第90集 "将科技与大脑相连的未来会是怎样？"

它们被夹在这中间。

And they're sandwiched in between this.

所以细胞体被夹在小灯和小记录电极之间。

So the cell body is sandwiched in between the little light and the little recording electrode.

因此你可以说，对于这个家伙，我现在想激活他，并记录他随时间的变化。

And so you can say for this guy, I want to turn him on now, and I want to record what he's doing through time.

是的。

Yeah.

虽然不是完全一对一，但已经非常接近了。

It's not quite exactly one to one, but it's pretty close.

太棒了。

Great.

你们一次能培养多少神经元？

And how many neurons can you grow in there at once?

嗯，我的意思是，设备中有多个电极或通道。

Well, I mean, this is so there there's a number of electrodes in the device or number of channels in the device.

然后是细胞的数量，以及大脑中突触的数量，这些是略有不同的概念。

And then there's the number of cells, and then there's the number of synapses that you get in the brain, and these are slightly different things.

所以我们目前使用的芯片每个鳍片上有4000个电极。

So the chips that we're working with right now have 4,000 electrodes per, fin.

我们正在研究的鳍片就是这种夹层结构之一。

And so we're we're working fin is one of these sandwiches.

小小的夹层结构。

Little sandwiches.

是的。

Yeah.

实际上，它确实是每片8000个通道，因为有4000个微型LED和4000个电极，但我们称其为4000通道鳍片。

And so it's actually it's really 8,000 per because it's 4,000 micro LEDs and 4,000 electrodes, but we call this a 4,000 channel fin.

我们正在研发这些鳍片的堆叠技术，以将规模扩大到数十万个通道，仅需几毫米乘几毫米的面积。

And we're working on stacks of these to scale this up to pretend hundreds of thousands of channels in one in a couple millimeters by a couple millimeters.

不过，你可以用半毫升的细胞填充这个，轻松容纳数百万个细胞，这些细胞能形成数十亿个突触连接。

But, I mean, you could load this with a half a milliliter of cells, which easily millions of cells, and those can form many billions of synapses through through the brain.

这些细胞每个大约会形成，比如说，1万个突触吗？

Do each of these cells form about, let's say, 10,000 synapses?

或者说，其实很难精确计算。

Or I mean, it's tough to count them.

嗯。

K.

我的意思是，数量级大概是这样。

I mean, there's you you can get there's the order of magnitude.

人们认为每个细胞大约有一千个突触，但实际上很难精确统计。

People think it's, like, maybe about a thousand synapses per cell, but, I mean, we can't these are tough to actually count.

对。

Right.

好的。

Okay.

如果里面有一百万个神经元，大脑中就会有十亿个突触。

If you had a million neurons in there, you'd get a billion synapses in the brain.

是的。

Yeah.

粗略估算。

Back of the envelope.

粗略估算。

Back of the envelope.

那么你就能按照你的意愿精确地进行刺激。

And then so what you'd be able to do is stimulate exactly as you want to.

好的。

Okay.

现在触发编号379。

Fire number 379 now.

触发编号815及后续。

Fire number 815 and on.

然后记录那里的活动，这样你就能进行读写操作。

And then and then record the activity going on there so you can read and write.

是的。

Yeah.

所以你可以进行读写操作。

So you can read and write.

这相当复杂，因为你需要在你设备中的细胞活动与大脑活动之间建立这种转换关系。

And it's a fairly complex so you've got this transform between the activate the activities in the cells in your device and what's going on in the brain.

我们不会从单个单元活动的角度来考虑它。

We don't think of it in terms of the single unit activity.

在这个领域的初期，我们确实是从单个神经元的角度来思考的。

In the beginning of the field, we were really thinking in terms of single neurons.

在最开始的时候，对动物进行的首批实验其实根本没有大脑活动的模型。

And in the very beginning, the, first experiments that were done in animals didn't have a model of brain activity really at all.

他们所做的就是把电极放入大脑，然后说当这个神经元放电时，光标应该向上移动，当那个神经元放电时，光标应该向下移动，你只需要学会区分这些信号。

What they did is they placed electrodes in the brain and then say, when this neuron fires, the cursor should go up, and when this neuron fires, the cursor should go down, and you just can learn to separate these things.

所以大脑在反馈作用下具有极强的可塑性。

So the the brain is very plastic under feedback.

这种方法仅适用于非常少量的通道，当然，受试者并非专门学习调控这些特定神经元。

Now that works for a very small number of channels, and, of course, the subject isn't learning to modulate those neurons specifically.

他们实际上是在调控电极周围的大群神经元。

They're actually modulating big groups of neurons around where the electrode is.

因此当你转向更高层次的控制时，这种方法就不再适用了。

And so as you go to higher, like, level control, that doesn't really work anymore.

但大脑拥有这类抽象信息表征，比如预期的运动活动、面部识别或其他它思考的对象。

But the brain has these these abstract informational representations of things like intended motor activity or face recognition or other things that objects that it thinks about.

所以我们仍处于学习使用这些设备的早期阶段。

And so the we're still at the early stages of learning to use these devices.

这是一种截然不同的脑机接口类型。

It's a really different type of of BCI.

但我们认为观察到的现象是：这些细胞会真正融入这些皮层表征，然后成为大脑的一部分。

But how we think what we think we're seeing is these cells would really join these cortical representations and then just become part of part of the brain.

你可以像研究大脑其他部分一样对它们进行神经科学研究，只不过这些细胞的胞体就在你的设备里，非常便于观察。

And you can do neuroscience on them like you would any other part of the brain, except that the cell body is right there in your device and really easy to observe.

在连接这些数字系统与生物系统方面，你们面临的最大挑战是什么？

What are the biggest challenges that you're facing in terms of bridging these digital systems and these biological systems?

这里的许多难题并非那些表面光鲜的显性问题。

There's many of the hard problems here are not the really obvious sexy ones.

事实上，我前几周意识到，我在互联网上发表的第一篇文章就像那种大二学生的幼稚言论——我当时确实是大二学生，我称之为‘大二生式牢骚’。

In fact, actually, I've I realized the other other week that the very first piece of writing that I put on the Internet was kind of this, like, sophomore literally, was a sophomore, I call it.

但那种大二生的牢骚是说，大约在2008年时，大家都认为这里的核心难题是破译神经编码，真正的科学家应该研究这些深奥的神经科学问题，而把电极植入大脑这种工作留给技术人员解决。

But the the sophomore rant about how, like, back in circa 2008, everyone felt like the hard problems here were understanding the neural code, and, like, real scientists study these, like, deep neuroscience questions, and it was kind of for the technicians to figure out how to get the electrodes in the brain.

然而实际上，问题在于如何将这些电极植入大脑？

Whereas actually, the problem was how do you get these electrodes in the brain?

当然，神经科学已经取得了很大进展，这门学科非常酷。但这里许多问题涉及诸如封装技术——这是个专业术语，指电子设备植入体内后会遭受生物体的排斥反应。

And certainly, the neuroscience has advanced a lot, the neuroscience is very cool, But a lot of the problems here are things like packaging, which is a fancy term for when you place an electronic device in the body, it's going to be it's gonna be attacked.

设备会逐渐降解。

It's gonna be degraded.

它会被疤痕组织包裹，导致神经元与你植入的电极逐渐分离。

It it gets encapsulated in scar tissue that neurons are pulled away from you.

这些极其恶劣的化学环境会试图攻击并摧毁你的设备。

There's these very harsh chemical environments that try to attack and and destroy your device.

必须认识到，人体内不存在真正意义上的被动表面。

It's important to realize that there are no truly passive surfaces anywhere in the body.

比如，就连骨骼也在不断重塑、更替和再生。

Like, even bone is constantly getting remodeled and turned over and regenerated.

所以当你把一个不会再生的装置放入体内时，它就会受到攻击。

And so when you place one of these non regenerating device in the body, it's going to be attacked.

