我們認識世界的方式一直在轉變，人類不斷採集信息，又將信息轉變為知識，再將知識轉變為認識和改造世界的方法論。然而，當形式大於內容，新穎大於嚴謹，當趣味性與重要性掛鈎，在注意力經濟時代，我們到底能汲取多少有價值的信息？
幹什麼都別說「因吹斯聽」
作者：Simson L Garfinkel
譯者&筆記：王雅婧
校對：劉小康
推薦：楊雪
策劃：王雅婧 泮海倫
Whatever you do, don’t call this an 『interesting』 idea
幹什麼都別說「因吹斯聽」
本文選自 AEON | 取經號原創翻譯
關注取經號，回復關鍵詞「外刊」
獲取《經濟學人》等原版外刊獲得方法
My understanding of the word interesting came not from school but from a 14-inch black-and-white television showing Star Trek reruns in the late 1970s. 『Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected,』 I heard Mr Spock explain. 『In this case, I should think interesting would suffice.』
我對「有趣」這個詞的理解不是來自於學校，而是70年代末期從14英寸黑白電視上的電視節目中學到的，當時正在重播《星際迷航》。電視中史波克解釋道：「我會用『迷人』形容意想不到的事物，但是在這種情況下，我認為『有趣』一詞就夠了。」
Spock was the epitome of logic in the original Star Trek series. Although he had a human mother, it was the Vulcan half that was firmly in control. If he said that something was interesting, as I understood it, then he was describing an expected, objective fact. That notion is embedded deeply in today’s popular culture: cable news segments, websites and Facebook posts compete for our attention with surprising but allegedly genuine – interesting – truths.
史波克是《星際迷航：原初系列》中邏輯的化身。雖然有個人類母親，但掌控他思維的是另一半的瓦肯血統。依我理解，他說某事「有趣」，即是在描述預想之中的客觀事實。這一概念深深植根於當今的流行文化中：有線新聞節選以及網站和臉書上發布的內容中，令人新奇但據稱真實有趣的事實競相爭奪我們的視線。
譯註：瓦肯人是虛構科幻電視劇《星際迷航》中的一種外星人。他們是發源於瓦肯星（英語：Vulcan）的智慧外星類人族群，以信仰嚴謹的邏輯和推理、去除情感的幹擾聞名。
It didn’t occur to me at the time that when Spock said that something was interesting, he wasn’t talking about that thing, he was talking about himself. Forty years later, I see things more clearly. The well-meaning writers on Star Trek set a bad example for us all, and the taint hasonly kept spreading. Calling something interesting is the height of sloppy thinking. Interesting is not descriptive, not objective, and not even meaningful.
當時我沒有想到，史波克用「有趣」去形容事物的時候，不是在談論事物本身，而在談論自己。四十年後，我有了更明確的體會。《星際迷航》的編劇好心辦壞事，作了不良示範，惡果至今仍在擴散。將事物稱之為「有趣」、「有意思」是極其草率的見解。「有趣」並非描述性質的詞語，也不具客觀性，甚至沒有意義。
Interesting is a kind of linguistic connective tissue. When introducing an idea, it’s easier to say 『interesting』 than to think of an introduction that’s simultaneously descriptive but not a spoiler. I hear interesting all the time at conferences when someone is introducing a speaker. I hear interesting on the radio, when a host introduces an upcoming interview. These flighty little protocols happen so rapidly that they transit almost below the level of conscious discourse, serving only to prime me to pay attention.
「有趣」一詞是語言學上的一類聯繫性詞語。介紹觀點時，說它「有意思」可比想出一個既精要又勾人的開場容易多了。會議中介紹演講者的時候，「有趣」一詞不絕於耳。電臺主持人介紹稍後的採訪時，也慣於用「有趣」形容。這些浮躁的「約定俗成」發生得如此之快，以幾乎僅次於有意識話語的速度傳播，只為吸引我們的注意力。
flighty / ˈflaɪti / adj. hangingyour opinions and behavior often, and not serious or reliable 輕浮的
In practice, interesting is a synonym for entertaining. This has become especially problematic in higher education. Back in 2010, an article in US News & World Reports said that the number-one sign of a bad professor is that 『the professor is boring … Even in the very first classes, you can tell if the professor presents the material in an interesting way.』 Likewise, a blog post from Concordia University in Portland about teaching strategies offers advice on 『how to become a professor who keeps lectures interesting』. The Princeton Review’s series of college guides (eg The Best 381 Colleges) give every college and university a 『Profs interesting rating』.
