道雄·卡库为你解释意识

像你这样优秀的理论物理学家怎么会研究大脑呢?

首先，在所有的科学中，如果你要总结两个最大的谜团，一个是宇宙的起源，另一个是智慧和意识的起源。作为一名物理学家，我在第一阶段工作。我研究的是宇宙学，大爆炸和多元宇宙的理论。那是我的世界，我的工作，我的谋生之道。然而，我也意识到，我们物理学家一直对意识着迷。有些诺贝尔奖得主也在争论意识的问题。有宇宙意识吗?观察是什么意思?存在意味着什么?这些都是我们物理学家自牛顿创立物理定律以来一直在问自己的问题，我们开始明白我们也必须遵守物理定律，因此我们是方程式的一部分。 And so there’s this huge gap that physicists have danced around for many, many decades and that is consciousness. So I decided—I said to myself, “Why not apply a physicist’s point of view to understand something as ephemeral as consciousness?” How do we physicists attack a problem? Well, first of all we create a model—a model of an electron, a proton, a planet in space. We begin to create the laws of motion for that planet and then understand how it interacts with the sun. How it goes around the sun, how it interacts with other planets. Then lastly we predict the future. We make a series of predictions for the future. So first we understand the position of the electron in space. Then we calculate the relationship of the electron to other electrons and protons. Third we run the videotape forward in time. That’s how we physicists work. So I said to myself, “Why not apply the same methodology to consciousness?” And then I began to realize that there are three levels of consciousness: the consciousness of space, that is, the consciousness of alligators and reptiles; the consciousness of relationship to others, that is, social animals, monkeys, animals which have a social hierarchy and emotions; and third, we run the videotape forward, we plan, strategize, scheme about the future. So I began to realize that consciousness itself falls into the same paradigm when we analyze physics and consciousness together.

你的“意识时空理论”是什么

我是物理学家，我们喜欢用数字来分类。我们喜欢对事物进行排序，找出事物之间的相互关系，然后推断未来。这就是我们物理学家解决问题的方法。但说到意识，要知道有超过2万篇关于意识的论文。从来没有这么多人花这么多时间生产这么少的东西。所以我想给意识下个定义然后给意识排序。所以我认为意识是一组反馈回路，这对于建立我们在空间中的位置以及与他人和时间的关系的模型是必要的。以动物为例。我想说爬行动物是有意识的，但它们的意识是有限的，因为它们知道自己在空间中的位置和它们的猎物，和它们生活的地方，这基本上是我们大脑的后部。大脑的后部是大脑最古老的部分; it is the reptilian brain, the space brain. Then in the middle part of the brain is the emotional brain, the brain that understands our relationship to other members of our species. Etiquette, politeness, social hierarchy—all these things are encoded in the emotional brain, the monkey brain at the center of the brain. Then we have the highest level of consciousness, which separates us from the animal kingdom. You see animals really understand space, in fact better than us. Hawks, for example, have eyesight much better than our eyesight. We also have an emotional brain just like the monkeys and social animals, but we understand time in a way that animals don’t. We understand tomorrow. Now you can train your dog or a cat to perform many tricks, but try to explain the concept of tomorrow to your cat or a dog. Now what about hibernation? Animals hibernate, right? But that’s because it’s instinctual. It gets colder, instinct tells them to slow down and they eventually fall asleep and hibernate. We, on the other hand, we have to pack our bags, we have to winterize our home, we have to do all sorts of things to prepare for wintertime. And so we understand time in a way that animals don’t.

为什么时间感是理解意识的关键?

