309 | 克里斯托夫·科赫谈意识与整合信息

大家好，欢迎收听《心灵景观》播客。我是主持人肖恩·卡罗尔。尽管我们已制作了多期关于意识的节目，但仍未确切弄清意识是什么或如何运作。我们邀请过哲学家探讨拥有体验意味着什么。

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Carroll. Despite multiple episodes here on Mindscape devoted to the topic, we have still not figured exactly out what consciousness is or how it works. We've had philosophers on talking about what it means to have an experience.

也请过神经科学家讨论大脑活动，但都无果而终。并非毫无进展——我这话略带调侃。但意识本质确实是个难题，因为我们对其再熟悉不过，却又独特地只能从内在感知它，对吧？

We've had neuroscientists talking about what happens in the brain, all to no avail. It's not that there's not been progress. I'm slightly tongue in cheek here. But this is a hard problem, what exactly is consciousness, because it's one of those things we're very, very familiar with. But it's kind of unique in that we're most familiar with it from the inside, right?

不同于用卡尺或显微镜等客观工具测量，我们时刻在体验意识。这既是机遇也带来独特难题。今天我们将对话一位神经科学家，他同时热衷于探讨重大哲学问题。克里斯托夫·科赫现任艾伦脑科学研究所成员，曾是该所首席科学家兼所长，此前长期担任加州理工学院教授。

Rather than at an objective stance measuring things with calipers or microscopes or whatever, we're experiencing it all the time. That's an opportunity, but it also creates certain unique problems. So today, we're talking to someone who is a neuroscientist, but is also very, very willing to mix it up with the big philosophical questions. Christoph Koch is currently at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, where he was originally the chief scientist and president of the institute. Before that, he was a professor at Caltech for quite a while.

说来有趣，我和克里斯托夫相识于共同担任电影顾问时。当讨论到计算机是否可能具备意识时，他掏出iPhone指着问：‘你怎么知道它没意识？’当时我不以为然，如今才明白他是在暗示泛心论——我们在播客中讨论过。克里斯托夫不算严格泛心论者，但作为意识整合信息理论(IIT)的支持者，他立场接近。

In fact, I met Christophe when, believe it or not, we were both consulting on a movie. And the idea of consciousness came up, and the idea of consciousness in a computer came up. And Christophe pulls out his iPhone and points to it and says, how do you know this isn't conscious? At the time, I did not take that seriously, but now I understand that the issue is a lot better, and I know that he was gesturing toward the idea of panpsychism, which we've talked about before, of course, on the podcast. And Christophe is not quite a panpsychist, but he's panpsychist adjacent as a proponent of the IIT or integrated information theory approach to consciousness.

这是个非常务实的理论，通过数字和方程式测量系统的信息连接与整合程度。无论是人脑、AI系统还是海滩碎石，都能测出整合信息值。关键在于所有系统测值都不会为零——可能微乎其微远不及人类意识，但或许可称之为‘意识萌芽’而不必宣称电子有感情。

It's a very down to earth theory in the sense that there are numbers and equations and you try to measure the connectivity and the integration of the information in some system. The system might be a human brain or it might be an AI system or it might be a pile of rocks on the beach. You can measure its integrated information. But the point is you always get some number and Christophe's point was well that number is not going to be zero for most systems. It might be very, very tiny, nothing like what we consider to be consciousness, but maybe you can talk about it as a wee tiny bit of consciousness without actually saying that electrons have feelings.

多年过去，克里斯托夫成果丰硕。自早期与弗朗西斯·克里克合作起，他就致力于研究‘意识神经关联’——暂搁哲学定义，专注神经元层面：当产生意识体验时，大脑发生了什么？通过对小鼠进行务实实验，探索如何延伸至人类体验，并开发工具判断昏迷患者或AI语言模型是否具备意识。他新书标题耐人寻味：《故我即世界：意识本质及其扩展之道》。

So this is years later and a lot has happened and we're going to talk about a number of things that Christophe has done. He's been very involved in figuring out ever since his early work with Francis Crick, what are called the neural correlates of consciousness. So forgetting about what consciousness is, what is it that happens in the brain at the level of neurons when you're having conscious experiences, doing very down to earth experiments in the brains of mice and seeing how maybe that can be extended to human experiences, And then developing tools to understand is someone in a coma conscious? Is an artificial intelligence, large language model conscious, and so forth. His most recent book has the interesting title, Then I am My Self the World What Consciousness is and How to Expand It.

因此他也涉足第一人称视角的探索：能否通过冥想等方式提升自我意识水平？克里斯托夫乐于在诸多议题上提出挑战性观点。这次短暂对话涵盖广泛，相信会令各位听得兴致盎然。现在，让我们开始吧。

So he's gotten into the questions of, you know, again, the personal first person perspective, are there things we can do through meditation or other forms of enhanced awareness to improve our own personal level of consciousness. So, Christophe is happy to be provocative about many things. We cover a lot of ground in a short conversation. And I think you're going to find this one amusing. So, let's go.

克里斯托夫·科赫，欢迎来到《思维景观》播客。

Christoph Koch, welcome to the Mindscape Podcast.

非常感谢，肖恩，能邀请我参加《思维景观》。

Thank you very much, Sean, for having me on Mindscape.

你知道，你从事这方面研究已经很久了，可以追溯到你和弗朗西斯·克里克的合作时期——当时他已从分子生物学转向研究意识问题。我想先问问，从你开始思考这个问题至今，你对意识本质及其运作机制的主要观点是否发生过重大变化？如果有的话，是哪些变化？

You know, you've been doing this for a while going back to your collaboration with Francis Crick after he, moved from molecular biology to thinking about consciousness. I wanted to start by just asking, what is the major way, if there are any, that your views on what consciousness is and how it works have changed since you started thinking about this?

嗯，当年我和弗朗西斯刚开始研究时——那时我还是加州理工的年轻助理教授，和你有部分交集——在正经的日常科学界，意识研究仍是个禁忌话题，尤其对我这种还没拿到终身教职的人来说，对吧？所以这成了我们下班后的副业。而那些消息灵通的研究生们，每当听到这个话题就会翻白眼：'又来这套了是吧？'于是我们建立了这个纯粹实证主义的务实研究计划——先抛开哲学层面，毕竟两千年来哲学在这方面进展甚微，我们要专注于可操作的部分。我们讨论了猴子、人类当然还有小鼠等模型系统，探讨研究方法、技术手段、如何利用视觉错觉，以及一些基础性问题。

Well, so when Francis and I started back when I was a young assistant professor at Caltech, partially overlapping with you, consciousness was still a complete no no among serious working day scientists, particularly if like me, you hadn't obtained the holy state of tenure yet, right? And so, it was something that you did after hours and where grad students, who are always in the know, they routinely roll their eyes when, oh yeah, that topic now, right? And then what we instituted, this purely empirical pragmatic program, okay, let's forget about the philosophy because we haven't made much progress for the last two millennia there. Let's focus on what we can do. So we talked about certain model systems in monkeys, in people, of course, in mice, how to go about it, which techniques to use, which visual illusions to use, and what are some of the basic question?

这个纯粹实证主义的计划确实取得了进展，催生了现在所谓的'NCC研究'（意识神经相关物）。简言之，就是寻找大脑中每种意识体验的神经痕迹。比如现在我看见你、听见你，还有我脑海里的这个声音——当前物理学完全无法解释为什么会有声音、视觉、嗅觉，或是愤怒、沮丧、相爱的感受。

And that really caught on this purely empirical program and led to what's now known the search for the NCC or the neuronal or the neural correlates of consciousness. In other words, what are the footprints in the brain for any one conscious experience? Like, right now, I see you and I hear you in my head, this voice inside my head. Well, nothing in physics right now tells us why there should be voices or sights or smells or feeling of being angry, upset in love. Right?

量子力学不能解释，广义相对论不能解释，元素周期表不能解释，没完没了的ATGC碱基对也不能解释这些声音和体验的存在。因此NCC研究对各种哲学立场保持中立——只要你认同（甚至不是所有哲学家都认同）意识是需要被解释的现象。像丹尼特和丘奇兰德等著名哲学家就认为这完全是场大误会，意识根本不存在于你我认知的形式中，只是个巨大的干扰项。

Nothing in quantum mechanics, nothing in general relativity, nothing in periodic table of chemistry, nothing in the endless ATGC chatter tells me that we have these things, these voices, these experiences. And so the the search for the NCC is is neutral with respect to your particular philosophical, metaphysical underpinning. As long as you believe, and not even all philosophers believe, that consciousness is something that needs to be explained. Some philosophers, most famously Dan Dennett and and the Churchlands, they claim it's all a big confusion. It doesn't really exist in any in any sort of way that you and I believe it exists, and it's just a big distraction.

但绝大多数人甚至多数哲学家都认为这亟需解释。寻找神经痕迹是个实证研究计划。不过——这也是我跟随克里克工作十四年后的认知转变——假以时日，我们终将获得关于神经痕迹的解释。

But among the vast majority of people and even the majority of philosophers, it cries out for an explanation. Looking for the footprint is an empirical program. Yeah. However, and and this is also what what what has changed since I worked for with Francis Crick for fourteen years. Let's say in the fullness of time, we will have an explanation about the neuronal footprint.

所以，肖恩，每当你感到无聊时，那种感觉、那种无聊的体验，无聊本身就是一种感受，与恋爱截然不同。我们最终会明白这涉及到某些神经元，或许是某种机制，甚至是波函数的坍缩。明白吗？无论是什么。但你自然会想知道：为什么是这个机制而非那个？

So anytime, Sean, that you feel bored, the feeling, the experience of being bored, it feels like something to be bored, Very different from being in love. We know ultimately, we will know it involves these neurons or maybe that mechanism or a me maybe even the collapse of the of the of the wave function. Okay? Whatever it is. But then, of course, you wanna know what why this mechanism and not that?

为什么是这里的神经元而非那些神经元？如果是坍缩，为什么坍缩会有任何感觉？这当然就是大卫·查默斯所说的‘心问题’。归根结底，我们需要一种意识理论来精准解答你早前提出的问题。你提醒过要问我：胎儿有意识吗？

Why these neurons here and not those neurons? If it's a collapse, why should the collapse feel like anything? So, this is of course also known as a heart problem by David Chalmers. So ultimately, we need a theory of consciousness that precisely gets at the question you asked early on. You warned me, you're gonna ask, is a fetus conscious?

如果有，是从何时开始？机器会有意识吗？基本粒子会有意识吗？草履虫会有意识吗？要解答这些问题，你需要一套意识理论。

And if so, when? Is a machine ever conscious? Is a particle ever conscious? Is a paramedium ever conscious? So, for all of that, you need a theory of consciousness.

你需要一套可实证验证的科学理论，来告诉我们哪些物质碎片、哪些器官组织——比如这个已知宇宙中最复杂的物质——拥有感受。我和弗朗西斯当年故意避开了这个方向，但那已是三十年前了。如今我们有了若干理论，特别是两种主流理论之一的‘整合信息论’，弗朗西斯应该会喜欢这个理论，因为它强调因果性。事实上他还见过创始人朱利奥·托诺尼，我们一起吃过午餐。他曾两次来弗朗西斯家和我们共进午餐。

You need an empirical, verifiable scientific objective theory that tells us which bits and pieces of matter, which bits and pieces of organs like this, the most complex piece of matter in the known universe, have feelings. And Francis and I, we purposely didn't go there, but that of course was thirty years ago. And so, the meantime, we have theories, in particular, one of the two most popular theories, integrated information theory of consciousness, that Francis would have liked because it's causal. And in fact, he met the originator, Giulio Tononi, we had lunch, He came over twice to have lunch with Francis and I and myself at his house. That yeah.

这就是最大的分歧点。我们可能需要...或许还有形而上学假设的问题，但这个可以留待后续讨论。

So that's the biggest difference. So we'd want to And perhaps the metaphysical assumptions, but we can leave that for later.

我们或许会谈到。但换句话说，你从一开始就在寻找大脑中与意识体验相关的活动。现在你更认同这种关联很重要，但同时我们也需要一套理论，才能探讨无法直接验证的对象，比如胎儿或人工智能。

We might get there. But so in other words, you from the start were looking for the things that happen in the brain that correlate with the conscious experience. Now you're more, taken with the idea that that's important, but also we need a theory so that we can ask about things we can't immediately quiz, like the fetus or the AI.

没错。目前我们完全依赖直觉、宗教或哲学偏见来判断，对吧？有些人认为胎儿当然有意识，可以追溯到受孕那一刻；另一些人则说只有出生后才算。再比如狗有意识吗？我知道你是爱猫人士——猫有意识吗？

Yeah, exactly. Where we right now completely depend on our intuitions, our religious or philosophical biases, right? For some people, of course, the fetus is conscious, right? Way back to inception, other people say, no, it's only born, only when it's born to, you know, is a dog conscious? I know you're a cat lover, a cat conscious.

意识在生命之树中向下延伸了多远？所有这些现在都有直觉。每个人都有不同的直觉。但这还不够好，对吧？

How how how far does consciousness go down the tree of life? All of that right now, have intuition. Everyone has an has a different intuition. But that's not good enough. Right?

是的，我们都有直觉认为鲸鱼是鱼类。但实际上，它们不是鱼，而是哺乳动物。

Yeah. We all have the intuition that whale whales are fishes. Well, it turns out, actually they're they're not fish, they're mammals.

你提到你正在和我交谈，看到我的小图像，听到我说的话。意识与简单的事物觉知之间有什么区别？它们似乎是如此沉重和哲学化，它们是同一回事吗？

Well, you mentioned the idea that you're talking to me, you're seeing a little picture of me, you're hearing what I say. What is the distinction between consciousness, which seems so laden and philosophical with simple awareness of things? Are they the same thing?

