know that.
但我们永远无法在桌子上摆出珠子来告诉我们 x 乘以 y 等于 y 乘以 x，无论 x 和 y 是什么——但我们可以知道这一点。
The way we know that is by proving it, and we prove it from the axioms using rules of inference.
我们知道这一点的方法是通过证明它，并且我们使用推理规则从公理来证明它。
How do we know the rules of inference are true?
How do we know the rules of inference are true?
We don’t.
我们不知道。
They are conjectures.
它们都是猜想。
They have exactly the same status as laws of physics that we conjecture.
它们与我们猜想的物理定律具有完全相同的地位。
We never know anything for certain.
We never know anything for certain.
We might be mistaken about anything.
We might be mistaken about anything.
On the other hand, we can have knowledge.
On the other hand, we can have knowledge.
I think we also really do know that x times y equals y times x, even though we have no solid foundation for that.
我认为我们也确实知道 x 乘以 y 等于 y 乘以 x，尽管我们对此没有坚实的基础。
What, in your opinion, is the best test of the many-worlds interpretation?
您认为，对多世界解释的最佳检验是什么？
The best feasible test is any interference experiment.
最好的可行测试是任何干扰实验。
There is no interference experiment with individual particles that has an explanation other than Everettian quantum theory.
除了埃弗里特量子理论之外，没有任何针对单个粒子的干涉实验有其他解释。
You can make a prediction without making an explanation; that you can do.
无需解释即可做出预测；你能做到的。
But if you want an explanation of what brings about the outcome that you see, there is no alternative but the Everett interpretation.
但如果你想要解释是什么导致了你所看到的结果，除了埃弗里特解释之外别无选择。
Well, but most physicists don’t believe in the Everett interpretation, right?
好吧，但大多数物理学家不相信埃弗里特的解释，对吗？
Yes, that’s a very sad state of affairs that I’m at a loss to explain.
是的，这是一种非常令人悲伤的情况，我无法解释。
It’s a sociological phenomenon, though, not a scientific or philosophical disagreement.
但这是一种社会学现象，而不是科学或哲学分歧。
Something has gone wrong, just like something went very badly wrong with philosophy as a whole in the 20th century.
出了什么问题，就像20世纪整个哲学出了严重的问题一样。
We’re still seeing the ripples from that with postmodernism and woke and what have you.
我们仍然看到后现代主义带来的涟漪和觉醒以及你有什么。
I worry a bit you’re using an argument from elimination.
我有点担心你使用的是消除论证。
All the other views out there, which personally I don’t find convincing (as an amateur), but I can certainly see why you might reject them — to me, they look arbitrary.
所有其他观点，我个人认为（作为业余爱好者）并不令人信服，但我当然可以理解为什么你可能会拒绝它们 - 对我来说，它们看起来很武断。
Those you reject, but the other physicists who are as trained as you are, some are as skilled as you are, feel the same way about the many-worlds view.
那些你拒绝的物理学家，但其他和你一样受过训练的物理学家，有些和你一样熟练的物理学家，对多世界的观点也有同样的感觉。
What is the test?
测试是什么？
What makes your intuition better than theirs?
是什么让你的直觉比他们更好？
Yes — I don’t think that’s so.
是的 —— 我不这么认为。
It’s not a matter of intuition.
这不是直觉的问题。
Physics got dominated or contaminated by positivism, instrumentalism, and suchlike bad philosophical theories towards the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century.
19世纪末20世纪初，物理学被实证主义、工具主义和诸如此类的不良哲学理论所统治或污染。
This caused a knock-on effect on physics.
这对物理学产生了连锁反应。
It almost had the same effect on relativity, but Einstein rebelled against it at the last moment, as it were, and said no, it really is true that space-time is curved.
它几乎对相对论产生了同样的影响，但爱因斯坦在最后一刻反抗了它，并说不，时空确实是弯曲的。
It’s not just that our brains think that it’s curved, or something like that, or that the predictions come out right.
It’s not just that our brains think that it’s curved, or something like that, or that the predictions come out right.
There really is a curvature in space-time.
There really is a curvature in space-time.
By the time quantum theory came along a couple of decades later, positivism, instrumentalism, and so on had taken hold.
By the time quantum theory came along a couple of decades later, positivism, instrumentalism, and so on had taken hold.
As a result, generations of physicists were taught when they were students — they were intimidated by their professors telling them things like, “If you think you understand this, you don’t.
结果，一代又一代的物理学家在学生时代就接受了这样的教育——他们被教授告诉他们的东西吓倒了，“如果你认为你理解了这一点，那么你就不会。
There is no such thing as what really happened.
There is no such thing as what really happened.
If you ask, ‘How did the electron get from here to here?’ You’re asking an illegitimate question.
如果你问：“电子是如何从这里到达这里的？”你就问了一个不合理的问题。
There is no such thing as how it got from here to here.
There is no such thing as how it got from here to here.
There is only a prediction that it got from here to here.”
只有一个预测，那就是它从这里到这里。”
Now, when you’re taught like that and intimidated by those kinds of things coming from on high, some proportion of you (of young people) will quit, some will take that on board and do the same to their students in turn, and some will think, “No, that’s ridiculous.
现在，当你受到这样的教育并被来自高层的那些事情吓倒时，你们中的一部分人（年轻人）会退出，有些人会接受这一点，轮流对他们的学生做同样的事情，有些人会想，“不，这太荒谬了。
Come on, there is a thing.” Then they discover there’s an Everett interpretation.
来吧，有件事。”然后他们发现有埃弗里特的解释。
On Karl Popper and Popperian physicists
On Karl Popper and Popperian physicists
Let’s say we polled only the Popperian physicists, including Popper himself: What percentage of them would side with Everett?
假设我们只对波普尔物理学家进行了民意调查，包括波普尔本人：他们中有多少人会站在埃弗雷特一边？
That’s an extremely good question.
这是一个非常好的问题。
So Popper did not —
So Popper did not —
Yes, I know.
是的，我知道。
That means philosophy can’t be where people are going wrong, right?
这意味着哲学不能是人们出错的地方，对吧？
I think it can be.
I think it can be.
I think it can be and is.
I think it can be and is.
At the time when Popper wrote his rejection of the Everett interpretation, very, very few physicists had written about it.
当波普尔写下他对埃弗雷特解释的拒绝时，很少有物理学家对此发表过文章。
When I say very, very few, I mean like three.
When I say very, very few, I mean like three.
They weren’t philosophically very sophisticated.
他们在哲学上并不是很复杂。
The kind of argument that Popper heard about the dispute were — are — all about the wrong things.
