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.
我們這兒有多少神創論者? 可能沒有。估計在座都是達爾文主義者。 不過,許多達爾文主義者都有點急切不安, 想看看達爾文主義的極限,看它到底能走多遠。 這沒有問題。 你們知道蜘蛛網嗎?當然了,這是進化來的。 全球資訊網呢?不太確定。 水獺壩,是。 胡佛大壩,不是。 到底是什麼讓人認為人類的機靈智巧 不會是生命樹上長出來的果實 因此在某種意義上並不遵守進化的法則呢? 然而有趣的是,人們抵制這樣的想法: 抵制把進化論應用到思維上—應用到我們的思維上。
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.
我將對此發表一些看法, 同時提醒自己,節目上還有許多其他的東西。 你到森林裏或到田園中, 你看見一隻螞蟻爬上一片草葉。 它爬到頂上,又落下來, 然後又爬到頂,又落下來,然後又再爬— 總想停留在草葉的最尖端 它在幹嘛?它想做什麼? 試圖爬到草葉尖端,它想達到什麼目的? 這對它有什麼好處呢? 答案是:沒有。對它而言,什麼好處也沒有。 那為什麼要這樣做呢? 那只是碰巧嗎? 沒錯,正是碰巧,碰巧是枝雙腔吸蟲。 在大腦裏的小蟲。 這種大腦裏的蟲要鑽進羊或牛的肚子裏, 好繼續它的生命週期。 三文魚逆流而上要到產卵場, 枝雙腔吸蟲霸佔一隻路過的螞蟻, 爬進它的大腦,像駕著越野車,使它爬上草葉頂端。 因此對螞蟻來說,什麼好處都沒有。 這隻螞蟻的大腦被寄生蟲劫持了, 導致它的自殺行為。 相當可怕。
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.
那麼,類似的事情會發生在人的身上嗎? 這種事情當然不會是順著人的基因特性而發生的。 你可能已經想到 「伊斯蘭」即是「服從」,或是說「為服從真主的意志而放棄自我利益」。 劫持我們大腦的是思想,不是蟲子。 那我是不是在說,世界人口的一小部分 大腦已經被寄生思想劫持了呢? 不是,比這還糟糕呢。 大部分的人都已經被劫持了。 (笑聲) 有許多思想會教人獻身。 比方說自由—如果你來自新罕布夏的話。 (笑聲) 正義、真理、共產主義。 許多人為共產主義捐軀, 也有許多人為資本主義捐軀。 許多人為天主教獻身,也有許多為伊斯蘭。 這些只是一小部分會教人獻身的思想。 它們都具有傳染性。
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.
昨天,阿莫銳•陸文斯提到「傳染性的複製品」。 那其實是個貶義詞。 是未經思考的工程設計。 瞧,大部分文化的傳播 並非什麼了不得、嶄新、開箱即用的思想。 都只是傳染性的複製品。 也許可以找出一套解釋發生這種現象的理論, 讓人能理解傳染性所需的條件。 寄主努力傳播那些思想給他人。 我自己是個哲學家,我們這行的公害之一 即是總有人要問我們生命的意義是什麼。 大家知道,你得在防撞桿上貼一張貼紙, 你得貼上某種宣言式的東西。 好,我的是這個。
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.
幸福的秘密在於:尋找某種比你更重要的東西, 並將生命投入其中。 我們之中的大多數—「我」的時代已經過去了— 都確實身體力行。 這一套或那一套理論 取代了我們生命中的生物性使命。 這是我們存在的最高價值。 不在於金玉滿堂。 請注意,這是意義深刻的生物性效應。 這是基因利益對其他利益的屈服。 沒有任何其他物種會這麼做。
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.
那我們對此該作何感想? 這一方面是生物性的效應,影響很大。 毫無疑問。 我們用什麼理論來探查它呢? 嗯,不少呢。但如何一言以蔽之呢? 那就是「複制思想」的概念, 即傳遞於大腦之間而得到複製的那些思想。 你們今天稍後會聽到理查•道金斯的演講,他發明「模因」這個詞, 而且是在他的《自私的基因》這本書裏第一個清晰生動地 闡釋這個概念的人。 我在這裏說他的思想。 當然也知道這已經不是他的了。沒錯—他是思想的創始人。 但這個思想現在已經是所有人的。 他不必為我所說的模因負責。 我所說的模因由我自己負責。
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.
事實上,我認為我們都要負責, 不僅要為我們的思想所要達到的效果負責, 也要為它們可能會被誤用而負責。 所以我想,對我和理查(道金斯)重要的是, 確保這些想法不會被濫用或被誤用。 它們很容易被誤用。這也是它們的危險之處。 這幾乎是一份全職的工作: 要防止害怕這些想法的人 醜化這些思想,然後嚇跑了,去做出一件又一件可怕的事。 所以我們必須堅持不懈, 不斷試圖矯正各種誤解, 確保只有在我們思想中有用的、無害的部分得到傳播。 但這是個問題。 我們的時間不多了,所以我只說一點就打住, 因為我還有許多其他的東西要說。
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.
