How You Know

December 2014 I've read Villehardouin's chronicle of the Fourth Crusade at least two times, maybe three.

2014 年 12 月 我读过维尔哈杜安 (Villehardouin) 的第四次十字军编年史至少两遍，也许三遍。

And yet if I had to write down everything I remember from it, I doubt it would amount to much more than a page.

然而，如果我必须写下我所记得的一切，我怀疑它会比一页多得多。

Multiply this times several hundred, and I get an uneasy feeling when I look at my bookshelves.

乘以几百，当我看着我的书架时，我就有一种不安的感觉。

What use is it to read all these books if I remember so little from them?

如果我对这些书的记忆如此之少，那么读所有这些书有什么用呢？

A few months ago, as I was reading Constance Reid's excellent

几个月前，当我读康斯坦斯·里德（Constance Reid）的优秀著作时

biography of Hilbert, I figured out if not the answer to this question, at least something that made me feel better about it.

希尔伯特的传记，我想出了即使不是这个问题的答案，至少也让我感觉更好了。

She writes: Hilbert had no patience with mathematical lectures which filled the students with facts but did not teach them how to frame a problem and solve it.

她写道： 希尔伯特对数学讲座没有耐心，这些讲座向学生灌输事实，却没有教他们如何提出问题并解决问题。

He often used to tell them that "a perfect formulation of a problem is already half its solution." That has always seemed to me an important point, and I was even

他经常告诉他们“问题的完美表述已经是解决方案的一半”。在我看来，这一点一直很重要，我什至认为

more convinced of it after hearing it confirmed by Hilbert.

听到希尔伯特的证实后更加确信了这一点。

But how had I come to believe in this idea in the first place?

但我最初是如何相信这个想法的呢？

A combination of my own experience and other things I'd read.

结合了我自己的经验和我读过的其他内容。

None of which I could at that moment remember!

那一刻我什么都不记得了！

And eventually I'd forget that Hilbert had confirmed it too.

最终我忘记了希尔伯特也证实了这一点。

But my increased belief in the importance of this idea would remain something I'd learned from this book, even after I'd forgotten I'd learned it.

但我对这个想法重要性的日益增强的信念仍然是我从这本书中学到的东西，即使在我忘记了我学过它之后。

Reading and experience train your model of the world.

阅读和经验可以训练你的世界观。

And even if you forget the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world persists.

即使你忘记了这段经历或你读过的内容，它对你的世界模型的影响仍然存在。

Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of.

你的头脑就像一个已编译的程序，但你却失去了它的来源。

It works, but you don't know why.

它有效，但你不知道为什么。

The place to look for what I learned from Villehardouin's chronicle is not what I remember from it, but my mental models of the crusades, Venice, medieval culture, siege warfare, and so on.

我从维尔哈杜安的编年史中寻找的地方不是我从中记住的东西，而是我对十字军东征、威尼斯、中世纪文化、攻城战等的心智模型。

Which doesn't

哪个不

mean I couldn't have read more attentively, but at least the harvest of reading is not so miserably small as it might seem.

意思是我不可能更用心地读书，但至少读书的收获并不像看上去那么小。

This is one of those things that seem obvious in retrospect.

回想起来，这是显而易见的事情之一。

But it was a surprise to me and presumably would be to anyone else who felt uneasy about (apparently) forgetting so much they'd read.

但这对我来说是一个惊喜，想必对任何其他因为（显然）忘记他们读过的东西而感到不安的人来说也是如此。

Realizing it does more than make you feel a little better about forgetting, though.

不过，意识到这一点不仅仅能让你对遗忘感觉好一点。

There are specific implications.

有具体的影响。

For example, reading and experience are usually "compiled" at the time they happen, using the state of your brain at that time.

例如，阅读和经验通常是在发生时使用您当时的大脑状态进行“编译”的。

The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life.

同一本书在你人生的不同阶段会有不同的编辑方式。

Which means it is very much worth reading important books multiple times.

这意味着重要的书籍非常值得多次阅读。

I always used to feel some misgivings about rereading books.

我过去常常对重读书籍感到有些疑虑。

I unconsciously lumped reading together with work like carpentry, where having to do something again is a sign you

我无意识地将阅读与木工等工作混为一谈，木工等工作必须重新做某事就表明你

did it wrong the first time.

第一次就做错了。

Whereas now the phrase "already read" seems almost ill-formed.

而现在“已读”这个短语似乎几乎格式错误。

Intriguingly, this implication isn't limited to books.

有趣的是，这种含义不仅限于书籍。

Technology will increasingly make it possible to relive our experiences.

技术将越来越多地使重温我们的经历成为可能。

When people do that today it's usually to enjoy them again (e.g. when looking at pictures of a trip) or to find the origin of some bug in their compiled code (e.g. when Stephen Fry succeeded in remembering

当人们今天这样做时，通常是为了再次享受它们（例如，当查看旅行的图片时）或在编译的代码中找到某些错误的根源（例如，当斯蒂芬·弗莱（Stephen Fry）成功记住时）

the childhood trauma that prevented him from singing).

阻止他唱歌的童年创伤）。

But as technologies for recording and playing back your life improve, it may become common for people to relive experiences without any goal in mind, simply to learn from them again as one might when rereading a book.

但随着记录和回放生活的技术不断进步，人们在没有任何目标的情况下重温经历可能会变得很常见，只是为了再次从中学习，就像重读一本书时一样。

Eventually we may be able not just to play back experiences but also to index and even edit them.

最终，我们不仅能够回放体验，还能够索引甚至编辑它们。

So although not knowing how you

所以虽然不知道你是如何

know things may seem part of being human, it may not be.

知道事物可能看起来是人类的一部分，但也可能不是。

Thanks to Sam Altman, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.

感谢 Sam Altman、Jessica Livingston 和 Robert Morris 阅读本文的草稿。