Why does the universe exist? Why is there — Okay. Okay. (Laughter) This is a cosmic mystery. Be solemn. Why is there a world, why are we in it, and why is there something rather than nothing at all? I mean, this is the super ultimate "why" question?
Zašto postoji univerzum? Zašto postoji - Dobro. Dobro. (Smeh) To je jedna od misterija kosmosa. Uozbiljite se. Zašto postoji svet, zbog čega smo mi u njemu i zašto uopšte postoji nešto, a ne ništa? Mislim, to je najvažnije pitanje ,,zašto''.
So I'm going to talk about the mystery of existence, the puzzle of existence, where we are now in addressing it, and why you should care, and I hope you do care. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said that those who don't wonder about the contingency of their existence, of the contingency of the world's existence, are mentally deficient. That's a little harsh, but still. (Laughter) So this has been called the most sublime and awesome mystery, the deepest and most far-reaching question man can pose. It's obsessed great thinkers. Ludwig Wittgenstein, perhaps the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, was astonished that there should be a world at all. He wrote in his "Tractatus," Proposition 4.66, "It is not how things are in the world that is the mystical, it's that the world exists." And if you don't like taking your epigrams from a philosopher, try a scientist. John Archibald Wheeler, one of the great physicists of the 20th century, the teacher of Richard Feynman, the coiner of the term "black hole," he said, "I want to know how come the quantum, how come the universe, how come existence?" And my friend Martin Amis — sorry that I'll be doing a lot of name-dropping in this talk, so get used to it — my dear friend Martin Amis once said that we're about five Einsteins away from answering the mystery of where the universe came from. And I've no doubt there are five Einsteins in the audience tonight. Any Einsteins? Show of hands? No? No? No? No Einsteins? Okay.
Tako da ću da pričam o tajni postojanja, zagonetki postojanja, dokle smo stigli u njenom rešavanju i zbog čega bi to trebalo da vas zanima, a nadam se da vas zanima. Filozof Artur Šopenhauer je rekao da su oni koji ne razmišljaju o verovatnoći sopstvenog postojanja, o verovatnoći postojanja sveta, mentalno zaostali. Možda malo pregrubo, ali opet. (Smeh) Ovo se smatra najuzvišenijom i najstrašnijom tajnom, najdubljim i najsveobuhvatnijim pitanjem koje je čovek u stanju da postavi. Mučilo je i najveće mislioce. Ludviga Vitgenštajna, možda najvećeg filozofa 20-og veka, je čudilo što svet uopšte postoji. U svom ,,Traktatu'', u predlogu 4.66, zapisao je: ,,Misterija ne leži u ustrojstvu sveta, već u samom njegovom postojanju.'' Ako ne volite izreke koje smišljaju filozofi, evo jednog naučnika. Džon Arčibald Viler, jedan od najznačajnijih fizičara 20-og veka, koji je podučavao Ričarda Fejnmana i izmislio izraz ,,crna rupa'', je rekao: ,,Želim da znam odakle kvantno, odakle univerzum, odakle postojanje?'' A moj prijatelj Martin Amis - izvinjavam se što pominjem toliko imena, moraćete da se naviknete - moj dobar prijatelj Martin Amis je jednom prilikom rekao da nam fali nekih pet Ajnštajna da odgonetnemo tajnu porekla univerzuma. Ne sumnjam da večeras u publici imamo pet Ajnštajna. Ima li koji Ajnštajn? Podignite ruke. Ne? Ne? Ne? Nema Ajnštajna? OK.
So this question, why is there something rather than nothing, this sublime question, was posed rather late in intellectual history. It was towards the end of the 17th century, the philosopher Leibniz who asked it, a very smart guy, Leibniz, who invented the calculus independently of Isaac Newton, at about the same time, but for Leibniz, who asked why is there something rather than nothing, this was not a great mystery. He either was or pretended to be an Orthodox Christian in his metaphysical outlook, and he said it's obvious why the world exists: because God created it. And God created, indeed, out of nothing at all. That's how powerful God is. He doesn't need any preexisting materials to fashion a world out of. He can make it out of sheer nothingness, creation ex nihilo. And by the way, this is what most Americans today believe. There is no mystery of existence for them. God made it.
