Concise Summary简洁概述
Yudkowsky opens with the Orthodox Jewish tradition that knowledge can only degrade from generation to generation, then contrasts it with science's cumulative progress. He names the Japanese spirit tsuyoku naritai — "I want to become stronger" — as the relentless will to keep improving regardless of where you stand. The essay's central warning: confessing bias or ignorance the way a congregation recites the Ashamnu — ritualistically, with no plan to improve — is worse than useless. It lets you feel virtuous for self-awareness while foreclosing actual change. The only honest confession is one paired with a concrete next step forward.
Yudkowsky 以正统犹太教「知识只会代代衰减」的传统开篇，与科学的累积进步形成对比。他援引日语精神 tsuyoku naritai——「我想变得更强」——作为无论身处何种境地都要持续精进的不竭意志。文章的核心警告是：像会众念诵《忏悔祷文》那样——仪式性地、没有任何改进计划地——承认偏见或无知，是有害而无用的。这让你在自我意识中获得美德感，却封堵了真正的改变。唯一诚实的忏悔，是与具体的前进一步相配套的忏悔。
Infographic信息图
Knowledge that can only erode
只会衰减的知识
Orthodox Judaism treats halachic knowledge as a one-way ratchet downward: only the ancients heard from God, so rabbis today can never overrule them.
正统犹太教把律法知识视为单向向下的棘轮：只有古人亲聆天命，所以今天的拉比绝不能推翻他们。
Science's opposite trajectory
科学的相反轨迹
Science gains knowledge each generation; starting later is no handicap because the method keeps compounding, and must eventually surpass any tradition fixed at a single moment.
科学每一代都在积累知识；起步晚并不是劣势，因为这套方法持续复利，终将超越任何固定于某一时刻的传统。
Tsuyoku naritai
强くなりたい
Whether you just lost, just won, or stand at the top, the spirit is the same: you still want to become stronger. It is the will that keeps moving when there is no external compulsion.
无论你刚刚失败、刚刚获胜，还是已站在顶峰，这种精神都是一样的：你依然想变得更强。这是在没有外部强迫时仍持续前行的意志。
The Ashamnu trap
《忏悔祷文》陷阱
Confessing every sin in the alphabet — without the intention or plan to sin less — is ritual, not repentance. The rationalist equivalent is publicly cataloguing your biases with no improvement agenda.
逐字母忏悔所有罪行——却没有少犯罪的意图或计划——是仪式，不是悔过。理性主义的等价物，是公开列举自己的偏见却没有任何改进议程。
Pride in confession is its own trap
为忏悔而骄傲是另一种陷阱
Glorying in your self-awareness makes you loath to give it up — just as taking pride in ignorance makes you resist evidence. The goal is fewer flaws, not a better-curated list of them.
为自我意识沾沾自喜，会让你不愿放弃它——正如以无知为傲会让你抵制证据。目标是更少的缺陷，而不是一份整理得更精美的缺陷清单。
Detailed Summary详细概述
The One-Way Ratchet
Yudkowsky opens with an Orthodox Jewish aphorism: each prior generation stands to the next as angels to men — and each next generation stands to the prior as donkeys to men. The logic is internally consistent: if all Torah knowledge came from God at Sinai and there is no new source, then each retelling can only lose signal. Modern rabbis literally cannot overrule ancient ones; a worm found spontaneously generated inside an apple was ruled kosher by the ancients, and that ruling stands even though biology has long since refuted spontaneous generation. "Knowledge derives from authority, and therefore is only ever lost, not gained."
The young Yudkowsky, not yet a full atheist, nevertheless noticed the inverse structure of science. Torah loses knowledge with every generation; science gains it. Whatever head start the Torah had, science must eventually surpass it. Progress is what matters — keep moving forward and you reach your destination; stop, and you never will.
Tsuyoku Naritai
He introduces the Japanese phrase tsuyoku naritai — literally, "I want to become stronger" — and unpacks its emotional valence in Japanese culture. You say it after a loss, not giving up. After a win, not yet satisfied. Even after becoming the greatest player of all time, knowing you can still do better. This is the will to transcendence: not a reaction to failure or a celebration of victory, but a steady, unconditional orientation toward growth.
Yudkowsky contrasts this explicitly with Western literature, suggesting the sentiment is more intensely expressed in Japanese works. The point is not cultural nationalism but to name a specific psychological stance that the rationalist should adopt: relentless, forward-facing self-improvement without condition.
The Ashamnu and the Ritual of Confessing Bias
On Yom Kippur, an Orthodox Jew recites the Ashamnu — a litany of sins for every Hebrew letter — while striking the heart in penitence. Crucially, the ritual requires you to recite the full list regardless of whether you actually committed each sin that year. You cannot skip gazalnu ("we have stolen") just because you didn't steal. The ritual is about confessing sin, not avoiding it. And it does not end with, "Next year I will do better."
Yudkowsky draws a sharp parallel to a common rationalist move: publicly declaring "We are all biased, we are all irrational, we are overconfident, poorly calibrated . . ." This is the Ashamnu for biases. It can become a tribal ritual of epistemic humility — valuable-sounding, self-congratulatory, and entirely unconnected to any plan of improvement.
Fine. Now tell me how you plan to become less biased, less irrational, more informed, less overconfident, better calibrated.
The Pride-in-Confession Trap
The essay sharpens the danger with a Jewish joke: a rabbi and cantor prostrate themselves before God crying "I am nothing!"; the janitor does likewise; and the rabbi nudges the cantor — "Look who thinks he's nothing." Confessing unworthiness can itself become a source of status within a community.
For the rationalist, the analogous failure is taking pride in your bias-awareness. If self-awareness of flaws becomes a badge of honor, you become loath to relinquish those flaws — because correcting them would mean surrendering the badge. Worse: when someone actually offers a correction, the self-aware community can respond with, "Do you think to set yourself above us? You must not be very self-aware." Confessed bias becomes a fortress against improvement.
The Imperative
The essay ends with a command: "Never confess to me that you are just as flawed as I am unless you can tell me what you plan to do about it." After the plan, you will still have flaws — the point is not to eliminate them instantly but to keep moving ahead, take the next step, embody tsuyoku naritai. Confession is only honest when paired with a direction.
单向棘轮
Yudkowsky 以一句正统犹太教格言开篇：前一代对于下一代，犹如天使对于凡人；而下一代对于前一代，则犹如驴子对于凡人。这套逻辑在内部是自洽的：若所有律法知识都来自西奈山上神的启示，且不存在新的知识来源，那么每一次转述都只会损失信号。今天的拉比在字面上无法推翻古代拉比的裁定；古人裁定苹果内自然生成的蛆虫属于洁食，这一裁定至今有效，尽管生物学早就推翻了自然发生说。「知识来源于权威，因此只会随时间流逝而减损，永不增加。」
年幼的 Yudkowsky 尚未成为彻底的无神论者，却已注意到科学与之截然相反的结构。律法每一代都在丢失知识；科学每一代都在积累知识。无论律法曾领先多远，科学终将超越它。进步是最重要的事——只要持续前行，就能抵达目的地；一旦停下，便永远抵达不了。
强くなりたい
