我们生活在一个设计好的宇宙中吗?

我们生活在一个设计好的宇宙中吗?

约翰·格里宾认为,世界的创造者更接近人类,而不是上帝.The argument over whether the universe has a creator, and who that might be, is among the oldest in human history. Photo: WALES NEWS SERVICE宇宙是否有其创造者,如果有那么创造者可能是谁?这个问题是人类历史中一个最古老的争论.供图：威尔士通讯社（WALES NEWS SERVICE）The argument over whether the universe has a creator, and who that might be, is among the oldest in human history. But amid the raging arguments between believers and sceptics, one possibility has been almost ignored – the idea that the universe around us was created by people very much like ourselves, using devices not too dissimilar to those available to scientists today.宇宙是否有其创造者,如果有那么创造者可能是谁?这个问题是人类历史中一个最古老的争论.但是在信奉者与怀疑者激烈的争论当中,有一种可能性几乎被忽略了——这一观点就是我们所身处的宇宙是由非常类似于我们自身的“人类”创造的,而且所使用的设备与今天科学家所使用的设备并无太大不同.As with much else in modern physics, the idea involves particle acceleration, the kind of thing that goes on in the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Before the LHC began operating, a few alarmists worried that it might create a black hole which would destroy the world. That was never on the cards: although it is just possible that the device could generate an artificial black hole, it would be too small to swallow an atom, let alone the Earth.正如现代物理学中很多其他的观点一样,这个观点也涉及到了粒子加速,也就是位于瑞士的大型强子对撞机正在做的事情.在强子对撞机开始运作之前,一些杞人忧天者担心这可能会创造出一个黑洞,并将摧毁我们的世界.这种担忧绝无可能发生：强子对撞机仅可能创造出一个人工黑洞,但是这个人工黑洞是如此之小,以致连一个原子都无法吞噬,更别谈吞噬整个地球了.However, to create a new universe would require a machine only slightly more powerful than the LHC – and there is every chance that our own universe may have been manufactured in this way.不过,想要创造一个新宇宙的话,所需的机器的强度只需要比目前的对撞机稍微大一点就可以——而且我们自己身处的宇宙可能就是通过这种方式被创造的.This is possible for two reasons. First, black holes may – as science fiction aficionados will be well aware – act as gateways to other regions of space and time. Second, because of the curious fact that gravity has negative energy, it takes no energy to make a universe. Despite the colossal amount of energy contained in every atom of matter, it is precisely balanced by the negativity of gravity.有两个理由保证这是可能的.首先,黑洞可能充当着到达其他时空的关口——像科幻小说爱好者所深知的那样.其次,由于一个奇怪的事实,也就是重力具有负能量,所以创造一个宇宙并不需要能量.尽管物质的每个原子中都储藏着巨大的能量,但是却恰好被重力的负能量中和掉了.Black holes, moreover, are relatively easy to make. For any object, there is a critical radius, called the Schwarzschild radius, at which its mass will form a black hole. The Schwarzschild radius for the Sun is about two miles, 1/200,000th of its current width; for the Earth to become a black hole, it would have to be squeezed into a ball with a radius of one centimetre.此外,创造黑洞也相对简单.对于任何一个物体,都存在一个被称为史瓦西半径的临界半径,在这个半径以内的质量将形成一个黑洞.太阳的史瓦西半径大约是两英里,也就是目前太阳宽度的20万分之一；对于地球而言,如果要成为一个黑洞,地球将不得不紧缩成一个半径为一厘米的小球.The black holes that could be created in a particle accelerator would be far smaller: tiny masses squeezed into incredibly tiny volumes. But because of gravity's negative energy, it doesn't matter how small such holes are: they still have the potential to inflate and expand in their own dimensions (rather than gobbling up our own). Such expansion was precisely what our universe did in the Big Bang, when it suddenly exploded from a tiny clump of matter into a fully-fledged cosmos.在粒子加速器中能够创造的黑洞将要小得多：微小的质量被挤进小得难以置信的体积中.但是由于重力存在负能量,这些黑洞有多小也无关紧要：它们仍然有潜力在它们自己的维度中膨胀并扩展（而不是吞噬它们自身）.