问“为什么”背后的原因:好奇心的科学
2021-07-03 阿煌看什么 8907
正文翻译

Curiosity is a fundamental human trait. Everyone is curious, but the obxt and degree of that curiosity is different depending on the person and the situation. Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio was so curious about curiosity that he wrote a book about it. He recently appeared on the Knowledge@Wharton show on SiriusXM channel 111 to talk about what he learned in the course of writing his book, Why? What Makes Us Curious.

好奇心是人类的一个基本特征。每个人都有好奇心,但是好奇的对象和程度却是不同的,这取决于个体和情境。天体物理学家和作家马里奥·利维奥对好奇心很好奇,所以他写了一本书《我们为何如此好奇》。最近利维奥来到我们的节目,与我们探讨他在写这本书的过程中学到的东西,为什么,是什么让我们感到好奇。

Knowledge@Wharton: What is it that really drives our curiosity?

到底是什么在驱使着我们的好奇心?

Mario Livio: Curiosity has several kinds or flavors, and they are not driven by the same things. There is something that has been dubbed perceptual curiosity. That’s the curiosity we feel when something surprises us or when something doesn’t quite agree with what we know or think we know. That is felt as an unpleasant state, as an adversity state. It’s a bit like an itch that we need to scratch. That’s why we try to find out the information in order to relieve that type of curiosity.

马里奥·利维奥:好奇心分几种,有几层特征,而且它们并不是由相同的事物驱使的。有一种叫做知觉性好奇。当有些事情令我们感到惊奇,或者有些事情并不符合我们的认知或自以为知的,我们就会产生这种好奇心。这是一种令人不悦的状态,如处逆境。就像身上哪里感觉痒,必须得挠一下。所以我们必须去找到答案,才能缓解心中的好奇。

On the other hand, there is something that has been dubbed epistemic curiosity, which is a pleasurable state associated with an anticipation of reward. That’s our level of knowledge. That’s what drives all scientific research. It drives many artworks. It drives education and things like that.

另一方面,还有一种好奇心叫知识性好奇,这是一种愉快的状态,带着对奖赏的期待。这是我们在知识层面的好奇心,也是一些科学研究背后的驱动因素。它推动了艺术品的诞生,推动着教育的发展,以及等等此类事物。

Knowledge@Wharton: There’s a basic difference between being unpleasant or unhappy and being happy. I would think many people feel both of those things pretty much every day of their lives, correct?

感到不愉快、不高兴和感到高兴这两者之间有着本质的差别。我觉得大多数人在他们生命中几乎每一天都能感觉到这些情绪,对吗?
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Livio: You’re absolutely right. You see something that you completely did not expect or is very ambiguous, and you feel somewhat unpleasant about this. On the other hand, you try to learn something new every day, and that is a very pleasurable state that gives you a reward. So yes, everybody feels both of these things almost every day.

利维奥:没错。当你看到一些完全出乎你意料的事情,或者非常模棱两可的事情,你心里总会产生一种不快。另一方面,当你每天都尝试着去学习一些新东西,这是一种非常愉悦的状态,它为你带来了奖励。所以,是的,我们每个人几乎每天都能感觉到这些情绪。

Knowledge@Wharton: Is there an element of curiosity that is enhanced by living in the digital age?

生活在数字时代,我们的好奇心是否在某些方面加强了?
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Livio: There are some people who have the feeling that because we have information literally at our fingertips, maybe we’re becoming less curious. But that’s not true. There are two things to remember. One is that when we do scientific research, we try to find answers to questions where we don’t know the answers yet. Therefore, you cannot find those answers on the internet or Wikipedia.

