"Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Roadside Picnic (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

that instinctual behavior is always purposeful and natural. A million years
from now our instinct will have matured and we will stop making the mistakes
that are probably integral to reason. And then, if something should change
in the universe, we will all become extinct--precisely because we will have
forgotten how to make mistakes, that is, to try various approaches not
stipulated by an inflexible program of permitted alternatives."
"Somehow you make it all sound demeaning."
"All right, how about another definition--a very lofty and noble one.
Reason is the ability to use the forces of the environment without
destroying that environment." Noonan grimaced and shook his head.
"No, that's not about us. How about this: 'man, as opposed to animals,
is a creature with an undefinable need for knowledge'? I read that
somewhere."
"So have I," said Valentine. "But the whole problem with that is that
the average man--the one you have in mind when you talk about 'us' and 'not
us'--very easily manages to overcome this need for knowledge. I don't
believe that need even exists. There is a need to understand, and you don't
need knowledge for that. The hypothesis of God, for instance, gives an
incomparably absolute opportunity to understand everything and know
absolutely nothing. Give man an extremely simplified system of the world and
explain every phenomenon away on the basis of that system. An approach like
that doesn't require any knowledge. Just a few memorized formulas pins
so-called intuition and so-called common sense."
"Hold on," Noonan said. He finished his beer and set the mug noisily on
the table. "Don't get off the track. Let's get back to the subject on hand.
Man meets an extraterrestrial creature. How do they find out that they are
both rational creatures?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," Valentine said with great pleasure.
"Everything I've read on the subject comes down to a vicious circle. If
they are capable of making contact, then they are rational. And vice versa;
if they are rational, they are capable of contact. And in general: if an
extraterrestrial creature has the honor of possessing human psychology, then
it is rational. Like that."
"There you go. And I thought you boys had it all laid out in neat
cubbyholes."
"A monkey can put things into cubbyholes," Valentine replied.
"No, wait a minute." For some reason, Noonan felt cheated. "If you
don't know simple things like that.... All right, the hell with reason.
Obviously, it's a real quagmire. OK. But what about the Visitation? What do
you think about the Visitation?"
"My pleasure. Imagine a picnic."
Noonan shuddered.
"What did you say?"
"A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car drives off
the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out of the car
carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They
light Fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The
animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night
creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Gas and oil
spilled on the grass. Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around. Rags,