不要问作者是谁。关键看他说的有没有道理。
“亚美利加的非智化”那一线太长,姑且贴在这里。
===========================================================================
A Designer Universe?
by Steven Weinberg
I have been asked to comment on whether the universe shows signs of having been designed.1 I don't see how it's possible to talk about this without having at least some vague idea of what a designer would be like. Any possible universe could be explained as the work of some sort of designer. Even a universe that is completely chaotic, without any laws or regularities at all, could be supposed to have been designed by an idiot.
The question that seems to me to be worth answering, and perhaps not impossible to answer, is whether the universe shows signs of having been designed by a deity more or less like those of traditional monotheistic religions—not necessarily a figure from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but at least some sort of personality, some intelligence, who created the universe and has some special concern with life, in particular with human life. I expect that this is not the idea of a designer held by many here. You may tell me that you are thinking of something much more abstract, some cosmic spirit of order and harmony, as Einstein did. You are certainly free to think that way, but then I don't know why you use words like 'designer' or 'God,' except perhaps as a form of protective coloration.
It used to be obvious that the world was designed by some sort of intelligence. What else could account for fire and rain and lightning and earthquakes? Above all, the wonderful abilities of living things seemed to point to a creator who had a special interest in life. Today we understand most of these things in terms of physical forces acting under impersonal laws. We don't yet know the most fundamental laws, and we can't work out all the consequences of the laws we do know. The human mind remains extraordinarily difficult to understand, but so is the weather. We can't predict whether it will rain one month from today, but we do know the rules that govern the rain, even though we can't always calculate their consequences. I see nothing about the human mind any more than about the weather that stands out as beyond the hope of understanding as a consequence of impersonal laws acting over billions of years.
There do not seem to be any exceptions to this natural order, any miracles. I have the impression that these days most theologians are embarrassed by talk of miracles, but the great monotheistic faiths are founded on miracle stories—the burning bush, the empty tomb, an angel dictating the Koran to Mohammed—and some of these faiths teach that miracles continue at the present day. The evidence for all these miracles seems to me to be considerably weaker than the evidence for cold fusion, and I don't believe in cold fusion. Above all, today we understand that even human beings are the result of natural selection acting over millions of years of breeding and eating.
I'd guess that if we were to see the hand of the designer anywhere, it would be in the fundamental principles, the final laws of nature, the book of rules that govern all natural phenomena. We don't know the final laws yet, but as far as we have been able to see, they are utterly impersonal and quite without any special role for life. There is no life force. As Richard Feynman has said, when you look at the universe and understand its laws, 'the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.'
True, when quantum mechanics was new, some physicists thought that it put humans back into the picture, because the principles of quantum mechanics tell us how to calculate the probabilities of various results that might be found by a human observer. But, starting with the work of Hugh Everett forty years ago, the tendency of physicists who think deeply about these things has been to reformulate quantum mechanics in an entirely objective way, with observers treated just like everything else. I don't know if this program has been completely successful yet, but I think it will be.
I have to admit that, even when physicists will have gone as far as they can go, when we have a final theory, we will not have a completely satisfying picture of the world, because we will still be left with the question 'why?' Why this theory, rather than some other theory? For example, why is the world described by quantum mechanics? Quantum mechanics is the one part of our present physics that is likely to survive intact in any future theory, but there is nothing logically inevitable about quantum mechanics; I can imagine a universe governed by Newtonian mechanics instead. So there seems to be an irreducible mystery that science will not eliminate.
But religious theories of design have the same problem. Either you mean something definite by a God, a designer, or you don't. If you don't, then what are we talking about? If you do mean something definite by 'God' or 'design,' if for instance you believe in a God who is jealous, or loving, or intelligent, or whimsical, then you still must confront the question 'why?' A religion may assert that the universe is governed by that sort of God, rather than some other sort of God, and it may offer evidence for this belief, but it cannot explain why this should be so.
