2023年6月24日发(作者：)

Are We Living in a Computer

Simulation?

High-profile physicists and philosophers

gathered to debate whether we are real

or virtual—and what it means either way

——

By Clara Moskowitz on April 7, 2016

NEW YORK—If you, me and

every person and thing in the cosmos

were actually characters in some giant

computer game, we would not

necessarily know it. The idea that the

universe is a simulation sounds more

like the plot of “The Matrix,” but it is

also a legitimate scientific hypothesis.

Researchers pondered the controversial

notion Tuesday at the annual Isaac

Asimov Memorial Debate here at the

American Museum of Natural History.

Moderator Neil deGrasse Tyson,

director of the museum’s Hayden

Planetarium, put the odds at 50-50 that

our entire existence is a program on

someone else’s hard drive. “I think the

likelihood may be very high,” he said.

我们正生活在计算机模拟世界中吗？

知名物理学家们和哲学家们汇聚一堂，就我们是生活中现实世界中还是虚拟世界中展开讨论。

——克拉拉·莫斯科维茨，2016.4.7

纽约——假使你、我以及宇宙中的任何人、任何事物都真实地存在于一些大型计算机游戏中，可能我们也不得而知。而宇宙是一个模拟世界的观点，听起来更像是电影《黑客帝国》中的情节。不可否认，这也是个合理的科学假说。周二，在美国自然历史博物馆中，研究者们在一年一度的艾萨克·阿西莫纪念馆辩论会上，就这一有争议的观点展开了详细的讨论。

辩论会主持人奈尔·德葛拉司·泰森（美国自然历史博物馆海登天文馆的主管）认为，我们整个世界可能仅是他人硬盘驱动器中的一个程序，这种可能性为50%。他说：“在我看来，或许这种可能性非常高。”他曾注意到黑猩猩和人类智力之间的差距，尽管

He noted the gap between human and

chimpanzee intelligence, despite the fact

that we share more than 98 percent of

our DNA. Somewhere out there could be

a being whose intelligence is that much

greater than our own. “We would be

drooling, blithering idiots in their

presence,” he said. “If that’s the case, it

is easy for me to imagine that everything

in our lives is just a creation of some

other entity for their entertainment.”

Virtual minds

A popular argument for the

simulation hypothesis came from

University of Oxford philosopher Nick

Bostrum in 2003, when he suggested

that members of an advanced

civilization with enormous computing

power might decide to run simulations

of their ancestors. They would

probably have the ability to run many,

many such simulations, to the point

where the vast majority of minds would

actually be artificial ones within such

simulations, rather than the original

ancestral minds. So simple statistics

suggest it is much more likely that we

are among the simulated minds.

事实是我们的智力98%以上来源于我们自身的DNA(脱氧核糖核酸)。或许就在某个地方，有那么一个人，他智力超群。泰森说：“在那些智力超群的人们眼中，或许我们就像是流着口水，十足的白痴。如果是那样的话，不由得让我想象，我们生活中的一切事物都仅是那些人为其消遣而创造出来的产物。”

虚拟思维

关于模拟世界的假说，在2003年有一个流行的论调，其出自牛津大学的哲学家尼克·博斯物。他指出，在一个先进文明社会中，人们对其先人们的模拟，可能取决于那些拥有强大计算能力的人们。他们可能拥有模拟的能力，可以进行许多诸如此类的模拟。值得一提的是，在这些模拟中，绝大多数的思维实际上都是虚拟的，而并非最初先人们的思维。因此简单的统计数据表明，这更像是我们置身于模拟思维世界中。

And there are other reasons to think we might be virtual. For instance, the

more we learn about the universe, the

more it appears to be based on

mathematical laws. Perhaps that is not a

given, but a function of the nature of the

universe we are living in. “If I were a

character in a computer game, I would

also discover eventually that the rules

seemed completely rigid and

mathematical,” said Max Tegmark, a

cosmologist at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (MIT). “That

just reflects the computer code in which

it was written.”

Furthermore, ideas from

information theory keep showing up in

physics. “In my research I found this

very strange thing,” said James Gates, a

theoretical physicist at the University of

Maryland. “I was driven to

error-correcting codes—they’re what

make browsers work. So why were they

in the equations I was studying about

quarks and electrons and supersymmetry?

This brought me to the stark realization

that I could no longer say people like

Max are crazy.”

