So, about three years ago I was in London, and somebody called Howard Burton came to me and said, I represent a group of people, and we want to start an institute in theoretical physics. We have about 120 million dollars, and we want to do it well. We want to be in the forefront fields, and we want to do it differently. We want to get out of this thing where the young people have all the ideas, and the old people have all the power and decide what science gets done. It took me about 25 seconds to decide that that was a good idea.
Pre otprilike tri godine sam bio u Londonu, i prišao mi je neki Hauard Burton i rekao, zastupam grupu ljudi, i mi želimo da osnujemo institut za teorijsku fiziku. Imamo oko USD 120 miliona i želimo da to radimo kako treba. Želimo da se bavimo najaktuelnijim oblastima, i želimo da to radimo drugačije. Želimo da prekinemo ovakav način rada u kome mladi ljudi imaju sve ideje, a stari ljudi imaju svu moć i odlučuju o tome šta će se raditi. Bilo mi je potrebno oko 25 sekundi da shvatim da je to dobra ideja.
Three years later, we have the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. It’s the most exciting job I’ve ever had. And it’s the first time I’ve had a job where I’m afraid to go away because of everything that’s going to happen in this week when I’m here. (Laughter) But in any case, what I’m going to do in my little bit of time is take you on a quick tour of some of the things that we talk about and we think about. So, we think a lot about what really makes science work? The first thing that anybody who knows science, and has been around science, is that the stuff you learn in school as a scientific method is wrong. There is no method. On the other hand, somehow we manage to reason together as a community, from incomplete evidence to conclusions that we all agree about. And this is, by the way, something that a democratic society also has to do.
Tri godine kasnije nastao je Perimeter Institut za teorijsku fiziku u Voterluu, Ontario. Ovo je najuzbudljiviji posao koji sam ikada imao. I prvi put imam posao sa koga me je strah da budem odsutan zbog svega što će se dogoditi u nedelji kada nisam tamo. (Smeh) Ali u svakom slučaju, ono što ću raditi za ovo kratko vreme, jeste da vas na brzinu provedem kroz neke od stvari o kojima razgovaramo i o kojima razmišljamo. Znači mnogo razmišljamo o tome kako nauka stvarno radi? Prva stvar koju svako ko zna nauku, i ko se bavio naukom, zna jeste da je stvar koja se uči u školi pod nazivom naučni metod pogrešna. Ne postoji metod. S druge strane, nekako uspevamo da razmišljamo zajedno, kao zajednica, iz nepotpunih dokaza, i da dođemo do zaključaka oko kojih se svi slažemo. A to je, usput, nešto što demokratsko društvo takođe mora da radi.
So how does it work? Well, my belief is that it works because scientists are a community bound together by an ethics. And here are some of the ethical principles. I’m not going to read them all to you because I’m not in teacher mode. I’m in entertain, amaze mode. (Laughter)
Kako to funkcioniše? Ja smatram da to radi jer su naučnici zajednica povezana etikom. A evo nekih od etičkih principa. Neću vam ih čitati sve jer trenutno nisam ovde kao nastavnik, već želim da vas zabavim i zapanjim. (Smeh)
But one of the principles is that everybody who is part of the community gets to fight and argue as hard as they can for what they believe. But we’re all disciplined by the understanding that the only people who are going to decide, you know, whether I’m right or somebody else is right, are the people in our community in the next generation, in 30 and 50 years. So it’s this combination of respect for the tradition and community we’re in, and rebellion that the community requires to get anywhere, that makes science work. And being in this process of being in a community that reasons from shared evidence to conclusions, I believe, teaches us about democracy. Not only is there a relationship between the ethics of science and the ethics of being a citizen in democracy, but there has been, historically, a relationship between how people think about space and time, and what the cosmos is, and how people think about the society that they live in.
Ali jedan od principa jeste da svi koji su deo zajednice imaju pravo da se bore i svađaju što više mogu za ono u šta veruju. Ali svi smo disciplinovani saznanjem da su jedini ljudi koji će odlučiti, znate, bilo da sam ja u pravu ili je neko drugi u pravu, su ljudi iz naše zajednice iz sledeće generacije, za 30 ili 50 godina. Znači to je kombinacija poštovanja tradicije i zajednice čiji smo član, i pobune koju zajednica zahteva da bi bilo šta postigla, koja čini da nauka napreduje. A biti u ovom procesu u zajednici koja rezonuje na osnovu zajedničkih dokaza donoseći zaključke, verujem da nas uči o demokratiji. Ne samo da postoji odnos između etike nauke i etike građana u demokratiji, već postoji, istorijski, odnos između toga kako ljudi razmišljaju o prostoru i vremenu i o tome šta je kosmos, i o tome kako ljudi razmišljaju o društvu u kome žive.
