 March 2025 2025 年 3 月 What should one do? That may seem a strange question, but it's not meaningless or unanswerable. It's the sort of question kids ask before they learn not to ask big questions. I only came across it myself in the process of investigating something else. But once I did, I thought I should at least try to answer it. 一个人应该做什么？这个问题看起来很奇怪，但并非毫无意义或无法回答。这是孩子们在学会不再问大问题之前会问的那种问题。我是在调查其他事情的过程中偶然遇到这个问题的。但一旦遇到，我认为我应该至少尝试回答它。 So what should one do? One should help people, and take care of the world. Those two are obvious. But is there anything else? When I ask that, the answer that pops up is Make good new things. 那么一个人应该做什么呢？应该帮助他人，并照顾这个世界。这两点很明显。但还有别的吗？当我这样问时，浮现出来的答案是：创造好的新事物。 I can't prove that one should do this, any more than I can prove that one should help people or take care of the world. We're talking about first principles here. But I can explain why this principle makes sense. The most impressive thing humans can do is to think. It may be the most impressive thing that can be done. And the best kind of thinking, or more precisely the best proof that one has thought well, is to make good new things. 我无法证明一个人应该这样做，就像我无法证明一个人应该帮助他人或照顾这个世界一样。我们在讨论基本原则。但我可以解释为什么这个原则是有意义的。人类最令人印象深刻的事情是思考。这可能是最了不起的事情。而最好的思考方式，或者更准确地说，最好的证明是好好思考的方式，就是创造好的新事物。 I mean new things in a very general sense. Newton's physics was a good new thing. Indeed, the first version of this principle was to have good new ideas. But that didn't seem general enough: it didn't include making art or music, for example, except insofar as they embody new ideas. And while they may embody new ideas, that's not all they embody, unless you stretch the word "idea" so uselessly thin that it includes everything that goes through your nervous system. 我指的是新事物，从很广泛的意义上来说。牛顿物理学就是一个很好的新事物。事实上，这一原则的最初版本是要有好的新想法。但这似乎不够普遍：它不包括艺术或音乐，除非它们体现了新的想法。虽然它们可能体现了新的想法，但这并不是它们所体现的全部，除非你把"想法"这个词拉伸得如此无用，以至于包括了通过你神经系统的所有事物。 Even for ideas that one has consciously, though, I prefer the phrasing "make good new things." There are other ways to describe the best kind of thinking. To make discoveries, for example, or to understand something more deeply than others have. But how well do you understand something if you can't make a model of it, or write about it? Indeed, trying to express what you understand is not just a way to prove that you understand it, but a way to understand it better. 即便是对于那些有意识的想法，我更喜欢"创造好的新事物"这种表述。还有其他方式可以描述最佳的思考方式。比如说，去发现，或者比其他人更深入地理解某事。但是如果你不能建立一个模型，或者写出来，你对某事的理解有多深呢？事实上，试图表达你所理解的东西不仅是证明你理解它的一种方式，也是更好地理解它的一种方式。 Another reason I like this phrasing is that it biases us toward creation. It causes us to prefer the kind of ideas that are naturally seen as making things rather than, say, making critical observations about things other people have made. Those are ideas too, and sometimes valuable ones, but it's easy to trick oneself into believing they're more valuable than they are. Criticism seems sophisticated, and making new things often seems awkward, especially at first; and yet it's precisely those first steps that are most rare and valuable. 我喜欢这种表述的另一个原因是，它让我们倾向于创造。它使我们更倾向于那些天然被视为制造事物的想法，而不是对他人已经制作的事物做批评性观察。那些也是想法，有时还很有价值，但我们很容易欺骗自己，认为它们比实际更有价值。批评看起来很高级，而制作新事物往往看起来笨拙，尤其是起初；然而正是这些最初的步骤最为罕见且最有价值。 Is newness essential? I think so. Obviously it's essential in science. If you copied a paper of someone else's and published it as your own, it would seem not merely unimpressive but dishonest. And it's similar in the arts. A copy of a good painting can be a pleasing thing, but it's not impressive in the way the original was. Which in turn implies it's not impressive to make the same thing over and over, however well; you're just copying yourself. 新颖性是否必要？我认为是的。显然在科学领域尤其如此。如果你抄袭了别人的论文并将其发表为自己的，这不仅显得毫无新意，而且是不诚实的。在艺术领域也是类似的。好画作的复制品可能是令人愉悦的，但它并不像原作那样令人印象深刻。这反过来意味着，无论做得多好，一遍又一遍地重复同样的事情都不会令人印象深刻；你只是在复制自己。 