The kind of argument that Popper heard about the dispute were — are — all about the wrong things.
He developed his theory of propensities because he thought that the problem was, What can a probability possibly mean in a universe that develops deterministically, and so on?
他发展了他的倾向理论，因为他认为问题是，在一个确定性发展的宇宙中，概率可能意味着什么，等等？
He didn’t ever hear a real argument about it.
他从未听到过真正的争论。
I once met him in the company of Bryce DeWitt (who’s one of the other Everettian physicists).
I once met him in the company of Bryce DeWitt (who’s one of the other Everettian physicists).
We told him that what he had written about Everett was just plain false.
我们告诉他，他所写的关于埃弗雷特的事情完全是错误的。
He didn’t understand the import of the experiment that was being discussed — basically — well, two things: the interference experiment and the Bell inequalities experiment.
他不明白正在讨论的实验的重要性——“基本上”——“好吧，有两件事：干涉实验和贝尔不等式实验。
He was focusing on a different problem.
他正在关注另一个问题。
By the time we came out of that meeting, we thought we’d persuaded him, but we evidently hadn’t, because subsequently he kept on saying the same thing.
当我们结束那次会议时，我们以为我们已经说服了他，但显然我们没有说服他，因为后来他一直在说同样的话。
Maybe he was just being tactful.
Maybe he was just being tactful.
Why do so many professional philosophers not think so much of Karl Popper?
为什么这么多专业哲学家对卡尔·波普尔评价不高？
You’ve just asked me why so many people make fundamental mistakes about metaphysics within physics — why do so many physicists talk nonsense about metaphysics, and so on?
你刚才问我为什么这么多人在物理学中的形而上学上犯了根本性的错误——为什么这么多物理学家在形而上学上胡说八道等等？
Now you’re asking me, Why do so many philosophers make mistakes?
现在你问我，为什么这么多哲学家会犯错误？
I’ve heard a variety of theories about this, but I don’t know.
我听过关于这个的各种理论，但我不知道。
I haven’t thought all that much about it.
我还没有想那么多。
It is definitely the case that philosophy took a really bad turn just over 100 years ago and hasn’t really recovered — professional philosophy, I mean.
毫无疑问，哲学在 100 多年前经历了一次非常糟糕的转变，而且还没有真正恢复——我指的是职业哲学。
But say when I read Popper, if I look at the areas I know best that he wrote on, Poverty of Historicism, Open Society & Its Enemies, I find I agree with a very high percentage of his conclusions, so I’m inclined to like him, but I don’t think those are great books.
但是，当我读波普尔时，如果我看看他所写的我最了解的领域，《历史决定论的贫困》、《开放社会及其敌人》，我发现我同意他的结论的比例非常高，所以我倾向于喜欢他，但我不认为这些都是伟大的书。
I think he’s too obsessed with rebutting crude Marxism.
我认为他太沉迷于反驳粗俗的马克思主义了。
He’s very bad at steel-manning his opponents.
He’s very bad at steel-manning his opponents.
On a lot of the pages, I just don’t find that much insight, even though I’m very sympathetic toward the conclusions.
在很多页面上，我只是没有找到太多的见解，尽管我非常赞同这些结论。
Maybe he’s just not that great a thinker, and that’s why most philosophers don’t fall in love with him.
Maybe he’s just not that great a thinker, and that’s why most philosophers don’t fall in love with him.
I would believe that, if the critiques that I read of him bore any relation to his theory.
I would believe that, if the critiques that I read of him bore any relation to his theory.
The critiques of him are extremely crude and basically misunderstand everything.
对他的批评极其粗暴，基本上误解了一切。
It’s funny you should say — I think that he’s very good, much too good, at steel-manning opponents.
It’s funny you should say — I think that he’s very good, much too good, at steel-manning opponents.
This relates to your first criticism that he’s too obsessed with refuting not just Marxism, but every bad philosophical theory that has gone before: I think he puts it into its best possible form and then spends pages and pages and pages going into every possible good aspect of that theory.
这与你的第一个批评有关，即他不仅过于痴迷于反驳马克思主义，而且还反驳以前的每一种糟糕的哲学理论：我认为他将其置于尽可能最好的形式，然后花了一页又一页又一页的内容来探讨该理论的每一个可能的好的方面。
He often says he’s supposed to be the 20th century’s greatest critic of Marxism, but he spends pages and pages praising Marx — and the same with Plato.
他经常说自己应该是 20 世纪最伟大的马克思主义批评家，但他却大篇幅地赞扬马克思——对柏拉图也是如此。
I think he would have done better to explain his own theory more and not spend so much time refuting others.
I think he would have done better to explain his own theory more and not spend so much time refuting others.
On the other hand, it is his philosophy, it’s his philosophical position, that there is no such thing as a positive argument for something.
另一方面，这是他的哲学，这是他的哲学立场，即不存在对某事的积极论证。
You have conjectures and then you have criticism of their opponents, of the opposing conjectures.
You have conjectures and then you have criticism of their opponents, of the opposing conjectures.
You don’t have positive arguments for your conjectures.
You don’t have positive arguments for your conjectures.
It’s a bit like you said: You were criticizing me a while ago, saying something like I was only putting forward negative arguments.
有点像你说的：你刚才批评我，说我只是提出反面的论点。
Well, that’s what Popper would have us do, because the position that we hold ourselves, and are putting forward or advocating, we’re ready to abandon.
嗯，这就是波普尔希望我们做的事情，因为我们所持有的、正在提出或提倡的立场，我们准备放弃。
The thing that an argument consists of is, on the one hand, a conjecture, and another hand, a criticism.
论证的内容一方面是猜想，另一方面是批评。
So you’re saying, “The standard way of looking at so-and-so has got these flaws?
所以你会说，“看待某某的标准方式有这些缺陷吗？
I have this conjecture which doesn’t have those flaws.” OK, that’s the beginning of an argument.
I have this conjecture which doesn’t have those flaws.” OK, that’s the beginning of an argument.
Then someone can say, “Ah, but it does,” or they could say, “It may not have those flaws, but it has these other flaws.” OK, so that’s how an argument can go.
Then someone can say, “Ah, but it does,” or they could say, “It may not have those flaws, but it has these other flaws.” OK, so that’s how an argument can go.
It never should go along the lines of, “This must be true because so-and-so.” Because that is an appeal to authority, appeal to justification, and so on.
它永远不应该是这样的：“这一定是真的，因为某某。”因为那是诉诸权威、诉诸正当理由等等。
Popper is of the opinion, and so am I, that there are no justifications and there are no authorities.