我们现在在造机器人，对吗？问题是机器人的意识有多强？正如你所看到的，他们处于一级。他们有蟑螂的智慧，昆虫的智慧，爬行动物的智慧。他们没有感情。他们不会笑，也不会理解你是谁。他们不明白自己是谁。对社会的啄食顺序没有任何理解。他们在一定程度上理解时间，但只理解一个参数。他们只能在一个方向上模拟未来。我们在情感、空间和时间的各个维度上模拟未来。所以我们看到机器人基本上处于一级。然后有一天，我们可能会遇到来自外太空的外星人，然后问题是，如果他们比我们聪明，那么比我们聪明意味着什么？嗯，对我来说，这意味着能够做白日梦，制定战略，制定比我们好得多的计划。如果他们比我们聪明，他们将比我们领先几步。他们可以，引用，智胜我们，因为他们看到了未来。这就是我们与动物的不同之处。我们看到了未来。我们计划、策划、制定战略。我们无能为力。有些人会说，“呸，骗子！我不相信这个理论，一定有例外，像幽默这样的意识理论之外的东西。”还有什么比笑话更短暂的呢？但是想想一个笑话。为什么一个笑话很有趣？笑话之所以有趣，是因为你听到了笑话，然后你自己在心里完成了妙语，然后当妙语与你预期的不同时，它就是，引用，有趣，好吗？例如，罗斯福的一个女儿是白宫的流言蜚语者，她以说“如果你对某人没什么好说的，那么请坐在我旁边”而闻名。为什么这句话很有趣？这很有趣，因为你自己完成了这句话：如果你对某人没什么好说的，那就什么也别说。你父母教你的。但接下来的转折是“好吧，过来坐在我旁边。”这就是为什么，引用，它很有趣的原因。或者WC Fields被问到这样一个问题：“你赞成为青年人举办社交活动吗？比如，你赞成为青年人举办俱乐部吗？”他说，“我赞成为青年人举办俱乐部吗？是的，但前提是善意没有实现。”这很有趣，因为我们认为俱乐部是社交聚会，但对于WC Fields，他扭曲了妙语，说，不，俱乐部是用来打人的。这就是为什么这句话很有趣，因为我们无法控制它。我们在精神上完成了未来。

你说我们的大脑里有一个“CEO”。那到底是什么?

那么，我们和动物有什么不同呢?举个例子，如果你把一只老鼠放在痛苦和快乐之间，电击和食物之间，或者两块食物之间，不好意思，它会像谚语里说的驴子一样，感到困惑。它会来来回回，因为它不能计算。它不能对某物进行最终评估。它缺少一个首席执行官来做最后的决定。我们有首席执行官。它位于大脑的额部，我们可以确定我们的意识在哪里。你对他的大脑进行核磁共振扫描，让他想象自己的样子，果然!就在那里，就在你额头后面它亮了。这就是你有自我意识的地方。 And then when you have to make hard decisions between two things, animals have a hard time doing that because they’re being hit with all these different kinds of stimuli. It’s a hard decision for them. We, on the other hand, again that part lights up and that is, quote, the CEO that finally makes the final decision in evaluating all the other consequences. And how did we do this? By simulating the future. If you get candy and put a candy in front of a kid the kid says, “Well if I grab that candy will my mother be happy? Will my mother be sad? I mean, how will I pay for it?” That’s what goes on in your mind, you complete the future and that’s the part of the brain that lights up. So that’s how the CEO makes the decision between two things while animals do it by instinct, or they just get confused.

你的“大脑中的首席执行官”似乎是有意图和目的的。但神经元是否会被激活，就不得而知了。你不能说他们有目的，对吧?

还有我们的意识落后一个目的，那就是基本的生存和繁殖也。所以，如果你认为你的白日梦，你有什么白日梦呢？那么你想入非非着生存首先的。哪里是我的下一个食物或我的工作？我的意思是，我怎么打动人在我的职业生涯提前？等等等等。然后你想：“嘿，这是周五晚上。你知道，我很孤独。我想出去，你知道，在一些舞厅跳舞，并有一些乐趣。”所以，如果你想想看，是有目的的，这就是为什么我们的情绪。 Emotions have a definite purpose. Evolution gave us emotions because they’re good for us. For example, the concept of like. How do you like something? Well if you think about it, most things are actually dangerous. Of all the things that you see around, they’re either neutral or actually dangerous. There’s only a small sliver of things which are good for you. And emotions say, “I like this because these things are good for you.” Jealousy is very important, for example, as an emotion because it helps to ensure your reproduction and the fact that your genes will carry out into the next generation. Anger. All these emotions that we have, that are instinctual, are basically hardwired into us because we have to make split-second decisions, which would take many, many minutes for the prefrontal cortex to rationally evaluate. We don’t have time for that. If you see a tiger, you feel fear. That’s because it’s dangerous and you have to run away. And then we have the other question that is sometimes asked: Can a robot feel redness? Or how do we know that we are conscious? Because we can feel a sunset or we feel the enormous splendor of nature but robots can’t, right? Well I don’t believe in that, because back in the old days people used to ask the question, “What is life?” I still remember, as a kid, all these essays and articles written about “What is life?” That question has pretty much disappeared. Nobody asks that question anymore because we now know—because of biotechnology, the degradations—it’s a very complicated question. It’s not just living and non-living. We have all sorts of viruses and all sorts of things in between. So we now realize that the question “What is life?” has pretty much disappeared. So I think the question of “What is consciousness and can consciousness understand redness in a machine?” will also gradually just disappear. One day we will have a machine that understands redness much better than us. It’ll be able to understand the electromagnetic spectrum, the poetry, be able to analyze the law of redness, history of redness, much better than any human. And the robot will say, “Can humans understand redness? I don’t think so.” One day, robots will have so much access to the Internet—so much access to sensors—that they will understand redness in a way that most humans cannot and robots will conclude that, “My god, humans cannot understand redness.”

诚然，意识源自大脑。但意识本身是什么?例如，红色的感觉是什么?

如果你观察一下大脑的电路，你就会发现大脑的传感器是有限的。有时它们可能会被错误连接；这叫做联觉。你会发现我们大脑的某些部分记录了某些感觉，包括红色。现在的问题是，盲人能理解红色吗？答案是否定的，但是他们有受体，他们有可以让他们理解红色的仪器，但是他们没有。所以最终，我认为你可以创造一个机器人——一个机器人，它将拥有同样的传感器，同样的能力比人类更好地理解红色，能够背诵诗歌，能够比任何人类诗人更好地对红色的本质进行雄辩的陈述。那么问题是，机器人能理解红色吗？在这一点上，这个问题就变得无关紧要了，因为机器人比任何人都能说话、感觉、表达红色的概念好很多很多很多很多倍。但是脑子里在想什么呢？一堆电路或一堆神经元放电等等。那就是红色。

什么是自我意识?

关于自我意识的论文有成千上万篇我要用一句话来定义。我的定义很简单:自我意识是当你把自己放在那个模型中。所以这个空间模型，你和其他人的关系，还有和时间的关系，当你把自己放在那个模型里，那就是自我意识。然后你会问，机器人有自我意识吗?答案显然是否定的。当机器人沃森在游戏节目中击败两名人类时危险在国家电视台上，许多人认为，“哦，机器人来了；他们要把我们关进动物园。他们要向我们扔花生，让我们在监狱里跳舞，就像我们对熊那样。”错了。沃森没有自我意识。你不能去找沃森，拍拍他的背说，“好孩子，好孩子，你刚刚打了两个人危险看，沃森甚至不知道它是一台计算机。沃森不知道人类是什么。沃森甚至不知道它赢得这个奖的打两个人类游戏节目,因为他没有一个模型本身作为一个机器,一个模型的人类血肉做成的,和他没有智力的三个类别以外的理解空间和能够在互联网上浏览事实。所以，我要再次定义自我意识。自我意识是当你把自己放在这个空间、时间和与他人关系的模型中。

我们仅仅是生物机器吗？

好了，我们肯定生物机器。好吧，这是毫无疑问的。现在的问题是，什么意思呢？这是什么意思了人们对他们是谁宇宙[和]感的感情吗？是人类特殊的动物这个意义上？好吧，我已经看了一个统一体。如果你看看我们自己的进化和你要相信，例如，只有人类有意识（这是大多数心理学家和大多数人在该领域的主导地位），人类真的是不同的，我们是有意识的，动物或没有。这是整个领域的主导地位。但是，如果你把我们的进化史，在什么时候，为什么我们突然变得清醒？ There’s a continuum of our ancestors going back millions, in fact,数十亿然后你说，“我们是在什么时候突然意识到的?然后你开始意识到，嘿，这是一个愚蠢的问题。意识本身可能有一个连续体。正如我提到的，它有阶段，但意识可能是连续的，因此，从这个意义上说，我们和动物王国是联系在一起的。现在我们特别了吗?再说一次，这取决于你如何定义特殊——如何定义灵魂。我想说的是，如果你给我一个标准，就是，我们是x y z吗?然后我说，好吧，你怎么衡量它?给我一个实验，我可以把一个人放在一个盒子里，我可以测量你给我的标准。那么我们是生物机器吗?答案是肯定的，但这意味着什么呢? Does a machine have a soul? Does a machine have something more? Well, define more. Define soul. Define essence. Give me a definition and then I will give you an experiment by which we can differentiate yes or no. That’s how we physicists think.