To uzvišeno pitanje, zašto postoji nešto, a ne ništa, smo postavili u prilično kasnom periodu razvoja ljudske misli. Postavio ga je filozof Lajbnic krajem 17-og veka; Lajbnic je bio prilično pametan tip, izmislio je diferencijalni račun nezavisno od Isaka Njutna, otprilike u isto vreme, i za Lajbnica to što postoji nešto, a ne ništa i nije bila neka misterija. U svom pogledu na metafiziku je bio, ili se pretvarao da je, pravoslavni hrišćanin, tako da mu je bilo očito zašto svet postoji: Bog ga je stvorio. Bog ga je zapravo stvorio iz ništavila. Tolika je božija moć. Nije mu trebao polazni materijal da bi stvorio svet. Mogao je da ga stvori ni iz čega - stvaranje ex nihilo. Uzgred, u to danas veruje većina Amerikanaca. Za njih nema misterije postojanja. Bog je sve napravio.
So let's put this in an equation. I don't have any slides so I'm going to mime my visuals, so use your imaginations. So it's God + nothing = the world. Okay? Now that's the equation. And so maybe you don't believe in God. Maybe you're a scientific atheist or an unscientific atheist, and you don't believe in God, and you're not happy with it. By the way, even if we have this equation, God + nothing = the world, there's already a problem: Why does God exist? God doesn't exist by logic alone unless you believe the ontological argument, and I hope you don't, because it's not a good argument. So it's conceivable, if God were to exist, he might wonder, I'm eternal, I'm all-powerful, but where did I come from? (Laughter) Whence then am I? God speaks in a more formal English. (Laughter) And so one theory is that God was so bored with pondering the puzzle of His own existence that He created the world just to distract himself. But anyway, let's forget about God. Take God out of the equation: We have ________ + nothing = the world. Now, if you're a Buddhist, you might want to stop right there, because essentially what you've got is nothing = the world, and by symmetry of identity, that means the world = nothing. Okay? And to a Buddhist, the world is just a whole lot of nothing. It's just a big cosmic vacuity. And we think there's a lot of something out there but that's because we're enslaved by our desires. If we let our desires melt away, we'll see the world for what it truly is, a vacuity, nothingness, and we'll slip into this happy state of nirvana which has been defined as having just enough life to enjoy being dead. (Laughter)
Hajde da to stavimo u jednačinu. Nisam poneo slajdove pa moram da pokažem pantomimom. Upotrebite maštu. Dakle, Bog + ništa = svet. Važi? Dakle, to je jednačina. Ali možda ne verujete u Boga. Možda ste ateisti okrenuti nauci, ili niste okrenuti nauci ali ste opet ateisti i ne verujete u boga, i ovo vam ne odgovara. Uzgred, čak i ako verujete u jednačinu da Bog + ništa = svet, opet postoji problem: zašto Bog postoji? Bog ne postoji samo zato što to ima smisla, sem ako verujete u ontološke tvrdnje, a nadam se da nije tako jer one nemaju smisla. Tako da je moguće da se Bog, ukoliko postoji, pita: ,,Beskonačan sam, beskrajno moćan, ali kako sam nastao? (Smeh) Kako bejah stvoren?'' Bog prića malo formalnijim jezikom. (Smeh) Jedna od teorija tvrdi da je Bogu dosadilo da pokušava da reši tajnu svog postojanja, pa je stvorio svet da bi se zabavio. Ali, hajde da zaboravimo na Boga. Ako izbacimo Boga dobijamo: ________ + ništa = svet. Ako ste budista, to vam je dovoljno, ali u suštini dobijamo da je ništa = svet, i zbog simetrije jednakosti, znači da je svet = ništa. OK? Za budiste svet i jeste jedno veliko ništa. Samo jedna velika kosmička praznina. Nama se čini da ima svega i svačega zbog toga što smo robovi svojih požuda. Ako se otarasimo požuda, videćemo da je svet zapravo praznina, ništavilo, i upašćemo u srećno stanje nirvane, koju su definisali kao taman dovoljno života da uživamo u smrti. (Smeh)
So that's the Buddhist thinking. But I'm a Westerner, and I'm still concerned with the puzzle of existence, so I've got ________ + — this is going to get serious in a minute, so — ________ + nothing = the world. What are we going to put in that blank? Well, how about science? Science is our best guide to the nature of reality, and the most fundamental science is physics. That tells us what naked reality really is, that reveals what I call TAUFOTU, the True And Ultimate Furniture Of The Universe. So maybe physics can fill this blank, and indeed, since about the late 1960s or around 1970, physicists have purported to give a purely scientific explanation of how a universe like ours could have popped into existence out of sheer nothingness, a quantum fluctuation out of the void. Stephen Hawking is one of these physicists, more recently Alex Vilenkin, and the whole thing has been popularized by another very fine physicist and friend of mine, Lawrence Krauss, who wrote a book called "A Universe from Nothing," and Lawrence thinks that he's given — he's a militant atheist, by the way, so he's gotten God out of the picture. The laws of quantum field theory, the state-of-the-art physics, can show how out of sheer nothingness, no space, no time, no matter, nothing, a little nugget of false vacuum can fluctuate into existence, and then, by the miracle of inflation, blow up into this huge and variegated cosmos we see around us.
