JP Rangaswami: Information is food

Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast

翻译人员: Yi Shao 校对人员: Jenny Yang

I love my food.

我热爱食品

And I love information.

我也热爱信息。

My children usually tell me

我的孩子们常常对我说

that one of those passions is a little more apparent than the other.

我看起来显然更像个吃货。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

But what I want to do in the next eight minutes or so

不过在接下来的八分钟里

is to take you through how those passions developed,

我会向大家介绍这两个爱好是如何发展的，

the point in my life when the two passions merged,

它们合二为一的时刻，

the journey of learning that took place from that point.

以及此后我的学习旅程。

And one idea I want to leave you with today

今天我想把下面这个问题留给你们：

is what would would happen differently in your life

如果像看待食物那样看待信息

if you saw information the way you saw food?

你的生活会有什么样的改变？

I was born in Calcutta --

我出生在加尔各答（印度城市）

a family where my father and his father before him

我的父亲和祖父

were journalists,

都是记者，

and they wrote magazines in the English language.

他们用英语为杂志写文章。

That was the family business.

这就是我家的家族产业。

And as a result of that,

因此，

I grew up with books everywhere around the house.

我小时候家里全是书。

And I mean books everywhere around the house.

真的是堆满了，就像这样。

And that's actually a shop in Calcutta,

这其实是加尔各答的一家商店，

but it's a place where we like our books.

不过光顾那里的都是爱书人。

In fact, I've got 38,000 of them now

事实上，我现在一共有三万八千本书

and no Kindle in sight.

而且没有Kindle（亚马逊出品的电子书）。

But growing up as a child with the books around everywhere,

我成长的时候身边全是书

with people to talk to about those books,

和喜欢讨论书的人，

this wasn't a sort of slightly learned thing.

这对我的影响很大。

By the time I was 18, I had a deep passion for books.

我十八岁的时候就对书籍有着深深的依恋。

It wasn't the only passion I had.

读书不是我唯一的爱好。

I was a South Indian

我来自印度南部

brought up in Bengal.

在孟加拉长大。

And two of the things about Bengal:

孟加拉人有两大爱好：

they like their savory dishes

他们喜欢美食

and they like their sweets.

和甜点。

So by the time I grew up,

所以我长大之后，

again, I had a well-established passion for food.

对美食的爱好根深蒂固。

Now I was growing up in the late '60s and early '70s,

我成长在六十年代末七十年代初，

and there were a number of other passions I was also interested in,

也有不少其它兴趣，

but these two were the ones that differentiated me.

但这两个爱好让我与众不同。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

And then life was fine, dandy.

随后我的生活一帆风顺。

Everything was okay,

一切都挺好的，

until I got to about the age of 26,

直到我二十六岁那一年。

and I went to a movie called "Short Circuit."

我看了一部名叫《雷霆五号》（Short Circuit）的电影。

Oh, some of you have seen it.

哦，你们好多人都看过。

And apparently it's being remade right now

现在这部电影正在被重拍

and it's going to be coming out next year.

明年上映。

It's the story of this experimental robot

故事的主人公是这个实验机器人

which got electrocuted and found a life.

它触电之后通了人性。

And as it ran, this thing was saying, "Give me input. Give me input."

在影片中，它一直说：“我要信息输入。我要信息输入。”

And I suddenly realized that for a robot

我突然意识到，对于机器人来说

both information as well as food

信息和食物

were the same thing.

是一个东西。

Energy came to it in some form or shape,

能量以某种形式或形态进入它的身体，

data came to it in some form or shape.

数据以某种形式或形态进入它的身体。

And I began to think,

我开始思考

I wonder what it would be like

我在想

to start imagining myself

既然食物和信息从某种程度上来说十分相似

as if energy and information were the two things I had as input --

那么我们能否将能量和信息

as if food and information were similar in some form or shape.

统一视为输入呢？

I started doing some research then, and this was the 25-year journey,

我从那时起开始从事相关的研究，到现在已经二十五年了

and started finding out

我最早的发现就是

that actually human beings as primates

若以体重为标准

have far smaller stomachs

身为灵长类动物的人类

than should be the size for our body weight

胃很小

and far larger brains.

大脑却很大

And as I went to research that even further,

深入研究之后

I got to a point where I discovered something

我发现了

called the expensive tissue hypothesis.

一种名为昂贵组织的假说

That actually for a given body mass of a primate

这种假说认为：对于一定体重的灵长类动物来说

the metabolic rate was static.

新陈代谢率是一定的。

What changed was the balance of the tissues available.

不同的是体内各种组织的平衡。

And two of the most expensive tissues in our human body

而人体内两种最为昂贵的组织

are nervous tissue and digestive tissue.

是神经组织和消化组织

And what transpired was that people had put forward a hypothesis

因此人们提出了一个假设

that was apparently coming up with some fabulous results by about 1995.

1995年的时候这个假设衍生出了不少精彩的成果。

It's a lady named Leslie Aiello.

这些成果背后的功臣是一位名叫Leslie Aiello的女士。

And the paper then suggested that you traded one for the other.

相关的论文显示，胃和大脑，不可兼得。

If you wanted your brain for a particular body mass to be large,

在体重一定的情况下，如果你希望拥有更大的大脑的话，

you had to live with a smaller gut.

就只能拥有一个比较小的胃。

That then set me off completely

这种观点让我确信

to say, Okay, these two are connected.

