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关于意识,最令你夜不能寐的不安想法是什么?
What do you think is the most unsettling idea about consciousness that keeps you up at night?
我不会称之为不安,而是令人兴奋且神秘的。我有些痴迷于思考宇宙中所有这些无意识的物质——这个显然由无意识物质构成的宇宙——如何在某些情况下被配置成能从内部体验这些物质的存在状态,这个过程是如何发生的,它如何可能...让我回溯一下。实际上,沿着这个光谱跳跃会是什么体验?显然,生命体或系统能拥有的意识体验存在一个范围。从非常非常基础的体验开始,比如蜗牛如果有意识,那它的体验就极其有限——可能是压力、冷热感觉,或许还有些非常原始的饥饿感和向食物移动的欲望这类体验,一直到人类所能体验的所有复杂层面。
I wouldn't call it unsettling. I would call it exciting and mysterious, and I'm I'm a bit obsessed, thinking about how it is that all of this nonconscious matter in the universe, this this universe that is apparently made of all this nonconscious matter, in some instances gets configured in such a way that there's an experience of being that matter from the inside, and how that process takes place, how it could be let me go back. What it so what it's like actually to jump on that spectrum. So clearly, there's a range of conscious experiences that a living being or system can have. Some very, very minimal experiences, maybe, you know, if snails are conscious, there's very minimal experience of being a snail, maybe pressure, a sense of heat and cold, maybe some very rudimentary experience of hunger, a desire to move toward food, that that type of thing, then all the way up to to human beings and all the things that we experience.
但对我来说真正夜不能寐的问题是:从无意识到有意识的转变究竟是什么?这至今仍是个完全未解之谜。我与神经科学家合作超过二十年,研究意识科学,但我们在理解意识如何产生方面毫无进展。这个回答可能有点长了。
But the the question for me and the thing that that does keep me up at night, is what is that transition from no consciousness to consciousness, and how is that anything but a completely unexplained mystery. There doesn't seem to be anything. I've worked with neuroscientists for more than twenty years now and, studied the science of consciousness, and, you know, we we have not made any progress in the sciences in in understanding how consciousness comes to be. That was that was a long answer to your question.
为什么会这样?为何这个领域始终停滞不前?
Why why is that the case? Why has it been such a dead end?
我认为意识与科学以往研究的任何事物都有本质不同。菲利普·戈夫在《伽利略的错误》一书中阐释得很精彩:科学拥有研究外部行为的强大工具,但意识的独特之处——也是让我着迷失眠的原因——在于我们试图探究的是内在体验这种特殊属性。它只能从内部被感知。
I think it's a categorically different thing than anything else science has studied before. And, actually, Philip Goff has a wonderful book that that explains this very well called Galileo's Error. And it is because we have these fantastic tools in science for studying behavior from the outside. And the thing that's unique about consciousness and the why the the reason why I find it so fascinating and why it keeps me up at night is because it's a different property that we're trying to get at, which is experience from the inside. It can only be felt, from the from the inside.
比如你我作为相似的生命系统,共享许多相同体验,因此能通过语言交流。但语言沟通的有趣之处在于:它只在具有相似意识体验的系统间有效。试图向先天失聪者解释中央C音或其他任何声音时,纵有万般比喻,也无法传递他们从未有过的听觉体验。
So, you know, you and I are very similar beings. We're similar systems, and so we experience a lot of the same things, and we develop language so that we can, talk about those experiences. But what's interesting actually to me about communication and language is that it only works between systems that have similar conscious experiences. Because if you know, the only reason you and I can talk about anything or share ideas is because we share so much of the same conscious content. You know, if you try to explain to someone who's born deaf what, you know, middle c sounds like or any sound for that matter, there are a lot of analogies you can make, but there's no way you can actually deliver that experience of sound to someone who's never had it before.
因此确认他人有意识的唯一依据,是对方言谈中表现出与我的体验相似。但关键困境在于:除了亲身体验,我们无法获得意识体验的直接证据。虽然沟通能提供他人有意识的间接证据,但这与科学研究的其他领域截然不同。我在纪录片最后一章提到,未来科学方法的变革或许能部分解决这个问题。
And so to talk about it adequately and to be able to understand, you know, the way I understand that you are conscious is because you're saying things that lead me to believe you're experiencing very similar things to the things I'm experiencing. And so the trick is there is no way to get true evidence of a conscious experience but from the inside, but from having it yourself. And as I said, we have all these ways of communicating that that can give us, you know, a fair amount of non direct evidence that other systems besides ourselves are conscious, but we can't get direct evidence, and that's different from anything else that we study scientifically. I think there may be changes in in the last chapter of my documentary. I talk a little bit about how there might be changes to the science, in the future that might enable us to kind of get around this this issue.
但核心问题依然存在:意识只能从内部被认知。虽然记忆能让意识内容跨越时间——我们通过记忆获取过往体验的内容,但每个当下时刻的体验都是崭新的。
But, I mean, it is still a pretty solid issue that it is only from the inside that consciousness can be known, and then conscious content can be carried through time by memories, and so we kind of have access. It's always a different experience in a new moment, but we can have access to content from previous experiences through memory.
有人说过:若非亲身体验,宇宙不会给出任何意识存在的迹象。你认为这种说法有多准确?
I've heard people say before that if we didn't experience it, the universe would give us no indication that consciousness exists. How true do think that is?
确实。我的纪录片讨论的闭锁综合征就是明证:患者因中风或损伤导致全身瘫痪,但意识完全清醒。他们能听能看能思考,却丧失所有运动能力,更无法沟通。这种情况下,外界根本无法探知其内在的意识体验。
Yeah. I mean, you you know, that's even true on a more, on a more tangible level, which is that, in my in my documentary, I talk about locked in syndrome, which is a very terrifying circumstance. But that's a circumstance where, someone has had brain damage either due to a stroke or injury, where they become completely paralyzed, yet their conscious experience is is completely intact. So they can hear, they can see, they can think, but they literally have no form of any kind of movement, let alone communication. And so that's, a circumstance where there is no you can't get any clues about the conscious experience that's happening on the inside from the outside.
正是神经科学中这类特殊状况,最初促使我开始思考:是否存在某些我们完全陌生的系统,甚至可能在其中产生极其微弱的意识体验?就像我们无法判断一个闭锁综合征患者的意识状态一样,我们对这些系统也全然无知。
And, you know, what it's these types of conditions in neuroscience that started that started me down this path of wondering, is it possible there are other systems that are just so unfamiliar to us where con even, you know, very minimal conscious experiences are actually arising in those systems, we would have no way of knowing in the same way we have no way of knowing in a person who's in a locked in state.
神经科学中有哪些有趣的案例、实验或洞见,能揭示意识的反直觉本质?
What are some of the other interesting examples, experiments, insights from neuroscience that sort of reveal how, unintuitive consciousness is?
我认为绝大多数研究都是如此。这正是引导我深入探索的原因——通过与神经科学家长期共事并了解前沿研究,我发现当前对大脑的认知不断颠覆着我们的直觉。我常讨论启动效应(priming processes),神经科学家David Eagleman对此有大量精彩论述。
I would say most of them. And it's kind of, what led me down this path because I spent so much time working with neuroscientists and learning about, the the most recent research. And there are so many intuition shattering facts that come out of our current understanding of the brain. I talk a lot about priming processes. This is something that David Eagleman, the neuroscientist, writes a lot about and writes beautifully about.
实际上我推荐他的所有著作,在我的纪录片系列中也采访过他。抱歉刚才说启动效应是另一个例子,其实我想说的是绑定(binding)过程。
Actually, I recommend all of his books. And I speak to him in my in my documentary series. So, sorry. I said priming, which is also another example, but I meant I meant binding.
所以你被'启动'说成了启动效应。
So You were primed to say priming.
没错。启动效应确实比绑定更难理解。绑定过程是大脑整合外界各类感知信息的机制——比如弹钢琴时,你主观体验中按键动作、琴声和琴键下移是同步发生的。
Yeah. That's right. Priming actually is is less understood less well understood than binding, but binding processes, are the processes that the brain uses, and there are many different types, of bringing in different types of perceptions, different types of information from the outside, and then consolidating them into a present moment experience. So I'll give the example sometimes of playing the piano, or playing tennis where you can, be aware of the fact that use the example of piano. In your conscious experience, you feel that you push the key down in the same moment that you hear the note, in the same moment that you see the key go down.
但光波、声波和触觉信号以不同速度传播,抵达大脑的时间也不同,处理速度也各异。大脑通过潜意识处理最终营造出'同步发生'的错觉。神经科学家Anil Seth称之为'受控幻觉'——大脑通过构建这种进化优势的体验帮助我们导航世界,却遮蔽了底层现实。
But all of these signals, the light waves, the sound waves, the feeling of touch, these all move, through space at different speeds. They get to our brains at different times because they're different distances away, and then they get processed, in different speeds by, by the brain. And so we are left with this experience that all of this happens in one moment when there's actually all of this subconscious brain processing that's taking place, leading up to those moments. And then there are there are countless examples of ways that we feel the universe is structured because of the way we experience them, that when you look underneath the hood, you realize things are happening in a way that kind of give you this illusion. Actually, Anil Seth, the neuroscientist, uses the term controlled hallucinations to describe how the brain is mapping out the external world for us by giving by creating these conscious experiences that are extremely useful for navigating the world, and evolutionarily advantageous, of course, but that actually don't give us clear insight into the underlying reality.
或许我们本就不需要了解底层现实?只要能在环境中有效行动就够了。
Well, I guess we don't really need to know the underlying reality. Right? We just need to be effective within the environment.
确实。从进化角度来说当然如此。
Know it. Oh. But, yes, of course. Evolutionarily speaking. Yes.
适应才是关键。如果我们整天纠结树木的真实形态,恐怕什么事都做不成了。
Yeah. Adapt adaptively. If we spend all our time contemplating whether or not this is really the way that a tree looks, might not we might not have got as much done.
确实如此。绝对没错。而且,唐纳德·霍夫曼——不知道你是否与他交谈过——他提出了一个强有力的观点,认为进化实际上是为了向我们隐藏现实而服务的。
Well and yes. Absolutely. And, Donald Hoffman, I don't know if you've ever, spoken to him, but he makes a a very strong case, for the fact that evolution actually serves the purpose of hiding reality from us.
