The Examined Year: 2011
Kenneth Taylor

07 January 2012

这周，我们做一些特别的事情。我们通过《哲学》杂志的镜头来回顾一下过去的一年。我们把这一集叫做——被检验的年份:2011。但这不是典型的年度回顾秀——绝对不是。我们从苏格拉底那里获得灵感，他说未经审视的生活不值得过。对我们来说，这意味着未经审查的一年不值得度过。不过，对我们所有人来说，幸运的是，2011年是非常值得经历和研究的一年。这是最好的时代，也是最坏的时代——一年既鼓舞人心又令人不安。

让我们从这一年令人不安的一些方面开始说起。美国经济持续停滞;财富日益集中在少数人手中;欧元几近崩溃，欧洲团结和谐的梦想破灭。如果你是悲观主义者，2011年足以让你对资本主义和民主相结合的未来感到绝望，它是如此成功地从20世纪的混乱中脱颖而出。保罗•克鲁格曼(Paul Krugman)——我对他的尊敬程度不亚于我对任何在世的人——认为，目前的形势具有全球大萧条的所有特征。美国和欧洲的失业率都处于灾难性的高位。我们的领导人和机构越来越不受信任。民主价值观在整个工业化世界都受到了围攻。这是可怕的东西。

But the year wasn’t all darkness, fortunately. There were developments that inspired hope -- like the demise of dictators and the first stirrings of democracy in Africa and the Middle East. And don’t forget the world of science. It offered up a breath-taking range of potential discoveries: earth-like planets orbiting within the habitable zones of distant stars; neutrinos apparently capable of traveling faster than the speed of light; and -- toward the end of the year -- tantalizing glimpses of the Higgs boson.

Speaking of the Higgs stuff, I have to admit that on first encounter, it kind of floored me and puzzled my philosophical imagination. The Higgs boson is supposed to help explain why fundamental particles have mass at all. But it first struck me that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to wonder whether that’s something that really need explaining. Isn't it sort of like explaining why circles are round? They are round by definition. And things that are true by definition, don't need explaining. Similarly, one might think that mass is an intrinsic property of matter so that matter has mass by definition and from the very beginning of its existence. And just as it's no mystery why circles are round, so it's no mystery why matter has mass.

但不要这么快。我们忽略了一个关键点。我不是粒子物理学家，但我认为你可以这样看。物理学告诉我们，有些粒子缺乏质量——比如光子。我想，过去人们认为中微子也没有质量。然而，事实证明，它们确实有质量——只是非常非常非常非常小的一部分。总之，因为无质量的粒子，嗯，无质量的粒子，它们以最大的速度四处运动，几乎不与任何物体相互作用。(最大速度假设，也就是说，比光速还快的中微子是不真实的，而是一个测量误差)。但现在我们提出了一个真正的问题。为什么宇宙中只有一种粒子不是无质量的? Why does the universe contain massive particles at all. That's a real question, not a psuedo question or a confused question.

The answer, very roughly, has to do with the so-called Higgs mechanism of which the Higgs Boson is a product. Without the Higgs mechanism to endow some fundamental particles with mass (through interaction with the all pervasive Higgs Field) the universe would contain nothing but a swarm of mass-less energy waves. In such a universe, atoms and atomic nuclei could never form. And so nothing like human beings, or the earth we live on, could possibly exist. (Of course, that raises the question of why there is a Higgs Field. And that's a bit longer story than I can tell here. But it has to do with symmetry breaking sometime shortly after the big bang, as the universe cooled down.)

Anyway, the role of the Higgs Boson in endowing fundamental particles with mass is, I think, where the amusing name ‘god particle’ may have come from. But I can't vouch for that. Personally, I find it pretty mind-blowing stuff. And I think it’s really, really cool that physicists are on the verge of explaining, in effect, where mass comes from. I see the question as something like Heidegger’s question – why is there something rather than nothing – which positivists once rejected as a nonsensical psuedo question. Don’t know about that. But I know that the question why does the universe contain matter at all rather than just massless particles is a really cool and deep one. That the human mind could actually put to itself such a question and then actually answer it is a testament to how cool a thing a human mind really is.

另一件我觉得绝对令人兴奋的事是今年在哲学领域非常流行的。这个观点认为客观的道德真理是存在的。坦率地说，我必须承认，我个人从来无法从哲学上理解为什么会有这样的事情。事实上，我正在写一本书，目的之一就是把这种想法扔进垃圾箱，留给那些极具诱惑性但却大错特错的哲学错误。当然，并不是每个人都同意我的观点。事实上，哲学上最大的分歧之一就是把相信客观道德的人和怀疑这种可能性的人区分开来。

But the past year witnessed the publication of a much anticipated book by a very influential philosopher that purports to establish that there really could be such a thing as objective morality after all. The philosopher is Derek Parfit and the book is On What Matters. One reviewer called it the best book on the topic of ethics in the last 100 years. That’s pretty high praise.