因此现在我们有了比十年前好得多的材料，特别是像碳化硅这样的材料，虽然加工起来很麻烦，但作为封装材料在体内不会像老式聚合物那样降解。

And so now we have we have much better materials than we did ten years ago, specifically things like silicon carbide, which is a really annoying material to work with, but a very good encapsulant that does not degrade in the body in the same way as these older polymer encapsulants do.

就像如果你看Prima的历史，Pyxium这家收购公司如何走到今天，他们实际上在2014、2015年就有一款获批设备叫Iris，是另一种视网膜假体，工作原理完全不同。

It's like if you look at the history of Prima, part of, like, how did Pyxium, the company who bought this, get here, they actually had an approved device in the I wanna say 2014, 2015 called Iris, which was a different retinal prosthesis, and it worked very differently.

它采用传统电子封装。

It had a conventional electronics package.

它需要电池供电，虽然上市了但后来又被撤回，原因正是封装失效问题。

It required a battery, But it was it was got on market and then was was withdrawn, and it was withdrawn because of packaging failures.

基本上，该设备在上市后对人类患者而言没有达到可接受的寿命。

Basically, the device didn't have an acceptable lifespan in human patients once on the market.

这主要是因为当时他们使用的材料是当时可获得的，那时我们整个领域还没掌握如何应用碳化硅这类材料。

And that was, like, they were using materials that were available at the time, which was before we figured out as a field how to work with things like silicon carbide.

这个问题恰恰促成了PRIMA的成功运作。

And that is an example of a problem that enabled PRIMA to work.

PRIMA采用全碳化硅封装，理论上应该能持久使用——目前已有患者使用六年的数据，其寿命应该能超过这些患者。

So PRIMA is a full carbide encapsulation, and it should last I mean, we've there's now data out to six years in some patients, and it should outlast these patients.

它应该能持续工作数十年。

It should last decades.

太不可思议了。

Amazing.

这就是过去几年里一个重大进步领域的典型案例，虽然人们通常不会注意到这方面。

And so that's an example of, like, a big area of progress in the last few years that people wouldn't really think of.

那么在做生物混合电极时，你们遇到过哪些令人惊讶的发现或意想不到的障碍？

And and so what are some surprising findings or unexpected obstacles that you've run into while doing, let's say, the biohybrid electrodes?

我是说，生物学就是这样——当它正常运作时，能实现许多人类目前尚未达到的能力水平。

I mean, biology is just it's when it works, it can do a lot of things that we human humanity is just not at that level of capability yet.

但在神经工程领域，无论是系统神经科学还是脑机接口，你通常从小鼠实验开始，然后可能会在猪等中间物种上工作，最终推进到猴子，最后应用于人类。

But also in neural engineering or either whether that means systems neuroscience or BCI, you'll start in in mice, and then maybe you'll work in an intermediate species like pigs, and then eventually end up in monkeys, then end up in humans.

当你使用电极甚至光遗传学等技术时，其工作原理在小鼠、猴子和人类身上基本是相同的。

And when you have a an electrode or even something like optogenetics, That works basically the same in mice as it does in monkeys as it does in humans.

但当你将神经元移植入大脑时，小鼠神经元与人类神经元存在巨大差异，而猕猴神经元则完全是另一回事。

When you're engrafting neurons into the brain, I mean, there's a big difference between mouse neurons and human neurons, and macaque neurons are are a different thing entirely.

因此你不得不在每个新物种身上重复大量研究工作。

And so you end end up having to redo a bunch of this work in each species that you work in.

所以每次转换实验物种时，都有大量需要重新学习的内容。

And so there's every time we switch species, there's a lot to relearn.

大约十五年前，有个重大发现是能将任何细胞转化为干细胞的能力。

And fifteen years ago now, something like that, there was a major discovery of the ability to turn any any cell into a stem cell.

这项被称为诱导多能性的发现曾获得诺贝尔奖，已经是多年前的事了。

Again, this was a discovery called induced pluripotency, won the Nobel Prize a while ago.

这在啮齿类动物身上效果非常好。

And that works really well in rodents.

在人类细胞中效果也很出色。

It works really well in human cells.

将猕猴皮肤细胞转化为诱导多能干细胞时，存在许多小问题效果不佳。

Turning a macaque skin cell into an iPSC is like there's just a bunch of little tricks that don't work as well.

因此，这些领域的生物学机制相当深奥。

And so the biology is pretty deep in a lot of these areas.

这些差异令人非常惊讶。

It's so surprising that those are different.

不过考虑到共同的进化史。

But, you know, just given the evolutionary shared history.

但确实如此。

But, yes.

是的。

Yeah.

我是说，有很多东西是保守不变的，但也有许多细节存在微小差异。

I mean, there's a lot that's conserved, but there's also a lot of little things that are slightly different.

是啊。

Yeah.

非常正确。

Quite right.

所以衷心祝贺Prima目前的成就。

So big congratulations on where Prima is right now.

这太令人兴奋了。

That's so exciting.

关于生物混合电极这个构想——让神经元在大脑中生长并通过这种方式进行读写，你认为什么时候能应用于人类？

On the biohybrid electrode, this idea of growing neurons into the brain and then being able to read and write that way, When do you think that's gonna be ready in humans?

你的预测是什么？

What's your prediction?

我认为首次人体植入大约会在2030年实现。

I think that the first human engraftment will happen around 2030.

好的。

Okay.

所以我想，大概五年左右。

So I think, like, probably five years.

好的。

Okay.

一旦应用于人体，你们首先打算解决什么问题？

And what is the first thing you're gonna tackle once it gets into humans?

嗯，我的意思是，它应该是一个通讯设备。

Well, I mean, it should be it's a communication device.

因此，运动解码、语音解码，所有这些都应该可以实现。

And so motor decoding, speech decoding, all of that should be possible.

所以我认为短期内，你关注的是任何用于通讯的脑机接口的性能指标，其带宽以每秒比特数为单位。

And so I think in the near term, it's you're looking at, the figure of merit for any brain computer interface for communication is a bandwidth measured in bits per second.

键盘和鼠标这类低维度运动解码的当前记录大约是每秒七比特，我想这应该是Neuralink目前参与者的水平。

The record for keyboard and mouse kind of low dimension motor decoding is about seven bits per second, which is, I think, Neuralink's current participants.

加州大学戴维斯分校有一个由尼克·卡德和谢尔盖·斯塔维斯基领导的团队，他们最近展示了从顶叶皮层解码语音的技术。

There's a group at UC Davis led by Nick Card and Sergey Staviski, who recently showed speech decoding from parietal cortex.

这能达到约20到25比特每秒的速度。

That gets about 20 to 25 bits per second.

人类语言的常规速率是40比特每秒，所以你认为可以逐渐趋近这个数值。

Human language is routinely rated at 40 bits per second, so you think that you can asymptote towards that.

因此我认为在短期内，我们正在寻求的是一种每秒40比特的通讯假体。

And so I think in the near term, what we're looking for is a 40 bit per second communication prosthesis.

长期来看，这是神经工程与脑机接口略有分歧的领域，公司内部对如何将其应用于中风或其他细胞缺失的领域非常感兴趣，传统脑机接口技术在这些情况下确实无法以同样方式发挥作用。

Longer term, this is where neural engineering and BCI diverge a little bit, and there's a lot of interest internally at looking at how is this applicable in stroke or other areas where you've lost cells where conventional BCI techniques really won't work in the same way.

甚至可能应用于器质性神经退行性疾病，但这些领域非常困难，我不想在时间表上过度承诺。

And potentially even organic neurodegenerative diseases, but those are very hard, and I don't wanna overpromise on the timeline there.

现在，如果我们纯粹畅想一下，关于脑机接口的一个神话是，在某个时刻，每个人都会拥有一个这样的设备，用于与手机、电脑或其他设备进行更快速的通讯。

Now, if we were just gonna blue sky here, part of the mythology about BCIs is that at some point, everyone will have one of these for some you know, for communicating faster with their cell phone or their computer or whatever.