是的，对我们来说，弗朗西斯和我明确地写过，对我们来说，它们只是不同的词汇。有些人，尤其是早期，现在你甚至可以在自然界中使用意识这个词，比如在PIL中。七年前你不可能这样做，除非你是罗杰·彭罗斯。所以人们用这个更温和的词——觉知。觉知只是一种更广义的状态，你知道自己活着。

Yeah, so for us, so Francis and I wrote about it explicitly, for us, they're just different words. Some people, particularly early on, now you can use consciousness even in nature and, you know, in PIL. You couldn't do that seven years ago, unless maybe you're Roger Penrose. So, people use this softer thing, awareness. Awareness is just a more generalized sort of, you know, you're aware that you're alive.

你知道自己是清醒的。你知道这里有先例。所以它更像是背景意识，但归根结底，你也可以称之为心理状态、主观状态、现象状态。哲学家喜欢用‘现象’这个词。它们都是一回事。

You're aware that you're awake. You're aware of, you know, that there's a precedent here. So it's more background consciousness, but it's all about ultimately, you can also call it mental state, subjective state, phenomenal. You know, philosophers like to use the word phenomenal. It's all the same.

活着、清醒、感到无聊、感到饥饿——这些感觉都像是某种体验。

This it feels like something to be alive, to be awake, to be bored, to be hungry.

我们在确切的神经关联方面取得了多少进展？当我感到饥饿时，我们知道是哪些小神经元在放电吗？当我感受到饥饿感时？

And how much progress have we made on the literal neural correlates? Do we know which little neurons are firing when I'm hungry? When I'm feeling the feeling of being hungry?

嗯，即便我们了解很多关于神经元和大脑区域的知识，但这些当然都只是相关性。是的，我们有数百项实验数据。此刻我看着你，你也看着我，我们对视觉涉及的神经通路有相当深入的理解。视觉作为研究最透彻的感知模式，但这与因果机制不同——那些零散部分中哪些才是真正必要的？比如眼睛，显然光子进入我的眼睛后最终转化为视觉。

Well, even if we knew, of course, we know a lot about neurons, we know a lot about brain areas, but those are, of course, all correlation. Yeah, so we know, I mean, there are hundreds of experiments. Right now, I see you and you see me, so we have a pretty good understanding what are the neural pathways involved in vision. Vision, because it's a best studied modality of all, but of course that's different from, that's just correlation, which of those bits and pieces are actually necessary? So for instance, the eye, clearly, you know, photons are entering my eye and then are transformed ultimately into vision.

我需要眼睛吗？不，我可以闭着眼睛仍能朦胧地看到你。今晚若梦见你时，我在黑暗中闭着眼也能看见，所以眼睛并非必需。真正的挑战在于区分单纯的相关性与实际因果机制，而这至今仍极具争议。

Do I need my eyes? No, I can close my eyes and I can see you still ghostly. And of course tonight, if I dream about you, you know, I dream in the dark and my eyes are closed, so I don't need the eyes. So the challenge has been to sort of disambiguate mere correlation from what is actually the causal agent. And there, it's still very controversial.

你可能听说过二十七年前我与哲学家大卫·查默斯那个著名赌约——在不来梅某次意识研讨会的深夜酒吧谈话后，他挑战我说：'即使再过四分之一个世纪（那时我们都年轻得多，觉得遥遥无期），我们也找不到答案。'他并非认为不可能，但承认神经关联意识（NCC）是个需要足够人力资金支持的纯实证研究项目。

You may have heard I had this famous bet with the philosopher Dave Chalmers twenty seven years ago now, where after a late night pub call in Bremen at a conference on consciousness, you know, he challenged me and says, look, even in a quarter of a century, which, you know, I was we were all much younger, seemed forever, we won't we won't find these. It'll it's gonna take us much longer. He didn't say it's impossible. He agrees. The NCC is a purely empirical, operational defined project with enough people, money, funding, research.

两年前我们在坦普顿基金会支持下开展了对抗性合作项目——让意识研究的两大主流理论（整合信息论与全局神经元工作空间理论）直接对决，就像1919年日食实验验证牛顿力学与广义相对论那样。2023年5月纽约会议上，共识是这两个理论都不完全正确。

We'll we'll figure it out. And so we had this meeting two years ago where it turned out as part of this adversarial collaboration, so the Templeton Foundation started this cool project where they put where they pitted the two dominant theories of consciousness, integrated information theory and global neuronal workspace theory directly against each other, we're a little bit like, you know, the the the famous experiments 1919, you know, predicting, you know, the the the solar eclipse doing the solar eclipse, whether the the shift of light follows Newtonian physics or or Einstein general relativity. We directly pit the two theories against each other trying to resolve empirically, well, where is it what are the empirical prediction? Which one is actually true? And and so at this meeting in in in New York in May 2023, the agreement was, well, none of the theories are totally correct.

至少在大脑神经关联的实证表现上：整合信息论认为神经关联位于后部感觉皮层，而全局神经元工作空间理论主张前额叶皮层（人类大脑最发达的区域）。学界对此仍无定论，相关论文将于数月后在《自然》期刊发表。

At least the empirical manifestation of these theories in the brain with respect to where is the neural correlate. So, IIT says the neural correlate is in the back, the sensory cortices. Well, Global Neural Networkspace make the argument it's primarily in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that's most expanded in humans And compared to other the field still hasn't settled down on that. That paper's finally coming out in Nature in a couple of months from now.

好的。

Okay.

因为这引发巨大争议——结果令人惊讶，肖恩：那些投入二十年研究某个理论的学者，当对抗性合作证明其部分预测错误时，他们不会轻易承认'你赢了，我的理论错了，我承认二十五年光阴虚度'。

Because there was a lot of controversy about it. It turns out, big surprise here, Sean, it turns out people who work for twenty years on a theory, then if you go into this adversarial collaboration and the theory or some of its prediction is disproven, they don't just say, ah, you got me. My theory is wrong. I admit twenty five years of my life was wasted. Sorry I about

别相信这个。

don't believe it.

是的。人们实际上不会那样做。惊讶吧。牛顿在1917年、1919年可不在场。

Yes. People actually don't do that. Surprise. Surprise. Newton wasn't around in 1917, 1919.

否则他肯定会再次反对的，对吧？所以我们仍未达成共识，但正在接近。这场辩论揭示的是，前额叶皮层——这与你另一个问题‘计算机是否会有意识’相关——与行动、规划和智能的关联更为紧密。这就是意识与智能的区别，明白吗？

Otherwise, he would have objected again. Right? So, we still haven't converged, but we're getting closer. And what we do realize, what came out in this debate, that the prefrontal cortex, and this is relevant to your other question, are computers ever gonna be conscious, is much more closely associated with doing, with planning, with intelligence. This is the difference between consciousness and intelligence, right?

同理，人工意识与人工智能也是如此。意识本质上是关于存在状态——恋爱、快乐、愤怒、看见事物、听见声音等等。而智能则关乎短期、中期、长期的行动规划，对吧？比如我现在必须存钱以备退休之需，这就是智能行为。

So, and also artificial consciousness and artificial intelligence. Consciousness is ultimately about being, being in love, being happy, being angry, seeing things, hearing things, etcetera. While intelligence is really about short term, medium term, long term planning to act, right? I have to save money now in order to collect it or retirement, right? That's an intelligent action.

所以归根结底，智能关乎执行功能，而意识关乎存在体验。因此不难理解，大脑中负责规划、推理、道德判断和决策的区域，与那些作为感受和经验基质的脑区是不同的。

So ultimately, that's about doing stuff, it's about functions, etcetera, and that's different from, you know, being. And so, it's not that surprising that the parts and bits of the brain that are involved in planning and reasoning, in in thinking, in moral reasoning, in decision making are different from the bits and pieces of the brain that seem to be the substrate for feeling, for having experiences.

我特别喜欢这种对抗性合作的形式。虽然根据我的经验，有些对手根本无法协作，但你们能做到这点值得祝贺。现在我要问个可能耗时很久的问题：这两种理论究竟是什么？

Well, I love the idea of the adversarial collaboration. I think it should be more widely adopted, although some adversaries would just not be able to collaborate from in my experience. So congratulations to you folks for being able to do that. But now I need to ask this question even if it takes a long time to answer. What are these two theories?

什么是整合信息理论？什么是全局工作空间理论？我从未听说过它们聚焦或提出不同脑区作为核心的观点。

What is integrated information theory, global workspace theory? I had never heard the idea that they focus or they propose different parts of the brain as being central Well, for

我是说，这次会议确实有所收获。让我们退一步看，事实上我刚参加完谷歌的一个会议——准确说是伦敦DeepMind的线上会议，主题是所谓的计算功能主义与意识。研究意识的人，尤其是AI和大科技公司的从业者，普遍接受这种由美国哲学家普特南正式提出的哲学形而上学假设，称为图灵功能主义或计算功能主义。

I mean, that was a good thing that came out of this meeting. Well, let's step back. Most people in fact, I just attended just before a meeting at Google, I mean, virtual, at DeepMind in London, about what's called computational functionalism and consciousness. So most people who study consciousness, particularly everyone in AI and big tech, makes this philosophical metaphysical assumption that was, you know, proposed formally by Patnam, you know, the the American philosopher, called a Turing functionalism or computational functionalism. I.

意识具有一个或多个功能，比如规划、总结我脑海中的世界现状并据此行动，还有长期记忆、在大脑中广播信息等功能列表。任何实现这些功能的系统——包括图灵机——都将因此具备意识。如果我们能让图灵机模仿人类所有涉及意识的行为，比如讨论意识和基于意识的推理，那么像大语言模型这样的机器也将拥有意识。现在这只是个可以讨论的实际问题。

E. Consciousness has one or more functions, let's call it planning or summarizing the current state of the world in my mind and acting on it, you know, long term memory, broadcasting information in the brain, probably a list of functions. And any system that implements these functions will therefore EIO Ipsum be conscious, including a Turing machine. So if we can get a Turing machine to mimic everything that people do that seems to involve consciousness, like talking about consciousness and reasoning based on it, then machines, like large language models, will also be conscious. And so now it's just a practical question we can discuss.

比如，ChatGPT4.0有意识吗？3.0版本呢？DeepSeq呢？Gemini呢？

Is, you know, ChatGPT four point o? Is o three? You know? Is DeepSeq? Is Gemini?

它们具备意识还是仍有欠缺？也许它们还缺少某些要素？可能需要处理更多标记词，或需要更长的记忆能力之类的，但这本质上只是个实用性问题。这就是计算功能主义的观点。

Are they conscious or are they still missing? Well, maybe they're still missing a little bit of something. You know? Maybe they have to take in more tokens or to do a little bit more a longer memory or whatever, but it's really just a question around pragmatics. So that's computational functionalism.

所以归根结底，任何系统——意识本质上是一种计算。这是个巧妙的编程技巧。如果我给机器编程，它是载体无关的，可以在云端运行，也可以在量子计算机上运行。

So any system so ultimately, consciousness is a computation. It's a hack. If I if I program machine, it's substrate independent. It can run-in the cloud. It can run on a quantum computer, whatever.

这是个精妙的编程技巧。一旦你实例化这个技巧，这些机器自然就具备意识了。你可以询问它们，它们会滔滔不绝地谈论自己有多清醒、有什么感受。对吧？与之相对——

It's a clever hack. And once you instantiate this hack, of course, these machines are conscious. You can ask them, and they talk about it at a great length how conscious they are, how they feel. Right? Versus

抱歉，这只是按照那个观点——普特南的观点来说的。

That's sorry. That's according to that view, the Putnam view.

普特南的观点非常、非常普遍，当然，这也是行业内的主流观点。我理解它为何如此主流，因为当你与大型语言模型互动时，它们看起来确实令人惊叹。不仅智能，而且，是的，它们会谈论感受。

The Putnam view, which is very, very prevalent, and, of course, it is a dominant one in the in the industry. And I get it's so dominant because if you interact with an LLM, they seem incredible Right. Not only intelligent, but also, yeah, they they talk about feelings.

有意识。是的。

Aware. Yeah.

当然，它们会谈论感受，因为它们被喂食了人类写过的每一本小说，而所有小说都充斥着主角的情感。对吧？他们的爱与恨、被轻视、被侮辱、受伤等等。它们像吸血鬼一样吸收了所有这些内容，所以自然能复现出来。这都是深度伪造。

Now, of course, they talk about feelings because they've been fed on every novel humans have ever written, and all novels are both the feelings of the protagonist. Right? Their love and hate and being slighted and being insulted and hurting and etcetera etcetera. And they've ingested all of that like vampires, so of course, they can reproduce it. It's all deep fake.

这就是我的观点。好的。那么另一方的理论，实际上只有一个主流理论，就是整合信息理论，它说不。意识不是一种聪明的把戏。它不是计算。

That's what I believe. Okay. So the other theory on the other side, there's really only one dominant theory, which is integrated information theory, which says no. Consciousness is not a clever hack. It's not a computation.

它不是过程。不是功能。尽管可能与这些都有关联。最终，意识如我所说，是一种存在状态，是高维因果空间中的一种结构。所以归根结底，意识关乎一个系统，像大脑这样的基质对自身具有因果影响力。

It's not a process. It's not a function. Although it may be associated with all those things. Ultimately, consciousness is, as I said, a state of being, it's a structure in a very high dimensional causal space. So ultimately, consciousness is about a system, a substrate like this brain having causal power upon itself.

这是系统作用于自身的特定方式。换句话说，能否决定自己的未来并被过去所决定？我可以展开解释——这个系统越是以某种方式感知自身？

And this is the particular way the system acts upon itself. In other words, can determine its own future and be determined by its past. I can I can unpack that, the more this system feels like something?

嗯。

Mhmm.

这有点像在说那些能够自我作用的复杂系统。换句话说，这些系统的下一个状态并非随机决定，而是前一个状态的函数。任何这样的系统，如果从转移概率矩阵的数学公式来看，都具有所谓的因果力。当前状态共同决定下一个状态。可能存在一些噪声，因此可能并非完全确定性，但仍决定了下一个状态。

So it's a little bit like saying complex systems that can act upon themselves. In other words, that are not just randomly determined where the next state is a function of the previous state. Any such system, if you look at the mathematical formulation in terms of its transition probability matrix, has what's called causal power. The current state co determines the next state. There may be some noise, so it may not be fully deterministic, but determines the next state.

