Twenty-five hundred years ago, Heraclitus said, "The world bubbles forth." Here's bubbling. What is actual now enables what is next possible, the adjacent possible. The biosphere has been bubbling forth for four billion years, creating new possibilities in the universe in that bubbling. It's critical that physics cannot talk at all about bubbling new bubbles.
两千五百年前, 赫拉克利 (Heraclitus) 说过: “万物皆流,无物常驻。” 可以这样解释。 眼下的现实产生未来的可能, 即“邻近可能” (the adjacent possible)。 生物圈繁衍持续了 40 亿年, 在这生生不息的宇宙中 创造着新的可能。 而物理学没办法 用于诠释新的演进。
Life on Earth started four billion years ago. For the first 2.5 billion years were single-celled organisms co-evolving. Even by existing, organisms create new possibilities. If I'm a bacterium and you're a bacterium and I have a flat surface, I'm a possible highway you can walk over to get food. That's bubbling forth.
地球上的生命 起源于 40 亿年以前。 在最早的 25 亿年里, 单细胞生物共同进化。 这些生物存在着, 便是在创造新的可能。 假设我是一个细菌, 你也是一个细菌,我的表面平滑, 你也许会经过我以摄取食物。 这便是“生生不息”。
So 2.5 billion years after life started, six times multicell organisms emerged. A billion years after that, 3.5 billion years after life started, is the extraordinary Cambrian explosion. 540 million years ago, for 50 million years, there was just this burst of creativity, making all of the phyla that exist now. And now we have this guy. I'm scared of having him in bed, I really am. So I don't know what to call him. It's a vote afterwards. So here's a gentler guy and I'm in love with him. Look at his eyes looking at you, you know. "You're doing what?"
生命出现了 25 亿年以后, 多细胞生物 6 次兴起。 又过了 10 亿年, 即生命出现了 35 亿年以后, 发生了著名的 寒武纪生命大爆发。 在 5.4 亿年以前, 持续了 5000 万年, 创造力瞬间激发, 产生了现存的各个生物分支。 来看这位朋友。 我很害怕它出现在我的床上。 我不知道该怎么称呼它。 之后我们来投个票吧。 这位朋友看起来和善一点, 我还挺喜欢它的。 看它盯着你的样子。 “你在干啥?”
In order to talk about how the biosphere has been creative, I have to talk about the functions of parts of an organ. You all know your heart keeps you alive, but in particular, your heart pumps blood. It's not by making heart sounds. So this means something fundamental. The function of a part is that subset of its causal properties that sustain the whole. Your heart pumping blood and you. But doing that is jury-rigging, finding subsets of causal features of use.
要解释生物圈是怎么富含创造力的, 我得先介绍一下器官各个部分的功能。 大家都知道,你活着依赖心脏, 具体地讲,靠心脏泵血。 而并非心跳声。 这说明了很基本的一点。 某一环节的“功能” 是它所带属性中 维持整体运作的子集。 你的心脏泵血,和你。 但寻找因果属性的子集 只是个权宜之计。
Some years ago, my daughter dropped her purse in a shallow well. I took a wire coat hanger, slid it over a mop handle, and I fished out her purse. Anything can be used for more than one thing. For example, a screwdriver can be used to screw in a screw, but it's great for scraping putty off the wall. An engine block can have eight holes drilled and you make an engine out of it. It's actually a superb paperweight,
几年以前,我女儿的钱包 掉进了一口浅浅的井里。 我找来个衣架,系在拖把柄上, 把她的钱包钓了起来。 每样物品都不止有一个用途。 比如,螺丝刀可以用来拧螺丝, 但也很适合用来刮墙灰。 发动机缸体上打了八个洞, 你可以做出一台发动机。 但也很适合用来压纸。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
and much research done only by scientists demonstrates that the corners are sharp and can crack open a coconut. I was very proud of that. So. But if you're using an engine block as a paperweight, can you deduce, oh, I can use this thing to crack open coconuts. You can't. It might be a banana peel.