In this respect, it seems to me that physics is in a better position to give us a partly satisfying explanation of the world than religion can ever be, because although physicists won't be able to explain why the laws of nature are what they are and not something completely different, at least we may be able to explain why they are not slightly different. For instance, no one has been able to think of a logically consistent alternative to quantum mechanics that is only slightly different. Once you start trying to make small changes in quantum mechanics, you get into theories with negative probabilities or other logical absurdities. When you combine quantum mechanics with relativity you increase its logical fragility. You find that unless you arrange the theory in just the right way you get nonsense, like effects preceding causes, or infinite probabilities. Religious theories, on the other hand, seem to be infinitely flexible, with nothing to prevent the invention of deities of any conceivable sort.
Now, it doesn't settle the matter for me to say that we cannot see the hand of a designer in what we know about the fundamental principles of science. It might be that, although these principles do not refer explicitly to life, much less human life, they are nevertheless craftily designed to bring it about.
Some physicists have argued that certain constants of nature have values that seem to have been mysteriously fine-tuned to just the values that allow for the possibility of life, in a way that could only be explained by the intervention of a designer with some special concern for life. I am not impressed with these supposed instances of fine-tuning. For instance, one of the most frequently quoted examples of fine-tuning has to do with a property of the nucleus of the carbon atom. The matter left over from the first few minutes of the universe was almost entirely hydrogen and helium, with virtually none of the heavier elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen that seem to be necessary for life. The heavy elements that we find on earth were built up hundreds of millions of years later in a first generation of stars, and then spewed out into the interstellar gas out of which our solar system eventually formed.
The first step in the sequence of nuclear reactions that created the heavy elements in early stars is usually the formation of a carbon nucleus out of three helium nuclei. There is a negligible chance of producing a carbon nucleus in its normal state (the state of lowest energy) in collisions of three helium nuclei, but it would be possible to produce appreciable amounts of carbon in stars if the carbon nucleus could exist in a radioactive state with an energy roughly 7 million electron volts (MeV) above the energy of the normal state, matching the energy of three helium nuclei, but (for reasons I'll come to presently) not more than 7.7 MeV above the normal state.
This radioactive state of a carbon nucleus could be easily formed in stars from three helium nuclei. After that, there would be no problem in producing ordinary carbon; the carbon nucleus in its radioactive state would spontaneously emit light and turn into carbon in its normal nonradioactive state, the state found on earth. The critical point in producing carbon is the existence of a radioactive state that can be produced in collisions of three helium nuclei.
In fact, the carbon nucleus is known experimentally to have just such a radioactive state, with an energy 7.65 MeV above the normal state. At first sight this may seem like a pretty close call; the energy of this radioactive state of carbon misses being too high to allow the formation of carbon (and hence of us) by only 0.05 MeV, which is less than one percent of 7.65 MeV. It may appear that the constants of nature on which the properties of all nuclei depend have been carefully fine-tuned to make life possible.
Looked at more closely, the fine-tuning of the constants of nature here does not seem so fine. We have to consider the reason why the formation of carbon in stars requires the existence of a radioactive state of carbon with an energy not more than 7.7 MeV above the energy of the normal state. The reason is that the carbon nuclei in this state are actually formed in a two-step process: first, two helium nuclei combine to form the unstable nucleus of a beryllium isotope, beryllium 8, which occasionally, before it falls apart, captures another helium nucleus, forming a carbon nucleus in its radioactive state, which then decays into normal carbon. The total energy of the beryllium 8 nucleus and a helium nucleus at rest is 7.4 MeV above the energy of the normal state of the carbon nucleus; so if the energy of the radioactive state of carbon were more than 7.7 MeV it could only be formed in a collision of a helium nucleus and a beryllium 8 nucleus if the energy of motion of these two nuclei were at least 0.3 MeV—an energy which is extremely unlikely at the temperatures found in stars.
Thus the crucial thing that affects the production of carbon in stars is not the 7.65 MeV energy of the radioactive state of carbon above its normal state, but the 0.25 MeV energy of the radioactive state, an unstable composite of a beryllium 8 nucleus and a helium nucleus, above the energy of those nuclei at rest.2 This energy misses being too high for the production of carbon by a fractional amount of 0.05 MeV/0.25 MeV, or 20 percent, which is not such a close call after all.