利维奥:有些人觉得现在我们需要的信息几乎都可以信手拈来,也许我们变得没那么好奇了。但事实并不是这样的。我们要记住两件事情。第一,当我们做科学研究的时候,我们是在为那些还没有答案的问题寻找答案。所以,你从网上或者维基百科上是找不到这些答案的。

The other thing is that what the internet allows us to do is to satisfy what has been dubbed specific curiosity, namely you want to know a very particular detail. Who wrote this or that book? What was the name of the actor in that film? The digital age allows you to find the answer very quickly. That’s actually good because you don’t want to spend all your time trying to answer a question like that. I don’t know how you feel, but I sometimes can be really obsessed by not knowing the answer to something very, very simple like that.

第二,因特网可以满足的是我们的具体好奇心,也就是说你想知道一个非常具体的东西,因特网就会告诉你。这本书或者那本书是谁写的?那部电影里的那个演员叫什么名字?数字时代使我们可以非常迅速地找到这些问题的答案。这其实是件好事,因为你不想把自己的时间都用在回答这些问题上。我不知道你的感觉,但我有时候真的会因为不知道一些非常简单的问题的答案而抓耳挠腮。

Knowledge@Wharton: That’s almost a natural component of who we are. There are times when we become obsessed with wanting to know what that information is.

这几乎是人性中一个天然的组成部分。有时候我们真的千方百计地想要知道那个信息到底是什么。

Livio: That’s right. In that sense, the digital age helps us because we can find that information, and that may drive us to look for something else about this. And that would drive perhaps epistemic curiosity, which is this love of knowledge and wanting to learn new things.

利维奥:是的。从这方面来说,数字时代帮助我们找到了那个信息,或者还可以促使我们去查找一些其他信息。这可能就会激发出我们的知识性好奇,也就是对知识的热爱,想要学习一些新的东西。

Knowledge@Wharton: Do you think love of knowledge is truly the driving force behind curiosity and the other pieces are part of the spider web off the core?

你觉得对知识的热爱真的是好奇心背后的推动因素吗,其他的只是次要因素?

Livio: Not necessarily. There have been all kinds of experiments in neuroscience with functional MRI, where they make people curious then put them in these MRI machines and see which parts of their brains are activated. It was found that this perceptual curiosity, the one when you’re surprised or find something unexpected, is associated with activations of the parts in our brain that usually work in conflict or when you’re hungry or thirsty. On the other hand, the parts that are associated with learning new things really activate the parts that are associated with anticipation of reward, like when somebody’s offering you a piece of chocolate or when you sit in a theater and you’re waiting for the curtain to go up.

利维奥:也不尽然。神经科学领域用功能性核磁共振成像(MRI)做过各种各样的实验,他们先让人们感到好奇,然后把这些人放到MRI机器中,看看他们大脑中哪部分被激活了。研究发现知觉性好奇,也就是当你感到惊讶或者发现一些出乎意料的事情时产生的那种好奇心所激活的大脑领域,通常与你感到饥饿或口渴时被激活的大脑部件是相互冲突的。另一方面,大脑中与学习新东西相关的部分的确会激活与对奖赏的期待相关的那部分,就像当有个人给了你一块巧克力,或者当你坐在剧院,等待幕布拉开一样。

Knowledge@Wharton: When you think historically, there have been world leaders who have wanted to snuff out curiosity. I’m thinking particularly of Fidel Castro. Some people would say President Trump is trying to do that. Have you seen that as a component in the world?

当你从历史的角度思考,你会发现世界上有些领导人想要扼杀人们的好奇心。我想到了菲德尔·卡斯特罗。有些人认为特朗普总统也想做同样的事情。你是否觉得这也是这个世界的一部分?

Livio: Of course. We all know about the Middle Ages, the medi times when curiosity was almost taken out of existence. It was mostly the church that wanted to convey to the masses the feeling that everything worth knowing is already known. They built walls around all types of knowledge and really oppressed curiosity in this way.

利维奥:当然了。我们都知道中世纪时期,好奇心几乎被赶尽杀绝。因为教堂想向大众传达一个信息,任何值得知道的事情都已经被人们知道了。他们把所有的知识束之高阁,通过这种方式压制人们的好奇心。

You mentioned a few leaders, but it’s not just leaders. The Taliban destroyed works of art. ISIS is destroying works of art in Palmyra, in Syria. There have been book burnings over the years. The Nazis made a degenerate art exhibit where they tried to deface all the modern painters. There definitely have been oppressive regimes and ideologies that try to stifle curiosity.