或者说过去决定现在，现在决定未来。系统内部因果力越强，决定自身命运的能力越大，其意识程度就越高。该理论描述了两个方面的内容：一是用希腊字母φ表示的系统不可约性数值——系统整体超越其部分之和的程度越高，φ值就越大，意识程度也越高。

Or the past determines the present and the present determines the future. The more power this the more internal causal power the system has to determine its own fate, the more it is conscious. And the theory describes two aspects of it. Eight, it has a number called phi, the Greek number phi, which you can also think about the irreducibility of the system. The more the system is above and beyond the sum of its part, the more the higher the phi, the more it is conscious.

因此可能存在φ值为零的系统，这意味着它根本不存在整体性。其可约性（即不可约性为零）表明它并非真正的系统，更像是两个独立系统。这样的系统不会有意识。

So you can have a system that's phi zero, which means it's totally it is it does not exist as a whole. Its reducibility is its its irreducibility is zero. It's not really a system. It's more two independent system. That system wouldn't be conscious.

φ值越高，系统意识就越强。最重要的是——这是其他理论从未强调过的——还需要有个理论来解释：为什么恋爱会有特定的感觉？为什么时间会流逝？我们都体验过时间单向流动，它从不倒流。

The higher the fight, the more conscious the system is. And most importantly, and this is never stressed by other theories, it you also have to have a theory that tells you why does being in love feel the particular way it does. Why does time flow? You know, we all experience time as flowing forward. It never moves backward.

为什么空间——无论是视觉空间、场景空间还是听觉空间——会让人感觉延展？这个底层基质究竟如何产生了延展感、无聊感或愤怒感？该理论通过展开的因果空间结构，也解释了为何每种体验感受都彼此迥异。

Why? Space, you know, whether it's visual space or scene space or heard space feels extended. Well, what is it about the underlying substrate that gives rise to the feeling of extendedness or boredness or, you know, being bored or being angry? So, the theory also explains by the structure of this unfolded causal space, why one experience feels the way it is very different from any other experience.

那么全局工作空间理论是否算是普特南功能主义的衍生理论？

And so the is the global workspace theory the sort of descendant of the functionalism of Putnam?

是的。抱歉。你刚才问过我了。

Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. You asked me that.

是的。全局工作空间是上世纪五十年代计算机科学中的一个隐喻概念。对吧？其核心思想是存在一个中央处理器，将信息写入一块黑板，这也被称为黑板架构。

Yeah. So so global workspace is is a computer science metaphor from the from the fifties. Right? The idea is you have a central process and that writes information on a on a on a blackboard. It's also called the blackboard architecture.

然后所有本地进程都能访问这块黑板。这里的理念是：我的大脑无意识地处理许多事情。比如你我，像所有人类一样，每秒移动眼睛四次。明白吗？眼动的调节非常精密且高度受控，但完全绕过了我们的意识。

And then every local processes can access this blackboard. So the idea here is my brain does many things, but unconsciously. Like you and I, like all humans, we move our eyes four times a second. Okay? The regulation of eye movements is very sophisticated, highly controlled, but it totally bypasses our consciousness.

就像我调整步态、移动双手、推断语法那样。对吧？我们说出正确的句子，但并非有意识地将这些元素组合起来。这些都是本地进程的自然运作。

Just like the way I adjust my gait, I move my hands, I comp I sort of infer syntax. Right? We we speak in correct sentences, but we we don't consciously put those things together. It just happens. Those are all local process.

所有进入意识的信息都具有全局可访问性。心理学家们提出的这个观点我认为很正确：一旦我意识到某事——比如'那边有奇怪的东西'——大脑中的所有进程都会获知这个信息。我可以将其存入长期记忆，当然也会保留在短期记忆中，还能利用这个新意识到的信息进行长期规划。

Every information that's conscious is globally accessible. What's meant, and I think it's a correct insight from psychologists, once I'm conscious of something, oh, there is something funny over there, Then all the different processes in my brain are informed about it. I can put it into long term memory. I, of course, have it into short term memory. I can use that information I just became conscious of to do long term planning.

我能思考它，能进行推理。这就是所谓的信息一旦全局化，就能被大脑所有信息处理系统访问，而这正是意识的本质。这个隐喻实质上是信息的广播。斯坦·德哈恩及其合作者已发现前额叶皮层中的一组神经元，负责将信息投射回大脑其他区域——这就是广播机制。

I can think about it, I can reason about it. So that's the idea that once information becomes global, it's accessible to all the information processing system in the brain, and that's what consciousness is. So the metaphor is really, you broadcast information. Stan DeHann and his collaborators have identified a set of neurons are situated in the prefrontal cortex that project the information back to the rest of the brain. So that is this broadcast.

因此该理论认为：每当信息（比如始于大脑后部的视觉系统）向前传导时仍是局部的，直到抵达大脑前部。若信息足够重要且被我们注意到，就会向整个新皮层（大脑最外层）广播——这种广播功能正是构成意识的行为。任何实现这种广播的系统都具有意识。

So the claim is every time information percolates from, let's say, from the visual system that starts at the back of your brain, propagates forward, it's still local, it's still local, then reaches the front of the brain, and then that information, if it's important enough and we attend to it, becomes, is broadcast to all the rest of cortex, to the neocortex, the outermost layer of the brain, that act of broadcasting, that function is what constitutes consciousness. So any system that instantiates that broadcast will be conscious.

那么按我的理解，全局工作空间理论似乎聚焦于意识涉及的注意力聚光灯，而整合信息理论(IIT)更侧重于我们用来规划和掌控命运的整合信息。

So if I understand it correctly, then the global workspace theory seems to focus on the spotlight of attention that consciousness involves, whereas integrated information theory, IIT, is more about this sort of well, the integrated information that we use to plan and control our own destinies.

是的。但这不仅仅是高层次的命运，你知道，在高层次上。它只是观察外在——我的意思是，因果力量就是某些元素（无论是神经元、晶体管还是其他东西）影响其他事物的能力。比如电荷具有外在的因果力量，对吧？因为这里的正电荷有能力影响那边的负电荷。

Yeah. But it's not just destiny at a high level, you know, at a high level. It's just looking out in I mean, causal power is just the ability of of, you know, let's see some elements, whether neurons or transistors or whatever, to influence for electric charge has extrinsic causal power. Right? Because a positive charge here has the ability to influence the negative charge over here.

引力具有因果力量，对吧，由于时空曲率。所以这些是外在因果力量的例子。内在的因果力量则是，你有一个小小的神经元、细胞或晶体管等组成的细胞网络。如果这些神经元或元素处于这种状态，那么下一个状态就会是这样；如果它们处于那种状态，那么下一个状态就会是别的样子。

Gravity has causal power, right, due to curvature in space time. So those are example of extrinsic causal power. Intrinsic causal power is just, you have a little cellular network of neurons or cells or transistors, whatever. And if the neural or these elements are in this state, then the next state will be this. And if they're in that state, then the next state will be something else.

所以，因果力量是你可以实际评估的东西。如果你有一个系统的完整数学描述，包括其状态如何随时间演化以及各个元素如何相互影响，你就可以完全计算、明确计算其所有的因果力量。所以它不是虚无缥缈的，而是可操作的——在这个意义上，它非常具有操作性。它不诉诸任何神秘的东西。

So, causal power, it's something you can actually evaluate. If you have a complete mathematical description of a system, how its states evolve over time and how the individual elements influence each other, you can fully compute, explicitly compute all of its causal powers. And So it's not a airy fairy. It's an operational so in that sense, it's very operational. It doesn't appeal to anything mysterious.

所以它不是二元论的。有些人说，整合信息理论（IIT）是二元论的。其实不是，因为它不诉诸任何实体。它只是主张，从根本上说，体验的感觉就是这种展开的因果力量。所以任何整合的系统——即大于各部分之和的系统，甚至可能是一个非常简单的系统如草履虫——由于其巨大的复杂性（你知道，草履虫中可能有十亿个不同的分子，也许有一两千种不同类型的蛋白质等等），

So it's not dualist. Some people say, IIT is dualist. Well, it's not because it doesn't appeal to any to any substance. It's just the claim that fundamentally what experience feels like is this unfolded causal power. So any system that is integrated, that's more than the sum of the individual parts, maybe even a very simple system like a paramedium, will, because of its vast complexity of the you know, in the paramedium, there are probably a billion different molecules of maybe a thousand or 2,000 different types, you know, proteins, etcetera.

它们都彼此因果互动，而这种因果互动感觉起来就像是某种东西，比如可能是活着的体验。

They all interact causally with each other, and this covelly interaction feels itsy bits like something, like being alive maybe.

所以这就是为什么你不会恐惧地逃避泛心论的想法，即使你不是一个完全的泛心论者，但你有点理解为什么这会是一种思考方式。意识不是在某个阈值突然冒出来的东西。它更像是到处都有小小的

So this is why you are not, you know, running in fear from the idea of panpsychism, even though you're not like a full panpsychist, but you kind of get why that would be a way of thinking about things. Consciousness is not something that pops up at a threshold. It's like there's little bits of

一点点的意识。没错。我的意思是，这完全正确。它也是无参数的，对吧？

it everywhere. That's correct. I mean, that's entirely correct. It's also parameter free. Right?

你不必说，如果你的phi值是42，那么你就有意识，但如果低于42，抱歉，你就没达标，因为这看起来完全武断。我是说，为什么是42？尤其当你——要知道，我也是生物学家。我们研究老鼠大脑，其体积只有人脑的极小部分。实际上，几乎正好是千分之一。

You don't have to say, well, if your phi is 42, then you're conscious, but if below 42, sorry, you just didn't make it, because that seems totally arbitrary. I mean, why 42? And particularly if you're if you're so, you know, I'm also a biologist. So we study mouse brains at a, you know, tiny fraction the size of of human brain. In fact, a almost exactly a thousand times.

然而如果你观察硬件结构，几乎无法区分——如果我通过显微镜聚焦在老鼠皮层的一个微小区域，比如藜麦大小的颗粒，几乎无法将其与人脑区分开。毫无疑问，你甚至可以研究更小的动物，如果仅观察动物行为，它们有复杂行为和记忆，这很可能意味着所有动物，至少动物界成员，都可能具有某种感受体验。这当然是一种非常古老的直觉，即所谓的泛心论。

Yet if you look at at the at the hardware, it's almost impossible, know, if if I focus in with with a microscope on a tiny, you know, quinoa size grain of of mouse cortex, it's almost impossible to tell it apart from from the human brain. And so there's no doubt you can go even down to smaller animals that if you just observe animals, they have complex behavior, they have memory, that is quite likely that all animals, certainly, animalia, may well feel like something. And this is, of course, it's very ancient intuition of that you the that's called panpsychism.

但你不是——我应该用问句表述：你会将自己归类为物理主义者吗？你认为一切只是物理物质吗？这里没有玄妙的本质存在。

But you wouldn't you would I should phrase this as a question. Would you classify yourself as a physicalist? Do you think that it's just physical stuff? There's no spooky essences involved here.

其实，物理主义长久以来让我困扰的一点是：心智显然不是物理的。我的视觉状态、存在状态、思维状态或其他任何状态，本质上都不是物理的。根据定义，它是现象性的。事实上，薛定谔——我最近重读了埃尔温·薛定谔的著作，对吧？

Well, so something that's always bothered me about physicalism from way, way back is the mental is clearly not physical. My state of seeing, of being, or thinking, or whatever is not is is is is not physical. By definition, it's phenomenal. In fact, Schrodinger so I was recently rereading Erwin Schrodinger. Right?

他明确指出，即便作为物理学家，我也必须观察。我必须亲身体验示波器上的轨迹——这意味着我必须看见，那是有意识的体验。我必须听见他人说话。

And he makes this he makes this very explicit that as even as a physicist, I have to look. I have to experience, you know, the trace of an on on an oscilloscope. Well, it means I have to see. That's a conscious experience. I have to hear other people saying something.

当像爱因斯坦那样想象自由下落的电梯等等时，我动用了想象力。那就是意识。所以我们无法逃避——肖恩，我们唯一能接触到的只有对世界的体验。我从未接触过原子，没有人接触过。

When when, you know, when like Einstein, I'm imagining some, you know, the elevator on free fall, etcetera, while I use my imagination. That's consciousness. So we cannot escape everything we the only thing, Sean, we have access to, The only thing is our experiences of the world. I don't have access to atoms. I've never had No one has.

是的。你可以给我看小图片，展示符合原子论的方程式，但你无法直接接触原子。你只能接触现象——那些绘制在你称之为现实的洞穴内壁上的美丽形状。

Yeah. You can show me little pictures. You can show me equations that are compatible with atomism and all of that, but you don't have direct access. All you have access to is the phenomenals. All these beautiful shapes painted on the inside of your cave that you call your reality.

那是你定制的现实，对吧？这是每个人唯一知道的事情。我们哲学家所说的‘你直接熟悉的事物’仅此而已。所以物理主义是一个额外的假设。

That's your bespoke reality. Right? That's the only thing everyone knows of. We that's the only thing philosopher have the phrase you are directly acquainted with. So physicalism is an additional assumption.

它表示，不仅存在这些物理现象，我还推断有某种超越现象的存在。现在反过来讲，我要完全摒弃这个观察者。对吧？所以不存在现象，一切都是物理的。

It says, well, there's not only this physic this this these phenomena, but then I infer there's something above and beyond. So now inverting that and saying, well, now I'm gonna do away with this observer altogether. Right? So there are no phenomena. Everything is physical.

