TED2009
Dan Dennett: Cute, sexy, sweet, funny
丹·丹尼特：可爱，性感，甜，搞笑
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为什么婴儿都很可爱？为什么蛋糕很甜？哲学家丹·丹尼特（Dan Dennett）有你意想不到的答案，他将与我们分享，进化论的与我们直觉相反的论证，关于那些可爱、甜的和性感的东西（还包括马修·赫尔利(Matthew Hurley)的一个新理论，关于笑话为什么好笑）.
Dan Dennett - Philosopher, cognitive scientist
Dan Dennett thinks that human consciousness and free will are the result of physical processes. Full bio
Dan Dennett thinks that human consciousness and free will are the result of physical processes. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
I’m going around the world giving talks about Darwin,
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我经常在世界各地做关于达尔文的演讲，
00:15
and usually what I’m talking about
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一般我都要讲到的是
00:17
is Darwin’s strange inversion of reasoning.
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达尔文奇怪的“反向逻辑”。
00:20
Now that title, that phrase, comes from a critic, an early critic,
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这个“头衔”，这个名词，来自于一个批评，一个早先的批评。
00:25
and this is a passage that I just love, and would like to read for you.
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我喜欢这篇文章，很乐意给大家念一下。
00:29
"In the theory with which we have to deal, Absolute Ignorance is the artificer;
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这个我们要探讨的理论之中，“全然无知”变成了创造者；
00:34
so that we may enunciate as the fundamental principle of the whole system,
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那么让我们清楚阐明这个理论体系的根本原则，
00:39
that, in order to make a perfect and beautiful machine,
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那就是，在制造一个完美的机器之前，
00:42
it is not requisite to know how to make it.
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完全没有必要知道如何来制造它。
00:45
This proposition will be found on careful examination to express,
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这种说法被建立在详尽的研究之上
00:49
in condensed form, the essential purport of the Theory,
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来传达这个理论的要义，
00:53
and to express in a few words all Mr. Darwin’s meaning;
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也传达了达尔文先生的全部意思；
00:57
who, by a strange inversion of reasoning,
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他用这样一种奇怪的“反向逻辑”
01:01
seems to think Absolute Ignorance fully qualified
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似乎认为“绝对的无知”完全有资格取代
01:04
to take the place of Absolute Wisdom in the achievements of creative skill."
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“绝对的智慧”来完成需要创造性技能的工作。
01:10
Exactly. Exactly. And it is a strange inversion.
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可不是嘛！可不是嘛！这真是一个奇怪的“反向”。
01:17
A creationist pamphlet has this wonderful page in it:
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一位上帝论者的小册子上有这样一页非常精彩：
01:21
"Test Two:
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测验二
01:23
Do you know of any building that didn’t have a builder? Yes/No.
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你知道任何一栋建筑没有它的建设者？有，没有
01:27
Do you know of any painting that didn’t have a painter? Yes/No.
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你知道有任何一副画没有它的绘画者？有，没有
01:30
Do you know of any car that didn’t have a maker? Yes/No.
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你知道有任何一辆小汽车没有它的制造者么？有，没有
01:34
If you answered 'Yes' for any of the above, give details."
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如果你在任一问题中答“有”，给出其细节。
01:39
A-ha! I mean, it really is a strange inversion of reasoning.
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啊哈！我说，这可真是一个奇怪的“反向逻辑”啊！
01:45
You would have thought it stands to reason
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你可能觉得这种说法站得住脚：
01:49
that design requires an intelligent designer.
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那就是但凡设计都需要一个智慧的设计者。
01:53
But Darwin shows that it’s just false.
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可达尔文证明，那是错误的。
01:55
Today, though, I’m going to talk about Darwin’s other strange inversion,
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但是今天，我要谈的是达尔文的另一个奇怪的“反向逻辑”。
02:00
which is equally puzzling at first, but in some ways just as important.
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它乍眼看来也是一样莫名其妙，但从某种程度上说，它也是一样重要。
02:06
It stands to reason that we love chocolate cake because it is sweet.
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说我们喜欢巧克力是因为它很甜，似乎说得过去。
02:13
Guys go for girls like this because they are sexy.
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小伙子们迷这样的姑娘，因为她们很性感。
02:19
We adore babies because they’re so cute.
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我们宠爱这样的婴儿，因为他们是那么可爱。
02:23
And, of course, we are amused by jokes because they are funny.
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当然，我们还喜欢笑话，因为它们搞笑。
02:32
This is all backwards. It is. And Darwin shows us why.
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但这都是倒因为果的逻辑。达尔文会告诉我们为什么。
02:39
Let’s start with sweet. Our sweet tooth is basically an evolved sugar detector,
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从甜开始吧，我们馋甜的，其实是一种进化出来的糖探测器。
02:47
because sugar is high energy, and it’s just been wired up to the preferer,
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因为糖是高热量的，所以它就被大脑强化为我们的一项偏爱。
02:51
to put it very crudely, and that’s why we like sugar.
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简单来讲，这就是为什么我们喜欢糖。
02:56
Honey is sweet because we like it, not "we like it because honey is sweet."
