Do I look real to you? Hope so.
我看起来真实吗？希望如此。
I have no idea if you're seeing this, but I'm just going to look ahead and trust that you're there.
我不确定你们能否看到我，但我还是目视前方，就当你们都在吧。
I've drawn a semicircle in the sand in front of me so I don't walk past it and look like I'm floating in midair.
我在脚下的沙地上画了个半圆，帮助我定位，让我不至于看起来像浮在半空。
Right now I'm standing in the open air, on a beach under a palm tree, in the exact spot where your stage used to be.
此时此刻，我站在户外，在海滩的一颗棕榈树下，正好是你们的舞台曾经所在的位置。
I have 12 minutes with you. I set a limit. My wife Navid once said that infinite possibility is a creator's worst enemy.
我有12分钟的时间与你们共度。我设定了时限。我妻子娜维德曾经说过，无限的可能性是创造者最大的敌人。
For example, this dress: I'd asked her to design something that a priest might have worn in 23rd-century Cairo.
举个例子，我身上这条裙子，是我请她设计的，我想要的是23世纪开罗祭司的风格。
But we only had three days to make it, and the only fabric we had was an old duvet cover that another resident left behind.
但我们只有3天时间来完成它，而我们手头仅有的布料是别人留下的一个旧的羽绒被套。
But she did it, and it's perfect. And she looked at it and said, "Proof of concept -- creation needs constraint."
但她还是完成了，而且非常漂亮。她看着裙子，说到，“只是个雏形——创造需要限制。”
So with these 12 minutes, I'm going to tell you about my greatest discovery.
我要利用这12分钟时间，与你们分享我最大的发现。
For my whole life, my obsession has been eternal life, as I know it is so many of yours.
我一生都在追求永生，我相信你们中间很多人也跟我一样。
You may be happy to know that your research will pay off. I am 318 years old.
告诉你们一个好消息，你们的努力没有白费。我已经318岁了。
The average human lifespan is now 432 years, and my work has been to extend the human lifespan indefinitely.
目前人类的平均寿命是432岁，我的工作是将人类寿命无限延长。
And I've never questioned that someday, we'll reach a point where we'll be content.
对此我充满信心，我坚信有一天我们会成功。
But the opposite keeps happening: the longer we live, the longer we want to live, the less we want to die.
但矛盾一直存在：我们的寿命越长，就想活得更久，就越不想死去。
Who can blame us? The universe is so big. There won't ever not be more to see.
这很正常，对吗？宇宙如此浩瀚。总是有值得我们探索的地方。
Just yesterday, I was reading about how you can take out a boat on Europa and sail from island to island all over the planet,
就在昨天，我读了一篇文章，你可以在木卫二上泛舟，从一个小岛到另一个小岛，游遍整颗行星，
and some of the islands have villages that you can stay and visit and sleep under the shadow of Jupiter.
有些岛上有村庄，你可以留宿一晚，在木星的巨大阴影下安睡。
And then there's this other island where there's just one songwriter who sits and plays mandolin for the ocean.
有些小岛人烟稀少，只有一位歌者，面朝大海，弹奏曼陀林。
And then there are others where there's no one and there never has been,
还有的小岛人迹罕至，甚至从未有人踏足，
and so you go just for the pleasure of touching your foot to sand that no foot has ever touched before.
你可以上去享受宁静，在沙滩上留下足迹，成为小岛的首位访客。
You could spend 400 years doing just that.
你可以花400年的时间来做上面这些事。
Right now the Moon is rising in the Northeast. I can see the cities on it with my naked eye.
现在，月亮从东北方向升起来了。上面城市密布，我用肉眼就能看到。
They're connected like nerve clusters: Mariapolis on the South Pole, and Ramachandran on the Equator.
城市像神经网络一样相互连接：位于南极的玛丽亚城，位于赤道的拉马钱德兰市。
And New Tehran in the Sea of Tranquility.
还有位于宁静海的新德黑兰市。
That's where Navid and I met. We were both artists downtown.
我和娜维德就是在那里相遇的。我俩都是画家，住在市中心。
The day we met, we were passing each other in Azadi Square, and we bumped shoulders.
那天，我俩在阿扎迪广场相遇，不小心撞在一起。
And I turned to apologize and she, without saying hello or introducing herself or anything, said,
我转身道歉，而她，没有打招呼，也没做自我介绍，她说，
"Well, why do you think we didn't just pass through each other?"
“你不觉得我们刚刚穿过了彼此吗？”
And first of all, I thought, "Who the hell are you?"
当时我的第一反应是，“你谁呀？”
But second, the question annoyed me, because the answer is so simple.
