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1、1 第 1 课 知识的悖论 The Paradox of Knowledge The greatest achievement of humankind in its long evolution from ancient hominoid ancestors to its present status is the acquisition and accumulation of a vast body of knowledge about itself, the world, and the universe. The products of this knowledge are all t
2、hose things that, in the aggregate, we call “civilization,“ including language, science, literature, art, all the physical mechanisms, instruments, and structures we use, and the physical infrastructures on which society relies. Most of us assume that in modern society knowledge of all kinds is cont
3、inually increasing and the aggregation of new information into the corpus of our social or collective knowledge is steadily reducing the area of ignorance about ourselves, the world, and the universe. But continuing reminders of the numerous areas of our present ignorance invite a critical analysis
4、of this assumption. In the popular view, intellectual evolution is similar to, although much more rapid than, somatic evolution. Biological evolution is often described by the statement that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny“-meaning that the individual embryo, in its development from a fertilized o
5、vum into a human baby, passes through successive stages in which it resembles ancestral forms of the human species. The popular view is that humankind has progressed from a state of innocent ignorance, comparable to that of an infant, and gradually has acquired more and more knowledge, much as a chi
6、ld learns in passing through the several grades of the educational system. Implicit in this view is an assumption that phylogeny resembles ontogeny, so that there will ultimately be a stage in which the accumulation of knowledge is essentially complete, at least in specific fields, as if society had
7、 graduated with all the advanced degrees that signify mastery of important subjects. Such views have, in fact, been expressed by some eminent scientists. In 1894 the great American physicist Albert Michelson said in a talk at the University of Chicago: While it is never safe to affirm that the futur
8、e of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenom
9、ena which come under our notice The future truths of Physical Science ate to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals. In the century since Michelsons talk, scientists have discovered much more than the refinement of measurements in the sixth decimal place, and none is willing to make a similar
10、statement today. However, many still cling to the notion that such a state of knowledge remains a possibility to be attained sooner or later. Stephen Hawking, the 2 great English scientist, in his immensely popular book A Brief History of Time (1988), concludes with the speculation that we may “disc
11、over a complete theory“ that “would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-for then we would know the mind of God.“ Paul Davies, an Australian physicist, echoes that view by suggesting that the human mind may be able to grasp some of the secrets encompassed by the title of his book The Mind of God
12、(1992). Other contemporary scientists write of “theories of everything,“ meaning theories that explain all observable physical phenomena, and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, one of the founders of the current standard model of physical theory, writes of his Dreams of a Final Theory (1992). Despite t
13、he eminence and obvious yearning of these and many other contemporary scientists, there is nothing in the history of science to suggest that any addition of data or theories to the body of scientific knowledge will ever provide answers to all questions in any field. On the contrary, the history of s
14、cience indicates that increasing knowledge brings awareness of new areas of ignorance and of new questions to be answered. Astronomy is the most ancient of the sciences, and its development is a model of other fields of knowledge. People have been observing the stars and other celestial bodies since
15、 the dawn of recorded history. As early as 3000 B.C. the Babylonians recognized a number of the constellations. In the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras proposed the notion of a spherical Earth and of a universe with objects in it chat moved in accordance with natural laws. Later Greek philosophers tau
16、ght that the sky was a hollow globe surrounding the Earth, that it was supported on an axis running through the Earth, and chat stars were inlaid on its inner surface, which rotated westward daily. In the second century A.D., Ptolemy propounded a theory of a geocentric (Earth-centered) universe in which the sun, planets, and stars moved in circular orbits of cycles and epicycles around the Earth, although the Earth was not at the precise center of these orbits. While somewhat awkward, the Pto
