Here's a question that matters.
这里有一个重要的问题。
Right? Because we're beginning to get all the tools together to evolve ourselves.
因为我们已经开始拥有改造自身所需的所有工具了。
And we can evolve bacteria and we can evolve plants and we can evolve animals,
我们可以改造细菌，我们可以改造植物，我们也可以改造动物，
and we're now reaching a point where we really have to ask, is it really ethical and do we want to evolve human beings?
我们现在已经到了必须要问这个问题的时候了，这是否会导致道德问题，或者我们是否想要改造人类？
And as you're thinking about that, let me talk about that in the context of prosthetics, prosthetics past, present, future.
在你们思考这个问题的时候，让我就假肢为例子和你们谈谈这件事，假肢的过去，现在和未来。
So this is the iron hand that belonged to one of the German counts.
这是一只铁制手臂，它属于一位德国伯爵。
Loved to fight, lost his arm in one of these battles.
嗜爱战争的他，在一场战役中失去了他的手臂。
No problem, he just made a suit of armor, put it on, perfect prosthetic.
不过也不是问题，他做了一套战服，穿上它，就拥有了完美的假肢。
That's where the concept of ruling with an iron fist comes from.
这就是术语“铁拳执政”的来源。
And of course these prosthetics have been getting more and more useful, more and more modern.
当然，这些假肢变得越来越实用，越来越现代化。
You can hold soft-boiled eggs. You can have all types of controls, and as you're thinking about that,
你可以用它拿像水煮蛋这样柔软的东西。你可以做出各种控制，当你们思考这件事的时候，
there are wonderful people like Hugh Herr who have been building absolutely extraordinary prosthetics.
像修米·赫尔这样神奇的人就做出了绝对不可思议的假肢。
So the wonderful Aimee Mullins will go out and say, how tall do I want to be tonight?
这就让伟大的艾米·穆林斯（残奥会短跑冠军）能走出家门说，今晚我要什么身高，戴哪副假肢呢？
Or Hugh will say what type of cliff do I want to climb?
或者她会说：我今天应该爬哪种岩壁？
Or does somebody want to run a marathon, or does somebody want to ballroom dance?
亦或者，有人想去跑个马拉松，或是参加交际舞会吗？
And as you adapt these things, the interesting thing about prosthetics is they've been coming inside the body.
当你适应了这些事情的时候，有趣的是，现在的假肢都已经能来自体内了。
So these external prosthetics have now become artificial knees. They've become artificial hips.
所以这些外部假肢就变成了人造膝盖，变成了人造髋关节。
And then they've evolved further to become not just nice to have but essential to have.
然后它们又更进一步的发展了，不再只是锦上添花的东西，而是至关重要的部分。
So when you're talking about a heart pacemaker as a prosthetic,
当你把一个心脏起搏器当成假肢时，
you're talking about something that isn't just, "I'm missing my leg," it's, "if I don't have this, I can die."
那你就不仅仅是在说，“我缺条腿”这么简单，而是“如果我没有这个，我就会死掉。”
And at that point, a prosthetic becomes a symbiotic relationship with the human body.
在那种程度上，假肢与人体就形成了一种共生关系。
And four of the smartest people that I've ever met
而四个我见过的最聪明的人，
Ed Boyden, Hugh Herr, Joe Jacobson, Bob Lander -- are working on a Center for Extreme Bionics.
艾德·鲍登，修米·赫尔，乔·雅各布森，鲍勃·兰登--他们都在一家极致仿生中心工作。
And the interesting thing of what you're seeing here is these prosthetics now get integrated into the bone.
而你们现在看到的一件有趣的事情是，这些假肢已经能融入人体骨骼当中。
They get integrated into the skin. They get integrated into the muscle.
他们能融入皮肤之中，也能融入肌肉组织之中。
And one of the other sides of Ed is he's been thinking about
而另一方面，艾德也开始思考
how to connect the brain using light or other mechanisms directly to things like these prosthetics
如何使用灯光或其他机制，使大脑能够直接和假肢类的东西相联结。
And if you can do that, then you can begin changing fundamental aspects of humanity.