这种膨胀正好就是我们的宇宙在大爆炸时期所发生的事情,当时一小块物质膨胀成了现在成熟的宇宙.Alan Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first proposed the now widely accepted idea of cosmic inflation – that the starting point of the Big Bang was far smaller, and its expansion far more rapid, than had been assumed. He has investigated the technicalities of "the creation of universes in the laboratory", and concluded that the laws of physics do, in principle, make it possible.美国麻省理工学院（MIT）的阿兰·古斯（Alan Guth）第一次提出了现在被广泛接受的宇宙膨胀说——也就是宇宙在大爆炸的起点时非常微小,而且膨胀的速度非常之快,比之前假设的速度都要快.他已经研究过了“在实验室创造宇宙”这个问题的学术性,而且得出结论称物理定律使得这个问题在原则上的确是可能的.The big question is whether that has already happened – is our universe a designer universe? By this, I do not mean a God figure, an "intelligent designer" monitoring and shaping all aspects of life. Evolution by natural selection, and all the other processes that produced our planet and the life on it, are sufficient to explain how we got to be the way we are, given the laws of physics that operate in our universe.一个大问题就是这是否已经发生过——我们的宇宙是被设计好的宇宙吗?此时,我并不是指上帝,一个控制并塑造所有生命的“智能设计师”.假如物理定律控制着我们的宇宙,那么由自然选择产生的进化,以及其他创造了我们的星球以及星球上各种生命的所有进程,都能充分地说明我们如何到达我们现在所在的方向.However, there is still scope for an intelligent designer of universes as a whole. Modern physics suggests that our universe is one of many, part of a "multiverse" where different regions of space and time may have different properties (the strength of gravity may be stronger in some and weaker in others). If our universe was made by a technologically advanced civilisation in another part of the multiverse, the designer may have been responsible for the Big Bang, but nothing more.虽然不是上帝,然而,一个智能设计师创造整个宇宙的观点仍然还有余地.现代物理学表明我们的宇宙是许多宇宙中的其中一个,是一个“多元宇宙”的一部分,在多元宇宙中不同的时空里可能存在不同的特性（重力的强度可能有强有弱）.如果我们的宇宙是由多元宇宙中另一个技术更先进的文明所创造,那么这个设计师可能是导致大爆炸的原因,不过也仅此而已（这个设计师也无法解释更多）.If such designers make universes by manufacturing black holes – the only way to do it that we are aware of – there are three levels at which they might operate. The first is just to manufacture black holes, without influencing the laws of physics in the new universe. Humanity is nearly at this level, which Gregory Benford's novel Cosm puts in an entertaining context: an American researcher finds herself, after an explosion in a particle accelerator, with a new universe on her hands, the size of a baseball.如果这类设计师通过制造黑洞来创造宇宙的话——这也是我们所知的唯一一种创造宇宙的方法——那么他们可能在三个水平上进行操作.第一个水平是仅仅只制造黑洞,而不对新创造宇宙中的物理定律施加影响.人类的能力差不多处于这个水平上,格雷戈里·本福德（Gregory Benford）的小说《宇宙》提出了一个令人愉悦的背景：在粒子加速器中进行了一次爆炸之后,一位美国研究人员发现她自己的双手上捧着一个新的宇宙,棒球大小的宇宙.The second level, for a slightly more advanced civilisation, would involve nudging the properties of the baby universes in a certain direction. It might be possible to tweak the black holes in such a way that the force of gravity was a little stronger than in the parent universe, without the designers being able to say exactly how much stronger.第二个水平是,对于一个稍微更先进一点的文明而言,他们将在某个特定方向上参与推进新宇宙的性能.黑洞可能以这种方式被拉伸,所以重力将比其母宇宙略强一点,而设计师本人如果不告诉,我们将无法知道确切要强多少.The third level, for a very advanced civilisation, would involve the ability to set precise parameters, thereby designing it in detail. An analogy would be with designer babies – instead of tinkering with DNA to get a perfect child, a scientists might tinker with the laws of physics to get a perfect universe. Crucially, though, it would not be possible in any of these cases – even at the most advanced level – for the designers to interfere with the baby universes once they had formed. From the moment of its own Big Bang, each universe would be on its own.