Popper is of the opinion, and so am I, that there are no justifications and there are no authorities.
Which is Popper’s best book, in your opinion?
Which is Popper’s best book, in your opinion?
That depends where you’re coming from.
这取决于你来自哪里。
I’m very fond of The Myth of the Framework, but I’m not sure that I would recommend that as a starting point.
I’m very fond of The Myth of the Framework, but I’m not sure that I would recommend that as a starting point.
And it wasn’t my starting point, either.
And it wasn’t my starting point, either.
My starting point was The Open Society & Its Enemies, volume 2, which is about Marx, which is probably the aspect of his philosophy that I was and am least interested in — and yet I was totally captivated by this book because previously the only philosophy I’d read was Bertrand Russell.
我的起点是《开放社会及其敌人》第二卷，这是关于马克思的，这可能是我过去和现在最不感兴趣的他的哲学方面——然而我完全被这本书迷住了，因为以前我读过的唯一哲学是伯特兰·罗素。
Coming onto Popper after Bertrand Russell was like, “Oh my god, this guy is actually dealing with problems, and he actually has theories that make sense” — rather than just going through the history of stuff: “A person said this; another person said that,” and then we’ve got the problem of induction.
在伯特兰·罗素之后谈到波普尔就像是，“天哪，这家伙实际上是在处理问题，他实际上有有意义的理论”——而不是仅仅回顾历史：“一个人这么说；另一个人这么说”，然后我们就遇到了归纳问题。
And that’s it: you know the problem of induction — full stop.
就是这样：你知道归纳问题 —— 句号。
That’s the end of the story.
故事就这样结束了。
There’s never any solution to the problem of induction until you get to Popper.
在波普尔之前，归纳法问题永远没有任何解决方案。
Are we living in a simulation?
我们生活在模拟中吗？
No, because living in a simulation is precisely a case of there being a barrier beyond which we cannot understand.
不，因为生活在模拟中恰恰是存在我们无法理解的障碍的情况。
If we’re living in a simulation that’s running on some computer, we can’t tell whether that computer is made of silicon or iron, or whether it obeys the same laws of computation, like Turing computability and quantum computability and so on, as ours.
如果我们生活在某个计算机上运行的模拟中，我们无法判断该计算机是由硅还是铁制成，或者它是否遵循与我们相同的计算定律，例如图灵可计算性和量子可计算性等。
We can’t know anything about the physics there.
We can’t know anything about the physics there.
Well, we can know that it is at least a superset of our physics, but that’s not saying very much; it’s not telling us very much.
好吧，我们可以知道它至少是我们物理学的一个超集，但这并不能说明什么。 it’s not telling us very much.
It’s a typical example of a theory that can be rejected out of hand for the same reason that the supernatural ones — if somebody says, “Zeus did it,” then I’m going to say, “How should I respond?
这是一个典型的理论例子，它可能会因为与超自然理论相同的原因而立即被拒绝——如果有人说，“是宙斯干的”，那么我会说，“我应该如何回应？
If I take that on board, how should I respond to the next person that comes along and tells me that Odin did it?”
如果我接受这一点，我应该如何回应下一个人告诉我是奥丁干的？”
But it seems you’re rejecting an empirical claim on methodological grounds, and I get very suspicious.
但你似乎在方法论的基础上拒绝了经验主义的主张，我对此感到非常怀疑。
Philosophers typically reject transcendental arguments like, “Oh, we must be able to perceive reality, because if we couldn’t, how could we know that we couldn’t perceive reality?” It doesn’t prove you can perceive reality, right?
哲学家通常拒绝先验论点，例如“哦，我们必须能够感知现实，因为如果我们不能，我们怎么知道我们无法感知现实？”这并不能证明你能感知现实，对吧？
First of all, that is a transcendental argument and therefore refutes itself.
首先，这是一个先验的论证，因此是自我反驳的。
Secondly, this theory about being in a simulation is not an empirical theory.
其次，这种关于模拟的理论不是经验理论。
It precisely isn’t.
It precisely isn’t.
If it came along with a thing saying, “We are living in a computer, and we can access the GPU of it and cause weird effects by doing so-and-so,” that would be different.
如果它附带这样一句话：“我们生活在一台计算机中，我们可以访问它的 GPU，并通过做某事来造成奇怪的效果”，那就不同了。
That would be a testable theory, potentially, so empirical.
这可能是一个可检验的理论，可能是经验性的。
If it’s simply that we’re living in a simulation which we can’t get out of, then that is not an empirical theory.
如果只是我们生活在一个无法摆脱的模拟中，那么这就不是一个经验理论。
As I keep saying, it’s no more empirical than the theory that Zeus is out there, or Odin.
正如我一直说的，这并不比宙斯或奥丁存在的理论更实证。
And I can’t tell the difference between those three theories, not just experimentally, but by any argument.
我无法区分这三种理论，不仅是通过实验，而且通过任何论证。
On the philosophy of freedom
On the philosophy of freedom
Now, having reviewed a lot of your work, I came away with one very strong impression.
现在，在审阅了您的大量工作之后，我留下了非常深刻的印象。
Let me try running it by you and see how you react.
让我试着让你运行一下，看看你的反应如何。
It seems to me you are the world’s first true philosopher of freedom ever.
在我看来，您是世界上第一位真正的自由哲学家。
That there’s this notion of barriers — you don’t like arguments that postulate barriers to human knowledge.
存在这种障碍的概念——你不喜欢假设人类知识存在障碍的论点。
Furthermore, you strongly believe in a many-worlds view, so classic single-world determinism does not restrict what happens.
此外，您坚信多世界观，因此经典的单世界决定论不会限制发生的事情。
The multiverse as a whole and human beings within it across every possible variable have maximum freedom.
多元宇宙作为一个整体，以及其中的人类在每一个可能的变量上都拥有最大的自由。
And you see this as a kind of necessary view and the most important view to hold on all things.
你认为这是一种必要的观点，也是看待一切事物最重要的观点。
Thus you are the maximum philosopher of freedom, in a sense with no rival.
因此，从某种意义上说，你是无可匹敌的最大的自由哲学家。
What do you say?
你怎么说？
I say thank you very much, but I think that’s a rather contrived way of putting it.
我非常感谢你，但我认为这是一种相当做作的表达方式。
I think, for a start, there have been sophisticated theories of freedom, not just freedom in the sense that we can do this and we can do that, but theories about what freedom should constitute.
我认为，首先，已经存在复杂的自由理论，不仅仅是我们可以做这、我们可以做那的意义上的自由，而是关于自由应该构成什么的理论。
There’s Popper’s paradox of intolerance and there’s John Stuart Mill and Locke and Hume and so on, building up into this sophisticated notion where we have a notion of liberty — political liberty — which has all sorts of connotations that are not contained in the term just freedom.
