介绍:
Anyone with eyes can take delight in a face or a flower. You need training, however, to perceive the beauty in mathematics or physics or chess, in the architecture of a tree, the design of a bird's wing, or the shiver of breath through a flute. For most of human history, the training has come from elders who taught the young how to pay attention. By paying attention, we learn to savor all sorts of patterns, from quantum mechanics to patchwork quilts. This predilection brings with it a clear evolutionary advantage, for the ability to recognize patterns helped our ancestors to select mates, find food, avoid predators. But the same advantage would apply to all species, and yet we alone compose symphonies and crossword puzzles, carve stone into statues, map time and space.
任何人都能在一颦一笑，一花一草中体验快乐。但是，发现数学之美、物理之绝、象棋之妙的眼睛并不是与生俱来，而欣赏树木形态、鸟翼构造、或是悠扬笛声的心灵也非浑然自成。我们需要点拨和引领。纵观历史传承，这样的点拨和引领往往来自长者，籍此，年轻人学会专注；因为专注，我们领略到万千形态的美，无论是量子力学中精妙的理论，还是棉被上漂亮的拼花图案。正是出于对美的强烈偏爱，才使得人类在物种进化的追逐比拼中处于上风。因为人类能够辨识出美的事物，而我们的祖先则因循这一标准选择伴侣，寻找食物，躲避敌人。如果自然界中所有的物种都拥有发现美的能力，那么它们都将在进化过程中称霸一方。然而，惟独人类在演变中独占鳌头：我们谱写交响曲，创造字谜游戏；在我们的手中，顽石诞生为雕像，时空归依为坐标。
9 Have we merely carried our animal need for shrewd perceptions to an absurd extreme? Or have we stumbled onto a deep congruence between the structure of our minds and the structure of the universe?
这一切究竟来源于何？仅仅是我们将本能的敏锐感知力推向了荒谬的极致，还是我们不经意间摸索到了扎根于人类思想和苍茫万物间那深刻的一致性？
大家还在听