这在我看来一直很荒谬。但直到最近，如果你想保持科学家的身份，在学术圈里就不能这么说。明白吗？你不能这么说，因为人们会说‘哦，我们现在在谈论玄学’对吧？

It's always struck me as ludicrous. But until recently, you couldn't say that in polite academic society if you wanted to remain a scientist. Okay? You can't say that because then people say, oh, now we're talking about woo woo. Right?

是的，我可能会这么说，但我很高兴你解放了思想。我很高兴你有勇气承认这些倾向。

Yep. I would say that, but that's I'm glad you're liberated. I'm glad that you feel the courage to admit these inclinations.

确实。实际上，在经历了一次特殊体验后，我重新认识了这一点。我成长在一个德国家庭，不仅接触理查德·瓦格纳，还有亚瑟·叔本华——他可能是最著名的现代西方唯心主义者之一。现在哲学界正兴起复兴，不仅是泛心论越来越流行，还有传统的唯心主义。我想起这位计算机科学家，强烈推荐你采访他，非常聪明的人，既是计算机科学家也是哲学家。

Yes. In fact, I have after a particular type of experience I had, I became reacquainted. So I I grew up obviously in a Germanic household, And I so I grew up around not only Richard Wagner, but also Arthur Schopenhauer, who is probably one of the best known, at least modern Western idealist. And there's now there's this resurgent in philosophy, not only in pampsychism, it's becoming more popular now, but idealism, good old idealism that that and and so I'm thinking of this computer scientist. I think I would warmly recommend you interview him, very smart guy, computer scientist and philosopher.

他拥有两个博士学位，伯纳多·卡斯特鲁普提出了他称之为‘分析唯心主义’的理论，本质上是现代版的叔本华哲学。他认为最简单的解释——遵循奥卡姆剃刀原则——如果我们只假设一件事，那就是我们唯一直接熟悉的就是现象。从眼前到地平线都是现象，因为这是你我唯一认知的事物。所以一切都是现象的，实际上物理必须被解释为最终从现象中产生的。

He has two PhDs, Bernardo Kastrop, who has this, he calls it analytic idealism, which is really sort of Schopenhauer for the modern world, where essentially he says, well, the simplest explanation, the only we can all agree following, you know, Occam's razor and all of that. The simplest explanation, if we only postulate one thing. Well, the only thing I have directly acquainted with is phenomenal. It's phenomenal all the way to the horizon because that's the only thing I or you ever know. So then everything is phenomenal, and in fact, the physical has to be explained within within is is ultimately arising from the phenomenal.

即使是原子、电荷、基本粒子、夸克等物理实体，最终也必须用现象来解释。这种哲学现在与基础物理学相遇——自从贝尔不等式、量子纠缠粒子、爱因斯坦的‘鬼魅般的超距作用’以来，我们知道可能不存在真正独立于观察者的事件。或许观察者必须成为物理学的核心部分，甚至可以说这才是真正根本的存在。因为肖恩，这是IIT理论的核心观点。

That even the physical stuff like atoms and charges and and, you know, elementary particles and quarks and whatever you have ultimately has to be explained with respect to the phenomenal. And then this philosophy now meets foundational physics Mhmm. Where, you know, ever since Bell's inequality and the entangled, you know, particles and, you know, Einstein's spooky action at a distance, we now know there may be no observe truly observer independent events. And then maybe the observer has to be right there, central part of of physics, including maybe saying, well, that's really fundamentally what truly exists. Because here's here's one point, Sean, which is really this central to IIT.

IIT区分绝对存在与相对存在。绝对存在是自为的存在。你是为自己而存在的。今晚当你比我早睡三小时时，你会在夜晚初期、睡眠初期进入深度睡眠。所以如果我在你深睡时唤醒你并问你：肖恩，肖恩，醒醒。

IIT distinguish between absolute existence and relative existence. Absolute existence is existence for itself. You exist for yourself. Tonight, when you're gonna go to sleep three hours earlier than I am, you will particularly in the early phase of your night, of your sleep, you'll go into deep sleep. So if I awake you during your deep sleep and I ask you, Sean, Sean, wake up.

你会回答你刚从哪儿来？通常你会说'无处而来'。因为你当时处于深度睡眠状态。嗯。你知道那些δ波在你大脑中交织，你当时并不存在。

Where did you just come from? You would say typically, you would say from nowhere. Because you were deep sleep Mhmm. You know, these delta waves are crisscrossing your brain. You were not there.

你对自己而言并不存在。你的伴侣、你的...你知道，你的坏伴侣当然能看到你的身体在那里，所以对他人而言你是存在的，但对自己而言不是。之后随着身体继续睡眠，你会在沉睡的身体中醒来，突然你成为了某种存在。你知道，你在飞翔，遇见久违的、已故的朋友、爱人、宠物等等。

You were not there to yourself. Your partner, your your your your your, you know, your bad partner can definitely see your body is there, so you are there for others, but not for yourself. Then later on, as you continue to as your body continues to sleep, you'll wake up inside your sleeping body, and suddenly you are something. You are, you know, flying. You're meeting long lost, you know, dead friends, lovers, pets, whatever.

你在做梦。这是有意识的状态。所以这个杯子只为他人存在。这个杯子不为自身存在。只有有意识的生物，只有有意识的系统才为自身存在。

You're dreaming. It's a conscious state. And so this cup only exists for others. This cup does not exist for itself. Only conscious creatures, only conscious system exists for themselves.

这就是贯穿一切的根本分歧。你明白吗？你是为自己存在，还是仅为他人存在？你能看出这是最关键的区分。

So that's really the fundamental gap that runs straight through everything. Are you on this? Do you exist for yourself or do you only exist for others? That's the you can see that is the most critical distinction there is.

所以这确实把重点放在了现象、经验上。太棒了。这...这太疯狂了。我很高兴你这么说。我完全不同意你说的每句话，但我爱死这种观点了。

And so that really puts the onerous on the phenomenal, on experience. This is great. I'm I'm it's wild stuff. I'm very glad you're saying it. I could not possibly disagree more with everything that you're saying, but I love it.

而且

And

等等。等等。等等。等等。等等。

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

好吧。为什么？为什么？我不...你不同意什么？

Okay. Why? Why? I don't What do you disagree?

我是个彻头彻尾的物理主义者。我认为量子力学并不像你所说的那样。作为科学家，我们从现象经验中获取世界的数据，这绝对正确。完全同意你说的——我们通过构造获得作为现象自我的认知。

I'm a physicalist through and through. I I think that that quantum mechanics doesn't say what you say it says. I think that as scientists, we take in data from the world from the phenomenal experiences that we have. That's absolutely true. Completely agree with everything you say that of course we, by construction, we get what we get as our phenomenal selves by construction.

然后我们据此提出关于世界运作的假说。而现有的最佳假说就是：我们是一个真实存在的物理世界的涌现部分。

But then we use that to make a hypothesis about how the world works. And the best hypothesis we have is the true existence of a physical world of which we are emergent parts.

好吧。我对这个假说没有异议——这当然是我日常研究大脑时的工作基础。但我想我们在量子力学重新引入某些概念的程度上有分歧，比如那篇一年前由霍华德·威斯曼和澳大利亚团队发表在《自然·物理学》的论文，质疑事件的绝对性，认为不存在独立于观察者的事实。我承认这个问题尚未解决。

Okay. So, I like I've no trouble with the hypothesis. That's, of course, what I do every day in my daily work, you know, studying brains. But I guess we can differ to what extent quantum mechanics now reintroduces the notion often of is thinking of getting rid you know, there was this paper in Nature Physics a year ago by Howard Wissman and people from Australia, right, questioning the absolute the absoluteness of events that every every event that facts there are no observer independent facts. Now I I agree that hasn't been resolved.

你知道，这始终是量子力学面临的挑战——要区分哪些事实独立于观察者而存在。

You know, it's it's ongoing, but that's always been a challenge for quantum mechanics to see what is the fact and what what what facts do not depend on an observer.

我认为这正是理解量子力学的难点所在。在物理学领域（抛开意识、心理学等），量子力学是唯一在规则中引入观察者概念的理论。我上周刚在《自然》发表了相关论文回顾这段历史，我会发给你

Well, I think that this is one of the difficulties in understanding quantum mechanics because it's the one theory that we have in physics, putting aside consciousness and psychology, etcetera. But in physics, quantum mechanics is the one theory that introduces the notion of an observer when it gives you the rules of the game, right? I just wrote my own paper in Nature that appeared a week ago, you know, sort of rehearsing the history of this. I'll send it

给你。哦，是的，请。

to you. But Oh, yes, please.

当然，自二十世纪五十年代以来，就存在明确的物理主义模型，这些模型解释了为何量子力学中的观察显得特殊，而无需将观察者纳入基本本体论范畴，并且这是一个实证问题——这些模型中哪些实际上是正确的。

But, of course, there are, since the nineteen fifties, straightforwardly physicalist models that explain why observations in quantum mechanics seem to be special without making observers a part of the fundamental ontology, and that it's an empirical question if and which of these models are actually correct.

我同意。归根结底这是个实证问题。当然，用更准确的话说，形而上学本身是免于验证或证伪的，对吧？形而上学的解释确实最终是个实证问题——在量子力学中，最佳理论是心灵理论、贝叶斯理论还是多世界理论等等？是的，我完全赞同。

I agree. Ultimately, it's an empirical Well, the metaphysics, of course, for better words, is immune from verification or falsification, right? The metaphysical interpretation, yes, ultimately it's an empirical question, does, you know, what is the best theory within is it a psionic theory or Bayesian theory or many world theory, etcetera, within within quantum mechanics? Yes. I totally agree.

是的。我的倾向是...（我尽量长话短说，因为还有太多精彩内容要讨论，否则我们得另开一场对话）。但我的直觉是：假设物理主义并从中推导心智，在科学上远比硬啃唯心主义并试图从中推导物理世界要高效得多。

Yeah. Mean, my inclination and and, I'll try not to go on too long because this will because there's so much good stuff I want to talk about, so otherwise, we should we could just have a whole separate conversation. But my ink my impression is that assuming physicalism and deriving mentality from it is enormously more productive scientifically than biting the bullet of idealism and trying to derive the physical world from that.

我承认这点，但这纯粹是实用主义考量。而我想在死前知道宇宙的真实状态，不是最实用的立场是什么。

I grant you that, but that's a purely pragmatic consideration. And I wanna know before I die, I wanna know what is the true state of the universe, not which is the most pragmatic state to hold.

对吧？这个区分很有意思，值得探讨...不过总之，我完全认同现代包装下的唯心主义是 intellectually respectable 的路径——无论是量子力学的认识论方法、唯心主义还是泛心论等。只是我个人不选择这条路。所以我很高兴能有你这样雄辩的代言人。

Right? Well, that's a that's a interesting distinction right there that we could we could talk about, but but but good. Anyway, I I I completely am on board with the idea that idealism in its modern guise is, you know, an intellectually respectable way to go, whether it's epistemic approaches to quantum mechanics or idealism or panpsychism, etcetera. I'm just not going there. That's why I'm very glad to have such an articulate spokesperson for the idea.

不过为了避免太跑题——你大概能猜到我要问关于前Mindscape嘉宾Scott Aronson对整合信息理论（IIT）的著名质疑。IIT最了不起的一点（众人皆认）就是它敢冒险，对吧？它提出了量化指标，明确说：我们要计算的就是这个φ值。

But without getting too distracted then, can probably anticipate I'm gonna ask a question about former Mindscape guest Scott Aronson's famous objection to integrated information theory. I mean, the great thing about IIT, everyone agrees, is that it sticks its neck out, right? It has a quantitative thing. It says this. This is the thing we're gonna compute, this number phi.

这将帮助我们定位意识所在。而Scott的反对意见是，他能举出许多表面上完全不具备意识特征的例子，比如由逻辑门组成的大型矩形阵列——虽然你们计算的这个数值很高，但似乎与我们直觉中的意识概念并不相符。对此你有何回应？

It's gonna help tell us where the consciousness is. And Scott's objection is that he can come up with with examples of things that on face value don't look conscious at all, like a large rectangular array of logic gates, which have a huge value for this number you're computing, but don't seem to map onto our intuitive view of consciousness. So what is your response to that?

没错，他是正确的。就像任何优秀理论一样，如果对IIT理论进行推演，它会得出一些相当反直觉的预测。事实上我认为大脑的这个部分——新皮质的后部区域，从实证角度看似乎是哺乳动物（包括人类）意识的物质基础——它本身就像个巨型阵列，虽然不是由神经元直接构成，但你可以把神经元近似看作某种具有拓扑连接特性的逻辑阵列。所以某种程度上说，与他假设的阵列类型并非毫无关联。是的，我认为他说得对。

Yeah, so he's correct. IIT, like any good theory, if you extrapolate it, makes some rather strange predictions. In fact, I would argue this part of the brain, the posterior part of the neocortex that empirically seems to be like the substrate of consciousness in mammals, including humans, is like a very large array, not of neurons, and you can approximate neurons as particular type of logical array that have a topographic connectivity. So, very I mean, not unrelated to the type of arrays that he postulate. Yeah, so I think he is right.

确实存在一些非常反直觉的预测。现在我们需要用科学方法来验证。这历来都是如此。要知道，从古希腊时期到文艺复兴时代，人们都曾争辩说地球不可能是球体，否则人就会掉下去——当然，他们是从另一侧掉下去的。

There are some very non intuitive predictions. And so now we have to do the science. This has always been the case. You know, people way back argued, you know, at the time of the Greeks and, of course, in the Renaissance that the earth cannot be a sphere because people would fall off. Of course, they fall off on the other side.

这简直荒谬至极。你不可能待在球体背面而不掉下去，对吧？所以我们必须对某些看似荒谬的观点保持谨慎。有时候我们得像对待黑洞理论那样认真对待这些想法。

That's that's the most ridiculous things. You can't be on the backside of a sphere without falling off. Right? So so we have to be we have to be careful with things where we think, well, that's so ridiculous. We have to sometimes, have to take things seriously like black holes.

