exactly what technology means in my life.

我不知你怎麼想，但我想不出

I've spent the past year thinking about what it really should be about.

科技對我的生命真正的意義為何。

Should I be pro-technology? Should I embrace it full arms?

我花了過去一年在想，那到底該怎樣。

Should I be wary? Like you, I'm very tempted by the latest thing.

我要親科技嗎？我要全心擁抱它嗎？

But at the other hand, a couple of years ago

我要擔心嗎？和你們一樣，我嚮往新事物。

I gave up all of my possessions,

但另方面，幾年前

sold all my technology -- except for a bicycle --

我放棄我所有的物品，

and rode across 3,000 miles on the U.S. back roads under the power of my one body,

賣掉我的科技用品，只留一輛腳踏車，

fuelled mostly by Twinkies and junk food.

騎了三千哩的美國小路，用自身的力量，

(Laughter)

大部分只吃海棉蛋糕和垃圾食物。

And I've since then tried to keep technology

(笑聲)

at arm's length in many ways, so it doesn't master my life.

自此，我試著和科技保持距離，

At the same time, I run a website on cool tools,

不受它支配我的生活。

where I issue a daily obsession of the latest things in technology.

同時，我卻管理一個酷品網站，

So I'm still perplexed about what the true meaning of technology is

每天暢談最新的科技物品。

as it relates to humanity, as it relates to nature,

因此，我仍感到困惑，科技的真義是什麼 －

as it relates to the spiritual.

它與人的關係，與自然的關係，

And I'm not even sure we know what technology is.

與心靈的關係。

And one definition of technology is that which is first recorded.

我甚至不確定，我們真的認識科技嗎？

This is the first example of the modern use of technology that I can find.

有一個最早對科技的定義。

It was the suggested syllabus for dealing with

這是我找到的「科技」一詞現代用法的首例。

the Applied Arts and Science at Cambridge University in 1829.

它出現在一個教學大綱中，是關於

Before that, obviously, technology didn't exist. But obviously it did.

「應用藝術與科學」，在劍橋大學，1829年。

I like one of the definitions that Alan Kay has for technology.

那之前，顯然「科技」一詞並不存在。但顯然科技是存在的。

He says technology is anything that was invented after you were born.

我喜歡 Alan Kay 對科技的一個定義。

(Laughter)

他說：科技是你出生後才發明的任何東西。

So it sums up a lot of what we're talking about.

(笑聲)

Danny Hillis actually has an update on that --

但它總結了許多我們討論的事。

he says technology is anything that doesn't quite work yet.

Danny Hillis 事實上有個更新版本 －

(Laughter)

他說：科技是還不怎麼能用的任何東西。

Which also, I think, gets into a little bit of our current idea.

(笑聲)

But I was interested in another definition of technology.

我認為，這也和我們現在的想法有關。

Something, again, that went back to something more fundamental.

但我卻對科技的另一個定義感興趣。

Something that was deeper. And as I struggled to understand that,

它再次回到更基本的某些事物。

I came up with a way of framing the question

更深奧的事。當我盡力去理解它時，

that seemed to work for me in my investigations.

我得到一個方法去看待問題

And I'm, this morning, going to talk about this for the first time.

使它看來符合我的探索需求。

So this is a very rough attempt to think out loud.

今天上午我就首次來談它。

The question that I came up with was this question:

因此這是一種出聲想的粗略嘗試。

what does technology want? And by that, I don't mean,

我得到的問題就是這個問題，

does it want chocolate or vanilla? By what it wants, I mean,

科技要的是什麼？這裡的意思不是指

what are its inherent trends and biases?

它要巧克力或香草。我指的是：

What are its tendencies over time? One way to think about this is

它的固有趨勢與偏向如何？

thinking about biological organisms, which we've heard a lot about.

長此以往，它的趨勢如何？這樣來思考它：

And the trick that Richard Dawkins does, which is to say,

想想生物組織體，我們聽到很多了。

to look at them as simply as genes, as vehicles for genes.

理查德·道金斯的技巧是：

So he's saying, what do genes want? The selfish gene.

將它們看成只是基因，是基因載體。

And I'm applying a similar trick to say,

因此他說，基因要什麼？自私的基因。

what if we looked at the universe in our culture

我用相似的技巧說：

through the eyes of technology? What does technology want?

如果我們透過科技眼光

Obviously, this in an incomplete question,

觀看我們文化中的宇宙，科技要的是什麼？

just as looking at an organism as only a gene

顯然，這是個不完整的問題，

is an incomplete way of looking at it.