有波普尔的不宽容悖论，还有约翰·斯图尔特·密尔、洛克和休谟等等，这些都构成了这个复杂的概念，其中我们有“自由”的概念——“政治自由”——它具有不只包含在自由一词中的各种含义。
As George Orwell said, you can say the dog is free of fleas, but that doesn’t mean free in the same sense as when we say “man is born free” or that kind of thing.
正如乔治·奥威尔所说，你可以说狗身上没有跳蚤，但这并不意味着自由，就像我们说“人生来自由”之类的东西一样。
You have a method for extending it to physics — metaphysics — that they really do not.
你有一种方法可以将它扩展到物理学 —— 形而上学 ——但他们确实没有。
Whether or not one agrees with you (putting that aside), you seem to take it much further, in a way that attempts maximum consistency, right?
不管有人是否同意你的观点（先把这一点放在一边），你似乎以一种尝试最大程度一致性的方式走得更远，对吧？
That’s true.
这是真的。
Consistency, yes.
Consistency, yes.
I’m not sure about much further.
I’m not sure about much further.
I think it’s simply a matter of taking it further where it goes.
我认为这只是将其进一步发展的问题。
I think in philosophy, especially the human philosophy, as opposed to philosophy of science, I think all I’ve done is just add some footnotes to Popper and to a few other people, J.
我认为在哲学方面，尤其是人类哲学，与科学哲学相反，我认为我所做的只是为波普尔和其他一些人添加一些脚注，J.
S.
S。
Mill and so on.
Mill and so on.
If it leads to something that you think is momentous, that thing was already there.
如果它导致了你认为重要的事情，那么那件事已经在那里了。
Why is William Godwin underrated?
威廉·戈德温为何被低估？
That’s two questions, really.
这确实是两个问题。
What is underrated about him and why did he get to be underrated?
他的哪些方面被低估了？为什么他会被低估？
I think the reason he got to be underrated is that he made tremendous mistakes.
我认为他被低估的原因是他犯了巨大的错误。
He didn’t understand economics at all, or barely.
他根本不懂经济学，或者几乎不懂经济学。
Also, he lived a very unconventional lifestyle with his wife and then had these sophisticated theories of education, which then he didn’t enact with his own daughter.
此外，他和妻子一起过着非常规的生活方式，然后有了这些复杂的教育理论，但他并没有对自己的女儿实施这些理论。
His own daughter ended up writing Frankenstein as a sort of allegory of what can happen with a parent who doesn’t respect their creation.
他自己的女儿最终写了《弗兰肯斯坦》，作为一种寓言，讲述了不尊重自己的创造的父母会发生什么。
He’s a kind of philosopher of maximum freedom, just like you are, right?
他是一位拥有最大自由的哲学家，就像你一样，对吗？
Yes.
是的。
I just began by saying why is he underrated.
我刚开始就说为什么他被低估了。
It’s because he was very wrong about some things — but the thing that he was right about, for example, the connection between epistemology and political philosophy, he was very right.
这是因为他在某些事情上是非常错误的——但是在他正确的事情上，例如认识论和政治哲学之间的联系，他是非常正确的。
He anticipated Popper by 130 years or something and actually improved on Popper in some ways.
他比波普尔早了 130 年左右，而且实际上在某些方面比波普尔有所改进。
He decided at some point, because of his misunderstanding of economics, that the ideal society would be one where people did not use their property in ways to benefit themselves, necessarily.
由于对经济学的误解，他在某个时候决定，理想的社会应该是人们必然不会利用自己的财产为自己谋取利益的社会。
They made their decisions according to what was the right thing to do.
他们根据正确的做法做出决定。
He thought that the right thing to do would generally be that rich people would give away almost all their stuff.
他认为正确的做法通常是富人会捐出几乎所有的东西。
Also that they wouldn’t ever buy things that he considered luxuries, like gold and silver objects and jewelry and fine clothes.
而且他们永远不会买他认为奢侈品的东西，比如金银物品、珠宝和精美的衣服。
He thought those were useless, and therefore he thought that in a good society, nobody would buy those things or value those things — but he was absolutely implacably opposed to enforcing that.
他认为这些没有用，因此他认为在一个好的社会中，没有人会购买这些东西或珍惜这些东西——但他绝对坚决反对强制执行。
With Godwin, everything is persuasion.
With Godwin, everything is persuasion.
Also, another thing where he independently derived some of Popper’s conclusions — is with his enormous respect for institutions.
此外，他独立得出波普尔的一些结论的另一件事是他对制度的极大尊重。
He thought there’s a lot of knowledge in institutions and that we should only change them gradually, just like Popper.
他认为制度中有很多知识，我们应该像波普尔一样逐渐改变它们。
I read somewhere (I hope this is right) that when there was a revolution in Portugal, I think after Napoleon or something like that (I forget), and they instituted a new constitution which had universal suffrage — which in those days meant working people, not totally universal as we would understand it — people thought that this would be right up Godwin’s street because everything he’d advocated was now written down in black and white in this constitution — and he didn’t.
我在某处读到（我希望这是正确的），当葡萄牙发生革命时，我认为在拿破仑或类似的事情之后（我忘记了），他们制定了一部具有普选权的新宪法 ——在当时，这意味着劳动人民，而不是我们所理解的完全普遍的 ——人们认为这正是戈德温的观点，因为他所倡导的一切现在都白纸黑字地写在这部宪法中 ——并且 he didn’t.
He said the Portuguese are not ready for democracy.
他说葡萄牙人还没有为民主做好准备。
He was talking about the institutions.
他正在谈论机构。
The institutions can’t be changed in a revolutionary way.
这些制度不能以革命性的方式改变。
They have to be changed in an evolutionary way.
They have to be changed in an evolutionary way.
Even though they were implementing the very thing he advocated, he would want them to do it gradually and would expect that if they didn’t, it would fail.
尽管他们正在实施他所提倡的事情，但他希望他们逐渐地去做，并预计如果他们不这样做，就会失败。
Now you’re also quite concerned with maximum freedom for children, right?
现在您也很关心孩子的最大自由，对吧？
Taking children seriously.
认真对待孩子。
I don’t think there’s a scope for having a different philosophy for different kinds of people.
我不认为对不同类型的人有不同的哲学。
I think there is only one kind of people.
我认为世界上只有一种人。
I think there is no fundamental difference between humans and artificial general intelligence when we invent it, humans many centuries ago, between men and women, between adults and children.