Tako razmišljaju budisti. Ali ja sam zapadnjak i još uvek me zanima tajna mog postojanja, tako da mi ostaje ________ + - samo što nije postalo ozbljno - dakle, ________ + ništa = svet. Šta da stavimo na prazno mesto? Recimo. nauku? Nauka nam najbolje otkriva prirodu stvarnosti, a fizika je najosnovnija nauka. Ona nam otkriva pravu prirodu stvarnosti, ono što sam nazvao PIJSDS, Prave I Jedine Sastavne Delove Svemira. Znači da bi fizika mogla da popuni tu prazninu, i zaista, od kraja 60-ih ili negde oko 1970, fizičari pokušavaju da daju čisto naučno objašnjenje načina na koji je univerzum mogao da nastane iz ništavila, kvantni talas iz praznine. Stiven Hoking je jedan od tih fizičara, u skorije vreme i Aleks Vilenkin, a sve ovo je učinio poznatim još jedan vrstan fizičar i moj prijatelj, Lorens Kraus, koji je napisao knjigu pod nazivom ,,Svemir ni iz čega'', i smatra da je objasnio - Lorens je inače militantni ateista, tako da je uklonio Boga iz priče. Zakoni teorije kvantnih polja, najnoviji iskorak u fizici, su u stanju da pokažu kako iz čistog ništavila - ni prostora, ni vremena, ni materije, ničega - može da se stvori zrnce lažnog vakuuma, koje se zatim, putem čuda inflacije, razvije u taj ogroman i raznoliki kosmos koji nas okružuje.
Okay, this is a really ingenious scenario. It's very speculative. It's fascinating. But I've got a big problem with it, and the problem is this: It's a pseudo-religious point of view. Now, Lawrence thinks he's an atheist, but he's still in thrall to a religious worldview. He sees physical laws as being like divine commands. The laws of quantum field theory for him are like fiat lux, "Let there be light." The laws have some sort of ontological power or clout that they can form the abyss, that it's pregnant with being. They can call a world into existence out of nothing. But that's a very primitive view of what a physical law is, right? We know that physical laws are actually generalized descriptions of patterns and regularities in the world. They don't exist outside the world. They don't have any ontic cloud of their own. They can't call a world into existence out of nothingness. That's a very primitive view of what a scientific law is. And if you don't believe me on this, listen to Stephen Hawking, who himself put forward a model of the cosmos that was self-contained, didn't require any outside cause, any creator, and after proposing this, Hawking admitted that he was still puzzled. He said, this model is just equations. What breathes fire into the equations and creates a world for them to describe? He was puzzled by this, so equations themselves can't do the magic, can't resolve the puzzle of existence. And besides, even if the laws could do that, why this set of laws? Why quantum field theory that describes a universe with a certain number of forces and particles and so forth? Why not a completely different set of laws? There are many, many mathematically consistent sets of laws. Why not no laws at all? Why not sheer nothingness?