This conclusion about the lessons to be learned from carbon synthesis is somewhat controversial. In any case, there is one constant whose value does seem remarkably well adjusted in our favor. It is the energy density of empty space, also known as the cosmological constant. It could have any value, but from first principles one would guess that this constant should be very large, and could be positive or negative. If large and positive, the cosmological constant would act as a repulsive force that increases with distance, a force that would prevent matter from clumping together in the early universe, the process that was the first step in forming galaxies and stars and planets and people. If large and negative the cosmological constant would act as an attractive force increasing with distance, a force that would almost immediately reverse the expansion of the universe and cause it to recollapse, leaving no time for the evolution of life. In fact, astronomical observations show that the cosmological constant is quite small, very much smaller than would have been guessed from first principles.
It is still too early to tell whether there is some fundamental principle that can explain why the cosmological constant must be this small. But even if there is no such principle, recent developments in cosmology offer the possibility of an explanation of why the measured values of the cosmological constant and other physical constants are favorable for the appearance of intelligent life. According to the 'chaotic inflation' theories of André Linde and others, the expanding cloud of billions of galaxies that we call the big bang may be just one fragment of a much larger universe in which big bangs go off all the time, each one with different values for the fundamental constants.
In any such picture, in which the universe contains many parts with different values for what we call the constants of nature, there would be no difficulty in understanding why these constants take values favorable to intelligent life. There would be a vast number of big bangs in which the constants of nature take values unfavorable for life, and many fewer where life is possible. You don't have to invoke a benevolent designer to explain why we are in one of the parts of the universe where life is possible: in all the other parts of the universe there is no one to raise the question.3 If any theory of this general type turns out to be correct, then to conclude that the constants of nature have been fine-tuned by a benevolent designer would be like saying, 'Isn't it wonderful that God put us here on earth, where there's water and air and the surface gravity and temperature are so comfortable, rather than some horrid place, like Mercury or Pluto?' Where else in the solar system other than on earth could we have evolved?
Reasoning like this is called 'anthropic.' Sometimes it just amounts to an assertion that the laws of nature are what they are so that we can exist, without further explanation. This seems to me to be little more than mystical mumbo jumbo. On the other hand, if there really is a large number of worlds in which some constants take different values, then the anthropic explanation of why in our world they take values favorable for life is just common sense, like explaining why we live on the earth rather than Mercury or Pluto. The actual value of the cosmological constant, recently measured by observations of the motion of distant supernovas, is about what you would expect from this sort of argument: it is just about small enough so that it does not interfere much with the formation of galaxies. But we don't yet know enough about physics to tell whether there are different parts of the universe in which what are usually called the constants of physics really do take different values. This is not a hopeless question; we will be able to answer it when we know more about the quantum theory of gravitation than we do now.
It would be evidence for a benevolent designer if life were better than could be expected on other grounds. To judge this, we should keep in mind that a certain capacity for pleasure would readily have evolved through natural selection, as an incentive to animals who need to eat and breed in order to pass on their genes. It may not be likely that natural selection on any one planet would produce animals who are fortunate enough to have the leisure and the ability to do science and think abstractly, but our sample of what is produced by evolution is very biased, by the fact that it is only in these fortunate cases that there is anyone thinking about cosmic design. Astronomers call this a selection effect.
The universe is very large, and perhaps infinite, so it should be no surprise that, among the enormous number of planets that may support only unintelligent life and the still vaster number that cannot support life at all, there is some tiny fraction on which there are living beings who are capable of thinking about the universe, as we are doing here. A journalist who has been assigned to interview lottery winners may come to feel that some special providence has been at work on their behalf, but he should keep in mind the much larger number of lottery players whom he is not interviewing because they haven't won anything. Thus, to judge whether our lives show evidence for a benevolent designer, we have not only to ask whether life is better than would be expected in any case from what we know about natural selection, but we need also to take into account the bias introduced by the fact that it is we who are thinking about the problem.
This is a question that you all will have to answer for yourselves. Being a physicist is no help with questions like this, so I have to speak from my own experience. My life has been remarkably happy, perhaps in the upper 99.99 percentile of human happiness, but even so, I have seen a mother die painfully of cancer, a father's personality destroyed by Alzheimer's disease, and scores of second and third cousins murdered in the Holocaust. Signs of a benevolent designer are pretty well hidden.