你提到了几个领导人,但做这些事情的可不只是领导者。比如塔利班摧毁了艺术品,ISIS正在毁灭叙利亚巴尔米拉的艺术品。过去也有焚书的行为。纳粹曾举办过一个颓废艺术展,他们试图丑化所有当代画家的面貌。世界上肯定还有一些高压政体和意识形态,试图抑制人们的好奇心。

Knowledge@Wharton: What I found interesting in the book is that you note there really isn’t one definition of curiosity.

在这本书中我发现了一个有趣的地方,你认为关于好奇心并没有一个真正的定义。

Livio: Yes. I mentioned already two of those types of curiosity: perceptual and epistemic. There is also something that has been dubbed diversive curiosity. That’s the thing when you see young people constantly on their smartphone, looking for text messages to ward off boredom, I think.

利维奥:是的,我已经提到了两种好奇心:知觉性好奇和知识性好奇。还有一种不定性好奇。当你看到年轻人不停地刷他们的智能手机,寻找文字信息来排遣内心的无聊,我觉得这就是不定性好奇。

Knowledge@Wharton: Curiosity has always been seen as a very good thing because you’re trying to gain knowledge. There is a negative to diversive curiosity because your attention is turned away. But there is the element of searching or looking for information. It’s kind of walking a fine line there.

好奇心一直被看到一件非常好的事情,因为这表明你想要获得新的知识。但是不定性好奇也有些负面影响,因为它会转移你的注意力。可是同时你也在查找或者寻找信息,这里好像有些难以取得平衡。
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Livio: You’re absolutely right. They’re also looking for information, and also it serves as a social element. They connect with friends. They connect with people, sometimes across countries. It isn’t all negative.

利维奥:是的。他们也在寻找信息,而且这也充当了一种社交功能。他们与朋友建立联系,与其他人建立关系,有时候还会跨越国度,所以也不全是负面的。

Knowledge@Wharton: Do you think it affects curiosity in general because it has become such an attractive piece to our society? It’s changed the communication skill. Instead of face to face, it’s fingertip to fingertip.

你觉得这是否会在整体上影响我们的好奇心,因为电子设备已经成了我们这个社会中非常具有吸引力的东西?它改变了人们交流的方式。现在人们已经不是面对面交流,而是从指尖到指尖。

Livio: That may have eventually some negative consequences if people just stay at home and connect through all kinds of digital devices. I can see all kinds of shortcomings for that type of a society. But at the same time, the really important questions like advances in science and so on cannot be found through digital devices.

利维奥:如果人们都呆在家里,通过各种各样的电子设备沟通的话,这最终可能的确会产生一些负面结果。我能够想象到当社会发展到那个程度后,各种各样的缺点都会显露出来。但是与此同时,有些非常重要的问题,比如科技的进步,这些问题你都不能通过电子设备找到答案。

Knowledge@Wharton: You take time in the book to really delve into the science of this. Tell us what you found and why science has been so intrigued by this.

你在书中还深入探讨了好奇心的科学。告诉我们你发现了什么,为什么科学界对好奇心如此着迷?

Livio: If you’re a curious person, then you ought to also be curious about curiosity itself. This has been research by psychologists, cognitive scientists and neuroscientists. There are two parts to this. One is to understand our state of mind when we are curious. I alluded to that in that one type of curiosity creates an unpleasant sensation and another creates an anticipation of reward. It was found that especially the epistemic curiosity, when we try to learn new things, it really follows the paths of reward of dopamine, which is this neural transmitter that is associated with reward in our brains.