如果我们能做到那一点，那么我们就可以改变人类的基本组成部分了。
So how quickly you react to something depends on the diameter of a nerve.
你对于一个事物的反应速度是由神经元直径决定的。
And of course, if you have nerves that are external or prosthetic, say with light or liquid metal,
但是当然，如果你的神经是外缘的，或是假肢，举个例子，光线或是液态金属，
then you can increase that diameter and you could even increase it theoretically to the point where,
那么你们就能增宽神经元的直径，从理论上来说，我们甚至可以提升反应速度，
as long as you could see the muzzle flash, you could step out of the way of a bullet.
快到只要能看见枪口的闪光，就能躲开子弹。
Those are the order of magnitude of changes you're talking about.
这些就是我们准备讨论的变化的级别。
This is a fourth sort of level of prosthetics.
这是假肢的第四种境界。
These are Phonak hearing aids, and the reason why these are so interesting is because
这是一些峰力助听器，这些东西很有趣，原因是
they cross the threshold from where prosthetics are something for somebody who is "disabled"
它们已经跨越了假肢是帮助“障碍人群”的门槛了，
and they become something that somebody who is "normal" might want to actually have,
它们变成了“正常人群”也想要的东西，
because what this prosthetic does, which is really interesting, is not only does it help you hear,
因为这种假肢所能做的，非常有趣，不仅仅能够帮助你听见声音，
you can focus your hearing, so it can hear the conversation going on over there.
还能帮助你专注于听，能帮你听见别处的声音。
You can have superhearing. You can have hearing in 360 degrees.
这样你就有了顺风耳。你可以听到全方位的声音。
You can have white noise. You can record, and oh, by the way, they also put a phone into this.
你可以听见白噪声。你可以录音，顺便提一下，它们还可以承载手机功能。
So this functions as your hearing aid and also as your phone.
所以它的功能不仅是助听，还可以成为你的手机。
And at that point, somebody might actually want to have a prosthetic voluntarily.
到了那时，就会有人自愿去安装假肢了。
All of these thousands of loosely connected little pieces are coming together,
这些成千的连接疏松的碎片正在聚集起来，
and it's about time we ask the question, how do we want to evolve human beings over the next century or two?
是时候让我们提出疑问，我们在下一个，或者下两个世纪，打算如何改造人类？
And for that we turn to a great philosopher who was a very smart man despite being a Yankee fan.
我们向一个伟大的哲学家求助，他是非常聪明的人，尽管是洋基队的粉丝。
And Yogi Berra used to say, of course, that it's very tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
当然，就像约吉·贝拉说过的那样，预测不是一件简单的事情，特别是关于未来的预测。
So instead of making a prediction about the future to begin with,
所以说，我们开篇就先不预测未来，
let's take what's happening in the present with people like Tony Atala, who is redesigning 30-some-odd organs.
让我们看看当下，发生在像托尼·阿塔拉这样的人身上的故事吧，托尼身上有着30多个再设计过的器官。
And maybe the ultimate prosthetic isn't having something external, titanium.
也许最终版本的假肢已经不需要了，例如金属钛这种外缘材料。
Maybe the ultimate prosthetic is take your own gene code, remake your own body parts,
也许会来自你们自身的基因编码，重新制造身体的一部分，
because that's a whole lot more effective than any kind of a prosthetic.
因为那会比任何一种假肢效果都要好。
But while you're at it, then you can take the work of Craig Venter and Ham Smith.
当你们这么想的时候，就可以看看克雷格·文特尔和翰姆·史密斯的工作。
And one of the things that we've been doing is trying to figure out how to reprogram cells.
我们一直以来想要做的事情之一，就是想出如何重新编码细胞。
And if you can reprogram a cell, then you can change the cells in those organs.
如果你可以重新编码细胞，你就可以改变那些器官中的细胞。
So if you can change the cells in those organs, maybe you make those organs more radiation-resistant.