The prevalence of evil and misery has always bothered those who believe in a benevolent and omnipotent God. Sometimes God is excused by pointing to the need for free will. Milton gives God this argument in Paradise Lost:
I formed them free, and free they must remain
Till they enthral themselves: I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained
Their freedom; they themselves ordained their fall.
It seems a bit unfair to my relatives to be murdered in order to provide an opportunity for free will for Germans, but even putting that aside, how does free will account for cancer? Is it an opportunity of free will for tumors?
I don't need to argue here that the evil in the world proves that the universe is not designed, but only that there are no signs of benevolence that might have shown the hand of a designer. But in fact the perception that God cannot be benevolent is very old. Plays by Aeschylus and Euripides make a quite explicit statement that the gods are selfish and cruel, though they expect better behavior from humans. God in the Old Testament tells us to bash the heads of infidels and demands of us that we be willing to sacrifice our children's lives at His orders, and the God of traditional Christianity and Islam damns us for eternity if we do not worship him in the right manner. Is this a nice way to behave? I know, I know, we are not supposed to judge God according to human standards, but you see the problem here: If we are not yet convinced of His existence, and are looking for signs of His benevolence, then what other standards can we use?
The issues that I have been asked to address here will seem to many to be terribly old-fashioned. The 'argument from design' made by the English theologian William Paley is not on most peoples' minds these days. The prestige of religion seems today to derive from what people take to be its moral influence, rather than from what they may think has been its success in accounting for what we see in nature. Conversely, I have to admit that, although I really don't believe in a cosmic designer, the reason that I am taking the trouble to argue about it is that I think that on balance the moral influence of religion has been awful.
This is much too big a question to be settled here. On one side, I could point out endless examples of the harm done by religious enthusiasm, through a long history of pogroms, crusades, and jihads. In our own century it was a Muslim zealot who killed Sadat, a Jewish zealot who killed Rabin, and a Hindu zealot who killed Gandhi. No one would say that Hitler was a Christian zealot, but it is hard to imagine Nazism taking the form it did without the foundation provided by centuries of Christian anti-Semitism. On the other side, many admirers of religion would set countless examples of the good done by religion. For instance, in his recent book Imagined Worlds, the distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson has emphasized the role of religious belief in the suppression of slavery. I'd like to comment briefly on this point, not to try to prove anything with one example but just to illustrate what I think about the moral influence of religion.
It is certainly true that the campaign against slavery and the slave trade was greatly strengthened by devout Christians, including the Evangelical layman William Wilberforce in England and the Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing in America. But Christianity, like other great world religions, lived comfortably with slavery for many centuries, and slavery was endorsed in the New Testament. So what was different for anti-slavery Christians like Wilberforce and Channing? There had been no discovery of new sacred scriptures, and neither Wilberforce nor Channing claimed to have received any supernatural revelations. Rather, the eighteenth century had seen a widespread increase in rationality and humanitarianism that led others—for instance, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan—also to oppose slavery, on grounds having nothing to do with religion. Lord Mansfield, the author of the decision in Somersett's Case, which ended slavery in England (though not its colonies), was no more than conventionally religious, and his decision did not mention religious arguments. Although Wilberforce was the instigator of the campaign against the slave trade in the 1790s, this movement had essential support from many in Parliament like Fox and Pitt, who were not known for their piety. As far as I can tell, the moral tone of religion benefited more from the spirit of the times than the spirit of the times benefited from religion.
Where religion did make a difference, it was more in support of slavery than in opposition to it. Arguments from scripture were used in Parliament to defend the slave trade. Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.
In an e-mail message from the American Association for the Advancement of Science I learned that the aim of this conference is to have a constructive dialogue between science and religion. I am all in favor of a dialogue between science and religion, but not a constructive dialogue. One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.
