爱因斯坦:我的世界观

2016-12-01

爱因斯坦是近代最伟大的物理学家之一,被公认为是继伽利略、牛顿以来最伟大的物理学家。下面是小编为大家带来爱因斯坦的《我的世界观》,欢迎大家阅读!

爱因斯坦:《我的世界观》

What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn;for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life,without going deeper, we exist for our fellowmen—in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends,and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men,living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labor of my fellowmen. I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on. force. I also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally.

人终究一死,我们所面临的情形是多么不同寻常!每个人来到这个世界上,都是短暂的停留;至于来的原因,却无人知晓。虽然偶尔自以为对此似有感悟,可是没有深入探讨。从日常生活方面来讲,我们是为了同胞而活着—最重要的是这样一些人,他们的微笑和幸福决定了我们所有的幸福;接下来是一些素未谋面的人,他们依靠同情的纽带与我们的命运紧密相连。每天我无数次地告诫自己,他人的劳作,包括那些活着的人和已故的人,支持着我全部的精神生活和物质生活。因此,我一定要全心全意地付出,达到和他们相同的高度,来回报我已经获得并且仍在汲取的恩惠。我十分向往简朴的生活,并且时常心中有愧,因为觉得自己分享了我同胞们太多的劳动成果。我把阶级不同看成与正义格格不入,而且最终被迫采取强制手段。我同样认为,不管是在肉体上还是在精神上,任何人会因为过朴素的生活而受益匪浅。

In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will,but not will as he will,”has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralyzing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humor, above all, has its due place.

我根本不相信哲学意义上的那种人类自由。每个人的行为不仅要受到外界强制的局限,而且要合乎内在的必要性。叔本华曾说,“人虽然可以为所欲为,但是不能随心所欲。”从青年时代起,我就总是被这句名言激励着。当自己或别人经历生活中种种磨难时,我总能从这句话中寻得慰藉,从而获得永不干枯的耐心源泉。拥有这种心情,不仅宽厚地减轻了那种使人容易感到心有余而力不足的责任感,也避免了我们太过认真地对待自己和别人;同样有利于人们获得一种人生观,就是首先给予幽默感以应有地位。

To inquire after the meaning or object of one’s own existence or of creation generally has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view. And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavors and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves-such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth,Goodness,and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective,the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research,life would have seemed to me empty.The ordinary objects of human endeavor-property, outward success, luxury-have always seemed to me contemptible.

从客观的观点方面,想要探究自身存在乃至一般创造物的意义或目的,我总是觉得不免不合常理。然而,每个人的理想不同,他们的努力和判断方向也不同。从这一意义上看,我永远不会把安逸和享乐当成人生目的本身—我认为这种伦理基础更适合于一群猪猡。真、善、美点亮我的道路,并且不停地赋予我新的勇气,我才能高兴地面对生活的理想。没有志同道合的友情,没有全身心投入于客观世界,追寻在艺术与科学研究领域无法企及的目标,那么我的生活将是空虚的。人们朝思暮想的一般对象—财富、表面的成功、奢侈—对我来说都是可鄙的。

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family,with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost anobstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude—a feeling which increases with the years. One is sharply conscious,yet without regret, of the limits to the possibility of mutual understanding and sympathy with one's fellow-creatures. Such a person no doubt loses something in the way of geniality and light-heartedness;on the other hand, he is largely independent of the opinions, habits, and judgments of his fellows and avoids the temptation to take his stand on such insecure foundations.

我对社会正义感和社会责任感充满热情,可与此形成鲜明对照的是,我又明显缺乏与别人和社会直接接触的愿望。我一直是按照自己的心愿做事;我未曾全心全意地热爱我的国家、我的家庭、我的朋友,甚至我的至亲;在面对所有这些关系纽带时,我一直保持着一种顽固的超然感以及避世的需要—这种感受随着年龄的增长不断加强。人们真真切切地觉得,人们 的相互理解和共鸣是有界限的,虽然这没什么可惜的。毫无疑问,这样的人会因为亲切和同情心失去一些东西,然而另一方面,他可以在很大程度上避免别人的意见、习惯和判断的影响, 并且能够抵住诱惑,在这些不可靠的基础之上建立其立场。

My political ideal is that of democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and respect from my fellows through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the one or two ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that it is necessary for the success of any complex undertaking that one man should do the thinking and directing and in general bear the responsibility. But the led must not be compelled, they must be able to choose their leader... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative,sentient individual,the personality;it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

我的政治理想是实现民主制度。尊重每一个作为个体的人,摈弃偶像崇拜。尽管并非是我自己的过错,也并非是我自己的功劳所获,人们却总是过分钦佩和尊敬我本人,这真的是一种命运的戏弄。理解一两个我靠不懈地努力所探知到的理论,或许就是许多人充满渴望却又无法企及的原因。我很明白,任何复杂的事业要想取得成功,就需要有一个人能承担起思考、指挥、全权负责的重任。但是一定不要强迫被领导者,他们一定要能够选定自己的领导者……在我看来,人生精彩的表演中,真正的价值不是国家,而是有创造性的、富有感知能力的个人,是人格;人是唯一能创造出高尚和卓越的生灵,而剩下的芸芸众生在思想和感觉上总是停滞不前。

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature,the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake;a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does by the name of patriotism—how I hate them! War seems to me a mean,contemptible thing:I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high,in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.

这个话题让我想起民众本质中最坏的一种表现,即我痛恨不已的军事制度。一个人伴着军乐队的曲调,在队列中前行,而他却能因此高兴。这一行为就足以让我轻视他。他能有一个大脑,就是天大的错误;对他来说一个脊推骨柱已是足够了。在文明社会中,我们应该尽快驱除这种罪恶的祸端。受命而为的英雄主义、泯灭人性的残酷暴行、假借爱国主义之名的一切可恶的胡作非为—诸如此类都令我痛恨不已!在我看来,战争是可鄙、无耻的勾当,我宁愿粉身碎骨,也不愿参与这种令人厌恶的战争。即便如此,对于人类我还会给予很高的评价,我相信,如果商业利益和政治利益没有通过学校和媒体系统,腐蚀各民族的正常理智,那么战争这一妖魔很早之前就不复存在了。

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of tree art and free science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder,no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery-even if mixed with fear-that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude;in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension,nor do I wish it otherwise;such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.

我们最美好的经历莫过于对神秘的体验。真正的艺术和真正的科学发源地的基本情感,便是对神秘的体验。对这种情感浑然不知、没好奇心、失去了惊诧感的人,和死人没什么区别,他就像一根被掐灭的蜡烛。正是由于对奥秘的体验—即便夹杂着恐惧—诞生了宗教。我们感到无法理解的事物就在我周围,体会到最深奥的理性和最光彩夺目的美,我们只能用理性去感知这些最原始的形式—真正的宗教虔诚恰恰是这种认识和这种情感结合体,并且只有在这个意义上,我才是一个坚定的宗教支持者。我无法设想会有那样一个上帝:它会稿劳、惩罚自己创造的生物,或者具有我们自己才能体会到的那种意志。一个人在失去生命后他还能继续在另一世界里生活,这不在我的理解能力之内,我也没有心思去理解,那些脆弱灵魂的恐惧或可笑的利己主义者,才会专门研究这些观念。生命永驻的奥秘,现实世界结构中那不可思议的暗示,加上全心全意去探求以便理解自然界展现理性的一部分,无论多么不值一提,对我而言,已经非常满足。

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