他引入了日语短语 tsuyoku naritai——字面意思是「我想变得更强」——并阐释其在日本文化中的情感内涵。你在失败后说它，表示不放弃；在获胜后说它，表示仍不满足；即使成为有史以来最伟大的棋手，也知道自己依然可以做得更好。这是超越自我的意志：它不是对失败的反应，也不是对胜利的庆祝，而是一种朝向成长的稳定的、无条件的心理取向。
Yudkowsky 明确地将其与西方文学相比较，认为这种情感在日本作品中表达得更为强烈。重点不在于文化民族主义，而在于命名一种具体的心理姿态，这是理性主义者应当采纳的：无条件的、面向未来的持续自我改进。
《忏悔祷文》与忏悔偏见的仪式
在赎罪日，正统犹太人念诵《忏悔祷文》——为希伯来字母表中的每个字母对应一条罪行，同时捶胸悔过。关键在于，这个仪式要求你诵读完整的清单，无论这一年你是否真的犯了每一条罪。你不能因为没有偷窃就跳过「gazalnu（我们偷窃了）」。这个仪式是关于忏悔罪，而非避免罪。而且它并不以「明年我会做得更好」作为结尾。
Yudkowsky 鲜明地将这与一种常见的理性主义姿态相类比：公开宣称「我们都有偏见，我们都是非理性的，我们都过度自信，校准都很差……」这是对偏见的《忏悔祷文》。它可以蜕变为一种认识论谦逊的部落仪式——听起来很有价值，充满自我恭维，但与任何改进计划完全脱节。
很好。现在告诉我，你打算如何变得不那么有偏见、不那么非理性、更有见识、不那么过度自信、校准得更准确。
为忏悔而骄傲的陷阱
文章用一个犹太笑话将危险磨得更加锋利：一位拉比和领唱在神面前俯伏高呼「我什么都不是！」；看门人也照做了；于是拉比碰碰领唱——「瞧瞧，谁也以为自己什么都不是。」忏悔自身的渺小，本身可以在社群内部成为一种地位来源。
对理性主义者而言，类似的失败是为你对偏见的觉察而骄傲。如果对缺陷的自我意识成了一枚荣誉勋章，你就会不愿放弃那些缺陷——因为修正它们意味着交出这枚勋章。更糟的是：当有人真的提出修正建议时，这个充满自我意识的群体可以回应：「你以为你比我们高明？你大概还不够有自我意识。」被忏悔过的偏见，成了抵御改进的堡垒。
命令式结语
文章以一道命令结尾：「除非你能告诉我你打算怎么办，否则永远不要向我承认你和我一样有缺陷。」计划之后，你仍然会有缺陷——重点不在于立刻消除它们，而在于持续向前迈进，走出下一步，活出 tsuyoku naritai 的精神。忏悔只有在配套了一个方向之后，才是诚实的。
FAQ常见问答
What is tsuyoku naritai and why does Yudkowsky invoke a Japanese phrase?tsuyoku naritai 是什么，Yudkowsky 为什么要引用一个日语短语？
Tsuyoku naritai means "I want to become stronger" in Japanese. Yudkowsky invokes it because he finds the sentiment — an unconditional, ongoing will to improve regardless of your current standing — expressed more intensely in Japanese culture than in Western literature. The phrase names a specific psychological stance: not reacting to failure, not celebrating victory, but perpetually orienting toward growth.
Tsuyoku naritai 是日语「我想变得更强」。Yudkowsky 引用它，是因为他发现这种情感——一种无条件的、持续的、不论当前处于何种位置都要改进的意志——在日本文化中比在西方文学中表达得更为强烈。这个短语命名了一种具体的心理姿态：不是对失败的反应，不是对胜利的庆祝，而是永恒地朝向成长的取向。
What is the Ashamnu and how does it illuminate the problem Yudkowsky is criticizing?《忏悔祷文》是什么，它如何阐明 Yudkowsky 所批评的问题？
The Ashamnu is a Yom Kippur litany in which an Orthodox Jew confesses a sin for every letter of the Hebrew alphabet — striking the heart for each — regardless of whether those sins were actually committed. It is ritual confession divorced from repentance or improvement. Yudkowsky uses it as a metaphor for rationalists who publicly enumerate their biases without any plan to reduce them: the ritual feels virtuous but changes nothing.
《忏悔祷文》是赎罪日的一段祷词，正统犹太人为希伯来字母表中每个字母对应的罪行逐一忏悔——每条都捶胸——不管这些罪行是否真的犯了。这是与悔改或改进脱节的仪式性忏悔。Yudkowsky 用它比喻那些公开列举自己偏见却没有任何计划去减少它们的理性主义者：这个仪式感觉很有美德，却什么都没改变。
Why is it bad to take pride in confessing your biases?为什么为忏悔自己的偏见而骄傲是有害的？
If self-aware confession of flaws becomes a source of status within a community, you become invested in keeping those flaws to maintain the status. Worse, when someone proposes a concrete fix, the community can turn on them — "Do you think to set yourself above us?" — using confessed bias as armor against actual improvement. The analogy Yudkowsky draws is taking pride in ignorance: it makes you resist evidence that would remove it.
