How many Creationists do we have in the room? Probably none. I think we're all Darwinians. And yet many Darwinians are anxious, a little uneasy -- would like to see some limits on just how far the Darwinism goes. It's all right. You know spiderwebs? Sure, they are products of evolution. The World Wide Web? Not so sure. Beaver dams, yes. Hoover Dam, no. What do they think it is that prevents the products of human ingenuity from being themselves, fruits of the tree of life, and hence, in some sense, obeying evolutionary rules? And yet people are interestingly resistant to the idea of applying evolutionary thinking to thinking -- to our thinking.
Koliko kreacionista imamo u prostoriji? Verovatno nijednog. Mislim da smo svi darvinovci. Ipak, mnogi darvinovci su zabrinuti, pomalo uznemireni; voleli bi da vide granice do kojih darvinizam ide. To je u redu. Znate za paukove mreže? Naravno, one su proizvod evolucije. Za svetsku mrežu nisam baš siguran. Dabrove brane? Da. Huverovu branu? Ne. Šta misle da sprečava produkte ljudske genijalnosti da budu ono što jesu - voće sa drveta života - i da se stoga, u nekom smislu, povinuju evolutivnim zakonima? Ipak, ljudi su, interesantno, otporni na ideju o primeni evolutivnog razmišljanja na razmišljanje - naše razmišljanje.
And so I'm going to talk a little bit about that, keeping in mind that we have a lot on the program here. So you're out in the woods, or you're out in the pasture, and you see this ant crawling up this blade of grass. It climbs up to the top, and it falls, and it climbs, and it falls, and it climbs -- trying to stay at the very top of the blade of grass. What is this ant doing? What is this in aid of? What goals is this ant trying to achieve by climbing this blade of grass? What's in it for the ant? And the answer is: nothing. There's nothing in it for the ant. Well then, why is it doing this? Is it just a fluke? Yeah, it's just a fluke. It's a lancet fluke. It's a little brain worm. It's a parasitic brain worm that has to get into the stomach of a sheep or a cow in order to continue its life cycle. Salmon swim upstream to get to their spawning grounds, and lancet flukes commandeer a passing ant, crawl into its brain, and drive it up a blade of grass like an all-terrain vehicle. So there's nothing in it for the ant. The ant's brain has been hijacked by a parasite that infects the brain, inducing suicidal behavior. Pretty scary.
Tako, danas ću pričati malo o tome, imajući na umu da ovde imamo dosta toga na programu. Dakle, u šumi ste ili na pašnjaku i vidite mrava koji puže uz vlat trave. Penje se do vrha i pada, penje se i pada, penje se, pokušavajući da ostane na vrhu travke. Šta ovaj mrav radi? Zarad čega on to radi? Koje ciljeve ovaj mrav pokušava da dostigne penjući se na ovu vlat trave? Šta on ima od toga? Odgovor je - ništa. On nema ništa od toga. Pa, onda, zašto on to radi? Da li je to metilj/slučajno? Da, to je samo metilj. Mali metilj. To je majušni moždani crv. To je parazitski crv kojii mora da uđe u stomak ovce ili krave da bi nastavio svoj životni ciklus. Losos pliva uzvodno da bi stigao do mesta za mrešćenje, a mali metilji napadnu mrava, dopru mu do mozga i vozaju ga po travčici kao terensko vozilo. Dakle, mrav nema ništa od toga. Parazit koji inficira mozak kidnapovao je mozak ovog mrava, izazvavši suicidalno ponašanje. Prilično strašno.
Well, does anything like that happen with human beings? This is all on behalf of a cause other than one's own genetic fitness, of course. Well, it may already have occurred to you that Islam means "surrender," or "submission of self-interest to the will of Allah." Well, it's ideas -- not worms -- that hijack our brains. Now, am I saying that a sizable minority of the world's population has had their brain hijacked by parasitic ideas? No, it's worse than that. Most people have. (Laughter) There are a lot of ideas to die for. Freedom, if you're from New Hampshire. (Laughter) Justice. Truth. Communism. Many people have laid down their lives for communism, and many have laid down their lives for capitalism. And many for Catholicism. And many for Islam. These are just a few of the ideas that are to die for. They're infectious.
