Name: 你是 NPC 嗎？ (Are You an NPC?)
Uploaded: 2024-06-15T02:53:58.000Z
Duration: 12 min 18 s

Free to choose what you do and make decisions?

可以自由選擇做什麼和做決定？

反身代名詞

Or are you an NPC, unable to decide anything for yourself?

還是說你是一個 NPC，不能為自己做任何決定？

You feel that you have control over your life, or at least, what you'll have for breakfast.

你覺得自己可以控制自己的生活，至少可以控制早餐吃什麼。

Physics actually may force you to go through life as if on rails, with no free will at all.

物理學實際上可能迫使你像在軌道上一樣度過一生，完全沒有自由意志。

You experience free will all the time, like when you decided to watch this video instead of doing something useful.

你無時無刻不在體驗著自由意志，比如你決定看這段視頻，而不是做一些有用的事情。

Free will is your ability to decide by yourself what you do.

自由意志是你自己決定做什麼的能力。

It means that the future is an open arena that you can shape with your actions.

這意味著未來是一個開放的舞臺，你可以用自己的行動來塑造它。

It means you are responsible for your actions, which is the basis of our moral and legal systems.

這意味著你要為自己的行為負責，這是我們道德和法律體系的基礎。

There are too many dimensions for one short video.

一個簡短的視頻可以涵蓋太多方面。

So we'll focus on the most essential part.

是以，我們將重點關注最重要的部分。

Two main philosophical camps are fighting about this.

兩大哲學陣營正在為此爭論不休。

No matter how we represent them, they'll be upset about it.

無論我們如何代表他們，他們都會對此感到不滿。

The first camp claims that the very idea of free will is fundamentally incompatible with the laws of the universe.

第一陣營聲稱，自由意志的觀念從根本上說與宇宙法則是不相容的。

Whatever you exactly are, it's somehow made up of your physical brain and body.

無論你是什麼，它都是由你的大腦和身體組成的。

And these are made of cells, which are made of proteins, which are made of atoms and particles like protons or electrons.

細胞由蛋白質組成，蛋白質由原子和質子或電子等粒子組成。

So fundamentally, you're a specific, quite lovely, dynamic pacet of particles.

所以從根本上說，你是一個特定的、相當可愛的、動態的粒子群。

Particles have no will, no motivation, no freedom.

粒子沒有意志，沒有動力，沒有自由。

And we don't know why, but most laws of physics are deterministic, which means that things happen the way they do because of the things that came before.

我們不知道為什麼，但大多數物理定律都是確定性的，也就是說，事情之所以會這樣發生，是因為之前的事情已經發生了。

If you play pool and hit a ball at a specific speed and angle, the laws of physics tell you exactly how all the balls on the table will behave.

如果你打撞球，以特定的速度和角度擊球，物理定律會準確地告訴你桌上所有球的表現。

Their speed, recoil directions, everything.

它們的速度、後坐力方向，應有盡有。

These laws completely decide the behavior of all balls on the table.

這些法則完全決定了桌上所有球的行為。

At the microscopic level, things work very much like that, only without players.

在微觀層面上，事情的運作非常類似，只是沒有球員。

Actions and reactions affect all the particles in the universe, creating a chain of causal effects that extends throughout time from the past to the future.

行動和反應會影響宇宙中的所有粒子，產生一連串的因果效應，從過去延伸到未來。

Things happen, making other things happen.

事情發生了，其他事情也隨之發生。

Now imagine that if right after the Big Bang, a super smart supercomputer looked at every single particle in the universe and noted all their properties.

現在想象一下，如果在宇宙大爆炸之後，一臺超級智能的超級計算機查看了宇宙中的每一個粒子，並記錄下它們的所有特性。

Just by applying the deterministic laws of physics, it should be able to predict what all the particles in existence would be doing until the end of time.

只需應用確定性的物理定律，它就能預測出所有存在的粒子在時間盡頭之前會做什麼。

But if you're made of particles and it's technically possible to calculate what particles will do forever, then you never decided anything.

但是，如果你是由粒子組成的，而且技術上可以計算出粒子將永遠做什麼，那麼你就從來沒有決定過什麼。

Your past, present, and future were already predetermined and decided at the Big Bang.

你的過去、現在和未來在宇宙大爆炸時就已註定。

That would mean there is a kind of fate, and you are not free to decide anything.

這就意味著存在一種命運，你無法自由決定任何事情。

You may feel like you make decisions, but you're actually on autopilot.

你可能覺得自己在做決定，但實際上你是在自動駕駛。

The motions of the particles that make up your brain cells that made you watch this video were decided 14 billion years ago.

讓你觀看這段視頻的腦細胞的粒子運動是在 140 億年前決定的。

You're only witnessing how the universe inside you unfolds in real time.

你只是在見證你體內的宇宙是如何實時展開的。

But this can't be true because of quantum mechanics, right?

但由於量子力學的原因，這不可能是真的，對嗎？

Quantum processes are intrinsically random, not deterministic, and can't be predicted with total certainty.

量子過程本質上是隨機的，而非確定的，無法完全確定地預測。

On the quantum pool table, balls can go randomly left or up or banana.

在量子檯球桌上，球可以隨意向左、向上或向下滾動。

Their behavior isn't set by what came before, but randomly decided in real time.

他們的行為不是由之前的行為決定的，而是實時隨機決定的。

But for the no free will camp, this doesn't affect their argument.

但對於沒有自由意志的陣營來說，這並不影響他們的論點。

They think that since quantum processes are random, they don't allow you to make any decisions.

他們認為，既然量子過程是隨機的，就不允許你做出任何決定。

Because if there's randomness for the things that fundamentally make up your brain and body, these random processes make the decisions for you.

因為如果構成大腦和身體的基本要素存在隨機性，那麼這些隨機過程就會為你做出決定。

Say an electron can randomly go right or left.

假設一個電子可以隨機向右或向左移動。

If it goes left, it triggers electric currents between your neurons that create a neuronal process, which triggers a long chain of actions that make you watch a YouTube video.

如果它向左移動，就會在你的神經元之間觸發電流，產生神經元過程，從而觸發一長串動作，讓你觀看 YouTube 視頻。

Or it goes right and makes you clean your room.

Just because the chain is extremely complex doesn't mean you have any control over it.

鏈條極其複雜並不意味著你能控制它。

So maybe your fate was not decided at the Big Bang, but it is decided at this very moment.

是以，也許你的命運不是在宇宙大爆炸時決定的，但此時此刻已經決定了。

The important part is that it's not decided by you.

重要的是，這不是由你決定的。

This is kind of a bummer because the argument fundamentally seems to make sense.

這有點令人掃興，因為從根本上說，這個論點似乎是有道理的。

不，不，自由意志一方在尖叫。

This is a really bad way to think about the universe.

這種思考宇宙的方式真的很糟糕。

We know that we can reduce everything that exists to its basic particles and the laws that guide them.

我們知道，我們可以將存在的一切還原為基本粒子和指導它們的定律。

While this makes physics feel like the only scientific discipline that actually matters, there's a problem.

雖然這讓人覺得物理學是唯一一門真正重要的科學學科，但這也存在一個問題。

You can't explain everything in our universe only in terms of particles.

你不能只用粒子來解釋我們宇宙中的一切。

One key fact about reality that we can't explain by looking just at electrons and quantum stuff is emergence.

僅從電子和量子的角度來看，我們無法解釋現實中的一個關鍵事實，那就是 "湧現"。

Emergence is when many small things together create new fundamental traits that didn't exist before.

新出現是指許多小事物共同創造出以前不存在的新的基本特徵。

A drop of water is just a sextillion H2O molecules.

一滴水就是六千萬個 H2O 分子。

If you get water on your pants, they get wet.

如果褲子上沾了水，褲子就會溼。

H2O molecules are not wet, but your pants are definitely wet now.