U pitanju je stvarno genijalan scenario. Teorijske je prirode. Fascinantan. Ali mi kod njega smeta sledeće: gleda na svet poput religije. Iako Lorens smatra da je ateista, i dalje se drži religijskog pogleda na svet. Za njega su zakoni fizike kao božije zapovesti. Zakon teorije kvantnih polja za njega predstavljaju "fiat lux", ,,Neka bude svetlost''. Zakoni imaju nekakvu ontološku moć kojom prazninu mogu da ispune bićem. Mogu da stvore svet ni iz čega. Ali to je prilično primitivno gledište na zakone fizike, zar ne? Znamo da zakoni fizike predstavljaju uopštene opise ponavljanja i pravilnosti u svetu. Ne postoje van granica sveta. Nemaju nikakvu sopstvenu ontološku moć. Nisu u stanju da stvore svet iz ništavila. To je veoma primitivno gledište na naučne zakone. Ako mi ne verujete, poslušajte Stivena Hokinga. I on je predložio model kosmosa koji je sam sebi dovoljan - nije mu potreban nikakav spoljni uzrok, nikakav tvorac - i nakon što je to predložio, Hoking je priznao da je i dalje u zabuni. Rekao je da model čine samo jednačine. Ali šta jednačinama udahne život i stvori svet koji opisuju? Bunilo ga je što same jednačine nisu dovoljne da odgonetnu tajnu postojanja. Uostalom, čak i da su zakoni fizike u stanju to da učine, zašto baš ovaj skup zakona? Zašto baš teorija kvantnih polja koja govori da univerzum ima određeni broj sila i čestica itd.? Zašto ne neki potpuno drugačiji skup zakona? Postoje mnogi dosledni skupovi zakona. Zašto ne odsustvo zakona? Zašto ne ništavilo?
So this is a problem, believe it or not, that reflective physicists really think a lot about, and at this point they tend to go metaphysical, say, well, maybe the set of laws that describes our universe, it's just one set of laws and it describes one part of reality, but maybe every consistent set of laws describes another part of reality, and in fact all possible physical worlds really exist, they're all out there. We just see a little tiny part of reality that's described by the laws of quantum field theory, but there are many, many other worlds, parts of reality that are described by vastly different theories that are different from ours in ways we can't imagine, that are inconceivably exotic. Steven Weinberg, the father of the standard model of particle physics, has actually flirted with this idea himself, that all possible realities actually exist. Also, a younger physicist, Max Tegmark, who believes that all mathematical structures exist, and mathematical existence is the same thing as physical existence, so we have this vastly rich multiverse that encompasses every logical possibility.
Verovali ili ne, fizičari dosta razmišljaju o ovom problemu, i tu već zalaze u metafiziku i kažu da je možda skup zakona koji opisuje naš univerzum samo jedan od niza skupova zakona i da opisuje samo jedan deo stvarnosti, ali možda svaki dosledan skup zakona opisuje neki drugi deo stvarnosti, i da tamo negde zapravo i postoje svi mogući fizički svetovi. A mi vidimo samo mali deo stvarnosti koji opisuju zakoni teorije kvantnih polja, ali postoje mnogi drugi svetovi, delovi stvarnosti koje opisuju sasvim drugačije teorije, nezamislivo drugačiji od našeg, nezamislivo egzotični. Stiven Vajnberg, tvorac standardnog modela fizike čestica, je i sam uzeo u obzir ovu teoriju, da sve moguće stvarnosti zaista postoje. I jedan mlađi fizičar, Maks Tegmark, smatra da postoje sve matematičke strukture, a pošto sve što postoji u matematici postoji i u stvarnosti, znači da postoji izuzetno bogat multiverzum koji obuhvata svaku logičnu mogućnost.
Now, in taking this metaphysical way out, these physicists and also philosophers are actually reaching back to a very old idea that goes back to Plato. It's the principle of plenitude or fecundity, or the great chain of being, that reality is actually as full as possible. It's as far removed from nothingness as it could possibly be.
Ovakvim begom u metafiziku fizičari i filozofi se zapravo pozivaju na veoma staru ideju, koja potiče od Platona. Radi se o principu obilja, ili lestvici prirode, da stvarnost sadrži sve što je moguće. Najdalje je što može biti od ništavila.