对吧？它们也曾被当作笑谈。人们嘲笑这些理论，但最终还是会通过实验来验证真伪。比如肖恩，现在人们已经开始培育大脑类器官了，你听说过培养皿中的迷你大脑吧？

Right? They were also laughed. You know, people laughed about them and then actually try to do an experiment to see, is it true? So, for instance, Sean, people can now start to build cerebral organoids. You've heard about mini brains in a dish, right?

嗯，是的。

Yeah. Yep.

原则上在未来十到三十年内，我们将能培育出非常庞大的脑组织。如果我要取用你的新皮质——大脑最外层组织，与我们的视觉、意识和智能关系最为密切——它其实就像披萨状的组织。两到三毫米厚，直径30到35厘米，有着大量褶皱，而且左右脑各有一个。

So, in principle, in ten, twenty or thirty years, we'll be able to build them like very large tissue. So, if I were to take your mind neocortex, the outermost layer of the brain that's really most closely associated with vision and consciousness and intelligence in us. It's really a pizza like tissue. It's two to three millimeter thick like a pizza and it's 12 to 14 inches across. And it's highly folded and you have two of them left in right brain.

因此随着时间的推移，在二三十年后，人们将能够在培养皿中培育这些东西。对吧？是的，虽然听起来有点荒谬，但我认为这终将成为现实，因为你可以重复利用它来修复。比如说，你患有阿尔茨海默症或其他病理状况，都可以用它来治疗。

So in the fullness of time, in twenty, thirty years, people will be able to grow these things in a dish. Right? Yeah. I mean, it seems sort of ridiculous, but I think that's gonna happen because you can reuse it to fix. Let's say, you have Alzheimer's some other pathology, you can fix it.

原则上，这块组织可能会产生某种感觉。也许它只是感受到一种广阔的空间延展感，就像某些冥想状态中体验到的——冥想者常描述这种无边的光明感，对吧？所以意识可能最终会存在于非常奇特的空间中，而我们唯一能验证任何意识理论的方式就是通过我们自己，通过你、我以及其他人。一旦理论得到验证，我们就必须跟随它的指引。

Well, in principle, this piece of tissue may feel like something. Maybe it just feels a vast spatial extendedness, like you get during certain meditative states when the meditators just talk about this vast luminosity, right? So it consciousness may end up being found in very strange spaces, and we have to the only way we can verify any theory of consciousness is in us, in you and I and and other people. And once we have a theory verified, then we have to go where it takes us.

好吧。所以你的答案是硬着头皮承认，这些看似不符合我们直觉意识概念的实例，仍然应该被视为有意识的。这就是你的立场。

And okay. So so your your answer is to bite the bullet and say, This this these examples that don't seem to map onto our intuitive idea of consciousness should nevertheless count as conscious. That's that's your

反过来，那些看起来极具意识特征的事物，比如大语言模型，同样适用这一逻辑。我们必须验证：它们是真的有意识，还是仅仅在模仿？

And conversely, things that look very conscious like LLMs, same logic applies. We have to test, are they really conscious or are they just faking it?

有没有人计算过大语言模型的Phi值？

Can we has anyone computed phi for an LLM?

是的，目前bioRxiv上有篇我们正尝试投稿的论文，它严格论证了——当然前提是假设整合信息论成立。因为这个论证非常形式化且具体。我们能严格证明的是：你有一个冯·诺依曼机器的简化模型。

Yeah, so there's a paper that's on bioRxiv now that we're trying to submit that shows formally within this is only assuming IIT is true. Yeah. Okay. Because it's very formal and it's very specific. So what we can formally show, you have a simple model of a Von Neumann machine.

这个模型非常简单，只有116个逻辑门之类。你可以展示一个实际的——当然都是模拟的。一种情况是用高度非线性的简易自动机，另一种情况是将这个自动机映射到简易但完全通用的4比特计算机上。你能证明这两个系统的输入输出阶段：这边是4个非线性门的物理组合，那边是冯·诺依曼架构中典型的116个门——它们在功能上完全等效。

Okay, it's very simple with 116 gates or something like that. And you can show an actual I mean, it's all simulated. So in one case, have a simple automata that's heavily nonlinear. In the other case, we map this automata onto a simple, but perfectly general four bit computer. And you can show that the input output stage of these two systems here, a physical set of four nonlinear gate, here 116 gates as you would typically find them Von Neumann architecture, functionally, they're totally equivalent.

它们执行相同的输入，产生相同的输出。因此你无法区分它们。根据图灵测试，它们完全相同。但你可以展示现象性，这具有某种因果力。而这个在整体系统层面根本不存在，116个门中只有极少数具有微弱的因果力。

They perform the same input, give rise to the same output. So you cannot distinguish them. So by Turing, they're exactly the same. But you can show phenomenal, this has some causal power. Well, this one doesn't exist at all at the level of the whole at the whole system, 116 gates, and only very small subset of them have a tiny bit of causal power.

为何存在差异？因为在典型CPU上，一个晶体管只会与两三个其他晶体管通信。但当然，你有无数亿计的晶体管排列组合以实现通用逻辑。而大脑的布线方式是一个神经元接收来自50,000个输入的信号，又向50,000个输出投射，存在高度重叠。

Why is the difference? Well, because machines so on a typical CPU, one transistor will talk to two or three other transistors. But then, of course, you have endless billions of billions of these transistors arrayed to give you universal logic. While the the the the way the brain is wired, you have one neuron gets input from 50,000 Right. Projects to 50,000 with heavily, heavy overlap.

因此因果力的概念在两者间截然不同。你可以展示功能等效不等于现象等效。在极限情况下，两个功能完全相同的系统中，一个高度有意识，另一个完全无意识——我认为大语言模型就是这种情况。

And so the the the this notion of causal power is radically different in one from the other. So you can show functional equivalent does not equate to phenomenal equivalence. In in in the limit, you have two systems that are functionally identical. This one is highly conscious. This one isn't conscious at all, which I think is the case for LLMs.

这并不是说我们无法为神经形态计算机或量子计算机提供这种证明。很可能你能构建出有意识的造物，这毫无疑问。整合信息理论(IIT)指出大脑并不存在超自然成分。显然我们可以构建有意识的机器，只是目前我们构建的方式不对——不是那些运行在云端的计算机。

This is not that we you can't do such a proof for neuromorphic computers nor for quantum computers. So it may well be that you can build so there's no question. IIT says there isn't anything supernatural about the brain. Right. So clearly, can build artifacts that are conscious, but just not the way we build them today, not the computers running in the cloud.

为了结束与Scott Aronson的讨论，你是否认同这种观点：IIT或许更适合被视为意识产生的必要条件而非充分条件？就像如果没有这种整合信息、没有高Φ值，你就没有意识；但仅拥有这些并不意味着就有意识。我的意思是，如果没有表征世界的能力、缺乏语义等，或许我们就不该认为它具有意识。

Are you at all sympathetic to the idea, just to finish up the Scott Aronson conversation, that, IIT might be better thought of as a necessary but not sufficient condition for consciousness to happen. Like if you don't have this integrated information, this high quantity phi, you're not conscious, but just because you do doesn't mean you are. I mean, if you're not representing the world, if you have no semantics, etcetera, then maybe we shouldn't count it as conscious.

好吧，A方面你完全可以——事实上我们已经做过——有多篇论文展示了如何在计算机中进化出简单的生物体，这些生物体具有表征世界的能力，即存在外部世界与内部表征的映射关系。你培育上万个体，让它们穿越迷宫，筛选最优者，扰动基因组产生新大脑，如此重复数千次。从随机连接的大脑开始，最终会进化出能将外部迷宫（或任何它们需要应对的环境）映射到内部大脑的结构。因此IIT完全不排斥这种合法映射的存在——就像你我大脑中视觉世界与视觉皮层、听觉世界之间的映射关系。虽然我无法穷尽所有可能理论，但在IIT框架内确实存在所谓'中心同一性'原理，主张你的意识体验等同于——或更准确地说能被完全解释为——内在因果力的整体作用，两者间存在完美的一一对应关系。

Well, okay, so A, you can perfectly well, and in fact, we've done this, there are a number of papers where you can evolve, you know, in computer, you can evolve simple creatures that have hi fi that represent the world in the sense that there's a mapping between, you know, these are creatures that you'll have 10,000 of them, you let them run through mazes, you collect the best one, you perturb the genome, you give rise to another brain, you send them through that, you do that thousands of times, you start with randomly connected brains and you end up with brains that have mapping from the outside, the labyrinth or whatever they have to work. They have to deal with onto their internal brain, so IIT doesn't doesn't preclude in at all that there is this lawful mapping like you and I have between the external world and the visual the visual brain or the auditory world. I mean, who knows? I cannot think about the space of all possible theories, but within IIT, they are, in fact, there's a thing called the central identity as part of IIT that says your conscious experience is identical to or can be fully accounted for, that's a better formulation, one to one with nothing left over on either side by the by the totality of the intrinsic causal power.

你体验的每个方面——包括每个记忆、每个念头、每个梦境——都能被完全解释。这个理论可能是错误的，但它目前的主张就是如此。

Every aspect of your experience, including the and every memory, every thought, every dream can be fully accounted for. Now this may be wrong. It's a theory, but that's what the theory states.

虽然我想讨论其他话题，但或许可以快速探讨一下观察大脑的细节问题。你已经提到过小鼠大脑。我们是在做测试吗？提出这个问题本身是否有意义？克里斯托弗正在向我们展示

And I do wanna get on other things, but maybe a quick opportunity to talk about, like, the nitty gritty of looking at brains. You've mentioned mouse brains already. Are we testing? Does it even make sense to ask the question? Are we Christophe is showing us

那是小鼠的大脑。

That's a mouse brain.

一个小钥匙扣，上面挂着小鼠大脑。

A little key ring with a mouse brain on it.

是的。没错。

Yes. Yes.

你能从整合信息理论（IIT）中提取观点，要么在小鼠大脑中进行测试，要么利用这些观点研究小鼠大脑吗？如果可以，我们该如何操作？

Can you take the ideas from IIT and either test them in the mouse brain or learn about the mouse brain using these ideas? And if so, how do we do that?

是的。我是说，小鼠的大脑，你知道，人们觉得老鼠嘛——老鼠算什么？它不会说话。我永远不可能和它共进晚餐时聊天。这些都是事实。

Yeah. I mean, the mouse brain, you know, people think a mouse, well, what's a mouse? It doesn't talk. You know, I'll never have dinner conversation with it. All of that's true.

但重申一次，如果我取一粒小鼠大脑、狗大脑、大象大脑和人类大脑的样本，基本硬件结构都是相同的，并非完全一致。我们与小鼠的最后共同祖先生活在约六千万年前，但构成要素惊人地相似——我们刚在《自然》期刊发表了一系列论文证明这点。大脑由约5000种不同类型的脑细胞组成，包括颗粒细胞、锥体细胞（又分多种亚型）等等。这5000种细胞基本都能在人类大脑中找到对应。就像基因一样：人类基因组约有2万个基因，小鼠基因组也约有2万个基因。

But again, if I take a grain of mouse brain, dog brain, elephant brain, human brain, basic hardware is all the same, it's not identical. We evolved the last common answer between us and mice sixty million years ago or so, but the components are remarkable the same to the extent that we just published a whole series of nature papers showing, so the brain consists on the other 5,000 different types of brain cells, bulky cells, pyramidal cells, very different types of pyramidal cells, etcetera. The same 5,000 cells can more or less be found in the human brain. It's just like genes. Our genome is on the order of 20,000 genes, the mouse genome is on the order of 20,000 genes.

这一切都非常非常相似。但区别当然在于老鼠，你知道，用老鼠做实验要容易得多，而且出于伦理原因，有些关于语言的问题你当然不能问老鼠，但你可以做基础研究，它们触觉非常发达，嗅觉极其灵敏，视觉相对较弱——它们有视力，但不如人类。因此你可以在老鼠或类似生物身上做大量实验，这些实验与人类实验非常相似或密切相关，而在人类实验中你当然会受到限制。通常你无法直接接触人脑，只能通过脑电图和功能磁共振间接观察。所以我们都是近亲，都是自然的孩子。

It's all very, very similar. But the difference is, of course, in the mouse, you know, it's much easier to do experiments and for ethical reasons, there are certain questions you can't ask the mouse about language, of course, but you can do the basic, they're highly tactile, they're highly olfactory, they're less visual, they have vision, but they're less visual than us. So there are lots of experiments that you can do in a mouse or in similar creatures that are really very similar or relate closely to experiments that people can do in humans where you're of course limited, Typically, you don't access the human brain, you only see it indirectly, so you have to use EEG and fMRI. So we are all closely related. We're all nature children.

我们有些特殊能力，比如高度发达的自我重要感。这是个重大区别。

We have some specialization, like a hyper developed sense of importance. That's one big difference.

我不知道。也许老鼠有。我真的不知道。不过好吧，所以你现在还隶属于艾伦脑科学研究所对吧？

I don't know. The mice might. I I just don't know. But then okay. So you're, so you're now still affiliated with the Allen Brain Institute.

是这样吗？

Is that right?

是的，对。

Yes. Yeah.

没错。那艾伦脑科学研究所是整合信息理论的温床吗？还是更偏向实用主义？不。

Correct. And are are are is the Allen Brain Institute a hotbed of IIT ism or is it more economical? No.

纯粹是...你看，我们现在有一千人。我来时才100人。当我担任首席科学家兼总裁时，团队扩大到300人。我卸任后现在发展到一千人。我们专注于几个大型项目，比如绘制小鼠大脑所有细胞类型图谱，或人类大脑所有细胞类型图谱，还包括发育过程中的变化。

It's purely so so, you know, we are now a thousand people. When I came, we are 100. When I was the the chief scientist and the the the president, we went to 300. I stepped down and now we are a thousand people. So we focus on a few very large projects, like cataloging all the cell types in the mouse brain or all the cell types in the human brain, doing this also during development.