食物和信息一定有关联。

So I looked at the cultivation of information as if it were food

因此我把信息当成食物，研究了它的生产过程

and said, So we were hunter-gathers of information.

我的结论是，我们都是信息的捕猎者和采集者。

We moved from that to becoming farmers and cultivators of information.

后来我们逐渐成为培育信息的农民和生产者。

Does that really explain what we're seeing

这是否能解释

with the intellectual property battles nowadays?

今天的知识产权斗争呢？

Because those people who were hunter-gatherers in origin

因为信息捕猎者和采集者

wanted to be free and roam and pick up information as they wanted,

希望能自由自在的获取他们想要的信息，

and those that were in the business of farming information

而那些从事信息生产的人

wanted to build fences around it,

希望用栅栏保护他们的产品

create ownership and wealth and structure and settlement.

建立所有制，积累财富，形成体系，达成协议

So there was always going to be a tension within that.

因此两者的关系总是有点紧张。

And everything I saw in the cultivation

在食物生产中

said there were huge fights amongst the foodies

生产者和捕猎者以及采集者之间

between the cultivators and the hunter-gatherers.

一直都有诸多冲突。

And this is happening here.

信息范畴也是如此。

When I moved to preparation, this same thing was true,

我发现信息和食物在处理环节上也有相似之处，

expect that there were two schools.

而且都有两种风格。

One group of people said you can distill your information,

一些人认为可以提炼食物的精华

you can extract value, separate it and serve it up,

将食物的价值从原料中提取和分离出来，然而呈现在餐桌上，

while another group turned around

但是另外一部分人

and said no, no you can ferment it.

不同意这种做法。

You bring it all together and mash it up

他们认为要把原料混合在一起

and the value emerges that way.

才能体现食物的价值。

The same is again true with information.

信息也是如此。

But consumption was where it started getting really enjoyable.

但摄入环节更加有趣

Because what I began to see then

因为我发现

was there were so many different ways people would consume this.

人们摄取食物和信息的方法实在很多。

They'd buy it from the shop as raw ingredients.

我们可以在商店里购买原材料。

Do you cook it? Do you have it served to you?

自己做饭；吃现成的；

Do you go to a restaurant?

或者下馆子。

The same is true every time as I started thinking about information.

信息也是这样

The analogies were getting crazy --

这个类比真是贴切无比——

that information had sell-by dates,

信息也有保质期，

that people had misused information that wasn't dated properly

误用过时新闻

and could really make an effect on the stock market,

可能对股票市场和企业市值等

on corporate values, etc.

造成影响。

And by this time I was hooked.

至此我已经彻底沉迷其中不可自拔了。

And this is about 23 years into this process.

这差不多是在我进行了二十三年的研究之后发生的事情。

And I began to start thinking of myself

这时我开始想

as we start having mash-ups of fact and fiction,

我们逐渐开始将现实和虚构混合在一起，

docu-dramas, mockumentaries, whatever you call it.

发展出了纪录剧情片，伪纪录片，名字并不重要。

Are we going to reach the stage

在未来的某个阶段

where information has a percentage for fact associated with it?

我们会不会给信息标上一个事实比例呢？

We start labeling information for the fact percentage?

用事实比例来标记不同的信息？

Are we going to start looking at what happens

如果信息的源头被阻断

when your information source is turned off, as a famine?

在信息饥荒中，又会发生什么呢？

Which brings me to the final element of this.

这也是我最后想探讨的一个问题。

Clay Shirky once stated that there is no such animal as information overload,

Clay Shirky曾经说过世界上不存在信息过载，

there is only filter failure.

只有过滤失败。

I put it to you that information,

我认为，

if viewed from the point of food,

如果从食物的角度思考，

is never a production issue; you never speak of food overload.

信息的问题不在于生产；没有人会说食物过剩。

Fundamentally it's a consumption issue.

从根本上说，这是一个摄入的问题。

And we have to start thinking

我们必须开始思考

about how we create diets within ourselves, exercise within ourselves,

我们如何用合理的饮食习惯和身体锻炼

to have the faculties to be able to deal with information,

帮助身体处理消化各类信息，

to have the labeling to be able to do it responsibly.

确保信息得到准确有效的标记。

In fact, when I saw "Supersize Me," I starting thinking of saying,

事实上，我看《大号的我》(Supersize Me)的时候就在想，

What would happen

如果一个人

if an individual had 31 days nonstop Fox News?

连续看三十一天不眠不休的看福克斯新闻会怎么样？

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Would there be time to be able to work with it?

他会有时间消化这些信息吗？

So you start really understanding

这样你就会明白

that you can have diseases, toxins, a need to balance your diet,

你可能会得病、中毒，你需要平衡你的饮食，

and once you start looking, and from that point on,

一旦开始这样想，从那个时刻开始，

everything I have done in terms of the consumption of information,

与信息有关的事情：信息的摄入、

the production of information, the preparation of information,

信息的生产、信息的处理，

I've looked at from the viewpoint of food.

我都从食物的角度去思考。

It has probably not helped my waistline any

这可能让我的腰围愈发可观

because I like practicing on both sides.

因为无论是信息还是食物我都喜欢亲身实验。

But I'd like to leave you with just that question:

最后，我还是希望将这样一个问题留给你们：

If you began to think of all the information that you consume

如果从食物的角度

the way you think of food,

看待你接受的所有信息

what would you do differently?

你会做出怎样的改变？

Thank you very much for your time.

谢谢大家。

(Applause)

（掌声）