雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第5章:解謎接力賽(114)

He was currently reading a new book by Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker.

他現在正在讀多羅西·塞耶斯寫的《上帝之心》。

It was not his usual taste in reading,

這不是他通常的閱讀愛好。

this being Sayers' attempt to interpret the Christian doctrine of divine creation through her own experience as a novelist,

這本書是塞耶斯的一次嘗試，通過小說的形式來詮釋基督教義。

but he would have enjoyed the challenge of her sophisticated attitude to free will, which she saw from God's point of view,

她從上帝的角度來看待自由意識，

in the light of her knowledge that fictional characters had to find their own integrity and unpredictability, and were not determined by a master plan at the outset.

小說裏的角色必須依靠自己來擺脫命運的束縛。

One image which caught Alan's fancy was that of Laplacian determinism suggesting that 'God,

這讓艾倫覺得十分有趣，他想到一個場景，拉普拉斯的決定論表明，

having created his Universe, has now screwed the cap on His pen, put His feet on the mantelpiece and left the work to get on with itself.'

上帝創造完宇宙之後，便擰上鋼筆的蓋子，把腳搭在壁爐上，看着他的傑作自生自滅。

This was not so new, but it must have made striking reading while the Bombes ticked away,

這並不是那麼新鮮，但是當炸彈機咔咔運轉的時候，。

getting on with the work by themselves—and while the Wrens did their appointed tasks, without knowing what any of it was for.

閱讀一點小說，是一種愉快的調劑

He was fascinated by the fact that people could be taking part in something clever, in a quite mindless way.

艾倫感興趣的是，人們有時可以不加思索地做出一些聰明的事情。