..续本文上一页entists brought into view nearly 10,000 galaxies, some of them existing when the universe was only 800 million years old. The whole sky contains 12.7 million times more area than this Ultra Deep Field. Scientists expect that such observations will offer new insights into the birth and evolution of galaxies.
近期的太空深度探索，即2003-2004年间哈勃望远镜的观察，提供了人类有史以来对可视的宇宙最详细的描绘。哈勃超级景深工程，即由400台围绕地球运转的哈勃望远镜，以一百万米的曝光时间拍摄，解释了从所谓“黑暗时代”开始的第一批星系，即大爆炸之后，第一批为冰冷黑暗的宇宙带来热量的星星们。望远镜对準的是天炉座，地面的望远镜观察这个方向基本看不到什么，哈勃望远镜能接受到最弱的发光体发出的光，速度慢到几乎每分钟一个光子，就这样通过接受几百万光年外的光得到一个深度的宇宙核心样本。仅仅对于月球直径十分之一的宽度进行观察，科学家们发现了1000个星系，有些星系在宇宙仅仅8亿岁的时候就存在了。整个天空的面积是这个纵深区域的1270万倍，科学家们预测如果对这样广大的区域进行观察会对星系的进化有更深的发现。
This brief history of astronomy gives some idea of the importance of sophisticated, penetrating observation for exploring the depths of space and the evolution of the physical universe. But such objective observations tell us nothing about the role of the observer in relation to the quantum fl uctuations in the last stages of inflation after the big bang, without which there would be no galaxies and no matter in our universe.
对天文学的历史的简单回顾，表明对于宇宙深处以及进化的综合的、透彻的探索是多么重要。不过这类观察并没有提供给任何大爆炸后，最后几个膨胀阶段的量子浮动与我们观察到的有什么关系，没有大爆炸也就没有星系乃至物质。
Philosophical Resistance to Introspection
对于内省的哲学抵抗
As discussed in the first chapter, since the time of Descartes, scientists have taken on the challenge of exploring the world of objective physical phenomena, leaving the world of subjective mental phenomena to philosophers. Renaissance philosophers such as Paracelsus, who advocated an organic philosophy in contrast to the mechanistic philosophy of Descartes, did emphasize the first-person observation of the mind and fi rst-person experimentation using the power of imagination (vis imaginativa). But they lived in the tragically psychotic era of witch hunting, during which any such notions were suspiciously regarded as magic. Protestant reformers were especially quick to condemn anything of that sort as impious, useless, and potentially demonic, and those who advocated such theories and methods could find their lives imperiled. In contrast, Bacon”s empiricism, which was confined to the objective world, was perfectly consistent with the new Protestant work ethic and the prevalent fear of probing the depths of the human psyche.
如第一章所述，从笛卡尔时代，科学家接过了探索客观物理世界的任务，把探索心智现象的任务留给了哲学家。文艺复兴时代的哲学家如帕拉塞尔苏斯(Paracelsus)主张器质性哲学，而非笛卡尔所主张机械类哲学，强调的确应该用想象力(vis imaginativa)对心进行第一人称的观察和第一人称的实验。不幸的是他生活在以巫术指导狩猎的心智错乱年代，这样的观念被视为太魔幻。新教改革者则非常基于判定为不虔诚、不实用、有魔鬼驱使的可能，主张这些观念的人可能存在生命危险。比较来说，培根的经验主义虽然限于对客观世界的范围，却完美的顺应了新教主张的职业道德以及对人类内心心智的深入探索的恐惧。
Since that time, instead of developing rigorous means to experientially explore the subjective dimensions of the natural world, generations of philosophers have devised ingenious arguments for denying that the mind can be explored from a first-person perspective. Immanuel Kant, for instance, claimed that due to the subjective nature of mental phenomena, any introspective observations could at most provide a historical account, not a true, “objective” science. But if “real-time” observations were a requirement for any objective science, the whole of astronomy would fail to meet it. Even observations of the moon entail a time lag of more than a second, observations of the sun and planets record events minutes after they have taken place, and our knowledge of distant galaxies is billions of years old. Due to delays caused by the speed of light, astronomers may be regarded as “celestial journalists” with regard to the solar system and “historians” with regard to their observations of the rest of the universe.
从那时开始，哲学家们不但没有投入精力开发任何可以探索自然界中主观这个维度，而是发明了一些巧妙的辩解来规避以第一人称进行探索。比如康德( Immanuel Kant)就主张因为精神现象的客观特性，任何内省的观察至多可以得到一个历史记录，并非一个真实的，客观的科学。事实上，如果“实时”的观察是客观科学的必要条件话，整个天文学的研究并不符合这个条件。对于月亮的观察也有一秒钟左右的之后，对于…
《观测心中的太空 Observing The Space Of The Mind》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…