So we have these two extremes now. We have sheer nothingness on one side, and we have this vision of a reality that encompasses every conceivable world at the other extreme: the fullest possible reality, nothingness, the simplest possible reality. Now what's in between these two extremes? There are all kinds of intermediate realities that include some things and leave out others. So one of these intermediate realities is, say, the most mathematically elegant reality, that leaves out the inelegant bits, the ugly asymmetries and so forth. Now, there are some physicists who will tell you that we're actually living in the most elegant reality. I think that Brian Greene is in the audience, and he has written a book called "The Elegant Universe." He claims that the universe we live in mathematically is very elegant. Don't believe him. (Laughter) It's a pious hope, I wish it were true, but I think the other day he admitted to me it's really an ugly universe. It's stupidly constructed, it's got way too many arbitrary coupling constants and mass ratios and superfluous families of elementary particles, and what the hell is dark energy? It's a stick and bubble gum contraption. It's not an elegant universe. (Laughter) And then there's the best of all possible worlds in an ethical sense. You should get solemn now, because a world in which sentient beings don't suffer needlessly, in which there aren't things like childhood cancer or the Holocaust. This is an ethical conception. Anyway, so between nothingness and the fullest possible reality, various special realities. Nothingness is special. It's the simplest. Then there's the most elegant possible reality. That's special. The fullest possible reality, that's special.
Sada imamo dve krajnosti. Sa jedne strane imamo ništavilo, a sa druge imamo viđenje stvarnosti koje obuhvata sve zamislive svetove: najpotpuniju moguću stvarnost i ništavilo kao najjednostavniju moguću stvarnost. Ali šta se nalazi između te dve krajnosti? Postoje razne međustvarnosti, koje obuhvataju neke stvari, a neke ne. Jedna od tih međustvarnosti bi bila, recimo, matematički najelegantnija stvarnost, koja isključuje sve što nije elegantno, sve ružne asimetrije i tome slično. Neki fizičari tvrde da i živimo u najelegantnijoj stvarnosti, Čini mi se da je Brajan Grin u publici. On je napisao knjigu pod nazivom ,,Elegantni Univerzum''. Tvrdi da je univerzum u kom živimo matematički veoma elegantan. Ne verujte mu. (Smeh) Lepa je želja, i ja bih to voleo, ali mi se čini da je neki dan priznao da je univerzum prilično ružan. Glupo je osmišljen, ima previše nasumičnih parnih konstanti i odnosa masa, nepotrebnih grupa elementarnih čestica, a šta je uopšte tamna energija? Napravljen je od štapa i kanapa. Uopšte nije elegantan. (Smeh) Takođe postoji i najbolji od svih svetova u etičkom smislu. Sad se uozbiljite, jer je ovo svet u kom svesna bića ne pate bez potrebe, u kom ne postoje deca obolela od raka ili Holokaust. Takvo je etičko poimanje. U svakom slučaju, između ništavila i najpotpunije stvarnosti postoje razne posebne stvarnosti. Ništavilo je posebno jer je najjednostavnije. Zatim postoji najelegantnija moguća stvarnost. I ona je posebna. I najpotpunija moguća stvarnost je posebna.
But what are we leaving out here? There's also just the crummy, generic realities that aren't special in any way, that are sort of random. They're infinitely removed from nothingness, but they fall infinitely short of complete fullness. They're a mixture of chaos and order, of mathematical elegance and ugliness. So I would describe these realities as an infinite, mediocre, incomplete mess, a generic reality, a kind of cosmic junk shot. And these realities, is there a deity in any of these realities? Maybe, but the deity isn't perfect like the Judeo-Christian deity. The deity isn't all-good and all-powerful. It might be instead 100 percent malevolent but only 80 percent effective, which pretty much describes the world we see around us, I think. (Laughter) So I would like to propose that the resolution to the mystery of existence is that the reality we exist in is one of these generic realities. Reality has to turn out some way. It can either turn out to be nothing or everything or something in between. So if it has some special feature, like being really elegant or really full or really simple, like nothingness, that would require an explanation. But if it's just one of these random, generic realities, there's no further explanation for it. And indeed, I would say that's the reality we live in. That's what science is telling us. At the beginning of the week, we got the exciting information that the theory of inflation, which predicts a big, infinite, messy, arbitrary, pointless reality, it's like a big frothing champagne coming out of a bottle endlessly, a vast universe, mostly a wasteland with little pockets of charm and order and peace, this has been confirmed, this inflationary scenario, by the observations made by radio telescopes in Antarctica that looked at the signature of the gravitational waves from just before the Big Bang. I'm sure you all know about this. So anyway, I think there's some evidence that this really is the reality that we're stuck with.
