预测知识的增长是不可能的It’s Impossible to Predict the Growth of Knowledge
Brett：史蒂芬·霍金有句名言："人类不过是一颗中等大小行星上的一层化学污垢，这颗行星围绕着一颗再普通不过的恒星运转，而这颗恒星位于一千亿个星系之一的偏僻郊区。我们如此微不足道，我无法相信整个宇宙是为了我们的利益而存在的。"这种关于人类是什么、地球是什么的看法，在浅层的意义上是成立的，但它忽略了一点：人类是一种"枢纽"。就我们所知，人类是宇宙中唯一在创造知识的地方——一股开放式的知识洪流，有可能改变其余的现实。
正如引力能把星系拉成特定的形状，未来的知识也将能够塑造这颗行星、太阳系乃至整个星系的走向。我们将对周围所能看到的一切产生深远的影响。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。这正是知识的本性，因为创造知识本质上就是一种创造行为。它是在把原本不存在的东西带到世界上来。
Naval：如果你能预测它，你早就把它发明出来了。我们许多极其悲观的世界观，都源于对负面趋势的直线式外推，同时却忽略了正面趋势。正面趋势大多来自创造力和知识创造，而它本质上就是不可预测的。
每一代都有自己的末日预言者、卡珊德拉们，以及现代的马尔萨斯主义者，他们说："照这个趋势走下去，我们都会死。"他们之所以如此受欢迎，和僵尸电影、吸血鬼电影受欢迎是同一个道理。但现实是，他们无法预测我们未来会做些什么来改善生活质量、把我们从必然的毁灭中拯救出来。
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.