你认为这其中有多少是炒作？让我们想象一百年后，从现实角度来看，你认为在市场规模方面它会发展到什么程度？

To what degree do you think that's hype versus let's imagine one hundred years from now, where do you realistically think it's going to be in terms of the amount of market

它有吗？

it has?

是的。

Yeah.

我是说，一百年后，我现在有个介于2030到2035年之间的视界事件，之后的事情我完全无法预见。

I mean, a hundred years from now, I I have this event horizon somewhere between 2030 and 2035 now that I just can't see beyond.

而且在我整个生命中，我总是能某种程度上预见未来，而我们显然正处于技术腾飞的时代。

And kind of for my entire life, I always kinda kind of, like, see the future, and we are clearly in the takeoff era now.

而且，我并不认为自己在说什么标新立异的观点——至少在硅谷是这样，但一百年后的景象对我来说几乎难以想象。

And I this is not I don't think I'm saying anything that contrarian, least in Silicon Valley, but a hundred years from now is almost impossible for me to imagine.

话虽如此，我认为短期内健康的四十岁人群不会轻易接受颅骨钻孔手术。

Now with that said, I don't think that healthy forty year olds are gonna be getting holes drilled in their skull anytime soon.

我的观点是，这些技术要真正实现增强功能，更不用说成为可选的医疗程序，还需要很长时间，但每个人最终都会成为患者。

My view is that it'll be a long time before these things are really augmentative, much less elective procedures, but everybody eventually becomes a patient.

举例来说，随着年龄增长会出现某些问题——PRIMA的主要适应症就是老年性黄斑变性，这种病症非常普遍，如果活到七八十岁，发病率实际上相当高。

There's some point as you get older, for example, the main indication of PRIMA is age related macular degeneration, which is very common, and if someone lives into their late seventies or eighties, is actually pretty prevalent.

因此对于许多这类事物来说，终将迎来一个它们变得合理的时刻。

And so for many many of these things, eventually, there will come a time when it makes sense.

我的意思是，我们也把视网膜假体和人工耳蜗视为脑机接口。

I mean, we consider retinal prostheses and cochlear prostheses also BCIs.

当我展望未来二十年时，那些目前仍处于研究阶段的事物——这些并非未来五年内会发生的事情。

When I look at, say, twenty years from now, the things that I that are very much research this is not a thing that's happening in the next five years.

但如果你能获得一个神经接口，其带宽相当于连接大脑两半球的胼胝体（两侧各有约1亿根神经纤维跨中线连接），即达到数十兆比特的传输能力，这将带你进入真正有趣的领域：重新定义大脑边界，并解决所谓的'绑定问题'。

But if you can get a neural interface with the bandwidth of that say, like, the two hemispheres are connected, which is about a 100,000,000 fibers on both sides that project across the midline to connect the two hemispheres of your brain into a single thing, If you can get something of that bandwidth, which is probably only tens of megabits, then this takes you into really interesting territory about really being able to redraw the the borders around brains and get this thing called the binding problem.

对我来说，这感觉不到二十年的时间。

And that feels less than twenty years away for me.

这感觉不像未来五年内,但也不是遥远的未来，而是在当今人们的寿命范围内。

This feels not like the next five years, but not not to the distant future, like, within people's lifespans today.

让我们深入探讨一下这个问题。

So let's double click on that.

请告诉我们关于绑定问题的内容，以及你认为这如何解决该问题。

Tell us about the binding problem and how you think this addresses that.

嗯，我的意思是，我对此没有解决方案。

Well, the I mean, I don't have a solution for them.

绑定问题是指，如果大脑由许多不同的神经元和相互连接的脑区组成，我们为何会产生这种统一的感知？

The binding problem is if the brain is made up of a lot of different neurons and a lot of different areas kind of connected together, why do we where does this unified perception come from?

你、你、你看到这个世界。

You you you see the world.

你可以思考它。

You can think about it.

你能听到声音。

You hear things.

所有这些都为你整合成一个连贯的整体。

All of this is fit together into a coherent whole for you.

当蓝鸟飞过你身边时，蓝色不会从鸟身上分离，鸣叫声也不会像是从别处传来。

When the blue bird flies past you, the blue doesn't come off of the bird, and the chirping doesn't seem like it's coming from somewhere else.

它看起来就是一个统一的整体。

It seems like a unified object.

是的。

Yeah.

没错。

Exactly.

尽管蓝色信息是在大脑的一个区域处理的，运动信息在另一个区域，而鸟鸣声又在不同的区域。

Even though even though blue is processed apparently in one part of your brain and the motion in another part and the chirping in a different part.

对。

Yeah.

好的。

Okay.

所以在某种意义上，几乎所有的交流都是在创造大脑之间的关联。

And so in some there's some sense in which almost all communication is about creating correlations between brains.

我们现在就在进行对话。

There's we're having a conversation right now.

我的大脑中有一些概念空间正在活跃，这些概念来自教育经历，比如学习英语、数学、科学等，我能把这些神经活动序列化为空气中的振动传递给你，通过你的耳朵接收，从而在你的大脑中激活这些关联，让我们得以共享这些概念。

There's concept spaces in my brain that are being active that I developed from, like, education, like learning English, learning math, learning science, doing these things, and I can serialize these neural activations to vibrations over the air, send over to you, receive through your ears, that then activate these correlations in your brain that allow us to share these concepts.

但我们的大脑并不会融为一体。

And but we don't our brains don't become one thing.

因此，在大脑两半球之间的关联类型与对话中两个大脑之间的关联类型之间，存在某个临界点。

And so there's there's some point between the the types of correlations that you get between the hemispheres of a brain and the types of correlations that we get between brains that are in dialogue.

那么这个界限究竟在哪里？

And where does this where is that crossing point?

目前我们还不知道。

We don't know today.

但我认为生物混合设备有潜力接近这个目标，这将使我们进入与传统脑机接口技术截然不同的领域。

But I think that biohybrid devices have the potential to get get close to there, and that takes us to really different regimes than, kind of conventional VCI technology.

让我确认下是否理解正确。

Let me just make sure I understood what you said.

你的意思是，如果同时读取和写入我的大脑和你的大脑，我们就能更接近成为一个统一的大脑。

So the idea is if you're reading and writing from my brain and from your brain, we can get closer to being a single brain.

嗯，问题就在于...

Well, like, yeah, the question is, like,

这种情况发生在哪里？

where does that happen?

我的意思是，过去人们——现在这种做法较少见了，但即便在当时也并不常见——曾通过切断大脑两半球间的连接来治疗癫痫。

What makes I mean, people back in this is done less commonly now, but it was never really done that commonly, but people used to cut the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain to treat epilepsy.

这样可以防止发作症从一侧扩散到另一侧。这些裂脑患者的研究非常有趣，因为你可以向右手提问（信息会传递到左脑），然后让左手回答（信息来自右脑），从而感受到一个头颅中有两个独立意识的存在。

You could prevent a seizure from spreading from one to the other, And those split brain patients are were really interesting to study because you could, the you could ask kind of the the right hand a question, which would go to the left hemisphere, and then you could ask the other hand, which was coming from the other hemisphere, to kind of answer, and you get the sense that there's two agents going on in one head.

是的。

Yeah.

每个半球各一个。

One in each hemisphere.

那么如果往相反方向推导，会得到什么结果？

And so if you take that in the opposite direction, what do you get?

我觉得这非常有趣。

I think is really interesting.

你是说把四个半球组合起来会得到什么？

You're saying put four hemispheres together and what do you get?

是的。

Yeah.

那么谁会这么做呢？

Now who would do this?

谁愿意主动参与？

Who would volunteer?

比如说，一对夫妻？

For example, two spouses, for example?

对。

Yeah.

正是如此。

Exactly.

所以我认为这是个开端，就像一对结婚多年的夫妇那样的情况。

So I think this is the beginning, this this is gonna be something like you've got, like, a long married couple.