1 This article is based on a talk given in April 1999 at the Conference on Cosmic Design of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. back
2 This was pointed out in a 1989 paper by M. Livio, D. Hollowell, A. Weiss, and J.W. Truran ('The anthropic significance of the existence of an excited state of 12C,' Nature, Vol. 340, No. 6231, July 27, 1989). They did the calculation quoted here of the 7.7 MeV maximum energy of the radioactive state of carbon, above which little carbon is formed in stars. back
3 The same conclusion may be reached in a more subtle way when quantum mechanics is applied to the whole universe. Through a reinterpretation of earlier work by Stephen Hawking, Sidney Coleman has shown how quantum mechanical effects can lead to a split of the history of the universe (more precisely, in what is called the wave function of the universe) into a huge number of separate possibilities, each one corresponding to a different set of fundamental constants. See Sidney Coleman, 'Black Holes as Red Herrings: Topological fluctuations and the loss of quantum coherence,' Nuclear Physics, Vol. B307 (1988), p. 867. back
- Re: A Designer Universe?posted on 02/28/2008
"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. "
Well said.
Some religious people think they have morals while atheists don't. This author turned the table around.:-) - Re: A Designer Universe?posted on 02/28/2008
guanzhong wrote:"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. "
I saw this sentence somewhere before. - Re: A Designer Universe?posted on 02/28/2008
guanzhong wrote:"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. "
I saw this sentence somewhere before too. - posted on 02/29/2008
他的原话是:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
他是纽约出生的犹太人,79年诺贝尔物理奖的获得者。和另一个纽约出生的犹太人, 进化论的斗士Stephen Jay Gould一样,都以反宗教著名,也是当代犹太知识分子里很有影响的两个人。我认识的犹太人, 纳粹集中营的幸存者Irene Shapiro是他们共同的朋友。Steven Weinberg graduated from Bronx High School of Science, Irene是哪所学校的生物教师,Stephen Jay Gould曾在那里教授进化论。
纳粹对犹太人的迫害很大程度上和新约反犹的论点有关联。我在我的James Carroll 的康斯坦丁的剑的线里谈过这个问题。所以,他说:But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion 是犹太民族的切腹之言。
