特别广播英语第 211 课：The Computer and The Poet 计算机与诗人-1

The essential problem of man in a computerized age remains the same as it has always been. 在计算机时代，人类的基本问题依然是过去一直存在的问题。

That problem is not solely how to be more productive, more comfortable, more content, but how to be more sensitive, more sensible, more proportionate, more alive. 这个问题不仅仅是如何更多产、更舒适、更惬意，而是如何更敏感、更明智、更均衡、更有生机。

The computer makes possible a marvellous leap in human proficiency; it pulls down the fences around the practical and even the theoretical intelligence. 计算机使人类能力上的巨大飞跃成为可能；它打破了束缚实践智能和理论智能的藩篱。

But the question persists and indeed grows whether the computer will make it easier or harder for human beings to know who they really are, to identify their real problems, to respond more fully to beauty, to place adequate value on life, and to make their world safer than it now is. 但是计算机是使人类更容易还是更难以理解自己究竟是什么，是否有助于识别真正的问题，有助于对美作出更全面的反应，对生活作出更充分的评价？是否能使世界变得比现在更安全？这个问题一直存在而且越来越突出。

Electronic brains can reduce the profusion of dead ends involved in vital research. 电脑能够减少许多生命研究中的死胡同。

But they can't eliminate the foolish ness and decay that come form the unexamined life. 但它们不能消除因为生活未经反省产生的愚蠢和腐朽；

Nor do they connect a man to the things he has to be connected to - the reality of pain in others; the possibilities of creative growth in himself; the memory of the race; and the rights of the next generation. 它们也不能把一个人同之相关的事物--别人的痛苦现实、自我创造性发展的可能性、种族的印记以及下一代的权利联系起来。

The reason these matters are important in a computerized age is that there may be a tendency to mistake data for wisdom, just as there has always been a tendency to confuse logic with values, and intelligence with insight. 这些事情在计算机时代之所以重要是因为可能有一种错把数据当智慧的趋势，就像一直存在的把逻辑与价值、智力，以及见解混为一谈的趋势一样。

Easy and convenient access to facts can produce unlimited good only if it is matched by the desire and ability to find out what they mean and where they would lead. 获取事实的便捷手段只有与弄清这些事实的意义与导向的愿望和能力一致时才能使人们受益无穷。

Facts are terrible things if left spreading and unexamined. They are too easily regarded as evaluated certainties rather than as the rawest of raw materials crying to be processed into the texture of logic. 如果任其事实流传而不加检验，这样的事实是可怕的，因为它们极容易被认为是已获定评的事实，而不是迫切需要处理使之具有逻辑条理的原始材料中最原始的部分。