就像把生物體看成只是基因

But it's still very, very productive. So I'm attempting to say,

也是不完整的看法。

if we take technology's view of the world, what does it want?

但這仍然很有建設性。因此我試著說，

And I think once we ask that question

如果我們採取科技的世界觀，它要的是什麼？

we have to go back, actually, to life. Because obviously,

我認為，一旦我們問這個問題

if we keep extending the origins of technology far back,

我們必須實際上回到生命。因為很明顯，

I think we come back to life at some point.

如果我們遠遠推回科技的起源，

So that's where I want to begin my little exploration, is in life.

我認為在某一點我們回到生命。

And like you heard from the previous speakers,

因此，我要開始我的小小探索，是在生命。

we don't really know what life there is on Earth right now.

就如你聽到前幾個演講者，

We have really no idea.

我們不真正知道地球上現有的生命。

Craig Venter's tremendous and brilliant attempt

我們真的毫無概念。

to DNA sequence things in the ocean is great.

克萊格·凡特的雄大抱負

Brian Farrell's work is all part of this agenda to try

要為海洋生物 DNA 定序是偉大的。

and actually discover all the species on Earth.

Brian Farrell 的工作是其中一部分，

And one of the things that we should do is just make a grid of the globe

試著實際發現地球上所有的物種。

and randomly go and inspect all the places that the grid intersects,

我們該做的一件事就是為地球畫格子

just to see what's on life. And if we did that

並隨機檢視格子的交叉點，

with our little Martian probe, which we have not done on Earth,

看看那裡有什麼生命。如果我們使用

we would begin to see some incredible species.

火星探測儀，將它用在地球上，

This is not on another planet. These are things

我們將會看到難以置信的物種。

that are hidden away on our planet.

這不是在另個星球。這些都是

This is an ant that stores its colleagues' honey in its abdomen.

躱在我們星球的東西。

Each one of these organisms that we've described -- that you've seen

這是一隻螞蟻，它將同伴的蜜放在肚子裡。

from Jamie and others, these magnificent things --

這些生物體的每一個 － 你從詹姆斯等人

what they're doing, each one of them,

看過的，這些偉大事物 －

is they're hacking the rules of life.

它們每一個在做的

I can't think of a single general principle of biology

都是在｢修整｣生命規則。

that does not have an exception somewhere by some organism.

我想不出單一的生物學通則

Every single thing that we can think of --

到處對任何生物體都沒有例外的。

and if you heard Olivia's talk about the sexual habits,

我們想得到的任何一件事 －

you'll realize that there isn't anything we can say that's true for all life,

如果你聽過 Oliver 談性習慣，

because every single one of them is hacking something about it.

你將知道，沒有任何一件事適用所有生命。

This is a solar-powered sea slug. It's a nudibranch

因為每一個都在修整它的某部分。

that has incorporated chloroplast inside it to drive its energy.

這是太陽能海蛞蝓。它屬裸鰓亞目

This is another version of that. This is a sea dragon,

它結合葉綠體在體內當它的能源。

and the one on the bottom, the blue one, is a juvenile that has not yet

這是另外一種。這是海龍。

swallowed the acid, has not yet taken in

那隻在底部，藍色的，是幼蟲，

the brown-green algae pond scum into its body to give it energy.

尚未吞進酸，也尚未食用

These are hacks, and if we looked at the general shape

棕綠色的海藻浮渣到體內提供能源。

of the approaches to hacking life there are, current consensus,

這些都是修整，如果我們看修整生命取向

six kingdoms. Six different broad approaches: the plants,

的一般形式，依目前的共識，

the animals, the fungi, the protests -- the little things -- the bacteria

共有六個界。六個廣泛的取向：

and the Archaea bacteria. The Archaeas.

植物、動物、真菌、原生生物、

Those are the general approaches to life. That's one way to look at life on Earth today.

細菌、古菌。

But a more interesting way,

這是生命的一般取向，是看今日地球生命的一種方式。

the current way to take the long view,

但另一個較有趣的方式，

is to look at it in an evolutionary perspective.

拉長來看現在的方式，

And here we have a view of evolution where rather than having evolution

是以演化的觀點來看它。

go over the linear time, we have it coming out from the center.

這裡我們有個演化觀，它不是線性時間的演化，

So in the center is the most primitive, and this is a genealogical chart

我們將它從中心往外擴延。

of all life on earth. This is all the same six kingdoms.