被没收了。对。
Confiscated. Yeah.
是的。好的。
Yes. Okay.
那么,如果我们从未如此受限于这种顺序处理和时间延迟调整,为了让事物感觉像是按顺序发生的,而其他事物则以某种方式被重新排列,以帮助我们感觉它们正在连贯地发生。如果是这样,那么说‘活在当下’这句话意味着什么?
So if we don't ever so binding is this sequential processing and time delay adjustment in order to be able to make things feel to us like they're happening in sequence and that other other things get moved around in a way that helps us to feel them happening Yes. Cohesively. If that's the case, what what does it mean to say live in the present moment as a sentence?
是的。嗯,你知道,这显然是一个来自冥想训练以及幸福科学的术语。我真的认为在大多数情况下,它指的是我们的意识体验。因此,存在一个当下的意识体验,无论我们对底层现实有多么的错觉。你知道,我们唯一可以确定的就是我们正在经历的体验。
Yeah. Well, that, you know, that's obviously a term from, meditation training and also, you know, this this kind of science of well-being. And I really think that in most cases is referring to our conscious experience. And so there is a present moment conscious experience, however delusional we are about the underlying reality. You know, the only thing actually we all can know for sure is the experience that we're having.
所以,无论情况如何,如果我是一个缸中之脑,或者处于其他我无法想象的情况下,触摸这张桌子的感觉,那种触感,是宇宙中正在升起的一种真实体验。因此,你可以完全沉浸在你的当下体验中,而对底层现实一无所知。我的意思是,即使是视觉这样的东西,比如我看到蓝色,即使我现在了解科学,我通常也不会想到世界上实际上并没有蓝色。对吧?是这些光波进入视网膜,被大脑处理,然后这种看到蓝色的体验才得以显现。
So, you know, whatever the circumstances happen to be, if I'm a brain in a vat or, you know, under some other circumstance I can't imagine, it is still true that whatever, you know, it feels like to touch this table, that feeling of touch is a felt experience that is arising in the universe. And so you can be with your present moment experience being completely, you know, oblivious to to the underlying reality. I mean, even if you, look at something like sight, you know, if I see the color blue, you know, even now that I'm science I'm aware of the science, I don't usually think about the fact that there isn't actually blue out there in the world. Right? There are these light waves that enter the retina and get processed by the brain, and then this experience of seeing blue is kind of materializing.
那是一种真实的体验。那是宇宙中真实发生的事情,但这种体验给了我一种印象,认为宇宙中存在着蓝色。所以,是这种印象不正确。
That is a real experience. That's a real thing that happens in the universe, but the experience gives me the impression that there is blue out in the universe. And so that it's that impression that that's not right.
如果说意识似乎在我们的头部,那么说意识在我们的眼睛后面是否正确?对吧?我们的眼睛是我们大脑的一部分,在胚胎发育过程中从颅骨前部突出。你顺着眼睛回溯,它就在这里。对吧?
Is it right to say that consciousness is behind our eyes if if it seems like it's in our head? Right? And our eyes are a bit of our brain that gets extruded out through the front of our skull during, gestation. You follow the eyes back, and then it's in here. Right?
在这里的某个地方。
Somewhere in here.
嗯,我们不知道,显然,你知道,盲人虽然看不见,但也有意识。对我们大多数人来说,确实感觉意识是在这个区域。这里是所有外界输入的汇聚处,它们都被大脑处理,通过神经系统与大脑相连,所以我们有这种感觉是合理的。
Well, we don't know, and we don't know, I mean, obviously, you know, people who are blind have consciousness without being able to see. It does, certainly to most of us feel like our consciousness is is in this area. It's where it's where all of the inputs from the outside world are coming. They're all getting processed by the brain. They're all linked up through the nervous system to the brain, and so it makes sense that that's what we feel.
因此,我们之所以有一种坚实自我和‘我’的感觉,部分是通过那些在时间线上相互关联、串联的记忆流。可能存在我经历过却未记住的体验,但我们无法区分是确实未曾经历还是仅仅遗忘了。如果我的系统内还有其他体验正在发生——比如肝脏处理或其他身体内部从未进入意识流的处理过程——我的结论是它们不属于意识范畴。但我们无从知晓,我们只知道那些进入记忆流并能被述说的部分。
And so part of the way we have a sense of being kind of a solid self and I, is through the stream of memories that are connected, that are threaded through time. There could be an experience I have that I don't remember, but we don't know the difference between there not being an experience that was had at all or just not remembering it. And so if there are other experiences happening in my system, you know, if there are some experiences of liver processing or, you know, other other types of processing that happen in my body that never enter this stream of awareness, my conclusion is that they're not conscious. But we just don't know. We only know what enters the stream of memory and then what can be reported on.
这里我常提及——在纪录片系列中也深入探讨过——关于裂脑病人的研究,因为它为我的观点提供了现实例证。胼胝体切断术这种现已罕见的手术,过去用于治疗癫痫患者,尤其是当癫痫发作从大脑一侧扩散至另一侧导致生命危险时。通过切断大脑左右半球的连接,研究者发现可以单独探测右半球(多数人的非语言半球)——如果你对这项研究感兴趣的话。最惊人的发现是,当医生询问患者'你最喜欢的颜色'时,控制语言的左半球会回答'蓝色',而用左手书写(受右半球控制)时答案往往不同。
This is where I often talk about, and I I get into this, in the documentary series as well, the work on split brain patients because this is a very real world example of a suggestion of what I'm talking about, which is that there's, a surgical procedure called called a callosotomy that is not performed very often anymore, but was used to be used as a treatment for epilepsy for people, whose lives were severely disrupted by seizures. Grand And when the seizure spreads from one side of the brain to the other, that's, you know, a much more serious condition, and people can get injured and fall and and die from from this condition. So sometimes they would perform a calisotomy, which actually splits the connections between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. I don't know how much you you want me to go into this research or if you're familiar with it. But one fascinating thing about this research is that they, were able to find a way to probe and interrogate the right hemisphere of the brain, which is in most people, not all people, but in most people, the non speaking side of the brain.
左半球负责语言功能。研究中当医生提问时,比如观点类问题'你最喜欢的颜色',只有左半球会通过语言回答'蓝色'。后来研究者发现右半球可能有不同体验——因为右半球控制左手动作。当要求患者用左手书写答案时,结果常常截然不同。
So it's the left hemisphere that's verbal. And so, you know, when these patients were being studied, the doctor would ask them a question and they would answer, you know, if it was an opinion related question, what's your favorite color? Only the left hemisphere was answering because the left hemisphere is in control of the speech. And so they might say blue, but if they then they realized that something interesting was going on and that perhaps the right hemisphere was having a different experience, the right hemisphere is is controlled by the left hand. And so they would ask the person the same question and have them write the answer with their left hand, and often the answer would be different.
后续有一系列精彩研究(纪录片中引用过许多,注释里都有记载),展示用这种方法'审问'患者的实验。最震撼的启示是:同一个身体里,可能同时存在能交流的人类心智和完全无法沟通的人类心智。
And then there's a series of fascinating studies that were done that you can look up. I I I refer to many of them in my documentary series, and they're all in notes for the documentary. So you can look at patients being interrogated in this way. It's incredibly fascinating. But the takeaway there, at least for me, is it's possible to even have a human like mind that has no ability to communicate inside the same body of a mind that is able to communicate.
对吧?这证明在一个生命系统中,意识可以被分割成不同体验——有些可被表述,有些不能。当我深入这项研究并敢于提出这个曾被神经科学界视为禁忌的问题时,我意识到:这不仅是合理的科学命题,更是至关重要的——比我们假设简单得多的系统中,是否存在意识?
Right? And so we already know of an example where consciousness, in one living system can be split in that way, such that they're having there are different conscious experiences arising, and some can be reported on and some can't. And so the question for me is, you know, once I got really deep into this research and deep into once I accepted the fact that I was actually willing to ask this question, which was very taboo for a long time and not something, that neuroscientists, were really open to discussing, you know, ten, twenty years ago. But once I kind of allowed myself to go down this path and realized that, you know, not only is this a legitimate scientific question, but I think it's a really important scientific question. Is there consciousness, in in other systems and much simpler systems than than we've assumed?
若真如此,我的大脑和体内可能正发生着无数我无法觉察、无法言说的意识体验,它们生灭不息。
And if so, it's possible that there are all kinds of conscious experiences happening within my brain and body, that I'm not aware of, that I can't report on, but that are, you know, arising and passing away all the time.
这非常反直觉,因为没有比
It is very counterintuitive because there's nothing more
确实
real Very.
嗯,没有比
Well, there's nothing more real
这更真实的了。我说这些可能听起来很疯狂。
to me than this. Sound crazy when I say these things.
有一点。是的。但对我或任何倾听者来说,没有什么比'自我存在'的感觉更真实的了。懂吗?当然。
A little. Yeah. But there's nothing more real to me or anybody that's listening than the sense of being me. You know? Sure.
这个'是'。
The Yes.
某种程度上,我思故我在。我是缸中之脑吗?至少我知道我是这个存在。你他妈见鬼去吧。连这个也不复存在了吗?
Sort of, I think, therefore, I am. Am I a brain in a vat? Well, at least I know that I am this thing. You go to fucking hell. Is that gone as well?
甚至不确定我是否真是这个存在。而且它——
Like, I don't even know if I am this thing. And it is
你...可以说你知道这些感受正在发生。你正体验着...那些远不够性感的经历。
You I you could say you know these feelings are happening. You are feeling So much less sexy experiences are happening.
可惜这句话确实不够性感。没错。如果裂脑研究暗示我们存在多重意识,那么单一自我的概念就站不住脚了。
Less sexy sentence, though, unfortunately. Yeah. That's true. And, yeah, if, you know, if if split brain studies suggest that we've got multiple consciousnesses, the idea of a single self ends up being pretty broken.
是的。要知道,这种情况仅出现在裂脑患者身上,而这类大脑结构非常特殊。
Yes. I mean, you know, we only know that that's true in a split brain patient, which is a very unusual type of brain to have.