其中一人患有绝症。

One has a terminal disease.

你能不能让大脑的损失，像是从中风恢复过来那样，而不是直接熄灭生命之光？

Can you make the loss of that brain, like, having a a stroke you recover from rather than the that rather than lights out?

哦，哇。

Oh, wow.

等等。

And Wait.

再详细讲讲这个故事。

Double double click on that story.

那里的叙事会是什么？

What would the narrative be there?

嗯，我的意思是，如果你能构建这些超级有机体，并在较长时间内实现某种表征的平衡，人们其实已经在配偶的大脑中存储了记忆，之后可以访问和回忆这些记忆。

Well, I mean, you get so the the if you have if you can build these superorganisms and get kind of equilibration of representation over some extended period of time, I mean, people already store memories in their spouses' brains that then they can access and recall later.

这是关于在大脑之间建立关联，他们怀疑其中存在某种非线性效应，能产生真正不同的结果，当然我们目前还不清楚具体机制在哪里。

This is about creating correlations between brains, and so there's some they suspect that there's some nonlinearity in there where you get something really different, but, of course, we don't know exactly where that is yet.

这是个棘手的领域，因为需要精准把握分寸——我们目前正在准备1200页的监管文件，详细规定如何通过测试来验证这些已通过临床试验的项目，这些试验已在6个国家的近50名患者中进行。

Mean, is this is a tricky field because it's there's a fine line between doing very, like, we're right now in the process of preparing 1,200 pages of regulatory documentation that is, like, very nuanced in exactly how you do these tests to verify these, like, things that have passed clinical trials that are in almost 50 patients in six countries.

然后，当你把这些技术稍微推进一些，甚至不用太久，五年、十年后，你听起来就会像个疯子。

And then, you kind of play some of these technologies out not even that long, five, ten years, and you sound like a lunatic.

但我想，这正是这个领域如此令人兴奋的部分原因。

But that's part of why this is such an exciting field, I think.

对。

Right.

那么，你认为会看到什么？我知道对我们俩来说，事件视界最多也就十年左右。

What what would you see so I know I know the event horizon for both of us is, you know, not more much more than a decade out.

但是，你认为这可能会带来哪些社会效益呢？无论是在哪个时间尺度上。

But, what would you see as the societal benefits that could happen from this, you know, at whatever time scale?

比如说，连接大脑之类的，你有没有想过这不仅能给伴侣关系，还能为社会带来什么样的转变？

For example, connecting brains or something, have you thought about what that could what that would turn into, not just for spouses, but for society?

我的意思是，归根结底是这种基质独立性的概念，就像我看到一个人时，这包含两个部分。

I mean, at the end of that is this idea of substrate independence, which is the thing like, I when I like, I see a person, there's two parts to this.

一个是机器人，另一个是代理。

There's the there's the robot, and there's an agent.

如果我被自己的胰腺——这个基本上只是维持生命运转的支持结构——谋杀，我会非常非常失望。

And I'm gonna be pretty pretty disappointed if I get murdered by my pancreas, which is, like, basically a support structure for, like, keeping the agent going.

所以我认为这让我们意识到，好吧。

And so there's I think this takes us to okay.

如果我们认真探索宇宙，我认为必须让自己适应环境，而不是带着一堆地球的加压瓶到处走——毕竟我们的曾祖父母就是在这样的环境中长大的。

If we're serious about exploring the universe, I think we have to adapt ourselves to the environment rather than bringing little pressurized bottles of Earth with us everywhere we go, because our like, once great grandparents grew up on a planet that happened to have those things.

因此我认为这是非常深刻的技术。

And so I think this is, like, very profound technology.

为听众解释一下，'基质独立性'就是摆脱这种脆弱的生物组织，转移到更坚固的载体上，比如硅芯片。

So substrate independence, just for the audience, means getting off of this wet biological stuff and onto something more robust, like a silicon chip or something.

换句话说，就是把你的意识转移到能适应太空旅行的载体上。

In other words, getting your mind into something that can survive space travel.

可以是其他生物大脑，也可以是工程系统。

Which could be other biological brains, or could be an engineered system.

大脑是由遵循化学法则组装的普通物质构成的。

Brains are composed of ordinary matter assembled by the rules of chemistry.

那里并没有什么魔法。

There's no magic in there.

它们非常复杂，显然我们还没有完全解释清楚它们的工作原理，但它们终究是物理系统，因此它们所做的某些事情必然能产生这种可被解释的体验。

They're very complicated, and we don't have, obviously, complete explanations for how they work, but they're ultimately physical systems, and so there's something that they're doing that's producing this experience that ultimately must be explainable.

嘿，大家好。

Hey, everybody.

我们是来自《Stuff You Should Know》播客的查克和乔什，又到了一年一度我们埋头制作年度节日特辑的时候了。

It's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes.

我们精选了过去最经典的节日特辑，整理成一套全家共享的'圣诞玩具十二天'播放列表。

We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a twelve days of Christmas toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy.

没错。

That's right.

也许你错过了我们第一次详细介绍豆豆娃、大富翁、溜溜球等玩具历史的节目。

Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or YoYos, and a whole lot more.

请在iHeartRadio应用、苹果播客或任何你获取播客的平台收听'圣诞玩具十二天'播放列表。

So listen to the twelve days of Christmas toys playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

嘿，你好。

Hey there.

我是杰西·米尔斯医生。

Doctor Jesse Mills here.

我是UCLA健康男性诊所的主任，想向大家介绍我的新播客《邮件室》。

I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health, and I wanna tell you about my new podcast called the mailroom.

我是乔丹，这档节目的制作人。

And I'm Jordan, the show's producer.

和很多男性一样，我已经很多年没去看医生了。

And like a lot of guys, I haven't been to the doctor in many years.

我会提出那些我们本该问却一直没问的问题。

I'll be asking the questions we probably should be asking but aren't.

因为男人们通常除非脸皮掉了一块或是骨折了，否则是不会去看医生的。

Because guys usually don't go to the doctor unless a piece of their face is hanging off or they've broken a bone.

那得看是哪根骨头。

Depends which bone.

哇。

Wow.

确实如此。

That's true.

每周，我们将深入探讨男性健康的独特领域，从睾酮水平、健身到饮食、生育能力，以及卧室里发生的那些事儿。

Every week, we're breaking down the unique world of men's health from testosterone and fitness to diets and fertility and things that happen in the bedroom.

你是指睡觉吗？

You mean sleep?

对。

Yeah.

差不多吧，乔丹。

Something like that, Jordan.

我们将用通俗易懂的方式讲解科学，为你解答那些真正困扰你的问题。

We'll talk science without the jargon and get you real answers to the stuff you actually wonder about.

无论你是27岁、97岁，还是介于两者之间，都会很有趣的。

It's gonna be fun, whether you're 27, 97, or somewhere in between.

男性健康远不止六块腹肌和营养补充剂。

Men's health is about more than six packs and supplements.

它关乎活力、自信与联结。

It's about energy, confidence, and connection.

我们不仅希望你活得更久。

We don't just want you to live longer.

更希望你活得更好。

We want you to live better.

快去iHeartRadio应用、苹果播客或你常听的平台订阅《男性健康信箱》吧。

So check out the mail room on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

大家好啊！

What up, y'all?

我是你们的老朋友凯文。

It's your boy, Kev on stage.

给大家安利我的新播客《高光低谷》——在这里我会采访艺术家、运动员、演艺人士、创作者和我敬佩的朋友们，聊聊他们辉煌成就背后那些不堪回首的失败经历。

I wanna tell you about my new podcast called not my best moment where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures.

他们搞砸了什么？

What did they mess up on?

他们的心跳如何？他们从中吸取了什么教训？

What is their heart rate, and what did they learn from it?

我被评判得很惨。

I got judged horribly.

评委们说，你就是垃圾。

The judges were like, you're trash.