http://www.mayacafe.com/forum/topic1sp.php3?tkey=1186451803
3mw wrote:
guanzhong wrote:"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. "
I saw this sentence somewhere before too. - Re: A Designer Universe?posted on 02/29/2008
Thanks, July. - posted on 02/29/2008
史蒂文·温伯格
史蒂文·温伯格(Steven Weinberg),1979年诺贝尔物理学奖获得者。美国理论物理学家,得克萨斯大学物理学和天文学教授。1933年5月3日生于纽约市,1954年毕业于康内尔大学,后赴丹麦哥本哈根大学理论物理研究所当研究生,1957年获普林斯顿大学哲学博士学位。美国科学院院士,获1991年美国国家科学奖章。主要研究领域是基本粒子和量子场论,主要贡献是在1967年引入对称性自发破缺机制(希格斯机制),解释了光子和中间玻色子的质量差异,在规范场论的基础上建立了电弱统一理论。该理论所预言的中性弱流,于1973年首次在欧洲核子中心由实验证实。因此荣获1979年诺贝尔物理学奖。 温伯格还对宇宙学怀有浓厚的兴趣,其得奖科普著作《最初三分钟》已成为全世界宇宙学爱好者喜爱的读物。
- posted on 02/29/2008
仰望苍穹,亦或祈祷上苍
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2005-3-26 13:35:00 陈蓉霞 来源:中华读书报
第谷等人所代表的自然科学为我们显示的是一种冷静的世界观,它是客观的,没有任何迹象表明人类得到什么与众不同的安排或是于什么独特的地位。因此,仰望苍穹,而不是祈祷上苍,才是人对自然的一种更为理性的态度。但此姿态的转变,想必会激起不同的反应。
“宇宙看起来越能理解,它也就显得越没有意义。”此话出自诺贝尔物理学奖获得者温伯格之口,最早见之于他的科普名著《最初三分钟》。在他的近作《仰望苍穹》中,温伯格再次提及这一遭非议的名言。就因这句话,宗教徒对温伯格这样的无神论学家充满贬视甚至敌意。因为从宇宙那不凡的构造中解读人生的义,进而窥探上帝的智慧和仁慈,正是犹太 基督教体系的基本教义。由此我们可以想像,当哥白尼将地球从宇宙的中心位置贬为太阳系的一颗普通行星时,当时的教会该是多么震惊,这种强烈反应完全以理解。不过也有人这样为日心说辩护:日心说使天与地的界限不再绝对,现在地球也成了天上的一颗星,人类的地位岂不是更高贵了?但事实上这样的辩护方式依然遵循传统的神学模式,即宇宙的造安排就是与人的特定存在有关。
温伯格极力反对的正是这样一种神创论,在他看来,科学的意义不仅仅在于提供技术改造世界,更重要的,它还改我们对人生、世界的看法。这种改变,即表现为我们越是理解宇宙,我们就越是明白,它不是出自某个设计者之手,因而对人类来说,也就无所谓意义。但一个宗教徒会这样问:宇宙学中的各个参数是如此恰到好处,以至它们刚好能让人类出现,难道这还不足以证明神意的存在?对此,温伯格回答:“你无需求助于仁慈的设计者来解释为什么们处于宇宙中的一个可能有生命的地方,因为在宇宙的其他地方没人提这个问题。” 这就足够了。它让神创论的假设在逻辑上成为多余。宇宙不是为生命而生,生命只是宇宙造化过程中于不经间而得到的一个幸运儿。用分子生物学家莫诺的话来说,人类就像是孤独的吉普赛流浪者,而宇宙对我们的歌声不闻不问。
然而我们是否有足够的证据表明,宇宙确非神意设计?用维特根斯坦的话来说,科学告诉我们这个世界是什么,但不能告诉我们这个世界为何是这样。言下之意,涉及到为什么这类终极原因时,必须借助宗教才能理解。但温伯格的回答是:科学确实不能告诉我们宇宙的终极原因,但宗教同样不能。“一种宗教可以宣称宇宙是由某种而非他种上帝主宰的,而且它可以这种信仰提供证明,但它却不能解释为什么应该这样。”
就温伯格个人经历而言,他的母亲痛苦地死于癌症,他的父亲毁于阿耳茨海默氏病 即老年痴呆症 ,许多近亲和远亲在二战中死于纳粹对犹太人的大屠杀中。因而看不出上帝的仁慈何在。有鉴于此,温伯格甚至对教发出这样偏激的言辞:不论有没有宗教,好人都行善,坏人都作恶,可是要让好人作恶,那就要利用宗教。这一话题太广,此处不宜作点评,但温伯格对宗教的咄咄逼人,由此可见一斑。