但若从时间维度看,现在的你与十年前的你已非同一人,尽管...
But if you were to do it temporally, right, like, you're not the same person that you were ten years ago, even though
或者此刻的你与我们开始对话时的你也已不同。这才是本质所在。
you Or you're not the same person now than you were when we started this conversation. That's what it really comes down to.
对。我想到的是人类意识体验存在程度差异——比如爱比无聊更具意识感,心碎或悲伤在某种程度上比放松更强烈。
Yeah. So one thing that I had in my head was some states of human conscious experience feel more or less than others. It's like love feels more conscious than boredom, let's say. Okay. Heartbreak or grief feels more conscious than relaxation in some ways.
是说这是一种更强烈或更鲜活的意识体验吗?
Say it's a stronger or or more vivid conscious experience?
你会说更有意识。我、我只是不确定是否与我们被迫关注当下事物的程度及其强度有关?确实。
You'd say more conscious. I I I just I don't know whether there is something about how much our attention is forced to attend to the thing that's going on and the kind of volume of it? Sure.
哦,绝对是的。对。对。
Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yes.
我、我不知道。但这个问题
I I don't know. But the the question
在于不该用意识本身
is wouldn't talk about it as the consciousness being
变得不那么有意识来讨论?
less conscious?
我不这么认为。我觉得这种思考方式不对。
I don't think so. I don't think that's the right way to think about it.
这很有意思。
That's interesting.
我认为被体验的内容物可以更具冲击力、更强烈、更鲜明。但意识就是意识——只要正在被体验,那就是意识。嗯...我也说不清。
I think the contents, the things that are being experienced can be more powerful, can be stronger, can be more vivid. But I think consciousness is consciousness. What if it's being experienced, that's consciousness. Mhmm. And I don't know.
我的意思是,你知道,很多人会反对我的观点,甚至包括那些研究意识本质的同行。我曾写过几篇文章阐述为何那种特定视角站不住脚。不过,我倾向于认为尽管体验内容有光谱差异,但意识本身是二元的——要么存在,要么不存在。
I mean, you know, a lot of people would disagree with me, even people who are kind of in this world of wondering consciousness, goes deeper in nature. I've I've written a couple of articles on this subject of why I think, that particular way of seeing things doesn't really make sense. But, yeah, I I I tend to think of consciousness as even though there's a spectrum of content, consciousness itself is really binary. It's either there or it's not.
本期节目由Nomadic赞助播出。旅行本应关乎旅程,而非打包的混乱,这就是我选择与Nomadic合作的原因。他们的背包和Carry On Pro真的让旅行过程变得近乎享受。它们为每件物品设计了专属隔层——笔记本电脑、鞋子、太阳镜,整理得如此井井有条,连你的牙刷都会觉得自己很重要。
This episode is brought to you by Nomadic. Traveling should be about the journey, not the chaos of packing, which is why I've partnered with Nomadic. Their backpack and Carry On Pro have genuinely made the travel process almost enjoyable. They've got compartments for everything, your laptop, your shoes, your sunglasses. So well organized that even your toothbrush will feel important.
这就像行李界的近藤麻理惠,每样东西都有其归属。如果你还在犹豫,他们的产品提供终身质保,真的能用一辈子,而且三十天内无理由退换。你可以买新包试用一个月,不满意直接退款。通过下方描述中的链接或访问nomadic.com/modernwisdom,还能享受8折优惠,查看我所有使用推荐的产品。
It's like the Marie Kondo of luggage. Everything has its place. And if you're still on the fence, their products will last you literally a lifetime with a lifetime guarantee, and you can return or exchange anything within thirty days for any reason. So you can buy your new bag, try it for a month, and if you don't like it, I'll just give you your money back. And you can get a 20% discount and see everything that I use and recommend by going to the link in the description below or heading to nomadic.com/modernwisdom.
网址是nomadic.com/modernwisdom。这里有个有趣的问题:意识的最低限度是多少?再削弱一步就会导致意识不复存在的那种临界点?
That's nomadic.com/modernwisdom. So there's an interesting question there, which is what is the lowest possible amount of consciousness that you can have before one step of consciousness eroding would mean the consciousness no longer exists?
这正是让我夜不能寐的问题。完全没错。
This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. Exactly.
是啊,细思极恐。假设存在意识的奥弗顿之窗,我们会自问:好吧,那意识的最大值是多少?既然我们认为从蝙蝠到花朵之间存在渐变光谱...
Yeah. Scary. I suppose there's, you know, if we've got this Overton window of consciousness, you would ask yourself, okay. Well, what's the maximum amount of consciousness? Because there's no reason to assume if we think that there's a gradation, right, between a bat or a flower.
我不认为意识存在渐变。我觉得渐变的是体验内容的形式。即便想象中最微弱的体验——比如只有持续低鸣声而别无他物...
Yeah. I just don't think there's a gradation of consciousness. I think there's a gradation of content, the types of things that are experienced. I think even the most minimal experience we could imagine, you know, just a a low humming noise and nothing else. Yeah.
我不会说这比我现在体验到的意识更少,只能说内容更贫乏。
I wouldn't say that's less consciousness than what I'm experiencing now. I would say that's less content.
好吧。但如果是变形虫、蝙蝠、花朵、菌丝网络、蓝海豚或人类处于那个意识水平...你会说意识的范围更广吗?不。
Okay. But if you were an amoeba and you have that level or a bat or a flower or a mycelium network or Yep. A blue dolphin or us Yes. Would you say that the range of consciousness is greater? No.
明白了。所以整体而言...哦这很有趣。即便只讨论内容的话...
Okay. So across the board. Oh, that's interesting. Well, even then, if we're just talking about contents, then
没错。
Yeah.
我们的意识能够体验更深、更广或任何维度的能力,或者至少能让我们探测到更多信号——没有理由认为我们就是这种能力的上限。
The ability for our consciousness to experience more more depth, more breadth, or whatever, or at least for us to be able to detect more signal, let's say, there's no reason to assume that we are the the ceiling of that.
噢,不。绝对不是。我认为很可能存在比我们所经历的更为复杂的事物。我得出这个结论的部分原因,还来自神经科学的另一个领域,它或多或少证明了我们拥有的这种自我感是一种幻觉。
Oh, no. Absolutely not. No. I I think there are, you know, likely more complex things to be experienced than the things we experience. I also you know, part of why I've come to this conclusion is because of, another area of neuroscience, which, you know, more or less proves that this feeling of being a self that we have is is an illusion.
我可以进一步解释这一点。但你刚才提到海豚或人类时,仿佛它们是拥有体验的实体?我认为更准确的思考方式是:意识体验发生在宇宙中。因此,任何特定意识体验的发生都需要许多条件配合。我不认为应该把'作为人类的我'想象成头脑中某个固定不变的自我主体在接收这些意识体验。实际上是宇宙演化的过程中(其机制我们尚未或可能永远无法理解)配置了这些系统,从而引发了特定体验的产生。
And I can I can explain more about that, but but the way you just referenced, you know, a dolphin or a human or as if that's a solid entity that has experiences? The the way I I think is a more accurate way to think of it is, that conscious experiences take place in the universe. And so, you know, a a lot of things have to happen, for any particular conscious experience to take place. I don't think it's accurate to think of, me as a human, as some kind of solid self somewhere here inside my head that these conscious experiences happen too. It's that there are these systems that get configured by the unfolding of the universe, however that happens that we don't yet understand or may never understand, that cause certain experiences to arise.
有些体验极其复杂,有些则非常简单,但不存在任何形式的、作为体验载体的、穿越时间的恒定自我。我最近常用一个比喻:自我体验——实际上所有心智体验——更像是海浪。我们称海浪为'波浪',把它当作实体来讨论。在某种程度上我们可以指向海浪,分析它的动态特性。
And some are incredibly complex and some are very simple, but there's no self that moves through time that is the vehicle of those experiences any form. So, an example I've been giving lately is the experience of self is more and the experience of human mind, and any mind really, is analogous to an ocean wave. So we call an ocean wave a wave, and we use that term and we talk about it like it's a thing. And in many senses, we can point to an ocean wave. We can talk about the dynamics of an ocean wave.
关于海浪我们可以描述很多,但我们都本能地明白:海浪不是穿越时间的静态实体,而是自然界中的动态过程。人脑也是如此,它始终处于电信号传递的持续舞蹈中,更像海浪而非静止物体。而我们这种认为自己具有恒定不变本质、从一刻延续到下一刻的体验,正是自我幻觉的实质。
There are lots of things we can say about it. But we all understand intuitively that an ocean wave is not a thing, a static thing that moves through time. It is a die it's a dynamic process in nature. And so the human brain is just a constant dance of electrical firing, much more like an ocean wave than a static thing. And so this experience we have of being something that's static and kind of unchanging at its core, moving from one moment to the next, is what the illusion of self entails.
而我们未能意识到它更像是一个不断演变、变化的海浪过程。它从未静止,也从未固定不变。正如我所说,现在的你已经是一个与对话开始时不同的系统。这并不意味着我们不能用一个词来描述它,但由于我们体验世界的方式,我们对它的理解往往错误地将其视为世界中稳固的实体,而非随时间展开的动态过程。
And we fail to see that it's much more like an ocean wave where it's an ever evolving, changing process. It never sits still. It never, is one thing. As I said, you're different you're a different, you know, system now than you were when we started this conversation. And so that doesn't mean we can't have a word for it, but the way we think about it because of the way we experience the world, I think, gives us a false sense of there being these solid entities in the world rather than, dynamic processes unfolding over time.
我听过一些理论认为意识可能只是大脑的一种故障,而非本质特征,或者像能量效率的副产品,就像灯会发出光和热一样。当谈到更具适应性的解释时,是否仅仅是我们能够模拟邓巴数150部落成员的想法,我需要知道安妮卡和约翰不再是朋友,而约翰和乔现在成了朋友。对此你怎么看?