實際上，「有趣」是「可樂」的同義詞。這種語義上的混合引起了麻煩，尤其是在高等教育領域。早在2010年，《美國新聞與世界報導》上的一篇文章提到，一個好評低的教授獲得最多的評價是「十足的無聊……課程剛開始你就能判斷教授講課會否有趣。」同樣，康考迪亞大學波特蘭分校在一篇關於教學策略的博客文章中，以「如何成為一個教學風趣的教授」為題給出了建議。《普林斯頓評論》在一系列大學榜單（如全美最佳的381所大學）中，對每所院校給出了「教授有趣度評級」（Profs interesting rating）。
In today’s data-driven educational enterprise, faculty who do not entertain frequently do not get promoted – or even retained – because of the influence of student evaluations. The same goes for information technology workshops and conferences I attend, where questions such as 『I found the speaker interesting』 on evaluation forms help to determine who is invited back in subsequent years. TED talks are the logical conclusion of this fashion, inspiring lectures with high production values and well-rehearsed presentations. They hold one’s interest, but they convey little information. Seriously, what do you remember from the last five 『interesting』 TED talks that you watched?
在當今評分為導向的教育行業中，受學生評價影響，不常展現風趣一面的教師難以得到晉升甚或留用。我參加的信息技術研討會和大型會議也是如此，評估表上諸如「演講者很有意思」等問題也會用於確定今後再度邀請的人選。鼓舞人心、高產值的演講再加上精心排練的演示，TED講座即是此類趨勢的必然產物。演講者抓住人們的興趣，卻沒有給出多少有用的信息。說真的，最近看過的幾場「有趣的」TED講座中，你還記得多少內容？
What’s the result of society’s increasing emphasis on entertainment over substance? Novelty and innovation are valued above rigour; boring truth loses out to flamboyant falsehoods. I see it in today’s click-bait headlines, and even in the practice of science.
社會日益重視娛樂而非實質的結果是什麼？新穎和創新大於嚴謹，無聊的真相輸給了光鮮的謊言。這些現象在今日的標題黨中屢見不鮮，甚至科學實踐也未能倖免。
novelty / ˈnɒvlti / n.something new and unusual 新奇；新穎
flamboyant / flæmˈbɔɪənt / adj. brightlycoloured and easily noticed 豔麗的
People say interesting to convey importance– and they shouldn’t. I review papers for academic conferences and scientific journals, and I’m routinely frustrated when other reviewers write dismissively that an article under consideration 『isn’t very interesting』. That word, it does not mean what these reviewers mean. What they’re trying to say is that the scientific findings aren’t presented effectively, or that the results are only incremental, or (heaven help us) that the findings are not new, but merely replicate work that’s been done by others.
我們應當摒棄使用「有趣」、「有意思」來傳達重要性。我審閱投給學術會議和科學期刊的論文時，遇到其他審稿人「不是非常有趣」的隨意評價，就常常感到沮喪。這個詞並不能表達出這些審稿人的意思。他們想說的是，這些科學研究結果沒有得到有效呈現，或者是沒有創新性研究，或是結論無新意、僅是重複了前人的研究而已。
Replication and repeatability are thought by many laypersons to be a shared ideal among many scientists. In practice, few scientific studies are ever replicated. Last year, a survey by Vox.com of 270 scientists found few attempting replication studies because of the difficulty in funding and publishing. Funding agencies pride themselves on sponsoring transformative, breakthrough research – interesting work that, almost by definition, doesn’t repeat (read: replicate) what’s been done before.And journals generally don’t print articles that merely replicate findings that have been previously published; such articles aren’t considered sufficiently interesting.