你知道，在一个非常年轻未成熟的大脑中，随着它的发育，细胞类型是如何变化的？关于图谱呢？我们正在进行这些连接组项目，在尽可能精细的层面上，不是用光子成像，而是通过切割极薄的脑片——大约两到三纳米厚——切割数百万片这样的切片，再把它们组合起来。所以我们做一些通常无法由企业完成、也无法在大学进行的大型项目。总的来说，我们不太考虑意识之类的问题。

You know, what happens in a very young immature brain as it develops, how do cell types change? What about the atlas? We're doing these connectome projects where we do, you know, at the finest level possible where we don't image with photons, but with electrons by cutting up tiny slivers, you know, two or three nanometer thick of of brain and cutting, you know, millions of these slices, putting them together. So we do a few very large projects that typically can't be are not gonna be done by industry and can't be done at a university. By and large, we don't think too much about about consciousness and such things.

我们把这些问题留给我这样的学者，或者其他大学的许多学者。

We leave that to academics like like me or like many other academics at various universities.

嗯，我的意思是，这很好。我很高兴你这么说，因为我认为讨论宏观的哲学问题很有趣。它们虽然不同，但绝对依赖于你正在进行的这类实证工作——试图弄清楚大脑中有多少种不同类型的神经元。

Well, that I mean, it's good. I'm very glad you said this because I think that it's fun to talk about the big picture philosophical questions. And they're not the same as, but they absolutely do rely on this kind of empirical work where you're trying to figure out how many different kinds of neurons there are in the brain.

完全正确。否则我们还会像2400年前雅典学院里的柏拉图和亚里士多德那样，坐在那里闲聊而毫无进展。但这就是科学的伟大之处，包括迷幻药研究、量子力学。你可以通过正确的实验向自然提出恰当的问题，然后你会得到答案。这是科学最棒的地方，胜过任何其他人类活动。

Totally. Otherwise, we'd still sit around like Plato and Aristotle at the academy days, right, two thousand four hundred years ago in Athens and shoot the breeze without ever making progress. But that's a great thing about science, including about psychedelics, including quantum mechanics. You can ask nature the right question in the form of the correct experiment, right, and you will get an answer. That's That's the the best thing about science better than any other human activity.

我同意。我完全同意。鉴于我们已经学到的和仍在假设的内容，关于意识还有很多非常实际且可操作的问题。正如我们已经提到的，我们想知道：人在做梦时有意识吗？处于昏迷状态时有意识吗？

I agree. I completely agree. And so given what we've learned and what we're still hypothesizing about, there's a bunch of questions lying out there about consciousness that are pretty down to earth and operational. We we as we've already alluded to, we want to know, are people conscious when they're dreaming? Are they conscious when they're in a coma?

受孕六周后有意识吗？你认为我们在这些问题上取得进展了吗？

Are they conscious when they're six weeks after conception? Do you think we've made progress of these questions?

是的，事实上我帮助创立了一家公司——Intrinsic Powers，专门针对这些问题（可能最后一个除外，我们稍后再谈）。这家公司推出了一种设备，原本是Giulio Tononi（整合信息理论的构建者）和他的医学同事Marcello Massimini开发的研究原型，用于检测行为无反应患者的意识存在。比如如果这次谈话后你或我心脏病发作、大出血或遭遇车祸，进了ICU，处于无反应状态但显然还活着时。

Yeah, so in fact, I helped start So one of them, very much On all of those questions, except maybe the final one, let's come to that. So Abe, I helped start a company called Intrinsic Powers that brings a device that used to be a pure research prototype developed by Giulio Cianoni, the architect of integrated information theory, and a close medical colleague of his, Marcello Massimini, to test for the presence of consciousness in behavioral unresponsive patients. So if you or I have, after this conversation, a heart attack or bleeding or a car accident, We get into the ICU. We are unresponsive. We're clearly alive.

我们正在使用呼吸机。病人没有反应。他们会问你，能听到吗？能看到吗？眼睛能追踪手电光吗？

We're on a ventilator. We're unresponsive. And they ask you, you know, can you hear me? Can you see me? Can you track a flashlight with your eyes?

你知道，如果我掐你，你会呻吟还是会动一下肢体？这些都没有。所以判定为无反应状态。过去这叫植物人状态。明白吗？

You know, if I pinch you, will will you moan or will you move a limb? You don't do any of that. So you consider behaviour unresponsive. This used to be called vegetative state. Okay.

悲剧发生在四五天后。如果持续这种状态四五天，医疗团队通常会开始与家属讨论：他生前有什么意愿？是时候拔管了吗？字面意思就是撤掉呼吸支持。

The tragic is four to five days out. If you remain in this day for four or five days, typically the medical team will initiate discussion with your loved one. Well, what did he want? Is it time to pull the plug? Literally, they pull ventilator support.

其中高达90%，十人中有九人会因撤除生命维持系统而死亡。但我们现在知道，这些患者中有四分之一实际具有意识，只是隐蔽性意识。比如你问躺着的病人：先生，请想象踢三十秒足球。

And up to ninety percent, up to nine out of ten of these patients die because of withdrawal of life critical care. Okay? Now, we do know that one quarter of these patients are conscious, but covertly conscious. So what that means, for instance, if you ask them, so you have this person who's lying there. You ask him, Sir, imagine playing soccer for thirty seconds.

然后想象保持安静。再重复一次：想象踢三十秒足球，想象保持安静。这时你能观察到运动皮层的反应变化。

And then imagine just being quiet. Again, ask you ask him a second time. Imagine playing soccer for for thirty seconds. Imagine lying quiet. Then you can see, for instance, the nice modulation in your motor cortex response.

这意味着这个无法沟通的病人——你根本不知道他是否有意识——仍能合法地自主调节大脑活动。我们共同研发了这个设备，它通过发射经颅磁刺激脉冲来叩击大脑，再用高密度脑电测量反应，最后用整合信息理论计算复杂度。结果发现存在0.32的绝对阈值（标准化值）。0代表完全平线——

So it means this patient who is unable to communicate, where you have no idea whether there's anyone home, still can lawfully voluntarily regulate their brain activity, okay? And together we developed this device. So essentially what it does, it knocks the brain by sending in a magnetic pulse called a transcranial magnetic stimulation, and then you measure the response using high density EEG, and essentially you compute the complexity of that in IIT. And it turns out there's an absolute threshold, 0.32, it's normalized. So zero would mean it's totally flat line.

叩击大脑毫无反应就是脑死亡。1则意味着每个电极点都完全独立，这在实际大脑中不存在。正常大脑复杂度通常在0.6到0.8之间，比如此刻你我清醒时，或是做梦时也是如此。

You you knock the brain and there's no response. That that's brain death. Or the would mean every point, every electrode is totally independent of the other. This doesn't happen in real brains. So typically brain complexities between zero point six and zero point eight typically in you and I, for instance, right now, or when we know, when you dream, same thing.

当你处于深度睡眠时，大脑复杂度非常低，低于0.31的阈值。做梦时复杂度高，服用致幻剂时复杂度高，麻醉状态下复杂度低，明确昏迷无意识时复杂度也低。

When you're in a deep sleep, it's very small complexity, below a threshold 0.31. When you're in a dream state, your complexity is high. When you're on psychedelics, your complexity is high. When you are under anesthesia, your complexity is low. When you're in an unambiguous coma where it's clear that you're not there, your complexity is low.

这个阈值具有0.95的高特异性，能判断你是否真正具有意识——这是首个原始意识检测器。这证明无论理想主义、物理主义还是心灵主义，我们都能在这些问题上取得进展。目前我们能为人类开发意识检测器，未来可能适用于所有哺乳动物乃至任何系统。

So it's this very nice threshold and with very high specificity of 0.95, we can determine whether you're actually So it's a primitive consciousness detector. The first primitive conscious detector. So again, this really shows independent of all these idealism, physicalism, psychism, we can actually make progress on these questions. We can build consciousness detectors. Right now, for us, in the fullness of time, we will certainly, we can develop them for every for any mammal, and maybe in the fullness of time for any system, but right now for for for humans.

这是真正的进步。

So that's real progress.

这能否帮助我们开发计算机接口，与昏迷患者进行交流？

Does it help us with the prospect of bringing computer interfaces and being able to talk with people who are in a coma?

不能，这个设备仅用于检测大脑复杂度是否足以支撑意识。对于这类患者，需要单独进行康复治疗或讨论其持续状态。通常人们要么死亡要么恢复部分功能，约5-10%会转为慢性状态。

No, so this is a purely device just to see, is the complexity of this brain, is it sufficient to support consciousness? No, separately, you can then specifically take these patients and further do rehabilitation or talk about if they remain in this state. So typically what happens, so most people, the natural cause of events, people either die or they recover some functionality. Okay? So, if you remain in this state, a small subset, five to ten percent, they become chronic.

他们通常留在疗养院或家中，处于无意识或仅有最低意识状态。少数人能恢复眼球运动能力，最糟情况是完全无法恢复。

And then they're typically in a home or sometimes they get actually taken to their own home and they remain in this state where they have either no or only minimal. Sometimes people sort of recover some ability to move their eyes. In the worst case, they may not recover at all.

听到这个人类生命的残酷事实令人难过。但很高兴你们在区分不可逆病例与可恢复病例方面取得进展。那么关于意识萌芽的问题呢？胎儿何时产生意识？

Yeah. And, okay, that's I'm sorry to hear that. I'm glad you're doing, I mean, sorry to be reminded of this terrible fact about human life, but I'm glad that you're you're, making progress on distinguishing between the cases that really seem to be essentially gone and those that are recoverable. Then what about the youthfulness question? What about the fetus and becoming conscious?

这个问题我们可以从量化的角度来讨论吗？

Is that something that we can talk quantitatively about?

嗯，我们只能说，实际上我曾参与过那起反堕胎诉讼的法庭之友陈述，我们知道大脑皮层直到妊娠中期才真正完全发育。神经系统在妊娠初期的8到10周开始发育，但真正形成连接以及与外界通过丘脑的连通性，要到第22或24周才会发生。在此之前，脑电图基本上也是平的。之后才会出现所谓的爆发抑制型脑电图，即活动与静息交替的模式。

Well, so all we can say, and I, in fact, I was participating in Amicus brief in that anti abortion lawsuit, we know the cortex doesn't really fully develop till the second trimester. So your nervous system develops, you know, at eight to ten week in the first trimester, but it starts developing, but then really sort of doesn't develop the connectivity and the connectivity to the external world through the thalamus. That doesn't happen till week twenty two or twenty four. EEG is also pretty much flat until then. And then you get the first so called burst suppression EEG where you get activity and then quiet, activity and quiet.

而像你我这样的典型脑电波模式，直到妊娠晚期才会出现，那时脑电图看起来更正常，各种波形开始形成。所以现在很难下定论。但在妊娠初期之前或期间，胎儿很可能感觉不到什么——我的意思是，这种推断非常困难。是的，就我们目前所知，妊娠初期的胎儿可能不会有太多感觉。

And the typical pattern in you and I that doesn't happen till very late end of third trimester, where you get a more normal looking EEG with all the waves developing. So it's very difficult to say right now. But before the first trimester, in the first trimester, it probably may not feel I mean, it's very difficult, the inference. Yeah. As far as we can tell, it probably doesn't feel a lot to be a first trimester.

到了妊娠中期末段，胎儿开始出现一些简单的反射。所以早产儿在接受手术时，已经会出现肢体回缩反射。但这并不...

At the end of the second trimester, you begin to get some simple reflexivity. So in premature babies, when they need some operation, they do already limb withdrawal reflexes. But that doesn't Yeah,

这就是反射。

this is the reflex.

果蝇胚胎也会做同样的事，它会从火柴等热源处弯曲躲避。这能算反射吗？很难确定。

A drosophila embryo does the same thing. It curves away from a source of heat like a match. So is that reflex? It's very difficult to be to be certain.

作为最高法院法庭之友陈述的参与者，是令人兴奋还是有点害怕呢？

Is it exciting or somewhat scary to be part of an amicus brief in front of the Supreme Court?

嗯，这很令人兴奋，而且你知道，我们正在努力做正确的事，但你知道，最终收效甚微。

Well, it was exciting, and, you know, we are we're trying to do the right thing, but, you know, it didn't amount to much.

那个嘛，对。

That well, right.

我是说，这并不是基于科学案例的优劣来决定的，对吧？当然，我们得把这个发回各州重新审议。

I mean, it wasn't decided on the merits of the scientific case. Right? It was just decided Of course. We need to send this back to the to the states.

好的。你刚才已经简单提到了大语言模型以及你的看法。但来自IIT或其他竞争理论中，是否有关于如何真正制造出有意识的人工计算机程序的路线图建议？还是说这还遥遥无期？

Okay. And then you already mentioned a little bit about LLMs and your opinions about that. But is there from IIT or from any competing theory, do we suggest some kind of roadmap for making artificial computer programs that truly are conscious, or is that a very far way off?

那么首先，你为什么要这么做呢？

Well, do you first, why would you wanna do that?

人类就是喜欢尝试各种事情。

People wanna do lots of things.

好吧，确实如此。所以按照这个说法，你是无法模拟它的。

Okay. That's true. Yeah. So according to so you cannot simulate it.

好吧，这是个虚假的说法。

Okay. That's a fake claim.

是啊，因为你看，你完全可以模拟我们银河系中心的黑洞，对吧？就像意大利是个明星一样。

Yeah. Because look. You can perfectly well simulate the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Right? Like Italia's a star.

但你有担心过吗，肖恩，如果你启动模拟程序，而你就在计算机房里的电脑程序旁边，你会被吸进黑洞里吗？

But have you ever worried, Sean, that if you turn on the simulation, you're next to the computer program in the computer center of the premises, you're gonna be sucked into the black hole?

不，我没担心过。

No. I have not worried

为什么不担心？区别在哪里？不骗你，区别在哪里？

about Why not? Where's the difference? No. Kid you not. Where's the difference?