我不知道你是怎么上这个节目的。

I don't know how you got on the show.

嘘。

Boo.

有人带了西红柿。

Somebody had tomatoes.

不。

No.

我在开玩笑。

I'm kidding.

但如果他们有西红柿，他们肯定会扔西红柿的。

But they if they had tomatoes, they would have thrown the tomatoes.

说实话吧。

Let's be honest.

我们都有那些宁愿忘记的时刻。

We've all had those moments we'd rather forget.

我们撞到了头。

We bumped our head.

我们犯了错。

We made a mistake.

交易泡汤了。

The deal fell through.

我们很尴尬。

We're embarrassed.

我们失败了。

We failed.

但这个播客正是关于这些经历以及我们如何度过难关的。

But this podcast is about that and how we made it through.

所以当他们让我坐下时，

So when they sat me down,

他们有点像我们开始闲聊，然后突然问，你有什么想法？

they were kinda like we got into the small talk, they were just like, so what do got?

什么想法？

What what ideas?

我当时心想，哦，糟了。

And I was like, oh, no.

什么？

What?

在iHeartRadio应用、苹果播客、YouTube或任何你获取播客的地方，收听我和凯文在台上的《非高光时刻》。

Check out not my best moment with me, Kev on stage, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

我是迈克尔·刘易斯。

Michael Lewis here.

我的著作《大空头》讲述了2008年美国房地产市场从繁荣到崩盘的故事。

My book, The Big Short, tells the story of the buildup and burst of The US housing market back in 2008.

书中追踪了几位看似不可能却幸运地预见到房地产将成为黑洞的人物，他们最终凭借这种洞察力赚取了数十亿美元。

It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception.

‘就像在喂养怪兽’，艾斯曼说道。

It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman.

‘我们不断喂养这只怪兽，直到它最终爆炸。’

We fed the monster until it blew up.

怪兽正在爆炸。

The monster was exploding.

然而在曼哈顿的街头，丝毫看不出刚刚发生了什么重大事件。

Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened.

在《大空头》原著出版十五周年、同名奥斯卡获奖电影上映十年后，我首次录制了这本有声书版本。

Now fifteen years after the Big Short's original release and a decade after it became an Academy Award winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time.

《大空头》的故事——当人们开始做空市场意味着什么，以及谁真正为失控的金融体系买单——其现实意义至今未减，为理解当前经济和政治，提供了极具价值的洞见。

The Big Short Story, What It Means When People Start Betting Against the Market, and Who Really Pays for an Unchecked Financial System, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics.

现在即可在pushkin.fm/audiobooks or wherever audiobooks, 或任何有售的有声书平台购买《大空头》。

Get The Big Short now at pushkin.fm/audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.

那么，你们用这些电极，这些大脑中的生物混合电极，是如何实现基质独立性的？

And so what you're doing with the with the electrodes, the biohybrid electrodes in the brain, how does this lead to substrate independence?

嗯，这个想法是，如果你能真正在某种深刻意义上，分不清一个大脑在哪里结束，另一个在哪里开始，那么这会把你带向何方？

Well, the the idea is that if you can get like, if you can really, in some profound sense, lose track of where one brain ends and another begins, then where does this take you?

我完全无法想象那种体验会是什么感觉，但我相当确信那种设备将在未来十年内问世。

I have no idea what that experience will feel like, but I'm pretty confident that that device is gonna get made in next decade.

这就是研究的意义所在。

And this is this is research.

目前还没有任何可销售的产品，但这类前沿探索正是由当前研发的设备类型所推动的。而且我认为，像视觉假体这类项目带来的近期商业收入，足以支撑这类研究的持续开展。

This is not a there's nothing to sell here yet, but it's the type of frontier that is enabled by the types of devices that are getting made now and that and there's, I think, enough near term commercial revenue from things like the from the visual prosthesis to to fund this this stuff happening.

所以如果你能从大脑读取信息，就能将这些数据转移到不同的载体上，无论

So if you're able to read from the brain, then you can take that data and put it into a different substrate, whether

要实现这一点，需要我们现在尚未理解的新物理学。

That requires so to do that, that requires new physics that we don't understand today.

我们必须真正理解大脑是如何产生我们所拥有的这种有序体验的。

We'd have to really understand what is the brain doing that is producing this ordered experience that we have.

但我强烈怀疑智能与意识是分离或独立的。

But I I strongly suspect that intelligence and consciousness are are are separate or independent.

有可能在缺乏适应性行为的情况下拥有纯粹体验，也可能在缺乏体验的情况下表现出非常明显的适应性行为。

It is possible to have a pure experience in the absence of adaptive behavior, and it's possible to have, very apparent adaptive behavior in the absence of experience.

所以这些事物是分离的。

So these things are separate.

要实现真正的基质独立性，比如建造一个与人类大脑同样优秀的硅基系统，这需要物理学和神经科学的突破，将产生多个我们目前尚未获得的诺贝尔奖。

Now, in order to have true substrate independence, like, you could build a silicon based system that is as good as our brains, This requires a physics and neuroscience breakthrough that will produce several Nobel prizes that we don't have yet.

但我确实认为这并非遥不可及。

But, I do think that that is not a 100 away.

我认为目前正在推进的一些极具说服力的研究方向，确实有可能推导出那些方程式。

I think that there's really compelling threads of research that are being pulled on that have the potential to produce those equations.

但即便我们无法获得那些方程式，只要能建立脑与脑之间的连接，就不需要它们了，因为你知道大脑本身已足够优秀。

But even if we don't get those equations, if you can build brain to brain connections, then you don't you don't need them because you know that brains are good enough.

如果你能将它们连接组装起来，那就是另一种方法，虽有些弊端，但也有巨大的先发优势。

And if you can assemble if you can connect them together, then that is another approach with some drawbacks and some, like, big head starts.

你认为人们会自愿将自己的大脑与他人相连吗？

Do you think people would volunteer to connect their brain to someone else's?

我不确定自己会乐意与所有人建立连接。

I'm not sure I'm not sure I would enjoy connecting with everybody.

我不知道。

I don't know.

我是说，

I mean,

我不认为这适合所有人。

I don't think that this is for everybody.

何况，这还不是现今存在的事物。

Also, this is not a thing that exists today.

我认为这是一个非常有趣的前沿事物，值得关注。

I think that this is a a really interesting thing on the horizon that is, like, enough to notice.

所以，就像，哦，如果那成为可能，意味着什么？

So, like, oh, that like, if that's possible, what does that mean?

但我认为现在要过多地预见它还是很困难的。

But I think it's tough to to, I think, really anticipate it too much right now.

你曾写道，神经科学的主要目标之一是理解意识的物理基础，以便我们能设计体验。

You once wrote that one of the main goals of neuroscience is to understand the physics of consciousness so that we can engineer experience.

请解释一下你的意思。

So tell us what you mean by that.

是的。

Yeah.

需要澄清的是，我并不认为这是神经科学的唯一目标。

So to be clear, don't think that's, like, the only goal of neuroscience.

我认为很多神经科学工作者在研究其他课题，从未思考过这些问题。

Think there's lots of people working in neuroscience that are thinking about other stuff and have never asked themselves those questions.

但我认为，可以说技术的终极目标之一就是实现某种递归——即获得观察和操控我们自身存在的能力。

But I think that I mean, arguably, one of the kind of end goals of technology is is recursion in the sense of we gain the gain the ability to observe and manipulate kind of our own existence.

而且我觉得，地球很小且竞争激烈，而宇宙浩瀚，光速却有限。

And we I think, like, Earth is small small and intensely contested, and space is large, and the speed of light is low.

就像在矩阵里，你永远不会耗尽虚拟空间。

And there's like, you never run out of real estate in, like, in the matrix.

因此，达到能够真正掌控我们体验本质的阶段，感觉就像是自技术革命开始以来诸多发展的一个合乎逻辑的终点。

And so getting to a point where we can we really have we have control over our like, the the nature of our experience feels like kind of a logical endpoint of a lot of what we've seen over the last like, since the beginning of the technological revolution.