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蜜是甜的，因为我们喜欢它，而不是“我们喜欢蜜，因为它是甜的。”
03:03
There’s nothing intrinsically sweet about honey.
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蜂蜜内在没有任何所谓的甜。
03:08
If you looked at glucose molecules till you were blind,
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哪怕我们盯着葡萄糖，看到双眼失明
03:12
you wouldn’t see why they tasted sweet.
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我们也没法看出来为什么它们是甜的。
03:15
You have to look in our brains to understand why they’re sweet.
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你必须要从我们大脑中来理解为什么它们甜。
03:21
So if you think first there was sweetness,
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所以如果你认为首先有了甜，
03:23
and then we evolved to like sweetness,
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然后我们进化成了喜欢甜，
03:25
you’ve got it backwards; that’s just wrong. It’s the other way round.
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那你就搞反了：这是错的。应该是倒过来。
03:29
Sweetness was born with the wiring which evolved.
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甜的出现是和大脑里那个沟回的进化一起发生的。
03:33
And there’s nothing intrinsically sexy about these young ladies.
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这些年轻小姐们也没有什么内在的性感。
03:37
And it’s a good thing that there isn’t, because if there were,
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而且没有是件好事，因为假如真的有了
03:42
then Mother Nature would have a problem:
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我们的自然之母就要有麻烦了：
03:46
How on earth do you get chimps to mate?
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我可怎么让这些猩猩们交配啊？
03:53
Now you might think, ah, there’s a solution: hallucinations.
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现在你也许在想。啊哈！我有一招：性幻想!-_-!
04:01
That would be one way of doing it, but there’s a quicker way.
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这也许是个办法，但还有一招更快。
04:05
Just wire the chimps up to love that look,
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就是让猩猩们的大脑产生个沟回，爱上那个样子。
04:08
and apparently they do.
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而且显然，它们爱上了。
04:11
That’s all there is to it.
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就是这么回事。
04:16
Over six million years, we and the chimps evolved our different ways.
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过了六百万年，我们和猩猩进化成了不同的样子。
04:20
We became bald-bodied, oddly enough;
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我们变得身躯无毛，有够奇怪的；
04:23
for one reason or another, they didn’t.
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而由于某种原因，它们没有
04:27
If we hadn’t, then probably this would be the height of sexiness.
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如果我们也没有的话，那么可能这个就变成了绝顶性感了。
04:39
Our sweet tooth is an evolved and instinctual preference for high-energy food.
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我们馋甜东西是一种进化出来的内在偏爱，偏爱高热量食物。
04:44
It wasn’t designed for chocolate cake.
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那不是针对巧克力蛋糕而设计的。
04:47
Chocolate cake is a supernormal stimulus.
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巧克力蛋糕是一个超常刺激。
04:50
The term is owed to Niko Tinbergen,
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这个词是尼古拉斯·丁伯根（Niko Tinbergen）提出来的。
04:52
who did his famous experiments with gulls,
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他做了他出名的海鸥实验
04:54
where he found that that orange spot on the gull’s beak --
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他发现了海鸥喙上的橘点——
04:58
if he made a bigger, oranger spot
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如果他把这个点放大，染得更橘
05:00
the gull chicks would peck at it even harder.
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那么小海鸥就会更猛烈地啄它。
05:02
It was a hyperstimulus for them, and they loved it.
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这对它们来说是兴奋的刺激，它们狂爱这个。
05:05
What we see with, say, chocolate cake
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对于我们而言，比方说，巧克力蛋糕
05:09
is it’s a supernormal stimulus to tweak our design wiring.
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就是一个超常刺激，它扭曲了我们脑内沟回的本意。
05:14
And there are lots of supernormal stimuli; chocolate cake is one.
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有很多很多的超常刺激，巧克力蛋糕是一个。
05:17
There's lots of supernormal stimuli for sexiness.
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有很多对于性感的超常刺激。
05:20
And there's even supernormal stimuli for cuteness. Here’s a pretty good example.
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甚至有对于可爱的超常刺激，这就有一个很好的例子。
05:26
It’s important that we love babies, and that we not be put off by, say, messy diapers.
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喜欢婴儿对于我们来讲很重要，这样我们就不会因为某些麻烦——比如说脏尿布——而嫌弃他们。
05:31
So babies have to attract our affection and our nurturing, and they do.
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因此婴儿必须要吸引我们的爱意和抚养，他们确实做到了。
05:37
And, by the way, a recent study shows that mothers
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另外顺便说一句，最近一个研究表明
05:41
prefer the smell of the dirty diapers of their own baby.
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妈妈们都更喜欢闻自己孩子的脏尿布。
05:44
So nature works on many levels here.
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可见自然在不同的层次上起着作用。
05:47
But now, if babies didn’t look the way they do -- if babies looked like this,
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但现在，如果婴儿们不再像他们现在的样子，而是看上去这样。
05:52
that’s what we would find adorable, that’s what we would find --
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这就是我们觉得可爱的样子，
05:56
we would think, oh my goodness, do I ever want to hug that.
