So, imagine that you had your smartphone miniaturized and hooked up directly to your brain. If you had this sort of brain chip, you'd be able to upload and download to the internet at the speed of thought. Accessing social media or Wikipedia would be a lot like -- well, from the inside at least -- like consulting your own memory. It would be as easy and as intimate as thinking. But would it make it easier for you to know what's true? Just because a way of accessing information is faster it doesn't mean it's more reliable, of course, and it doesn't mean that we would all interpret it the same way. And it doesn't mean that you would be any better at evaluating it. In fact, you might even be worse, because, you know, more data, less time for evaluation.
想像你的智慧型手機被縮小, 直接連上你的腦袋, 如果你的頭內植入晶片, 你能彈指間在網路上, 下載和上傳資料。 使用社群媒體或維基, 直接從腦中存取, 就像參考自己的記憶那樣。 搜尋資料就像思考般親密和簡單, 但這會讓你更容易辨別真相嗎? 只因擷取資訊更迅速, 當然不代表更就會可靠, 不代表每個人的解讀會一致, 也不代表,你比別人更會評估資訊。 實際上,搞不好更糟糕, 因為資訊愈多,評估的時間愈短。
Something like this is already happening to us right now. We already carry a world of information around in our pockets, but it seems as if the more information we share and access online, the more difficult it can be for us to tell the difference between what's real and what's fake. It's as if we know more but understand less.
這樣的事情,目前已經發生了。 我們已將全球資訊裝在口袋裡, 但似乎我們線上接觸、分享得愈多, 就越難釐清真實與虛假。 我們變得知道越多,懂得卻越少。
Now, it's a feature of modern life, I suppose, that large swaths of the public live in isolated information bubbles. We're polarized: not just over values, but over the facts. One reason for that is, the data analytics that drive the internet get us not just more information, but more of the information that we want. Our online life is personalized; everything from the ads we read to the news that comes down our Facebook feed is tailored to satisfy our preferences. And so while we get more information, a lot of that information ends up reflecting ourselves as much as it does reality. It ends up, I suppose, inflating our bubbles rather than bursting them. And so maybe it's no surprise that we're in a situation, a paradoxical situation, of thinking that we know so much more, and yet not agreeing on what it is we know.
這現象,似乎成為現代生活的特徵。 一堆人活在孤立的資訊泡泡裡, 我們對價值觀和事實皆過度兩極化。 其中一個原因是 數據分析讓網路給我們更多的資訊, 遠多於我們所想要的資訊量。 我們的網路生活已經個人化。 我們所瀏覽的,從廣告 到臉書動態總匯上出現的新聞, 都經過調整以滿足個人的喜好。 在我們獲取更多資訊的同時, 不少資訊到最後反映我們自身喜好, 如同調整過而反映出的事實。 我想,到最後 我們所處的被孤立泡泡 只會過度膨脹,而非爆破。 所以我們處在矛盾的處境裡, 一點也不令人訝異, 我們知道的這麼多, 但我們到底知道甚麼,卻看法不一。
So how are we going to solve this problem of knowledge polarization? One obvious tactic is to try to fix our technology, to redesign our digital platforms, so as to make them less susceptible to polarization. And I'm happy to report that many smart people at Google and Facebook are working on just that. And these projects are vital. I think that fixing technology is obviously really important, but I don't think technology alone, fixing it, is going to solve the problem of knowledge polarization. I don't think that because I don't think, at the end of the day, it is a technological problem. I think it's a human problem, having to do with how we think and what we value.
所以該如何解決知識極端化的問題? 最顯著的策略是,試著修復科技, 重新設定數位平台, 減少知識被兩極化的現象。 很高興能跟各位說, 谷歌和臉書裡優秀的人才, 正朝此方向努力。 這些計畫很重要。 我認為修復科技顯然至關重要, 但我不認為光靠修復科技, 就能解決知識極端化的問題。 我不這麼認為,是因為到頭來, 終究不是科技的問題, 而是人的問題, 跟我們如何思考、 和所重視的價值有關。
In order to solve it, I think we're going to need help. We're going to need help from psychology and political science. But we're also going to need help, I think, from philosophy. Because to solve the problem of knowledge polarization, we're going to need to reconnect with one fundamental, philosophical idea: that we live in a common reality. The idea of a common reality is like, I suppose, a lot of philosophical concepts: easy to state but mysteriously difficult to put into practice. To really accept it, I think we need to do three things, each of which is a challenge right now.
