人生最黑暗時期 - 2013

慌

經濟重心東移 香港「百毒不侵」

近日環球金融市場風高浪急，十分凶險。歐洲國家債務問題纏擾不休，意大利遭評級機構下調主權評級，希臘失業率高達16%，美國總統奧巴馬更高調宣布向富有人士和大企業加稅，以支援其總值4,000億美元（按：約3萬多億港元）的刺激就業方案。負面消息一個接一個，使本港市場亦人心虛怯。上月統計處公布本港經濟數據，第二季出口表現受外圍拖累，以致經濟增長只有5.1%。翌日即有大型銀行的經濟師分析指本港技術上已進入衰退，甚至有滯脹風險。

通脹續升溫 滯脹暫不可能

香港通脹繼續升溫不是新聞，但說會出現滯脹則不大可能。當大家注視着第二季增長放緩時，似乎沒有人留意首季經濟增長由初步的7.2%向上修訂為7.5%（見圖一）。2010年首季增長已高達8%，因此本年首季增長絕非源於基數效應。更重要的是私人消費實質增長持續加快，第二季更達9.2%。零售銷售數據亦與這個數字互相呼應︰7月零售額按年上升29%——增幅之大可能令人以為這是中國內地而非本港數據。

另一方面，固定投資亦表現優秀，第二季投資增長8.1%。現時香港接近全民就業，工資與租金上漲壓力高企，增加人手或空間（寫字樓或舖位）的成本太高，企業要擴大規模只能倚賴增加設備、電腦和培訓等以提升員工生產力，加上隨着各項基建持續上馬，私人和政府的資本開支只會有增無減。私人消費與固定投資佔本地生產總值近九成（按︰過去20年平均值），在這兩個部分的帶動下，縱使外圍經濟風起雲湧，要香港出現經濟衰退相信十分困難。

這一切一切，其實都在描述着一齣正在上演的電影：在全球經濟周期性放緩的氛圍下，香港作為一個開放經濟，很難說完全「獨善其身」，但這環球周期性放緩卻被香港的結構性高增長所抵銷。筆者認為，在全球經濟重心西向東移的大趨勢下，香港看似「百毒不侵」只是整齣電影的一個章節。

2008至2009年環球金融危機期間，投資推廣署協助進駐企業的數目仍然節節上升（見圖二）；單是今年上半年，海外到港公司近200間，已是去年總數七成。投資推廣署預期，今年成績勢將「更勝去年」。

歐美債務隨身 東方資金充裕

事實上，經濟重心東移不是一件新鮮的事。隨着新興市場如金磚四國等崛起，東方經濟為全球經濟帶來愈來愈大的增長動力，聯合國的世界投資報告亦顯示，2010年發展中經濟佔全球境外直接投資比重首次超越發達經濟體（見圖三）。金融海嘯只是加快了這個東移過程︰由於西方國家過去半世紀過度借貸以支持他們的消費模式，不斷把債務延續（roll over）。但正如筆者初出道時的上司，當時的亞洲投行界首席分析員說：「債務永遠隨身（Debt never goes away）。」

今時今日，歐美各國被迫推行緊縮政策，大幅削減福利開支，加稅甚至以倍數增加大學學費，以致公務員罷工、市民暴動，一切都源於這種不顧後果的借貸。無怪乎債券大王格羅斯最近亦撰文指「債務是邪惡的（Debt is evil）」。相比之下，東方經濟不但負債輕微，而且儲蓄率高，現金充裕，使得跨國企業亦愈來愈注視東方（特別是中國）市場流動性和龐大的潛在購買力。

這種全球經濟的重新洗牌對香港的影響極之深遠︰且看世界最大的化工企業巴斯夫（BASF）選擇繼續把亞太區總部設在香港——即使香港沒有化工廠；最大零售商沃爾瑪（Walmart）在香港設立新的亞洲總部、名列「財富500」（Fortune 500）第四位（2010）的通用電氣（General Electric）亦在本港設立「全球增長及營運總部」，最近甚至有傳連法拉利（Ferrari）也希望在港上市。

