夜更けにすまんね、わざわざ来てもらって。実はここ数日、ずっと頭を離れない問いがあるんだ。我々が絶対的だと信じて疑わない真理とは、所詮、人間の限られた認識能力が作り出した幻想に過ぎないのではないか、と。
Sorry to drag you out so late at night. The truth is, there's a question that hasn't left my head these past few days. Isn't the truth we believe beyond doubt to be absolute, after all, merely an illusion produced by the limited cognitive faculties of human beings?
それはまた古典的な、しかし避けては通れない問いね。確かに、いかなる高度な科学をもってしても、宇宙の深淵を完全に理解することには無理がある。けれども、だからといって全ての真理が相対的な虚無だと言い切るのも、極まりない飛躍ではないかしら。
That's the classical question — and yet one we cannot really sidestep. Certainly, even with the most advanced science, fully grasping the abyss of the universe is beyond us. But to declare, on those grounds, that all truth is a relative void — isn't that itself an extreme leap?
では、君にとっての真理とは一体何なのか聞かせてほしい。時代や文化の変遷とともに、正義や道徳の基準すらも絶えず揺れ動いているというのに。
Then I'd like to hear what truth is, to you. After all, even the standards of justice and morality keep shifting along with the transitions of eras and cultures.
永遠不変の実体など存在しないかもしれない。しかし、その不完全さを自覚しつつも、真の理解へと近づかんがため絶え間なく対話を続けるプロセスそのものにこそ、人間の尊厳があるのではないかしら。
It may well be that no eternally unchanging entity exists. And yet, while remaining aware of that imperfection, the very process of maintaining endless dialogue in an effort to draw nearer to true understanding — isn't that itself the seat of human dignity?
答えのない問いを問い続けること自体が、我々の存在証明だというわけか。なんとも骨の折れる作業だが、思考を放棄した精神は死んだも同然だからな。
So the act of continuing to ask questions that have no answer is itself the proof of our existence, you mean? It is painstaking work, no doubt — but a mind that has abandoned thought is as good as dead.