Dan Dennett: Cute, sexy, sweet, funny

Prevoditelj: Robert Bosnjak Recezent: Nenad Maljković

I’m going around the world giving talks about Darwin,

Putujem svijetom držeći predavanja o Darwinu

and usually what I’m talking about

i obično govorim o

is Darwin’s strange inversion of reasoning.

Darwinovoj čudnoj izvrnutoj logici.

Now that title, that phrase, comes from a critic, an early critic,

Zapravo, to je tako nazvao jedan njegov rani kritičar,

and this is a passage that I just love, and would like to read for you.

a ovo je odlomak koji mi se sviđa i kojeg bih vam pročitao.

"In the theory with which we have to deal, Absolute Ignorance is the artificer;

"U teoriji koju upravo razmatramo, Apsolutno Neznanje svemu daje oblik;

so that we may enunciate as the fundamental principle of the whole system,

stoga možemo izvesti zaključak kako je temeljno načelo cijelog sustava

that, in order to make a perfect and beautiful machine,

da radi stvaranja savršenog i prekrasnog stroja,

it is not requisite to know how to make it.

nije potrebno znati kako ga stvoriti.

This proposition will be found on careful examination to express,

No pažljivo razmatranje ove tvrdnje okrit će nam da ona

in condensed form, the essential purport of the Theory,

u sažetom obliku, krije osnovnu namjeru Teorije,

and to express in a few words all Mr. Darwin’s meaning;

i da u nekoliko riječi izražava sve što g. Darwin govori;

who, by a strange inversion of reasoning,

jer on, čudnim izvrtanjem logike,

seems to think Absolute Ignorance fully qualified

izgleda misli da je Apsolutno Neznanje potpuno sposobno

to take the place of Absolute Wisdom in the achievements of creative skill."

zauzeti mjesto Apsolutne Mudrosti u postignućima stvaralačke vještine."

Exactly. Exactly. And it is a strange inversion.

Točno. Upravo tako. A to i jest čudno izvrtanje.

A creationist pamphlet has this wonderful page in it:

Jedan kreacionistički pamflet sadrži ovu prekrasnu stranicu:

"Test Two:

"Test broj dva:

Do you know of any building that didn’t have a builder? Yes/No.

Znate li za neku građevinu koja nije imala graditelja? DA - NE.

Do you know of any painting that didn’t have a painter? Yes/No.

Znate li za neku sliku koja nije imala slikara? DA - NE.

Do you know of any car that didn’t have a maker? Yes/No.

Znate li za neki auto koji nije imao proizvođača? DA - NE.

If you answered 'Yes' for any of the above, give details."

Ako ste odgovorili "DA" na bilo koje pitanje, molimo obrazložite."

A-ha! I mean, it really is a strange inversion of reasoning.

Aha! Mislim, to je stvarno čudno izvrtanje logike.

You would have thought it stands to reason

Naizgled je logično

that design requires an intelligent designer.

da dizajn treba inteligentnog dizajnera.

But Darwin shows that it’s just false.

Ali Darwin pokazuje da to jednostavno pogrešno.

Today, though, I’m going to talk about Darwin’s other strange inversion,

No danas ću govoriti o drugom Darwinovom čudnom izvrtanju,

which is equally puzzling at first, but in some ways just as important.

koje je na prvi pogled isto toliko zagonetno, ali neki način jednako važno.

It stands to reason that we love chocolate cake because it is sweet.

Logično je da čokoladni kolač volimo zato što je sladak.

Guys go for girls like this because they are sexy.

Momci naganjaju djevojke poput ovih jer su im seksi.

We adore babies because they’re so cute.

Obožavamo bebe jer su tako ljupke.

And, of course, we are amused by jokes because they are funny.

I, naravno, vicevi nas zabavljaju jer su smješni.

This is all backwards. It is. And Darwin shows us why.

To je sve naopako. Jest. I Darwin nam objašnjava zašto.