其他现象也表明我们可能生活在虚拟世界中。比如，我们越是了解宇宙，似乎宇宙就越是依据数学规律而发展。或许并没有有迹可循，但它却是我们赖以生存的宇宙中的一种自然现象。麻省理工学院的宇宙学家马克斯·泰格马克说：“如果我是计算机游戏中的一个人物，最终我也会发现，数学规律似乎极其精准的与游戏相吻合，但其仅是揭示了游戏中所编写的计算机代码。

此外，信息论中的概念，也一直在物理学中有所体现。美国马里兰大学的理论物理学家詹姆斯·盖茨说：“我在研究中也发现了这一非常奇怪的现象，这驱使着我开始研究纠错码，正是这些纠错码，使得浏览器得以正常工作。因此，为什么它们会出现在我正研究的关于夸克、电子和超对称性的方程式中？这让我有了切身体会，我可能再不会说那些和马克斯有相似之处的人们是疯子了。”

Room for skepticism Yet not everyone on the panel

agreed with this reasoning. “If you’re

finding IT solutions to your problems,

maybe it’s just the fad of the moment,”

Tyson pointed out. “Kind of like if

you’re a hammer, every problem looks

like a nail.”

And the statistical argument that

most minds in the future will turn out to

be artificial rather than biological is also

not a given, said Lisa Randall, a

theoretical physicist at Harvard

University. “It’s just not based on

well-defined probabilities. The argument

says you’d have lots of things that want

to simulate us. I actually have a problem

with that. We mostly are interested in

ourselves. I don’t know why this higher

species would want to simulate us.”

Randall admitted she did not quite

understand why other scientists were

even entertaining the notion that the

universe is a simulation. “I actually am

very interested in why so many people

think it’s an interesting question.” She

rated the chances that this idea turns out

to be true “effectively zero.”

Such existential-sounding

质疑

然而，并非辩论会中的所有人都同意这一论断。泰森指出：“如果你正寻求用信息化的解决方案来解决问题，这可能仅是当下的一种潮流所向。这就好比，如果你是一个锤子，那么每个问题看起来就像是一个个钉子。”

哈佛大学的物理学家，丽莎·蓝道尔说：“有这样一种统计理论，即未

来大部分的思维都将被模拟思维取而代之，但这一理论并未得到证实。这一理论并不是在有确切可能性的基础上提出的。该理论指出，在许多事情上，你可能都会想要模拟我们。而事实上，我对此有所质疑，因为我们大多都只对自己的事感兴趣。我并不知道为什么这种更高级的物种想要模拟我们。”蓝道尔承认，她并不十分理解为什么其他科学家甚至会持有这一观点，即宇宙是一个模拟世界。她说：“事实上，我极为感兴趣的是，为什么如此多的人们都认为这是一个有趣的问题。”而她认为这一观点真实存在的可能性为零。

这种存在模拟世界的假说往往是 hypotheses often tend to be essentially

untestable, but some researchers think

they could find experimental evidence

that we are living in a computer game.

One idea is that the programmers might

cut corners to make the simulation easier

to run. “If there is an underlying

simulation of the universe that has the

problem of finite computational

resources, just as we do, then the laws of

physics have to be put on a finite set of

points in a finite volume,” said Zohreh

Davoudi, a physicist at MIT. “Then we

go back and see what kind of signatures

we find that tell us we started from

non-continuous spacetime.” That

evidence might come, for example, in

the form of an unusual distribution of

energies among the cosmic rays hitting

Earth that suggests spacetime is not

continuous, but made of discrete points.

“That’s the kind of evidence that would

convince me as a physicist,” Gates said.

Yet proving the opposite—that the

universe is real—might be harder.

“You’re not going to get proof that

we’re not in a simulation, because any

evidence that we get could be

simulated,” Chalmers said.

不可验证的，但是一些研究者们认为，他们能够找到实验证据，以证明我们正生活在计算机游戏中。有这样一个观点，程序设计员可能会简化程序，从而使模拟更加易于操作。麻省理工学院的物理学家Zohreh Davoudi说：“正如我们所讨论的，如果存在对宇宙潜在的模拟，并且这种模拟自身存在有限计算资源的问题，那么在有限空间内的有限点集上，就必须用物理定律加以解决。然后我们再去看那些被我们发现的信号，这些信号告诉我们，我们源于非连续的时空。”可能会有这样的证据，比如，在射向地球的宇宙射线中，能量异常分布的形式，揭示了时空并非是连续的，而是由许多离散的点组成。盖茨说：“正是此依据，让作为物理学家的我相信模拟世界的存在。”然而想要证明宇宙是真实的可能更难。查尔莫斯说：“你并没有打算找到证据来证明我们处在真实世界中，因为我们所掌握的任何证据都可能是被模拟了的。”

Life, the universe and everything

If it turns out we really are living in

a version of “The Matrix,” though—so

what? “Maybe we’re in a simulation,

maybe we’re not, but if we are, hey, it’s

not so bad,” Chalmers said.