I've heard some theories that consciousness might just be a a malfunction of the brain rather than an essential feature, or, like, it could be just a side effect of energy efficiency in the same way that a light gives off heat and light and you to look at it and say, when it comes to the more sort of adaptive explanation Yeah. Is it is it just us being able to model the thoughts of our Dunbar number 150 tribe, and I need to to know Yeah. That Annika and John are no longer friends, but that John and Joe actually have become friends now. Yeah. What's your
不,我认为这是一个错误的假设。这是一种非常强烈的直觉,我一生中乃至与科学家共事的大部分职业生涯中都持有这种直觉。但这要回溯到你最初的一个问题:神经科学如何让我开始质疑意识是否在自然中更为深层?我们强烈直觉认为意识具有因果性,它在发挥作用,它进化了——我们相信它进化的原因是因为我们认为它影响行为。
No. So I think this is really a false assumption. It's a very strong intuition, you know, one that I had my whole life and through most of my career working with scientists as well. But it goes back to one of your first questions about, you know, how did the neuroscience get me to start questioning whether consciousness goes deeper in nature? So we have this strong intuition that consciousness is causal, that it's doing something, that it evolved you know, the reason why we believe it evolved is because we believe it affects behavior.
但神经科学及广义科学不断揭示的事实是,我们以为需要意识来完成的所有事情,实际上没有任何证据支持这种观点。因此,在我的著作《意识》及这部纪录片系列中,我通过两个问题展开探讨。第一个问题是:能否从系统外部找到意识的证据?是否存在某种方式可以说‘这些现象出现时,内部就存在意识’?
But what most of the neuroscience and science in general is continuing to unveil is the fact that none of these things that we think we need consciousness for, we don't actually have any evidence to believe that. And so in in my book Conscious and also in this documentary series, I go through these two questions. I kind of frame this investigate I frame this investigation through these two questions. And the first one is, can we find evidence of consciousness from outside the system? Is there any way to ever say, you know, these are the list of things.
第二个问题是:意识是否在发挥作用?它是否如我们感受的那样驱动着我们的行为?正如你刚才描述的,我们觉得‘我把所有这些东西整合起来,就能迅速行动’。
If you see them on the outside, there is consciousness on the inside. And the second question, the second question is, is consciousness doing something? Is it driving our behavior in the way that we feel it is? And we feel it must be. And so, yes, as you just described, we think, you know, well, I have this experience of putting all these things together, and then, you know, I can act very quickly.
事实是,当你深入研究大脑中的这些处理过程和直觉时,你会发现完全是一片空白。没有任何理由认为拥有这种处理过程的体验能给你带来任何优势。我们所能指出的每件事,都可以想象计算机也能做到。实际上,就拿视觉来说——我的视网膜、我的大脑处理光波,区分不同波长的光。
The truth is that when you drill down on the processes in the brain and this intuition, you're you come up completely empty handed. There's no reason to think that having an experience of that processing gives you an advantage at all. Everything that we can point to, we can imagine a computer doing those things. Actually, if you just, you know, again, take sight as an example. You know, my retina, my brain process light waves, process different, different wavelengths, are able to distinguish between the different wavelengths of light.
我后续的行为都基于这种处理。所有这些过程都在发生。但不知为何,这种处理对我来说伴随着看见事物的体验——那些颜色、质感的体验。但我们完全可以想象计算机、摄像头、植物等其他系统也能做到。我在纪录片里经常讨论植物,因为它们在感知光波、调整行为以适应不同频率光线方面同样令人着迷。
My subsequent behavior is based on that processing. All of these things happen. Yet for some reason, that processing for me entails an experience of seeing things, right, of the colors of the texture of all these things. But we can imagine a computer, a camera, lots of other systems, plants. I talk a lot about plants in my documentary because they're, fascinating even on this specific issue of sensing light waves, sensing different frequencies of light, their behavior being adjusted based on the frequencies of light.
但我们认为摄像头、计算机和植物完成这些并不需要‘看见’的体验,不需要有意识体验就能做到。可人类却需要。而且越仔细观察大脑处理过程,就越找不到‘正是系统体验了痛苦才使其行为更优越’的证据。实际上我们发现的是相反的情况。
But we imagine that cameras and computers and plants can do all of that without we don't think they must need to see. They must need to have the experience of the conscious experience to be able to do any of those things, but for some reason, we do. And the closer you look at the brain processing, the less there is a place to find where, oh, yes, it's because system experienced the bad thing that enabled it to behave this way, you know, in such a more advantageous way than it could if it if it weren't conscious. There's no place to find that. And in fact, we find the opposite.
我们发现许多进化而来的行为——比如快速逃离危险、惊吓反应等——在我们试图找出‘这必须要有意识体验才能完成’的环节时,现代神经科学认为恰恰是无意识的大脑处理在驱动这些行为,甚至早于我们产生意识体验之前。
We find that many things, that we've evolved to do, like get out of a dangerous situation quickly, you know, run fast, startle response, all the things all the places we try to find where we could point to and say, okay. If this this must have to be consciously experienced. Otherwise, we wouldn't be as good at it. In a lot of those cases, we're now aware of what modern neuroscience considers to be unconscious brain processing being the thing that drives the behavior before we're even aware, before before it becomes a conscious experience.
所以你认为意识对人类来说基本上是多余的?
So you're saying that consciousness is largely surplus to requirements for us?
这在很大程度上是神秘的。我们对此一无所知。那些我们自以为了解的事情,结果却发现我们没有任何证据支持这些认知。因此,我的很多工作就是让我们回到起点,动摇一些直觉,打破固有思维,以便我们能更具创造性地思考这个问题,也许开展与以往不同类型的科学研究,因为所有科学突破都是这样发生的。每次我们面对来自宇宙探索的各种证据时,比如回溯远古的天文观测,突然发现宇宙围绕我们运转的说法并不合理。
It's largely mysterious. We don't have any idea. The things that we think we know about it, it turns out we have no evidence to to believe those things. And so, you know, a lot of my work is about just getting us to square one, getting us to kind of shake some of our intuitions, to shake them up so that we can think more creatively about it, you know, maybe do different types of science than we've been doing, because this is how all scientific breakthroughs happen. You know, each time we are kind of faced with evidence from whatever type of probing we do of the universe, we make celestial observations, you know, taking us way back, and suddenly it doesn't quite make sense that the universe revolves around us.
更合理的看法是我们围绕太阳运转。这改变了我们对自身感知和所处环境的直觉认知。因此需要某种证据的出现,再加上人类无比的好奇心和持续不断的探索精神,才能让我们意识到:我们感受世界的方式是错误的,宇宙的结构与我们想象的不同。通常需要一段时间,有时是几十年甚至更久,证据才能真正侵蚀我们的直觉,促使我们开始创造性思考并转变认知方式。疾病的细菌理论发现过程也是如此。
It makes more sense to see us as revolving around the sun. And that changes our intuitions about what our perceptions tell us, what the circumstance we're in. And so it takes, you know, some kind of evidence coming towards us, and then also human beings who are incredibly curious and willing to just look and look and look and look and seek and say, actually, the way we feel things are is wrong, and the universe is structured in a different way. And there's usually a period of time, sometimes decades or more, before the evidence really encroaches in on our intuitions and gets us to start to think creatively and shift the way we feel. The same was true for, you know, discovering the germ theory of disease.
最终我们发明了能观察微观事物的工具。但最初这只是个理论,人们很难相信和理解,因为看不见、闻不到、尝不出、摸不着的微小生物能让我们生病甚至死亡,这听起来太荒谬了。科学史上所有范式转变和重大突破,都伴随着新证据的出现和我们认知方式的改变。我认为现在我们对意识的研究就处于这样的阶段,至少可以看到我们的直觉认知存在偏差。
You know, eventually, we developed tools where we could see the microscopic things. But first, it was a theory, and it was very hard for people to believe and to get their minds around because it just sounded crazy that there are these things we can't see or smell or taste or touch. We can't perceive them, but they that's what's making us sick and that they can kill us. And so there are all of these paradigm shifts in science, all these scientific breakthroughs that entail kind of new evidence coming in and shifting the way we thought things worked. And so I think we're we're at a place like that with consciousness now, and and this is some of the ways we we can we can see through, at the very least, the way our intuitions tell us things are are are are off.
如果
If
当人工智能发展到能超越人类思维的阶段,这是否意味着意识被高估了?
we can get to the stage where AI is able to outthink us, does that does that suggest that consciousness is overrated?
我不确定这两者之间有何关联。
I'm not sure how those two are related.
嗯,无论AI是否能超越我们的思维,它并不具备意识,所以如果它——
Well, whether or not if if AI can outthink us and it's not conscious so if it's
功能上不具备意识。
functionally If not conscious.
是的。而且它在功能上能够——
Yes. And it's functionally able
我确实认为意识被高估了——我们总觉得自己很特别,是唯一拥有意识的物种。虽然人类确实独特,能完成其他已知生命系统无法做到的事,但我现在甚至不确定意识是否是复杂信息处理的产物。我的大量工作就是在打破这些固有假设。目前我们没有任何证据表明高级智能或复杂性是意识的必要条件。
do think consciousness is overrated in the sense that we think you know, like a lot of things, we think we're special, and we're the only ones that have it. And I, you know, I do think human beings are special, and obviously, we do all kinds of things that no other, you know, living systems we know of can do. But I'm not sure that consciousness is even a result of complex processing at this point. So a lot of my work has just been breaking through all of these assumptions. And so at this point, I don't think we have any evidence to believe that high level of intelligence or complexity is required for consciousness.
因此我认为意识在宇宙中仍占据着近乎神奇的地位——那种体验、感知本身确实神奇。但我不认为它是人类独有的特质,也不觉得它是我们所有珍贵能力的源泉。更简单的系统可能就拥有意识,未来更复杂的系统也很可能具备。
And so I think consciousness still holds this very magical position in the universe because the experience, the felt experience, the sentience, I think is magical in and of itself. But I don't know that, it's unique. I don't think it's unique to human beings, and I don't think we have any reason to think that it is responsible for all of the things that we, value in ourselves. And so I think much less simple systems have them. If we develop more complex systems, they will likely have it.