但紧接着，我对她问的问题感到很不爽，因为答案实在是太简单。
I said, "We didn't pass through each other because elementary particles have mass
我说，“我们没有穿过彼此，是因为基本粒子有质量，
and because the space between elementary particles is filled with the binding energy that also has the properties of mass,
而基本粒子之间的空间充满着结合能，同样具有质量特征，
and we've known that for 800 years." She must have been in one of those moods where she likes to mess with strangers.
这道理我们800年前就懂了。”她当时肯定心情不错，想逗逗我这个陌生人。
Or maybe she was just flirting with me, because she looked at me and said, "I thought you'd say that. Think deeper."
或者纯粹想跟我调调情，因为她看着我，说，“我一猜你就会这么说，再好好想想。”
And then she took off her belt, this belt that I'm wearing now, and she said,
然后她解下了自己的腰带，就是现在系在我身上的这一条，她说，
"Our universe is built so that particles have mass.
“在我们的宇宙里，粒子就是有质量的。
Without that basic constraint, we'd have just passed right through each other at the speed of light and never even known."
没有这一基本原则的限制，我们就会以光速穿过彼此而不自知。”
And that's how our romance began. Navid and I never ran out of things to talk about. Never. It was incredible.
我们的爱情就这样发生了。娜维德和我永远有聊不完的话题。从未停止。这一点非常奇妙。
It was like we were both heroes climbing up into a mountain range together and we kept arriving at new vistas,
那感觉就像我们是两位勇士，一同去征服崇山峻岭，沿途不断发现新的风景，
and these new, perfect constellations of words would come out of us to describe them.
而我们总能找到新的、美妙的词语来描述眼前的无敌美景。
And we'd forget them as soon as we made them, and throw them over our shoulder and go on to the next thing, on and up.
很快，我们又将这一切抛诸脑后，轻装上阵，去征服下一个目标。
Or one time, Navid said that our talk was like we were always making bread,
或者像娜维德形容的，我俩的谈话就像做面包，
and that we were always adding in a little more flour and a little more water,
我们总是不停地加一点面，再加一点水，
and folding it in and turning it over and never getting around to baking it.
揉进面团里，不停揉搓，却从不把面团送进烤箱。
If my obsession was eternal life, Navid's obsession was touch. She had a genius for it. All of her work revolved around it.
如果说我对永生着迷，那么娜维德就对抚摸着迷。她是个天生的抚摸者。她所有的作品也与抚摸有关。

My body was like a canvas for her, and she would draw her fingertip down over my face so slowly that I couldn't feel it moving.
我的身体就像她的画布，她的指尖总是沿着我的脸慢慢往下，速度之慢，我都感觉不到移动。
And she was obsessed with the exact moment when I would stop being able to tell the difference between her body and mine.
让她最着迷的就是那个瞬间，我分不清自己的身体和她的身体。
Or she would just lie across me and dig her shoulder into mine and say, "Pilar, why does this feel so good?"
有时她与我相拥而卧，将肩头埋在我的肩头之下，问道，“皮拉尔，为什么这感觉就这么好呢？”
I'd say, "I don't know!" And she always had a facetious answer for her facetious question, but the answer I remember today is,
我会说，“我也不知道！”对于自己恶作剧的问题，她的回答总是那么古灵精怪，然而今天我还能记得的答案是，
"It feels good because the universe chose its constraints, and we are its art."
“之所以感觉很好，是因为宇宙设定了限制，而我们是（这限制下的）艺术品。”
It's always funny what you think the future is going to be like versus what it turns out to be.
当你将想象的未来与真实的未来进行对比时，总是很有意思。
In your time, scientists thought humans could freeze themselves and wake up in the future.
在你们的年代，科学家认为可以将人类冷冻起来，未来再将他们唤醒。
And they did -- but then they died.
他们这么做了--但是失败了。
In your time, scientists thought humans could replace organs and extend life for hundreds of years.
在你们的年代，科学家认为可以通过更换器官将人类的寿命延长几百年。
And they did, but eventually, they died anyway.
他们这么做了，但是最终还是失败了。
In your time, Earth is the only place people live. In my time, Earth is the place people come to die.
在你们的年代，地球是唯一一个人类可以生存的地方。而在我这个年代，人们来地球是为了死去。
So when Navid started to show the signs, our friends assumed I would do what everyone does, which is say goodbye and send her to Earth,
因此当娜维德身上开始出现病症时，我们的朋友觉得我会像其他人一样，跟她告别然后送她来地球，
so that none of us would have to look at her or be around her or think about her and her ... failure to keep living.
这样一来我们就不必眼睁睁看着她走，不必围在她身边，不必追忆她的人生....不必去想她的离开。
More than anything, they didn't want to be around her actual physical body.