那麼讓我指出:模因如同病毒。 這是理查93年就說過的。 你可能會想:這怎麼可能? 我是說大家都知道,病毒是「物質」!模因是什麼構成的呢? 昨天,尼葛洛龐帝提到病毒電子通訊, 可是—病毒是什麼? 病毒是一串具有態度的核酸。 (笑聲) 也就是說, 它具有某種東西, 這東西使它在複製的競賽中脫穎而出。 這也就是模因,它是一包有態度的資訊。 模因是什麼構成的呢?「媽,比特是什麼構成的呢?」 反正不是矽。 它們是資訊構成的,載體可以是任何物理媒介。 單詞是什麼構成的呢? 有時會有人問:「模因存在嗎?」 我說:「單詞存在嗎?它們存在於你的存有論中嗎?」 若是存在,那麼單詞就是可以被發出聲音的模因。
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.
那麼也有其他不能被發出聲音的模因。 它們是模因中的不同物種。 還記得震教徒嗎?天賦簡樸? 簡單而漂亮的傢俱? 當然了,他們基本上已經滅絕了。 其中一個原因是,他們的信條之中 有一條要求獨身。 不光是牧師,所有的人都要。 嗯,難怪他們滅絕了(笑聲) 事實上,這不是他們消失的原因。 他們維持了很久。 那時候還沒有社會保障制度, 有許多鰥夫寡婦和孤兒, 像這樣需要被收容的人。 因此他們有一個皈依信徒的供應鏈。 所以他們能夠繼續存在。 理論上可以直到永遠。 儘管寄主們都是獨身的, 思想經由皈依得到傳遞, 不是經由基因遺傳,
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.
因此思想可以一直傳播下去, 儘管並不經由遺傳。 即使模因對基因的適應性有負面影響,還是能夠繁衍; 畢竟震教徒們的模因,本質上是令人絕育的寄生蟲。 還有許多這種讓寄主不育的寄生蟲。 它們的計畫就是如此。 它們不需要心靈來做計畫。
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.
從觀察模因的角度來看,在其眾多的意涵中, 我只指出一個我認為必須留意的意涵。 我沒有時間多說。 在賈雷德•戴蒙德《槍炮,細菌和鋼鐵》這本奇書中, 他談到為什麼是細菌,而非槍炮和鋼鐵 征服了新半球—也就是西半球— 然後西半球又征服了世界的其他部分。 當歐洲的探險家和旅行者們分散出去, 他們隨身帶去 他們已經形成免疫力的細菌; 好幾百、上千年來,他們已經學會了 和那些細菌相安無事; 他們和帶有病原體的馴養動物一起生活, 然後它們—那些病原體—徹底摧毀了原住民 因為原住民對它們毫無免疫力
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.
現在我們又在做同樣的事 這次我們用的是有毒的思想。 昨天,尼古拉斯•尼葛洛龐帝等人 說到這些奇妙的事情, 這些在思想傳播出去時會發生的事情。 這要歸功於整個世界的新科學技術。 這點我同意;絕大部分都是美妙的—絕大部分。 可是,當它們無可避免地傳遍全世界時, 也夾帶大量有毒的思想—同樣歸功於我們的科技。 這已經發生一段時間了。 薩伊德•庫是狂熱伊斯蘭教的創始人之一, 也是奧薩馬•賓拉登的靈感源泉之一。 「看看他們的新聞、電影、時裝表演、選美比賽、 舞會大廳、葡萄酒吧和廣播電臺」。這些是模因。
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.
模因正傳遍全世界, 消滅整個整個的文化, 消滅語言, 消滅傳統和習俗。 這不能怪我們,正如同我們的細菌摧毀原住民那樣, 也不是我們的錯。 對我們自己文化邊緣的各種破銅爛鐵,我們都具有免疫力。 我們是自由的社會,色情等等東西,我們不在乎。 那些東西像是輕微的感冒。 沒什麼大不了。 但我們應當意識到,對世界上許多人而言, 這可是至關重要的。 我們應該保持高度警惕, 在我們傳播教育和科技時, 我們就成了模因的帶原媒介, 其他模因的寄主們當然要將我們視為敵人, 嚴重威脅到他們所愛之模因的敵人— 那是他們願意為之捐軀獻身的模因。
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.
那麼,如何區分模因的好壞呢? 這並不是模因學的工作。 模因學在道德上是中性的,而且理應如此。 這裏沒有喜怒愛憎。 如果你有朋友死于愛滋,你會恨HIV。 但對付病毒要用科學的方法, 從中立的角度,探究病毒為何、如何傳播,
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.
實事求是, 探明意涵; 有了事實,道德情感自然有發揮的空間, 然後再決定該做什麼。 對於細菌,秘訣在於不要試圖消滅它們。 你永遠消滅不了細菌。 你能做的就是加強公共衛生之類的措施, 那會激勵病毒毒性的演化。 那會激勵毒性最烈的病毒只散播出 毒性較弱的變種。 我的時間就到此為止, 非常感謝各位的聆聽。