如果对缺陷的自我意识忏悔在群体中成为地位来源，你就会为了维持这种地位而舍不得放弃那些缺陷。更糟糕的是，当有人提出具体的修正方案时，群体可能会转而攻击他们——「你以为自己比我们高明？」——用已经忏悔过的偏见作为抵御真正改进的盔甲。Yudkowsky 做的类比是以无知为傲：这会让你抵制能够消除无知的证据。
How does the Torah vs. science contrast set up the essay's main argument?律法与科学的对比是如何为文章的核心论点奠基的？
It establishes two fundamentally opposed epistemologies: one where knowledge is fixed and can only erode (authority-based), and one where it is open-ended and compounds (evidence-based). This contrast frames what is at stake: whether your epistemic practices are oriented toward gaining or merely preserving knowledge. Tsuyoku naritai is the psychological analog of science's compounding trajectory applied to personal rational development.
它确立了两种根本对立的认识论：一种知识是固定的且只会衰减（权威型），另一种是开放的且持续复利（证据型）。这个对比界定了论题的关键：你的认知实践是朝向获取还是仅仅保存知识。tsuyoku naritai 是科学的复利轨迹在个人理性发展上的心理类比。
Does the essay say we can fully eliminate our biases if we try hard enough?文章是否认为只要足够努力就能彻底消除偏见？
No. Yudkowsky explicitly acknowledges that after any plan for improvement, "you will still have plenty of flaws left." The goal is not to reach a bias-free endpoint but to keep moving: to take one more step forward, to do a little better than before. Perfection is not the standard — progress is.
不。Yudkowsky 明确承认，在任何改进计划之后，「你仍然会有大量缺陷」。目标不是抵达一个无偏见的终点，而是持续前行：再向前迈一步，做得比之前稍微好一点。衡量标准不是完美——而是进步。
What does Yudkowsky mean by "the occasion for rejoicing is when we have a little less to confess"?Yudkowsky 说「值得欢欣的时刻，是当我们少了一点可以忏悔的东西」，这是什么意思？
The proper object of celebration is not self-awareness about flaws but the actual reduction of flaws. If you are proud of knowing you are biased, you may perversely cling to the bias. But if what makes you happy is having one fewer bias, you will eagerly seek and apply corrections. The locus of pride should shift from the confession to the improvement.
真正值得庆祝的对象，不是对缺陷的自我意识，而是缺陷本身的实际减少。如果你为知道自己有偏见而感到骄傲，你可能会反常地执着于这个偏见。但如果让你快乐的是少了一个偏见，你就会积极地寻求并应用修正。骄傲的落脚点应当从忏悔转移到改进上。
In-depth Analysis · Pros & Cons深入解读 · 优缺点
"Tsuyoku Naritai" is a compact motivational manifesto dressed in religious and cross-cultural imagery. Its central contribution to the Sequences is not an epistemological claim but a dispositional one: the rationalist must adopt an unconditional orientation toward self-improvement, not a ritualistic one.