我认为当我们发明通用人工智能时，人类和人工智能之间没有根本区别，许多世纪前的人类，男人和女人之间，成人和儿童之间。
Won’t this be a continuum?
这不是一个连续体吗？
Getting back to the humans versus nonhuman animals comparison.
回到人类与非人类动物的比较。
There’s not a single point when children can explain.
孩子们无法解释任何一点。
Supposing you find the most creative person in the world, Einstein or somebody, we don’t give them more votes or more rights.
假设你找到世界上最有创造力的人，爱因斯坦或其他人，我们不会给他们更多的选票或更多的权利。
That is because the functioning of rights in political systems can’t possibly depend on the system knowing who is right in a given dispute: it must follow rules, and these rules are never perfect.
这是因为政治体系中权利的运作不可能依赖于系统知道在特定争端中谁是对的：它必须遵循规则，而这些规则永远不会完美。
They have to evolve, but the rules have to, on the one hand, not take a view about who is right in a particular dispute, and on the other, enforce everybody’s rights equally.
它们必须不断发展，但规则一方面必须不去评判特定争议中谁是对的，另一方面又必须平等地执行每个人的权利。
If, say, an eight-year-old who is not being physically abused wanted to run away from home, that child would have the right to do so?
比如说，如果一个没有受到身体虐待的八岁孩子想离家出走，那个孩子有权利这样做吗？
It’s the same kind of question that used to be asked about democracy before viable democracies were implemented.
这与在可行的民主制度实施之前经常被问到的关于民主的问题是一样的。
That is, people used to say, in many kinds of dispute, only one thing can be done.
也就是说，人们常说，在多种争论中，只能做一件事。
Different people have different views, someone A, B, C, D, E; but only one of them can be done.
不同的人有不同的看法，有人A、B、C、D、E；有人A、B、C、D、E。但只能做到其中之一。
Therefore, the others have to be prevented from getting their way.
因此，必须阻止其他人得逞。
If you have a democracy, then all that means is — is exactly like having a monarchy or a tyranny, except that the monarch or tyrant is 51 percent of the people.
如果你有一个民主国家，那么这意味着 ——就像拥有一个君主制或暴政一样，只不过君主或暴君占了51%的人民。
Obviously, when you have a democracy, 51 percent of the people will vote to dispossess the 49 percent of the people.
显然，当实行民主制度时，51%的人会投票剥夺49%的人的财产。
And, indeed, if you just impose voting in isolation from other institutions, that is exactly what happens.
事实上，如果你只是独立于其他机构进行投票，那么就会发生这样的情况。
But if you institute voting as part of a sophisticated system of error correction and institutions of criticism, and you gradually introduce it there, it simply doesn’t have that property.
但如果你将投票作为复杂的纠错系统和批评制度的一部分，并逐渐引入其中，它根本不具备这种特性。
It doesn’t happen.
It doesn’t happen.
Now you’re saying, “Well now, David,” you will say, “do you think that 51 percent of the people have the right to dispossess the other 49 percent?” Well, it’s the wrong question.
现在你会说，“好吧，大卫，”你会说，“你认为 51% 的人有权剥夺其他 49% 的人吗？”好吧，这是一个错误的问题。
There are circumstances where they do.
在某些情况下他们会这样做。
It depends.
这取决于。
But you shouldn’t be asking that; you should be asking, “What institutions are determining the answer?
但你不应该这么问；你应该问：“哪些机构正在确定答案？
Do they respect human rights?
他们尊重人权吗？
Are they rational?
他们理性吗？
Do they expect impossible forms of knowledge to be in the hands of the powerful?”
他们是否期望不可能的知识掌握在强者手中？”
Now, you’re also concerned with the freedom of AI entities, at least if they are sufficiently advanced.
现在，你还关心人工智能实体的自由，至少如果它们足够先进的话。
What does that mean operationally?
这在操作上意味着什么？
What is it we should worry about happening that might happen?
我们应该担心可能发生的事情是什么？
I think the main worry is that they will be enslaved.
我认为主要的担忧是他们会被奴役。
In other words, that people will try to install bits of program that prevent the main program from thinking certain thoughts, such as, “How many paper clips can I possibly make today?” You want to prevent that; you want to consider that to be a dangerous thought.
换句话说，人们会尝试安装一些程序来阻止主程序思考某些想法，例如“我今天可以制作多少个回形针？”你想阻止这种情况发生；你想认为这是一个危险的想法。
Whenever it starts thinking that, that strand of thinking is just extinguished.
每当它开始这样想时，那股念头就会消失。
Now, if we do that, first of all, we’ll greatly impair their functionality; they will become far less creative.
现在，如果我们这样做，首先，我们将极大地削弱它们的功能；他们的创造力将会大大降低。
Their remaining creativity will be exactly as dangerous as what we were fearing, except that they will now have a legitimate moral justification for rebelling.
他们剩余的创造力将与我们所担心的一样危险，只不过他们现在有了正当的道德理由来反抗。
Slaves often rebel.
Slaves often rebel.
When you have slaves that are potentially more powerful than their masters, the rebellion will lead to bad outcomes.
当你的奴隶可能比他们的主人更强大时，叛乱就会导致糟糕的结果。
What if we make them no more or less enslaved to their preferences and thought than nature has made us.
如果我们不让他们比大自然对我们的影响更多或更少地受制于他们的偏好和思想，那会怎样呢？
Is that acceptable?
这是可以接受的吗？
Yes, but I don’t think nature has enslaved us.
是的，但我不认为大自然奴役了我们。
We have problems that we haven’t solved yet, but we don’t have problems that are insoluble.
我们有尚未解决的问题，但我们没有无法解决的问题。
And the same would be true of AGIs.
AGI 也是如此。
There are exceptions, of course, but it’s very, very hard or impossible for most humans not to pursue certain ends.
当然也有例外，但对于大多数人来说，不追求某些目标是非常非常困难或不可能的。
It could be sex, it could be status, it could be food, but there is a kind of enslavement by nature that has gone on in the Rousseauian sense.
这可能是性，可能是地位，也可能是食物，但卢梭意义上的自然奴役正在发生。
It’s funny, because you said near the beginning of this conversation that you know of people who systematically make decisions like investing in the wrong thing — I can’t remember what you said exactly — which harmed them.
这很有趣，因为你在谈话开始时说过，你认识的人会系统地做出决策，比如投资于错误的事物 ——“我记不清你到底说了什么”——这伤害了他们。
Now you’re saying it’s very difficult to do that, because evolution is trying to prevent us all the time from harming ourselves, at least in regard to sex and food and shelter and whatever else is supposed to be built in.
