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?
宇宙为何会存在? 为什么有宇宙?——好吧,好吧。(笑声) 这是个宇宙的谜题,所以请严肃些。 为何会存在世界,为何我们会在这个世界里, 为什么有物存在,而不是一切皆空? 要我说,这是最终极的“为何”。
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.
我会谈一谈“存在”的奥秘 和“存在”的困惑所在, 我们在这个问题上进展到什么程度, 以及你们为何要在乎这些, 我希望你们确实是在乎的。 哲学家阿瑟•叔本华曾说, 那些不关心自身存在的偶然性、 以及这个世界存在的偶然性的人, 是心智不健全的。 听起来有些刺耳,但这是事实。(笑声) 因此,这个谜题被称为是最崇高、 最令人敬畏、 最深刻的,也是人们可以提出的最深远 的问题。 它吸引了很多伟大的思想家。 路德维希•维特根斯坦,也许是 二十世纪最伟大的哲学家, 震惊于“世界竟然会存在”这个最基本的问题。 他在《逻辑哲学论》第4章66节中写到: “神秘的不是世界上 物质的存在, 而是这个世界本身。” 如果你不喜欢听哲学家的言论, 那我举一个科学家的例子吧。 约翰•阿奇博尔德•惠勒,二十世纪 最杰出的物理学家之一, 也是理查德•费曼的老师, “黑洞”一词的创作者, 他说:“我想知道 量子从何而来, 宇宙从何而来,一切的存在从何而来?” 我的朋友马丁•艾米斯—— 请原谅我会一直列举很多人名, 所以,尽快习惯吧—— 我的好朋友马丁•艾米斯曾说, 要回答宇宙从何而来这个问题, 我们还需要五个爱因斯坦的智慧。 我确信今晚这儿的观众里 有五位爱因斯坦, 有吗?是的请举手?没有?没有?没有? 没有爱因斯坦?好吧。
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.
所以,为何有物存在,而不是一切皆空, 这个崇高的问题,在人类思想史相对 后期才被提出来, 是在十七世纪末, 由哲学家莱布尼兹提出, 莱布尼兹是个聪明绝顶的家伙, 跟艾萨克•牛顿 几乎在同一时期独立地创造微积分。 但对于莱布尼兹, “为何有物存在,而不是一切皆空”的问题, 他不感觉有多神秘。 在形而上的外衣下,他要么真的是, 要么假装是正统的基督教徒, 声称世界存在的理由再明显不过: 造物主创造了世界。 没错,造物主从无到有地创造了世界。 造物主就是这么强大。 它不需要任何基础,凭空就能创造世界。 它能从无到有地开天辟地, 所谓“创世论”。 顺便说一下, 这正是今天大部分美国人相信的。 对于他们而言,“存在”没有奥妙可言。 造物主造出来的。
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)
我们把它表达成等式, 我没有任何演示文稿, 所以我会模拟地演示一下。 开动你们的想象力。 造物主+空=世界 没问题吧?这就是刚才提到的等式。 也许你不信造物主, 也许你是个信奉科学的无神论者, 或是个不信奉科学的无神论者, 你就不信造物主, 你就不能接受那个等式了。 顺便提一下,即便等式成立, 造物主+空=世界, 这本身就有问题: 为何造物主会存在? 造物主不能只存在于逻辑中, 除非你相信本体论。 我希望你不要信, 因为本体论不是很严谨。 设想一下,如果造物主存在, 它会想,我是永恒的,我是无所不能的, 但我从何而来呢? (笑声) 吾源自何处? 如果造物主说更正式些的英语。 (笑声) 有种理论说造物主考虑自身存在的问题, 考虑地实在太无聊了, 就创造了世界来分散注意力。 无论如何,我们先不谈造物主。 把造物主从这个等式中拿走,就是 ________ + 空=世界 如果你是个佛教徒, 你会觉得等式已经成立了, 因为等式是: 空=世界, 等式左右互换, 世界=空。对吧? 对于佛教徒而言, 空即是色,色即是空。 万物皆空。 如果我们觉得世间有物, 那是我们被欲望困住了, 放空欲望, 我们就会看到世界的本真, 空无一物, 这样我们就能到达涅磐的境界, 涅磐的意思是 看透生死,通往极乐。(笑)
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.
以上就是佛教的思想。 我是西方人,所以我仍然关心 “存在”的谜题,所以 ________ + — 接下来我们要严肃一些了, ________ + 空= 世界 空白处该填些什么呢? “科学”怎么样? 科学最适合用来解读现实的本质, 最基础的科学是物理学。 物理学会告诉我们事实到底是什么, 即我所谓的“TAUFOTU” “宇宙的真实而根本的解释”。 所以,物理学或许能填入上述等式的空白, 事实上,自从上世纪六十年代末七十年代初, 物理学家们声称, 已能够用纯科学的理论 来解释像我们这样的宇宙的起源, 如何从无到有地产生, 即量子波动,源于空。 斯蒂芬•霍金就是这些物理学家之一, 还有最近的亚历克斯•维兰金, 这整套理论由劳伦斯•克劳斯发扬广大, 他是另一位很有名的物理学家,也是我的朋友, 他写过一本书,叫 《无中生有的宇宙》 劳伦斯认为—— 他自己是激进的无神论者,顺便说一下, 因而他不将造物主列入考虑范围。 量子场论, 这个最顶尖的物理学理论, 可以揭示在空无一物、 没有空间、时间、物质,什么都没有的情况下, 微小的假真空是如何 波动形成物质, 然后,通过宇宙大爆炸, 不断膨胀,成为我们看到的巨大而斑斓的 宇宙。
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?
