Novelty and Heresy

November 2019 If you discover something new, there's a significant chance you'll be accused of some form of heresy.

2019 年 11 月 如果您发现了一些新东西，您很有可能会被指控为某种形式的异端邪说。

To discover new things, you have to work on ideas that are good but non-obvious; if an idea is obviously good, other people are probably already working on it.

为了发现新事物，你必须致力于好的但不明显的想法；如果一个想法显然是好的，那么其他人可能已经在研究它了。

One common way for a good idea to be non-obvious is for it to be hidden in the shadow of some mistaken assumption that people are very attached to.

一个好主意变得不明显的一种常见方式是，它被隐藏在人们非常依恋的一些错误假设的阴影下。

But anything you discover from working on such an idea will tend to contradict the mistaken assumption that was concealing it.

但是，你从研究这样一个想法时发现的任何东西都往往会与隐藏它的错误假设相矛盾。

And you will thus get a lot of heat from people attached to the mistaken assumption.

因此，你会受到人们对错误假设的强烈批评。

Galileo and Darwin are famous examples of this phenomenon, but it's probably always an ingredient in the resistance to new ideas.

伽利略和达尔文是这种现象的著名例子，但它可能始终是抵制新思想的一个因素。

So it's particularly dangerous for an organization or society to

因此，对于一个组织或社会来说，如果

have a culture of pouncing on heresy.

有一种猛烈攻击异端的文化。

When you suppress heresies, you don't just prevent people from contradicting the mistaken assumption you're trying to protect.

当你压制异端时，你不仅仅阻止人们反驳你试图保护的错误假设。

You also suppress any idea that implies indirectly that it's false.

你还压制任何间接暗示它是错误的想法。

<!-- When you suppress heresy, you silence not just your opponents but also everyone who contradicts you unintentionally.

<!-- 当你镇压异端时，你不仅压制了你的对手，也压制了所有无意中反对你的人。

And because ideas are so interconnected, you're almost certainly silencing more

因为想法是如此相互关联，所以你几乎肯定会沉默更多

people than you realize.

人们比你意识到的。

--> Every cherished mistaken assumption has a dead zone of unexplored ideas around it.

--> 每个珍贵的错误假设周围都有一个未探索的想法的死区。

And the more preposterous the assumption, the bigger the dead zone it creates.

假设越荒谬，它造成的死区就越大。

There is a positive side to this phenomenon though.

不过，这种现象也有积极的一面。

If you're looking for new ideas, one way to find them is by looking for heresies .

如果您正在寻找新想法，找到它们的一种方法是寻找异端。

When you look at the question this way, the depressingly large dead zones around mistaken assumptions become excitingly large

当你以这种方式看待问题时，错误假设周围令人沮丧的大死区变得令人兴奋