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In life, once on a path, we tend to follow it, for better or worse.
在生活中，一旦走上了一條道路，不論好壞，我們往往會在這條路上走下去。
What’s sad is that even if it’s the latter, we often accept it anyway because we are so accustomed to the way things are that we don’t even recognize that they could be different.
令人難過的是，即使這條路是不好的那條路，我們也經常會接受它，因為我們很習慣于事物存在的方式，以至于我們甚至沒有意識到它們可能是不同的。
This is a phenomenon psychologists call functional fixedness.
這是一種心理學家稱之為功能固著的現象。
This classic experiment will give you an idea of how it works and a sense of whether you may have fallen into the same trap:
這個經典的實驗將讓你了解這個現象是如何起作用的，還會讓你知道你是否會掉入同樣的陷阱。
People are given a box of tacks and some matches and asked to find a way to attach a candle to a wall so that it burns properly.
實驗者給了人們一些大頭釘和一些火柴，讓他們想辦法把蠟燭固定在墻上，使蠟燭正常燃燒。
Typically, the subjects try tacking the candle to the wall or lighting it to affix it with melted wax.
通常情況下，受試者會把蠟燭釘在墻上，或者點燃蠟燭，用融化的蠟把它粘在上面。
The psychologists had, of course, arranged it so that neither of these obvious ap-proaches would work.
當然，心理學家們已經安排好了，所以這兩種明顯的方法都不會奏效。
The tacks are too short, and the paraffin doesn’t bind to the wall. So how can you accomplish the task?
那些釘子太小了，而且石蠟也粘不到墻上。所以該如何完成這個任務呢？
The successful technique is to use the tack box as a candleholder.
成功實現的方法就是把釘盒用作燭臺。
You empty it, tack it to the wall, and stand the candle inside it.
你需要把盒子清空，把它釘在墻上，然后把蠟燭放在里面。
To think of that, you have to look beyond the box’s usual role as a receptacle just for tacks and reimagine it serving an entirely new purpose.
要考慮到這一點，你必須超越盒子通常的角色，不再把它看作是一個僅僅是為了圖釘而設計的盒子，而是把它重新想象成一個有全新的用途的工具。
That is difficult because we all suffer to one degree or another from func-tional fixedness.
這是困難的，因為我們都或多或少地承受著功能固著的痛苦。
The inability to think in new ways af-fects people in every corner of society.
無法用新的方式思考影響著社會的每個角落的人們。
The political theorist Hannah Arendt coined the phrase frozen thoughts to describe deeply held ideas that we no longer question but should.
政治理論家漢娜·阿倫特創造了“凍結思維”一詞，它用來描述我們不再質疑、但應該質疑的根深蒂固的想法。
In Arendt’s eyes, the complacent reliance on such accepted “truths” also made people blind to ideas that didn’t fit their worldview, even when there was ample evidence for them.
阿倫特認為，自滿的依賴這些公認的事實使人們對不符合他們世界觀的想法視而不見，即使有足夠的證據支持這些想法。
Frozen thinking has nothing to do with intelligence, she said. “It can be found in highly intelligent people.”
她說，“凍結思維”跟智力無關，智商高的人群中也會出現這種現象。
Arendt was particularly interested in the origins of evil, and she considered critical thinking to be a moral imperative—in its absence, a society could go the way of Nazi Germany.
阿倫特對邪惡的起源特別感興趣，她認為批判性思維是一種道德要求——如果沒有批判性思維，一個社會可能會走上納粹德國的道路。
Another context in which frozen thinking can turn truly dangerous is medicine.
另一個凍結思維可能變得真正危險的情況是醫學。
If you land in the hospital, it’s natural to want to be treated by the most experienced physicians on staff.
如果你住進了醫院，很自然你會想要由最有經驗的醫生來治療。
But according to a 2014 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), you’d be better off being treated by the relative novices.
但《美國醫學會雜志》2014年發表的一項研究顯示，你最好是接受相關新手的治療。
The study examined nearly ten years of data involving tens of thousands of hospital admissions
這項研究調查了近10年來涉及數萬名入院患者的數據，
and found that the 30-day mortality rate among high-risk patients with acute heart conditions was a third lower when the top doctors were away at conferences.
并發現，當頂尖醫生不在時，患有急性心臟病的高風險患者的30天死亡率降低了三分之一。