And I want to talk about three stages in that evolution. The first science of cosmology that was anything like science was Aristotelian science, and that was hierarchical. The earth is in the center, then there are these crystal spheres, the sun, the moon, the planets and finally the celestial sphere, where the stars are. And everything in this universe has a place. And Aristotle’s law of motion was that everything goes to its natural place, which was of course, the rule of the society that Aristotle lived in, and more importantly, the medieval society that, through Christianity, embraced Aristotle and blessed it. And the idea is that everything is defined. Where something is, is defined with respect to this last sphere, the celestial sphere, outside of which is this eternal, perfect realm, where lives God, who is the ultimate judge of everything.
I želim da govorim o tri stupnja u toj evoluciji. Prva nauka o kosmologiji koja je bila nešto nalik nauci, je bila aristotelovska nauka, a ona je bila hijerarhijska. Zemlja je bila u sedištu, a onda su postojale kristalne sfere, sunce, mesec, planete i konačno nebeska sfera, gde su se nalazile zvezde. I sve u ovom univerzumu ima mesto. A Aristotelov zakon kretanja je navodio da sve ide na svoje prirodno mesto, što je naravno, bio zakon društva u kome je živeo Aristotel, i još važnije, srednjevekovnog društva koje je kroz hrišćanstvo, prihvatilo Aristotela i blagoslovilo ga. Ideja je bila da je sve definisano. Mesto gde se nešto nalazi, je definisano u odnosu na ovu poslednju sferu, nebesku sferu, van koje je ovaj večni, savršeni svet, gde živi Bog, koji je krajnji sudija svega.
So that is both Aristotelian cosmology, and in a certain sense, medieval society. Now, in the 17th century there was a revolution in thinking about space and time and motion and so forth of Newton. And at the same time there was a revolution in social thought of John Locke and his collaborators. And they were very closely associated. In fact, Newton and Locke were friends. Their way of thinking about space and time and motion on the one hand, and a society on the other hand, were closely related.
I to je i Aristotelova kosmologija, i u izvesnom smislu, srednjevekovno društvo. Sada, u 17. veku došlo je do revolucije u razmišljanju o prostoru i vremenu i kretanju, i tako dalje, od strane Njutna. A u isto vreme došlo je do revolucije u društvenom razmišljanju Džona Loka i njegovih saradnika. I oni su bili veoma blisko povezani. Zapravo, Njutn i Lok su bili prijatelji. Njihov način razmišljanja o prostoru i vremenu i kretanju s jedne strane, i društvu s druge strane, bio je blisko povezan.
And let me show you. In a Newtonian universe, there’s no center -- thank you. There are particles and they move around with respect to a fixed, absolute framework of space and time. It’s meaningful to say absolutely where something is in space, because that’s defined, not with respect to say, where other things are, but with respect to this absolute notion of space, which for Newton was God.
A evo da vam pokažem. U Njutnovom univerzumu, ne postoji središte - hvala. Postoje čestice i one se kreću okolo u odnosu na fiksni, apsolutni okvir prostora i vremena. Ima smisla reći apsolutno gde je nešto u prostoru, jer ga to definiše, ne u odnosu na to gde su druge stvari, već u odnosu na ovu apsolutnu ideju prostora, koja je za Njutna bio Bog.
Now, similarly, in Locke’s society there are individuals who have certain rights, properties in a formal sense, and those are defined with respect to some absolute, abstract notions of rights and justice, and so forth, which are independent of what else has happened in the society. Of who else there is, of the history and so forth. There is also an omniscient observer who knows everything, who is God, who is in a certain sense outside the universe, because he has no role in anything that happens, but is in a certain sense everywhere, because space is just the way that God knows where everything is, according to Newton, OK?
Slično, u Lokovom društvu postoje neki pojedinci koji imaju izvesna prava, osobine u formalnom smislu, a one su definisane u odnosu na neke apsolutne, apstraktne ideje prava i pravde, i tako dalje, koje su nezavisne od ostalog što se događa u društvu. Od koga god je takođe tu, od istorije i tako dalje. Takođe postoji sveznajući posmatrač koji sve zna, koji je Bog, koji je u izvesnom smislu van univerzuma, jer nema ulogu u bilo čemu što se događa, ali je u izvesnom smislu svugde, jer je svemir samo način na koji Bog zna gde se sve nalazi, prema Njutnu, OK?
So this is the foundations of what’s called, traditionally, liberal political theory and Newtonian physics. Now, in the 20th century we had a revolution that was initiated at the beginning of the 20th century, and which is still going on. It was begun with the invention of relativity theory and quantum theory. And merging them together to make the final quantum theory of space and time and gravity, is the culmination of that, something that’s going on right now. And in this universe there’s nothing fixed and absolute. Zilch, OK. This universe is described by being a network of relationships.