因此，如果我们可以改变器官中的细胞，也许我们就能使得那些细胞更加耐辐射；
Maybe you make them absorb more oxygen.
也许能让它们吸收更多氧气；
Maybe you make them more efficient to filter out stuff that you don't want in your body.
让它们更加高效的过滤人体所不需要的杂质。
And over the last few weeks, George Church has been in the news a lot
在过去的几周里，乔治·丘奇经常上新闻，
because he's been talking about taking one of these programmable cells and inserting an entire human genome into that cell.
因为他一直都在描述一种可编码细胞，以及将整个人类基因组插入那个细胞。
And once you can insert an entire human genome into a cell,
一旦我们能够将整个人类基因组插入那个细胞当中，
then you begin to ask the question, would you want to enhance any of that genome?
我们就会开始问这样的问题：你们想要加强基因中的任何部分吗？
Do you want to enhance a human body? How would you want to enhance a human body?
你们想要强化人体吗？你们想要怎样强化人体？
Where is it ethical to enhance a human body and where is it not ethical to enhance a human body?
怎样强化是合乎道德的？而怎样又是不合乎道德的？
And all of a sudden, what we're doing is we've got this multidimensional chess board
突然之间，我们正在做的，仿佛是得到了一个多维棋盘：
where we can change human genetics by using viruses to attack things like AIDS,
我们可以通过病毒来改变人类的基因，从而攻克艾滋这样的疾病，
or we can change the gene code through gene therapy to do away with some hereditary diseases,
或者我们也可以通过改变基因序列，基因疗法，来对付遗传性疾病，
or we can change the environment, and change the expression of those genes in the epigenome and pass that on to the next generations.
又或者说，我们可以改变我们的环境，我们还可以改变显性基因的基因表达，将表象传递给下一代人。
And all of a sudden, it's not just one little bit, it's all these stacked little bits that allow you to take little portions of it
一瞬之间，就变得不止是一点点了，这些一点点累积起来，每次拿走一点点，
until all the portions coming together lead you to something that's very different.
直到它们汇集起来，让你变得完全不同。
And a lot of people are very scared by this stuff. And it does sound scary, and there are risks to this stuff.
很多人对此感到害怕。这听起来确实很恐怖，也很有风险。
So why in the world would you ever want to do this stuff?
那么我们到底为什么想要这么做呢？
Why would we really want to alter the human body in a fundamental way?
为什么我们希望彻底的改变人体呢？
The answer lies in part with Lord Rees, astronomer royal of Great Britain.
英国皇家天文协会的洛德·里斯给我们提供了部分答案。
And one of his favorite sayings is the universe is 100 percent malevolent. So what does that mean?
他最喜欢说的一句话就是：宇宙是百分之百邪恶的。这是什么意思呢？
It means if you take any one of your bodies at random, drop it anywhere in the universe, drop it in space, you die.
意思就是，随机取下你身体的一部分扔在宇宙的任何地方，扔在太空，你就死定了。
Drop it on the Sun, you die. Drop it on the surface of Mercury, you die. Drop it near a supernova, you die.
扔在太阳上，死定了。扔在水星表面上，死定了。扔在超新星附近，死定了。
But fortunately, it's only about 80 percent effective.
但幸运的是，这句话只有80%是正确的。
So as a great physicist once said, there's these little upstream eddies of biology that create order in this rapid torrent of entropy.
一位伟大的物理学家曾说过，就是那些处于上游的小生物漩涡，创造了汹涌洪流当中的秩序。
So as the universe dissipates energy, there's these upstream eddies that create biological order.
所以随着宇宙不断耗散能量，这些处于上游的小型生命漩涡，创造了生物界的秩序。
Now, the problem with eddies is, they tend to disappear. They shift. They move in rivers.