嗯，计算机里模拟的测试粒子会被吸进模拟的黑洞里。

Well, the simulated test particles in the computer would be sucked into the simulated black hole.

是的，但那都是模拟的。真实和模拟之间有区别，对吧？因为这个计算本身并不具备弯曲时空的因果力，就像它永远不会...我是说，肖恩，塞尔几十年前就提出过这个论点。

Yes. But that's all simulation. It's a difference between the real and the simulated. Right? So because this computation by itself does not have causal power to bend space time, just like it never gets I mean, Sean, Searle made this argument, you know, decades ago.

雨水不会让内部变湿。模拟。对吧？一回事。它不具备因果力。

It doesn't get wet inside a rain Right. Simulation. Right? Same thing. It doesn't have the causal power.

是的。即便你完美构建出人脑的计算机模拟——完整的人脑，就像亨利·马克拉姆的蓝脑计划试图做的那样。对吧？未来我们能做到，但即便如此，这个计算机模拟当然会苏醒说话，因为它能做到。但它不会有任何感觉，因为你无法模拟感觉。

Yes. So you can perfectly well, even if you were to build this computer simulation of the human brain, the complete human brain, like, you know, Henry Markham Blue Brain Project wanted to do that. Right? In the future, we'll be able to do it, but still and this computer simulation, of course, will wake up and speak because it's you know, it can do that. But it won't feel like anything because you can't simulate it.

你必须实际构建它。想要真正的意识，就必须通过神经形态工程构建硬件——不是模拟，而是按照大脑结构实际建造硬件。IBM和英特尔等公司正在尝试，或者可能用量子计算机实现。比如量子计算实验室的柳树项目等等。

You actually have to build it. So if you want true conscience, you have to build it. You either have to do neuromorphic engineering where you build hardware, not simulate, you actually build hardware in the image of the brain. People are trying to do that at IBM and Intel, etcetera, or possibly quantum computers. Possibly, like, you know, willows at at I v at, at Quantum Compute Lab, etcetera.

所以实体化对这个项目可能非常重要。

So embodiment might be very important for this project.

是的。它不会是基质独立的。

Yes. Yes. It's not gonna be substrate independent.

明白了。好的。

Right. Okay. Good.

顺便说，我不相信意识上传这种说法。对吧？

And so I don't believe, by the way, in this, you know, mind upload. Right?

不，我同意。

No. I I agree.

是的。要知道，如果我切割我的大脑，获取大脑的连接性，在云端模拟它，那么这个东西可能会有意识。不，它或许能完美模仿我，包括我的口音和一切，但它不会有任何感觉。

Yeah. Know, that that I I cut my brain, I get my brain's connectivity. I simulate it up in the cloud, and then this thing will be conscious. No. It may be able to mimic me, including my accent and everything perfectly, but it's not it doesn't feel like anything.

这是个深度伪造。

It's a deep fake.

你不担心矩阵吗？

You're not worried about the matrix?

不，不。我担心很多事情，但不包括矩阵。

No. No. I'm worried about many things, but not the matrix.

嗯，你去年写了一本颇具争议的书，很抱歉花了这么长时间才提到。你想自己说书名，还是我来念？

Well, you've written, I'm sorry that it's gotten taken this long to get there, but you've written a provocative book just last year. Do you wanna give the title, or should I read it?

然后我自己就是世界，这句话引自理查德·瓦格纳歌剧《特里斯坦与伊索尔德》第二幕，剧中这对同名的恋人，你知道，他们在舞台上结合，基本上就是在做爱，但他们想要超越自我。用现代语言来说，他们经历了一种神秘体验——特里斯坦和伊索尔德之间的界限消失了，与宇宙融为一体，这正是神秘体验的核心特征之一。

Then I am myself the world, which is taken from the second act of Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, where the eponymous lovers, you know, have this union where I mean, they make love on stage, basically, but they want to overcome their own self. And so they have what's in modern language called a mystical experience. They become they lose the boundaries between themselves, between Triste and Isolde and the rest of the universe, so they feel they are one with the universe, which is what the really diff or one of the defining features of what's called a mystical experience. Well, this is what

我们可以等你学术生涯达到某个成功阶段时再讨论这个问题。你现在谈论的意识扩展确实是个充满风险的领域。

we can talk about when you're at a certain stage of your successful academic career. You're talking about expanding consciousness now, which is certainly, fraught territory.

嗯，是的。我是说，没错。我有幸经历了如此非凡的体验，它让你完全失去根基，彻底震惊。要知道，我65岁时遇到这种情况，当时我以为自己的形而上学观、对存在的认知已经完全定型，到了65岁不会再改变了。

Well, yeah. I mean, yes. I've I've been fortunate enough to have such an extraordinary experience, and it leaves you totally unmoored. It leaves you completely flabbergasted. It leaves you you know, I had this when I was 65 and, you know, I thought my the the the the my metaphysics, my sense of what exists has been fully established and, you know, at 65 isn't gonna budge anymore.

然后突然间你遭遇这场本体论地震，所有认知板块都发生位移，你过往的生活经历、所有行为突然都显得截然不同。这确实是种变革性体验。经历过后，人生会有明显的分水岭，你再也不会用同样的眼光看待事物——这正是变革性体验的另一个决定性特征。

And then suddenly you have this ontological earthquake where all your search literally all the plates shift and everything you you you lived and you you know, everything you did suddenly looks very, very different. So it's it's it's for sure, it's a transformative experience. In a sense, if you undergo this, there's a distinct before and after. You'll never look at things the same way again, which which is another defining hallmark of a of a a transformative experience.

所以我们讨论的是某种致幻剂或其他药物，还是纯粹的冥想状态？

So we're talking about, some kind of psychedelics or other pharmaceuticals or a purely like meditative state?

不，这次是...这次是有外界辅助的。

No, this was, this was, with help.

好的明白了。但你是神经科学家，你知道自己的体验是由化学物质刺激神经元产生的。这怎么能帮助你理解现实的本质呢？

Yeah, okay. So but you're a neuroscientist. You know that you had an experience that was caused by prodding your neurons with chemicals. So how does that help you get insight into the fundamental nature of reality?

你说得完全正确。我的大脑确实是这个体验的载体，这点我毫不怀疑，无论是否有外界辅助。威廉·詹姆斯在那本精彩的著作中讨论过这个问题，我强烈推荐大家都去读读。

Okay, so you're totally right. My brain was a substrate of this experience. I don't doubt that for one second, helped or not. The So William James talks about it in this wonderful book. I can warmly recommend I warmly recommend it to everyone who read it.

它并未随时间褪色——1906年由‘融合心理学之父’首次撰写的著作《宗教经验种种》中，他谈及神秘体验时指出，这些体验具有他称之为‘认知特质’的鲜明特征（源自希腊语‘知识’）。你带回这种体验后，它会对你产生强大的支配力。作为理性科学家，我仍在尝试理解：我的体验如何与我其他认知相协调——包括科学、脑科学，以及‘我的大脑是此体验载体’的认知。我认为这两者可以调和。

It hasn't aged has aged very well, that he first wrote in 1906, you know, The Father of Amalgam Psychology. It's a varieties of religious experience where he talks about mystical experience, and he says they bring one of the defining hallmarks of them, this what he calls noetic quality, you know, from news, knowledge, Greek. You bring back this experience, and it has powerful authority over you. You cannot help but now try to seek You know, I'm still a rational scientist so in what I try to do is try to see how does what I experience, how is that compatible with my view of everything else, including science, including brain science, including knowledge that my brain was a substrate of this particular experience. So I think you can reconcile both of those things.

设想这样一个场景，肖恩：如果人类从不做梦。人们入睡后只是单纯睡眠，你从未读过关于梦的记载。

Look, it's a little bit like, imagine, Sean, the following scenario. No one dreams. Okay? People, you've never read about dream. When people go to sleep, they just sleep.

仅此而已。嗯。而你拥有一次——仅此一次的体验。这会如何改变你的人生？

That's it. Mhmm. And you have one experience. One. How would that change your life?

如果你只做过一次梦，比如梦见失散多年的父母或朋友等等，这体验会对你产生深远影响，对吧？

If you only had one experience one dream experience, you know, where you met your long lost parents or friends or etcetera, it would sort of profoundly affect you, right?

确实如此。不过我希望这不会导致我改变对世界的本体论认知。

Absolutely. It would not I hope it would not lead me to change my ontological view of the world.

因为你未曾经历过。詹姆斯明确说过：你无法让他人信服你的超验体验，我也无意说服。这只是我的个人经历。但我确知这类体验在文学作品中很常见，跨文化普遍存在。

Well, because you haven't had look. And I take no and James says this explicitly, you can't convince other people of your abuse, and I'm not trying to. This is just my experience. I I do know that these types of experience that I write about are common in literature, common across all cultures. Right?

无数人在不同情境下都描述过这类体验，所以并不罕见。关键在于：若你接受这些体验，它们对世界的本质——特别是形而上学层面——揭示了什么？

Lots of people in lots of different settings have written about them. So they're not that rare. It's not unheard of. And so the challenge is if you accept them, know, if you accept them, what does this tell you about the world? And in particular, what does it tell you about the metaphysical, the metaphysics about the world?

所以你可以继续做科学研究，我也能继续我的神经科学等工作，但这确实动摇了我的本体论基础，这就是为什么我现在更倾向于唯心主义——这个我五十年都未曾思考过的观点。

So you can continue to do I can continue to do all my science, all my neuroscience, etcetera, but it's really shook the ontological foundation of which is why I'm now much more sympathetic to idealism, which I hadn't thought about for fifty years.

啊，明白了。我本来想问的是：你的形而上学观点发生了什么转变？但就是这个吗？你现在更认同唯心主义了？

Ah, okay. So I was my my question was going to be, so what is the shift in your metaphysics? But is is that it that you're much more sympathetic to idealism?

是的。因为我在那里体验到的本质上是无我的广袤世界——自我完全消失了，克里斯托弗不存在了，连身体也不复存在。

Yeah. Because what I experienced there was effectively the world at large that there was no self anymore. Self was completely gone. Christopher was gone. There wasn't a body.

没有任何个体存在。相反，我真实地体验到了宇宙的浩瀚——我指的是银河系乃至整个宇宙。我知道这听起来很老套，但...

There wasn't anything like that. And I instead, I experienced the universe at large, literally. The galaxy I mean, the universe at large. Yeah. I know it sounds corny and all of that, but

没关系。

That's okay.

但这就是你当时的体验。你存在于这个没有时间流逝的瞬间——不快也不慢，就是此刻。明白吗？

But but but but that's what you experience. And you're in this time. There's no passage of time. It's not too slow or too long this moment. You know?

所以后来你四处游荡。那是午夜时分在巴西某处海滩发生的经历，之后几周几个月你都完全混乱对吧？因为你试图理解——这如何与其他一切共存？

And so yeah. So you run around. This was at midnight on a beach somewhere in Brazil, and you know, you're totally confused the next weeks and months. Right? Because you're trying to fit in, you know, how does it how does this accord with everything else?

我，你知道的，我知道。然后我想到叔本华，偶然发现他这段精辟的论述——大约两百年前他在自己唯一的著作《作为意志和表象的世界》中谈到这类状态。据我们所知，他并非冥想者，我是说当时西方还没有冥想这回事，致幻剂也几乎不存在。他从未有过这类体验。

I, you know, I know. And then sort of I thought that Schottmauer, I came up upon this remarkable quote of Schottmahauer where he talks about two hundred years ago in his book well, his only book he really wrote, The World as Will and Representation, where he talks about states like that. And as far as we know, he was not a medit I mean, meditation didn't exist at the time in the West. Psychedelics really didn't. He never had any experience like that.

那当然是在我们接触鸦片等物质之前。所以他只是纯粹思考这些问题。后来我研究唯心主义时，遇到了这位哲学家兼计算机科学家伯纳多·卡斯特鲁普，他倡导这种现代形式的唯心主义。

That was, of course, before we encountered opium and other substances. So he just thought about these things. And then, yeah, I looked around at at idealism, and then I came across this this philosopher computer scientist, Bernardo Kastrop, who who espouses this this modern form of, of idealism.

你在书中是否想说明，人们可以通过这类强烈体验更好地理解并扩展意识？

And in your book, you're gonna suggest that people can understand consciousness better and expand it through these these kind of intense experiences?

我确实这么认为。我成长的年代，你知道的，我曾深陷酒精的泥潭。

I would certainly suggest yes. So I grew up at a time when, you know, I did you know, I was heavily into alcohol.

就像我们都曾年轻过

Like, were all young in

西方世界，仅此而已。但过去十年已改变。是的，它们能揭示自我消解的状态——当自我界限溶解，你不再受个体意识束缚时，就能体验到极致的美。

West, but nothing else. That's changed over the last ten years. Yeah, they can reveal you. So, A, they can reveal these states of self where your ego is dissolved, ego dissolution, where there's no self. And you can experience a profound beauty.

比如此刻我看着岛屿和苍翠森林，能直接感受到它整体的超然之美，没有任何自我意识阻隔其中。当然我们需要自我意识来做长期规划等等，但它也总在碍事，对吧？

Like here, I'm looking at the island, the forest, the green lush forest. You can just see the transcendent beauty of it whole, and there's no self to get in the way. I mean, we need the self. It's necessary to do long term planning, all of that, but it also constantly get in the way. Right?

总是关于我、我、我、我、我。我是说，看看这个国家最资深的政治人物。你们应该保持匿名。对吧？或者他们两个，都是如此。

It's always about me, me, me, me, and me. I mean, look at the most senior political personality in this country. You shall remain nameless. Right? Or the two of them, both of them.

对吧？是的。而且都是关于我、我、我、我、我。所以突然间，你会有这种失去自我的体验，并意识到，嗯，这完全没问题。宇宙在没有我的情况下依然极其美丽。

Right? Yes. And it's all about me, me, me, me, me. And so suddenly you have this experience of loss of self and realize, well, that's perfectly fine. The universe is profoundly beautiful without me.