在中心是最原始的，這是地球所有生命的系譜。

You see 4,000 representative species, and you can see where we are.

所有相同的六個界都看得到。

But what I like about this is it shows that

四千個代表性物種，你看到我們在何處。

every living organism on Earth today is equally evolved.

我喜歡這個，因為它顯示

Those fungi and bacteria are as highly evolved as humans.

地球上每種生物體都是同等演化的。

They've been around just as long and gone through

那些真菌和細菌和人類都是高度演化的。

just the same kind of trial and error to get here.

它們同樣久存，

But we see that each one of these is actually hacking,

並經歷相同的試煉而到達這裡。

and has a different way of finding out how to do life.

但我們看到，這些每個都實際上在修整，

And if we take the long-term trends of life, if we begin to say,

且各有不同方式去求取生存。

what does evolution want? There's several things that we see.

如果我們看生命的長期趨勢，如果我們開始說，

One of the things about evolution is that nowhere on Earth

演化要的是什麼？我們看到若干事。

have we ever been where we don't find life.

演化的一件事就是，

We find life at the bottom of every long-term,

地球上無處找不到生命。

long-distance drilling core into the center of rock

我們發現生命在每個長期、

that we bring up -- and there's bacteria in the pores of that rock.

長距離鑽探地心岩石

And wherever life is, it never retreats. It's ubiquitous and it wants to be more.

所取出的核心 － 岩石孔隙中就有細菌。

More and more of the inert matter of the globe

生命所在之處，它從不撤退。它無所不在，不斷增多。

is being touched and animated by life.

地球上越來越多的無生命物質

The second thing is is we see diversity. We also see specialization.

受到生命的刺激及活化。

We see the movement from a general-purpose cell

另一件我們看到的是多樣性。我們也看到特殊化。

to the more specific and specialized.

我們看到的是由一般目的的細胞

And we see a drift towards complexity that's very intuitive.

移動到更特定、特殊化的。

And actually, we have current data that does show

我們看到移向複雜，直覺可察。

that there is an actual drift towards complexity over time.

實際上，我們現有數據顯示

And the last thing, I bring back this nudibranch.

實際上長期來是在移向複雜。

One of the things we see about life is that it moves

最後我再提一下裸鰓亞目。

from the inner to increasing sociability. And by that it means

我們看到生命的一件事，即它由內部

that there is more and more of life whose entire environment is other life.

移向漸增的社會性。也就是

Like those chloroplast cells --

有越來越多的生命，其整體環境是其他生命。

they're completely surrounded by other life.

就像那些葉綠體細胞 －

They never touch the inner matter. There is more and more co-evolution.

它們全被其他生命所包圍。

And so the general, long-term trends of evolution

它們從不觸及內部物質。有更多的共同演化。

are roughly these five: ubiquity, diversity, specialization,

因此，演化的一般長期趨勢

complexity and socialization. Now, I took that and said,

大約有五個：普遍、多樣、特殊、

OK, what are the long-term trends in technology?

複雜、及社群。我採取此一觀點，

And again, my question is, what does technology want?

那麼，科技的長期趨勢如何？

And so, remarkably, I discovered

再次我問：科技要的是什麼？

that there's also a drift toward specialization.

因此，顯然，我發現了

That we see there's a general hammer,

它也是移向特殊化。

and hammers become more and more specific over time.

這裡我們看到普通的鎚子，

There's obviously diversity. Huge numbers of things.

鎚子隨著時間越來越特殊化。

This is all the contents of a Japanese home.

顯然有多樣性。許許多多的物品。

I actually had my daughter -- gave her a tally counter,

這是日本家庭的所有東西。

and I gave her an assignment last summer to go around

我要我女兒 － 送她一個計數器，

and count the number of species of technology in our household.

去年夏天我要她四處看看

And it came up with 6,000 different species of products.

算算我們家中有多少科技物種。

I did some research and found out that the King of England, Henry VIII,

結果有六千個產品種類。

had only about 7,000 items in his household.

我做過研究，發現英格蘭王享利八世

And he was the King of England,

只有大約七千件物品在他家中。

and that was the entire wealth of England at the time.

而他是英格蘭王，

So we're seeing huge numbers of diversity in the kinds of things.

那是當時英格蘭的全部財富了。

This is a scene from Star Wars where the 3PO comes out

因此我們看到大量的物品多樣性。

and he sees machines making machines. How depraved!

這是星際戰爭的一景，3PO 出現了

Well, this is actually what we're headed towards: world machines.

