"All nature is meant to make us think of paradise," Thomas Merton observed. Because the Creation puts on a nonstop show, beauty

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问题     "All nature is meant to make us think of paradise," Thomas Merton observed. Because the Creation puts on a nonstop show, beauty is free and inexhaustible, but we need training in order to perceive more than the most obvious kinds. Even 15 billion years or so after the Big Bang, echoes of that event still linger in the form of background radiation, only a few degrees above absolute zero. Just so, I believe, the experience of beauty is an echo of the order and power that permeate the universe. To measure background radiation, we need subtle instruments; to measure beauty, we need alert intelligence and our five keen senses.
    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.

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答案 托马斯-梅尔顿说过,“世间造物之神奇无不令人联想到天堂乐土。”因为创世纪本身就是一出永不落幕的表演;其间芳华之美悠游自在,无穷无尽。有些美显而易见,容易为我们所捕捉,但另一些则不然:若要欣赏她们,我们得付出一点努力。宇宙大爆炸在一百五十多亿年后的今天仍余波未平,爆炸当时所释放的能量(即使这些能量看起来似乎微不足道)仍以背景辐射现象的形式存在着。由此,我得出一个观点:人类对美的体验中暗含着秩序和力量的影子,而这些秩序和力量充斥着整个宇宙空间。测量背景辐射,我们需要精密仪器;而衡量美,则需要动用我们的聪慧和所有敏锐的感官。 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。

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