这真是一个天才的理论, 让人眼前一亮,心驰神往。 但我对其有个巨大的疑问, 问题是这样的: 这是一个伪宗教主义的看法。 劳伦斯认为他是个无神论者, 但他还是被宗教主义的观点束缚着。 他将物理定律看作神的旨意。 量子场论对他而言就如同 圣经里那句“要有光”。 量子场论具有某种本体论的性质, 它揭示物质可以 从无到有地产生。 这些理论可以说世界从无到有, 但这和对物理定律的 最基本的认识是矛盾的,不是吗? 我们知道,物理定律事实上 是对世界上物体形态与规则 的基本描述, 物理定律在世界之外不存在。 它们没有本体性质。 它们不能让世界 从无到有地产生。 这是对科学法则的 最基础的认识。 如果你不相信, 听听斯蒂芬•霍金怎么说的吧, 霍金自己创造了一个能自圆其说的 宇宙模型, 它不需要任何外界的因素。 在公布这个模型后, 霍金承认他自己仍然很困惑。 他说,这个模型只是些等式。 是什么激活了这个等式, 创造了这个由等式描述的世界? 对此他很困惑, 等式自身不能产生这样的魔力, 不能解决“存在”的谜题。 另外,即便物理学定律能解释, 为什么是这一套定律? 为什么是以一定数量的 力和粒子等等来描绘宇宙的 量子场理论? 为什么不是一套完全不同的定律? 这些定律包含那么多完整的数学公式, 为什么不能根本没有定律?为什么不是空无一物?
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.
这个问题,信不信, 让很多物理学家冥思苦想, 现在他们倾向于形而上的思想, 那么,也许是这一套定律 解释了宇宙, 但它只是众多套定律之一, 它只解释了部分现实, 但也许每一套完整的定律 都可以解释另一部分现实。 事实上所有可能的现实世界 都存在,它们都在那。 我们只是看到了非常小的一部分现实, 这部分现实是由量子场理论描述的。 但有很多很多其他的世界 和其他部分的现实,是由 无数的不同的理论描述的, 这些理论跟我们的世界里的理论不同, 无法想象,无法理解。 史蒂文•温伯格, 粒子物理学的标准模型提出者, 以自娱自乐的态度看待这个问题, 他说所有可能的现实都存在。 另外,一个更年轻的物理学家,马克斯•泰格马克, 相信所有的数学理论架构都存在, 数学的存在跟物理的存在 是一回事, 因此,那么多多元宇宙的存在 包含了所有逻辑可能性。
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.
现在,暂不考虑形而上的哲学, 有些物理学家和哲学家 的思想在靠近古老的 柏拉图的思想, 这就是“丰饶原则”, 或称“存在之链”, 即有“无限可能”的现实。 这是“空无一物”的 绝对对立面。
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.
现在就有两个极端了。 一边是绝对的“空”; 而另一个极端认为世界的实相 包含每一种可能的世界: “无限可能”的现实, 对应“空无一物”,“最简可能”的现实。 那这两个极端之间是什么呢? 这之间有无数现实, 它们包含某些可能,又不完全。 这之间的现实中,有一个 从数学的角度来看是最优雅的, 不含不和谐的曲调、 不完美的对称等。 有些物理学家会告诉你, 事实上我们正生活在最优雅的这个现实中。 我想布赖恩•格林就在观众席里, 他写的书叫《宇宙的琴弦》, 他说我们的宇宙在数学的角度上是 非常优雅的。 不要信他。(笑声) 这是个不切实际的希望,我倒希望他说的是真的, 我想,那天他向我承认过, 这个宇宙实际上是丑陋的, 有着拙劣的架构, 有太多随意的耦合常数、 质量比, 以及多余的基本粒子族, 还有见鬼的暗能量到底是什么? 这个宇宙是个“泡泡糖装置”, 不是一个优雅的宇宙。(笑声) 从伦理学层面看,所有可能存在的世界中, 存在最完美的。 你们要严肃一些了, 在那个世界里,众生不会 无缘由地受苦受难, 没有像 儿童癌症、大屠杀一类的事情。 这是在伦理学层面上看。 总之,在“空无一物”与 “无限可能”的现实之间, 存在不同的、特殊的现实。 “空无一物”是特殊的,是最简单的。 最优雅的那个现实, 同样是特殊的。 “无限可能”的现实,也是特殊的。
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.