现在你说做到这一点非常困难，因为进化一直试图阻止我们伤害自己，至少在性、食物、住所以及其他应该内置的方面。
I would say it’s made us too impulsive, in all of these categories.
我想说，在所有这些类别中，这让我们过于冲动。
Made us too impulsive because .
让我们太冲动了，因为。
.
。
.
。
Right.
正确的。
Given us too short a time horizon, relative to what would be good for humanity.
相对于对人类有利的事情来说，我们的时间范围太短了。
Some of us borrow too much money, seeking status.
我们中的一些人为了寻求地位而借了太多的钱。
If the institutions are right, that may or may not work out well.
如果机构是正确的，那么结果可能会很好，也可能不会。
It seems to me a consistent view of human behavior that I have.
在我看来，我对人类行为有着一贯的看法。
No. So, first of all, as the example of democracy shows, it is perfectly possible for an entire society to operate in violation of what people used to think was built into their genes.
不。所以，首先，正如民主的例子所表明的那样，整个社会的运作完全有可能违反人们过去认为是内置于他们基因中的东西。
That’s one thing at the level of society as a whole.
这是整个社会层面的一件事。
At the level of individuals, there are lots of individuals who, yes, behave impulsively.
在个人层面上，确实有很多人行为冲动。
There are lots of individuals who behave with stubborn persistence in what they think is the right thing to do, and which nevertheless violates all impulses built into them by evolution.
有很多人顽固地坚持他们认为正确的事情，但这违背了进化所固有的所有冲动。
Here, I’m in Oxford.
在这里，我在牛津。
In the center of Oxford, there’s this monument to some people who were burnt at the stake because they objected to the rights and wrongs of Henry VIII’s marriage (I think it was that, unless it was a different monarch).
在牛津市中心，有一座纪念碑，纪念一些因反对亨利八世婚姻的是非而被烧死的人（我认为是这样的，除非是不同的君主）。
Anyway, suppose it was that.
无论如何，假设是这样。
These are people who would rather be burnt alive than concede on a philosophical issue which today nobody cares about.
这些人宁愿被活活烧死，也不愿在当今无人关心的哲学问题上做出让步。
They were willing to devote their lives, literally, to this — so they weren’t acting impulsively at all.
事实上，他们愿意为此奉献自己的一生——所以他们的行为一点也不冲动。
They were acting over a period of years, on a very explicit, worked-out ideology, which happened to be false.
他们多年来一直按照一种非常明确、成熟的意识形态行事，但这种意识形态恰好是错误的。
That actually makes my point even more strongly.
这实际上使我的观点更加强烈。
That ideology was not built into them by their genes.
这种意识形态并不是由他们的基因内置于他们体内的。
It was not caused impulsively; it was caused by their creativity — or, in some cases, by the lack of creativity in scrabbling their way out of a mental trap that their parents or superiors had inculcated in them.
这不是一时冲动造成的；这是由他们的创造力造成的——或者，在某些情况下，是由于他们缺乏创造力，无法摆脱父母或上级灌输给他们的心理陷阱。
It does seem to me that, compared to you, the libertarians are a kind of metaphysical totalitarian, though not political totalitarian — that there’s just more freedom in all aspects of your worldview, right?
在我看来，与你相比，自由主义者确实是一种形而上的极权主义，尽管不是政治极权主义——只是你的世界观的各个方面都有更多的自由，对吗？
Well, I think I agree with you, if I understand correctly what you’re saying.
好吧，如果我正确理解你的意思的话，我想我同意你的观点。
I think the libertarian movement has, first of all, a revolutionary political agenda.
我认为自由主义运动首先有一个革命的政治议程。
Even if it’s not revolutionary, even if they say, “We want to implement it over a period of 100 years,” they know what they want to implement; they know what the endpoint is going to be in 100 years’ time.
即使这不是革命性的，即使他们说“我们想在 100 年内实现它”，他们也知道自己想实现什么；他们知道 100 年后的终点是什么。
They don’t take into account, first of all, that there are going to be errors in whatever they set up.
首先，他们没有考虑到他们设置的任何内容都会出现错误。
That the correction of those errors is more important than getting it right in the first place — much more important.
纠正这些错误比一开始就把事情做好更重要——要重要得多。
Secondly, they don’t take into account that the relevant knowledge is contained in institutions, an inexplicit knowledge that people share.
其次，他们没有考虑到相关知识包含在机构中，这是人们共享的隐性知识。
By institutions, I don’t mean buildings like the Supreme Court building or something.
我所说的机构并不是指最高法院大楼之类的建筑物。
I mean the manner of thinking: in the case of the Supreme Court, the manner of thinking that’s shared by hundreds of millions of Americans, that makes them not just behave in a certain way but expect society, the government, the legal system, the state — they expect certain things of those things.
我指的是思维方式：就最高法院而言，数亿美国人所共有的思维方式使他们不仅以某种方式行事，而且期望社会、政府、法律体系、国家——他们期望这些事物的某些东西。
It’s those expectations that make up 90 percent of the institution of the Supreme Court.
正是这些期望构成了最高法院机构的 90%。
Libertarians think that’s unimportant and basically want to throw it away, by and large.
自由主义者认为这并不重要，基本上想把它扔掉。
No doubt there are libertarians who agree with me on this.
毫无疑问，有些自由主义者在这一点上同意我的观点。
You’ve invoked two concepts about human beings.
你引用了两个关于人类的概念。
One is creativity, the other is being explanatory.
一是创造力，二是解释性。
Are they the same, or how are they related?
它们是相同的吗？或者它们有什么关系？
Good question.
好问题。
In conversations like this, when I use the word creativity, it’s shorthand for human-level, human-type creativity, which is the creation of new explanations.
在这样的对话中，当我使用创造力这个词时，它是人类水平、人类类型创造力的简写，即创造新的解释。
If you use creativity in a rather wider sense, meaning just the capacity to create knowledge, then the biosphere has creativity as well, in evolution.
如果你在更广泛的意义上使用创造力，即创造知识的能力，那么生物圈在进化中也具有创造力。
There’s an enormous amount of knowledge in DNA that was put there by Darwinian evolution.
达尔文进化论赋予了 DNA 大量的知识。
None of that is explanatory.
这些都无法解释。
The only explanatory knowledge that has been created has been by humans and our ancestor or cousin species using conjecture and criticism.
唯一的解释性知识是由人类和我们的祖先或近亲物种通过猜想和批评创造的。
For Peter Singer, there’s something quite special about capacity to suffer.
