i do a radio show the radio show is called the infinitemonkey cage it 's about science it 's about rationalism so therefore we get a lot of complaints every single week
complaints including one we get very often which is to say the very title infinitemonkey cage celebrates the idea of vivisection we have made it quite clear to these people that an infinitemonkey cage is roomy
the main element though the main complaint we get and one that i find most worrying is that people say oh why do you insist on ruining the magic you bring in science and it ruins the magic now i 'm an arts graduate i love myth and magic and existentialism and self loathing that 's what i do
but i also don 't understand how it does ruin the magic all of the magic i think that may well be taken away by science is then replaced by something as wonderful astrology for instance like many rationalists i 'm a pisces laughter now
astrology we remove the banal idea that your life could be predicted that you 'll perhaps today meet a lucky man
who 's wearing a hat that is gone but if we want to look at the sky and see predictions we still can
we can see predictions of galaxies forming of galaxies colliding into each other of new solar systems this is a wonderful thing if the sun could one day and indeed the earth in fact if the earth could read its own astrological astronomical chart one day it would say not a good day for making plans
you 'll been engulfed by a red giant and that to me as well that if you think i 'm worried about losing worlds well many worlds theory one of the most beautiful fascinating sometimes terrifying ideas from the quantum interpretation is a wonderful thing
you 've not really made that decision but in fact every single permutation of those decisions is made each one going off into a new universe that is a wonderful idea if you ever think that your life is rubbish
always remember there 's another you that 's made much worse decisions than that
this to me in its own strange way is very very comforting
now reincarnation that 's another thing gone the afterlife but it 's not gone science actually says
we will live forever well there is one proviso we won 't actually live forever you won 't live forever your consciousness the you ness of you the me ness of me that gets this one go but every single thing that makes us every atom in us
has already created a myriad of different things and will go on to create a myriad of new things
we have been mountains and apples and pulsars and other people 's knees who knows maybe one of your atoms was once napoleon 's knee that is a good thing
unlike the occupants of the universe the universe itself is not wasteful we are all totally recyclable and when we die we don 't even have to be placed in different refuse sacs this is a wonderful thing
understanding to me does not remove the wonder and the joy for instance my wife could turn to me and she may say why do you love me and i can with all honesty look her in the eye and say because
our pheromones matched
that is a wonderful thing there love does not die because of that thing pain doesn 't go away either this is a terrible thing even though i understand pain if someone punches me and because of my personality this is recently a regular occurrence
i understand where the pain comes from it is basically momentum to energy where the four vector is constant that 's what it is but at no point can i react and go ha is that the best momentum to energy fourth vector constant you 've got no i just spit out a tooth
now i know you don 't think that you may well have your own children and think oh no my child 's best
that 's the wonderful thing about evolution the predilection to believe that our child is best now in many ways that 's just a survival thing the fact we see here is the vehicle for our genes and therefore we love it but we don 't notice that bit we just unconditionally love that is a wonderful thing
i 've done some tests
do nothing
for me it 's a very very important thing even on my journey up here the joy that i have on my journey up here every single time if you actually think you remove the myth and there is still something wonderful i 'm sitting on a train every time i breathe in i 'm breathing in a million billion billion atoms of oxygen
i 'm sitting on a chair even though i know the chair is made of atoms and thereforeactually in many ways empty space i find it comfortable i look out
if you go to the safari parks on saturn or jupiter you will be disappointed
and i realize i 'm observing this with the brain the human brain the most complex thing in the known universe that to me is an incredible thing and do you know what that might be enough
steven weinberg the nobel laureate once said the more the universe seems comprehensible the more it seems pointless now for some people that seems to lead to an idea of nihilism but for me it doesn 't that is a wonderful thing
i 'm glad the universe is pointless it means if i get to the end of my life the universe can 't turn to me and go what have you been doing you idiot that 's not the point
i can make my own purpose you can make your own purpose we have the individual power to go this is what i want to do and in a pointless universe that to me is a wonderful thing i have chosen to make silly jokes about quantum mechanics and the copenhagen interpretation you i imagine can do much better things with your time thank you very much
生词表: