Stephen Hawking uses his new book, The Grand Design, to admonish philosophers for failing to keep up. My question is: is this really about keeping up? Hawking believes that since science has so far outstripped philosophy it is time for the thinkers to leave the field to the guys with the protractors and pocket calculators, but – another question – who let Stephen Hawking choose the rules of the game?
斯蒂芬霍金用他的新书《伟大设计》来给哲学家们敲警钟：你们已经落伍了。我不禁要问：这是落不落伍的问题吗？霍金认为既然现在科学已经把哲学甩在了身后，思想家们应该把哲学的地盘拱手让给那些拿着量角器和袖珍计算机的人。问题是，谁给了霍金制定游戏规则的权力？
A quote from The West Wing comes to mind. Speechwriter Sam Seaborn argues that mankind should go to Mars because \"it\'s next\": \"we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what\'s next.\"
我想起了电视剧《白宫风云》里的一段台词。讲稿代笔人山姆·希邦这样论证人类应该探索火星：因为那儿是“下一站”，“祖先们告别洞穴，眺望远山，进而学会用火；先人们远渡重洋，拓荒西部，终于翱翔蓝天。人类的历史就是不断探索未知的旅程，火星就是下一站。”
What is so disturbing about Sam\'s vision is his effortless linkage of the opening of the west (the \"manifest destiny\" of the pioneers, an adventure fuelled by the religious rhetoric of the Methodist \"Great Awakening\") to human spirit and on to space travel.
山姆的伟大愿景中有一点令我极为厌烦，他居然理所当然地把美国的西部大开发与人类精神、太空旅行联系在一起，须知当年西部开发急先锋们信奉的“昭昭天命”不过是在“大觉醒运动”的豪言壮语煽动下的一场冒险而已。
Here, on a single flight-path, Sam connects religion, human nature and science. Life is a soaring vector, and that vector is \"progress\". This is the exact same notion of progress offered by Hawking. Of course, Hawking has no use for religion, but so evangelical about the notion of \"progress\" is he that it might as well be a religion.
在这段讲稿中，山姆把宗教、科学与人类本质串在了一条没有回头路的单行航线上。人生就是一条冲向高空的航线，这条航线叫做“进步”，与霍金提出的“进步”的概念完全一致。当然，霍金根本不需要宗教，他对于“进步”一念如此狂热，这已无异于宗教了。
How does Hawking define progress? Pretty much the same way it is defined in a quote attributed to Carlos \"The Jackal\": \"You know you\'re getting somewhere when you\'re stepping over bodies.\" In Hawking\'s case, the bodies are those of philosophers, cast aside by science\'s relentless march.
霍金是如何定义“进步”的？跟“豺狼卡洛斯”的那句名言差不多：你要踩着别人的尸首才能走到那儿。霍金的理论里，那些“尸首”就是哲学家们，他们被无情的科学远征弃在一旁。
To Hawking, vector is everything. Cosmology is about energy, as biology is about evolution, and Hawking demands that philosophy reflect this crazed restlessness. He criticises philosophers for failing to understand the maths that underpins his sciences, forgetting that it was a stream of philosophers who defined mathematics and, whether Zeno (in the fifth century BC) or Tarski (in the 20th century), also saw the multiple paradoxes that a reliance on numbers can lead to, as well as noting the theoretical impossibility of ever defining \"number\" from inside a mathematical framework. Why does Hawking love energy so much? Because, like Sam Seaborn and S Club 7, his idea of energy reflects a deeper wish to get moving and reach the stars. But he is also devoted to energy because this is simply how modern scientists look at things. Since Einstein, \"energy equals matter\" and Hawking lacks the imagination to think outside this box.
对霍金而言，科学的航程就是一切。就像生物学的核心是进化一样，宇宙学的关键在于能量，霍金要求哲学去反映这种疯狂焦躁的想法。他批评哲学家们不懂得他理论之下的数学基础，却忘了“数学”本身都是由哲学家定义出来的，不管是公元前5世纪的芝诺还是二十世纪的塔斯基，他们都是哲学家。哲学家们意识到了对数字的依赖会导出各种悖论，也注意到在数学框架之内定义“数字”根本不具备理论可能性。霍金为何如此热爱能量？因为和山姆、七小龙一样，霍金的能量观反映了他更深层的愿望：行动起来，追逐繁星。他为何对能量的重要性深信不疑？因为现代科学家就是这样看待世界的，自从爱因斯坦说了“物质就是能量”之后，霍金再没有足够的想象力跳出这个圈子。
What does the universe look like to these men? A recent suggestion, emerging from work done on the Poincare Conjecture, is that the universe is an endlessly moving conveyor belt whose path might be modelled as a three dimensional coating on a four dimensional sphere. That\'s it. The universe is a slightly funky M?bius strip. All that time with their calculators and the best these guys come up with is something they first heard about in kindergarten!
这些科学家眼里的宇宙是什么样子的？最近在对庞加莱猜想的研究中出现了这样一种观点：宇宙可能是一个永不停止的传送带，它的路径可以描述为一个在四维球体上的三维表层。就是这样，宇宙就是一个奇奇怪怪的莫比斯环。这些科学家算了这么多年，得出的最好成果居然是他们上幼儿园时就听说过的东西。
If the universe is a four dimensional sphere, is this a metaphor? If so, is it possible that we need a new theory of metaphor? Hawking criticises philosophy for playing trivial word games and one sympathises: it must seem awfully trivial to a guy with no theoretical imagination. Or perhaps we should we go another way and allow that a four dimensional object is real. The question, then, is why should we prefer this object over, say, Leibniz\'s Monads? For Leibniz, a Monad is part of a fundamental multiplicity and each one, within its heart, carries all the information of the universe in a single, stable form.
如果说宇宙是一个四维球体的话，这算是一种隐喻吗？如果是，那么我们是不是要重新建立关于隐喻的理论了？霍金批评哲学总是玩一些无关紧要的文字游戏，有人同情他说，对于一个没有理论想象力的人而言，哲学一定是无关紧要之极。或者我们可以换一种办法，姑且承认四维的物体是确实存在的。问题是，我们凭什么就认为这种四维模型要比别的理论，比如莱布尼茨的单子论，更正确呢？在莱布尼茨看来，单子就是组成复合物的基础实体，每一个单子内部都以一种单纯、稳定的方式储存了宇宙的全部信息。
There it is: an alternative view of matter that does not hinge on an undefined notion of \"progress\", from a man who could out-fox Isaac Newton on a good day and died three hundred years ago. Leibniz shows us why philosophy survives: because it is not stupid, though it may seem that way if one only glances at it, as one speeds past on a road to nowhere.
看见没，这就是关于物质的另一种不同看法，这种理论不需要依赖一个无法定义的“进步”概念。其提出者莱布尼茨已经过世了三百年，他要是运气好点儿完全可以超越牛顿。莱布尼茨告诉我们为什么哲学能够生生不息：因为哲学不是一门愚蠢的学问。但是有人在一条没有结果的路上飞奔，他匆忙中瞥了哲学一眼，发现哲学看起来很愚蠢。
（恕译者完全不能同意原文作者的观点。）
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