Though philosophers appear to be all over the map when it comes to morality -- just witness my own view that there is no such thing as objective morality -- Parfit argues that there are far fewer differences among the leading moral theories than meets the eye. He thinks that when we understand the best alternative moral theories correctly, they turn out to agree much more than they disagree. And if that’s right, there’s at least the beginnings of an argument that there are, after all, objective moral truths. Because one of the marks of objective existence is that even if you approach a thing from different starting points, you’ll ultimately converge to the same destination.

I hope you agree that from politics, to science, to philosophy itself, it’s certainly been a rich and interesting year. There are all sorts of things for us to talk about. Listen in and join in the fun by continuing the conversation on this blog. This episode is sort of an experiment. So we’d love to have your feedback on how it went.

Comments(7)

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Saturday, January 7, 2012 -- 4:00 PM

2011年发生了什么?Not

2011年发生了什么?不太值得讨论，除了科学....我们的救赎之恩——感谢牛顿、伽利略、哥白尼和其他许多人。政治和哲学，我不这么认为。在我们这个充满争议的世界，战争仍然是一种生活方式。把宗教和政治视为任何一种统一力量。2011年却没有。这种统一不会发生的原因有很多:文化的顽固性;神权政治的不一致性和美国对抗他们的心态一直存在，这是我们世界的特征，从远古时代开始(无论何时开始)。或者，就像骆驼经常说的:嗯。
Sure.

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Guest

Monday, January 9, 2012 -- 4:00 PM

Dear Ken,

Dear Ken,
我希望今年你们能找到真理和善的亮点，把理论物理和非法传播民主留给那些打架和玩耍的孩子们。
=
Nature is truly immeasurable

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Guest

Monday, January 9, 2012 -- 4:00 PM

What can we say about any

我们能对任何一年说些什么呢?纽曼咬了一口，吐出了一小块。一切都是如此不可分割，以至于我们失去了任何连续性的概念。迈克尔在理论上是正确的，但在实际应用中却失去了可信性。自然是可以测量的，人类的科学每天都在测量自然。我不介意唯心主义者或理想主义。我去过一次，40年前。我订阅了至少30年前我听到的一句古老格言，并以这句格言为部分基础写了一份手稿;也就是说:如果你一直做你一直在做的事情，你就会一直得到你一直得到的东西。这难道不简单吗，华生? Quite so, Mr. Holmes.
我们都生活在一种可能的、可信的、可信的环境中，被我所谓的文化难解性所调和——后者压倒了任何一种中间立场。它也可能被贴上骄傲的标签(没什么用);傲慢(同样无用——而且具有破坏性);和虚荣。没有什么是神圣的。因为我们崇拜——什么都没有。

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Guest

Monday, January 9, 2012 -- 4:00 PM

Actually, 2011 was not such a

事实上，2011年并不是那么糟糕的一年——举几个例子，比1914-18年或1941-45年或者(如果你是罗马人的话)405 - 476年之间的任何一年都好得多。抑郁症?我不这么认为——在大萧条时期，我们的失业率是25%(现在是8.5%)，大量的银行倒闭，排队领取食物，街上到处是饥饿的人。当我们开始为二战起草草案时，如果你的体重至少110磅，并且自己有至少12颗牙齿，你就会是一个具有医学资格的男性。
I heard one radio commentary not long ago - we sit in air-conditioned vehicles, listening to state-of-the-art sound systems, drinking bottled water or gourmet coffees, and then call our friends on hyper-functional digital devices to complain about how hard life is.