利维奥:如果你是一个好奇的人,那么你就应该对好奇本身感到好奇。心理学家、认知科学家、神经科学家都做过这方面的研究。研究有两个部分。首先,了解当我们感到好奇时,我们处于一种怎样的心理状态。我提到了有一种好奇心会让人感觉不快,另一种好奇心却会让人产生对奖赏的期待。研究发现,特别是这种知识性好奇,当我们试图学习新的东西时,它真的会遵循多巴胺奖励路径,也就是我们大脑中与奖赏联系在一起的一种神经递质。

Knowledge@Wharton: I think there are people who are naturally curious. It almost is ingrained in their personality as they come into the world. Is that the case?

我觉得有些人他们天生就很好奇。当他们来到这个世界时,好奇心就嵌在了他们的人格里。是这样吗?

Livio: Of course. Most psychological traits, and curiosity is no exception, have a genetic component to them. The fact that some people are much more curious than others largely has to do with their genetics. But, as in all cases, genetics is never the whole story. In the same way as nature versus nurture question, the two of them play a role. You can enhance curiosity by doing certain things, by asking questions, by encouraging people to be curious about things. Or you can suppress curiosity as we just noted, sometimes by regime, sometimes by ideologies, and so on.

利维奥:当然了。大多数心理因素都带有遗传特征,好奇心也不例外。有些人就是比其他人好奇心强,这在很大程度上与他们的基因有关。但是,总的来说,基因并不能解释一切。就像“先天对后天”一样,这两个因素都有自己的作用。你可以通过做某些事情来加强自己的好奇心,比如问问题,鼓励人们对一些事情产生好奇心。或者你也可以抑制好奇心,就像我们刚才说的,有的时候是通过政体,有的时候是通过意识形态等等。

People have something in them which they are born with, but the environment can help or be against enhancing this curiosity. Just to give an example, if you are the children of refugees that have to cross countries and look for food all the time, you may be curious about where do you find your next meal and not about contemplating the meaning of life.

人们身上有些与生俱来的东西,但是周围的环境也可以帮助加强或抑制好奇心。举个例子,如果你是难民的孩子,你们必须跨越国界,为了生存寻找食物,那么你的好奇心就集中在从哪里找到自己的下一顿饭,而不是思考生活的意义。

Knowledge@Wharton: With all of the innovation that goes on right now, it feels like we’re constantly looking to improve so many aspects of our lives. Is it fair to say that curiosity is one of the things that might be hard to improve?

随着当前社会出现了各种各样的创新技术,似乎我们总在不断地改进生活的很多方面。是否可以说,好奇心是难以提升的事物之一?

Livio: No. I don’t think it is hard to improve. You cannot change your genetic makeup, but through the education system you can actually improve on curiosity. I’ll give you a very simple example. If you teach science to young children, don’t start by trying to teach them things that they may not be interested in. Start with something they’re already curious about, like dinosaurs. Start with dinosaurs and then find interesting ways to connect from that to other concepts you would like them to learn, rather than starting from the beginning with something they may not be interested in. Most people know that very young children are extremely curious. They constantly ask questions. That’s largely because they especially want to understand cause and effect. They want to understand how the world around them is functioning so that they make fewer errors.

不是,我觉得要想提高好奇心并不难。虽然你不能改变自己的基因组成,但是通过教育系统,你的好奇心的确是可以加强的。我给你举一个简单的例子。如果你教小孩子科学,不要一上来就讲一些他们可能不感兴趣的东西。从他们好奇的事物开始讲起,比如恐龙。先从恐龙开始,然后通过一些有趣的方式,把恐龙跟其他你想要他们学习的概念联系起来。大多数人都知道小孩子是非常好奇的。他们总是有各种各样的问题。这是因为他们非常想了解这个世界的因果关系。他们想知道周围的世界是怎么运转的,他们怎样做才会犯更少的错误。

Some people think that as we grow up we lose our curiosity, and that’s not entirely true. We do lose some elements of diversive curiosity or the ability to be surprised. But actually epistemic curiosity, that love of knowledge, appears to be roughly constant across all ages.