他看到了機器在製作機器。真敗壞呀！

And the technology is only being thrown out by other technologies.

嗯，這正是我們的走向：世界機器

Most machines will only ever be in contact with other technology

科技只是由其他科技發展出來。

and not non-technology, or even life.

大部分機器將只和其他科技打交道

And thirdly, the idea that machines are becoming biological and complex

而不管非科技，甚至生命。

is at this point a cliche. And I'm happy to say,

第三，機器生物化、複雜化的想法

I was partly responsible for that cliche

已是陳腔濫調。而我很高興地說，

that machines are becoming biological, but that's pretty evident.

我要為那個陳腔濫調負部分責任：

So the major trends in technology evolution actually

機器生物化了，那很明顯。

are the same as in biological evolution. The same drives that we see

因此科技演化的主要趨勢，實際上

towards ubiquity, towards diversity, towards socialization,

就像生物演化。我們看到相同的趨勢

towards complexity. That is maybe not a big surprise

走向普遍、多樣、社群、

because if we map out, say, the evolution of armor,

複雜。這或許不是大驚奇

you can actually follow a sort of an evolutionary-type cladistic tree.

因為如果我們圖示，舉例說：盔甲的演化，

I suggest that, in fact, technology is the seventh kingdom of life.

你可以實際上跟隨一種演化式的血緣族譜。

That its operations and how it works is so similar

我認為，事實上科技是生命的第七界。

that we can think of it as the seventh kingdom.

它的運作及功能都如此相似

And so it would be sort of approximately up there,

我們可以將它當成第七界。

coming out of the animal kingdom. And if we were to do that,

因此它大略就在上方，

we would find out -- we could actually approach technology in this way.

出自於動物界。如果這麼做，

This is Niles Eldredge. He was the co-developer with Stephen Jay Gould

我們將發現 － 我們實質上可以這樣面對科技。

of the theory of punctuated equilibrium.

這是尼爾斯·艾崔奇，他和史蒂芬·古爾德一起發展

But as a sideline, he happens to collect cornets.

間斷平衡理論。

He has one of the world's largest collections -- about 500 of them.

附帶地，他也收藏小銅喇叭。

And he has decided to treat them as if they were trilobites, or snails,

他有著世界上最大的收藏 － 大約有 500 只。

and to do a morphological analysis,

他決定把它們當成旋螺或蝸牛，

and try to derive their genealogical history over time.

進行形態分析，

This is his chart, which is not quite published yet.

試著導出它們在時間上的系譜史。

But the most interesting aspect about this

這是他得到的圖表，還沒完全公開。

is that if you look at those red lines at the bottom,

但這最有趣的面向是

those indicate basically a parentage of a type of cornet

如果你看那些底下的紅線，

that was no longer made. That does not happen in biology.

它基本上表示某種小銅喇叭的上一代

When something is extinct, you can't have it as your parent.

現在已沒人製造了。生物學上不是這樣。

But that does happen in technology. And it turns out

當某物滅絕後，你無法以它為上一代。

that that's so distinctive that you can actually look at this tree,

但在科技它會發生。結果呢

and you can actually use it to determine

它非常獨特，你可以看這個系譜，

that this is a technological system versus a biological system.

可以用它來確定

In fact, this idea of resurrecting the whole idea is so important

這是科技系統而非生物系統。

that I began to think about what happens with old technology.

事實上，觀念復活的想法是非常重要的，

And it turns out that, in fact, technologies don't die.

因而，我開始思考舊的科技怎麼了。

So I suggested this to an historian of science, and he said,

結果呢，事實上科技不會死。

"Well, what about, you know, come on, what about steam cars?

我向一位科學史學家提起，他說：

They're not around anymore." Well actually, they are.

｢嗯，那麼蒸汽車還在嗎？

In fact, they're so around that you can buy new parts for a Stanley steam automobile.

它們已消失了。｣而事實上，它們還在。

And this is a website of a guy who's selling brand new parts

它們不但在，你還能買到 Stanley 蒸汽車的新零件。

for the Stanley automobile. And the thing that I liked

這個網站有賣全新的零件

is sort of this one-click, add-to-your-cart button --

供應 Stanley 汽車之用。我很欣賞

(Laughter) --

它也有點擊選貨進購物車的按鍵 －

for buying steam valves. I mean, it was just -- it was really there.

(笑聲)

And so, I began to think about, well, maybe that's just a random sample.

可以買蒸汽閥。我是說，真的有人在賣。

Maybe I should do this sort of in a more conservative way.