商業世界內流動可以產生更多流動（Flows beget flows），以剛在港上市集資的奢侈品牌Prada為例：其實香港根本不是最多Prada最終消費者（end users）的地方，Prada關注的，明顯是中國內地的市場。但香港偏偏就有這個優勢：內地人深信在香港買到正貨手袋的機會遠比在內地城市高，所以才使尖沙咀的旗艦店門庭若市。亦因此，當Prada選擇集資市場，也是香港而非上海。

「流動產生流動」 造就港經濟

這正正造就了香港經濟最強的一環︰服務業輸出。服務業輸出不像貨品貿易，這邊廂把貨品造好隨即入箱上船，那邊廂即拿着客人的信用證提款。服務業輸出基本上就是「進口客人」﹕世界各地遊客不遠千里到香港消費，使用我們的服務，經濟得以蓬勃發展。

以Prada為例，製造手袋的生產綫不在香港，使用手袋的消費者亦（大部分）不是香港人——但偏偏，幫整間企業上市的投資銀行卻在香港，投資銀行家的花紅固然十分可觀；整條生產綫中利潤最深的零售部門又在香港，推銷員的收入亦水漲船高；甚至替顧客把「戰利品」捧回酒店的服務員以及開的士的司機也一併受惠。這一切都歸功於我們世界一流的服務水平。

結果，原本市場預期Prada的股價會比路易．威登（LV）低，最後Prada在香港的股價表現遠比LV出色。不難想像，作為Prada的主要競爭對手，假如LV選擇要在亞洲集資，也非香港莫屬。再想深一層，假如Prada和LV都在港上市，其他國際奢侈品牌會怎樣做？又想想，假如連國際一綫企業如沃爾瑪和通用電氣都把總部遷至香港，市值規模比他們小的公司又會否跟隨？這就是所謂的「流動產生流動」。

香港的服務業如此密集（佔本地產值93%），在全球經濟重心西向東移的大趨勢下，只要我們願意在這幾年努力鎖緊這些機遇，香港要經濟繁榮和社會穩定，甚至超越倫敦，追趕紐約，成為真正的國際金融中心，指日可待。

（系列之四）

（香港黃金五十社區研討會︰www.hkgolden50.org）

撰文:林奮強 香港黃金五十創辦人
系列名:香港黃金50年系列

Steve Jobs - shadow never fade out

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

新加坡的公屋

新加坡的組屋計劃值得參考，很少其他的公共政策效果這樣好，它較為容易推行，又可以解開內地問題的死結。

新加坡脫離馬來亞獨立後早期，首先採用的一項行動是在1966年通過《土地徵用法案》（Land Acquisition Act） ，授權政府以公眾利益理由收地，不論市價和業主的買入價如何，一律立法規定對業主的補償，原以高於法定價格買入的物業只能蝕本賣給政府，有些物業由政府接受後，業主仍要清償買地貸款的餘額。此舉抹殺了物業加租的機會，但在新加坡立國初期也穩定了社會。

這實際上是搞土改，推翻舊地權。將私有的土地國有化，然後透過公營房屋計劃，重新分配給佔人口八成的中下層；說白了，也就是用社會主義來重新分配房地產。但新加坡聰明的是，保留了資本主義的市場制度，將公營房屋變成私產，公開租售。

中國幅員廣闊，經濟規模龐大，不同地區的差別更大。如果全國各地都有公營房屋市場，人口也就可以視乎個人需要和各省市經濟的變化，無障礙地在全國範圍內流動。

可以讓住戶選擇租用或購買公營房屋單位，並且在住滿一段時間，例如五或十年後，在公開市場上自由放租或放售；租賣的限制和交易課稅可免則免，盡可能活化市場。

國家可考慮在公營房屋的發展成本和地價上，對所有住戶提供津貼，而由中央和地方分擔，單位餘下的成本由住戶自付，但租金或售價應定在大多數人可負擔的水平。中央、地方、住戶三方各自分擔多少，相信是最迫切的政策問題。

公營房屋的開發成本可透過銀行融資，待住戶購買單位申請按揭時，再回收部分。這些單位獲國家可觀的津貼，是銀行的優質資產，證券化後可出售給投資基金和保險公司；這反過來可以促進金融體系的成長和發展。

