语言的艺术

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What Neuralink’s brain-to-machine communication can’t express

Neuralink的脑对机通信无法表达的内容

“当语言死亡时，由于粗心，滥用和缺乏尊敬，冷漠或被法令杀死……所有使用者和制作者都应对语言的灭亡负责。” (“When language dies, out of carelessness, disuse, and absence of esteem, indifference or killed by fiat…all users and makers are accountable for its demise.”)

—托尼·莫里森(Toni Morrison)， 诺贝尔文学奖(1993年) (— Toni Morrison, the Nobel Lecture in Literature (1993))

“Words are a very lossy compression of thought,” Elon Musk tweeted in July. A few years earlier, Musk gave an interview with “Wait But Why” that gives some context to his Tweet: “Words — either speaking or tapping things with fingers…That’s crazy slow communication. We should be able to improve that by many orders of magnitude with a direct neural interface.” Last week, Musk took the first step toward delivering on that promise when his company Neuralink introduced a prototype of its brain-to-machine interface, which Musk claims will eventually enable telepathy and render human language obsolete.

“世界是思想的一种非常无聊的压缩，”埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)在7月发推文说。 几年前，马斯克(Musk) 接受了《等待但为什么》(Wait But Why)采访，这为他的推文提供了一些背景信息：“单词-说话或用手指敲击东西……那是疯狂的缓慢的沟通。 通过直接的神经接口，我们应该能够将其提高很多数量级。” 上周，马斯克(Musk)的公司Neuralink推出了它的人机界面原型，迈出了实现这一承诺的第一步。马斯克声称，该机器最终将使心灵感应并使人类语言过时。

Neuralink’s mission is to develop and produce “ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces,” or neural implants that will “connect humans and computers.” The company is still developing the technology behind those interfaces. It demonstrated an early prototype implanted in pigs last Friday with mixed results. Effectiveness of the technology aside, Musk seems undeterred by his critics. He claims Neuralink “could solve paralysis, blindness, [and] hearing” loss, among other neurological conditions. Few could argue with those goals.

Neuralink的任务是开发和生产“超高带宽脑机接口”或将“连接人和计算机”的神经植入物。 该公司仍在开发这些接口背后的技术。 它显示了上周五植入猪体内的早期原型， 结果好坏参半 。 除了技术的有效性，马斯克似乎并没有受到批评家的欢迎。 他声称，Neuralink和其他神经系统疾病“可以解决瘫痪，失明和[和]听力”的丧失。 很少有人会反对这些目标。

But, as with most technological innovations that promise salvation, there are potential downsides, too. In the case of Neuralink and other new brain-to-machine or brain-to-brain interfaces, those impacts may be life altering. Perhaps even species altering.

但是，就像大多数承诺拯救的技术创新一样，它也有潜在的弊端。 对于Neuralink和其他新的脑对机器或脑对脑接口，这些影响可能会改变生活。 也许甚至物种也在改变。

Curing paralysis is Neuralink’s stated short-term goal. However, Musk’s long-term plans are much more ambitious. He has claimed Neuralink will one day be a “digital superintelligence layer” that will allow humans to “coexist” with artificial intelligence. “On a species level, it’s important to figure out how we coexist with advanced AI, achieving some AI symbiosis,” he clarified at last week’s demo. Musk believes that for humans to co-exist with AI we must be capable of “communicating” at the same speed as computers. Neuralink will solve this “problem” by bypassing human language entirely and enabling direct brain-to-machine communication.

治愈麻痹症是Neuralink宣称的短期目标。 但是，马斯克的长期计划远比雄心勃勃。 他声称Neuralink有一天将成为“数字超级智能层” ，使人类能够与人工智能“共存”。 他在上周的演示中澄清说：“在物种层面上，弄清楚我们如何与先进的AI共存，实现一些AI共生是很重要的。” 马斯克认为，要使人类与人工智能共存，我们必须能够以与计算机相同的速度进行“交流”。 Neuralink将通过完全绕过人类语言并实现直接的人机交互来解决此“问题”。

Writing in Aeon, linguist Mark Dingemanse warns against interfaces like Neuralink that promise hyper-speed communication: “We can admire the sheer efficiency of this form of interaction, but we also have to admit that something is lost. A sense of agency and autonomy; and along with that, perhaps even a sense of self.” “Wait But Why” blogger Tim Urban puts it more bluntly: “Neuralink wants to redefine what future humans will be.”

