we can think only a very little way outside
昨天，读到一篇题为《Competition and Community》的英语短文。其中的一些文字在下觉得很有意思，现下摘录如下，顺便再罗嗦几句，说说自己的一点胡乱联想。
文中提到，The competition of man against man is not the simple process envisioned in biology.It is not a simple cempetition for a fixed amount of food determined by the physicao environment,because the environment that determines our evolution is no longer essentially physical.Our environment is chiefly conditioned by the things we believe.
现今世界上不同地域之间的发展状况之所以会存在如此巨大的差异，究其原因，not so much because of different people even,but because of the different thoughts that exist in the minds of their inhabitants.The most important factor in our environment is the state of our own minds.
文中提出一种说法，It is well known that where the white man has invaded a primitive culture the most destructive effects have come not from physical weapons but from ideas.
下面是短文的最后一段，也是个人以为最有趣的一段。
Ideas are dangerous.The Holy Office knew this fully well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gong by.Indeed,the concept of free speech only exists in our modern society because when you are inside a community you are conditioned by the conventions of the community to such a degree that it is very difficult to conceive of anything really destructive.It is only someone looking on from outside that can inject the dangerous thoughts.I do not doubt that it would be possible to inject ideas into the modern world that would utterly destory us.I would like to give you an example,but fortunately I cannot do so.Perhaps it will suffice to mention the nuclear bomb.Imagine the effect on a reasonably advanced technological society,one that still does not possess the bomb,of making it aware of the possibility,of supplying sufficient details to enable the thing to be constructed.Twenty or thirty pages of information handed to any of the major world powers around the year 1925 would have been sufficient to change the course of world history.
It is a strange thought,but I believe a correct one,that twenty or thirty pages of ideas and information would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down,or even destroying it.I have often tried to conveive of what those pages might contain,but of course I cannot do so,because I am a prison of the present-day world,just as all of you are.We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to,or ,to be more accurate,we can think only a very little way outside ,and then only if we are very original.
对于诸如ideas，competition，development，society，the course of world history等等的宏大话题，在下自然是不敢置喙。只是从We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to,or ,to be more accurate,we can think only a very little way outside ,and then only if we are very original这一句话，联想到了这大半年时间里断断续续看过的几本幻想题材的书，比如《魔戒》、《冰与火之歌》、《米与盐之年》。如果再加上已经读完的《银和英雄传说》，现在正在读的《骗局》、《日本沉没》，这大概就是我读过的全部幻想题材的作品。而这些书中的故事虽然读起来觉得纷繁复杂，各具异彩，但放下书本后，细想一下，其实也只不过是think only a very little way outside而已。甚至你都很难讲出作者们在书本中到底构思出了什么真正original的东西。他们所用的方法不外乎如下几种，其一，刻意模糊故事发生的时空背景，故事不是发生在long long ago，far far away，就是在发生在什么银河帝国，星之大海，但其人其事不过是将历史上的真人实事加以剪裁取舍，然后再编辑在一起，因为已经事先声明自己在搞架空、幻想，所以“关公“就可以大模大样地战”秦琼“了，一点问题也没有，于是乎步兵战术指导的宇宙舰队大战开战了，开明专制VS腐朽民主的对决也上演了。其二，在幻想的国度中，如果只有人类演独角戏，那实在意思不大，需要向这个世界种田家新成员，精灵、矮人、树精、怪物、异鬼乃至神魔都纷纷粉墨登场，看似五光十色，实则不过是人类换了个马甲，其行为与思维又与人类有多大的区别，起码在下是没有看出什么不同。其三，有加法自然就会有减法，作者们也可以从真实的世界里删除某些内容来营造自己的世界，比如将通过黑死病将欧洲文明从历史发展中剔除，看看世界会如何变化，再比如让日本沉入大海，看看一个国家的国土突然全部消失之后，幸存的国民和这个世界如何应对这场突如其来的变故。
当然，无论剪辑，添加还是删减，作者写出的还是我们的这个世界，还是曾经的历史，任凭作者的才华如何过人，谁也不可能真的创造出一个“异世界”来。这么说，倒并不是要对诸位作家的写作才能不敬，只是感到人类的所谓的“想象力”其实远远谈不到天马行空的水准。说不定，真要等到有一天，从外太空inject ideas into the modern world，人类才会搞出真正“original”的东西。
如此说来，如果有朝一日，就象丹·布朗的《骗局》一书所描述的那样，NASA真地在地球某个难以到达的角落里，找到了一颗藏有外星生物化石的陨石。这颗陨石所包含的信息可以确凿地证明存在地外生命，而且地球上的生命起源于地外生命，那么，这样一个idea，不知将会如何影响这个世界。只怕这一发现所引发的后果，将远远超出现今幻想作品所达到的最狂野的想象。
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