許多外行人認為，重複研究和研究的再現性是眾多科研工作者共同的理想。事實上，很少有科學研究被重複。去年，Vox.com對270名科研工作者的調查表明，由於資金和出版方面的困難，很少有人嘗試去復現前人的研究。資助機構以投資變革性、突破性的研究為傲，這些研究無非都是「有意思」的工作，說白了就是不重複過去的研究。期刊通常也不會發表重複以前實驗內容的論文，因為這些文章被認為不夠有趣。
The results are bad for the practice of science, because the scientific method relies on replication. Without it, it takes a lot longer for erroneous studies to be corrected. But getting things right is not interesting, it’s pedantic.
其結果不利於科學實踐，因為科學方法依賴於複製，否則修正錯誤需要花費更長的時間。但是把事情弄清楚算不上有趣，只是一項枯燥的工作。
So, when you write or speak, don’t say that something is interesting. It might attract your interest, sure, but whether your audience finds something interesting is determined by a complex set of preconditions including their background knowledge and other items competing for their attention. Their interest depends, too, on their pre-existing emotional state. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM-5) states that 『markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day』 over two weeks or more is one of the diagnostic symptoms of major depressive disorder. Meaning that, if your audience doesn’t find your astronomy talk interesting, the fault might indeed be in themselves, and not in the stars.
所以，當你寫作或說話時，不要說某事很有意思。誠然，它可能引起了你的興趣，但是你的聽眾是否覺得有趣取決於一系列複雜的前提條件，比如受他們的背景知識和其他爭奪視線的事物影響。他們的興趣也受制於原有的情緒狀態。精神疾病診斷和統計手冊（DSM-5）中指出，若感到「幾乎每天對所有活動都缺乏興趣或愉悅感」，這種狀態持續兩周以上即是重度抑鬱的症狀之一。也就是說，如果你的聽眾對你的天文學講座提不起興趣，錯在他們自己，而非群星。
Conversely, if someone tells you 『this is interesting』, remember that they aren’t describing the thing at all. They are describing the effect of that thing on them. Even though we hear it a lot from the would-be Vulcans around us, interesting is a subjective, emotional word, not the objective, logical word we want it to be.
相反，如果有人說「這很有意思」，請記住他們根本不在描述這件事本身，而是這件事對他們的影響。儘管我們經常能在身邊的「瓦肯人」口中聽到這個詞，但是「有趣」是一個主觀的、描述情感的詞，不是我們想要的客觀且合理的詞。
It must be Spock’s human half talking.
必須讓史波克的人類血統來負責說話。
上個帳號被 永封
提出問題的人 被解決了
後臺回復關鍵詞【和諧】
防止取經號 再次消失
取經號推薦
📜文章
📚書籍
《美麗新世界》
豆瓣：8.6分
這是一個有階級、有社會分工的社會，人類經基因控制孵化，被分為五個階級，分別從事勞心、勞力、創造、統治等不同性質的社會活動。人們習慣於自己從事的任何工作，視惡劣的生活和工作環境與極高的工作強度為幸福。因此，這是，一個快樂的社會，這種快樂還有別的措施保障，比如睡眠教學，催眠術被廣泛用來校正人的思維，國家還發放叫做索麻的精神麻醉藥物讓人忘掉不愉快的事情。
正是在這個「美麗新世界」裡，人們失去了個人情感，失去了愛情——性代替了愛，失去了痛苦、激情和經歷危險的感覺。最可怕的是，人們失去了思考的權利，失去了創造力。
《娛樂至死》
豆瓣：8.6分
《娛樂至死》是對20世紀後半葉美國文化中最重大變化的探究和哀悼：印刷術時代步入沒落，而電視時代蒸蒸日上；電視改變了公眾話語的內容和意義；政治、宗教、教育和任何其他公共事務領域的內容，都不可避免的被電視的表達方式重新定義。電視的一般表達方式是娛樂。一切公眾話語都日漸以娛樂的方式出現，並成為一種文化精神。一切文化內容都心甘情願地成為娛樂的附庸，而且毫無怨言，甚至無聲無息，「其結果是我們成了一個娛樂至死的物種」。
#訪問取經號官網#
網站域名 qujinghao.com，即「取經號」的全拼
#外刊資源#
後臺回復 外刊，獲取《經濟學人》等原版外刊獲得方法
#關注取經號#
掃描 二維碼，關注跑得快的取經號（id: J2West）
<原文地址：https://aeon.co/ideas/whatever-you-do-dont-call-this-an-interesting-idea>