有些人认为,随着我们逐渐成长,我们就会失去自己的好奇心,这并非完全正确。我们的确会失去一些不定性好奇心,或者失去感到惊讶的能力。但是知识性好奇,我们对于知识的热爱,不管在哪个年龄阶段几乎都是一样的。
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Knowledge@Wharton: When you are older, you do not take the risks that you did when you were, say, 20 or 30. But I would think that your curiosity doesn’t wane that much when you’re older, correct?

当你年长的时候,你就不会像二三十岁那样冒险。但是我觉得你的好奇心并没有因为你的年龄增长而消减,对吗?

Livio: Correct. Your love of knowledge remains and your willingness to learn new things appears to be constant across all ages. People at very old ages are still willing to learn things, to discover new things, to read. The topics in which you are curious about may change with age or with time or with whatever occupation you are in. Different people are curious about different things, and the level of intensity of their curiosity may be different.

利维奥:是的,你对知识的热爱仍在,不管处在哪个年龄阶段,你还是愿意学习新的东西。有些年纪很大的人仍然愿意学习,探索新的事物,阅读。令你好奇的事物可能会随着年龄的增长、时间的变化,或者你从事的职业而变化。不同的人会对不同的事情好奇,他们好奇的程度也是不同的。

Knowledge@Wharton: Are kids more curious than adults?

孩子是否比成年人更好奇?

Livio: Kids are more curious in terms of diversity than perceptual curiosity. But I think in terms of epistemic curiosity, adults are as curious. This probably all started for survival. We needed to understand very well our environment in order to be able to survive, so there was an evolutionary pressure to this. But somehow humans are always more curious than just for mere survival. I’m an astrophysicist. What we study in science will probably become applicable at one point, but it is not applicable at the moment. We’re still very curious about this because we want to understand everything around us.

利维奥:孩子比大人更好奇体现在不定性好奇方面,而不是知觉性好奇。但我觉得就知识性好奇而言,大人跟孩子是一样的。这一切可能都是为了生存。我们需要非常了解我们周围的环境才能生存,所以是进化的压力让我们产生好奇心。 但不知何故,人类总是比单纯的生存更有好奇心。我是天体物理学家。我们在科学中研究的东西可能会在某一时刻适用,但目前并不适用。我们仍然对此很好奇,因为我们想了解我们周围的一切。

Knowledge@Wharton: What is it that makes you curious?

哪些事物让你好奇?

Livio: I’m really curious about the universe, things that relate to the beginning of the universe, to the fate of the universe, the nature of the dark energy that is pushing the cosmic expansion to accelerate. But I’m also interested in things like how did life emerge in the universe, the nature of consciousness, many things.

利维奥:我对宇宙很好奇,比如宇宙的起源、宇宙的命运、使宇宙加速膨胀的暗物质。但是我也对生命感到好奇,比如生命是如何在宇宙中产生的,意识的本质,等等很多其他事物。

Knowledge@Wharton: We talked about the potential for curiosity to be enhanced further. Is that an expectation of yours?

我们谈到了好奇心有可能进一步增强。你也是这样认为的吗?

Livio: The nature of scientific research, but sometimes even artistic contemplation, is that the answer to every question just brings about a new question. Sometimes the new question is even more intriguing than the original question, so you may become more curious about it.

利维奥:科学研究的本质就是每个问题的答案都会引出一个新的问题,有时候关于艺术的沉思也是这样。有时候新的问题比原来的问题还要有趣,这样你可能会对它更好奇。

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评论翻译
Jack Cook
Enjoyed your post! Yet I’m “curious” why you pick on President Trump as a suppressor of ideas and you seem to be oblivious that the Democrats and the Mass Media are obviously in collusion to suppress conservative ideas and Christianity! This tremendous blind Spot in your perception marks your scientific approach as both biased and self-servingly subjective from the beginning! So if you posture to be scientific, then demonstrate obxtivity and an open mind!