《仰望苍穹》这一书名实具深远含义。仰望苍穹,出自于一座雕像,刻画的是第谷。我们知道,第谷以其惊人的耐心,其天文观测成就几乎达到了人的肉眼所能观察到的恒星数目的极限。在温伯格看来,第谷等人所代表的自然科为我们显示的是一种冷静的世界观,它们是客观的,没有任何迹象表明人类得到什么与众不同的安排或是处于什么独特的地位。因此,仰望苍穹,而不是祈祷上苍,才是人对自然的一种更为理性的态度。但此种姿态的转变,想必会激起不同的反应。祈祷上苍,正是人与自然天人合一、心心相映的见证,不少人类学家、球保主义者正是从此角度呼吁重建人与自然的和谐关系。据说对自然敬畏之情的缺乏,是导致工业革命以来环境急剧恶化的原因之一。若真是如此,那,温伯格要带给我们的究竟是一种什么样的自然观?它能温暖和激动人心吗?答案是,能的,它至少能让温伯格这样的物理学家为之激动,这就是牛顿之梦的实现。所谓牛顿之梦?就是“力图抵达解释之链的根部,力图从人类所能达到的最基本的层次上去把握自然”。一言以蔽之,用统一的自然规律去破译宇宙的奥秘。这条心路历程起始于希腊哲学的源头,其代表人物就是泰勒斯、毕达哥拉斯等人,一路上的足迹绵延不断。为此,温伯从不为科学的实用性辩护,当人们争议是否值得花44亿美元用于建造SSC加速器时,温伯格的态度是倾向于同意的,理由就在于为基本粒子物理学投资,有助于牛顿之梦的实现。导演这出梦境基本思路就是实在论和还原论。“除了如我们所用的数学符号那种不重要的东西之外,我们现在所理解的这些物理学规律仅仅是对实在的一种描述。”为此,温伯格对后现代主义的科学观以及女性主义科学观都持反对态度。一旦妇女加入到科学界,他高兴地发现,男性和女性在研究物理学的方法上并没有明显差别。
就对科学的理解而言,温伯格并不把科学当是一项神圣的使命,比如,寻找宇宙设计者的智慧;或是有用的技艺,比如,让人类更舒适地生活。科学无非就是一场智力游戏,谜底就在于用少数几个简单的原则来解释物理学事件,所以,科学只能是还原论的。若一定要说出科学的用途,那就在于它改变了人类古老的对宇宙的看法。但正是这种改变,屡遭人文学者的质疑。温伯格在书中引用捷克前总统哈维尔的话说,“我们对宇宙的了解比我们的祖先了解的要多得难以估量,可是似乎越来越明朗的是,他们知道的是比我们知道的更为本质的东西,有些东西避开了我们的视线。” P9 对此,温伯格的回答是,科学告诉我们宇宙没有意义,但决不可从中得出人生没有意义的结论,即便科学不能为我们提供价值观,它也不能让价值观丧失。温伯格欣赏的价值观就是彼此相爱,欣赏美丽以及科学地认识宇宙。毫无疑问,一个无神论者尽管不认为生命就是宇宙何以存在的意义,但他同样可以热爱生命、欣赏生命,哪怕它转瞬即逝。
最后还想补充一点,就是温伯格对所谓科学方法的看法。他曾听一位中学教师自豪地说起,他们不仅仅传授科学知识,还传授科学方法,对此,温伯格说,他不认为有什么科学方法之类的东西。这就好比一个骑自行车的人,从不会想到如何让自己来保持平衡,对此想得过多,只会摔跟头。也许真正的大师果真是不需要科学方法之类的东西来指点的。那么对于常人呢?我不敢对此妄加评论。但它至少提醒我们一个事实:所谓的科学方法从来也不能脱离于科学事实而存在;此外,吸引读者的,只能是鲜活的科学事实,而不是教条式的科学方法。
- posted on 03/01/2008
我坚定地追随温伯格。对我而言,科学地认识宇宙就是理性地探索人性,宽容人性恶的方面。
从科学的角度讲,一个人能豁达地看待不幸,痛苦,能宽容地看待人性恶的方面,他的世界应该是自由与美丽的。
从艺术的角度讲,一个人如果把音乐当作生命,他的世界也是自由与美丽的。:)
July wrote:温伯格欣赏的价值观就是彼此相爱,欣赏美丽以及科学地认识宇宙。毫无疑问,一个无神论者尽管不认为生命就是宇宙何以存在的意义,但他同样可以热爱生命、欣赏生命,哪怕它转瞬即逝。
仰望苍穹,亦或祈祷上苍
- Re: A Designer Universe?posted on 03/01/2008
如果用政治代替宗教,这句话更精辟!:)
guanzhong wrote:"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. "
- Re: A Designer Universe?posted on 03/03/2008
确如温伯格指出,宇宙设计者这个提法本身就不能自圆其说;其次,姑且接受这个提法,其逻辑漏洞也是补不胜补。
本期时代周刊有个有趣的调查。说美国人宗教信仰也如买东西,货比三家,不断转换。最近最惹人注意的倾向是没有特定宗教的人比例加大,约16%。这包括无神论者,只百分之几。没有特定宗教还不是无神论,是说,我现在还没有个特定的神来崇拜。我感觉,在美国,宗教信仰对大部分人是追风;恰如没有宗教信仰在中国是风气一样。绝大多数人都追随这社会主流,或称随大流。老白姓就是随大流的,这有心理学上的依据。 - RE: A Designer Universe?posted on 04/23/2015
Reply wukongti
Please paste HTML code and press Enter.
(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation