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【诺奖得主Wilczek科普专栏】在思维中漫步会怎么样？
Frank Wilczek
弗兰克·维尔切克是麻省理工学院物理学教授、量子色动力学的奠基人之一。因发现了量子色动力学的渐近自由现象，他在2004年获得了诺贝尔物理学奖。
作者 | Frank Wilczek
翻译 | 梁丁当
配音 | 李娜（蔻享学术）
我们的大脑则是用电激活的排列组合来存储和操控信息的。大多数神经生物学家认为这些排列组合就是思维的物理实现，但它们藏在我们的颅骨里，埋在胶状的大脑组织中。我们无法直接感受或仔细揣摩这些排列组合。
Our brains store and manipulate information in patterns of electrical activation. Most neurobiologists accept that those patterns are the physical embodiment of mind—but they are encased in our skulls, buried in gelatinous brain tissue. We can’t scrutinize them or feel them directly.
今年一月的一个傍晚，我在凤凰城的沙漠植物园参观了Bruce Munro的创作：“ 光之场 ”。整个经历神奇而美妙。这个巨大的艺术品由成千上万个圆形小灯泡构成，它们铺满了几英亩的沙丘。我漫步其中。它们柔和的灯光以几秒钟的间隔随机地闪烁着，同时以更慢的节奏变换颜色。一旦某个图案成形，一个新的略微不同的图案就开始替代它。灯光变换的步调和人心跳或呼吸的节奏吻合，让人觉得它似乎有生命。
evening last month I had an extraordinary experience at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, where I viewed an installation called “Fields of Light” by Bruce Munro. The giant artwork used thousands of small spheres of light, strewed over several acres on the desert hills. I wandered among them. Their soft light pulsated, asynchronously, every few seconds, and modulated more slowly through a range of colors. As soon as some pattern became recognizable, a new, slightly different one began to replace it. The pace of that dynamic, comparable to the rhythm of heartbeats or of breathing, gave it an organic feel.
有很多联系光和思维的隐喻，比如，“ 灵光一闪 ”，“ 漂亮的想法 ”。漫画家经常用一个发亮的灯泡来描绘人有了个好主意。人们通常用光的闪动来演示正在工作的通信网络或大脑。
Metaphors connecting light to thought abound. We speak of “flashes of insight” and “bright ideas,” and cartoonists depict these as thought-balloon lightbulbs, emanations from the clever person’s head. Visual representations of communications networks or brains also often use flashes of light to indicate activity.
那个晚上，所有这些类比隐喻都生动地展现在我眼前。面对眼前不断变化的灯光和图案，我似乎看到了思维的过程，这作为思维的模型实在太逼真了。我有一种奇妙的感觉，我正“漫步” 于我自己的思维中。这完全改变了我对大脑和自己的认识。
That night, for me, all those analogies and metaphors came together. In the everchanging landscape of possibilities, I felt I’d gotten an inkling of what thought looks like. I had the uncanny sense that I was walking through my own mind, or at least a good model of it. I’ll never again think about brains, or myself, in quite the same way.
Philip Anderson，一位仍然在世的伟大物理学家，有句名言：“ 多而不同 ”(More is different)：大量的单体相互作用会导致新的结构和现象的出现。按简单到复杂的次序，原子既可以排列构成半导体晶体、三极管，和会计算的机器，它们也可以构成生物分子、神经细胞，和大脑。这些例子响亮地告诉我们，“ 更多而更不同。” (Lots more is very different) 。
A great living physicist, Philip Anderson, famously asserted, “More is different.” When large numbers of units act together, fundamentally new structures and phenomena emerge. In one hierarchy, atoms combine to make semiconductor crystals, transistors and computing machines; along another trajectory, they combine to make biomolecules, nerve cells and brains. In these examples, it leaps out: Lots more is very different.
Bruce Munro的灯光表演活灵活现地展示了一个抽象的概念：组合暴涨 (combinatorial explosion)。如果一个灯泡有两个状态，开或关，那么两个灯泡就有四个状态：开-开，开-关， 关-开，关-关。以此类推，三十个灯泡，如果每个只能开关，就会有几十亿种状态。他的作品里有成千上万个灯泡，每个灯泡还可以改变颜色和亮度，再加上时间上的变化，这让可能的状态数暴涨，远远多于Carl Sagan* 说的“几十亿的几十亿”。这是对 “更多”中的“更”的一种具体而令人震撼的诠释。
Mr. Munro’s light show embodied, in tangible form, the abstract mathematical concept of a “combinatorial explosion.” Let’s say one light can be either on or off. Then a system of two lights can be in four states: on-on, on-off, off-on, off-off. And a system of merely 30 lights, each of which might be on or off, supports over a billion possible states. When we have thousands of lights, each of which can exhibit a range of colors and brightness, and add the element of time, the explosion of potential far outstrips Carl Sagan’s “billions and billions.” It gives concrete, visceral meaning to the “lots” in “lots more.”
“光之场”是一个艺术品，不是一个科学模型。但它巨大的心理冲击力向我们昭示了一 种新的大规模、动态、可亲身体验的可视化技术。这个技术可用于教学和帮助人们理解。
“Fields of Light” was intended as a work of art, not a scientific model. But its psychological power suggests the potential of a new form of visualization—visualization on a grand scale, involving dynamic, immersive environments, as a tool for teaching and understanding.
利用核磁共振成像、正电子成像、荧光蛋白质等技术，神经生物学家已经收集了很多关于思维和情绪流动的科学信息。如果能把这些信息有机地揉在一起并放大，构造一个准确而动态的思维模型，那该多好啊！这个模型一定会令人大开眼界并流连忘返。
Using magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, fluorescent proteins and other technologies, neurobiologists have gathered a lot of objective information about flows of thought and emotion. There’s an opportunity here: Wouldn’t it be marvelous to bring all that information together and scale it up to produce an accurate, dynamic model of mind that is an enthralling, mind-expanding experience too?
在著名的“星际之门”电影系列“2001：太空漫游”的最后，宇航员Dave Bowman在接 近木星时发现了一个孤立的巨石。当他触碰它的表面时，巨石被激活了，Dave Bowman被吞了进去，陷入一个多彩的光涡旋中，他的思维被改变了，得到了扩展，他对世界有了更深刻的认识，最后获得了光荣的重生。这些巨石的建造者似乎已经洞察了思维的奥秘。
In the famous Stargate sequence toward the end of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” astronaut Dave Bowman, approaching Jupiter, finds a strange monolith. When he touches its surface, he activates it. The monolith engulfs him in a swirling vortex of multicolored light, and his mind is altered. Dave Bowman’s expanded consciousness prepares him for further revelations, and at last a glorious rebirth. Maybe those monolith builders were on to something.
* 注：Carl Sagan（1934年11 月9日-1996年12月20日），美国天文学家、天体物理学家、 宇宙学家、科幻作家，非常成功的天文学、天体物理学等自然科学方面的科普作家。行星学会的创立者。他著有著名的科幻小说《接触（Contact）》，1997 年以小说为蓝本拍摄了同名电影，并获得1998年雨果奖。科普著作《伊甸园的龙 - 人类智力演化的推测（The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of human Intelligence）》获得普利策奖。《预约新宇宙 : 为人类寻找新天地（Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space）》被纽约时报评选为1995年最值得注意的书籍之一。
声明：该文章曾于2016年--2017年间以专栏形式发表于《赛先生》公众号，后经作者授权发布于蔻享学术平台。
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