语言学家马克·丁格曼斯(Mark Dingemanse)在Aeon中写道，警告不要使用Neuralink这样的承诺超高速通信的接口：“我们可以钦佩这种互动形式的巨大效率，但我们也必须承认有些东西丢失了。 有代理和自治的意识； 甚至还有自我意识。” “等等，但为什么”博客蒂姆城市所言更是直言：“Neuralink要重新定义未来的人类将是什么。”

Indeed, as Dingemanse notes in his critique of brain-to-brain and brain-to-machine interfaces like Neuralink: “The very possibility of social (as opposed to merely symbiotic) life depends on there being some separation of private worlds, along with powers to interact on our own terms. In other words, we need something like language in order to be human.”

确实，正如丁格曼斯(Dingemanse)在对诸如Neuralink之类的脑对脑和脑对机器界面的评论中指出的那样：“社会(而不是仅是共生的)生活的可能性非常大，这取决于私人世界的分离，以及有权按照我们自己的条件进行互动。 换句话说，我们需要像语言这样的东西才能成为人类。”

What will it mean if these technologies cause us to lose language? Can we still be ourselves without it? Before we rush wordlessly into our cyborg future, perhaps we should spend some time thinking about what we may lose if we lose language.

如果这些技术使我们失去语言，那意味着什么？ 没有它，我们还能做我们自己吗？ 在我们无声无息地进入机器人的未来之前，也许我们应该花一些时间思考如果我们失去语言可能会失去什么。

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry.” 诗歌合理使用最佳实践守则 ”引用。

隐喻地谈论艺术 (Metaphorically speaking about art)

Musk views language through the lens of science. He talks about language as a communications system that involves sending and receiving information through signals, like a computer network. And he’s right. It does. But it does other things, too.

M usk从科学的角度看待语言。 他谈到语言是一种通信系统，它涉及通过信号(例如计算机网络)发送和接收信息。 而且他是对的。 是的 但是它也做其他事情。

Not all language is purely transactional, at least not in the literal sense. There’s also an art to language — the way we work it, shape it and bend it to our will. And there’s art that comes from language: music, film, drama, fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry. What function do these narrative arts serve? They give us beauty. They inspire us to make emotional connections. And they enable us to make meaning.

并非所有语言都纯粹是交易性的，至少不是从字面意义上来说。 语言也是一门艺术-我们的工作方式，塑造方式和将其屈服于我们的意愿。 还有来自语言的艺术：音乐，电影，戏剧，小说，非小说类创作和诗歌。 这些叙事艺术起什么作用？ 他们给我们美丽。 他们激励我们建立情感联系。 它们使我们具有意义。

It’s hard to talk about these things through the lens of science because you can’t quantify the subjective experience of poetry or prose in data. However, that’s precisely where expressive language illuminates in ways data can’t. Perhaps art is best explained in terms of art.

很难通过科学的角度谈论这些事情，因为您无法量化数据中诗歌或散文的主观体验。 但是，这正是表达性语言以数据无法显示的方式。 也许最好用艺术来解释艺术。

Why, then, are discussions about the value of language so often framed around concepts of science and technology? Musk, for example, uses the metaphor of a data file to look at what language does and how it functions. (Maybe he uses this framework because it’s easier to convince humans to put computer chips in their brains if they think their brains are already computers.)