中國經濟若繼續向好，城市的地價會繼續上漲。物業是一家人最可靠的資產，各成員成家立室、退休養老、培育後代最重要的儲備。全國性的公營房屋計劃有助於壯大中產階級，透過後者來促進消費。正如上述，消費至今在經濟成長中只起到次要作用，大有發揮的餘地。

假以時日，公營房屋可望逐步取代至今仍然舉足輕重的機關和企業宿舍，形成全國性的本地房屋市場。

分配公正 成敗關鍵

讓廣大的中產階級擁有物業而「自重」，可以為城市的工業化形成穩定的政治環境。過去近一百五十年歐洲和北美的經驗，確實顯示城市在工業化過程中可能出現衝突，但當引入社會保險和保障，市場震盪對工人生計的衝擊減少，工業衝突就會消退。因此，公營房屋會成為迅速而有效地穩定社會的機制。

分配公營房屋是否公正，是計劃成敗的關鍵。由於津貼額大，界定受惠資格時如何取捨，執行時又是否公平，社會上必定有不同的意見。分配時不但要公平公正，而且要讓人民看到整個過程。處理得好可以大大增加政府的公信力，處理不善會激發民怨。公開抽簽是可行的方法之一。

新加坡用一個計劃統籌所有的公營房屋，香港則相反，公營房屋種類繁多；視乎時代和輿情，先後推出多種不同對象的計劃，有些要審查申請人的資產，有些不需要，但公營房屋整體來說缺少新加坡的氣魄。更重要的是，未能活化市場機制，讓住戶自由在市場上放租放售單位，以致四十年下來，計劃日漸僵化，與遽變的社會和經濟脫節。

新加坡組屋是社會主義的商品房制度，住戶以國民而自豪、以業主而自傲、以國家持份者自居，與社會的繁榮休戚與共。

不過，香港採用雙軌制，53％的人口住在資本主義的私人樓宇裏，餘下的47％入住中央計劃式的非市場房屋。這無形中將市民分化為有產與無產，製造社會問題，造成很多深層次矛盾。先後的各屆政府本着好心，想中下層市民得以安居，但忽略了政策長遠的後果，造成分化，弄巧反拙。

Chasing the dragon - Comparing India and China

Today’s chart uses a stopwatch to compare India’s progress in development against another pace-setter, China. The chart shows the number of years that have elapsed since China passed the development milestones that India has now reached. India’s income per head, for example, was about $3,200 in 2009 (holding purchasing power constant across time and between countries). China reached that level of development nine years ago. The lag in social progress is much longer. A child’s odds of surviving past their fifth birthday are as bad in India today as they were in China in the 1970s. Moreover, the chart does not necessarily imply that India in nine years’ time will be as rich as China is today. That is because China grew faster in the last nine years than India is likely to grow over the next nine. We stopped the clock at $3200 per head. But China did not stop racing ahead.

中國「香港化」 香江可越倫敦

我真的相信香港的好和可愛，亦真的情有獨鍾，真心希望中國「香港化」後，彼此都能在世界的舞台上發揮一個更積極的角色，當然，亦希望自己能在這個潮流中找到自己的一角。

香港實在是一個可愛的地方，但其實連香港人也不完全明白她的可愛之處。香港到底有多好？一個客觀的指標是看看有多少人願意在這個城市長住或持有物業。數據顯示，無論是香港人、內地人以至外國人，似乎都對這城市情有獨鍾。

港人北上生活早就不是甚麼新鮮事。根據最近一次中國大陸人口普查，有23萬香港人長駐內地（即一年在內地居住最少3個月以上，不包括出差、旅遊等）。若他們果真打算以內地為家，他們應該會將在港物業放售或交回政府，這加起來足夠香港8年的單位供應。