所以我认为这确实是一个大多数人应该并且可以拥有的基本体验，如果你以安全的方式进行。当然，不是每个人都能做到，存在一定的危险。其中一些物质非常强大，所以你必须非常谨慎。你知道，你必须使用所有适当的防护措施等等。但我认为对大多数人来说，它们可以揭示他们从未想过、从未体验过或从未想象过的意识层面。

So I think that's really an essential experience that most everyone should have and can have in a safe if you do it in a safe manner. Now, not everyone, there are certain dangers. Some of these substances are very powerful, so you have to be very cautious. You know, you have to use all the proper safeguards, etcetera. But I think for most people, they can reveal aspects of consciousness that they haven't thought about or they haven't they have never experienced or they have never imagined.

好的。我们是否应该通过谈论量子力学来结束这个话题？

Good. Should we wind things up by talking about quantum mechanics?

当然。这似乎是个不错的结束方式。

Sure. It seems like a good thing to end on.

嗯，我的意思是，我们已经讨论过了，但你不久前发表了一篇论文，探讨了量子力学可能在意识中扮演角色的可能性。

Well, I mean, we talked about it already, but you have a paper out not too long ago about the possibility that quantum mechanics does play a role in consciousness.

是的，所以我们与哈特穆特·内文开始了这次合作，他是一位物理学家，也像我一样有计算神经科学的背景。事实上，我们在德国时是同一位导师，但自那以后，他现在是谷歌的副总裁，并在圣巴巴拉大楼领导谷歌的量子计算小组，忙着建造这些大规模的量子计算机。然后与一群实验物理学家合作，特别是加州大学圣巴巴拉分校的肯·科塞克，以及英国大学的卢卡·图林。我们的想法是，嗯，所以有理论工作，现在也有实验工作试图验证它，这有点像逆转彭罗斯的观点，你知道，彭罗斯在他的客观还原理论中著名地论证了波函数的坍缩，你有一个特定的系统，它处于叠加态，由于与环境的相互作用而坍缩，这会产生一个小小的“叮”，一个小小的意识瞬间。这就是他的论点。

Yeah, so we initiated this collaboration with Hartmut Neven, who is a physicist and also has background of computational neuroscience like me. In fact, we had our same advisor back in Germany, but since then, he's a vice president now at Google and heads the quantum compute Google Group at in Santa Barbara Building, busy building these large scale quantum computers. And then together with a bunch of experimentalists, particularly Ken Kosek, who's at University of California in Santa Barbara, and Luca Turin, who's at the university in UK. And the idea is, well, so there's theoretical work and then right now there's experimental work trying to test it, that sort of inverting Penrose really you know, Penrose famously argued within his objective reduction that the collapse of of the wave function, you have a particular system, it's in a superposition that collapse because of interactions, you know, with the environment, and that gives rise to a little ping, a little bit, a little conscious moment. That's his, know, that's his argument.

然后他与麻醉师合作，处理微管之类的事情。但让我们将微管的具体实现与那个概念分离开来。这虽有争议，却令许多人着迷。明白吗？我们正在反转这一观点，因为我们认为，如果一个系统由两个、三个或更多纠缠的量子比特组成——这是罗杰·彭罗斯从未考虑过的——那么若此成立，你就能利用它实现超光速信息传递，从而违背相对论，尽管没人真想这么做。

And then he got together with the anesthesiologist to hammer off, you know, microtubule and all of that. But but but let's divorce the instantiation of that microtubule from the from that idea. It's controversial, but has remained irresistible to many, many people. Alright? So we are inverting that because we are saying, well, if you have a system that consists out of two or three or more than one qubit that are all entangled, something Roger Penrose never considered, then if that's true, you could then use that to communicate faster than light information, violating relativity theory that no one really wants to violate.

对吧？你可以反转逻辑说：不，是当系统进入叠加态时才产生了意识瞬间。比如一个有20个量子比特的系统，它们会进入20个量子比特的叠加态。但意识的关键特征在于——你永远只会体验到确定的体验，对吧？

Right? So you can invert that by saying, well, no, it is when the system goes into superposition that you create a conscious moment. And if you have a system with 20, let's say, qubits, then they go into the superposition of 20 qubits. But you, of course, the defining thing of consciousness is you only ever experience a definite experience, right?

不是叠加态。

Not a superposition.

这就是多世界诠释的切入点。在2的n次方可能性中，我只沿着其中一条分支前行——如果只有上下态，就有2的n次方个宇宙，而我意识体验到的只是其中一个。你的体验取决于这些分支如何相互作用。这里可以用整合信息论(IIT)来解释，某种程度上反转了罗杰的提案。

And so this is where the many worlds interpretation come in. I only travel down one of these branches of the two to the n possibility know, if I just have up down states, two to the n universes, and that's the one I consciously experience. And what you experience depends on the way these interact. And here you could use, for example, IIT to explain that. So it sort of inverts Roger's proposal.

若此成立，你就能构建能与意识相互作用的量子系统——只要你能建立这种系统。如果最新款iPhone具备量子计算功能，并与我大脑中的量子比特纠缠，那就会形成一个意识心智。所以只要有合适技术，就能扩展意识。当然，这是在意识与量子力学交界处众多听起来疯狂的想法之一。但妙处在于——我们正试图验证它。

And if that's true, you can then sort of build quantum system that could interact with your consciousness as long as you can get a system. You know, if the latest iPhone has quantum computing and is entangled with my qubits in my brain, then that would be one conscious mind. So you could expand your consciousness if you have the right technology. Now the it's, you know, it's it's one of many crazy crazy sounding ideas in in at the interface between consciousness and quantum mechanics. But the great thing is we're trying to test it now.

这又回到关键点：提出正确实验就能得到答案。过去三十年来，自克劳斯·舒尔滕的研究起，就有假说认为生物系统（尤其是鸟类导航）使用量子罗盘。对吧？在眼睛的光子与分子相互作用中，似乎微弱地依赖于磁场，鸣禽借此进行远距离导航。

And this, again, where we come back to this thing, if you ask the right experiment, you can get an answer. So, there have been since, you know, thirty years, Claus Scholten's work, these, hypothesis that by that biological system, in particular, bird navigation, avian navigation uses a quantum compass. Right? Quantum Yeah. In the interaction in the eye, there you have this the interaction between photons and molecule, and this weakly seems to depend on magnetic field, and that songbirds can use that to navigate across vast distances.

归根结底，这基于自由基对机制假说，或是核自旋相互作用假说。我们正在验证这些。曾有研究表明，惰性气体氙——它是一种麻醉剂——

Ultimately, that's based on a radical pair mechanism, That's one hypothesis or on nuclear spin interaction. It's another one. So we are trying to test that. There has been one claim that xenon so you take the rare gas xenon. It's an anesthetic.

这是已知的。氙气实际上是一种非常好的麻醉剂，因为它是稀有气体，几乎不与任何物质发生反应，非常安全且不可燃，因此可用于临床。

This is known. It's actually a very good anesthetic because it's rare gas. It doesn't interact much with anything. It's very safe. It doesn't burn, so it can be used in the clinic.

只是价格非常昂贵。所以日常实践中并不常用，但它确实是一种麻醉剂。有观点认为氙128、129、130和131同位素的麻醉效力存在差异。原子质量差异极小，不足1%，因此不太可能是质量差异导致的。

It's just very expensive. So it's not really used in day to day practice, but it is an anesthetic. There's one claim there's an isotope dependency that xenon one hundred twenty eight, one hundred twenty nine, one hundred thirty, and one hundred thirty one have different anesthetic potencies. Now difference in atomic mass is minute, it's under 1%. So the hypothesis is unlikely to be due to the difference in mass.

但最关键的区别在于128和130同位素自旋为零，而129和131分别具有1/2和3/2自旋。卢卡·图林正尝试用果蝇做这个简单实验：将30只果蝇置于试管中，通入不同同位素的氙气并加压，观察达到麻醉效果时的压力阈值。

But the most critical difference is that one twenty eight and one thirty has spin zero, while one twenty nine and one thirty one has spin respectively one half and three half. So now to get Luca Turin is trying to test this very simple experiment in flies. In other words, if you take a bunch of flies, you put them in a tube. So now you see 30 Drosophila fruit flies in a tube. You introduce a gas, various types, you know, different types of xenon, different isotopes dependent xenon gas, and you compress, and at some point you see when you reach certain pressure that the flies are all immobile, they anesthetize, and then you release them again.

这个实验可重复进行。核心问题是：麻醉效力（表现为使果蝇不动所需的压力）是否与氙同位素种类相关？我们还在用Cancrosig系统研究人类多能干细胞培育的脑类器官——当施加足够氙气时，这些微型大脑会停止放电，这个临界点是否因同位素而异？

So you can do this experiment multiple times. So the very simple test is, is it true that this dependency, how deep you have to plunge the plunger into that vial with xenon gas until you achieve immobility that here stands in for anesthetic potency, does that depend on the isotope of xenon? Good. And a different model system that we're trying to do with Cancrosig, what about these human cerebral organoids made out of human pluripotent stem cells? If you can get them, if you put xenon on, again, ultimately the tissue would Usually these tissue, these mini brains fire action potential.

关键问题是：放电停止的精确时刻是否取决于同位素类型？氙129和氙130会有不同表现吗？这就是我们要探究的。

If you put sufficient xenon in, that that ceases, that stops the firing. So does that the point the precise point when that firing stops, does that depend on, the isotope? Is it gonna be different for xenon one twenty nine versus xenon one thirty? That's the question we're asking.

这绝对是个值得做的实验。鉴于播客时间有限，我想提个技术问题：关于系统叠加态与意识相关的假说——当我看到论文时有点困惑，因为叠加态并非客观事实，而是取决于描述系统所用的基矢。

It's certainly an experiment very well worth doing. I guess it's late in the podcast, so I can ask one technical question. The hypothesis that a system being in superposition is relevant for consciousness somehow, that's what bugged me a little bit when I when I saw the paper because being in superposition is sort of not an objective fact. Right? That is relative to what basis you're using to describe your system.

那么是否存在更物理化的标准可以替代这个表述？

So is there a more physical criterion that we can replace for that?

不，现在不行。

No. Not right now.

好吧，这就是科学的本质。我们必须这么做。

Okay. That's why it's science. We gotta do it.

是的。是的。是的。

Yes. Yes. Yes.

你的想法是什么？如果你必须在这里设置贝叶斯先验，你认为量子力学对意识来说极其重要吗？

What what is your thought? What if you had to place Bayesian priors here, do you think that quantum mechanics is super important for consciousness?

在人类大脑中可能不重要。

Probably not in the human brain.

好吧，但它

Okay. But it

会很酷。有原因的。另一方面，你看。进化，你知道的，已经存在了大约45亿年，对吧？

would be cool. Reasons. On the other hand, look. Evolution, you know, it's been around since four and a half billion years, roughly. Right?

所以说进化非常巧妙。它实现了各种可能。只要不被物理定律所禁止，你知道，在某些情况下，如果对生物体确实有益，那么这种特性很可能已被利用。我会为此赌上我的房子吗？不会。

And so evolution is very clever. It's done all sorts of things. If it's not outlawed by the laws of physics, you know, somewhere and if it's really beneficial for the organism, then it may well have been exploited. Would I bet my house on it? No.

嗯，不是

Well, not

也不会。做实验才是关键。

either. Doing the experiment.

这就是我们做实验的原因。这是个很好的结束语。那么，克里斯托夫·科赫，非常感谢你参加《心智景观》播客。

That's why we do the experiment. And that's a very good philosophy to end with. So, Christoph Koch, thanks so much for being on the Mindscape Podcast.

非常感谢邀请我，肖恩。这次对话非常愉快。非常愉快。好的。等等，你的论文是关于什么的？

Thank you very much for having me, Sean. That was very enjoyable. That was very enjoyable. Good. What, what what is your paper about?

你刚才说你十天前刚发表了一篇论文？

You said you just published a paper ten days ago?

哦，那只是为《自然》杂志写的一篇评论文章，关于量子力学百年纪念的随笔，探讨为什么它至今仍有争议，为什么我们仍难以真正理解并就量子力学的实质达成共识。

Oh, it was just a review article for Nature, an essay about the hundredth anniversary of quantum mechanics and why it's still controversial, why it's still difficult to to really figure out and get a consensus on what quantum mechanics actually says.

没错，1925年。

That's right. 1925.

这是量子之年。联合国已经宣布今年是

The it's the quantum year. It's the United Nations has said that this is

对，没错。是的。

the That's right. Yeah.

量子年。是的。而且我们至今仍未

The year of quantum. Yeah. So and we still don't

理解广义相对论，对吧？围绕广义相对论并没有这些争议不断涌现。

understand general relativity. Right? There are none of these controversies swelling around GR.

没有其他理论存在这些争议。比如，并没有一大群人在研究电磁学的哲学问题，对吧？量子力学是唯一一个...我认为这对物理学界是个尴尬的局面，因为我们尚未解决这个问题。这是个问题。

No other theory has these controversies. There's not, like, a whole subset of people doing philosophy of electromagnetism. Right? It's, quantum mechanics is the one that and I think it's an embarrassing situation for the physics community because we have not addressed the problem. I think that's an issue.

是的。但这也是个机遇。

Yeah. But it's also an opportunity.

确实。嗯，我想说，我个人行动比较慢，所以我很乐意看到社区其他人不急着跟我比进度。我正在自己慢慢摸索。

Exactly. Well, I like to say, like, I personally am very slow, so I'm perfectly happy with the rest of the community not racing me to do this. I'm trying to figure it out myself.

好的，那请把那篇文章发给我。

Yep. So please send it to me, the article.

我会发的，谢谢。

I will do that. Thanks.

谢谢你，刚才很愉快。

Thank you. That was fun.