Pa, da li se išta slično dešava i sa ljudskim bićima? Sve je ovo u interesu uzroka drugačijeg od nečije genetske spremnosti, naravno. Možda ste već primetili da islam znači „predaja" ili „potčinjavanje sopstvenog interesa volji Alaha". Ideje, a ne crvi, kidnapuju naš mozak. Da li kažem da su mozgove znatne manjine svetske populacije kidnapovale parazitske ideje? Ne, još je gore od toga. Znatna većina je u pitanju. (Smeh) Ima mnogo ideja za koje se umire. Sloboda, ako ste iz Nju Hempšira. (Smeh) Pravda. Istina. Komunizam. Mnogo ljudi je dalo svoje živote za komunizam, a mnogo ih je dalo i za kapitalizam. Mnogi su dali živote za katolicizam. Mnogi za islam. Ovo su samo neke od ideja za koje se umiralo. One su zarazne.
Yesterday, Amory Lovins spoke about "infectious repititis." It was a term of abuse, in effect. This is unthinking engineering. Well, most of the cultural spread that goes on is not brilliant, new, out-of-the-box thinking. It's "infectious repetitis," and we might as well try to have a theory of what's going on when that happens so that we can understand the conditions of infection. Hosts work hard to spread these ideas to others. I myself am a philosopher, and one of our occupational hazards is that people ask us what the meaning of life is. And you have to have a bumper sticker, you know. You have to have a statement. So, this is mine.
Juče je Emori Lovins govorio o „zaraznom repititisu". To je pogrdni termin koji se koristi. To je nepromišljena primena. Veliki deo kulturološkog napretka koji se nastavlja nije sjajno, novo, nekonvencionalno razmišljanje. To je „zarazni repititis" i možemo čak pokušati da razradimo teoriju o tome šta će se desiti kada se to dogodi kako bismo mogli da razumemo uslove u kojima se zaraza javlja. Domaćini naporno rade na širenju ovih ideja. Ja sam filozof i jedna od potencijalnih opasnosti u našoj profesiji je da nas ljudi pitaju koji je smisao života. Morate imati jednu od onih nalepnica za auto, znate. Morate imati izjavu. Pa, ovo je moja.
The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it. Most of us -- now that the "Me Decade" is well in the past -- now we actually do this. One set of ideas or another have simply replaced our biological imperatives in our own lives. This is what our summum bonum is. It's not maximizing the number of grandchildren we have. Now, this is a profound biological effect. It's the subordination of genetic interest to other interests. And no other species does anything at all like it.
Tajna sreće je - nađite nešto što je važnije od vas samih i posvetite mu svoj život. Većina nas - sada kada je „'ja-sam-centar' decenija" iza nas - radi upravo to. Ova ili ona grupa ideja je jednostavno zamenila biološke imperative u našim životima. Ovo je naš „summum bonum", a ne uvećavanje broja unučića koje imamo. To je značajna biološka posledica. To je podređivanje genetskog uticaja ostalim uticajima i nijedna druga vrsta ne radi ništa slično tome.
Well, how are we going to think about this? It is, on the one hand, a biological effect, and a very large one. Unmistakable. Now, what theories do we want to use to look at this? Well, many theories. But how could something tie them together? The idea of replicating ideas; ideas that replicate by passing from brain to brain. Richard Dawkins, whom you'll be hearing later in the day, invented the term "memes," and put forward the first really clear and vivid version of this idea in his book "The Selfish Gene." Now here am I talking about his idea. Well, you see, it's not his. Yes -- he started it. But it's everybody's idea now. And he's not responsible for what I say about memes. I'm responsible for what I say about memes.
Pa, kako ćemo da razmišljamo o ovome? S jedne strane, to je biološki efekat, i to veoma snažan. Nepogrešiv. Koje teorije želimo da koristimo da bismo ovo objasnili? Pa, mnoge, ali kako ih povezati? Ideja o umnožavanju ideja; ideje koje se umnožavaju idući od mozga do mozga. Ričard Dokins, o kome ćete čuti nešto kasnije, uveo je termin „memi" i izneo prvu jasnu i živopisnu verziju te ideje u svojoj knjizi „Sebični gen". Evo mene, pričam o njegovoj ideji, ali, vidite, ta ideja nije njegova. Da - on ju je započeo, ali to je sada svačija ideja. On nije odgovoran za ono što ja kažem o memima. Ja sam odgovoran za ono što kažem o memima.
Actually, I think we're all responsible for not just the intended effects of our ideas, but for their likely misuses. So it is important, I think, to Richard, and to me, that these ideas not be abused and misused. They're very easy to misuse. That's why they're dangerous. And it's just about a full-time job trying to prevent people who are scared of these ideas from caricaturing them and then running off to one dire purpose or another. So we have to keep plugging away, trying to correct the misapprehensions so that only the benign and useful variants of our ideas continue to spread. But it is a problem. We don't have much time, and I'm going to go over just a little bit of this and cut out, because there's a lot of other things that are going to be said.
U stvari, mislim da smo svi odgovorni ne samo za namerne posledice svojih ideja, već i za njihovu moguću zloupotrebu. Tako je važno, mislim, Ričardu i meni, da te ideje ne budu zloupotrebljene, a vrlo ih je lako zloupotrebiti. Zato su opasne. Pravi je posao sa punim radnim vremenom pokušavati da sprečite ljude koji se plaše tih ideja da ih karikiraju, a onda da ih koriste u loše svrhe. Zato moramo da istrajemo, pokušavajući da ispravimo zablude tako da samo dobroćudne i korisne varijante naših ideja nastave da se šire. To je problem, međutim. Nemamo mnogo vremena pa ću još samo kratko o ovome zato što ima još mnogo stvari koje treba reći.
So let me just point out: memes are like viruses. That's what Richard said, back in '93. And you might think, "Well, how can that be? I mean, a virus is -- you know, it's stuff! What's a meme made of?" Yesterday, Negroponte was talking about viral telecommunications but -- what's a virus? A virus is a string of nucleic acid with attitude. (Laughter) That is, there is something about it that tends to make it replicate better than the competition does. And that's what a meme is. It's an information packet with attitude. What's a meme made of? What are bits made of, Mom? Not silicon. They're made of information, and can be carried in any physical medium. What's a word made of? Sometimes when people say, "Do memes exist?" I say, "Well, do words exist? Are they in your ontology?" If they are, words are memes that can be pronounced.
Dozvolite samo da zaključim: memi su kao virusi. To je Ričard rekao '93. godine. Možda ćete pomisliti: „Kako je to moguće? Virus je, znate, stvar! Od čega se sastoji mem?" Negroponte je juče pričao o viralnim telekomunikacijama ali - šta je virus? Virus je niz nukleinske kiseline sa stavom, (Smeh) to jest, ima nečega u vezi sa tim što teži da ga umnoži bolje nego što to radi konkurencija, a to je i mem - paket informacija sa stavom. Od čega se mem sastoji? Od čega se bitovi sastoje, mama? Nije silikon. Sastoje se od informacija i mogu biti sadržani u bilo kom fizičkom medijumu. Od čega se reč sastoji? Nekada, kad ljudi kažu: „Da li memi postoje?" kažem: „Pa, da li reči postoje? Da li su one u vašoj ontologiji?"
Then there's all the other memes that can't be pronounced. There are different species of memes. Remember the Shakers? Gift to be simple? Simple, beautiful furniture? And, of course, they're basically extinct now. And one of the reasons is that among the creed of Shaker-dom is that one should be celibate. Not just the priests. Everybody. Well, it's not so surprising that they've gone extinct. (Laughter) But in fact that's not why they went extinct. They survived as long as they did at a time when the social safety nets weren't there. And there were lots of widows and orphans, people like that, who needed a foster home. And so they had a ready supply of converts. And they could keep it going. And, in principle, it could've gone on forever, with perfect celibacy on the part of the hosts. The idea being passed on through proselytizing, instead of through the gene line.
Ako jesu, reči su memi koji se mogu izgovoriti. Postoje i mnogi drugi memi koji se ne mogu izgovoriti. Onu su drugačija vrsta mema. Sećate li se sekte šejkera? Dar za jednostavnost? Jednostavan, lep nameštaj? Naravno, sada su praktično nepostojeći, a jedan od razloga je to što je za veru šejkera bitno da pripadnici budu u celibatu. Ne samo sveštenici. Svi. Dakle, i nije tako čudno što su nestali, (Smeh) ali zapravo nisu zbog toga iščezli. Oni su preživljavali koliko jesu u vreme kada nisu postojale društvene bezbednosne mreže. Bilo je mnogo udovica i siročadi, takvih ljudi, kojima je trebao hraniteljski dom. Tako su imali spremnu zalihu preobraćenih i mogli su da nastave da postoje. U principu, to je moglo da potraje večno, uz savršeni celibat domaćina. Ideja se prenosila kroz propovedi umesto kroz genetsku liniju.
So the ideas can live on in spite of the fact that they're not being passed on genetically. A meme can flourish in spite of having a negative impact on genetic fitness. After all, the meme for Shaker-dom was essentially a sterilizing parasite. There are other parasites that do this -- which render the host sterile. It's part of their plan. They don't have to have minds to have a plan.
Dakle, ideje mogu da žive uprkos činjenici da se ne prenose genetski. Mem može da se razvija uprkos njenom negativnom uticaju na genetsku sposobnost. Na kraju krajeva, mem vere šejkera je u biti bio sterilišući parazit. Postoje i drugi paraziti koji rade ovo, koji čine domaćina sterilnim. To je deo njihovog plana. Ne moraju da imaju umove da bi imali plan.
I'm just going to draw your attention to just one of the many implications of the memetic perspective, which I recommend. I've not time to go into more of it. In Jared Diamond's wonderful book, "Guns, Germs and Steel," he talks about how it was germs, more than guns and steel, that conquered the new hemisphere -- the Western hemisphere -- that conquered the rest of the world. When European explorers and travelers spread out, they brought with them the germs that they had become essentially immune to, that they had learned how to tolerate over hundreds and hundreds of years, thousands of years, of living with domesticated animals who were the sources of those pathogens. And they just wiped out -- these pathogens just wiped out the native people, who had no immunity to them at all.
Skrenuću vam pažnju na samo jednu od mnogih posledica memske perspektive koju preporučujem. Nema vremena da dublje zalazim u to. U sjajnoj knjizi Džereda Dajmonda, „Oružje, klice i čelik", on priča o tome kako su klice, više nego oružje i čelik, pokorile novu hemisferu, zapadnu hemisferu, koje su pokorile ostatak sveta. Kada su se evropski istraživači i putnici raširili, poneli su sa sobom klice na koje su u suštini postali imuni, koje su naučili da tolerišu tokom stotina i stotina, hiljada godina življenja sa pripitomljenim životinjama koje su bile izvori ovih patogena, a oni su samo izbrisali - ovi patogeni su samo izbrisali starosedeoce koji nisu bili imuni na njih,
And we're doing it again. We're doing it this time with toxic ideas. Yesterday, a number of people -- Nicholas Negroponte and others -- spoke about all the wonderful things that are happening when our ideas get spread out, thanks to all the new technology all over the world. And I agree. It is largely wonderful. Largely wonderful. But among all those ideas that inevitably flow out into the whole world thanks to our technology, are a lot of toxic ideas. Now, this has been realized for some time. Sayyid Qutb is one of the founding fathers of fanatical Islam, one of the ideologues that inspired Osama bin Laden. "One has only to glance at its press films, fashion shows, beauty contests, ballrooms, wine bars and broadcasting stations." Memes.