為了解決問題,我們需要各方協助, 需要心理學與政治科學的幫忙。 不過,我們也需要哲學的協助, 因為想要解決知識對立的問題, 我們必需重新思考 一個最基本的哲學問題: 我們活在普遍的現實裡。 活在普遍的現實裡的想法, 與眾多哲學概念類似: 說起來簡單, 但做起來,卻莫名困難。 想真正地接受, 我們有三件事要做, 目前,每一項都具有挑戰性。
First, we need to believe in truth. You might have noticed that our culture is having something of a troubled relationship with that concept right now. It seems as if we disagree so much that, as one political commentator put it not long ago, it's as if there are no facts anymore. But that thought is actually an expression of a sort of seductive line of argument that's in the air. It goes like this: we just can't step outside of our own perspectives; we can't step outside of our biases. Every time we try, we just get more information from our perspective. So, this line of thought goes, we might as well admit that objective truth is an illusion, or it doesn't matter, because either we'll never know what it is, or it doesn't exist in the first place.
首先,我們必須相信真相。 大家可能注意到 我們的文化和這個概念 似乎有所衝突。 我們如此地不同意, 正如一位政治評論員不久前說的, 彷彿真相不再存在一般。 但這種想法,實際上只是種表達方式, 一種充斥在空氣裡、引人入勝的論述。 論述是這樣的: 我們就是無法跳脫自我的觀點, 我們也無法放下偏見, 每次我們試著這麼做, 就只是從自我的觀點得到更多資訊。 順著這種思路, 我們乾脆承認,客觀事實只是假象, 不痛不癢, 因為,要不就是我們無從得知真相, 要不就是真相根本就不存在。
That's not a new philosophical thought -- skepticism about truth. During the end of the last century, as some of you know, it was very popular in certain academic circles. But it really goes back all the way to the Greek philosopher Protagoras, if not farther back. Protagoras said that objective truth was an illusion because "man is the measure of all things." Man is the measure of all things. That can seem like a bracing bit of realpolitik to people, or liberating, because it allows each of us to discover or make our own truth.
這不是新興的哲學思想—— 真相懷疑論。 在上世紀末,可能有人知道, 懷疑論在特定學術圈廣受歡迎。 這真可追溯到希臘哲學家 普羅泰格拉, 如果不是更早的話。 普羅泰格拉認為 客觀的事實只是假象。 因為「人是所有事物的衡量標準」。 人是所有事物的衡量標準。 這話聽來像是權力政治中的支撐點, 或是一種解放, 因為這讓每個人探索 或創造屬於自己的真相。
But actually, I think it's a bit of self-serving rationalization disguised as philosophy. It confuses the difficulty of being certain with the impossibility of truth. Look -- of course it's difficult to be certain about anything; we might all be living in "The Matrix." You might have a brain chip in your head feeding you all the wrong information. But in practice, we do agree on all sorts of facts. We agree that bullets can kill people. We agree that you can't flap your arms and fly. We agree -- or we should -- that there is an external reality and ignoring it can get you hurt.
但我覺得這其實是 喬裝為哲理的自我合理化。 它使確定的難度 與真理的不可能性互相混淆。 看哪, 對所有事感到有把握,並不容易。 我們可能活在《駭客任務》的世界裡。 你的腦中也許植有晶片, 將錯誤的資訊灌輸給你。 但事實上,我們認同各式各樣的事實。 我們認同子彈能殺人, 我們認同人類不能振翅高飛, 我們認同,或是我們應該認同, 客觀的外在現實世界的存在, 若你漠視的話,可能會因此受傷。
Nonetheless, skepticism about truth can be tempting, because it allows us to rationalize away our own biases. When we do that, we're sort of like the guy in the movie who knew he was living in "The Matrix" but decided he liked it there, anyway. After all, getting what you want feels good. Being right all the time feels good. So, often it's easier for us to wrap ourselves in our cozy information bubbles, live in bad faith, and take those bubbles as the measure of reality.
但懷疑真相其實很誘人, 因為這能讓我們把偏見合理化。 當我們這麼做,就像電影中的人物, 知道他自己活在《駭客任務》裡, 卻喜歡住在那裏。 畢竟,得到你想要的讓你快樂。 你總是對的,讓你自我感覺良好。 所以,通常我們更容易 將自己包裹在舒適的資訊泡泡中, 不信任地活著, 還把這些泡泡 當作所有事物的衡量標準。
An example, I think, of how this bad faith gets into our action is our reaction to the phenomenon of fake news. The fake news that spread on the internet during the American presidential election of 2016 was designed to feed into our biases, designed to inflate our bubbles. But what was really striking about it was not just that it fooled so many people. What was really striking to me about fake news, the phenomenon, is how quickly it itself became the subject of knowledge polarization; so much so, that the very term -- the very term -- "fake news" now just means: "news story I don't like." That's an example of the bad faith towards the truth that I'm talking about.
一個這種不信任 如何滲入我們行動的例子 是我們對假新聞現象的反應。 在 2016 年美國總統大選期間, 散佈於網路上的假新聞, 被設計來餵養我們的偏見, 膨脹我們的泡泡。 但真正令人訝異的, 不只是假新聞愚弄了許多人, 真正令我訝異的是 假新聞的現象 快速成為知識對立的議題, 「假新聞」這個詞, 現在的意思僅是:「我討厭的新聞。」 這就是我所說的 「不相信真相」的例子。
But the really, I think, dangerous thing about skepticism with regard to truth is that it leads to despotism. "Man is the measure of all things" inevitably becomes "The Man is the measure of all things." Just as "every man for himself" always seems to turn out to be "only the strong survive."
不過我想懷疑真相的真正危險 是它會導致專制。 「人是所有事物的衡量標準」, 無可避免地變成「『個人』 是所有事物的衡量標準」, 就像是「人人只顧自己」, 結局總是「適者生存」。
At the end of Orwell's "1984," the thought policeman O'Brien is torturing the protagonist Winston Smith into believing two plus two equals five. What O'Brien says is the point, is that he wants to convince Smith that whatever the party says is the truth, and the truth is whatever the party says. And what O'Brien knows is that once this thought is accepted, critical dissent is impossible. You can't speak truth to power if the power speaks truth by definition.
在英國作家喬治·歐威爾的 小說《一九八四》的結尾, 思想警察歐布萊恩 虐待主角史密斯, 讓主角相信二加二等於五。 歐布萊恩說到重點, 他想說服史密斯相信, 凡是黨說的就是真相, 真相就是黨說了算。 歐布萊恩知道,一旦接受這個思想, 思想異議者就不可能存在。 如果權力詮釋甚麼是真相, 你就不能跟權力說,甚麼才是事實。
I said that in order to accept that we really live in a common reality, we have to do three things. The first thing is to believe in truth. The second thing can be summed up by the Latin phrase that Kant took as the motto for the Enlightenment: "Sapere aude," or "dare to know." Or as Kant wants, "to dare to know for yourself."
為了徹底接受我們活在現實裡, 必須做三件事情。 第一就是相信事實, 第二,則能用一句拉丁文總結, 康德視之為啟蒙時期的座右銘 「Sapere aude」, 或是「勇於求知」, 亦或康德的說法「為自己勇於求知」。
I think in the early days of the internet, a lot of us thought that information technology was always going to make it easier for us to know for ourselves, and of course in many ways, it has. But as the internet has become more and more a part of our lives, our reliance on it, our use of it, has become often more passive. Much of what we know today we Google-know. We download prepackaged sets of facts and sort of shuffle them along the assembly line of social media. Now, Google-knowing is useful precisely because it involves a sort of intellectual outsourcing. We offload our effort onto a network of others and algorithms. And that allows us, of course, to not clutter our minds with all sorts of facts. We can just download them when we need them. And that's awesome.
在網路的早期 有許多人認為, 資訊科技總能 讓我們簡易地去自己求知, 當然從很多面相來說,確實如此。 不過,當網路愈融入人們的生活, 人們依賴網路、 使用網路的方式變得更被動。 現今人們所知的,大多全靠谷歌搜尋。 我們下載事先包裝的事實, 沿著社群媒體裝配線重新組裝分享。 谷歌搜尋有用乃是歸功於 它匯集所有外部的智能資源。 我們把自己該下的功夫卸載到 演算法和其他人的網路上。 這當然能讓我們的腦袋, 不被各類事實所淹沒。 我們能夠只在需要時才下載資訊, 這是很棒的事情。
But there's a difference between downloading a set of facts and really understanding how or why those facts are as they are. Understanding why a particular disease spreads, or how a mathematical proof works, or why your friend is depressed, involves more than just downloading. It's going to require, most likely, doing some work for yourself: having a little creative insight; using your imagination; getting out into the field; doing the experiment; working through the proof; talking to someone.