Let’s start with sweet. Our sweet tooth is basically an evolved sugar detector,

Krenimo sa slatkim. Naš poriv za slatkim je u stvari evoluirani detektor šećera,

because sugar is high energy, and it’s just been wired up to the preferer,

obzirom da je šećer visoko kaloričan, i samo je uštekan prije svih ostalih,

to put it very crudely, and that’s why we like sugar.

da kažem to krajnje pojednostavljeno, i zato volimo šećer.

Honey is sweet because we like it, not "we like it because honey is sweet."

Med je sladak zato što ga volimo, a ne.... "mi volimo med jer je sladak".

There’s nothing intrinsically sweet about honey.

Med nije sladak sam po sebi.

If you looked at glucose molecules till you were blind,

I da do besvjesti izučavate molekule glukoze,

you wouldn’t see why they tasted sweet.

vi nećete doznati zašto im je okus sladak.

You have to look in our brains to understand why they’re sweet.

Da biste razumjeli zašto su slatke, vi morate proučiti naše mozgove.

So if you think first there was sweetness,

Stoga, ako mislite da je nešto prvo bilo slatko,

and then we evolved to like sweetness,

pa da smo onda evoluirali da volimo slatkoću,

you’ve got it backwards; that’s just wrong. It’s the other way round.

naopako ste to shvatili; to je jednostavno pogrešno. Obrnuto je.

Sweetness was born with the wiring which evolved.

Slatkoća je nastala evolucijom veze detektora i mozga.

And there’s nothing intrinsically sexy about these young ladies.

A ove mlade dame nisu same po sebi seksi.

And it’s a good thing that there isn’t, because if there were,

I dobro je da nisu, jer da jesu,

then Mother Nature would have a problem:

onda bi Majka Priroda imala problem:

How on earth do you get chimps to mate?

Kako, zaboga, natjerati čimpanze na parenje?

Now you might think, ah, there’s a solution: hallucinations.

Vi biste možda rekli, ali postoji rješenje: halucinacije.

That would be one way of doing it, but there’s a quicker way.

Moglo bi se to i tako izvesti, ali postoji brži put.

Just wire the chimps up to love that look,

Povezati čimpanzama osjetila i mozak tako da vole takav izgled,

and apparently they do.

a čini se da i vole.

That’s all there is to it.

I to je sve što ima u tome.

Over six million years, we and the chimps evolved our different ways.

Tijekom 6 miliona godina, mi i čimpanze evoluirali smo u različitim smjerovima.

We became bald-bodied, oddly enough;

Mi smo postali bezdlaki, začudo,

for one reason or another, they didn’t.

zbog ovog ili onog razloga; oni nisu.

If we hadn’t, then probably this would be the height of sexiness.

Da nismo, najvjerovatnije bi nam ovo bilo izuzetno seksi.

Our sweet tooth is an evolved and instinctual preference for high-energy food.

Naš poriv za slatkim je evoluirana i instinktivna sklonost namirnicama s puno energije.

It wasn’t designed for chocolate cake.

Nije bio dizajniran za čokoladni kolač.

Chocolate cake is a supernormal stimulus.

Čokoladni kolač je supernormalni stimulus.

The term is owed to Niko Tinbergen,

Ovaj izraz dugujemo Niku Tinbergenu,

who did his famous experiments with gulls,

koji je radio slavne pokuse s galebovima,

where he found that that orange spot on the gull’s beak --

prilikom čega je otkrio da ova narančasta točka na galebovom kljunu --

if he made a bigger, oranger spot

ako tu točku povećate i pojačate boju,

the gull chicks would peck at it even harder.

onda će je ptići galebova još intenzivnije kljucati.

It was a hyperstimulus for them, and they loved it.

To je za njih bio hiperstimulus, i obožavali su ga.

What we see with, say, chocolate cake

Ono što mi doživljavamo, recimo, s čokoladnim kolačem

is it’s a supernormal stimulus to tweak our design wiring.

također je supernormalni stimulus koji utječe na naše moždane veze.

And there are lots of supernormal stimuli; chocolate cake is one.

Postoji puno supernormalnih stimula; čokoladni kolač je samo primjer.

There's lots of supernormal stimuli for sexiness.

Postoji mnogo supernormalnih stimula i za seksualnu privlačnost.