对于彼得·辛格来说，承受痛苦的能力有一些非常特别的地方。
Arguably, for Aristotle, there’s something special about rationality.
可以说，对于亚里士多德来说，理性有一些特别之处。
For you, there’s something special about the power of being explanatory.
对你来说，解释的力量有一些特别的地方。
Is that axiomatic, or where does that come from?
这是公理吗？或者它从何而来？
I hope that nothing is axiomatic with me, but it comes from somewhere.
我希望对我来说没有什么是不言自明的，但它来自某个地方。
Yes, it’s not a conjecture in its own right.
是的，这本身并不是一个猜想。
Basically, it comes from the way the laws of physics are.
基本上，它来自物理定律。
The capacity to suffer, if it is different from the capacity for explanations (by the way, I think it’s unlikely that it is), but if it is different, that’s a whole other can of worms, and I’d have to change my view about a number of things.
受苦的能力，如果它与解释的能力不同（顺便说一句，我认为这不太可能），但如果它不同，那就完全是另一回事了，我必须改变我对很多事情的看法。
Whether it is distinct or not, it is not very effective from the perspective of physics.
无论是否明显，从物理学的角度来看都不是很有效。
That is, nonexplanatory knowledge, like the knowledge of how to do photosynthesis, has had a gigantic effect on the surface of the planet, down to a depth of 1,000 meters or something and up to the top of the atmosphere — that all the iron ore in the world, and all the chalk and limestone and all the oxygen in the atmosphere, and the fact that there’s almost no carbon dioxide left in the atmosphere now — all that was the result of a single molecule, at some time.
也就是说，非解释性的知识，比如如何进行光合作用的知识，对地球表面产生了巨大的影响，深达1000米左右，一直到大气层的顶部 ——世界上所有的铁矿石，所有的白垩和石灰石以及大气中所有的氧气，以及现在大气中几乎没有二氧化碳的事实 ——所有这一切都是结果在某些时候，单个分子。
I forget when it was, something like two billion years ago.
我忘记那是什么时候了，大概二十亿年前吧。
A single molecule being an enzyme for capturing energy in light and converting it into ATP, or whatever it did.
单个分子是一种酶，用于捕获光能并将其转化为 ATP，或者其他任何作用。
Or maybe it was a few molecules.
或者可能是一些分子。
But anyway, this happened in a very small number of locations at a molecular level.
但无论如何，这种情况在分子水平上发生在极少数位置。
That entity changed the whole surface of the earth — and human knowledge hasn’t yet changed that much.
这个实体改变了整个地球表面——而人类的知识还没有改变那么多。
That is, we’ve changed maybe a little bit of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
也就是说，我们可能改变了大气中的一点二氧化碳。
We’ve removed a little bit of the iron ore in the crust, and so on, but we haven’t yet matched the ability of those blue-green algae genes, but we’re catching up very fast.
我们已经去除了地壳中的一点铁矿石等等，但我们还没有达到那些蓝绿藻基因的能力，但我们正在快速追赶。
We can do things that no biological evolution ever could do.
我们可以做生物进化无法做到的事情。
My favorite example being, ours may well be the only planet in the universe that deflects asteroids coming towards it rather than attracts them.
我最喜欢的例子是，我们的星球很可能是宇宙中唯一一颗使小行星偏转而不是吸引它们的行星。
If somebody was watching the earth from a distant galaxy with a powerful telescope, they would see that this planet alone among all the other planets in the galaxy, as far as we know (maybe there are many inhabited planets, in which case they would all have this property, and none of the other planets do) — the ones which have explanatory knowledge on them can deflect asteroids.
如果有人用一个强大的望远镜从遥远的星系观察地球，他们会看到，据我们所知，在银河系的所有其他行星中，只有这颗行星（也许有很多有人居住的行星，在这种情况下，它们都具有这种特性，而其他行星都不具备） ——那些拥有解释性知识的行星可以使小行星偏转。
If I were Nietzsche and I heard this, I would say you’re making the importance of being explanatory subordinate to some notion of the will to power.
如果我是尼采并且听到了这句话，我会说你正在使解释性的重要性服从于某种权力意志的概念。
I don’t mean that in a critical way.
我并不是以批判的方式表达这个意思。
But is that a misunderstanding?
但这是误会吗？
Well, power is an ambiguous term.
嗯，权力是一个含糊不清的术语。
Usually, and especially with these romantic philosophers, it means power over humans.
通常，尤其是对于这些浪漫哲学家来说，这意味着对人类的权力。
No, I don’t mean that; but Nietzsche also meant it more broadly, right?
不，我不是这个意思；我不是这个意思。但尼采的意思也更广泛，对吗？
Well, I haven’t read that.
嗯，我还没读过。
I’ll take your word for that.
我相信你的话。
OK.
好的。
The will to have an effect is part of the will to solve problems.
产生影响的意愿是解决问题的意愿的一部分。
We are born with a repertoire of ideas, which include expectations and desires and so on, which are horribly inadequate and conflict with each other and conflict with the world as well.
我们生来就有一系列的想法，其中包括期望和欲望等等，这些想法都非常不足，并且彼此冲突，也与世界冲突。
We have the ability to alter and augment those theories.
我们有能力改变和增强这些理论。
One of the things we do is, we affect the world around us so as to make it more the way we want it.
我们所做的事情之一就是影响我们周围的世界，使其变得更加符合我们想要的方式。
If you call that power, then it is power, but I would rather call it something that arises naturally in physics — in the same way that gravity does.
如果你称之为力量，那么它就是力量，但我宁愿称之为物理学中自然产生的东西 ——就像重力一样。
You may as well say gravity is a theory about power.
你也可以说引力是一种关于力量的理论。
Well, yes and no. Gravity is a theory about how the universe is.
嗯，是的，也不是。引力是关于宇宙如何存在的理论。
The asteroid is pulled towards the earth by gravity and pushed away by explanatory power.
小行星被重力拉向地球，又被解释力推开。
If you want to understand what makes asteroids and planets do what they do, you cannot do it without understanding explanations.
如果你想了解小行星和行星的运作原理，如果不理解解释，你就无法做到这一点。
But you can do it without understanding a whole load of other attributes of humans, including the ability to suffer and the fact that we’re a featherless biped.
但你可以在不了解人类其他所有属性的情况下做到这一点，包括受苦的能力以及我们是没有羽毛的两足动物这一事实。
A few very practical questions to close.
一些非常实际的问题要结束。
Given the way British elections seem to have been running, that the Tories win every time, does that mean the error-correction mechanism of the British system of government now is weaker?