但无论它们是否拥有意识,人类所珍视的智力、思维技能、创造力、构建新事物的能力——这些或许与意识的关系,就像豌豆卷须完成复杂行为需要意识一样牵强。研究植物行为后你会发现,这些都不需要意识参与。AI无论是否具备意识都将很有趣,但我不认为这会改变意识的本质地位。
But whether or not they do, I think the things we value in in human beings, in our intelligence, in our thinking skills, creativity skills, ability to create new things and build new things that never existed and imagine new things and then generate them and make them real, All of that may not really have anything to do with consciousness any more than a pea tendril, you know, needs consciousness to do all of the things in a much simpler way, but some, you know, more miraculous than you would have realized until you start studying plant behavior, that you don't there's we don't know any reason why you would need consciousness for either of those things. So, I mean, I think AI is interesting, and it will be a very interesting development either way, conscious or not. But I don't think it changes the status of conscious.
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Gymshark、SKIMS、Allbirds和Nutanix都选择Shopify作为增长引擎,这也是我们合作的原因。在转化率方面,Shopify是行业标杆——其结账系统比其他领先平台平均高出36%。使用Shop Pay更能提升50%转化率。点击下方链接注册,即可享受月费1美元的试用期,或访问shopify.com/modernwisdom(全小写)升级你的商业系统。
They are the driving force behind Gymshark and SKIMS and Allo and Nutanix, and that is why I've partnered with them. Because when it comes to converting browsers into buyers, they're best in class. Their checkout is 36% better on average compared with other leading commerce platforms. And with Shop Pay, you can boost your conversions up to 50%. You can upgrade your business and get the same checkout that we use at Newtonic with Shopify by going to the link in the description below and signing up for a $1 per month trial period or by heading to shopify.com/modernwisdom, all lowercase.
立即访问shopify.com/modernwisdom升级销售体验。你认为AI的发展有多大可能揭示关于意识的新见解?
That's shopify.com/modernwisdom to upgrade your selling today. Do you think that it how likely do you think it is that progress in AI will unveil some interesting insight about about consciousness?
我认为那可能性不大。但我的意思是,这对我来说是个巨大的问号。我不知道。我无法想象它会以何种方式实现。你知道,在我的纪录片系列的最后一章名为‘科学的未来’,我设想了一种科学,它能重新思考我们体验不同于现有体系的其他系统的能力。
I think that's probably unlikely. But I don't I mean, that's that's a big question mark for me. I don't know. I I I can't imagine a way that it would. The type of science you know, the last chapter of my docuseries is called the future of science, and I'm imagining a science that rethinks our ability to experience other systems than the ones we experience.
比如,我们体验光波和声波,但有许多事物我们无法感知——比如地球磁场,而许多动物可以。实际上,我们科学研究的许多起点正是源于我们能感知它们,因此形成了相关直觉。在我的系列片中,有一章采访了一位参与研究的学者,他们让受试者真实体验了磁北极。这是个迷人的研究,我可以告诉你更多细节。
So, you know, we experience light waves and sound waves, but there are many we don't experience the Earth's magnetic field, and many animals do. There are lots of things that we actually a head start studying scientifically because we perceive them, and so we have developed these intuitions for them. In my series, in one chapter, I interview someone who was part of a study where they actually gave participants an experience of magnetic north. It's a fascinating study. I can tell you more about those details.
怎么体验磁北极?
How how do you experience magnetic north?
对,让我先说完这个观点再回答。关键在于,如果我们想更好地理解意识,就必须找到拓展体验的方法。当然,我可以举更多例子,但这大致是我认为的发展方向。我不确定AI能否在此领域发挥作用——尽管任何智能系统或许能提供实验方法和创意,但这必然需要人类参与,因为涉及体验共享和沟通能力。
Yeah. So maybe I'll finish that point and then come back. But the idea is that if we want to understand consciousness better, we're going to have to find a way to expand our experiences. And also, well, I can give more examples, but but that's that's kind of the way I think it's headed. I'm not sure that AI I'm not sure how AI could be helpful there, although, I guess, you know, any any kind of intelligent system might give us ways to to experiment and ideas for for things we might do, but it will it will entail a human a human participation because it will in it will have to entail experiences and sharing experiences and being able to talk about them.
当然,也许AI会发展到那个程度,在各方面远超我们并自行解决。问题是,如果AI无法或不愿与我们交流,我们将无从知晓。如果他们按我纪录片中描述的科学进步方式先行突破,我们无法仅凭他们告知就理解——必须存在足够沟通层级让我们相信其结论。我们只能希望他们愿意向我们解释。
And, you know, of course, maybe AI will develop to that point, and they'll just be way beyond us in all these ways, and they'll figure it out. So, you know, I guess the the issue will be if AI is not able to or uninterested in communicating with us, we just won't know. If they do if they kinda move forward in the way I I talk about science progressing in my in my docuseries, if they're able to do that before we are in some way and they actually figure something out, we won't be able to just know because they tell us. There has to be a sufficient level of communication for us to understand and believe what they're saying and you know? We'll we'll have to hope that they care enough about us to explain it.
求你了妈妈,别忘了我。别把我丢在校车上。磁北极到底怎么体验?
Please, mom, don't forget me. Don't leave me on the school bus. Magnetic north. How do you experience it?
这涉及神经科学中感觉替代领域。斯坦福大学的David Eagleman等学者曾主导相关研究。感觉替代设备你可能听过——比如为视障人士设计的‘脑端口’,它像冰棍棒含在舌头上,通过头戴摄像头将视觉信号转化为电触觉信号。
So there's an area of science of neuroscience. It started with something called sensory substitution. David Eagleman, again, the neuroscientist, was very involved in this work at Stanford, and and some others. And sensory substitution, you may have heard of some of these devices that have been developed for people who are blind or deaf. For the blind, originally, they created something called a brain port, and this was like a popsicle like thing that sits on the tongue and delivers electro tactile signals, based on a camera that's worn, like, on a headband.
最初使用者只能感受到舌头的刺痛感,毫无意义。但约六到八周后,大脑会将其转化为直觉体验——他们开始感知‘靠近墙壁时舌头有特定感觉’,最终大脑能通过这些信息构建外部空间地图。
So it's receiving the the the visual input, and then it translates that into electro tactile signals on the tongue. What's so interesting about the brain is, you know, at first, the the participants, they they use these, and they they're just getting a buzzing sensation. They means nothing to them. I think over a little bit of time, they start to notice patterns, and it starts to feel like they oh, like when I'm getting close to a wall, I kind of feel this on my tongue. But eventually, it's usually about six to eight weeks in of using a device like this, the brain converts to intuitive way of experiencing.
经过训练,使用者不再感觉舌头的电刺激,而是直接通过大脑获取环境空间信息。他们能投篮、走迷宫。
And so people, are able to use something like a brain port over time, and they're no longer feeling electro electro tactile signals on the tongue. It's no longer about the tongue. Their brain is actually giving them a map of their external world based on this information. So they can shoot hoops. They can walk through mazes.
不可能吧。
No way.
是的。大卫·伊格曼在TED演讲中对此有精彩阐述,如果听众有兴趣可以看看。他接着还谈到了感官增强,这算是该领域的自然发展。当研究者们意识到能为视障人士提供这些工具后,他们想——为什么仅限于光波?为何不尝试接入环境中其他我们无法感知的事物?
Yeah. David Eagleman gives a great TED Talk on this if anyone in your audience wants to check it out. And he actually then goes on to talk about, sensory addition in that talk, which is kind of the natural progression of this. So once they realized they could give these tools to people who couldn't see, they realized maybe we can tap into other things that, you know, why just light waves? Why not other things in our environment that we don't perceive?
或许大脑也能解读这些信号。其中一项研究是让参与者体验地球磁场。他们设计了一种环绕身体的腰带,上面布满电子触觉信号装置。虽然我不完全明白其科学原理,但确实能让人感知到地球磁场。
And maybe the brain can interpret those signals as well. And so one of these studies was, to try to give participants an experience of of the Earth's magnetic field. This was a belt they devised. So it was a belt that went all the way around the body and had electro tactile signals all around. And I don't totally understand the science or the technology of how it worked, but it was, you know, perceiving the Earth's magnetic field.
这其实是某些动物具备的能力。研究者们决定从已知其他生物能解读的信号入手,毕竟人类大脑本不具备这种感知方式。与萨沙·芬克博士的对话特别有趣,这位神经科学家本人就是实验参与者。他描述体验的方式令人着迷——
And, again, this is something that other animals can do, So they thought they'd start with something that other brains that we know about are are able to interpret. Just that human human brains aren't set up that way. So, it was such fun talking to, doctor Sasha Fink. He's a neuroscientist, he was one of the participants in this study. And the way he talks about that experience is really interesting.
就像试图向盲人解释视觉体验。他会用其他感官来类比,但经过六到八周训练后,方向感变得像直觉般自然。他说了些趣事,比如『我发现生活中所有马桶都朝北』——家里、办公室、朋友家的马桶都如此。
It's like the way he was talking to me was like someone trying to explain to a blind person what it's like to see. So he would kind of try to compare it to other senses, but had this intuitive feel after six or eight weeks of where he was oriented. He said a few very funny things. One was, I notice all the toilets in my life face north. And it's just because he like, he said the main toilet's like, my toilet at home, my toilet at the office, my toilet wherever, my friend's house.
这种察觉就像我们注意到颜色,或发现与人撞衫那样自然。他时刻知晓自己的朝向,开始建立空间关联:『这个朝那边』。本质上,他对世界地图有了更立体的认知。
He noticed they all face the same direction because he like said noticing a color or noticing you walk into a room and you're both wearing the same shirt and you say, oh, we're both wearing the same shirt. You just know it because it's intuitive and because you see and your brain works that way. And so it was just a feel like he knows which way he's facing all the time. And so he'd make these connections and associations like, oh, this faces that way. Could kind of he had a better sense of the map of the world, really.
他说这完全颠覆了对居住街区方向的固有认知——实际朝向与路名标注根本不符。他还描述了一种奇妙感受:就像视觉听觉有美丑之分,磁场感知也有愉悦与不适。某些朝向会让他莫名抵触,而螺旋楼梯的体验却——
He said it also completely threw off his intuitions for, you know, the streets where he lived because he realized, you know, the e none none of the streets are actually facing the way they say they are. And I'm trying to think of some other he he described this very interesting sensation. He said just like with sight or sound or anything else, there are pleasant versions of it and unpleasant versions. So there are things we like to look at that bring us joy and things that we find repulsive with taste and sound and, you know, music and all of these things. We don't ever even think about this.