然而，過往任何時候香港市場也沒有如此多的供應，這反映長駐內地的港人仍然選擇持有手上單位，保留他們回港生活的權利，沒有放棄香港作為他們的「根」。

北上的港人不願放棄香港為根，南下的內地人和外國人亦不相伯仲。中原地產的數據指出，內地人每年在港淨買入（即買入減賣出）約一萬個單位，這反映出中港兩地自由流動下內地人一定選擇香港。另外，本港2006年中期人口普查發現，持有外國國籍的香港居民也接近12萬（圖一）。

筆者認為，香港的吸引力除了來自經濟誘因，也源於我們的價值觀和精神。香港長久以來賴以成功的自由社會、司法制度和公民素質，均是香港吸引世界各地人士來港定居的重要因素。

近年不少評論指香港倚賴中國大陸「接濟」，例如沙氏期間香港也是倚靠自由行帶動走出衰退。筆者卻認為香港人不應再妄自菲薄——香港並不是靠別人接濟，相反，是在市場壁壘倒下以後，內地人選用香港質素、安全有保證的貨品和服務——香港再一次在自由市場競爭中取得優勢，為經濟帶來盈餘。

非港「中國化」 實內地「香港化」

同樣道理，外界擔心香港隨着中港經濟融合而遭「中國化」，實屬杞人憂天。恰恰相反，香港素為中國的國際窗戶，開埠170年來一直對中國「輸出」普世價值和現代思想。

遠的不說，就舉兩個近期例子：內地最大流動電話商中國移動來港上市，籌得資金在內地開枝散葉、廣建網絡，才使中國大陸的通訊變得容易、普及，間接推動內地民間的溝通與意念（ideas）流動。

再者，內地市值最大的數間銀行也來港上市，盡管它們在內地有多大影響力，到來以後與所有在港的上市公司一樣，在資料披露、風險管理等方面仍是要跟從香港通行的國際標準。假如硬要談影響的話，看來說中國被「香港化」可能更貼近事實。

筆者長年從事研究分析工作，從來不會低估知識（knowledge）的力量。只要香港做好自己，在兩地自由相向流動的前提下，要影響內地價值文化並不困難。

管治文化滲內地 吸內企港上市

另一方面，香港（透過資本市場）將企業管治概念引進內地，使國內企業運作逐漸接近外國公司標準，自會引來更多希望拓展市場、與國際接軌的內地企業來港上市。商業世界內流動會帶來更多流動（flows beget flows），香港要超越倫敦成為國際金融中心絕非遙不可及。

港人不應該懼怕南來人士的數目，回歸以來，每日150個共50多萬單程證人士來港，盡管他們學歷普遍不高，也沒有動搖過香港的核心精神。現在欲來港定居的是十多萬各行各業的精英，我們更不用驚慌，因為他們亦將為我們香港帶來不少新機遇。

引用政府「輸入內地優才計劃」的研究結果，在這一波自1949年以來香港第一次接受的「優化移民潮」中，每一名來港定居的內地人能在港創造平均3.2份新工作。

以往不少人認為，香港不過是個大家埋頭苦幹、不理世事、只顧努力賺錢的小孤島，這想法未免太妄自菲薄——現在的香港不單只有人流物流資金流，更重要的是有價值和意念的流動。

棄門戶思維 發揚香港精神

港人必須明白，緊閉門戶絲毫無助於將香港精神發揚光大，潛移默化影響內地及世界；相反，我們更加應該讓兩地人才、資金自由流通，好讓內地企業和精英感受到香港賴以屹立經年不倒的價值系統。香港的精神面貌對內地的吸引力在近年內地狀元捨北大清華而取香港學府可見一斑。

此外，內地到港對比本港到內地旅客比例（圖二）從2000年的6%攀至2010年的28%，隨着中港進一步融合這比例將繼續上升，而將升至甚麼水平則取決於兩地的「滲透」有多容易。當中港兩地阻礙愈來愈少，這比例幾年後會屆50%，還是100%，抑或更大？

一國兩制阻機會南流 錯失14年

十四年前「一國兩制」沒有推動兩地市場融合（所謂「一國一市（場）」）使內地的機會無法南流，香港失去了14年的時光，現在不可一錯再錯，自由流動將成為中港未來經濟合作的重要議題。