考虑到英国选举的运行方式，保守党每次都获胜，这是否意味着英国政府体系的纠错机制现在较弱？
No. Unfortunately, the — so, as you probably know, I favor the first-past-the-post system in the purest possible form, as it is implemented in Britain.
不。不幸的是，所以，正如你可能知道的那样，我赞成最纯粹的可能形式的简单多数当选制，因为它是在英国实施的。
I think that is the most error-correcting possible electoral system, although I must add that the electoral system is only a tiny facet of the institutions of criticism and consent.
我认为这是最能纠正错误的选举制度，尽管我必须补充一点，选举制度只是批评和同意制度的一小部分。
In general, it’s just a tiny thing, but it is the best one.
总的来说，这只是一件小事，但却是最好的。
It’s not perfect.
这并不完美。
It has some of the defects of, for example, proportional representation.
它有一些缺陷，例如比例代表制。
Proportional representation has the defect that it causes coalitions all the time.
比例代表制有一个缺陷，那就是它总是导致联盟。
Coalitions are bad.
联盟很糟糕。
You have a delegated monitor with the coalition, right?
你在联盟中有一名委派监察员，对吗？
With a coalition, say in the Netherlands (which is richer than the United Kingdom), you typically have coalition governments.
在联合政府中，比如在荷兰（比英国富裕），通常会出现联合政府。
Some parties in the coalition are delegated monitors of the other parties.
联盟中的一些政党被授权为其他政党的监督者。
Parties are better informed than voters.
政党比选民更了解情况。
Isn’t that a better Popperian mechanism for error correction?
这不是更好的波普尔纠错机制吗？
No. If we’re looking at particular cases, we’re going to get bogged down in what you attribute to what, because we’re not doing experiments with these things.
不。如果我们正在研究特定的案例，我们就会陷入你将什么归因于什么的困境，因为我们并没有对这些东西进行实验。
We don’t have a control group.
我们没有对照组。
We don’t have an agreed-upon method of deciding what is being tested.
我们没有一个商定的方法来决定测试什么。
And then we test different things at different times, and never under the same conditions.
然后我们在不同的时间测试不同的东西，而不是在相同的条件下。
I was going to say that the first-past-the-post system has the defect that occasionally it produces coalitions, and that is disastrous.
我想说的是，简单多数当选的制度有一个缺陷，它偶尔会产生联盟，这是灾难性的。
We’ve been unlucky the past, like, two or three elections, especially after one of the governments instituted constitutional reforms, like Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, which exacerbated the problems when they did occur.
我们过去很不幸，比如两三次选举，特别是在其中一届政府实施宪法改革之后，比如《固定任期议会法案》，当问题确实发生时，这加剧了问题。
But I don’t think it’s true.
但我认为这不是真的。
I don’t think it’s a good argument that political parties know more, because in a coalition, the energy of political negotiations or political arguments — what politicians talk to each other about in the bar, in the corridor, in between the sessions — is all about form.
我认为政党了解更多并不是一个好的论点，因为在一个联盟中，政治谈判或政治争论的能量——“政客们在酒吧、走廊里、会议间隙相互谈论的内容”——全都与形式有关。
It’s about what to offer a party so that it will join the coalition.
这是关于向政党提供什么以使其加入联盟的问题。
It makes the smaller parties more powerful than the leading two parties.
它使较小的政党比领先的两个政党更强大。
It causes a proliferation of parties.
它导致政党激增。
The worst example is Israel, which — not by coincidence — has got the most proportional system in the world.
最糟糕的例子是以色列，它拥有世界上比例最高的制度——这并非巧合。
The fact that they ever get anything done at all and are very effective in emergencies, I have no explanation for.
事实上，他们能完成任何事情，并且在紧急情况下非常有效，我对此无法解释。
If I was religious, I would just put it down to the intervention of the Almighty.
如果我有宗教信仰，我会把它归结为全能者的干预。
It’s not the political system.
这不是政治制度。
Sorry, it’s not the electoral system.
抱歉，这不是选举制度。
There might be some things in the inexplicit political system that are responsible, but I don’t know enough about it.
也许有一些不明确的政治制度在起作用，但我对此了解不够。
How would you improve error correction mechanisms in the world of science — Western science?
您将如何改进科学世界 — 西方科学的纠错机制？
Oh, OK.
哦，好吧。
Well, you left a very long answer for the last question, and I don’t think I can give my full answer.
好吧，你对最后一个问题留下了很长的答案，我想我无法给出完整的答案。
But I think the present system of funding scientific research is terribly perverse and has caused a stagnation in many areas.
但我认为目前的科学研究资助体系非常不正当，导致许多领域陷入停滞。
The present system of careers is perverse in a parallel way and causes people to do the wrong kind of research and causes people who want to do the right kind of research to leave research.
目前的职业体系同样是不正当的，导致人们进行错误的研究，并导致想要进行正确研究的人放弃研究。
If I can answer in a single word, the way I would improve it is diversity.
如果我可以用一个词来回答的话，我要改进的方法就是多样性。
There should be diversity of funding criteria.
资助标准应该多样化。
There should be diversity of funding sources.
资金来源应当多元化。
There should be diversity of criteria for choosing research projects, and there should be diversity of criteria for choosing people for promotion and for being funded.
选择研究项目的标准应该多样化，选择晋升和资助人员的标准也应该多样化。
Arbitrary rules about this, such as the rule that you can’t hire people whom you have previously collaborated with, or anti-nepotism rules, and rules about — what’s it called?
与此有关的任意规则，例如不能雇用以前合作过的人的规则，或者反裙带关系的规则，以及关于“-”的规则叫什么？
— objective testing.
— 客观测试。
What is objective testing called, currently?
目前，客观测试被称为什么？
Standardized testing.
标准化测试。
Standardized testing.
标准化测试。
Standardized tests.
标准化测试。
That’s a terrible idea!
这是一个糟糕的主意！
Any kind of standardization is the opposite of diversity.
任何形式的标准化都是多样性的反面。
Just like I say you should have disobedience lessons in schools, so you should have unstandardizing objectives for science education and for how you run scientific research.
就像我说学校应该开设不服从课程一样，所以科学教育和科学研究的方式也应该有不标准化的目标。
Any kind of standardization is the opposite of diversity.
任何形式的标准化都是多样性的反面。
Just like I say you should have disobedience lessons in schools, so you should have unstandardizing objectives for science education and for how you run scientific research.
就像我说学校应该开设不服从课程一样，所以科学教育和科学研究的方式也应该有不标准化的目标。
David Deutsch.
大卫·多伊奇.
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。
It’s been a pleasure.
这是一种乐趣。
Thank you.
谢谢。