——美妙得让他主动寻找螺旋楼梯。那种围绕中心旋转的方位感令他着迷。
But the same is true with the earth earth's magnetic field. So there were circumstances he would find himself in where he didn't like the position he was facing in that certain place. And then he described this thing that I just think is so beautiful where he said he went up a spiral staircase once, and it was so enjoyable. There was something about, I don't know, orienting around a center that way that he just found himself, like, seeking out spiral staircases.
小心点。
Be careful.
感觉太棒了。
It felt so good.
是啊。
Yeah.
他说这就像玩呼啦圈,但你自己变成了呼啦圈之类的。总之我认为,如果我们能更好地理解意识是什么,就会朝着拓宽体验、甚至共享体验的方向发展。我一生中有许多关于宇宙中其他意识体验的记忆,存在于不同的时空。这些是通过记忆实现的。当我回忆某个情境时,那永远不是完全还原的原始情境。
He said it was like hula hooping, but you're the hula hoop or something like that. Anyway, I think, you know, if we're able to get a better sense of what consciousness is, it will keep moving in this direction of broadening our experiences, potentially sharing experiences. You know, the fact that I have so many memories throughout my life of other conscious experiences that existed in the universe and other, you know, times and places. That's that's through memory. And when I met when I remember a situation that I was in, it's never exactly the situation I was in.
我处于新的时刻,但保留着那些记忆的残余,使我能大致了解当时的情境。未来或许会有技术能实现跨时空的记忆共享——比如三岁的我和现在的我,这是完全不同的系统、大脑和时空坐标。也许未来技术能让你的记忆植入我的记忆流,让我记得所有我未曾经历的事。
I'm in a new moment, but I have enough of the residual of those memories that I can kind of you know, I have this experience knowing what that situation was like. There may be some future technology where we can do that rather than between people through time, my you know, myself as a three year old and myself now. Very different systems, very different brains, very different places and time and space. There might be a future technology where I can have a memory of yours placed in my stream of memories, and then I'll remember all the things that I did, but do not remember.
你绝对不想要那样。那会非常危险。
You do not want that at all. That'll be very dangerous.
也许初次尝试时我会选择别人
Maybe I'll choose someone else for my first
极其极其危险。
Very very dangerous.
你现在看着我的体验,戴着耳机这种简单日常经历,我昨天可能有类似的。但如果我能拥有从你视角看我的记忆,它就会像其他记忆一样存在于我的记忆流中。我认为这类技术将帮助我们更好地理解意识。
The experience you're having right now of looking at me and, you know, having earbuds in in your ears and just just sim simple everyday experience that, you know, I could have a similar one from my day yesterday, but I could have a memory of being over there looking this way, and that would just kinda be in my stream of memories in the same way that all of my memories are there. And I think that's the type of thing that will help us better understand.
你今天多次提到植物。
You've mentioned plants a couple of times today.
是啊。你发现了...
Yeah. What have you Yeah.
你对植物有什么新发现?
What have you learned about plants?
植物嘛,首先相关科学研究正在加速。这类研究曾长期被视为禁忌。有本新书《光之食者》——书名很美,因为植物确实以光为食。作者佐伊·施兰格在我的系列节目中受访,她列举了许多2014年左右开始的新发现。
Plants well, first of all, the science is really speeding up now. There was quite a taboo around studying these things for a while. There's a new book, and I I interview the author for my series. Her name is Zoe Schlanger, and she wrote a book called The Light Eaters, which is so poetic and beautiful because plants eat light. And she gives so many examples of relatively new findings, you know, starting in 02/2014.
再说光线,植物拥有的光感受器比我们更多。它们能‘看见’——用‘看见’这个词可能不太准确,但大家已经开始困惑了,因为很难找到合适的表述方式。比如有一种寄生植物叫菟丝子(dodder,不是daughter女儿那个词)。菟丝子的幼苗在发芽时会四处摆动,就像你在延时摄影中看到的其他植物那样。它似乎在感知周围环境,寻找可以寄生的宿主。
Again, with light, plants have more photoreceptors than we do. They can see see is probably not the right word to use, but everyone's starting to get confused because it's hard to know how to talk about these things. There's an example of trying to think oh, there's a parasitic plant called the Doddervine, d o d d e r, not daughter as in daughter and son, but daughter. A Doddervine can sense when it when the seedling is sprouting, it kind of moves around, in the air like you've seen other plants do in in, time lapse photography. It'll kind of move around, and it it seems to be sensing, you know, where it can find something to to parasitize.
有些植物是它们能寄生的,有些则不行。科学家长期困惑的是:它们靠什么判断?是化学信号吗?它们如何知道该往哪个方向生长?经过大量研究后发现,至少部分判断依据是通过感知光线。它们能感知植物的形状——我们看绿叶呈现绿色,是因为其他波长的光穿透了叶片,而绿光被反射回来。
And there are certain plants that they can live off of, and there are certain plants it can't. And so scientists for a long time wondered, is it chemicals? Like, what are they how do they know that in this direction, they shouldn't go that direction, they should go in this direction? And they started running all of these studies, and it turns out that at least part of the way they do this is through sensing light. And so they can sense the shape of a plant because you know, the reason we see green when we look at a green leaf is because the other light wavelengths are passing through, but the green ones are bouncing off the leaf, that's why we're perceiving the green.
菟丝子显然能辨别——具体清单我记不清了——但本质上它能识别植物类型。比如它不会朝禾本科植物生长,很难附着在草类上,那样无法存活。如果附近有草,它能感知其形态、营养含量等一整套已被研究的特征。
And so the daughter vine can apparently tell I forget. There's a long list of things it can tell, but essentially, you know, the type of plant it is, it won't grow towards grasses. It's very hard to get itself attached to a grass. It can't really survive that way. So if there are grasses planted, you know, over here, it'll sense the shape and, how much nutritional content is there and all this whole list of things that they've now studied.
它能通过穿透植物枝叶的光线进行判断。最终验证实验是用LED灯模拟不同植物形态:既有它偏好的宿主植物形状,也有草类形状的灯光。结果它做出了正确选择。
It can it can tell by the light, that is getting filtered through the leaves and branches of these plants. And the the final study that they did to prove this was they used LED lights, and they set up different shapes of different plants. The types of plants, some being the types of plants that they would be interested in attaching to and others like grasses. But they were just LED lights in the shape of grass and LED lights in the shape of plants that would be the type of plants it would enjoy. And it went toward, it went made the right choice.
这一切令我着迷——纯粹因其不可思议。就我们认知意识所需的复杂程度而言,这些发现彻底颠覆直觉,这正是我热衷的研究领域。你可以持不同立场,我不确定植物是否有意识,这原本也不是我的研究初衷。
So all of this I find fascinating, I think just because it is fascinating. But in terms of the level of complexity that we think is required for consciousness, I think this is all very intuition shaking, and that's kind of where I like to live and where I like to do my work. And so, you know, you can kind of fall on either side of it. I don't know if plants are conscious. That's not actually why I became interested in them.
我深入研究的动机源于和大多数人相同的直觉——植物应该没有意识。但当它们展现出类人行为时,问题就出现了。我曾与植物学家丹尼尔·沙莫维茨讨论术语困境:没有意识的前提下,能否说植物能‘听’能‘看’?
The reason I started doing a deep dive into this is because, my intuition is that plants aren't conscious like most people. And so the question is when we started unveiling some of these much more complex behaviors that kind of fall into the categories of human behaviors. I spoke to a plant biologist, Daniel Shamovitz, and he and I spoke a lot about how he wasn't sure which terms to use. He would say, know, can you say a plant can hear? Can you say a plant can see?
如何描述这些无意识却与人类相似的现象?当然也可能存在某种程度的意识。但我更关注的是:为何我们认为某些类人行为无需意识参与,却认定人类相似行为必然需要意识?我们的认知误区究竟在哪里?
And without consciousness, how do you describe the same phenomenon? And then, of course, is it possible that there is some level of conscious awareness there? But my interest was less in that and more in how is it that we can look at some behaviors that are quite human like and not think consciousness is necessary for them, but somehow when we exhibit similar behaviors, we think it couldn't be done without consciousness. Consciousness. And what is where where are we mistaken?
是啊,这真让人谦卑。
Yeah. That's humbling.
确实。
Yeah.
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直接去骨汤货架就能找到。Kettle and Fire的毛伊岛鹿骨汤现已登陆全食超市。我在想——其实你最终倾向于哪种意识起源理论?各种学派众说纷纭。你现在是新泛心论者了吗?这到底是怎么回事?
Just head to the bone broth aisle. That's Kettle and Fire's Maui Nui venison bone broth available now at Whole Foods. I wonder whether well, actually, where have you come to land on the where consciousness comes from question, all of the different schools of thought. Are you a are you a a neo panpsychist now? Like, what what is this?
什...什么?
Do do?
你是否属于某个大的分类范畴?
Do you fit into some broad bucket?
我不属于任何范畴。经过所有这些探讨,我的立场是:我确信这是个正当且至关重要的科学问题。准确说是两个问题——意识在自然界中是否比科学界先前假设的更为深层?而我现在最关注的是:意识是否具有基础性?
I do not fit into a bucket. Where I have landed with all of this is that I think I have been convinced that it's a legitimate and very important scientific question to be asking. Does conscious two questions, I would say. Does consciousness go deeper in nature than the than the sciences have previously assumed? And the one I'm most interested in now is, is consciousness fundamental?
它是否真是宇宙的基本属性?某种更为基础的存在——虽不减少其神奇或趣味,但在基础层面上更接近引力这类基本力,而非从复杂处理和行为中涌现的产物。作为极具科学思维的人,我与科学家合作数十年,这确实是我的核心关切。科学是我们发现真理、突破错误直觉的最佳方法,而这个问题正需要我们运用这种方法。
Is it actually a fundamental property of the universe? Something that is much more basic, know, no less magical or interesting, but something more basic in terms of a fundamental layer, more akin to gravity, than to, you know, something that arises out of complex, processing and behavior. And so I think all that I'm I'm a very science minded person, and I've worked with scientists for decades, and that's really where where my heart is. And I think that's how we that's our best method for discovering truth, and for breaking through all of these these false intuitions that we have, and giving us a reason to do that. And and so I I think it's truly a question.