Šta smo onda propustili? Postoje i bezvezne, obične stvarnosti koje ni po čemu nisu posebne, jednostavno su nasumične. Beskrajno su daleko od ništavila, ali nisu ni blizu potpunosti. Mešavina su haosa i reda, matematičke elegancije i ružnoće. Ovakve stvarnosti bih opisao kao beskrajan, osrednji, nepotpun rusvaj, prosečnu stvarnost, kosmičku nemoguću misiju. Ima li onda božanstva u nekoj od ovih stvarnosti? Moguće, ali ono nije savršeno poput judeo-hrišćanskog božanstva. To božanstvo nije dobronamerno i svemoguće. Možda je 100% zlonamerno, ali samo 80% delotvorno. Čini mi se da to u suštini opisuje svet oko nas. (Smeh) Zbog toga predlažem da je rešenje misterije postojanja to da je stvarnost u kojoj živimo jedna od ovih običnih stvarnosti. Stvarnost mora da bude nekakva. Može ili da ne sadrži ništa, ili sve, ili nešto između. Ukoliko ima neku posebnu odliku, na primer da je veoma elegantna ili potpuna ili jednostavna poput ništavila, tako nešto bi zahtevalo objašnjenje. Ali ako je jedna od ovih nasumičnih, običnih stvarnosti, za nju nema objašnjenja. I zaista bih rekao da živimo u takvoj stvarnosti. Tako nam bar govori nauka. Početkom nedelje smo primili uzbudljive vesti. Radi se o teoriji inflacije, koja predviđa beskrajnu, neurednu, nasumičnu, besmislenu stvarnost, poput penušavog šampanjca koji beskrajno izvire iz boce. Ogroman univerzum, mahom pust, sa kutcima punim lepote i reda i mira. Ovaj scenario inflacije je potvrđen tako što su radio-teleskopi na Antarktiku opazili tragove gravitacionih talasa nastalih neposredno pre Velikog praska. Siguran sam da ste čuli za to. Svakako mi se čini da postoje dokazi da smo završili sa takvom stvarnosšću.
Now, why should you care? Well — (Laughter) — the question, "Why does the world exist?" that's the cosmic question, it sort of rhymes with a more intimate question: Why do I exist? Why do you exist? you know, our existence would seem to be amazingly improbable, because there's an enormous number of genetically possible humans, if you can compute it by looking at the number of the genes and the number of alleles and so forth, and a back-of-the-envelope calculation will tell you there are about 10 to the 10,000th possible humans, genetically. That's between a googol and a googolplex. And the number of the actual humans that have existed is 100 billion, maybe 50 billion, an infinitesimal fraction, so all of us, we've won this amazing cosmic lottery. We're here. Okay.
E sad, zašto bi vas za to bilo briga? Pa - (Smeh) - to pitanje, ,,Zašto svet postoji?'' to glavno pitanje se skoro rimuje sa mnogo intimnijim pitanjem: Zašto ja postojim? Zašto vi postojite? Znate, to što postojimo je prilično neverovatno, jer prema genetici postoji ogroman broj mogućih ljudi ukoliko se izračuna u odnosu na broj gena i alela i tako dalje. Grub proračun pokazuje da po genetici postoji oko 10 na 10.000-ti mogućih ljudi. To je negde između gugola i gugolpleksa. A broj ljudi koji su zaista postojali je između 50 i 100 milijardi, zanemarljiv deo, tako da smo svi dobili kosmičku lutriju. Tu smo. Dobro.