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Guest

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 -- 4:00 PM

Dear Paul,

Dear Paul,
Truth is my only ideal.
Just Me
There is no need to argue nature's immeasurability, science or measure has proved it. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle or the immeasurability of sub atomic particles was only a tip of the measure berg, All of our measurements are only probable or uncertain at best. This is how I found myself:
Oneday some time or space ago, whilst searching for the true measure of myself, I traveled to the great institutions of learning, Stanford and Berkley to ask and find the answer to this question: Is nature measurable?
别人对我的评价是错误的，但我一直认为我是好的或对的。所以我，我必须知道。他们是对是错，我是对是错?一路上我做了一些很好的研究;米开朗基罗告诉我如果我想知道真相就去研究自然。爱因斯坦教会了我在行驶的火车上测量速度的困难，最重要的是，在解决问题时要简化。罗素先生给我上了一堂关于西方哲学的速成课，也就是为什么我们会这样思考。我在柏拉图和苏格拉底的书中找到了友谊，在一个阴暗的洞穴中找到了现实或真理。笛卡尔把这个问题简化为I，然后又用另一种方法。只有I有什么错?当然，这条路通向大师们居住的东方，在那里，我发现真理甚至不能被说出来。在东方或西方，我都找不到真实的自己。
于是我来到河边，也许米开朗基罗说得对，寻找大自然的尺度，寻找真实的自己。吐温在那里找到了真理，我也一样确信无疑。马克·吐温，这条河的长度是多少?河流是自然，我也是自然，我们也是自然。我试着测量河流的深度，发现我做不到。我试着测量河流的方向，发现它是无限的。我寻找河流的源头，发现它绕了一圈。我发现在自然的河流上无限无限地只有我自己。但自然的不可测性必须得到检验。但谁知道呢，我到哪里去找证据呢?
Then I found Heisenberg and physics and found there uncertainty too.
So I decided to travel to Stanford and Berkley to ask the great minds that studied there. Is nature measureable, am I? I spent the night at a place called Mavricks, where the largest waves meet the particles of the beach, duality or Oneness? And the next day with great courage I walked into the physics department at Stanford and ask my question: is nature measurable. No One had an answer. I asked then, what are you doing here in the science of physics or measure of nature department, and could not get an answer there either. I headed over to the philosophy department and found philosophy to be not or nearly nonexistent. What would the Greeks think of our philosophy of our truth department today? Oh Dear!
So off to Berkley I went. I'd never been to college and I was so scared. But if I could handle Stanford then it was time to climb the hill. I found the physics department at the top of the hill and asked everyone I could find my question, and there they answered: nature's measurability is a philosophy question. They told me to go to the philosophy department and ask someone there. The philosophy department at Berkley really enjoyed my question, but said that I would have to ask someone in the physics department because they measure nature.
该死，我在伯克利的物理和哲学之间徘徊，在粒子和波之间徘徊，然后发现自己又在外面，在自然界中夹在这两者之间。自然，两者之间的真理。一个阳光明媚的日子，一位有学问的女士坐在台阶上吃午饭，我问她能否帮我了解一下自己。她当然有些担心，但还是同意了。我们面前的人行道上散落着树叶，我让她数一数，告诉我有多少。她说5。我问她是否确定。她说:是的。我说，你愿意把你知道的一切都赌在上面吗?尽管有些犹豫和紧张，她还是说愿意。就在这时，一阵微风吹来，掀翻了一片树叶，露出了另一片。 Well well well I said now there are 6. Would you agree? She was quite uncertain now, of not only me but everything she thought she knew. As she agreed with me that there were 6 a wind came up and blew them all away.
If we can?t count the leaves on a sidewalk, then what can we count? I had my proof, my truth, my nature, immeasurably just me. I could have screamed, as I could today!
Nature is immeasurable, but then, what is nature without it?
True my Dear Watson, just true.
Thanks,
=

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Guest

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 -- 4:00 PM

Congratulations, Grasshopper!

Congratulations, Grasshopper! It appears you have traversed a True Path. I had been wondering, Michael, what you might say if you ever wrote more than twenty-five words. Your ruminations remind me of spiritual thinkers such as Alan Watts and Jack Kornfield. Me? I found some enlightenment living in a chicken shed, outside the bustling metropolis of Fergus, Ontario in the winter of 1975. Pretty close to true poverty. I was cold, hungry most of the time, and lonely. But---I'm still here: older, warmer and seldom hungry. Reversals of fortune are welcome.
Or as old Bob Dylan said: It takes a lot to laugh; it takes a train to cry.
But, I am sorry. Science is science and philosophy is philosophy---the twain do not meet, in any practical sense. Heisenberg and Einstein both knew this. And so did Bertrand Russell. And Samuel L. Clemens? Well, he spoke as a humorist first, and a philosopher second. He knew a lot, but he did not flaunt his knowledge. Probably because he also knew that philosophers generally remain poor, while scientists and humorists do measurably better. Mark that well, Grasshopper...

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Guest

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 -- 4:00 PM

Ah, yes, a belief in the

啊，是的，相信客观道德真理的存在;这是苏格拉底的错误，不是吗?但后来西格蒙德·弗洛伊德和亨利·西吉威克最终将这一观点粉碎。谁能否认把利己主义作为道德决策的有效基础呢?这是自由和人权的基础。但是，对公众利益的呼吁也是有效的，就像对普遍原则的呼吁一样。三赢的情况当然会发生，但这种偶然的结果可能很难，甚至不可能在实际中实现。