现在，关于小漩涡的问题就是它们要消失了。它们会在星河中移动。
And because of that, when an eddy shifts, when the Earth becomes a snowball, when the Earth becomes very hot,
因为这样的原因，当小漩涡移动的时候，当地球变成雪球的时候，变得炙热的时候，
when the Earth gets hit by an asteroid, when you have supervolcanoes,
当地球被小行星击中的时候，当我们遇到超级火山爆发的时候，
when you have solar flares, when you have potentially extinction-level events like the next election...
当我们遇到太阳耀斑爆发的时候，当我们遇到潜在的毁灭级事件的时候，比如下届选举这种事...
then all of a sudden, you can have periodic extinctions.
然后突然之间，我们就会遇到周期性的大灭绝。
And by the way, that's happened five times on Earth,
顺便提一下，这已经在地球上上演过五次了。
and therefore it is very likely that the human species on Earth is going to go extinct someday.
因此，人类有朝一日在地球上灭绝是非常可能发生的。
Not next week, not next month, maybe in November, but maybe 10,000 years after that.
不是下个星期，不是下个月，也许就是11月，但也许是那之后的一万年。

As you're thinking of the consequence of that,
想象一下那样的结果，
if you believe that extinctions are common and natural and normal and occur periodically,
如果你相信大灭绝是平常的，自然的，会周期性发生，
it becomes a moral imperative to diversify our species.
这就成为了一个使我们的物种多样化的道德准则。
And it becomes a moral imperative because it's going to be really hard to live on Mars if we don't fundamentally modify the human body.
之所以会成为道德准则，是因为如果我们不彻底修改人体，那么我们就很难在火星上生存。
Right? You go from one cell, mom and dad coming together to make one cell, in a cascade to 10 trillion cells.
不难理解吧？我们都来自一个细胞，父母一起产生的一个细胞，通过连续分裂产生了10兆个细胞。
We don't know, if you change the gravity substantially, if the same thing will happen to create your body.
我们不能确定彻底改变重力时，相同的事情还会发生在我们体内。
We do know that if you expose our bodies as they currently are to a lot of radiation, we will die.
我们能确定的是现在将自己的身体暴露在强辐射下，我们就会死。
So as you're thinking of that, you have to really redesign things just to get to Mars.
当你这样想的时候，就会发现仅仅是为了去火星，我们就必须重新编码自己。
Forget about the moons of Neptune or Jupiter.
更不用说去海王星或木星的卫星了。
And to borrow from Nikolai Kardashev, let's think about life in a series of scales.
借用一下尼古拉·卡尔达肖夫的话，让我们在一系列的尺度上考虑一下生命。
So Life One civilization is a civilization that begins to alter his or her looks.
在一级生命文明当中可以开始改变人类的长相。
And we've been doing that for thousands of years.
我们已经这样做了数千年了。
You've got tummy tucks and you've got this and you've got that.
你可以做腹部整形，整整这儿，整整那儿。
You alter your looks, and I'm told that not all of those alterations take place for medical reasons.
你能改变你的长相，我听人说不是所有改变的背后都有医疗缘由。
Seems odd. A Life Two civilization is a different civilization.
看起来很奇怪。二级生命文明就是完全不同的了。
A Life Two civilization alters fundamental aspects of the body.
二级生命文明就开始改变人体的基本特征了。
So you put human growth hormone in, the person grows taller,
所以你可以注射生长激素，使人长的更高，
or you put x in and the person gets fatter or loses metabolism or does a whole series of things,
或者使用某种药物，使人变胖，新陈代谢失调，或者发生一系列的改变。
but you're altering the functions in a fundamental way.
但是你已经彻底改变了基础机能了。
To become an intrasolar civilization, we're going to have to create a Life Three civilization,
要成为整个太阳系内文明，我们必须要经历三级生命文明，
and that looks very different from what we've got here.
而且明显有别于所提到的二级文明。
Maybe you splice in Deinococcus radiodurans so that the cells can resplice after a lot of exposure to radiation.
也许你会被植入耐辐射球菌，这样在大量暴露于辐射后受损的细胞仍能复原。
Maybe you breathe by having oxygen flow through your blood instead of through your lungs.