我们只是不知道答案。坦然承认无知并无不妥,但必须认清:科学界长期假定意识产生于复杂处理过程,现有证据却不支持这点。很可能意识本身就是基础性的,它并非服务于我们感知的目的,而是自然万物进程的内在组成部分。
We just don't know. And I think it's fine for us to say we don't know, but to say that we have always assumed that the sciences have always assumed that consciousness arises out of complex processing, and it's time to realize the evidence is not supporting that, and it's possible that consciousness is actually fundamental, and it's not serving the purpose we feel it is, but is actually kind of a part of every process in nature.
我们是否问错了对象?
Are we asking the wrong people?
但这确实是个问题。
But that's a question.
那么关于意识,我们是否该请教神秘主义者和冥想专家,而非科学家?
Well, are we asking the wrong people about consciousness? Should we should we be asking mystics and meditation experts instead of scientists?
我对这个问题的看法是,这些方法往往并不可靠。因此我认为我们应该也确实在这样做。特别是那些非常认真对待冥想的人,因为这是我们唯一拥有的工具,我确实将其视为一种科学工具,用于探究我们的个人体验,直接研究意识。冥想的有趣之处还在于它起到相同的作用,能让我们真正放下一些错误的直觉。
Well, my issue with that is that it's it's not a reliable those don't tend to be reliable methods. So I think we we should and we do. I think especially people who, have taken meditation very seriously because that is the only tool we have, and I really see it as a tool, as a scientific tool, we have for investigating our own personal experience, for investigating consciousness directly. And what's interesting too about meditation is that it serves the same function. It gets us to actually drop some of these false intuitions.
它之所以有这种效果,是因为当我们以这种方式运用注意力时,我们实际上能看穿大脑为我们创造的一些幻觉。因此自我幻觉可以消失,意识意志的幻觉也可以消失。甚至在我系列中关于时空的一章里,我与物理学家们讨论过时空问题。其中我发现一个有趣的现象——再次强调,这仅仅是趣味性的观察。
It has that effect because when we use our attention in that way, we can actually see through some of these illusions that the brain creates for us. So the illusion of self can drop away. The illusion of conscious will can drop away. Even in in one of the chapters of my series, on space and time, I I talked to physicists to physicists about space and time. And one thing that I found interesting there and, again, this is just interesting.
我不确定需要赋予它多少重要性,但物理学家们目前基本达成共识:空间是一种涌现属性,并非基础层面的组成部分。而冥想实践的奇妙之处在于,对于长期冥想者而言,这通常也会成为一种顿悟。某种程度上,大脑确实可能在为我们绘制某种外部现实的图景——让我们感受到空间以我们体验的方式直接存在,而我们可能正在感知宇宙的某种基础结构,这种结构并非我们认知中的空间形式。这让我想起与Jan eleven关于爱的对话,当时我们讨论的其实是弦理论、量子力学的不同诠释以及空间的多维度性——是否存在十维、十一维、十二维甚至更多维度的空间。
I don't know that, you know, how much, weight we need to put in it, But physicists are basically in agreement at this point that space is an emergent property, that space is not part of the fundamental story. And what's interesting about, meditation practice is that usually comes as an insight as well to people who have been meditating for many years, who are experienced meditators. And there's a way in which it actually makes sense that the brain could be mapping something out for us, you know, some something that is part of the external reality, that makes us feel that there is space, directly in the way that we experience it, where we may be perceiving something fundamental, a fundamental structure of the universe that is not really about space in the way that we perceive it. And now I'm remembering that's when I had that conversation with Jan eleven about love, where we were talking about we were talking about something completely different. We were talking about string theory and different interpretations of of quantum mechanics and different dimensions of space, and could there be ten, eleven, 12, or more dimensions of space.
我当时谈到,作为人类我们对此类概念毫无直觉认知。我们会困惑:那些空间究竟在哪里?我们不仅无法进入更高维度,甚至无法真正构想二维空间——尽管我们自以为能通过想象一个极薄的平面来理解,但事实上当平面无限趋薄时,我们根本无法想象完全没有厚度的平面。
And I was talking about how, you know, we have no intuitions as human beings for anything like that. We're just like, where would that space be? We can't do that. Not only can we not go in higher dimensions, but we actually can't conceive of two dimensional space even though we kinda feel like we can because we can imagine a plane, like a very thin plane. But the truth is if you make that plane thinner and thinner, we can't imagine a plane with truly no depth.
这完全超出了我们的想象能力。在我出版商巧妙捕捉的一段侧边对话视频中,我向团队成员解释与Jan eleven的讨论:我们本质上受限于三维空间认知,既无法想象更多维度,也无法理解更少维度。这时她提到爱并反问:'爱有多少个维度?'这让我意识到,我们拥有的许多意识体验其实并不必然存在于空间之中。
That's not something that's imaginable to us. And so, in that little video clip that, my my publisher beautifully captured in a kind of sidebar conversation, I was explaining, to someone on our team about this conversation I had with Jan eleven where we really are kind of stuck in three dimensions of space. We can't imagine any more or any less. And she mentioned love and said, well, you know, how many dimensions is love? And she actually got me to realize that there are many, many conscious experiences we have that are not necessarily in space.
嗯。这引导我在系列结尾探讨:空间是否像颜色一样——在科学揭示'世界上本不存在绿色,那是大脑生成的'之前,我们以为光波(就其可被理解的程度而言)与我们的色彩体验是直接对应的。有没有可能空间也如此?我们只感知了频谱的特定部分,而实际频谱比我们感知的更广阔,它传递着关于宇宙结构的信息,但空间本身并非我们感受的那样。
Mhmm. And that kind of led me down this path that I get into towards the end of the series, thinking about whether space is like color, where until we reached, the science that told us there isn't green out there in the world, that's being generated by the brain. There are light waves out there and what you know, to the extent that we can understand even what light waves are. But the thing we experience is not out there in the way that we feel it is. And is it possible that space is like color where, you know, we only perceive a certain part of the spectrum and the spectrum is larger, than we perceive and that it's giving us information about something about the structure of the universe, but that space is actually not what it really is
它是否在
Does it in the
我们体验它的那种方式中。
way that we in the way that we experience it.
你刚才提到量子物理。有种'填补空缺的量子神明'现象,比如夸克层面的纠缠等等。你是否...确实存在这种情况。这些术语就像被硬塞进来,就像...人们其实并不真正理解
You mentioned quantum physics there. There's kind of a god of the gaps, quantum of the gaps, entanglement down at the quark level, etcetera, thing that goes on. Have you got well, there is. It's like, you know, these words just get fucking snuck in, like Yeah. Like, where people don't really understand
发生了什么。这很正常。是的。
what's going on. Like it's normal. Yeah.
他们说,哦,是的。嗯,这是量子涨落,我们无法解释它。
They say, oh, yeah. Well, it's the quantum fluctuations, and we can't explain about it.
我们对这些一无所知。
We don't understand any of that.
不知不觉间,你已经在读《三体》了。是的。
Before you know it, you're reading the three body problem. Yes.
那是本很棒的书。
That's a great book.
你是否感觉到量子物理学——我是说,量子物理学在一切事物中都扮演着重要角色,因为它是物理学的一部分。是的。但在涉及意识时,量子物理学是否有什么特别突出之处?
Have you got any sense of whether quantum physics I mean, quantum physics is playing an important role in everything in that it's a part of physics. Yes. But is there something extra special, extra salient about quantum physics when it comes to consciousness?
我不这么认为。我认为,就像现代神经科学向我们展示的那样,我们对意识的直觉在许多领域都是错误的。这是一个线索。嗯,不仅仅是一个线索。我们对物理世界还有很多不了解的地方。
I don't think so. I think in the same way that modern neuroscience is showing us that our intuitions about consciousness have been wrong in a lot of areas. I think it's a clue. Well, it's not just a clue. There is a lot we don't understand about the physical world.
对吧?我们已经触及量子层面,深感困惑。你知道,有许多努力试图理解我们在量子力学中看到的现象。很多人试图建立这种联系——我们仍然不理解意识,这很神秘;我们也不理解量子力学,所以也许它们是同一回事。我认为这不是将它们联系起来的充分理由。
Right? And we've hit the quantum level, and we are deeply perplexed. And there are, you know, many efforts to try to understand, the types of things we see in quantum mechanics. And a lot of people, I should say, try to kind of make this connection that, you know, we still don't understand consciousness, and that's mysterious, and we don't understand quantum mechanics, and so maybe it's part of the same thing. And I think that's not the that's that's not a good reason for putting them together.
但我的路径——你知道,这很有趣。我的路径从神经科学带我走向基础物理学,因为我在神经科学的工作让我相信,意识很可能在自然界中更为深层,如果确实如此,它可能一直延伸到基础层面。于是我开始与物理学家合作,试图理解这意味着什么,或者这是否完全无意义,或者我们是否已经了解的物理学知识会排除这种可能性。但我发现,如果意识是基础的,它实际上有助于我们理解量子力学中的一些现象。这并不意味着它是正确的。
But my path you know, it's interesting. My path brought me to fundamental physics from neuroscience because my work in neuroscience led me to believe that consciousness very well might go deeper in nature and led me to believe if it does go deeper in nature, it could go all the way down to the fundamental. So then I kind of, you know, had to start working with physicists to understand what that meant or if that made no sense at all or if, you know, something we already understand about physics that would rule that out. But what I found is if consciousness is fundamental, it actually helps us make sense of some of the things that we're seeing in quantum mechanics. That doesn't mean it's true.
