Novelty and Heresy
Paul Graham argues that any truly novel discovery is likely to be branded as heresy because good ideas are often hidden in the shadow of cherished mistaken assumptions. Suppressing heresy not only protects those assumptions but also eliminates ideas that indirectly contradict them. Every cherished mistaken assumption creates a dead zone of unexplored ideas around it; the more preposterous the assumption, the larger the dead zone. Conversely, seeking out heresies is a powerful way to find new ideas. Using Galileo and Darwin as examples, he warns that organizations or societies overzealous in pouncing on heresy risk stifling innovation.
November 2019
If you discover something new, there's a significant chance you'll be accused of some form of heresy.
2019年11月
如果你发现了一些新事物，你极有可能被指控为某种形式的异端。
To discover new things, you have to work on ideas that are good but non-obvious; if an idea is obviously good, other people are probably already working on it. One common way for a good idea to be non-obvious is for it to be hidden in the shadow of some mistaken assumption that people are very attached to. But anything you discover from working on such an idea will tend to contradict the mistaken assumption that was concealing it. And you will thus get a lot of heat from people attached to the mistaken assumption. Galileo and Darwin are famous examples of this phenomenon, but it's probably always an ingredient in the resistance to new ideas.
要发现新事物，你必须研究那些既有价值又不显而易见的思想；如果一个想法显然很好，其他人可能已经在研究了。一个好想法之所以不显而易见，一种常见情况是它隐藏在人们深信不疑的错误假设的阴影中。但你在研究这类想法时所发现的任何东西，都会倾向于反驳那个掩盖它的错误假设。因此，你会从执着于错误假设的人那里承受巨大压力。伽利略和达尔文就是这一现象的著名例子，但这种阻力几乎总是抵制新思想的一个因素。
So it's particularly dangerous for an organization or society to have a culture of pouncing on heresy. When you suppress heresies, you don't just prevent people from contradicting the mistaken assumption you're trying to protect. You also suppress any idea that implies indirectly that it's false.
Every cherished mistaken assumption has a dead zone of unexplored ideas around it. And the more preposterous the assumption, the bigger the dead zone it creates.
因此，如果一个组织或社会形成了一种猎杀异端的文化，那将格外危险。当你压制异端时，你不仅阻止了人们反驳你想要保护的那个错误假设，还压制了任何间接暗示其错误的观点。
每个被珍视的错误假设周围，都有一片未被探索的思想的死区。而这个假设越是荒谬，它创造出的死区就越大。
There is a positive side to this phenomenon though. If you're looking for new ideas, one way to find them is by looking for heresies. When you look at the question this way, the depressingly large dead zones around mistaken assumptions become excitingly large mines of new ideas.
不过，这一现象也有积极的一面。如果你在寻找新想法，一个方法就是去寻找异端。当你从这个角度看待问题时，那些错误假设周围令人沮丧的巨大死区，就变成了令人兴奋的新思想矿藏。