那么，为什么对语言价值的讨论如此频繁地围绕科学和技术概念展开呢？ 例如，马斯克(Musk)使用数据文件的隐喻来查看语言的作用和功能。 (也许他使用了这个框架，因为如果认为人们的大脑已经是计算机，说服人们将计算机芯片放到他们的大脑中会更容易。)

Even Dingemanse, who is a language and communications professor, adopts a scientific framework in his defense of language, which comes equipped with Star Trek and sci-fi references. With all due respect to Trekkies, there’s a whole universe of linguistic and literary associations beyond deep space and dystopia. So, what happens when we look at language using a different metaphor: the poem?

甚至是语言和传播学教授丁格曼斯(Dingemanse)也在语言辩护中采用了科学框架，该框架配备了《星际迷航》和科幻参考书。 出于对Trekkies的所有应有的尊重，除了深空和反乌托邦之外，还有语言和文学联系的整个领域。 那么，当我们用另一种比喻看诗时会发生什么呢？

Why a poem? Because, as poet Adrienne Rich observes in “Someone is Writing a Poem,” in a “culture of managed spectacles and passive spectators, poetry appears as a rift, a peculiar lapse, in the prevailing mode.” If our prevailing mode is thinking about human communication as a machine, then thinking about human communication as a product of human language (a poem, for example) breaks us out of that mold. It rouses us from our comfortable techno-stasis.

为什么要写诗？ 正如诗人爱德华·里奇(Adrienne Rich)在“ 有人在写诗”中所说的那样，“在有管理的眼镜和被动的观众的文化中，诗歌在流行的模式下显得像是裂痕，奇特的失误”。 如果我们的流行模式是将人类交流视为机器，那么将人类交流视为人类语言的产物(例如一首诗)就可以使我们摆脱这种局限。 它使我们摆脱了舒适的技术停滞状态。

A poem cannot be “passively received,” writes Rich. “It’s an exchange of electrical currents through language — that daily, mundane, abused, and ill-prized medium, that instrument of deception and revelation, that material thing, that knife, rag, boat, spoon/reed become pipe/tree trunk become drum/mud become clay flute/conch shell become summons to freedom/old trousers and petticoats become iconography in appliqué/rubber bands stretched around a box become lyre… In the wash of poetry the old, beaten, worn stones of language take on colors that disappear when you sieve them up out of the streambed and try to sort them out.”

里奇写道，不能“被动地接受”一首诗。 “这是通过语言进行的电流交换-日常的，平凡的，滥用的和不当使用的媒介，欺骗和启示的工具，刀，抹布，船，汤匙/芦苇的物质变成了管道/树干。鼓/泥变成粘土长笛/海螺壳成为自由的召唤/旧裤子和衬裙成为贴在盒子中的贴花带/橡胶带的象征，变得像竖琴一样……在诗歌的洗涤中，陈旧的，打磨的，磨损的语言石头呈现出的颜色当您将它们从流式过滤器中筛出来并尝试对其进行分类时，它们就会消失。”

If poetry is going to be our framework for understanding language, then perhaps we should try to understand what a poem is. This is no simple task. Poetry is a slippery medium. By nature, it eludes definition. Most of us would agree that a Shakespearean sonnet is a poem. Are two unrhymed lines of verse a poem? Is a rap song a poem? Is a collection of words aggregated by an algorithm a poem? See? Slippery.

如果诗歌将成为我们理解语言的框架，那么也许我们应该尝试理解一首诗是什么 。 这不是简单的任务。 诗歌是一种湿滑的媒介。 从本质上讲，它没有定义。 我们大多数人都同意莎士比亚十四行诗是一首诗。 这是两首没有韵律的诗吗？ 说唱歌是一首诗吗？ 算法收集的单词集合是一首诗吗？ 看到？ 滑。

Since the definition of poetry is subjective, I’ll look at it subjectively. Personally, I’ve always liked how poet Emily Dickinson describes poetry: “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?” (I have yet to feel this way about a “poem” generated by an algorithm.)

由于诗歌的定义是主观的，因此我将主观地对其进行研究。 就个人而言，我一直很喜欢诗人艾米莉·狄金森(Emily Dickinson)对诗歌的描述：“如果我读书，这会使我的整个身体变得如此寒冷，没有火能使我温暖，我知道这就是诗歌。 如果我感觉自己的头顶好像被摘下，那我就是诗。 这些是我唯一了解的方式。 还有其他办法吗？” (对于算法生成的“诗”，我还没有这样的感觉。)

Poetry may seem, to some of you, too outmoded or irrelevant or frivolous a form to be a useful metaphor for language. I ask you to consider the words of poet Audre Lorde, who says:

在你们中的某些人看来，诗歌似乎过时，无关紧要或琐碎，以至于无法成为语言的隐喻。 我请您考虑诗人奥德丽·洛德(Audre Lorde)的话 ，他说：

“Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives….And where that language does not yet exist, it is our poetry which helps to fashion it. Poetry is not only dream or vision, it is the skeleton architecture of our lives.”

诗歌不是奢侈品。 这是我们生存的至关重要的条件。 它形成了光的质量，在此光中，我们将生存和改变的希望和梦想作为基础，首先是语言，然后是思想，然后是更切实的行动。 诗歌是我们帮助无名者取名的一种方式，可以这样思考。 我们的希望和恐惧的最遥远的外部视野被我们的诗歌所充斥，这些诗是从我们日常生活中的摇滚经历中雕刻出来的。而在该语言尚不存在的地方，正是我们的诗歌有助于塑造它。 诗歌不仅是梦想或愿景，而且是我们生活的骨架。”

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry.” 诗歌合理使用最佳实践守则 ”引用。

语言诗 (The poetry of language)

If you look at the language of art through the lens of science, I suppose you could argue that it’s just as easy to telepath a poem as it is to write or read one. But that logic assumes poems arrive in the poet’s brain fully formed. (If only!) If you’ve ever attempted to write a poem, you know that’s not how it works.

如果您以科学的眼光看待艺术语言，我想您可能会争辩说，心灵感应一首诗和写作一首诗一样容易。 但是这种逻辑假设诗歌完全到达诗人的大脑。 (如果有的话！)如果您曾经尝试写一首诗，您就会知道那不是它的原理。

Poets don’t “think” poems; they “make” them. (Writing isn’t called a “craft” for nothing.) Before a poet can write anything, they must look and live first. The act of observation is a poet’s point of departure. “Looking’s a way of being: one becomes, / sometimes, a pair of eyes walking,” says poet Denise Levertov in “Looking, Walking, Being.” The act of caring soon follows. As poet Mary Oliver observes in her essay “Upstream”: “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

诗人不会“思考”诗歌； 他们“制造”它们。 (写作被称为“无用功”。)在诗人写任何东西之前，他们必须首先看待和生活。 观察行为是诗人的出发点。 诗人丹妮丝·列维托夫(Denise Levertov)在《 看，走，存在 》一书中说：“看是一种存在的方式：一个人有时会变成双眼。” 随之而来的关怀行动。 正如诗人玛丽·奥利弗(Mary Oliver)在她的论文“上游”中所说：“注意力是奉献的开始。”

Then comes the work of transforming those ordinary visions into something visionary. In Wendell Berry’s poem “How to be a Poet,” he explains what poets need to create their art: “You must depend upon / affection, reading, knowledge, / skill — more of each / than you have — inspiration, / work, growing older, patience, / for patience joins time / to eternity.” In other words, a poem is the product of self-conscious craft and care. It doesn’t materialize in a nanosecond.

然后是将那些普通的愿景变成有远见的事情的工作。 在温德尔·贝瑞(Wendell Berry)的诗《 如何成为一名诗人 》中，他解释了诗人创作艺术所需要的：“您必须依靠/喜爱，阅读，知识/技能-每个人比您拥有的更多-灵感，/工作，年纪大了，忍耐，忍耐会伴随着永恒。 换句话说，一首诗是自觉技巧和关怀的产物。 它不会在一纳秒内实现。

Composing a poem involves drawing on a deep web of experience, knowledge and memories — from the personal to the political and from lived experiences to imagined ones — to create new patterns, structures and layers of meaning using a writer’s most trusted tool: words.