大家最不想做的，就是围绕在她的肉身旁边。
They kept referring to it as "declining," even though she herself was fascinated by it,
他们一直称之为“衰退”，尽管她自己对这很着迷，
the changes it was going through, following the rules of its nature day by day, independent of her will.
她的身体产生的变化，不以她的意志为转移，一天天随着自然规律变化。
I did send Navid to Earth. But I came with her. I remember a friend of ours, just before we left, said,
我确实将娜维德送回了地球。但我也一起去了。我记得我俩的一个朋友，在我们出发之前说，
"I just think it's arrogant, like the rules don't apply to you, like you think your love is that special." But I did.
“我觉得这太作了，好像规律不适用于你们，好像你们的爱能感天动地。”但我就是这么做了。
So, even here on Earth, I kept working on how to extend life.
因此，即使在地球上，我依然在研究如何延长生命。
It didn't occur to me that there could be any other response.
我从未想过还有另一条路可以走。
I kept going back to that thing that Navid said to me that day in Azadi Square,
我不停回想起那一天，娜维德在阿扎迪广场对我说的话，
that without that basic constraint -- a universe that granted mass to matter -- we would not exist. That's one rule.
如果没有这条基本的限制--宇宙赋予物体质量--我们就不会存在。这是规则之一。
Another rule is that all mass is subject to entropy.
另一条规则是所有质量受熵支配。
And there is no way to be in this universe without mass. I know.
没有质量，就不可能在这个宇宙存在。我明白。
I tried everything. I tried creating a photon box where the Higgs field was altered.
我尝试过所有方法。我尝试建立了一个光子盒，那里连希格斯场都发生了改变。
I tried recording all subatomic movements in my body and replaying them on closed loop. Nothing worked.
我尝试记录下我体内所有的亚原子运动，然后在一个闭环系统中重放。都没有用。
But my final innovation was to create a coil dimension with the boundaries of a body in which time moved infinitely slower,
我最后的方法是用线圈做出一个形体，在其边界之内时间流逝变得无限慢，
but whose projection would appear to move in normal time.
而它在外界的投影，时间流逝是正常的。
That body would then appear in our universe as a hologram -- here but not here.
这个形体在我们的宇宙中可以以全息投影的形式存在--在这里，却也不在这里。
When I realized I'd done it, I ran to her room, so happy to tell her I'd done it,
我意识到自己成功了，于是跑进她的房间，满心欢喜地想告诉她我成功了，
moving through space almost normally to all eyes, even to my own,
我移动的方式看起来很正常，连我自己都看不出异常，
and went to lie down next to her, and forgot, and fell right through her.
我跑到她身边躺下，我忘了（自己没有实体），直接穿过了她的身体。
I'd found a way to eternal life, at the expense of the one thing Navid loved most, which was to touch and be touched.
我找到了永生的方法，代价却是娜维德最看重的一件事，抚摸和被抚摸。
And she threw me out. I still got to watch, though.
她把我赶了出去。但我仍然能看见她。
Humans live 400 years now, and we still die.
人类已经可以活400年，但我们仍然会死。
And when death comes, the dying still pick at their bedsheets,
当死亡来临时，死者（可能）还在挑剔自己的床单，
and their arms break out in blue and violet blooms on the insides,
他们的手臂会突然由内而外变得青一块紫一块，
and their breaths get further and further apart, like they're falling asleep.
呼吸会越来越微弱，如同渐渐睡去。
I've always thought that what gives a life meaning is adventure.
我一直认为，生命的意义在于探险。
And death is just a problem we haven't discovered the solution to yet.
而死亡仅仅是一道难题，我们暂时还没有找到答案。
But maybe a life has meaning only because it ends.
但也许生命之所以有意义，就因为它有终点。
Maybe that's the paradox: constraints don't constrain, they allow perfect freedom.
也许这是一个悖论：限制本身并没有限制任何东西，它允许完全的自由。
There was a thunderstorm here this morning.
今天早上这里有雷暴。
There is another forecast for tonight, but for now the sky is clear. I can't feel the wind here,
天气预报今晚还有，但现在天空是晴朗的。我感觉不到风，
but I just asked one of the caretakers who passed by what it felt like, and she said it felt warm, like melted butter.
但我刚刚问了一个路过的守护者，感觉如何，她说感觉很温暖，像融化的黄油。
An answer worthy of my wife. I have to find my way back to the flesh.
我妻子就喜欢这样的答案。我必须找到回到自己肉身的方法。
Until then, I take up no space but the space you give me.
在那之前，我只会占用你们给我的这些空间。