那么，你们正在进行的生物混合电极研究，将如何帮助我们更接近理解意识的物理本质？

So how how is what you're doing with the biohybrid electrodes, how will this get us closer to understanding something about the physics of consciousness?

嗯，我认为关于意识有一点是确定的：要真正了解它，很可能需要亲身体验。

Well, I mean, one thing one thing that I think is true about about consciousness is that there's a good chance that to really know, we will one will have to see it for yourself.

我认为研究意识如此困难的原因之一，并非因为它具有魔力或某种形而上学特性使其本质上不可知，而是我们缺乏能够揭示其本质的测量手段。

I think that the prob one of the problems that has made it so hard to study is not it's not that it's magic or that there's, like, some metaphysical thing that makes it inherently impossible, but that there's no measurements that we can take that will tell us things.

因为如果你认为智能和适应性行为与现象体验是分离的，那么在动物行为实验中，你总能找到无需诉诸意识概念的解释方案。

Because you can always if you believe that intelligence and adaptive behavior is separate from phenomenal experience, then if you run a behavioral experiment in an animal, you can always see some explanation for what's happening without resorting to saying anything about consciousness.

当我们在动物身上做实验时，我们不会讨论它们看到或感知到了什么。

And when we do experiments in animals, we don't talk about what they see or perceive.

我们会说它们能利用这些信息或能学习这些信息。

We say they can use the information or they can learn the information.

所以当你思考能进行什么实验来确认是否学到了新东西时，这通常表现为：我们能否增加一种新的感知模式？

And so, when you think about what experiments can you really run that would allow you to know if you've learned something, this this often looks like, can we add a new sensory mode?

这也很难想象出一种你不具备的感官，因为进化非常高效，它已经充分利用了所有可用的时间和空间。

Can we it's that it's also pretty tough to imagine a a sense that you don't have because, again, evolution is very good at its job, and it's really fit filled this available time and space.

但举个例子，你没有的一种感觉是真正的矢量感。

But for example, a sense that you don't have is a true vector sense.

也就是感知环境中三维场的能力。

So the ability to see a a field, like a three d field out in the environment.

我们没有这种能力是因为缺乏相应的感觉器官。

And we don't have this because you don't have the sense organs to to do this.

我们无法直接测量距离。

We don't make measurements out of distance.

我们只能获取传递到你这里的测量数据。

We only get measurements that arrive to you.

如果我们有某种方式获取信号，比如来自远程传感器或其他设备，那么你就能获得这些信息。

If we had some way to get the signal, say, from remote sensors or other things, then you could get the information.

那么体验真正的矢量感知会是什么感觉呢？

So what would a true vector sense feel like to experience?

在我们能够实现这一点并将其提供给你之后，你看到它的方式会让你觉得，没错。

And so at the point where we can implement that and make and then make that available to you, and then the way that you see it, and you're like, yes.

这是一种全新的信息，我正在直接体验它，可以凭直觉运用它，而且没有其他方式能让我获得这种体验。

This was this was a new information, and I'm experiencing it directly, and I can use it intuitively, and there's no other way I could have experienced this.

我认为这就是那种能证明你已掌握部分模型的验证方式。

I think that is, like, the type of proof of concept for knowing that you've you've gotten some of, that model.

而且我认为用传统电极无法实现这一点。

And I and I think that this is I don't think that you can do this with conventional electrodes.

我认为你需要类似生物混合神经接口的技术才能达到那种水平。

I think that you need something like a biohybrid neural interface to get to that that level.

为什么？

Why?

当你用电刺激将视觉信号输入大脑时，假设你在初级视觉皮层放置了一个电极。

When you electrically stimulate vision into the brain so let's say that you put an electrode in primary visual cortex.

如果通过这个电极注入电荷，你绝对能看到视野中某处出现闪光。

If you inject charge through this, you can absolutely get a flash of light somewhere in the visual field.

如果在动物身上进行这种实验，你可以让它们看向闪光出现的位置，这样你就能确认效果。

And if you do this in an animal, you can get them to look to where you put the flash of light, and so you can say, okay.

我向大脑输入了一些视觉信号。

I got some visual signal into the brain.

问题在于这些闪光，它们被称为光幻视。

The problem is that these flashes of light, these are known as phosphines.

光幻视的本质是当你同时刺激大量神经元时，它们的反应会被平均化。

And what a phosphine really is is when you stimulate lots of neurons simultaneously, you average them together.

所以如果你有一个代表视觉区域红色的神经元，旁边是代表空间频率的，再旁边是代表运动方向的——当你同时驱动所有这些神经元时，它们的信号会被平均成近乎无意义的结果。

And so if you have a neuron that represents, like, red in some part of the visual field next to something that represents, like, a spatial frequency next to something that represents, like, a motion like, an orientation of motion, and you drive all of these simultaneously, this you kind of average them to basically nothing.

比如，唯一剩下的信息是一种称为视网膜拓扑的特性，即它在视野中的位置。

Like, the only information that's remaining is is a thing called retinotopy, which is where in the visual field was it.

如果这样做，你就会受到限制。

And if you do that, then you're limited.

你几乎丢弃了所有本可以传递的信息。

You throw away almost all of the information that you could have conveyed.

而且，当你这样做时，这种持续的刺激往往会对电极产生最强烈的免疫反应。

And and when you do this also, like, this very continuous stimulation tends to produce the most intense immune responses to electrodes that you get.

因此，这些记录电极往往被严重包裹。

And so these these writing electrodes tend to be very encapsulated.

所以你需要一种能让你以单细胞信息分辨率访问数十万或数百万神经元的方式，而大脑确实能在信息层面适应这种方式，但电极无法实现这种特定刺激，更不用说达到数百个了。

And so you want something that gives you access to hundreds of thousands or millions of neurons in a single at single cell informational resolution in ways that, will the brain will really adapt to informationally, and electrodes don't get that type of specific stimulation, certainly not at the hundreds.

没有。

No.

从来没有人尝试过用上千个电极进行刺激。

Nobody's ever done something like a thousand electrodes for stimulation.

另一种技术是光遗传学，通过光学刺激器实现。

And the there's the other technique, optogenetics, where you do this with an optical stimulator.

这需要对宿主大脑进行基因改造。

This requires genetically modifying the host brain.

必须使用基因疗法将这种新蛋白质递送到大脑细胞中。

You have to use a gene therapy to deliver this new protein to the cells of the brain.

这在人类大脑皮层中尚未真正实现，且存在诸多难以克服的困难。

This is not a thing that is really done in humans and cortex, and there's reasons that that is that is gonna be really difficult.

因此据我所知，目前没有其他技术能真正以单细胞分辨率长期稳定地获取数十万乃至数百万神经元信号，并让这些神经元学会你试图传递的信息。

And so there isn't I don't as far from where I sit, I don't see another technology that is really capable of getting hundreds of thousands or millions of neurons at single cell resolution in a way that is long term stable, in a way that allows those neurons to learn the signal that you're trying to give them.

哪些哲学问题让你夜不能寐？

What philosophical questions keep you up at night?

有个问题每次和朋友们聚会时都会让餐桌意见均分：经过破坏性扫描上传的意识还是你吗？

So there's a there's a question that whenever I go to, like, things where I see my friends, there's a question that splits the table evenly every time, which is, is a destructively scanned upload you?

这类问题被我和朋友们称为‘传送悖论’系列。

So this these expand to a thing side of things that my friends and I call the transporter problems.

从某种意义上说，它们非常简单，就像如果你对大脑进行扫描，但最终大脑不复存在，然后你可以利用这个扫描构建一个生物物理层面完美精确的原子级模拟人。

And in some sense, they're very simple, which is, like, if you have if you take, like, a scan of a brain, but at the end, the brain is no more, And then you you can use this to build a perfectly biophysically accurate, like, atomic simulation of that person.