创作一首诗涉及利用经验，知识和记忆的深层网络-从个人到政治，从生活经历到想象中的事物-使用作家最信任的工具(单词)创造新的模式，结构和意义层次。

Do words still matter? Writer Iris Murdoch thinks so. “Words constitute the ultimate texture and stuff of our moral being,” she writes. “We became spiritual animals when we became verbal animals. The fundamental distinctions can only be made in words. Words are spirit.” In poetry, a word is more than a symbol, more than an impulse transmitted through electrical current. It’s the raw material from which poets shape their art. Suffused with the spirit, love and vision of an artist, a word transforms from a material substance into a sacred site for meaning-making, a space where writer and reader meet across the ether.

文字仍然重要吗？ 作家艾里斯•默多克(Iris Murdoch)就是这样认为的 。 她写道：“言语构成了我们道德的最终质感和东西。” “当我们成为口头动物时，我们就变成了精神动物。 基本的区别只能用语言来表达。 言语是精神。” 在诗歌中，一个单词不仅仅是一个象征，不仅仅是一个通过电流传递的冲动。 它是诗人塑造其艺术的原材料。 充满了艺术家的精神，爱和愿景，一个单词从一种物质变成了一个神圣的表达意义的场所，一个作家和读者在以太之间相遇的空间。

Adrienne Rich calls the reader “the active participant without whom the poem is never finished.” It is the reader’s duty to bring their own experiences, knowledge and memories, their own skill, care and craft, to the poem to give it life. Emily Dickinson writes: “A word is dead when it is said / Some say — / I say it just begins to live / That day.” She might have been reflecting on the act of reading, or interpreting and making meaning from others’ words.

艾德里安·里奇(Adrienne Rich)称读者为“积极的参与者，没有他的诗就永远不会结束。” 读者有责任将自己的经历，知识和记忆，自己的技巧，关心和手Craft.io带入诗歌中，以赋予生命以生命。 艾米莉·狄金森(Emily Dickinson)写道：“一个字死了/有些人说了-/我说它才刚刚开始活着/那天。” 她可能一直在思考阅读行为，或者用别人的话来解释和解释意义。

Reading poetry is as opaque an endeavor as writing it. When I read a poem, I don’t approach it with a destination in mind. The experience isn’t about getting from point A to point B in the fastest time possible. A GPS isn’t necessary because the journey is more important than the destination. The poem is a space to imagine — to wonder and to wander. Curiosity follows a circular route to arrive at meaning. Which is to say, I don’t want to know exactly what Dickinson intended every word to mean. What would be the art in that? I, too, wish to dwell for a while in the land of “Possibility.”

读诗和写诗一样不透明。 当我读一首诗时，我并没有想到目的地。 体验并不是要在最快的时间内从A点到达B点。 GPS并不是必需的，因为旅程比目的地重要。 这首诗是一个可以想象的空间，可以去奇观和徘徊。 好奇心遵循一条通向意义的循环路线。 就是说，我不想确切地知道狄金森对每个单词的意图。 那是什么艺术？ 我也希望在“ 可能性 ”之地住一会。

Poetry as possibility has always sounded true to me. The ambiguity that poetry allows suggests something — How should I put this? — uniquely human. We are not shiny, speedy machines. We are slow, subjective animals. Our observations, experiences, expressions and interpretations shape how we see the world. They shape how we share it. Poetry reflects human language in all its gawkiness and grace. How different that seems from a technological understanding of language that imagines it as quick, clean, empty.

