我孩子的毛毯教会了我关于技术和古希腊人的知识

by Lukasz Lysakowski

卢卡斯·吕萨科夫斯基(Lukasz Lysakowski)

我孩子的毛毯教会了我关于技术和古希腊人的知识 (What my child’s blanket taught me about technology and the ancient Greeks)

I have a daughter who has a special blanket. The blanket is so special that its name is “Special” or “My Beloved.” Special has been part of the family for eight years. As you can imagine, it’s an important part of household happiness. As parents, we knew that Special would be difficult to replace, so we always kept an eye on it.

我有一个女儿，她有一条特别的毯子。 毯子是如此特别，以至于它的名字叫“ Special”或“ My Beloved”。 Special已加入家族八年了。 可以想象，这是家庭幸福的重要组成部分。 作为父母，我们知道Special很难替换，因此我们始终关注它。

Special was an early artisanal purchase on Etsy, sans mass-manufacturing. The blanket was created from two different fabrics stitched together. In a few years, we discovered that the top fabric design (a vintage Japanese print) was discontinued and the entire blanket was no longer available.

Special是在Etsy上进行的早期手工购买，没有大规模制造。 毯子是由两种缝合在一起的不同织物制成的。 几年后，我们发现顶级织物设计(日本的老式印花)已经停产，整个毛毯也不再可用。

Over time, Special became worse for wear. The top fabric peeled off. The body started fraying. The blanket fell apart into several pieces. As time progressed, the pieces were dropped and lost. Each missing piece resulted in a crisis.

随着时间的流逝，Special的磨损变得更糟。 顶层织物剥落了。 身体开始磨损。 毯子分成几块。 随着时间的流逝，这些碎片掉落并丢失了。 每个丢失的片段都导致了危机。

After eight years, we only had a single sliver of Special left. Our fear was that the last scrap would be lost and the blanket gone forever. The family’s task was to remember when and where we last saw Special.

八年后，我们只剩下一小部分Special。 我们担心最后一块废料会丢失，而毯子将永远消失。 家庭的任务是记住我们上次见到Special的时间和地点。

We decided we needed help to preserve our fragile memories. That’s where the Tile came into the mix. The Tile is a little flat piece of plastic, connected to an app, that you can clip onto anything. The components allow you to find any lost object within a 100-foot radius. Its design is straightforward — launch the app, tap the Tiled object, and if the object is in radius, it’s Tile will play a song. In case the Tile is out of radius, the app will show you the last location of the lost object.

我们决定需要帮助以保留我们的脆弱记忆。 那就是Tile融入其中的地方。 Tile是一块扁平的塑料小块，可以连接到应用程序，您可以将其夹在任何东西上。 这些组件使您可以找到100英尺半径内的所有丢失物体。 它的设计非常简单-启动应用程序，点击Tiled对象，如果对象在半径范围内，则Tile将播放一首歌曲。 如果图块超出半径，应用程序将向您显示丢失对象的最后位置。

After a while with the Tile, I noticed a change in our daughter’s behavior. She was no longer intensely concentrating on where she last saw her blanket. Instead of trying to remember where she last had it, she was fine with using the Tile to find it.

玩了一段时间后，我注意到女儿的行为发生了变化。 她不再专注于最后一次看到毯子的地方。 与其试图记住她最后一次拥有它，不如使用Tile来找到它。

柏拉图的《菲德斯》 (Plato’s The Phaedrus)

This changed behavior reminded me of Plato’s The Phaedrus. In it, Socrates shares the story of the ancient Egyptian god Theuth, inventor of letters, and king Ammon’s response. Socrates quotes a discussion between Theuth and Ammon: “This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.”

这种改变的行为使我想起了柏拉图的《费城》。 苏格拉底在其中分享了古代埃及神瑟斯(Theuth)的故事， 他是信件的发明者以及阿蒙国王的回应 。 苏格拉底引用了南斯与阿蒙之间的讨论：“对你的发现将使学习者的心灵产生健忘，因为他们不会利用自己的记忆； 他们会信任外部文字，而不记得自己。”

According to Plato, Socrates’ fear was that we are substituting our memory with the written word. We are weakening an inherent ability with an artificial device. We are choosing to forget something as it can be recalled from outside ourselves. That seemed similar to the behavior that I observed. But the Tile is not responsible for this behavior. Instead, it’s within ourselves. It’s a mechanism that forms our mind, called the Zeigarnik effect.

根据柏拉图的说法，苏格拉底担心的是我们正在用文字代替记忆。 我们正在削弱人造器械的内在能力。 我们选择忘记一些事情，因为它可以从我们自己的外部召回。 这似乎类似于我观察到的行为。 但是Tile不对此行为负责。 相反，它在我们内部。 这是形成我们思想的一种机制，称为Zeigarnik效应。

Zeigarnik效应 (The Zeigarnik effect)

In psychology, the Zeigarnik effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. It also affects us in reverse. If our mind realizes we no longer need to hold information, it allows the information to be held by an external device. Our mind does not preserve information that’s already retained. Instead, it saves its energy to capture new information and process it into newer knowledge. It’s up to us as individuals to put the excess energy to use.