過去香港在自由市場下與別的經濟競爭未逢敵手，現在面對南來的無限機遇，我們這一代要決定，香港——我們引以為傲的家——是否止步於此？還是重拾過往自強不息的奮發打拚精神、昂首闊步、邁步向前，由我們的80後接棒，寫下更光輝、更人性化的新一頁？

這是700萬香港人在黃金5年裏必須作出的關鍵抉擇。（系列之三）

（香港黃金五十社區研討會：www.hkgolden50.org）

撰文:林奮強 香港黃金五十創辦人
系列名:香港黃金50年系列

「0」的哲學和「2」的科學

"數學家羅伯特．卡普蘭（Robert Kaplan）寫有關「零」的書，中譯本取名《零的歷史》，譯自原書副題A Natural History of Zero，但正標題是The Nothing That Is，可能太難譯了，沒有譯出來，是指「有的無」（存在着的無），還是「無的有」（無的存在）？

先不說書名，此書確是奇書，探討了數字「０」的起源和發展，兼及其哲學。中國古代歷史上沒有「０」的概念，「算盤」上也沒有「０」算珠（只以空擋作代表）。「０」也不是來自西方，古希臘的幾何學沒有「０」。即使阿拉伯數字﹕123456789，最初也只有這麼九個，沒有「０」。那麼「０」是誰創造？一般認為，印度人創造「０」，阿拉伯人則將之廣為傳播。不過卡普蘭卻認為發明者，是距今約五千年前生活在美索不達米亞平原的蘇美爾人。可惜蘇美爾文化早已湮沒，現今只知「０」在古希臘遭到嘲弄，在古印度則過得安逸。

古希臘人懼怕「０」，因為「０」與其他數字大不相同。任何數字加上另一個，會變成新數字。１加１是２，２加２是４。但是０加０卻等於０，這違反了阿基米德公設的數學運算原則，０拒絕變大，也拒絕讓其他數字變大。２加０還是等於２，而減法運算也如是，２減０還是２。這種詭異性對數學產生威脅，「０」不但破壞數的加法及減法運算，也破壞數的乘法及除法，因為任何數與「０」乘除一概變成「０」（若把「０」當做被除數）。「０」的詭異性，令西方一度視之為魔鬼數字，加以禁用。「０」與西方哲學的基本信念相衝突，因為「０」包含着西方人害怕兩個危險概念：空無和無限。西方的魔鬼叫「撒旦」 （Satan）」，其字面意義正是「空無」。但在古印度「空無」卻佔有重要地位，《吠陀經》警句：「在最早期的諸神時代，存在由不存在而生。」《維摩詰經．不思議品》則說：「須彌納芥子，芥子納須彌」，用來比喻兩個大小極端，可以無窮小也可無限大，總之是包容萬物、相容相生。

「０」究竟是什麼？書名The Nothing That Is，筆者認為可譯為「真空妙有」，此說是佛家還是道家，頗有爭論，其實兩者都有，是東晉時道生開始用老莊思想闡釋佛學。佛家講空，道家講無，空不等於無，但都是從不同角度詮釋「０」，以「空」來說「不生不滅，不垢不淨，不增不減」﹔以「無」來講無始無終，有生於無。且「妙有」之「妙」，先見於易學的「神也者，妙萬物而為言者也」﹔再見諸老子的「常無欲以觀其妙」。當然，佛家的「空」，義理甚深，很難用語言文字表達，所謂「即空即用，即有即空」，也是妙說。" -岑逸飛

零確是奧秘，什有宗教哲學味道；相比之下，「2」就顯得更具人性和科學化:

2個人，比１個人好，１個人不太好，買不起樓，2個人可以互相幫補，應不致太蝕底。
2個人，凡事可以有商量，待人接物簡易真誠，不多作猜度計算，不會整天怨天怨地，應挺享受生活。
2個人，１個人+１個人是也，凡事有正必有負，有正便有邪，有美便有醜，2個人讓我們更容易在這個充滿對比的世界中找到平衡點。
2個人，生4個；4個人，生8個......萬事萬物繁盛的起始點在2個人。
2個人，在一起，可以手挽手去認識這個世界，我們愛2個人在一起。