也许你就会将氧气直接吸入血液当中，而不是肺中。
But you're talking about really radical redesigns,
但是我们正在讨论的是完全彻底的重设，
and one of the interesting things that's happened in the last decade is we've discovered a whole lot of planets out there.
在过去十年间发生了一件有趣的事情，那就是我们在宇宙间发现了更多的行星。
And some of them may be Earth-like.
其中的很多都属于类地行星。
The problem is, if we ever want to get to these planets, the fastest human objects
问题在于，如果我们想要到达那些行星，人类拥有的的最快物体，
Juno and Voyager and the rest of this stuff -- take tens of thousands of years to get from here to the nearest solar system.
朱诺和旅行者，还有剩下类似的东西，将花费我们数千万年，才能从这里到达离我们最近的恒星系。
So if you want to start exploring beaches somewhere else, or you want to see two-sun sunsets,
所以，如果我们想在其他地方漫步沙滩，或者想要看双日落，
then you're talking about something that is very different,
那么我们在讨论的一定是非常不同的东西，
because you have to change the timescale and the body of humans in ways which may be absolutely unrecognizable.
因为我们必须要改变时间维度和人体的构造，直到超乎想象的地步。
And that's a Life Four civilization.
那就是四级生命文明。
Now, we can't even begin to imagine what that might look like,
现在，虽然我们无法想象我们会变成什么样，
but we're beginning to get glimpses of instruments that might take us even that far. And let me give you two examples.
但是我们已经能看到能把我们带到那里的一些尖端设备了。我给你们举两个例子。
So this is the wonderful Floyd Romesberg,
这就是我们出色的弗洛伊德·瑞姆斯伯格，
and one of the things that Floyd's been doing is he's been playing with the basic chemistry of life.
弗洛伊德一直在做的事情之一就是研究基础生命化学。
So all life on this planet is made in ATCGs, the four letters of DNA.
地球上的所有生命都由ATCG组成，DNA链中的四个结构单元。
All bacteria, all plants, all animals, all humans, all cows, everything else.
所有的细菌，植物，动物，人类，奶牛，所有的生物。
And what Floyd did is he changed out two of those base pairs, so it's ATXY.
弗洛伊德做的就是改变了其中的两组碱基对，就变成了ATXY组合。
And that means that you now have a parallel system to make life, to make babies, to reproduce, to evolve,
这就意味着，你现在拥有了一个制造生命的平行体系，去产生幼儿，去繁殖，去进化，
that doesn't mate with most things on Earth or in fact maybe with nothing on Earth.
不能与地球上的大多数生命配对，或者说事实上全都不能。
Maybe you make plants that are immune to all bacteria.
也许你能够制造出对所有细菌免疫的植物。
Maybe you make plants that are immune to all viruses. But why is that so interesting?
也许你能制造出对所有病毒免疫的植物。但是，这为什么有趣呢？
It means that we are not a unique solution.
因为这就意味着，我们不只有唯一的解决方案了。
It means you can create alternate chemistries to us
这就意味着，我们能够造出不同于我们的化学生物，
that could be chemistries adaptable to a very different planet that could create life and heredity.
它们能够适应不同星球上的生活，它们能创造生命，繁衍生息。
The second experiment, or the other implication of this experiment, is that all of you, all life is based on 20 amino acids.
第二个实验，或者说是这个实验的另一个运用，就是我们所有人，所有的生命都基于20种氨基酸。
If you don't substitute two amino acids, if you don't say ATXY, if you say ATCG + XY,
如果我们并不是去替换其中的两种，我们不用ATXY的模式，我们用ATCG＋XY的模式，
then you go from 20 building blocks to 172,
我们就能够从20种基础氨基酸增长到172种，
and all of a sudden you've got 172 building blocks of amino acids to build life-forms in very different shapes.
转瞬间，我们就有了172种基础氨基酸的模型，去建造完全不同的生命形式。
The second experiment to think about is a really weird experiment that's been taking place in China.