H2O 分子沒有溼，但你的褲子現在肯定溼了。

Many small things together just created something new that doesn't exist at the level of the individual molecules.

許多小東西結合在一起，就創造出了新的東西，而這些東西在單個分子的層面上是不存在的。

Emergence occurs at all levels of reality, and reality seems to be organized in layers.

新現象發生在現實的各個層面，而現實似乎是分層組織的。

Atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs, you, society.

原子、分子、細胞、組織、器官、你、社會。

Put many things in one layer together, and they'll create the next layer up.

把許多東西放在一層，它們就會形成下一層。

Every time they do, entirely new properties emerge.

每當他們這樣做時，就會出現全新的特性。

One atom can't handle information, but many of them together can form a DNA molecule.

一個原子無法處理資訊，但許多原子聚在一起就能形成 DNA 分子。

Molecules are not alive, but many of them can form a cell, and cells are alive.

分子沒有生命，但許多分子可以組成細胞，而細胞是有生命的。

With each jump up the complexity ladder, the rules of what's possible change.

隨著複雜性階梯的每一次攀升，可能的規則也會隨之改變。

Completely new things emerge that are much more than the sum of their parts.

嶄新的事物不斷湧現，遠遠超出了各部分的總和。

And here, the reductionist view of the universe breaks down.

在這裡，還原論的宇宙觀被打破了。

The layers of reality need each other to make sense.

現實的各層次需要相互關聯，才有意義。

You can explain living things with cells, cells with molecules, and molecules with atoms.

你可以用細胞來解釋生物，用分子來解釋細胞，用原子來解釋分子。

But because of emergence, you can't start with quantum particles and reconstruct the universe.

但由於出現的原因，你無法從量子粒子開始重建宇宙。

You can't explain galaxies with quantum mechanics, or human psychology with quarks.

你無法用量子力學解釋星系，也無法用夸克解釋人類心理。

Reality is not just structured in layers, but for some reason, the layers are also largely independent of each other.

現實不僅是分層結構的，而且由於某種原因，各層在很大程度上也是相互獨立的。

Things existing within the same layer can influence each other, and maybe a layer up or down.

同一層中的事物可以相互影響，也可以影響上一層或下一層。

But often, they don't seem to influence things much higher up or down.

但很多時候，他們似乎並不能影響更高層次或更低層次的事情。

To figure out how your organs work, you don't need quarks.

要弄清你的器官是如何工作的，你並不需要夸克。

To understand politics, you don't need to know about cells.

要了解政治，你不需要了解細胞。

If you want to explain things happening on one layer, you can only do that by staying close to that layer.

如果你想解釋某一層發生的事情，你只能緊緊圍繞這一層來解釋。

No, screams the no-free-will camp in frustration.

不，無自由意志陣營沮喪地叫道。

You can't just use magic to explain free will.

你不能只用魔法來解釋自由意志。

But the emergence argument doesn't invoke magic.

但是，"湧現 "論證並沒有使用魔法。

It just says that thinking about free will in terms of determinism and fundamental laws is a dead end.

它只是說，用決定論和基本規律來思考自由意志是一條死衚衕。

A kind of category error, like trying to explain galaxies by looking at your digestive tract.

這是一種分類錯誤，就像試圖通過觀察你的消化道來解釋星系一樣。

It's part of a reductionist school of thinking about the universe that very successfully shaped science for a long time, but that's challenged by emergence.

這是一種關於宇宙的還原論思維流派的一部分，這種思維流派在很長一段時間內成功地塑造了科學，但卻受到了新出現的挑戰。

So maybe trying to understand free will by looking at fundamental particles, deterministic laws, and quantum mechanics misses the point.

是以，試圖通過觀察基本粒子、確定性法則和量子力學來理解自由意志，也許是毫無意義的。

The question we should be asking is, which layer of reality is relevant to free will?

我們應該問的問題是：哪一層現實與自由意志有關？