《强くなりたい》是一篇简洁的励志宣言，以宗教和跨文化意象为外衣。它对「序列」的核心贡献不是一个认识论主张，而是一个性情上的主张：理性主义者必须采纳一种朝向自我改进的无条件取向，而非仪式性的取向。
- The Ashamnu parallel is brilliantly targeted《忏悔祷文》类比切中要害By mapping the rationalist bias-confession ritual onto the Yom Kippur liturgy, Yudkowsky gives readers an unforgettable template for recognizing the failure mode: any recitation of flaws that isn't paired with a plan is a prayer, not a strategy.通过将理性主义者的偏见忏悔仪式映射到赎罪日礼文上，Yudkowsky 给读者提供了一个难以忘怀的模板，用于识别这种失败模式：任何没有配套计划的缺陷列举，都是祷告，而非策略。
- The Torah/science contrast is economical and vivid律法与科学的对比简洁而生动The worm-in-the-apple anecdote concretizes an entire epistemology in three sentences — you feel the absurdity of authority-locked knowledge and immediately understand what compounding progress means by contrast.苹果里的虫子这个轶事用三句话具体化了一整套认识论——你能感受到权威锁定知识的荒谬，并立刻理解复利进步与之的对比意味着什么。
- Naming the trap of confessed-bias pride点名「忏悔偏见的骄傲」这一陷阱This is a genuinely underappreciated failure mode in rationalist communities: members can signal epistemic humility as a form of status competition, which immunizes the group against corrective input. Yudkowsky names it precisely.这是理性主义社群中一种真正被低估的失败模式：成员可以将认识论谦逊作为地位竞争的信号，从而让群体对修正性意见产生免疫。Yudkowsky 对此有精准的命名。
- Tsuyoku naritai is a durable motivational frametsuyoku naritai 是持久的激励框架The phrase — applied to wins, losses, and plateaus alike — resists the hedonic treadmill problem of goal-based motivation. It is growth as an unconditional stance, not as a means to any particular end.这个短语——适用于胜利、失败和停滞期——抵御了以目标为基础的激励的享乐跑步机问题。它将成长视为一种无条件的姿态，而非任何特定目标的手段。
- "Have a plan" is underspecified「要有计划」过于笼统The essay commands that confession be paired with a concrete improvement plan, but gives no guidance on what such a plan should contain. For most cognitive biases, the cognitive-psychology literature suggests that knowing about a bias rarely suffices to correct it — you need specific protocols, feedback loops, and practice. The essay gestures at action without mapping the territory of what action is actually available.文章命令忏悔要配套具体的改进计划，但对计划应该包含什么内容没有任何指引。对于大多数认知偏见，认知心理学文献表明，了解偏见的存在很少足以修正它——你需要具体的方案、反馈循环和刻意练习。文章指向行动，却没有绘制实际上可行的行动地图。
- The religious contrast is one-sided宗教对比是单方面的Yudkowsky's reading of Orthodox Judaism as purely backward-looking ignores the vast tradition of halachic innovation and responsa literature that does, in practice, adapt ancient rulings to new circumstances. The contrast works rhetorically, but it slightly misrepresents its target.Yudkowsky 将正统犹太教解读为纯粹向后看，忽视了其丰富的律法创新传统和应答文献——这些在实践中确实将古代裁定适应于新情境。这个对比在修辞上有效，但对其所针对的对象有轻微的误描。
- May romanticize the will to improve可能将改进意志浪漫化The tsuyoku naritai framing treats wanting to become stronger as an unambiguous good. But uncritical commitment to self-improvement can mask perfectionism, instrumentalize self-worth, or misdirect effort toward the wrong dimensions of growth. The essay does not distinguish between healthy striving and dysfunctional perfectionism.「想变得更强」的框架将这种渴望视为毫无疑义的善。但对自我改进的无批判承诺可能掩盖完美主义，使自我价值工具化，或将努力导向错误的成长维度。文章没有区分健康的追求与失调的完美主义。
- Proves less than it claims about the pride trap对骄傲陷阱的论证不及其声称的充分Yudkowsky asserts that pride in self-awareness makes you "loath to relinquish your ignorance when evidence comes knocking," but this is stated rather than argued. The empirical relationship between meta-cognitive pride and resistance to self-correction is more complex; sometimes self-affirmation increases openness to threatening information.Yudkowsky 断言为自我意识而骄傲会让你「在证据敲门时不愿放弃无知」，但这是陈述而非论证。元认知骄傲与抵制自我修正之间的经验关系更为复杂；有时候自我肯定增加了对威胁性信息的开放性。
A sharp, memorable essay that names an important failure mode and prescribes the right corrective posture. Its weakness is that it motivates the will to improve without specifying how — leaving the reader inspired but underequipped. Read it as the motivational frame that prefixes harder technical work on debiasing, not as a standalone guide.
这是一篇尖锐而难忘的文章，准确命名了一种重要的失败模式，并开出了正确的纠正姿态。它的弱点在于激励了改进的意志，却没有说明如何改进——让读者充满激情，却装备不足。把它当作优先于去偏见领域更艰难的技术性工作的激励框架来阅读，而非独立的指南。
Original Text原文
In Orthodox Judaism there is a saying: “The previous generation is to the next one as angels are to men; the next generation is to the previous one as donkeys are to men.” This follows from the Orthodox Jewish belief that all Judaic law was given to Moses by God at Mount Sinai. After all, it’s not as if you could do an experiment to gain new halachic knowledge; the only way you can know is if someone tells you (who heard it from someone else, who heard it from God). Since there is no new source of information; it can only be degraded in transmission from generation to generation.