And there's even supernormal stimuli for cuteness. Here’s a pretty good example.

A postoje i supernormalni stimuli za ljupkost. Evo jednog dosta dobrog primjera.

It’s important that we love babies, and that we not be put off by, say, messy diapers.

Važno je da mi volimo bebe, i da nam se ne gade, na primjer, prljave pelene.

So babies have to attract our affection and our nurturing, and they do.

Znači bebe moraju privlačiti našu naklonost i našu njegu, i one je privlače.

And, by the way, a recent study shows that mothers

I, uzgred rečeno, nedavno istraživanje pokazalo je da majke

prefer the smell of the dirty diapers of their own baby.

više vole miris prljavih pelena vlastitoga djeteta.

So nature works on many levels here.

Vidimo da Priroda djeluje na mnogim razinama.

But now, if babies didn’t look the way they do -- if babies looked like this,

Ali čak i kada bebe ne bi izgledale tako kako izgledaju, kada bi izgledale ovako,

that’s what we would find adorable, that’s what we would find --

to bi bilo ono što bi mi smatrali vrijednim obožavanja, to bi nam bilo --

we would think, oh my goodness, do I ever want to hug that.

mislili bismo... o, božanstveno, kako želim to zagrliti.

This is the strange inversion.

To je čudno izvrtanje.

Well now, finally what about funny. My answer is, it’s the same story, the same story.

I za kraj, a što je sa smiješnim? Moj odgovor je da je to ista priča, potpuno ista priča.

This is the hard one, the one that isn’t obvious. That’s why I leave it to the end.

Ovo je teško, ovo nije toliko očigledno. Zato sam to i ostavio za kraj.

And I won’t be able to say too much about it.

I neću vam moći baš puno reći o tome.

But you have to think evolutionarily, you have to think, what hard job that has to be done --

Ali morate razmišljati evolucijski, morate razmisliti o tome koliko je teškog posla moralo biti odrađeno --

it’s dirty work, somebody’s got to do it --

jer prljav je to posao, ali neko ga mora napraviti --

is so important to give us such a powerful, inbuilt reward for it when we succeed.

zbog toga je jako važno da dobijemo snažnu, automatsku nagradu kada uspijemo.

Now, I think we've found the answer -- I and a few of my colleagues.

Mislim da smo ja i nekoliko mojih kolega poznanika pronašli odgovor.

It’s a neural system that’s wired up to reward the brain

Humor je neuralni sustav koji je povezan tako da nagrađuje mozak

for doing a grubby clerical job.

za obavljanje dosadnih administrativinih poslova.

Our bumper sticker for this view is

Naša auto-naljepnica za ovaj pogled je

that this is the joy of debugging.

da je to "radost otklanjanja pogrešaka".

Now I’m not going to have time to spell it all out,

Neću sada imati vremena da sve jasno izložim,

but I’ll just say that only some kinds of debugging get the reward.

ali reći ću da samo neke vrste otklanjanja pogrešaka dobivaju nagrade.

And what we’re doing is we’re using humor as a sort of neuroscientific probe

A ono što mi činimo jest da humor korisimo kao neku vrstu neuroznanstvene sonde,

by switching humor on and off, by turning the knob on a joke --

uključujući i isključujući humor, okrečući potenciometar za šalu --

now it’s not funny ... oh, now it’s funnier ...

sad nije smješno... o, sad je smješnije...

now we’ll turn a little bit more ... now it’s not funny --

sad ćemo malo pojačati... sad nije smješno --

in this way, we can actually learn something

na ovaj način mi u stvari možemo naučiti nešto

about the architecture of the brain,

o konstrukciji mozga,

the functional architecture of the brain.

funkcionalnoj arhitekturi mozga.

Matthew Hurley is the first author of this. We call it the Hurley Model.

Matthew Hurley je prvi autor ovoga. Zovemo ga Hurleyev model.

He’s a computer scientist, Reginald Adams a psychologist, and there I am,

On je računalni znanstvenik, Reginald Adams je psiholog, a tu sam i ja,

and we’re putting this together into a book.

i mi od toga radimo knjigu.

Thank you very much.

Puno vam hvala.