时代周刊:宇宙有多残酷多冰冷?(3)

That tension plays out elegantly in Greene's new book,

格林的新书也巧妙地表现了两者的拉锯故事，

and to make sure no one misses the dialectic, the chapter names make it clear:

为了不让任何人错失这个了解辩证法的机会，格林为各个章节所起的标题都充满了辩证意味：

"Duration and Impermanence," "Origins and Entropy," "Particles and Consciousness."

“持续与无常”、“起源与熵”、“粒子与意识”……

Greene takes one of his most powerful whacks¹ at entropy, attacking the nettlesome business of the second law of thermodynamics—

格林对熵，对这个令人头疼的热力学第二定律发起了他最猛烈的攻击。

the broad truth that all systems tend to disorder²,

这一定律认为，所有系统都倾向于走向无序，

which is often used to challenge the truth of evolution itself:

这一普遍真理经常被用来质疑另一真理——进化真理，

that profoundly complex order can emerge from the chaos³.

后者认为，混乱可能也有其秩序，只不过极其复杂。

"I resolve that tension in Chapter 3," Greene says,

“我已经在第三章里给出解决（解决科学与神学的对峙的）方案了，”格林说，

a boast that could pass as arrogant⁴ except that, well, he does resolve the tension in Chapter 3.

换作别人，这话恐怕就是妄自尊大的吹嘘而已，至于格林，他还真就做到了。

"It relies on the force of gravity.

“我的方案是围绕地心引力展开的。

Without gravity, everything just spreads out, diffuses⁵, and that's all there would be.

没有了引力，所有东西都会散开，世间万物莫不如此。

But gravity has this wonderful capacity as a universally inward-pulling force which can undertake the following magic trick:

但地心引力这种普遍存在的向内的拉力却有一种神奇的能力，它能够施展魔法，

it can pull things together, making it more orderly here,

把东西凝聚起来，让这个世界更加有序，

at the expense of releasing heat that makes it more disorderly out there.

其代价就是这个过程会释放热量，导致外面的环境变得更加无序。

I call it 'the entropic two-step.

我称之为“熵的两个阶段”。

'"There's a lot of satisfaction in such neat solutions to head-cracking problems.

“原本让人头晕脑胀的问题就这么巧妙地解决了，实在是令人快慰。

But there is an equivalent neatness to the ostensibly dispiriting conclusions Greene reaches in his books and in his research:

然而，格林还在他的著作和研究中同样巧妙得出了不怎么振奋人心的结论：

that unhappy business of a cold universe, an insentient universe, of the individual as just a quantum contraption,

宇宙是冰冷的，没有知觉的，个体只是机械的量子，

behaving as a product not of choice but of probabilities and randomness⁶.

其行为并非选择的产物，而是概率和随机性的产物。

It's where the free-will thing comes in:

于是，自由意志登场了：

the universe is guided by quantum probabilities, and your "choices" are simply a part of that,

宇宙是受量子概率指引的，你的“选择”也是其中的一部分，

the way a local breeze is part of the global weather system.

就像局部地区的微风也是全球天气系统的一部分一样。

"My feeling is that the reductionist, materialist⁷, physicalist approach to the world is the right one," Greene says.

“我个人感觉，融合了还原论、唯物论和物理论的方式才是正确的认知世界的方式，”格林说。

"There isn't anything else; these grand mysteries will evaporate over time."

“再没有别的了；随着时间的推移，这些宏大的谜团也都会烟消云散。”

But despite such empirical bravado⁸, Greene says more too—

不过，除了这种经验主义的故作勇敢之外，格林当然还谈到了其他问题——

and whether he likes it or not, it's not reductionist,

但无论他愿不愿意承认，他讨论的都不是还原论，

and if it's written in a book like Until the End of Time, it could be written in the Vedas as well.

如果那些内容可以写入《直到时间尽头》，那便也可以写入吠陀经。

"Rather than feeling, 'Damn, there's no universal morality,' 'Damn, there's no universal consciousness,'" he says,

“与其觉得‘我靠，这个宇宙根本没有道德’，觉得‘我靠，这个宇宙根本就没有意识，’”他说，

"how wondrous⁹ is it that I am able to have this conscious experience and it's nothing more than stuff?

“反过来想想，我能有意识，意识顶多也是物质，而恰是这种物质催生出了贝多芬的《第九交响曲》，

That stuff can produce Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, that stuff can produce the Mona Lisa,

催生出了（达·芬奇的）蒙娜丽莎，还催生出了（莎翁的）《罗密欧与朱丽叶》，

that stuff can produce Romeo and Juliet?

这不是很值得惊叹的事吗？

Holy smokes, that's wondrous."

我的神呀，也太值得惊叹了吧。”

The rational physicist¹⁰ with the deeply spiritual brother surely meant the holy as just a figure of speech— but if so, he picked an apt one.

这位有一位笃信宗教的哥哥，自己却很理性的物理学家说的这个“神”想必只是一个修辞，但即便只是修辞，用在这里倒也十分贴切。

1 whacks   

n.重击声( whack的名词复数 )；不正常；有毛病v.重击，使劲打( whack的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Lizzie Borden took an axe, Hit her father forty whacks. 丽兹玻顿拿起斧头，砍了爸爸四十下。 来自互联网
• Grizzly bear paw whacks camera out of position and jettisons it downstream. 大灰熊的爪子把摄像机移出了固定的位置并且把它扔到了下游。 来自互联网

2 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

3 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

4 arrogant   

adj.傲慢的，自大的

参考例句：

• You've got to get rid of your arrogant ways.你这骄傲劲儿得好好改改。
• People are waking up that he is arrogant.人们开始认识到他很傲慢。

5 diffuses   

（使光）模糊，漫射，漫散( diffuse的第三人称单数 )； （使）扩散； （使）弥漫； （使）传播

参考例句：

• A gas in solution diffuses from region of greater to one of less concentration. 溶液中的气体由浓度较高的区域向浓度较低的区域扩散。
• The sun diffuses light and heat. 太阳发出光和热。

6 randomness   

n.随意，无安排；随机性

参考例句：

• The randomness is attributed to the porous medium. 随机性起因于多孔介质。 来自辞典例句
• Einstein declared that randomness rather than lawfulness is the characteristic of natural events. 爱因斯坦宣称自然现象的特征为不可测性而不是规律化。 来自辞典例句

7 materialist   

n. 唯物主义者

参考例句：

• Promote materialist dialectics and oppose metaphysics and scholasticism. 要提倡唯物辩证法，反对形而上学和烦琐哲学。
• Whoever denies this is not a materialist. 谁要是否定这一点，就不是一个唯物主义者。

8 bravado   

n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能

参考例句：

• Their behaviour was just sheer bravado. 他们的行为完全是虚张声势。
• He flourished the weapon in an attempt at bravado. 他挥舞武器意在虚张声势。

9 wondrous   

adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地

参考例句：

• The internal structure of the Department is wondrous to behold.看一下国务院的内部结构是很有意思的。
• We were driven across this wondrous vast land of lakes and forests.我们乘车穿越这片有着湖泊及森林的广袤而神奇的土地。

10 physicist   

n.物理学家，研究物理学的人

参考例句：

• He is a physicist of the first rank.他是一流的物理学家。
• The successful physicist never puts on airs.这位卓有成就的物理学家从不摆架子。