第二个实验，是在中国做的一个非常诡异的实验。
So this guy has been transplanting hundreds of mouse heads. Right?
这个家伙已经换植过上百只老鼠的头了。听上去怎么样？
And why is that an interesting experiment? Well, think of the first heart transplants.
为什么这个实验很有趣呢？想一想第一场心脏移植手术。
One of the things they used to do is they used to bring in the wife or the daughter of the donor so the donee could tell the doctors,
人们以前经常做的一件事就是会把器官捐赠者的妻子或女儿带过来，这样被捐赠者就可以回答医生的问题，
"Do you recognize this person? Do you love this person? Do you feel anything for this person?"
“你认识这个人吗？你爱她吗？你看到她能感觉到什么吗？”
We laugh about that today. We laugh because we know the heart is a muscle,
今天，我们当然会把这当笑话讲。我们笑是因为我们知道心脏只是一块肌肉，
but for hundreds of thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years, "I gave her my heart. She took my heart. She broke my heart."
但是，在历史上的若干年间，“我把心献给了她。她勾走了我的心。让我心碎。”
We thought this was emotion and we thought maybe emotions were transplanted with the heart. Nope.
我们都把心脏当成感情的来源，我们以为感情会与心相随，一同被移植。不是这样的。
So how about the brain? Two possible outcomes to this experiment.
但是如果换成大脑呢？有两种可能的结局。
If you can get a mouse that is functional, then you can see, is the new brain a blank slate?
如果你能成功得到一只活着的老鼠，你会观察到，它的新大脑是否是一片空白？
And boy, does that have implications? Second option: the new mouse recognizes Minnie Mouse.
甚至，这个大脑是不是有同样的功能？第二种可能：新的老鼠还记得它的恋爱对象。
The new mouse remembers what it's afraid of, remembers how to navigate the maze,
新的老鼠还记得它害怕什么，记得迷宫的线路，
and if that is true, then you can transplant memory and consciousness.
如果这是真的，我们就能够移植我们的记忆和意识。
And then the really interesting question is, if you can transplant this, is the only input-output mechanism this down here?
然后就引发了一个有趣的问题，移植大脑的过程，是否是对于下半身唯一的输入输出信号的控制呢？
Or could you transplant that consciousness into something that would be very different,
或者说，我们能否将意识转入一个十分不同的东西里，
that would last in space, that would last tens of thousands of years,
使它能够在宇宙中长远留存，能够持续数万年，
that would be a completely redesigned body that could hold consciousness for a long, long period of time?
这是身体的完全重设，使我们的意识能够存在很长，很长一段时间？
And let's come back to the first question: Why would you ever want to do that?
那么，让我们重新回到开始的问题：为什么我们会想要那么做？
Well, I'll tell you why. Because this is the ultimate selfie.
好吧，让我来告诉你们原因。因为这就是我们的终极自拍照。
This is taken from six billion miles away, and that's Earth.
这将来自六十亿英里以外，那就是地球。
And that's all of us. And if that little thing goes, all of humanity goes.
里面包括我们所有人。如果那个小东西能够持续下去，整个人类就会存活下去。
And the reason you want to alter the human body is because you eventually want a picture that says,
我们之所以想要改变人体，是因为我们最终想要一张照片，上面写着，
that's us, and that's us, and that's us, because that's the way humanity survives long-term extinction.
这是我们，这是我们，这也是我们，因为这让人类得以幸存于漫长的灭绝事件中。
And that's the reason why it turns out it's actually unethical not to evolve the human body even though it can be scary,
这就是为什么结果表明，不进化人体是不道德的。即使那可能很可怕，
even though it can be challenging, but it's what's going to allow us to explore, live and get to places we can't even dream of today,
即使可能很困难，但这会使我们能够去探索，生存，到达当今无法想象的地方，
but which our great-great-great-great- grandchildren might someday. Thank you very much.
也许我们的曾曾曾曾孙辈有朝一日会实现这个目标。非常感谢。