第三个水平是,对于一个非常先进的文明而言,他们具备设定精确参数的能力,因此详细地设计了新的宇宙.我们可以对这个新宇宙做一个类比——科学家不是去操控DNA以得到一个完美的婴儿,而是可能去操控物理定律以得到一个完美的宇宙.但至关重要的是,一旦新宇宙已经形成,三种水平的设计师中的任何一种都不可能对新宇宙产生干扰——即便是最为先进的设计师也不能.从大爆炸发生之时起,每个宇宙都将步入自己的轨道.This might sound far-fetched, but the startling thing about this theory is how likely it is to happen – and to have happened already. All that is required is that evolution occurs naturally in the multiverse until, in at least one universe, intelligence reaches roughly our level. From that seed point, intelligent designers create enough universes suitable for evolution, which bud off their own universes, that universes like our own (in other words, suitable for intelligent life) proliferate rapidly, with "unintelligent" universes coming to represent a tiny fraction of the whole multiverse. It therefore becomes overwhelmingly likely that any given universe, our own included, would be designed rather than "natural".这听起来可能有些牵强,但是关于这个理论令人吃惊的事情是,这种情形发生的可能性有多大——以及已经发生的可能性有多大.这一切的要求是在多元宇宙中我们的宇宙在自然进化,直到至少有一个宇宙中的智能大致达到了我们的智力水平.从那个种子点开始,智能的设计师创造了足够多的适宜进化的宇宙,这些新宇宙将从他们自己的宇宙中像幼苗一样拔出,那些类似于我们自己宇宙（换言之,适宜智能生命的宇宙）的宇宙将快速膨胀,最终导致“非智能的”宇宙在整个多元宇宙中仅占很小的一部分.因此,任何一个特定的宇宙,包括我们自己的宇宙,都将极为可能是被设计好的而非是“天然的”.While the intelligence required to do the job may be (slightly) superior to ours, it is of a kind that is recognisably similar to our own, rather than that of an infinite and incomprehensible God. And the most likely reason for such an intelligence to make universes is the same for doing things like climbing mountains, or studying the nature of subatomic particles – because we can. A civilisation that has the technology to make baby universes would surely find the temptation irresistible. And if the intelligences are anything like our own, there would be an overwhelming temptation at the higher levels of universe design to improve upon the results.虽然能够完成这个任务的智能可能需要比我们（稍微）高级一些,但是这些智能仍然与我们自己更相似,而不是与强大到令人费解的上帝相似.而且这类智能创造宇宙最可能的原因,与从事诸如爬山或者研究亚原子粒子的性质这类事情的原因差不多——因为这些事情我们也能够做到.一种具有创造新宇宙的技术的文明,肯定将会发现这种诱惑无可抗拒.同时如果那些智能像任何类似于我们自身的智能一样,那么他们将不可抗拒地被诱惑,处在一个更高水平的宇宙上设计并提升他们所创造的新宇宙.This idea provides the best resolution yet to the puzzle Albert Einstein used to raise, that "the most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible". The universe is comprehensible to the human mind because it was designed, at least to some extent, by intelligent beings with minds similar to our own.这个观点为阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦过去常常产生的疑问提供了最好的解释,爱因斯坦的疑问是“关于宇宙最难以理解的事情是,它居然可以理解”.宇宙对于人类而言可以理解,因为宇宙是被设计出来的,至少在某种程度上,是由拥有与我们类似心智的智能设计的.The great British astronomer Fred Hoyle suggested that the laws of physics were so uniquely conducive to human existence that the universe must be "a put-up job". I believe he was right: the universe was indeed set up to provide a home for life, even if it evolved through a process of natural selection, with no need for outside interference. It isn't that man was created in God's image – rather that our universe was created, more or less, in the image of its designers.英国天文学家弗雷德·霍伊尔（Fred Hoyle）表示,物理定律对人类存在的帮助是如此独特,所以宇宙必须是“一个被设计好的东西”.我认为他的话是有道理的：宇宙的确是被建立起来,给生命提供家园,即便生命本身在无需外界干扰的情况下,经历了一个自然选择的过程.人类不是由上帝创造的——而差不多是宇宙的设计师创造了我们的宇宙.