Thus, modern rabbis are not allowed to overrule ancient rabbis. Crawly things are ordinarily unkosher, but it is permissible to eat a worm found in an apple—the ancient rabbis believed the worm was spontaneously generated inside the apple, and therefore was part of the apple. A modern rabbi cannot say, “Yeah, well, the ancient rabbis knew diddly-squat about biology. Overruled!” A modern rabbi cannot possibly know a halachic principle the ancient rabbis did not, because how could the ancient rabbis have passed down the answer from Mount Sinai to him? Knowledge derives from authority, and therefore is only ever lost, not gained, as time passes.
When I was first exposed to the angels-and-donkeys proverb in (religious) elementary school, I was not old enough to be a full-blown atheist, but I still thought to myself: “Torah loses knowledge in every generation. Science gains knowledge with every generation. No matter where they started out, sooner or later science must surpass Torah.”
The most important thing is that there should be progress. So long as you keep moving forward you will reach your destination; but if you stop moving you will never reach it.
Tsuyoku naritai is Japanese. Tsuyoku is “strong”; naru is “becoming,” and the form naritai is “want to become.” Together it means, “I want to become stronger,” and it expresses a sentiment embodied more intensely in Japanese works than in any Western literature I’ve read. You might say it when expressing your determination to become a professional Go player—or after you lose an important match, but you haven’t given up—or after you win an important match, but you’re not a ninth-dan player yet—or after you’ve become the greatest Go player of all time, but you still think you can do better. That is tsuyoku naritai, the will to transcendence.
Each year on Yom Kippur, an Orthodox Jew recites a litany which begins Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu, dibarnu dofi, and goes on through the entire Hebrew alphabet: We have acted shamefully, we have betrayed, we have stolen, we have slandered . . .
As you pronounce each word, you strike yourself over the heart in penitence. There’s no exemption whereby, if you manage to go without stealing all year long, you can skip the word gazalnu and strike yourself one less time. That would violate the community spirit of Yom Kippur, which is about confessing sins—not avoiding sins so that you have less to confess.
By the same token, the Ashamnu does not end, “But that was this year, and next year I will do better.”
The Ashamnu bears a remarkable resemblance to the notion that the way of rationality is to beat your fist against your heart and say, “We are all biased, we are all irrational, we are not fully informed, we are overconfident, we are poorly calibrated . . .”
Fine. Now tell me how you plan to become less biased, less irrational, more informed, less overconfident, better calibrated.
There is an old Jewish joke: During Yom Kippur, the rabbi is seized by a sudden wave of guilt, and prostrates himself and cries, “God, I am nothing before you!” The cantor is likewise seized by guilt, and cries, “God, I am nothing before you!” Seeing this, the janitor at the back of the synagogue prostrates himself and cries, “God, I am nothing before you!” And the rabbi nudges the cantor and whispers, “Look who thinks he’s nothing.”
Take no pride in your confession that you too are biased; do not glory in your self-awareness of your flaws. This is akin to the principle of not taking pride in confessing your ignorance; for if your ignorance is a source of pride to you, you may become loath to relinquish your ignorance when evidence comes knocking. Likewise with our flaws—we should not gloat over how self-aware we are for confessing them; the occasion for rejoicing is when we have a little less to confess.
Otherwise, when the one comes to us with a plan for correcting the bias, we will snarl, “Do you think to set yourself above us?” We will shake our heads sadly and say, “You must not be very self-aware.”
Never confess to me that you are just as flawed as I am unless you can tell me what you plan to do about it. Afterward you will still have plenty of flaws left, but that’s not the point; the important thing is to do better, to keep moving ahead, to take one more step forward. Tsuyoku naritai!