人类大脑的未来是什么?

首先，我认为脑机接口将在发展，融资和突破方面出现爆炸式增长。五角大楼正在投入数千万美元用于革命性的义肢项目，因为想想成千上万的伊拉克和阿富汗的退伍军人，他们脊髓受伤，没有胳膊，没有腿。我们现在可以把大脑直接连接到机械臂或机械腿上。在接下来的国际足球比赛中，巴西世界杯的开赛者将佩戴外骨骼，部分瘫痪。事实上，我的同事斯蒂芬·霍金，著名的宇宙学家，他的手指已经失去了控制，所以我们把他的大脑和电脑连接了起来。下次你在电视上看到他的时候，看看他的右腿。在他的右边，有一个天线，里面有一个芯片，把他和一台笔记本电脑连接起来。在这个意义上，我们现在有了心灵感应。我们现在能够真正地利用人类的思想并在物质世界中实现物体的运动。完全瘫痪的人现在可以读电子邮件，写电子邮件，上网，做填字游戏，操作轮椅，操作家用电器，他们完全瘫痪了——他们是蔬菜。 We’ve done this with animals. We’ve done this with humans. And in the future, because you ask about the future, we will also have artificial memories as well. Last year for the first time in world history, we recorded a memory and implanted a memory into the brain. At Wake Force University and also in Los Angeles, you take a mouse, teach the mouse how to sip water from a flask, and then look at the hippocampus, record the impulses ricocheting across the hippocampus (which is the gateway to memory), record it, and then later, when the mouse forgets how to do this, you re-insert the memory back into the hippocampus and bingo! The mouse learns on the first try. Next, will be primates. For example, a primate eating a banana or learning how to manipulate a certain kind of toy. That memory can be recorded and then re-inserted into the brain. And the short-term goal is to create a brain pacemaker. A brain pacemaker whereby people with Alzheimer’s could just simply push a button and they will know where they live, they will know who they are, they will know who their kids are, and beyond that, even more complex memories. Maybe we’ll be able to record a memory of a vacation you never had and be able to upload that vacation. Or you’re a college student learning calculus by simply pushing a button. Or if you’re a worker that’s been laid off because of technology, why not upgrade your skills? These are all possibilities that are real because now the politicians are getting interested in this, and they’re putting big bucks to the tune of a billion dollars into the brain initiative.

人工智能将如何改变我们对人类的看法?

好了，我们认识到，民主也许是政府的，除了所有已尝试过的人最糟糕的形式，说温斯顿·丘吉尔，和人民将民主投票。他们将民主决定人类将如何演变。例如：设计师孩子。我们不能这样做，今天，但它的到来。总有一天，当父母将决定他们希望有传播到他们的孩子是什么基因。目前，例如，如果你在布鲁克林的犹太人，你有戴萨克斯，一个可怕的遗传性疾病的潜力，你可以测试和胚胎进行测试，你可以放弃他们。所以，你已经遗传工程正在发生的一种形式，现在，今天。事实上，我们可以遗传改造某些疾病的基因出你的基因库。这就是今天。在将来，我们也许能够故意这样做。 And so we begin to realize that we may have the power of controlling our genetic destiny. And the same thing with intelligence: If we have the ability to upload memories, perhaps we’ll have the ability to have super memories—to have a library of memories so that we can learn calculus and learn all the different subjects that we flunked in college—and have them inserted into our mind. And so as the decades go by, we may have these superhuman abilities. And with exoskeletons we may be able to live on Mars and live on other planets with skeletons that allow us to have superpowers and the ability to breath in different atmospheres and things like this. My point is that in a democracy people will decide for themselves. We cannot decide. We cannot say that that’s immoral, that’s moral. People in the future will democratically decide how they want their genetic heritage and how they want their physical heritage to be propagated.