Znači ovo je osnova onoga što se naziva, tradicionalno, liberalna politička teorija i Njutnova fizika. Sada, u 20. veku imali smo revoluciju koja je započeta početkom 20. veka, i koja i dalje traje. Počela je otkrićem teorije relativiteta i kvantne teorije. A njihovo spajanje u konačnu kvantnu teoriju prostora i vremena i gravitacije, jeste vrhunac toga, što se upravo sada događa. A u ovom univerzumu ništa nije fiksno i apsolutno. Ništica, OK. Univerzum je opisan kao mreža relacija.
Space is just one aspect, so there’s no meaning to say absolutely where something is. There’s only where it is relative to everything else that is. And this network of relations is ever-evolving. So we call it a relational universe. All properties of things are about these kinds of relationships. And also, if you’re embedded in such a network of relationships, your view of the world has to do with what information comes to you through the network of relations. And there’s no place for an omniscient observer or an outside intelligence knowing everything and making everything. So this is general relativity, this is quantum theory. This is also, if you talk to legal scholars, the foundations of new ideas in legal thought. They’re thinking about the same things. And not only that, they make the analogy to relativity theory and cosmology often. So there’s an interesting discussion going on there. This last view of cosmology is called the relational view.
Prostor je samo jedan aspekt pa zato nema smisla reći apsolutno gde se nešto nalazi. Postoji samo gde je nešto u odnosu na sve ostalo što postoji. A ova mreža odnosa se stalno razvija. Pa zato ovo nazivamo univerzumom relacija. Sve osobine stvari su vezane za ovu vrstu odnosa. Takođe, ako ste ugrađeni u takvu mrežu relacija, vaše viđenje sveta se zasniva na onim informacijama do kojih dolazite preko mreže relacija. I ne postoji mesto za sveznajućeg posmatrača ili inteligenciju sa strane koja sve zna i sve stvara. Znači to je opšta relativnost, to je kvantna teorija. Ali to je takođe, ako razgovarate sa pravnim stručnjacima, osnova novih ideja u pravnim razmišljanjima. Oni razmišljaju o istim stvarima. I ne samo to, oni prave analogiju često sa teorijom relativnosti i kosmologijom. Znači tu se odvija zanimljiva rasprava. Ovo poslednje viđenje kosmologije se naziva relacionim stanovištem.
So the main slogan here is that there’s nothing outside the universe, which means that there’s no place to put an explanation for something outside. So in such a relational universe, if you come upon something that’s ordered and structured, like this device here, or that device there, or something beautiful, like all the living things, all of you guys in the room -- "guys" in physics, by the way, is a generic term: men and women. (Laughter)
Znači glavni slogan jeste da ne postoji ništa van univerzuma, što znači da nema mesta za objašnjenje da postoji nešto spolja. Znači u takvom relacionom univerzumu, ako naiđete na nešto što je uređeno i strukturisano, poput ovog uređaja ovde, ili onog uređaja tamo, ili na nešto lepo, kao što su sve žive stvari, svi vi momci ovde u ovoj sobi -- ''momci'' u fizici, generčki je izraz; označava i muškarce i žene. (Smeh)
Then you want to know, you’re a person, you want to know how is it made. And in a relational universe the only possible explanation was, somehow it made itself. There must be mechanisms of self-organization inside the universe that make things. Because there’s no place to put a maker outside, as there was in the Aristotelian and the Newtonian universe. So in a relational universe we must have processes of self-organization.
Onda želite da znate, vi ste osoba, želite da znate kako to nastaje. A u relacionom univerzumu jedino moguće objašnjenje jeste, da je to nekako samo sebe napravilo. Mora da postoje mehanizami samoorganizacije unutar univerzuma koji prave stvari. Jer nema mesta da se postavi stvaratelj vani, kao u Aristotelovom i Njutnovom univerzumu. Znači u relacionom univerzumu moramo imati procese samoorganizacije.
Now, Darwin taught us that there are processes of self-organization that suffice to explain all of us and everything we see. So it works. But not only that, if you think about how natural selection works, then it turns out that natural selection would only make sense in such a relational universe. That is, natural selection works on properties, like fitness, which are about relationships of some species to some other species. Darwin wouldn’t make sense in an Aristotelian universe, and wouldn’t really make sense in a Newtonian universe.
Sada, Darvin nas je naučio da postoje procesi samoorganizacije, koji su dovoljni da objasne sve nas i sve što vidimo. Znači to radi. Ali ne samo to, ako razmislite o tome kako deluje prirodna selekcija, onda ispada da bi prirodna selekcija imala smisla samo u takvom relacionom univerzumu. Tj. prirodna selekcija deluje na osnovu osobina, poput spremnosti, koje se tiču relacija nekih vrsta prema nekim drugim vrstama. Darvin ne bi imao smisla u Aristotelovskom univerzumu, i ne bi imao smisla u Njutnovskom univerzumu.
