The Great Filter 大筛选——我们在其中走了多远？[中英对照翻译].doc

【注1：文中出现的中括号指的是引用的其他作者的言论，中括号中内容是作者名字及文章发表年代】 【注2：文中小括号是原文带括号的内容，黑括号是本人自己做的注释】 The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It? 大筛选【大过滤】——我们在其中走了多远？【这个翻译是最符合文中意思的】 Sept. 15, 1998 1998年9月15日 by Robin Hanson Robin Hanson著 Humanity seems to have a bright future, i.e., a non-trivial chance of expanding to fill the universe with lasting life. But the fact that space near us seems dead now tells us that any given piece of dead matter faces an astronomically low chance of begating such a future. There thus exists a great filter between death and expanding lasting life, and humanity faces the ominous question: how far along this filter are we? 人类似乎有着光明的未来，这里对“光明未来”的定义是：有着不错的机会（而非渺茫的机会）不断扩张到整个宇宙并永续文明。但事实是，我们附近的宇宙一片死寂。这事实告诉我们，从无生命的物质进化出生命并走向这样的光明未来的几率是如此之低。在无生命与持续扩张的生命之间存在着这样一张大的筛网，而人类也面临着一个严峻的问题：我们在这场大筛选中已经走了多远？ Combining standard stories of biologists, astronomers, physicists, and social scientists would lead us to expect a much smaller filter than we observe. Thus one of these stories must be wrong. To find out who is wrong, and to inform our choices, we should study and reconsider all these areas. For example, we should seek evidence of extraterrestrials, such as via signals, fossils, or astronomy. But contrary to common expectations, evidence of extraterrestrials is likely bad (though valuable) news. The easier it was for life to evolve to our stage, the bleaker our future chances probably are. 结合生物学家、天文学家、物理学家和社会学家们提出的标准，我们观察到的筛选应该并没那么严苛。因此应该至少有一个标准是错的。为了找出哪出错了并为我们的选择提供更多信息，我们应该重新审视每一个领域。比如说，我们可以通过信号、化石或天文发现等手段去寻找地外生命存在的证据。但与人们普遍的期望完全相反，发现地外生命的存在可能是坏消息（即使是很有用的消息）。如果生命越容易进化到我们这个层次，我们的未来前景就越暗淡。【应该简单理解成“地外文明的存在尤其是等于或高于我们文明等级的文明存在，将占据人类文明未来的生存空间，阻碍人类向宇宙中的扩张”。】 Introduction 绪论 Fermi, Dyson, Hart, Tipler, and others [Finney Jones, Dyson 66, Hart 75, Tipler 80] have highlighted the relevance to SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence) of the The Great Silence [Brin 83] (also known as the Fermi paradox), the fact that extraterrestrials havent substanti