人是一股自然之力People Are a Force of Nature
Brett：知识是改造世界的力量。我们可以取一种没什么特别用途的原材料，在它内部找到铀核，进而用它来制造炸弹，或在核反应堆中产生能量。我们能在某样东西里发现这些——而那样东西在人类出现以前、地球几乎整个地质历史中都一直惰性地躺在那儿，什么也不会发生。人，是宇宙中创造解释的实体。他们能够解释，原材料可以被改造成什么。
那么，他们把这些原材料改造成了什么呢？文明。创造知识的人最终真的成为了一股自然之力。
如果我们想解释像星系的形状或恒星的形状这样的东西，任何天体物理学家都会根据物理定律给你讲一个故事：引力如何把物质拉成球体，热力学定律如何让某些气体升温膨胀。所有已知的物理定律都足以解释我们在宇宙中看到的一切。
但单靠物理定律无法解释曼哈顿的出现。你不得不援引物理基本定律之外的东西。你需要援引人类的存在，以及他们从科学、哲学和政治上解释世界的能力。正是这一切汇聚在一起，才能解释为什么曼哈顿会出现摩天大楼这样的结构。
这是一个深刻的观点。这个观点似乎被科学家们忽视了——他们中的许多人对于如何解释我们在环境中看到的东西，抱有一种还原论式的看法。他们只寻求解释环境中存在的自然现象。
当然，每个人都想知道自然法则如何运作。但如果我们想理解宇宙将如何随时间演化——无论是一时一地在我们自己的星球上，还是最终在整个星系——我们就必须谈论人类创造的知识，以及他们在未来将要做出的选择。
这是关于人在宇宙中位置的一种不同图景。
Brett: Knowledge is what transforms the world. We can take some raw material that has no particular use and within that raw material, we can find uranium nuclei, which then can be used to create bombs or energy in a nuclear reactor. We can find within something that for almost the entire geological existence of the earth sat there inert and would have done nothing, absent people. People are the entities within the universe that create explanations. They’re able to explain what raw materials might be transformed into.
Now, what are they transforming these raw materials into? Civilization. People creating knowledge end up becoming literally a force of nature.
If we seek to explain something like the shape of a galaxy or the shape of a star, any astrophysicist will give you a story based upon the laws of physics about how gravity will pull things into spheres, how the laws of thermodynamics will cause certain kinds of gas to heat up and expand. All of the known laws of physics are sufficient to explain what we see out there in the cosmos.
But the laws of physics alone will not be able to explain the appearance of Manhattan. You have to invoke things other than merely the fundamental laws of physics. You need to invoke the existence of people and their capacity to explain the world scientifically, philosophically and politically. It’s all of those things that will come together to explain why we have certain structures like skyscrapers in Manhattan.
This is a profound idea. It’s an idea that seems to have been overlooked by scientists, many of whom have a reductionist idea about how to explain what we see in our environment. They seek to explain only the natural phenomena that are in an environment.
Of course, everyone wants to know how the laws of nature work. But if we want to understand how the universe is going to evolve over time, whether it’s locally on our own planet or, eventually, the galaxy, we’re going to have to talk about the knowledge that people create and the choices that they’re going to make into the future.
This is a different vision of the place of people in the universe.