但有趣的是,它在解释这些现象时很有帮助。我认为,无论意识是否是基础的,以这种方式思考——就像我们假设意识源于复杂性一样——我们实际上在神经科学中基于这一假设取得了巨大进展。我认为我们可以从相反的假设出发——即意识是基础的——并以此为起点开展科学研究,看看会有什么发现。我相信我们会取得许多有趣的进展,并以非常不同的方式思考问题,开拓我们对事物思考的创造力,无论最终是否正确,因为我们仍然——你知道——我们仍未证明意识源于复杂性,尽管我们一开始就基于这一假设,但并未更接近证实它。
But it's interesting to me that it's helpful in terms of interpreting those things. And I think whether or not consciousness is fundamental, thinking of it that way in the same way that we've assumed consciousness, arises out of complexity, we've actually made a ton of progress in neuroscience based on that assumption. I think we could start with the we have this, you know, just as many reasons to start with the opposite assumption that is fundamental and take the science from that starting point and see where it goes. And I actually think we will make, a lot of interesting progress and think about things in a very different way and kind of open up our creativity to the way we think about things, whether or not it turns out to be true or not, because we still, you know, we still haven't figured out that consciousness is due to complexity in the way, you know, we kind of started out with that assumption. We haven't gotten any closer to to believing that's true.
我认为我们可以从这一相反的假设出发,做一些真正有趣的工作。是的,我确实认为,如果我们把意识视为基础的,那么我们感知、测量和看到的一切物理现象实际上是宇宙中其他意识体验的表征,突然间,许多看似无法理解的事物似乎变得更容易把握。比如?更容易理解。这通常是我举的第一个例子,但你知道,有些物理学家谈论从数学中推导出的对象——比如十维物体,十维立方体,你知道,这只是一种几何对象,因为数学说它存在。
And I think we could start with this other assumption and do some really interesting work there. But, yes, I do think that if we think about consciousness as being fundamental, that it is actually what everything physical that we perceive and measure and see is actually a representation of other conscious experiences arising in the universe, suddenly, lots of things that seem impossible for us to understand seem a little easier to get What like? To get our minds around. This is usually just the first example that that I start with, but, you know, there's some physicists who talk about, you know, objects that that come out of the math. You know, a 10 dimensional object, a decoract is is, you know, this is just an a a geometric object that exists because the math says it exists.
大多数数学家不会说宇宙中存在十维形状。只是这种形状是一种可能存在的形态,一个十维的形态。有些物理学家确实认为,如果数学推导出它的存在,那它就真实存在。它必须存在。马克斯·泰格马克就是其中之一,还有其他一些著名且备受尊敬的物理学家也持这种观点,他们直觉认为如果数学能构建出这些形状,那么它们实际上就存在于宇宙中。
Most mathematicians wouldn't say there are decoracts in the universe. It's just that that shape is a possible shape, a 10 dimensional shape. There are some physicists who actually believe that if it comes out of the math, it actually does exist. It must exist. And Max Tegmark is one, and there there are other well known, well respected physicists who will say this, who have this intuition that if the if the math if we can these shapes get created by the math, they actually do exist in the universe.
如果意识是根本性的,我们不妨回溯一下——爱的维度是多少?如果我们改变对空间的直觉认知,意识到我们正在捕捉自身所属结构的某种特性,而这与空间无关。那么试图想象第四维度时,我们的思路可能完全错了。这有点像试图想象一种你从未见过的颜色。
If consciousness is fundamental and, you know, we kinda go back to that, like, how many dimensions is love. Right? If we kind of change our intuitions about space and realize we're picking up on something about the structure that we're a part of, but it's not about space. And so picturing a fourth dimension, we're kind of thinking about it wrong. It's a little bit like picturing a color you've never seen before.
这并不意味着那种颜色不可能存在。只是我们无法感知它,所以它不属于我们意识现实的范畴。但如果一个十维物体确实存在——如果我们仅从已知物理世界来讨论——我们根本不知道如何理解'十维物体'这个概念。如果十维物体代表宇宙中产生的某种极其复杂的意识体验,虽然它超出我们的想象范围,但并未超出我们的理解能力。毕竟我们可以理解世界上存在无数我们不了解、未体验、无从知晓的经历。
It doesn't mean the color couldn't be there. It just means we don't perceive it, and so it's not it's it's not part of our, conscious reality. But if a 10 dimensional object exists, if we're just talking about the physical world as we know it, we don't know how to make sense of that sentence, you know, a 10 dimensional object. If a 10 dimensional object represents a very complex type of conscious experience that arises in the universe, Still, it's beyond something we could picture, but it's not beyond our comprehension. I mean, we can comprehend that there are all kinds of experiences that we don't understand, don't feel, don't know about.
我们不知道作为蝙蝠是什么感受,也不了解许多已知生物的体验。因此,如果数学和物理学告诉我们某些结构存在,而宇宙中每个存在的结构本质上都是感知体验(或是多重体验的涌现),那么这些概念突然就变得更容易理解、更便于讨论,我认为这还为探索开辟了新途径。
We don't know what it's like to be a bat. We don't know what it's like to be all kinds of creatures that we already know exist. So if the math, and the physics tell us that certain structures exist and every structure that exists in the universe is at bottom a felt experience, or many felt experiences arising, then suddenly those types of things, make more sense and are and are easier to talk about, and I think open new avenues for exploration also.
你认为意识研究的未来应该是什么样子?
What do you think the future of consciousness research looks like should look like?
这正是我纪录片最后一章探讨的内容,真希望我的思维能更具创造性。我实际上谈到一个现象:尽管人类极具创造力,但不知为何,我们特别不擅长预见未来,预测新技术会将我们引向何方。不过我确实对此进行了大量思考——虽然不确定具体会如何呈现——我能想到的可能性包括感官增强。比如感知新力场系统(如磁北极等我们原本无法感知的事物),通过直觉感受它们实际上能带来大量科学认知。要知道,我们现有的物理学成果大多源于对自身与世界互动的感知。
This is kind of what the last chapter of my documentary is devoted to, and I wish I were more creative in my thinking. And I actually talk about the fact that, as creative as human beings are, for some reason, we're very bad at envisioning the future and where, like, new technologies will lead us. But I did spend a lot of time thinking about this, and so it you know, I I don't know how this will manifest and where it will lead exactly, but the things that I can think of and imagine, are things like sensory addition. So I imagine that perceiving new forces and systems, like magnetic north and all the other things that we don't sense, that, feeling them intuitively actually give us a lot of scientific knowledge. You know, all not all, but most of the physics that we've done comes from the fact that we feel ourselves in the world.
我们通过感知理解了大量物理现象,仅凭感知就能获取海量信息。因此我认为,如果能用大脑以可培养直觉的方式感知环境中其他事物,这将是一条重要路径。另一条路径是——不仅能在个人成长过程中跨时间共享记忆,还能在人类之间共享记忆。虽然不同于实时共享相同体验,但将他人经历转化为我的记忆,这将突然赋予我们关于意识本质、人际关系等问题的全新直觉认知。
We feel a lot of the physics, and we're able to get a tremendous amount of information just from perceiving it. And so I think if we're able to start to, perceive other things in our environment with our brains in a way that we can develop intuitions for them, I think that that's one avenue. The other one I mentioned is, you know, if it's possible to not just share memories across the ages of one person as they evolve over time, but to share them across human beings. So it wouldn't be the same as having the same experience in the same moment. But just being able to have someone else's experience as part of my memory, I think, suddenly gives us a whole new set of intuitions, about consciousness and and what's happening and how, you know, we are relate to one another and all of that.
阅读萨拉·沃克著作时(我在系列节目中也提到过),这位研究生命理论的天体物理学家在书中描述:爱因斯坦拥有对时空的独特直觉。他是已知第一个不再将引力视为作用力,而是将时空想象为同一织物的人——当这织物弯曲时,就会影响物体运动。换句话说,引力实质是时空的弯曲。
I also was thinking when I was reading, Sarah Walker's book, and I I mentioned this in the series also, she's a astrophysicist who's working on a theory of life. She talks about she mentions in her book how Einstein, you know, had this intuition for space time. He was the first human being we know of to think about gravity not as a force, but to imagine that space and time are somehow part of the same fabric, and when that fabric warps, it affects how objects move. Right? So rather than gravity being a force, it's actually the warping of space time.
他拥有这种直觉洞见,但花费数十年才将其形式化表达。这再次印证了沟通难题:当他人缺乏相同体验时,交流将变得极其困难。因此他用了数十年时间通过数学和语言向科学界传达这个理念,才使其他人得以理解并推进研究。
And he had that intuition. He had that insight. But it took him years and decades to formalize that intuition to be able to express it to others. I mean, again, it's another communication issue where if somebody else doesn't share that experience, it's very difficult to talk about and communicate it. So, you know, it took decades for him to get this out in the mathematics and in language and to communicate it to other scientists so that other people could share this idea and move forward with it.
阅读她的书时我产生一个想法:如果这种直觉能够被共享呢?那是一种意识体验,一种感知体验。即便十年后,爱因斯坦仍保有这段直觉记忆,这种洞见从未离他而去。
And I had this thought while reading her book, you know, what if that intuition could be shared? You know, that's a that's a conscious experience. That's a felt experience. He has you know, later ten years later in his life, he has a he still has the memory of that intuition. The intuition didn't go away for him.
未来人类是否有可能通过某种方式真正共享并推动科学进步?我的意思是,想象一下,如果爱因斯坦在产生那个灵感的当天,就能与15位其他科学家分享。正是基于这种设想,我认为如果可能的话,这将是未来发展的方向。
Is there some way in which in the future human beings might be able to share and really progress science? I mean, imagine if if Einstein, the day he had that intuition, could have shared it with 15 other scientists. And so, yeah, it's in it's in this vein that I imagine, if it's possible, that this is kind of where things will be headed.
太棒了。女士们先生们,有请安尼卡·哈里斯。安尼卡,我特别欣赏你在写完相关书籍后,又制作了这部不必要复杂的音频纪录片系列来探索这些问题。那么,大家该去哪里观看呢?
Heck yeah. Annika Harris, ladies and gentlemen. Annika, I love the fact that you went and did an unnecessarily complex audio documentary series to try and answer these questions, after writing a book on it. Do. Where should people go?
他们想看看这部纪录片吗?
Do they wanna check out the documentary?
关于纪录片,有一个专门的网站lightsondocumentary.com。我的个人网站annikaharris.com上可以找到我所有的社交媒体链接等信息。
For the documentary, there's a a website for the documentary. It's just lightsondocumentary.com. My website, you can find, all of my social media links and all of that, and that's annikaharris.com.
谢谢。安尼卡,非常感谢你。
Thank you. Annika, I appreciate you. Thank you.
谢谢。
Thank you.
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