但下載各類事實與透徹辨別這些真相 兩者之間是有差別的。 了解為何某個疾病會散播、 如何證明某數學公式, 或你的朋友為何憂鬱, 這些都遠超過單純的下載動作。 反而更需要的是, 你自己也下點功夫, 多一點創造巧思、 運用想像力、 起身而行、 做點小實驗、 引經據典驗證、 與人聊聊。
Now, I'm not saying, of course, that we should stop Google-knowing. I'm just saying we shouldn't overvalue it, either. We need to find ways of encouraging forms of knowing that are more active, and don't always involve passing off our effort into our bubble. Because the thing about Google-knowing is that too often it ends up being bubble-knowing. And bubble-knowing means always being right. But daring to know, daring to understand, means risking the possibility that you could be wrong. It means risking the possibility that what you want and what's true are different things.
當然我不是要大家停用谷歌搜尋, 我是說, 我們也不該過度倚重谷歌。 我們需要找到方法 鼓勵更積極地形成知識, 而不總是將該盡的心力, 塞進資訊泡泡裡, 因為谷歌搜尋最後多半變成 泡泡搜尋, 而泡泡搜尋代表不會出錯。 但是勇於求知、 勇於理解, 意味著你有搞錯的可能, 意味著到頭來有可能 你想要的和事實真相有出入。
Which brings me to the third thing that I think we need to do if we want to accept that we live in a common reality. That third thing is: have a little humility. By humility here, I mean epistemic humility, which means, in a sense, knowing that you don't know it all. But it also means something more than that. It means seeing your worldview as open to improvement by the evidence and experience of others. Seeing your worldview as open to improvement by the evidence and experience of others. That's more than just being open to change. It's more than just being open to self-improvement. It means seeing your knowledge as capable of enhancing or being enriched by what others contribute. That's part of what is involved in recognizing there's a common reality that you, too, are responsible to.
第三件我們必須做的事, 如果我們想接受, 活在普遍的現實世界的話。 那就是謙卑一點, 我指的是知識上的謙卑。 也就是說, 明白你其實不是萬事通。 但這也進一步意味著, 藉由佐證與他人的經驗 來看待你可改進的世界觀。 藉由佐證與他人的經驗 來看待你可改進的世界觀。 這不只是打開心門、擁抱改變, 也不只是打開心門、自我進步, 而是看到自己的知識, 能透過他人的貢獻,有所提升增長。 這就是認同現實世界存在, 必須經歷的一個過程, 那就是,你也要負起責任。
I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that our society is not particularly great at enhancing or encouraging that sort of humility. That's partly because, well, we tend to confuse arrogance and confidence. And it's partly because, well, you know, arrogance is just easier. It's just easier to think of yourself as knowing it all. It's just easier to think of yourself as having it all figured out. But that's another example of the bad faith towards the truth that I've been talking about.
我不認為這樣說太超過, 我們的社會不擅於提升或激勵 我剛剛提到的謙卑, 部分原因是 我們有分不清自大與自信的傾向, 還有部分是 自大比自信來得容易。 認為自己是萬事通,可簡單多了, 認為自己摸懂一切,也簡單多了。 但這是我剛才提到, 不相信真相的另一個例子。
So the concept of a common reality, like a lot of philosophical concepts, can seem so obvious, that we can look right past it and forget why it's important. Democracies can't function if their citizens don't strive, at least some of the time, to inhabit a common space, a space where they can pass ideas back and forth when -- and especially when -- they disagree. But you can't strive to inhabit that space if you don't already accept that you live in the same reality. To accept that, we've got to believe in truth, we've got to encourage more active ways of knowing. And we've got to have the humility to realize that we're not the measure of all things.
所以現實世界的概念 與很多哲學概念雷同, 是那麼的顯眼, 我們卻視而不見, 並忘掉其重要性。 若人民不努力,民主就會失能, 至少有時候是這樣, 就是如果人民不努力, 不在共有的時空裡交流意見, 尤其當大家的想法不一致時。 但如果你還沒接受 大家活在同一現實裡, 你就無法力圖守著那個現實空間。 想要接受就必須相信真相, 我們必須鼓勵更積極的求知方法, 也必須謙卑, 才能認知,我們不是 所有事物的衡量標準。
We may yet one day realize the vision of having the internet in our brains. But if we want that to be liberating and not terrifying, if we want it to expand our understanding and not just our passive knowing, we need to remember that our perspectives, as wondrous, as beautiful as they are, are just that -- perspectives on one reality.
也許腦袋裡配備網路的想法, 會有實現的一天。 但若希望它如釋重負而非恐怖嚇人, 希望它擴展我們的理解 而不僅是添加被動的知識, 我們就必須謹記 我們的觀點是如此奇妙美麗, 純粹只關注於單一的現實上。
Thank you.
謝謝大家。
(Applause)
(掌聲)