喜欢你的帖子!然而我“好奇”的是,为什么你把特朗普总统当成一个思想的压制者,而你似乎忘记了民主党和大众媒体显然在勾结,压制保守的思想和基督教!在你的感知中这个巨大的盲点标志着你的科学方法从一开始就带有偏见和自私的主观性!所以,如果你要摆出科学的姿态,那么就要表现出客观和开放的心态!

steve hodges
Great interview, I appreciate the clear communication and obxtive and open approach, thank you!
I’m curious about the current thinking on the connection between curiosities (all forms) and creativity; is there a correlation between the types of curiosities, or individual manifestations of that trait, and creative output? An obvious example is how the curiosities of Newton and Einstein led to their foundational contributions to physics; was there something special about the curiosity of those individuals? The playful aspect of Feynman’s curiosity is well documented. And what about the connections between curiosity and other creative endeavors such as the arts?

很棒的采访,我欣赏清晰的沟通和客观开放的态度,谢谢!
我很好奇当前关于好奇心(所有形式)和创造力之间的联系的思考;好奇心的类型,或者这种特质的个人表现形式,和创造性的产出之间有关联吗?一个明显的例子是,牛顿和爱因斯坦的好奇心是如何导致他们对物理学的奠基性贡献的;这些人的好奇心有什么特别之处吗?费曼的好奇心中有趣的一面是有据可查的。那么好奇心和其他创造性活动如艺术之间的联系又如何呢?

Robert Brancatelli
“We all know about the Middle Ages, the medi times when curiosity was almost taken out of existence. It was mostly the church…” He can’t be serious. This is just plain ignorance and cliched thinking. Sorry to say, but it ruined the rest of the interview.

“我们都知道中世纪,那时好奇心几乎消失殆尽。这主要是教会...”他不是认真的吧。这只是纯粹的无知和陈词滥调的思维。很抱歉,这毁了接下来的采访。

Tom Hansen
What did I miss regarding President Trump trying to stamp out curiosity?

关于特朗普总统试图压制好奇心,我错过了什么?

Anumakonda Jagadeesh
Excellent.
What exactly goes on in our brains when something piques our attention?
A study which was published in Neuron magazine suggested that as we become curious, our brain’s chemistry changes and in turn, helps us to retain information and increases our learning.

精彩。
当某件事引起我们的注意时,我们的大脑到底发生了什么?
一项发表在《神经元》杂志上的研究表明,当我们变得好奇时,我们大脑的化学物质会发生变化,进而帮助我们记住信息,提高学习能力。

WK Taylor
When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.”-Walt Disney
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. -Albert Einstein
Fear paralyzes; curiosity empowers. Be more interested than afraid.” -Patricia Alexander
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” -Dorothy Parker
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.” -Samuel Johnson
I’d always supposed… that curiosity was simply the first derivative of knowledge.” -Paul Graham
Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.” -James Stephens
Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
Always stay curious. Curiosity instills creativity.” –Aerin Lauder

“当你感到好奇的时候,你就会发现有很多有趣的事情可以做。”——沃尔特 · 迪斯尼
“好奇心能在正规教育中存活下来,这是个奇迹。”——阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦
“恐惧使人麻痹,好奇心使人充满力量,更有兴趣而不是恐惧”——帕特里夏·亚历山大
“治疗无聊的良药是好奇心。而没有什么药可以治疗好奇心。”——多萝西 · 帕克
“好奇心是精力旺盛的头脑所具有的永久和确定的特征之一。”——塞缪尔·约翰逊
“我一直认为... 好奇心是知识的最初衍生物。”——保罗·格雷厄姆
“好奇心甚至比勇气更能战胜恐惧。”——詹姆斯·斯蒂芬斯
“生活是为了活下去,必须保持好奇心。一个人无论出于什么原因,都不能背弃生活。”——埃莉诺·罗斯福
“我认为,在一个孩子出生时,如果母亲能够请求仙女教母给予孩子最有用的礼物,那么礼物应该是好奇心。”——埃莉诺·罗斯福
“永远保持好奇心。好奇心会灌输创造力。”——艾林·兰黛

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