知识的增长无法预测
知识的增长无法预测
知识的增长无法预测
物理定律无法预测未来
Brett: 斯蒂芬·霍金有句名言：“人类只是中等大小行星上的化学浮渣，围绕着一颗非常普通的恒星运行，而这颗恒星位于一千亿个星系中某个的外围郊区。我们如此微不足道，以至于我无法相信整个宇宙是为我们的利益而存在的。“这种对人类和地球的看法在某种浅显的意义上是正确的，但它忽略了人类是一种中心枢纽的事实。就我们所知，我们是宇宙中唯一创造知识的地方，这是一个可以改变现实其余部分的开放式知识流。
就像引力能够将星系拉成特定形状一样，未来的知识将能够塑造行星、太阳系乃至最终整个星系的进程。我们将对我们所能看到的一切产生深远影响。物理定律、化学定律，甚至生物定律都无法预测未来会发生什么。
预测知识的未来增长是不可能的。这是知识的本质，因为知识创造确实是一种创造行为。它是将以前不存在的东西带入存在。
Naval: 如果你能预测它，你就已经发明它了。我们许多根深蒂固的悲观世界观来自于对负面趋势的直线线性外推，同时忽略了正面趋势。正面趋势大多通过创造力和知识创造而来，而这本质上是不可预测的。
每一代都有其末日预言者、卡珊德拉和现代马尔萨斯主义者，他们说：“按照这个轨迹，我们都会死。“他们之所以受欢迎，与僵尸电影和吸血鬼电影受欢迎的原因相同。但现实是，他们无法预测我们未来会做什么来改善我们的生活质量并将我们从不可避免的毁灭中拯救出来。
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It’s Impossible to Predict the Growth of Knowledge
It’s Impossible to Predict the Growth of Knowledge
The laws of physics can’t predict the future
Brett: Stephen Hawking famously said, “The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can’t believe the whole universe exists for our benefit.” This vision of what people are, and of what the planet Earth is, is true in a trivial sense, but it misses the point that people are a kind of hub. We are, so far as we know, the sole place in the universe that is creating knowledge, an open-ended stream of knowledge that could transform the rest of reality.
In the same way that gravity is able to pull a galaxy into a particular shape, knowledge in the future will be able to shape the course of the planet, the solar system and, eventually, the galaxy. We will have a profound impact on everything that we can see around us. There’s nothing the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry, or even the laws of biology can do to predict what is going to happen in the future.
It’s impossible to predict the future growth of knowledge. That’s the nature of knowledge, because knowledge creation is genuinely an act of creation. It is bringing something into existence that wasn’t there prior.
Naval: If you could predict it, you would have invented it already. A lot of our deeply pessimistic world views come from a straight-line linear extrapolation of negative trends while ignoring positive trends. Positive trends mostly come through creativity and knowledge creation, and it’s inherently unpredictable.
Every generation has its doomsayers, Cassandras, and modern Malthusians who say, “On this trajectory, we’re all going to die.” They’re very popular for the same reason that zombie movies and vampire movies are popular. But the reality is that they cannot predict what we’re going to do in the future that is going to improve our quality of life and save us from inevitable ruin.
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