这会让你对死于癌症感到好受些吗？

Does this make you feel better about dying of cancer?

对我来说，答案是否定的。

And for me, the answer to that is no.

我认为许多人真正面临这种情况时，也会得出否定的结论。

And I think many people, when faced actually with that situation would conclude no.

如果这是

If this is

不。

No.

意思是你会觉得自己已经死亡——即使一秒钟后有个你的复制体被激活。

As in you feel you will have died if you got destroyed, but there was a replica of you that got booted up a second later.

是的。

Yeah.

确实如此。

Exactly.

这就像，我的朋友会继续活下去，这很好，但并不能让我对自己的具体处境感觉好多少。

This is like, I'll be survived by my friends, which is great, but doesn't necessarily make me feel a lot better about my specific situation.

没错。

Right.

换句话说，一秒钟后启动的复制品会想，哇。

In other words, the the the replica that gets booted up a second later thinks, wow.

我完蛋了。

I'm maxed.

我刚才还在那边，现在却到了这里。

I was just over there, now I'm over here.

但问题是，你能从中得到任何好处吗？

But the question is, do you get any benefit from that?

正是这样。

Exactly.

因此从它的角度来看，这很可能是正确的。

And so from its perspective, it's probably right.

我认为有些人会这样回应，比如，每天晚上你都会失去意识。

And I think that the there's you people respond to this while saying, like, well, every night you lose consciousness.

第二天早上醒来时，

You wake up in the next morning.

这种连续性的中断，我认为也是完全合理的。

You've broken some continuity there, which I think is, like, also totally fair.

这虽然也是事实，但并不能真正让我感觉好受些。

That's, like, also not that's true, but still doesn't really make me feel better.

所以这里存在两种观点：一种是我的能动性通过某种模型或复制品在世界上延续，让我感觉自己的影响力会持续；另一种是我愿意接受人格和能动性的漂变，只要保持连续性。

And so the two camps here are my agency living on in the world, which can be done through some other a model, some replication of me that makes me feel like my influence will persist, versus I will accept a drift in the personality and the agency as long as I get continuity.

这就好比脑与脑之间的连接——虽然会因为某种程度上的两人融合而导致显著的人格漂变，但你能获得连续性。

And so that's like, the the brain to brain connection there is, like, you'll get significant personality drift because you're kind of averaging together two people to some degree, but you get continuity.

或者说，这种没有连续性的能动性延续，真的好吗？

Or is this living on an agency without continuity, is that good?

有趣的是，人们的大脑似乎早在人生初期就对此做出了选择，并且他们无法看到另一种可能性。

And what's interesting is people people's brains seem to make a choice on this early in their life, and they are unable to see the other one.

他们非常确信这两者中有一个是荒谬的。

They're very convinced that this is, like one of these two things is nonsensical.

因此，我的理解是，这里存在一种形而上学层面的选择，并由此展开推理。

And so my my read on this is that this is a there's a choice of metaphysics that's being made here and from which you reason.

所以这是你的大脑做出的一种选择，它让你能够看到某些东西，然后你从那里开始进行推理。

So this is a kind of a choice that your brain has made that allows you to see something, And then from there, you start reasoning.

所以你无法真正通过言语说服对方，但我认为这大致就是这里的两大阵营，形而上学的阵营。

And so you can't, like, really talk your way through this, but I think these are kind of the two tribes, the, like, metaphysical tribes here.

我认为这更像是某种形式的原子，它们会分裂成两个不同的阵营。

And my guess is that kind of people get converted to continuity when faced when it becomes, like, a real thing, but that's the that's the philosophical question for which I don't know if there's a right answer that keeps debate going.

如果你被分解成原子，然后这些原子被传送到某处重建，但依然是你，你对这个问题会有不同看法吗？

And do you feel any differently about the problem if you were degraded into your atoms, and then those atoms were beamed over somewhere and then reconstructed, but it's still you.

你被分解后又重建起来。

You're degraded and you're rebuilt up.

这对你来说有区别吗？

Does that make a difference for you?

有。

Yeah.

我是说，这就是第二个传送问题——如果你传送的是原子，这样会更好吗？

I mean, so this is this is the the second transporter problem is if you send the atoms, does this make it better?

而且我觉得，实际上...我也不知道。

And I think, really, the thing that and I don't know.

我想说，最近有部我很喜欢的剧上了网飞，之前一度很难看到，叫《万神殿》。

I mean, I think, so there's a show that I love that recently came to Netflix, was really hard to watch for a while called Pantheon.

强烈推荐。

Highly, highly recommended.

我认为《万神殿》可能是我在虚构作品里见过的，对未来十五年发展最准确的描绘。

I think Pantheon is probably the best depiction of how I think the next, like, fifteen years might go that I've ever seen in fiction.

这是部成人动画。

It's adult animation.

它改编自刘宇昆的一系列短篇小说，刘宇昆可能最为人所知的身份是《三体》系列的英文译者。

It's by the it's based on a series of short stories by Ken Liu, who is probably best known as the English language translator for the three body problem series.

这部剧非常精彩，但同时也涉及糟糕的形而上学问题。

And that show is amazing, but also terrible metaphysics.

这就像是一种破坏性上传。

It's like a destructive upload.

但剧中角色也意识到了这一点。

It's like but the characters also realize this.

剧中某处建筑物上的涂鸦写着'现在死去，永远活着'，我并不觉得这个价值主张有多吸引人，但它有趣地描绘了一个人们已经不再为此担忧的世界——在那个世界里，人们某种程度上已经跨过了这种形而上学选择的门槛。

There's graffiti on a building at one point that says, like, die now, live forever, which I don't find that compelling of a value proposition, but it's an interesting depiction of a world where you kind of get to the other side of that, like, of that choice of metaphysics to the degree that people aren't worrying about it anymore.

从回顾的视角来看，这种安排最终运作良好。

And from the backward looking perspective, it works out fine.

所以这确实是一种可能的观点。

And so that's certainly one potential view there.

另一种观点是：如果你真正相信连续性才是关键，那么你需要做的就是在传送器两端各准备一个种子大脑，短暂建立脑对脑连接以保持连续性，这样就足够了。

The other is that what if you really believe what matters is continuity, then what you have to do is you kind of have to get a seed brain on both sides of the transporter, briefly establish brain to brain link to get the continuity through it, and then that that's enough.

只要存在短暂的连续性时刻，就能在哲学层面上解决这个问题。

As long as there's a brief moment of of continuity, then that kind of gets you through that philosophically.

哦，有意思。

Oh, interesting.

所以这里可能会用到你的四半球技巧。

So this is where you might do your four hemisphere trick.

正是如此。

Exactly.

嗯，对，我是说——在真正的原子级重构且表征已共享的情况下，确实不需要时间。

Well, yeah, mean, typically I mean and that in the case where it's really a like an atom for atom reconstruction and the representations are already shared, then you wouldn't need any time.

如果是两个人进行传送，要让这个逻辑成立，就需要留出时间让他们的表征产生某种...漂移。

If you did this with two people, you'd you'd for that to really make sense, there'd be some time to get a representational, like, drift between them.

有趣的是，我们讨论的这些话题正从科幻领域——其中部分至今仍属科幻——逐步进入工程领域，虽然目前并非全部实现。

I it's it's funny because we talk about like, these things are interesting and are and are genuinely, becoming from the realm of science fiction where they some of them still are today into the realm of engineering, which not all of this is today.

但需要说明的是，我们在工作中其实并不常思考人类未来这类命题。

But, also, I wanna be clear, like, we don't at at work, we don't really spend a lot of time thinking about, like, the future of humanity.

就像我常说的，主要是调试Linux驱动，没错。

It is mostly, as I often say, debugging Linux drivers Yeah.

还有编写监管文档。

And writing regulatory documentation.

那么，那么，是什么驱动着你的工作？

So so so what drives you in your work?

我的意思是，你看。

I mean, look.