在心理学上， Zeigarnik效应表明，人们记忆未完成或被打断的任务比完成任务要好。 它也会反过来影响我们。 如果我们的想法意识到我们不再需要保存信息，那么它允许信息由外部设备保存。 我们的思想不会保留已经保留的信息。 相反，它节省了精力来捕获新信息并将其处理为新知识。 作为个人，取决于我们如何使用多余的能量。

A study by Betsy Sparrow found that people are less likely to remember information if they know they can access it later. Why remember the information when you can use Google to recall it later? More information about the Zeigarnik effect can be found in Scientific American.

Betsy Sparrow的一项研究发现，如果人们知道以后可以访问信息，他们就不太可能记住信息。 当您以后可以使用Google调用信息时，为什么还要记住这些信息？ 有关Zeigarnik效应的更多信息，请参见《 科学美国人》 。

普罗米修斯与火 (Prometheus and Fire)

The story of Prometheus and fire is also a story of how technology affects us. The story goes that Prometheus felt sorry for humans as we had no natural abilities to protect ourselves. We were not born with augmentation such as claws or scales, but were instead naked and defenseless. So Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to humans. According to Socrates, “A gift of gods to men [i.e. the art of invention], as I believe, was tossed down from some divine source through the agency of a Prometheus together with a gleaming fire.” (Plato, Philebus 16b, trans. Fowler)

普罗米修斯与火的故事也是关于技术如何影响我们的故事。 传说普罗米修斯为人类感到遗憾，因为我们没有天生的能力来保护自己。 我们不是天生就有爪子或鳞片之类的增强物，而是赤裸而无力的。 于是普罗米修斯从众神那里偷了火，交给了人类。 根据苏格拉底所说，“我相信，神赐予人类的礼物(即发明的艺术)是通过普罗米修斯的代理与闪烁的火焰从某些神圣的来源扔掉的。” ( 柏拉图，Phillebus 16b，福勒译)

Fire gave us warmth. With fire, we sustained ourselves with cooking. Fire also gave us the ability to augment and protect ourselves with tool making. Tools merged with science to forge technology.

火给了我们温暖。 用火，我们靠做饭来维持自己。 火还使我们能够通过工具制造来增强和保护自己。 工具与科学融合以打造技术。

The root of the word technology also traces to Greek. The Greek term Techne, which means “art, craft,” combined with Logia, study or knowledge of things, to become Technologia, the study of art or craft.

技术一词的根源也可以追溯到希腊语。 希腊语Techne(意为“艺术，手Craft.io”)与Logia (对事物的研究或知识)相结合，成为Technologia (对艺术或手Craft.io的研究)。

Fire is a source of creativity and transformation that clears the old and brings in the new. Tools and technology represent an augmentation of fire that propels our ability to create change. Tools create one-to-one change while technology creates societal change at the same time.

火是创造力和变革的源泉，它可以清除旧事物并带来新事物。 工具和技术代表着火势的增强，推动了我们创造变革的能力。 工具创造一对一的变化，而技术同时创造社会的变化。

作为设计师 (As a designer)

As a digital product designer, I work with technology to create tools. I enjoy creating tools to help people. As such, its not just technology that creates change — it’s us. Human nature drives why we create and design. Jared Spool defined design as “the rendering of intent.” He stated that “the designer imagines an outcome and puts forth activities to make that outcome real” in this article.

作为数字产品设计师，我与技术合作来创建工具。 我喜欢创造帮助人们的工具。 因此，创造变化的不仅仅是技术，而是我们。 人性驱动着我们创造和设计的原因。 Jared Spool将设计定义为“意图的呈现”。 他在这篇文章中说：“设计师想象一个结果，并提出使该结果成为现实的活动”。

As designers, we are part of a long tradition of thinking and making. We have to consider what is the purpose of our work. As the Greeks said, we need to examine our work beyond our intent. We create change with our technology, and our technology changes us.

作为设计师，我们是思考和制作的悠久传统的一部分。 我们必须考虑我们工作的目的是什么。 正如希腊人所说，我们需要超越我们的意图来审查我们的工作。 我们用我们的技术创造变化，我们的技术改变我们。

作为父母 (As a parent)

I still find the Tile to be helpful. We still attach it to the blanket when we travel or break the usual routine. Also in my old age, I am ordering another couple of Tiles to keep track of my own things. I need a small Tile to fit on my AirPods container because I often misplace it. I wonder what Socrates would’ve said about that.

我仍然发现图块会有所帮助。 当我们旅行或破坏常规活动时，我们仍然将其附着在毯子上。 也是在我晚年的时候，我要订购另外两块Tiles来跟踪自己的事情。 我需要一个小的Tile放在我的AirPods容器上，因为我经常放错地方。 我想知道苏格拉底会怎么说。

If you enjoyed this article, please give me some claps so more people see it. Thanks!

如果您喜欢这篇文章，请给我一些鼓掌，以便更多的人看到。 谢谢！

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/what-my-childs-blanket-taught-me-about-technology-and-the-ancient-greeks-92b229a5b401/