a mi to radimo opet. Ovoga puta to radimo sa toksičnim idejama. Juče je grupa ljudi - Nikolas Negroponte i drugi - pričala o sjajnim stvarima koje se dešavaju kada se ideje rašire, zahvaljujući celokupnoj novoj tehnologiji širom sveta i ja se slažem - to je većinom sjajno, ali, među ovim idejama koje neizbežno pristižu u celi svet zahvaljujući našoj tehnologiji, mnogo je toksičnih ideja. Ovo je poznato već neko vreme. Sajid Kutb je jedan od osnivača fanatičnog islama, jedan od ideologa koji su inspirisali Osamu bin Ladena. „Samo se mora baciti pogled na štampu, filmove, modne emisije, izbore za mis, plesne sale, vinske restorane i radio-stanice." Memi.
These memes are spreading around the world and they are wiping out whole cultures. They are wiping out languages. They are wiping out traditions and practices. And it's not our fault, anymore than it's our fault when our germs lay waste to people that haven't developed the immunity. We have an immunity to all of the junk that lies around the edges of our culture. We're a free society, so we let pornography and all these things -- we shrug them off. They're like a mild cold. They're not a big deal for us. But we should recognize that for many people in the world, they are a big deal. And we should be very alert to this. As we spread our education and our technology, one of the things that we are doing is we're the vectors of memes that are correctly viewed by the hosts of many other memes as a dire threat to their favorite memes -- the memes that they are prepared to die for.
Ovi memi se šire svetom i brišu čitave kulture. Brišu jezike. Brišu tradicije i običaje, a to nije naša greška ništa više nego kada naše klice unište ljude koji nisu razvili imunitet. Imamo imunitet na svo đubre koje leži na marginama naše kulture. Mi smo slobodno društvo, pa puštamo pornografiju i sve ove stvari. Odbacujemo ih. Oni su kao blaga prehlada. Nisu velika stvar za nas, ali treba da shvatimo da su za mnoge ljude na svetu velika stvar i treba da smo oprezni oko ovoga. Dok širimo svoje obrazovanje i tehnologiju, jedna od stvari koje radimo je da smo vektori mema koje mnogi domaćini mnogih drugih mema ispravno doživljavaju kao žestoku pretnju njihovim omiljenim memima - memima za koje su spremni da daju život.
Well now, how are we going to tell the good memes from the bad memes? That is not the job of the science of memetics. Memetics is morally neutral. And so it should be. This is not the place for hate and anger. If you've had a friend who's died of AIDS, then you hate HIV. But the way to deal with that is to do science, and understand how it spreads and why in a morally neutral perspective.
Pa, kako ćemo razlikovati dobre od loših mema? To nije posao memetike kao nauke. Memetika je moralno neutralna, a i treba da bude. To nije mesto za mržnju i bes. Ako ste imali prijatelja koji je umro od AIDS-a, onda mrzite HIV virus, ali način da se sa tim nosite je kroz nauku
Get the facts. Work out the implications. There's plenty of room for moral passion once we've got the facts and can figure out the best thing to do. And, as with germs, the trick is not to try to annihilate them. You will never annihilate the germs. What you can do, however, is foster public health measures and the like that will encourage the evolution of avirulence. That will encourage the spread of relatively benign mutations of the most toxic varieties. That's all the time I have, so thank you very much for your attention.
i da razumete kako se širi i zašto sa moralno neutralne tačke gledišta. Sakupite činjenice. Razradite posledice. Ima dovoljno mesta za moralnu ostrašćenost kada sakupimo činjenice i shvatimo najbolji način da se nosimo sa tim. Što se klica tiče, trik nije u pokušaju da se unište. Nikada ih nećete uništiti. Možete, međutim, da podstičete zdravstvene mere i slične stvari koje će ohrabriti razvoj protiv zaraze, koje će ohrabriti širenje relativno benignih mutacija najotrovnijih vrsta. To je celokupno vreme koje imam,