如果你真的相信这些事在我们有生之年可能实现，我觉得AI也非常令人兴奋。

If you really believe that these things are possible within our lifetimes, I just like, AI is also very exciting.

世界上还有其他令人兴奋的事情在发生。

There are other exciting things happening in the world.

但当你真心相信这些事确实可能成真时，我觉得很难再去考虑太多其他事情。

But when you really believe that these things could actually be possible, I think it is tough to to think about a lot else.

以上是科学公司创始人兼CEO马克斯·霍达克的分享。

That was Max Hodak, founder and CEO of Science Corporation.

他正致力于解决如何从大脑中读取和写入信息的挑战，而真正具备马克斯那种智慧与创业勇气的，全球仅有寥寥数人。

He's working on the challenge of how to read and write from the brain, and really there are only a handful of people who are doing that with the smarts and entrepreneurial bravery of Max.

他和团队站在脑机融合的最前沿——无论是将像素转化为激光刺激眼球后部的微型植入体，还是培育神经元融入大脑网络从而监测神经活动。

He and his team are at the cutting edge of integrating with the brain, whether that's by turning pixels into lasers and stimulating a tiny implant at the back of the eye or growing neurons into the brain that ingratiate themselves into the network in a way that you can spy on the activity there.

您可以在节目说明页eagleman.com/podcast了解他的公司详情，马克斯的个人网站是science.xyz。

You can check out more about his company in the show notes at eagleman.com/podcast, and Max's website is science.xyz.

我们进入尾声部分。

So let's wrap up.

其核心理念是通过培育细胞实现脑机接口，这挑战了生物学与机械必然分离的普遍认知。

At its core, the idea of growing cells into the brain as a brain computer interface, this challenges the common intuition of a division between biology and machinery.

更广泛地说，无论我们以何种方式构建脑机接口，这些技术都预示着有朝一日我们不仅能解读人类本质，更能增强这种本质。

And more generally, however we make interfaces to the brain, these open the possibility that we'll be able to someday not only interpret what it is to be a human, but also enhance that.

未来，即便是思想这类看似绝对私密且不可言喻的事物，也可能像网络数据流一样穿梭于数字通路中。

And that in the future, even things like our thoughts, which seem unassailably private and ineffable, things like thoughts might soon traverse digital pathways the way any data flows through a network.

当思想突破颅骨的限制时，这意味着什么？

What does it mean when a thought leaves the confines of the skull?

脑机接口的故事才刚刚开始，这不仅仅是一个关于技术的故事。

The story of BCIs is just beginning, and it's not just a story about the technology.

这是一个关于全新沟通渠道的故事。

It's the story of a whole new channel of communication.

这是关于将神经元语言翻译成计算机语言，或许最终能翻译进他人大脑的故事。

It's about translating the language of neurons into the language of computers perhaps eventually into the brains of other people.

这是为失语者发声的故事。

It's about giving voice to the mute.

这是让瘫痪者重获行动能力的故事，也是为我们想象力插上翅膀的故事。

It's about giving movement to the paralyzed, and it's about giving wings to our imagination.

因此，马克斯等人在脑机接口领域的工作促使我们思考：大脑是否必须永远保持孤立状态，还是可以与更广阔的宇宙建立连接。

So the work by Max and others in the BCI space invites us to consider whether our brains have to always remain isolated entities or whether they can interface with a broader universe.

这项研究提醒我们，大脑不必永远只是思想的囚笼，而可以成为与世界互动的鲜活动态接口——这个接口很快（或许就在我们有生之年）将突破我们习以为常的生物学极限。

This work reminds us that the brain doesn't always have to be merely an imprisoned container for thought, but instead a living dynamic interface with the world, one that's going to soon enough, maybe in our lifetimes, reach far beyond the biological limits to which we have become accustomed.

更多信息及延伸阅读请访问eagleman.com/podcast。

Go to eagleman.com/podcast for more information and to find further reading.

阅读。

Reading.

如有问题或讨论，请发送邮件至podcast@eagleman.com，并在YouTube上关注并订阅《内在宇宙》以观看每期视频并留言。

Send me an email at podcast@eagleman.com with questions or discussion, and check out and subscribe to Inner Cosmos on YouTube for videos of each episode and to leave comments.

下次见，我是大卫·伊格曼，这里是《内在宇宙》。

Until next time, I'm David Eagleman, and this is Inner Cosmos.

宇宙。

Cosmos.

大家好。

Hey, everybody.

我们是《你应该知道的事》播客的查克和乔什，又到了一年一度我们认真制作年度节日特辑的时候了。

It's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes.

我们精选了过去最经典的节日特辑，整理成适合全家共赏的《圣诞玩具十二天》播放列表。

We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a twelve days of Christmas toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy.

没错。

That's right.

也许你错过了我们第一次详细介绍豆豆娃、大富翁、溜溜球等玩具历史的节目。

Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or YoYos, and a whole lot more.

所以请在iHeartRadio应用、苹果播客或任何你获取播客的地方收听我们的圣诞玩具十二天播放列表。

So listen to the twelve days of Christmas toys playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

你好。

Hey there.

我是杰西·米尔斯医生。

Doctor Jesse Mills here.

我是UCLA男性健康诊所的主任，想向大家介绍我的新播客《诊室信箱》。

I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA, and I wanna tell you about my new podcast called the mailroom.

我是乔丹，这档节目的制作人。

And I'm Jordan, the show's producer.

和大多数男士一样，我也很久没去看医生了。

And like most guys, I haven't been to the doctor in way too long.

我会提出那些我们本该问却一直没问的问题。

I'll be asking the questions we probably should be asking but aren't.

每周，我们将深入探讨男性健康领域，从睾酮与健身到饮食与生育能力。

Every week, we're breaking down the world of men's health from testosterone and fitness to diets and fertility.

我们将用通俗易懂的语言讨论科学，为你真正好奇的问题提供实际答案。

We'll talk science without the jargon and get you real answers to the stuff you actually wonder about.

快来iHeartRadio应用、Apple播客或你获取喜爱节目的任何平台收听《邮件室》吧。

So check out the mail room on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

大家好啊？

What up, y'all?

我是你们的哥们凯文，现在上台啦。

It's your boy, Kev on stage.

我想跟大家聊聊我的新播客《并非我的高光时刻》，节目中我会与艺术家、运动员、演艺人士、创作者、朋友以及我敬佩的成功人士畅谈他们遭遇的重大挫折。

I wanna tell you about my new podcast called not my best moment where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures.

他们搞砸了什么？

What did they mess up on?

他们的心率是多少，他们从中又学到了什么？

What is their heart rate, and what did they learn from it?

我被评判得很糟糕。

I got judged horribly.

评委们说，你太差劲了。

The judges were like, you're trash.

我不知道你是怎么登上这个节目的。

I don't know how you got on the show.

在iHeartRadio应用、苹果播客、YouTube或任何你获取播客的地方，收听由我主持的《非我高光时刻》。

Check out not my best moment with me kept on stage on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

从健康生活小贴士到最新医学突破，WebMD的《健康发现》播客让你及时了解当今最重要的健康议题。

From tips for healthy living to the latest medical breakthroughs, WebMD's Health Discovered podcast keeps you up to date on today's most important health issues.

通过与医疗保健领域专家的深入对话，WebMD揭示当今健康新闻将如何影响你未来的生活。

Through in-depth conversations with experts from across the health care community, WebMD reveals how today's health news will impact your life tomorrow.

问题不在于人们不知道锻炼有益健康。

It's not that people don't know that exercise is healthy.

而是人们不明白为什么锻炼有益健康，我们正在努力帮助人们自助互助。

It's just that people don't know why it's healthy, and we're struggling to try to help people help themselves and each other.

在iHeartRadio应用或您获取播客的任何平台收听WebMD健康频道。

Listen to WebMD Health on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

这是iHeart出品的播客节目。

This is an iHeart podcast.

保证由人类制作。

Guaranteed human.