还有什么呢? 也有一些微不足道的、 一般的现实, 没有任何特殊之处, 只是一些随机的组合。 它们绝非“空无一物”, 但也远远不是“无限可能”, 它们是混沌和秩序的结合, 数学角度来看,是优雅和丑陋的结合。 因此我会将它们描述为 无限而平凡的、不完整的混沌, 一种一般的现实,一种“废物”宇宙。 这些现实, 这所有的现实中,哪一个有神的概念? 也许有,但这个神不像 犹太和基督教的神那么完美。 这个神不善良,不无所不能。 它或许彻头彻尾地邪恶, 但最多发挥80%的能力, 我想这就描绘了我们眼前的世界。(笑声) 因此,我想提出这样一个看法, “存在”谜题的答案是: 我们所在的这个世界 是这些一般的现实之一。 现实总会以某种方式显现, 或是“空无一物”, 或是“无限可能”,或是介于两者之间。 所以,如果它有某种特质, 像完美无缺、“无限可能”, 或绝对的简单、“空无一物”, 就需要一个解释。 但如果它只是随机的、一般的现实之一, 就不需要任何的解释了。 说实在的,我认为 这正是我们眼前的世界, 这正是科学所解释的世界。 这周初, 我们获悉了一则令人激动的消息, 宇宙膨胀理论,这个理论设想了广袤的、 无限的、混沌的、任意的、空洞的现实, 它假想宇宙像充满泡沫的香槟 永不停歇地从瓶口汹涌而出, 广袤无垠,如荒地般, 不那么优雅,缺少秩序和宁静。 这个宇宙膨胀理论, 通过位于南极洲的电波望远镜 的观测结果被证实, 这个电波望远镜观测了宇宙大爆炸前的 引力波的痕迹。 我相信你们都知道这个消息了。 总之我想,已有证据证明, 这个现实正是我们所生活的世界。
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.
那么,你为什么要在乎? 好吧 —(笑声)— “世界为何会存在”这个问题, 是个宇宙层面的问题,它微妙地联系着 一个更私人的问题: 我为何会存在?你为何会存在? 你懂的,我们看起来 都是以极低的概率来到这个世界, 因为基因组合可形成的人有无数多种, 如果你以基因的数量 和等位基因的数量来计算, 很快就可以算出, 大概有10的10000次方 个可能的人。 介于googol与googolplex之间。 (译者注:这两个数分别是10的100次方,和10的googol次方) 而来到过这个地球上的人, 实际上有1000亿,或是500亿, 是个无穷小的比例,所以,我们 所有的人都赢得了这个神奇的“彩票”, 来到了这个世界。
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)
那么,我们想生活在哪一种现实中呢? 我们想不想生活在一种特殊的现实中? 如果我们生活在最优雅的现实中怎么样? 设想这个假定存在的压力 施加在我们身上,要优雅, 不要做不优雅的事情。 或者,如果我们生活在有 “无限可能”的现实中呢? 那么我们的生存就有保障了, 因为所有可能的事情 都存在, 但我们的选择就变得没有意义。 如果我千辛万苦地维持正派, 并下决心做正确的事, 但这么做又会有什么不同呢? 因为有 无数个我, 都在做正确的事情, 也有无数个我在做错误的事情。 因此我的选择就没意义了。 所以,我们并不想生活在那种特殊的现实中。 如果是在“空无一物”的现实中, 我们不会在这里彼此交流。 所以我想,生活在一个平凡的现实中, 这个现实中优雅和丑陋的事实并存, 我们能让优雅的事实变多, 让丑陋的事实变少, 这会带给我们一种人生的意义。 在这个“荒谬”的宇宙中, 我们仍然可以寻找到人生的意义, 还是个相当好的意义。 现实的平凡 与我们内心深处体会到平凡 和谐地“共鸣”, 我知道你们能感受到。 我知道你们都是独特的, 但你们终究是某种“不为人知”的平凡, 不是吗? (笑声)(掌声)
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."
总之,或许你会说, 这个谜题,这个“存在”的谜题, 是个愚蠢的故作玄虚的问题。 你不因宇宙的存在感到惊讶, 你觉得“岁月静好”。 伯特兰•罗素说: “要我说,宇宙就是那样,没别的了。” 这是个残酷的现实。 我的哥伦比亚大学的教授,西德尼•摩根贝沙, 一位伟大又幽默的哲学家, 我问他:“摩根贝沙教授, 为什么有物存在,而不是一切皆空?” 他回答说:”哦,即便是一切皆空, 你还是不会满意。“
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)
所以—(笑声)—好吧。 所以,如果你不惊讶(于宇宙的存在), 我也不在乎。 但我即将要做的结论, 保证会让你惊讶, 因为它曾让我在TED大会上遇到的 所有聪明的、不可思议的人惊讶, 那就是: 我这一生中从没用过手机。 谢谢。 (笑声)(掌声)