有很多科学家进行的研究表明 发动机缸体的角很锋利, 可以砸开椰子。 我太喜欢这一点了。 但如果你要把发动机缸体 当镇纸来用, 你能推理出它开椰子的功能吗? 不行。 也许它是剥香蕉的。
But that means also something fundamental. Finding new uses for things, jury-rigging is not a computation. It's not a deduction. Jury-rigging is not a computation at all. Computers are. The biosphere is forever innovating in this kind of way that's not a deduction.
但这个道理是很基本的。 给事物找新用途, 权宜之计不是什么计算。 不是什么推理。 权宜之计根本不是计算。 那是计算机干的。 生物圈一直在以这种方式创新; 它并非推理。
For example, there are things called Darwinian preadaptations. Dinosaurs had scales that were evolved for thermoregulation that were jury-rigged into flight feathers. Your eyes have clear crystallins that were perfectly normal-colored enzymes. And this, too, means something fundamental.
像被称为“达尔文预适应”的情况。 恐龙长有为调节温度 进化而来的鳞片, 后来转变为用于飞行的羽毛。 你的眼球含着透明的晶状体蛋白, 也是色泽普通的酶。 这也是基本的原则。
We cannot deduce what is in the adjacent possible that the evolving biosphere will create, then become. We do not even know what can happen. In fact, we can use no mathematics based on set theory, which is all of mathematics, to deduce what the biosphere is going to become, or the economy. This means we are at a fantastic third-phase transition in science, we're beyond Newton, we're beyond quantum mechanics. We're beyond the exquisite view that Copernicus had 480 years ago, that the world is a clockwork. The biosphere is not a clockwork. The paper that just published, it came out three days ago, and I'm pretty proud of it, it's actually worth reading.
我们无法推断“邻近可能” 那边会发生什么, 演进的生物圈未来成为的样子。 我们甚至不知道什么可能发生。 我们无法用基于集合论的数学, 即任何数学方式, 以推测生物圈或经济 未来会成为的模样。 这意味着我们正处于 科学转变的第三阶段; 我们见证牛顿, 见证量子力学。 我们知道哥白尼 480 年前的新奇观点, 即地球是在机械式地运作。 生物圈并不是机械式地运作。 这篇论文在三天前刚刚发表, 我为之骄傲, 值得一读。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
We can't deduce what is in the biosphere and will become, but we can make a mathematical theory of the statistics of the process. I call it the Theory of the Adjacent Possible or TAP. It's really based on one idea. Things can be combined to make new things.
我们无法推断出生物圈里 现在有什么,未来会有什么, 但我们可以为此过程中的 数据集合制定一套数学理论。 我称之为“相邻可能理论”, 即 “TAP”。 它其实基于这个想法。 事物可以结合,创造出新事物。
So there is the equation. Mt is the number of things in the economy at some time now, say 10 things. So how many things will be in the economy in the next period? Well, if the 10 things work, we'll keep them, but we could actually try to jury-rig something new out of any single thing among the 10 or out of pair of things among the 10. The printing press is a recombination between movable type and a wine press or any three things or four things. Watch what happens to the number of things, pairs of things, when the number of things goes up. If there's 10 things, there's 45 pairs of things that we might fiddle with. If there's 100 things, there's 4,500 things we might jury-rig with. And if there's 1,000 things, there's a half a million things we might fiddle with.
等式如下。 Mt 是当下某一刻 经济体系中的个体数量, 假设它是 10 个。 那么,经济体系在后一阶段中 会有多少个个体呢? 如果这 10 个个体有效, 那保留它们, 但我们会试着东拼西凑出新的东西, 用此 10 样事物里的任何一件, 或者 10 样事物任何两件的组合。 印刷机是活字印刷 和葡萄酒榨汁机 或其他三四件物品的重组。 可以观察一下, 随着事物数量的增加, 排列组合的数量会怎么变化。 如果有 10 件物品,那就有 45 对我们能摆弄的物品。 如果有 100 件物品, 那就有 4500 件 我们能东拼西凑的东西。 如果有 1000 件物品, 那就有 50 万件我们可以整合的东西。
Therefore, this process, the TAP process, has the property that for a long time the number of things increases very, very, very slowly, then something stunning happens. There's a hockey-stick explosion and the number of things reaches infinity in a finite time. There's a singularity and a brief burst explosion for 40 million years of the Cambrian explosion.
所以,这个过程,TAP 进程, 展现了这么一个性质: 在很长的一段时间里,事物的数量 极其、极其、特别缓慢地增长, 然后突然迸发出来。 出现了曲棍球棒状的剧增, 事物数量在有限的 时间里达到无限。 从奇点发源,出现过短暂的爆发, 这是寒武纪生命大爆发 4000 万年的规律。
The same pattern is showing up in our own evolution. Australopithecus flourished -- I'd never know what flourishing means, I guess they had a good lunch -- in Africa, 3.3 million years ago. A million and a half years later, Homo erectus had about 20 crude stone tools. Watch how slowly things change. A mere 30,000 years ago, Cro-Magnon in the south of France had about 100 or 150 of these exquisite pressure flake tools. A mere 28,000 years after that is Mesopotamia with needles and chariots.
我们自己的进化历史中 也存在同样的特点。 南方古猿群落“兴起”, 我不太理解“兴起”具体的含义, 也许他们饮食充足; 这发生在 330 万年以前的非洲。 过了 150 万年, 直立人 (Homo erectus) 掌握 大约 20 种原始石器。 情况变化地很缓慢。 仅仅三万年以前, 法国南部的克罗马农人 使用 100 至 150 个 这么精细的切削器具。 仅在两万八千年以后, 美索不达米亚人 运用了纺织针和战车。
There’s something interesting about the fact -- of course, we invented writing, which is a wonderful story -- once you have a clay tablet, it calls forth the tool that's its complement. You need a stylus. So tools make niches for new tools and for new jobs. Scribes earned a living for quite a while. This is us in the late Middle Ages to now, and this is us now. We have billions of tools ranging from knitting needles to the space station. There's always an adjacent possible. Once you've made a bow, a crossbow is in the adjacent possible.
这里挺有趣的—— 是的,我们发明了书写, 这是个美妙的事情—— 只要制成泥板, 就会催生出它的配套工具。 一支笔成为必要。 工具会引出新的器具与新的职业。 抄写员一度是个职位。 这是从中世纪后期演化至今, 这是目前的我们。 我们有数不尽的工具, 从缝衣针到空间站都有。 邻近可能一直存在着。 你制成了一张弓, 邻近可能便是一把弩。
The pattern that we saw in the Cambrian, of a long period nothing happening and then a burst, is here right now. This is the size of human habitats in the last 300,000 years. The horizontal line is time before present, and the vertical line as the logarithm of sizes of settlements. Nothing happened for 290,000 years then it burst upward. Watch this, the same thing is true of GDP. GDP was flat since the time of Christ. In fact, for the last 100,000 years. GDP burst up in the last two centuries. It's going up vertically now. It's wonderful. We're lifting millions from poverty. And the theory explains it. It's the same delay and burst, and there it is. We start making more complex things, selling them, and we make a profit.
我们在寒武纪中看到的规律—— 长时间无事发生, 然后突然绽放; 现在也是同样。 这是过去 30 万年中 人类栖息地的规模。 横轴是距今时间, 纵轴是人类栖息地规模的对数。 29 万年以来, 什么也没发生,然后是猛增。 看这张图, GDP 也是一样的情况。 从基督诞生起, GDP 一直是趋平的。 在过去的 10 万年里皆是如此。 GDP 在过去的 200 年里暴涨。 现在是垂直向上增长。 太美妙了。 我们使几百万人脱离了贫困。 这能用上述理论解释。 类似的延迟、蓬发, 最后是今天的模样。 我们开始创造更复杂的东西, 出售它们,赚到了钱。
There's another feature of all of this that I've lived in my lifetime, I'm 83. I was born in 1939. Just like the Cambrian explosion, watch the number of things that have come into existence in my lifetime. We didn't have any helicopters, we didn't have television. I listened to “The Lone Ranger,” which maybe you know, on radio, six o'clock at night. We didn't have ... computers, we didn't have plastics, which are now all over the planet. We didn't have microwaves, we didn't have lasers. Look at the number of things that came into existence in one lifetime of 83 years. Not much happened 50,000 years ago in 83 years. So what's going on?
我在我的一生中 还看到了另一个规律。 我 83 岁了。 我生于 1939 年。 和寒武纪大爆发一样, 我在我的一生中 见证了许多事物的出现。 从前我们没有直升机, 没有电视机。 我会听《独行侠》节目, 也许你们听闻过, 广播中晚上六点收听。 我们没有…… 计算机、现今漫天遍野的塑料, 我们没有微波炉,没有激光。 看看在 83 年的人生中 有多少新生事物。 5 万年以前的 83 年 可不会发生这么多事。 为什么呢?
The TAP process has the following property. Every time you make something new, the waiting time for the next new thing is cut in half. A thousand years, 500 years, 250, a year, six months, three months, we're going to get a great acceleration. We are. So this is TAP. And watch that thing explode upward. That's it. That explosion is the Cambrian, and it's where we are now.
TAP 近程有这么一个性质。 每当你创造出新事物, 等待下一个新事物出现的 时间便会减半。 1000 年、500 年、250 年, 1 年、6 个月、 3 个月, 我们越跑越快。 没错。 这便是 TAP。 看着它向上攀升。 是的。 这便是寒武纪大爆发, 也是我们现在的处境。
And the signatures of the Anthropocene are exploding upward, now all over the place. This ends 25 years ago. We need to find a better adjacent possible. We're rampaging over the planet, and the hope is in soils.
人类纪 (Anthropocene)的 特征是骤增, 到处都是。 这个趋势止步于 25 年以前。 我们得找到一种 更佳的邻近可能。 我们在地球上遍地破坏, 而救赎在于土壤中。
So I'm going to talk briefly about compost. There are very fine compost, this is now terribly important. A very good compost is the Johnson-Su compost. Less land use, fewer degradations of ... of our forests, fewer extinction events, fewer pandemics. Well, let's get rid of fertilizer. And the most important point I'm going to take is -- This is really bad news and good news.
我会简单地介绍堆肥 (compost)。 存在很精良的堆肥法, 这一点目前相当重要。 约翰逊-苏 (Johnson-Su) 堆肥 是极佳的堆肥法。 减少土地消耗, 减少对森林的破坏, 减少灭绝事件, 减少流行病。 我们可以停止使用肥料。 我想强调的 最重要的一点是—— 这是一件喜忧参半的事。
Last year we emitted 40.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide. We have to find a way of solving it, and we can. We can take this Johnson-Su compost and get it out across the landscape. But more fundamentally, we can find good fungal bacterial communities and we can coat seeds with it and sell the seeds around the planet, or we can fill biochar and we can use biochar to get her across the planet. Most usefully, we can take a really good fungal bacterial community, put it into biochar or some other matrix, mix it into fertilizer, and get that fertilizer out across the planet. I'm going to just end with the following.
去年,我们排放了 405 亿吨二氧化碳。 我们得找到这个问题的解决方案, 这是能够办到的。 我们可以利用约翰逊-苏堆肥 提取各处的二氧化碳。 但更重要的是, 我们可以找到优质的真菌群落, 包裹在种子外面, 再把种子销往世界各地, 或者我们将其加入生物炭, 借助生物炭将其散播至世界各地。 最实用的,是我们把 一片很优质的真菌群落 放进生物炭或其他载体中, 混入肥料, 再把肥料发送至各地。 我来最后收个尾。
Fungal bacterial communities are precisely something that can create novel adjacent possibles, that can bubble forth with solutions to soil problems. The good news is we can do it now. The planet's on fire. We are of nature, ladies and gentlemen, we're not above nature.
微生物群落将能够 创造出全新邻近可能性, 并引出土壤问题的解决方法。 好消息是我们能现在开始行动。 地球正在遭难。 各位,我们是自然的一环, 而不是自然的驾驭者。
Thank you.
谢谢大家。
(Applause)
(掌声)