Note though that we're talking about a different kind of should with this principle. Taking care of people and the world are shoulds in the sense that they're one's duty, but making good new things is a should in the sense that this is how to live to one's full potential. Historically most rules about how to live have been a mix of both kinds of should, though usually with more of the former than the latter. [1] 不过请注意，我们讨论的是这个原则的不同种类的"应该"。照顾人和世界是出于责任的"应该"，但创造好的新事物是为了充分发挥潜能的"应该"。从历史上看，关于如何生活的大多数规则是这两种"应该"的混合，但通常前者比后者更多。[1] For most of history the question "What should one do?" got much the same answer everywhere, whether you asked Cicero or Confucius. You should be wise, brave, honest, temperate, and just, uphold tradition, and serve the public interest. There was a long stretch where in some parts of the world the answer became "Serve God," but in practice it was still considered good to be wise, brave, honest, temperate, and just, uphold tradition, and serve the public interest. And indeed this recipe would have seemed right to most Victorians. But there's nothing in it about taking care of the world or making new things, and that's a bit worrying, because it seems like this question should be a timeless one. The answer shouldn't change much. 在历史的大部分时期，"人应该做什么？"这个问题的答案在各处都大同小异，无论是询问西塞罗还是孔子。你应该明智、勇敢、诚实、节制、正直，尊重传统，服务公众利益。在世界某些地区，这个答案有一段时间变成了"事奉上帝"，但实际上仍然被认为做一个明智、勇敢、诚实、节制、正直的人，尊重传统，服务公众利益是好的。事实上，这个准则对大多数维多利亚时代的人来说似乎是正确的。但其中没有提到照顾世界或创造新事物，这令人有些担忧，因为这个问题看起来应该是永恒的。答案不应该有太大变化。 I'm not too worried that the traditional answers don't mention taking care of the world. Obviously people only started to care about that once it became clear we could ruin it. But how can making good new things be important if the traditional answers don't mention it? 我不太担心传统答案没有提到照顾世界。显然，人们只有在意识到我们可能毁掉它时才开始关心这一点。但是，如果传统答案没有提及，创造好的新事物怎么可能重要呢？ The traditional answers were answers to a slightly different question. They were answers to the question of how to be, rather than what to do. The audience didn't have a lot of choice about what to do. The audience up till recent centuries was the landowning class, which was also the political class. They weren't choosing between doing physics and writing novels. Their work was foreordained: manage their estates, participate in politics, fight when necessary. It was ok to do certain other kinds of work in one's spare time, but ideally one didn't have any. Cicero's De Officiis is one of the great classical answers to the question of how to live, and in it he explicitly says that he wouldn't even be writing it if he hadn't been excluded from public life by recent political upheavals. [2] 传统的答案是针对一个稍微不同的问题的回答。它们是关于如何生活的答案，而不是关于做什么的答案。观众对可以做什么没有太多选择。直到最近几个世纪，观众都是拥有土地的阶级，也是政治阶级。他们并不是在选择是做物理学还是写小说。他们的工作是注定的：管理自己的庄园，参与政治，在必要时作战。在业余时间做某些其他类型的工作是可以的，但理想情况下不应该有这样的时间。西塞罗的《论义务》是对如何生活这个问题的伟大经典回答之一，在书中他明确表示，如果不是被最近的政治动荡排除在公共生活之外，他甚至不会写这本书。 There were of course people doing what we would now call "original work," and they were often admired for it, but they weren't seen as models. Archimedes knew that he was the first to prove that a sphere has 2/3 the volume of the smallest enclosing cylinder and was very pleased about it. But you don't find ancient writers urging their readers to emulate him. They regarded him more as a prodigy than a model. 当然，有人在做我们现在称之为"原创性工作"的事情，他们常常因此受到赞赏，但并不被视为榜样。阿基米德知道他是第一个证明球体体积是最小外接圆柱体体积的 2/3，并为此感到非常高兴。但你找不到古代作家鼓励读者效仿他。他们更多地将他视为一个奇才，而非榜样。 Now many more of us can follow Archimedes's example and devote most of our attention to one kind of work. He turned out to be a model after all, along with a collection of other people that his contemporaries would have found it strange to treat as a distinct group, because the vein of people making new things ran at right angles to the social hierarchy. 现在我们中的许多人可以追随阿基米德的例子，将大部分精力投入到一种工作中。他最终还是成为了一个榜样，还有一群他的同时代人会觉得奇怪的、被视为一个独特群体的人，因为创造新事物的这个脉络与社会等级体系成直角。 