So what kind of reality do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a special reality? What if we were living in the most elegant possible reality? Imagine the existential pressure on us to live up to that, to be elegant, not to pull down the tone of it. Or, what if we were living in the fullest possible reality? Well then our existence would be guaranteed, because every possible thing exists in that reality, but our choices would be meaningless. If I really struggle morally and agonize and I decide to do the right thing, what difference does it make, because there are an infinite number of versions of me also doing the right thing and an infinite number doing the wrong thing. So my choices are meaningless. So we don't want to live in that special reality. And as for the special reality of nothingness, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So I think living in a generic reality that's mediocre, there are nasty bits and nice bits and we could make the nice bits bigger and the nasty bits smaller and that gives us a kind of purpose in life. The universe is absurd, but we can still construct a purpose, and that's a pretty good one, and the overall mediocrity of reality kind of resonates nicely with the mediocrity we all feel in the core of our being. And I know you feel it. I know you're all special, but you're still kind of secretly mediocre, don't you think? (Laughter) (Applause)
U kakvoj onda stvarnosti želimo da živimo? Je li to neka od posebnih stvarnosti? Šta bi bilo da živimo u najelegantijoj mogućoj stvarnosti? Zamislite egzstencijalni pritisak da ispunimo očekivanja, da budemo elegantni, da ne kvarimo prosek. Ili, šta bi bilo da živimo u najpotpunijoj mogućoj stvarnosti? Onda bi zasigurno postojali jer u toj stvarnosti postoji sve što je moguće, ali bi naši izbori bili beznačajni. Ako se patim da postupim moralno i odlučim da učinim pravu stvar, nema nikakve veze jer postoji beskrajan broj verzija mene koje takođe postupaju ispravno i beskrajan broj onih koje postupaju pogrešno. Znači da su izbori koje pravim beznačajni. Dakle, ne želimo da živimo u takvoj posebnoj stvarnosti. Što se tiče ništavila, u tom slučaju ne bismo sad razgovarali. Tako da mislim da život u običnoj stvarnosti koja je osrednja, sa dobrim i lošim delovima, gde bi povećali dobre delove i smanjili loše, to bi moglo da da neku svrhu našem životu. Univerzum je apsurdan, ali opet možemo da mu damo svrhu, a ova nije loša, a i opšta osrednjost stvarnosti ide rame uz rame sa osrednjosti koju osećamo u sebi. Znam da je osećate. Znam da ste svi posebni, ali ste opet potajno osrednji, zar ne? (Smeh) (Aplauz)
So anyway, you may say, this puzzle, the mystery of existence, it's just silly mystery-mongering. You're not astonished at the existence of the universe and you're in good company. Bertrand Russell said, "I should say the universe is just there, and that's all." Just a brute fact. And my professor at Columbia, Sidney Morgenbesser, a great philosophical wag, when I said to him, "Professor Morgenbesser, why is there something rather than nothing?" And he said, "Oh, even if there was nothing, you still wouldn't be satisfied."
Sad možda mislite da je sva ta priča o tajni postojanja samo prodavanje magle. Ne čudi vas postojanje univerzuma, i tu ste u dobrom društvu. Bertrand Rasel je izjavio: ,,Rekao bih da svemir postoji, i to je to.'' Jednostavna činjenica. Sidni Morgenbeser, koji mi je predavao na univerzitetu Kolumbija, veliki filozof, je na pitanje: ,,Profesore Morgenbeser, zašto postoji nešto, a ne ništa?'' odgovorio: ,,Pa i da ne postoji ništa, opet vam ne bi bilo po volji.''
So — (Laughter) — okay. So you're not astonished. I don't care. But I will tell you something to conclude that I guarantee you will astonish you, because it's astonished all of the brilliant, wonderful people I've met at this TED conference, when I've told them, and it's this: Never in my life have I had a cell phone. Thank you. (Laughter) (Applause)
Znači - (Smeh) - OK. Znači niste zapanjeni. Baš me briga. Ali ću vam za kraj reći nešto što če vas sigurno zapanjiti, jer je zapanjilo sve genijalne, divne ljude koje sam upoznao na ovoj konferenciji, a to je sledeće: Nikad u životu nisam imao mobilni telefon. Hvala na pažnji. (Smeh) (Aplauz)