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这就会使我们想“哦，天哪！我可真想抱抱啊！”
06:02
This is the strange inversion.
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这是一个奇怪的“反向逻辑”
06:04
Well now, finally what about funny. My answer is, it’s the same story, the same story.
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那么现在，最后关于可笑。我的答案是，一样的故事，是个一样的故事。
06:11
This is the hard one, the one that isn’t obvious. That’s why I leave it to the end.
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这个比较难懂，不太显而易见，所以我把它留到最后。
06:15
And I won’t be able to say too much about it.
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而且我今天也不会讲太多这个。
06:17
But you have to think evolutionarily, you have to think, what hard job that has to be done --
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你必须从进化的角度来想，你得想，什么困难的活必须被完成——
06:23
it’s dirty work, somebody’s got to do it --
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这是一个脏活，而且必须有人来完成它——
06:26
is so important to give us such a powerful, inbuilt reward for it when we succeed.
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以至于当我们完成的时候，给我们一个强烈的内在奖励那么重要。
06:34
Now, I think we've found the answer -- I and a few of my colleagues.
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现在，我想我们有答案了，我和几位我的同事。
06:38
It’s a neural system that’s wired up to reward the brain
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这是一种为了奖励大脑完成了某项
06:42
for doing a grubby clerical job.
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肮脏的事务性工作而产生的神经反应体系。
06:48
Our bumper sticker for this view is
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我们关于这个观点的招牌说法就是
06:52
that this is the joy of debugging.
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这是排除故障的快感。
06:55
Now I’m not going to have time to spell it all out,
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现在我没时间来把这个展开讲了，
06:57
but I’ll just say that only some kinds of debugging get the reward.
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但我得说，只有某几种“排除故障”能够获得这种快感。
07:02
And what we’re doing is we’re using humor as a sort of neuroscientific probe
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我们现在所做的，就是把幽默感作为一种神经科学的探针，
07:10
by switching humor on and off, by turning the knob on a joke --
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通过幽默的开关，通过调整笑话——
07:14
now it’s not funny ... oh, now it’s funnier ...
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“这个不搞笑了……哦，现在这个有意思……”
07:16
now we’ll turn a little bit more ... now it’s not funny --
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“现在我们调整一点……现在又不搞笑了”——
07:18
in this way, we can actually learn something
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通过这种方式，我们事实上能学到
07:21
about the architecture of the brain,
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一些关于大脑构造的知识，
07:23
the functional architecture of the brain.
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关于大脑的功能性构造。
07:25
Matthew Hurley is the first author of this. We call it the Hurley Model.
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马修·赫尔利（Matthew Hurley）是这本书的第一作者，我们称这个为赫尔利模型(Hurley Model)。
07:30
He’s a computer scientist, Reginald Adams a psychologist, and there I am,
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他是个计算机科学家，雷金纳德·亚当斯（Reginald Adams）一位心理学家，然后就是我。
07:34
and we’re putting this together into a book.
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我们正在把这些写进一本书里。
07:36
Thank you very much.
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谢谢大家！
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dan Dennett - Philosopher, cognitive scientistDan Dennett thinks that human consciousness and free will are the result of physical processes.
Why you should listen
One of our most important living philosophers, Dan Dennett is best known for his provocative and controversial arguments that human consciousness and free will are the result of physical processes in the brain. He argues that the brain's computational circuitry fools us into thinking we know more than we do, and that what we call consciousness — isn't. His 2003 book "Freedom Evolves" explores how our brains evolved to give us -- and only us -- the kind of freedom that matters, while 2006's "Breaking the Spell" examines belief through the lens of biology.
This mind-shifting perspective on the mind itself has distinguished Dennett's career as a philosopher and cognitive scientist. And while the philosophy community has never quite known what to make of Dennett (he defies easy categorization, and refuses to affiliate himself with accepted schools of thought), his computational approach to understanding the brain has made him, as Edge's John Brockman writes, “the philosopher of choice of the AI community.”
“It's tempting to say that Dennett has never met a robot he didn't like, and that what he likes most about them is that they are philosophical experiments,” Harry Blume wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in 1998. “To the question of whether machines can attain high-order intelligence, Dennett makes this provocative answer: ‘The best reason for believing that robots might some day become conscious is that we human beings are conscious, and we are a sort of robot ourselves.'"
In recent years, Dennett has become outspoken in his atheism, and his 2006 book Breaking the Spell calls for religion to be studied through the scientific lens of evolutionary biology. Dennett regards religion as a natural -- rather than supernatural -- phenomenon, and urges schools to break the taboo against empirical examination of religion. He argues that religion's influence over human behavior is precisely what makes gaining a rational understanding of it so necessary: “If we don't understand religion, we're going to miss our chance to improve the world in the 21st century.”
Dennett's landmark books include The Mind's I, co-edited with Douglas Hofstaedter, Consciousness Explained, and Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Read an excerpt from his 2013 book, Intuition Pumps, in the Guardian >>
Dan Dennett | Speaker | TED.com