在正统犹太教中有一句格言：「前一代对于后一代，犹如天使对于凡人；后一代对于前一代，犹如驴子对于凡人。」这源于正统犹太教的信仰：所有犹太律法都是神在西奈山传授给摩西的。毕竟，你不可能通过做实验来获得新的律法知识；你唯一的知情途径是由他人告知（那人又是从别人处听来的，而那人又从神处听来）。既然没有新的信息来源，知识在代代相传中只能不断衰减。
因此，现代拉比不得推翻古代拉比的裁定。爬行动物通常是不洁食的，但在苹果内发现的虫子则可以食用——古代拉比认为这条虫是在苹果内部自然生成的，因而是苹果的一部分。现代拉比不能说：「嗯，古代拉比对生物学一窍不通。推翻！」现代拉比不可能知道任何古代拉比所不知道的律法原则，因为古代拉比如何能把西奈山的答案传递给他呢？知识源于权威，因此只会随时间流逝而减损，永不增加。
当我在（宗教性的）小学第一次接触到「天使与驴子」这则格言时，我还不够大，算不上一个彻底的无神论者，但我仍然心想：「律法每一代都在丢失知识。科学每一代都在积累知识。无论它们从哪里出发，早晚科学都必将超越律法。」
最重要的事，是要有进步。只要你持续前行，就会抵达目的地；但如果你停下来，就永远不会抵达。
Tsuyoku naritai 是日语。Tsuyoku 是「强」；naru 是「成为」，而 naritai 这个形式是「想要成为」。合在一起是「我想变得更强」，这种情感在日本作品中表达的强烈程度，超过了我读过的任何西方文学。你可能在表达自己成为职业围棋手的决心时说它——或者在输掉一场重要比赛之后，但你还没有放弃——或者在赢得一场重要比赛之后，但你还不是九段棋手——或者在你成为有史以来最伟大的围棋手之后，但你仍然认为自己可以做得更好。这就是 tsuyoku naritai，超越自我的意志。
每年赎罪日，一位正统犹太人会念诵一段以 Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu, dibarnu dofi 开头的祷文连篇，并贯穿整个希伯来字母表：我们行事可耻，我们背叛，我们偷窃，我们诽谤……
每念一个词，你就捶打自己的胸口以示悔过。并没有这样的豁免：如果你设法整年都没有偷窃，你就可以跳过 gazalnu 这个词，少捶自己一次。那样会违背赎罪日的社群精神，因为赎罪日是关于忏悔罪孽的——而非避免罪孽，以便少一些可以忏悔的东西。
同样地，《忏悔祷文》并没有以这样的话结尾：「但那是今年，明年我会做得更好。」
《忏悔祷文》与这样一种观念有着惊人的相似之处：理性之道，就是捶打自己的胸口，说：「我们都有偏见，我们都是非理性的，我们信息不充分，我们过度自信，我们校准失准……」
很好。现在告诉我，你打算如何变得更少有偏见，更少非理性，更多知情，更少过度自信，更好地校准。
有一个古老的犹太笑话：赎罪日期间，拉比突然被一阵愧疚情绪袭倒，俯伏在地哭道：「神啊，在您面前我什么都不是！」领唱同样被愧疚情绪袭倒，哭道：「神啊，在您面前我什么都不是！」见此情形，会堂后面的看门人俯伏在地哭道：「神啊，在您面前我什么都不是！」于是拉比用肘子碰碰领唱，低声说：「瞧瞧，谁也以为自己什么都不是。」
不要为你也承认自己有偏见而沾沾自喜；不要以你对自身缺陷的自我意识为荣。这类似于不以承认自己无知为荣的原则；因为如果你的无知是你的骄傲之源，当证据敲门时，你可能会变得不愿放弃你的无知。我们的缺陷亦然——我们不应为自己承认缺陷而显得多么有自我意识而洋洋得意；值得欢欣的时刻，是当我们少了一点可以忏悔的东西的时候。
否则，当有人带着一个纠正偏见的方案来找我们时，我们就会厉声质问：「你以为你能凌驾于我们之上？」我们会悲哀地摇着头说：「你大概还不太有自我意识。」
永远不要向我承认你和我一样有缺陷，除非你能告诉我你打算对此做些什么。之后你仍然会有大量缺陷，但那不是重点；重要的是做得更好，持续向前迈进，再向前走一步。强くなりたい！