“My advice is to go out and do

really interesting things,” Tegmark said,

“so the simulators don’t shut you down.”

But some were more contemplative,

saying the possibility raises some

weighty spiritual questions. “If the

simulation hypothesis is valid then we

open the door to eternal life and

resurrection and things that formally

have been discussed in the realm of

religion,” Gates suggested. “The reason

is quite simple: If we’re programs in the

computer, then as long as I have a

computer that’s not damaged, I can

always re-run the program.”

And if someone somewhere created

our simulation, would that make this

entity God? “We in this universe can

create simulated worlds and there’s

nothing remotely spooky about that,”

said David Chalmers, a professor of

philosophy at New York University.

“Our creator isn’t especially spooky, it’s

生命，宇宙和一切事物

如果我们真的生活在像电影《黑客帝国》中呈现的虚拟世界中，那又怎样呢？查尔莫斯说：“或许我们就处在一个模拟世界中，亦或许我们不在，但如果我们在其中，也并没那么糟糕。”

铁马克说：“我建议多出去看看，去做那些你真正感兴趣的事情，这样你就不会被模拟者们所禁锢。”

但是这令一些人开始更多的沉思，他们说模拟世界存在的可能性大大增加了人们内心的疑问。盖茨指出，“如果模拟世界的假说有其依据，那么我们将开启永生和复活之门，而各种事情也已正式的在宗教领域内被讨论。究其原因，很简单，那就是如果我们是计算机中的某一程序，只要我有计算机，并且它完好无损，那么我就可以随时重新运行该程序。”

如果有这么一个人，他在某个地方创造了我们的模拟世界，那么这会使他成为神一般的人物吗？纽约大学的哲学教授大卫·查尔莫斯说：“在这个宇宙中，我们可以创造出模拟的世界，而这并不是什么无稽之谈。创造者也不是什么拥有特异功能的人，而仅是新时期兴起的年轻的网络黑客。”

just some teenage hacker in the next

universe up.” Turn the tables, and we are

essentially gods over our own computer

creations. “We don’t think of ourselves

as deities when we program Mario, even

though we have power over how high

Mario jumps,” Tyson said. “There’s no

reason to think they’re all-powerful just

because they control everything we do.”

And a simulated universe introduces

another disturbing possibility. “What

happens,” Tyson said, “if there’s a bug

that crashes the entire program?”

正相反，我们自己才是神一般的人物，是我们通过计算机创造了计算机游戏中的模拟世界。泰森说：“当我们在设定马里奥这个游戏人物时，尽管我们能够设定马里奥跳起的高度，可我们并不认为我们自己就是神。没有理由仅是因为他们掌控着我们所做的一切，就认为他们无所不能。”模拟的世界带来了另一种令人不安的可能性。泰森说：“如果出现故障致使整个程序崩溃，将会发生什么？”文章点评

这篇文章整体很有趣，译者在翻译的过程中做到了忠实于原文。但是由于科技文章在原理解释的部分比较晦涩，翻译这些部分时，可读性差一些。但较上次翻译的文章，译者在断句方面明显有了很大的提升。如果在翻译时注重语言的简洁性，翻译效果更佳。

列举一些建议：

“Moderator Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the museum’s Hayden

Planetarium, put the odds at 50-50 that our entire existence is a program on someone

else’s hard drive.”

译者译成了“辩论会主持人奈尔·德葛拉司·泰森（美国自然历史博物馆海登天文馆的主管）认为，我们整个世界可能仅是他人硬盘驱动器中的一个程序，这种可能性为50%。”我认为这句话的后半部分，可以改成“有50%的可能，我们的整个世界，不过是别人硬盘驱动器中的一个程序。”这样感觉句子更加通顺些。

“He noted the gap between human and chimpanzee intelligence, despite the fact

that we share more than 98 percent of our DNA.”

译者“黑猩猩和人类智力之间的差距，尽管事实是我们的智力98%以上来源于我们自身的DNA(脱氧核糖核酸)。”这句话感觉译者在理解上有些误差，应该指的是人类与猩猩的基因相似率超过98%。

当然，译者在翻译的过程中引用了大量的四字成语，使文章文采斐然。

“Somewhere out there could be a being whose intelligence is that much greater

than our own.”“或许就在某个地方，有那么一个人，他智力超群。泰森说：“在那些智力超群的人们眼中” 这句话中的智力超群用的很好。“If you’re finding IT

solutions to your problems, ”此句翻译中，“信息化的解决方案”用的十分贴切。