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That tension plays out elegantly in Greene's new book,
格林的新書也巧妙地表現了兩者的拉鋸故事，
and to make sure no one misses the dialectic, the chapter names make it clear:
為了不讓任何人錯失這個了解辯證法的機會，格林為各個章節所起的標題都充滿了辯證意味：
"Duration and Impermanence," "Origins and Entropy," "Particles and Consciousness."
“持續與無常”、“起源與熵”、“粒子與意識”……
Greene takes one of his most powerful whacks at entropy, attacking the nettlesome business of the second law of thermodynamics—
格林對熵，對這個令人頭疼的熱力學第二定律發起了他最猛烈的攻擊。
the broad truth that all systems tend to disorder,
這一定律認為，所有系統都傾向于走向無序，
which is often used to challenge the truth of evolution itself:
這一普遍真理經常被用來質疑另一真理——進化真理，
that profoundly complex order can emerge from the chaos.
后者認為，混亂可能也有其秩序，只不過極其復雜。
"I resolve that tension in Chapter 3," Greene says,
“我已經在第三章里給出解決（解決科學與神學的對峙的）方案了，”格林說，
a boast that could pass as arrogant except that, well, he does resolve the tension in Chapter 3.
換作別人，這話恐怕就是妄自尊大的吹噓而已，至于格林，他還真就做到了。
"It relies on the force of gravity.
“我的方案是圍繞地心引力展開的。
Without gravity, everything just spreads out, diffuses, and that's all there would be.
沒有了引力，所有東西都會散開，世間萬物莫不如此。
But gravity has this wonderful capacity as a universally inward-pulling force which can undertake the following magic trick:
但地心引力這種普遍存在的向內的拉力卻有一種神奇的能力，它能夠施展魔法，
it can pull things together, making it more orderly here,
把東西凝聚起來，讓這個世界更加有序，
at the expense of releasing heat that makes it more disorderly out there.
其代價就是這個過程會釋放熱量，導致外面的環境變得更加無序。
I call it 'the entropic two-step.
我稱之為“熵的兩個階段”。
'"There's a lot of satisfaction in such neat solutions to head-cracking problems.
“原本讓人頭暈腦脹的問題就這么巧妙地解決了，實在是令人快慰。
But there is an equivalent neatness to the ostensibly dispiriting conclusions Greene reaches in his books and in his research:
然而，格林還在他的著作和研究中同樣巧妙得出了不怎么振奮人心的結論：
that unhappy business of a cold universe, an insentient universe, of the individual as just a quantum contraption,
宇宙是冰冷的，沒有知覺的，個體只是機械的量子，
behaving as a product not of choice but of probabilities and randomness.
其行為并非選擇的產物，而是概率和隨機性的產物。
It's where the free-will thing comes in:
于是，自由意志登場了：
the universe is guided by quantum probabilities, and your "choices" are simply a part of that,
宇宙是受量子概率指引的，你的“選擇”也是其中的一部分，
the way a local breeze is part of the global weather system.
就像局部地區的微風也是全球天氣系統的一部分一樣。
"My feeling is that the reductionist, materialist, physicalist approach to the world is the right one," Greene says.
“我個人感覺，融合了還原論、唯物論和物理論的方式才是正確的認知世界的方式，”格林說。
"There isn't anything else; these grand mysteries will evaporate over time."
“再沒有別的了；隨著時間的推移，這些宏大的謎團也都會煙消云散。”
But despite such empirical bravado, Greene says more too—
不過，除了這種經驗主義的故作勇敢之外，格林當然還談到了其他問題——
and whether he likes it or not, it's not reductionist,
但無論他愿不愿意承認，他討論的都不是還原論，
and if it's written in a book like Until the End of Time, it could be written in the Vedas as well.
如果那些內容可以寫入《直到時間盡頭》，那便也可以寫入吠陀經。
"Rather than feeling, 'Damn, there's no universal morality,' 'Damn, there's no universal consciousness,'" he says,
“與其覺得‘我靠，這個宇宙根本沒有道德’，覺得‘我靠，這個宇宙根本就沒有意識，’”他說，
"how wondrous is it that I am able to have this conscious experience and it's nothing more than stuff?
“反過來想想，我能有意識，意識頂多也是物質，而恰是這種物質催生出了貝多芬的《第九交響曲》，
That stuff can produce Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, that stuff can produce the Mona Lisa,
催生出了（達·芬奇的）蒙娜麗莎，還催生出了（莎翁的）《羅密歐與朱麗葉》，
that stuff can produce Romeo and Juliet?
這不是很值得驚嘆的事嗎？
Holy smokes, that's wondrous."
我的神呀，也太值得驚嘆了吧。”
The rational physicist with the deeply spiritual brother surely meant the holy as just a figure of speech— but if so, he picked an apt one.
這位有一位篤信宗教的哥哥，自己卻很理性的物理學家說的這個“神”想必只是一個修辭，但即便只是修辭，用在這里倒也十分貼切。
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