So a theory of biology based on natural selection requires a relational notion of what are the properties of biological systems. And if you push that all the way down, really, it makes the best sense in a relational universe where all properties are relational. Now, not only that, but Einstein taught us that gravity is the result of the world being relational. If it wasn’t for gravity, there wouldn’t be life, because gravity causes stars to form and live for a very long time, keeping pieces of the world, like the surface of the Earth, out of thermal equilibrium for billions of years so life can evolve.
Znači teorija biologije na osnovu prirodne selekcije zahteva relacionu ideju osobina koje čine biološke sisteme. I ako idete tako do kraja, zapravo, to ima najviše smisla u relacionom univerzumu u kome su sve osobine relacione. I ne samo to, već nas je Ajnštajn naučio da je gravitacija posledica toga što je svet relacioni. Da ne postoji gravitacija, ne bi bilo života, jer gravitacija tera zvezde da se formiraju i da žive jako dugo, držeći delove sveta, kao što je površina Zemlje, van toplotne ravnoteže milijardama godina tako da život može da se razvije.
In the 20th century, we saw the independent development of two big themes in science. In the biological sciences, they explored the implications of the notion that order and complexity and structure arise in a self-organized way. That was the triumph of Neo-Darwinism and so forth. And slowly, that idea is leaking out to the cognitive sciences, the human sciences, economics, et cetera. At the same time, we physicists have been busy trying to make sense of and build on and integrate the discoveries of quantum theory and relativity.
U 20. veku, videli smo nezavisan razvoj dve velike teorije u nauci. U biološkim naukama, one su ispitivale implikacije ideje da uređenost i složenost i struktura nastaju na samoorganizovani način. To je bio triumf Neodarvinista i tako dalje. I polako, ta ideja prodire u kognitivne nauke, društvene nauke, ekonomiju, itd. U isto vreme, mi fizičari pokušavamo da shvatimo i nadgrađujemo i integrišemo otkrića kvantne teorije i relativiteta.
And what we’ve been working out is the implications, really, of the idea that the universe is made up of relations. 21st-century science is going to be driven by the integration of these two ideas: the triumph of relational ways of thinking about the world, on the one hand, and self-organization or Darwinian ways of thinking about the world, on the other hand. And also, is that in the 21st century our thinking about space and time and cosmology, and our thinking about society are both going to continue to evolve. And what they’re evolving towards is the union of these two big ideas, Darwinism and relationalism.
I ono što smo razradili jesu implikacije, zapravo, ideje da je univerzum sastavljen od relacija. Nauka u 21. veku biće vođena integracijom ove dve ideje: pobedom relacijskog načina razmišljanja o svetu, s jedne strane, i samoorganizacijom ili Darvinovim načinom razmišljanja o svetu, o svetu, s druge strane. Takođe, u 21. veku i naše razmišljanje o prostoru i vremenu i kosmologiji, i naše razmišljanje o društvu će takođe nastaviti da se razvija. A ono ka čemu se razvijaju jeste sjedinjavanje ove dve velike ideje, Darvinizma i relacionizma.
Now, if you think about democracy from this perspective, a new pluralistic notion of democracy would be one that recognizes that there are many different interests, many different agendas, many different individuals, many different points of view. Each one is incomplete, because you’re embedded in a network of relationships. Any actor in a democracy is embedded in a network of relationships. And you understand some things better than other things, and because of that there’s a continual jostling and give and take, which is politics. And politics is, in the ideal sense, the way in which we continually address our network of relations in order to achieve a better life and a better society.
Sada, ako razmišljate o demokratiji iz ove perspektive, nova pluralistička ideja demokratije bi bila ona koja prepoznaje da postoje mnogi različiti interesi, mnogi različiti prioriteti, mnogi različiti pojedinci, mnoge različite tačke gledanja. Svaka je nepotpuna, jer ste ugrađeni u mrežu ili relacije. Svaki učesnik u demokratiji je ugrađen u mrežu odnosa. I razumete neke od ovih stvari bolje od drugih stvari, i zbog toga postoji stalno gurkanje i kompromisi, što čini politiku. A politika je, u idealnom smislu, način na koji se stalno bavimo našom mrežom relacija kako bi stvorili bolji život i bolje društvo.
And I also think that science will never go away and -- I’m finishing on this line. (Laughter) In fact, I’m finished. Science will never go away.
I takođe mislim da nauka nikada neće nestati i -- I time završavam. (Smeh) Zapravo, završio sam. Nauka nikada neće nestati.