What kinds of new things count? I'd rather leave that question to the makers of them. It would be a risky business to try to define any kind of threshold, because new kinds of work are often despised at first. Raymond Chandler was writing literal pulp fiction, and he's now recognized as one of the best writers of the twentieth century. Indeed this pattern is so common that you can use it as a recipe: if you're excited about some kind of work that's not considered prestigious and you can explain what everyone else is overlooking about it, then this is not merely a kind of work that's ok to do, but one to seek out. 什么样的新事物算数？我宁愿把这个问题留给创造它们的人。试图定义任何阈值都将是一件冒险的事情，因为新的工作类型往往一开始就会被鄙视。雷蒙德·钱德勒当时写的是典型的通俗小说，现在却被公认为二十世纪最优秀的作家之一。事实上，这种模式如此普遍，以至于你可以将其视为一个秘诀：如果你对某种不被视为 prestigious 的工作感到兴奋，并且可以解释其他人忽视的方面，那么这不仅仅是一种可以接受的工作，更是值得追求的工作。 The other reason I wouldn't want to define any thresholds is that we don't need them. The kind of people who make good new things don't need rules to keep them honest. 我不想定义任何阈值的另一个原因是，我们根本不需要它们。那些能够创造优秀新事物的人不需要规则来保持诚实。 So there's my guess at a set of principles to live by: take care of people and the world, and make good new things. Different people will do these to varying degrees. There will presumably be lots who focus entirely on taking care of people. There will be a few who focus mostly on making new things. But even if you're one of those, you should at least make sure that the new things you make don't net harm people or the world. And if you go a step further and try to make things that help them, you may find you're ahead on the trade. You'll be more constrained in what you can make, but you'll make it with more energy. 所以这就是我对应该遵循的生活原则的猜想：照顾人和这个世界，并创造好的新事物。不同的人会以不同程度去实践这些。可能会有很多人专注于照顾他人，也会有少数人主要专注于创造新事物。但即使你是后者，你也至少要确保你创造的新事物不会对人或世界造成净损害。如果你更进一步，尝试创造对他们有帮助的事物，你可能会发现你站在了有利的位置。你在可以创造的事物上会受到更多限制，但你会以更多的能量去创造它们。 On the other hand, if you make something amazing, you'll often be helping people or the world even if you didn't mean to. Newton was driven by curiosity and ambition, not by any practical effect his work might have, and yet the practical effect of his work has been enormous. And this seems the rule rather than the exception. So if you think you can make something amazing, you should probably just go ahead and do it. 另一方面，如果你创造了令人惊叹的事物，即使你本无此意，你也常常会帮助到人或世界。牛顿是出于好奇心和野心，而非他的工作可能产生的实际效果而驱动，然而他工作的实际影响却是巨大的。这似乎是常态而非例外。所以如果你认为自己可以创造出令人惊叹的事物，你很可能就应该直接着手去做。 Notes 笔记 [1] We could treat all three as the same kind of should by saying that it's one's duty to live well — for example by saying, as some Christians have, that it's one's duty to make the most of one's God-given gifts. But this seems one of those casuistries people invented to evade the stern requirements of religion: you could spend time studying math instead of praying or performing acts of charity because otherwise you were rejecting a gift God had given you. A useful casuistry no doubt, but we don't need it. 我们可以将这三种情况视为同一类"应该"，方法是说一个人有责任生活得好——例如，正如一些基督徒所说的那样，一个人有责任充分利用上帝赋予的天赋。但这似乎是人们发明的一种诡辩，用以逃避宗教的严格要求：你可以花时间学习数学，而不是祈祷或行善，因为否则就是在拒绝上帝赐予的恩赐。这无疑是一种有用的诡辩，但我们并不需要它。 We could also combine the first two principles, since people are part of the world. Why should our species get special treatment? I won't try to justify this choice, but I'm skeptical that anyone who claims to think differently actually lives according to their principles. 我们还可以将前两个原则结合起来，因为人是世界的一部分。为什么我们的物种应该得到特殊对待？我不会试图为这种选择辩护，但我对那些声称有不同想法的人是否真的按照自己的原则生活持怀疑态度。 [2] Confucius was also excluded from public life after ending up on the losing end of a power struggle, and presumably he too would not be so famous now if it hadn't been for this long stretch of enforced leisure. 孔子在权力斗争中落败后也被排挤出公共生活，他可能在这段强制闲置的时期没有现在这么有名。 Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this. 感谢 Trevor Blackwell、Jessica Livingston 和 Robert Morris 阅读了本文的草稿。 |