对于我来说，诗歌作为可能性一直听起来都是真实的。 诗歌所含的歧义暗示了一些东西-我该如何表达？ -独特的人类。 我们不是闪亮的，快速的机器。 我们是缓慢的，主观的动物。 我们的观察，经验，表达和解释塑造了我们如何看待世界。 他们决定了我们如何共享它。 诗歌体现出人类语言的所有古怪和优雅。 从对语言的技术理解上，想象它是快速，干净，空洞的，这看起来有多大不同。

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry.” 诗歌合理使用最佳实践守则 》引用。

完美的神话 (The myth of perfection)

Musk has a point when he claims language is messy and imprecise. Or, as he frames it in the language of data: “a lossy compression of thought.” He’s right. Language is inexact. It’s an imperfect means of communicating information. At least if you understand “communication” to mean the seamless flow of data from one source to another.

穆斯克( M usk)有一点要说，他的语言是凌乱和不精确的。 或者，当他用数据语言来构建框架时：“思想的有损压缩”。 他是对的。 语言不准确。 这是一种不完美的信息交流方式。 至少如果您理解“通信”是指数据从一个源到另一个源的无缝流动。

Writer Ursula K. Le Guin interprets it differently. “Human communication cannot be reduced to information,” she says. “The message not only involves, it is, a relationship between speaker and hearer. The medium in which the message is embedded is immensely complex, infinitely more than a code: it is a language, a function of a society, a culture, in which the language, the speaker, and the hearer are all embedded.” Because of this, the complexity of communication cannot be reduced to disparate bits and parts. Language must be viewed holistically.

作家Ursula K. Le Guin对此有不同的解释 。 她说：“人类交流不能化为信息。” “不仅该消息涉及，它是 ，扬声器和听众之间的关系 。 嵌入消息的媒介极其复杂，不仅限于代码：它是一种语言，一种社会的功能，一种文化，语言，说话者和听众都被嵌入其中。” 因此，无法将通信的复杂性降低到不同的位和部分。 必须从整体上看待语言。

Le Guin continues: “In human conversation, in live, actual communication between or among human beings, everything ‘transmitted’ — everything said — is shaped as it is spoken by actual or anticipated response. Live, face-to-face human communication is intersubjective. Intersubjectivity involves a great deal more than the machine-mediated type of stimulus-response currently called ‘interactive.’ It is not stimulus-response at all, not a mechanical alternation of precoded sending and receiving. Intersubjectivity is mutual. It is a continuous interchange between two consciousnesses. Instead of an alternation of roles between box A and box B, between active subject and passive object, it is a continuous intersubjectivity that goes both ways all the time.”

Le Guin继续说道：“在人类之间的对话中，在人类之间或人类之间的实时，实际交流中，一切'传播'的内容-所说的一切-都是根据实际或预期的回应而形成的。 实时的面对面人际交流是主体间的。 主体间的介入远比目前称为“互动”的机器介导的刺激React类型要重要得多。 它根本不是刺激响应，也不是预编码发送和接收的机械替代。 主体间性是相互的。 这是两种意识之间的不断交换 。 而不是在盒子A和盒子B之间，在主动主体和被动客体之间改变角色，而是连续不断的主体间性，一直在双向发生 。”

Linguist Mark Dingemanse makes the same observation in his Aeon essay. He uses the metaphor of a dance to illustrate how language flows and pulses: “Language in everyday use is less like a channel and more like a tango: a fluid interplay of moves in which people can act as one, yet also retain their individuality.” Dingemanse argues that the “sheer fluidity” of language is what “allows us to manage such everyday episodes of joining forces and parting ways. It is literally the most versatile brain-to-brain interface we have: a nimble, negotiable system that enables people with separate bodies to achieve joint agency without giving up behavioural flexibility and social accountability.”

语言学家马克·丁格曼斯(Mark Dingemanse)在他的Aeon论文中也做了同样的观察。 他用舞蹈的隐喻来说明语言的流动和脉动：“日常使用的语言不再像一种探戈，而更像是探戈：一种动作的流畅相互作用，人们可以在其中扮演自己的角色，同时保持自己的个性。 ” 丁格曼斯认为，语言的“纯粹的流动性”是“使我们能够管理这种日常的联合和分道扬episode的过程。” 从字面上看，它是我们拥有的最灵活的脑对脑接口：一个灵活的，可协商的系统，使拥有独立机构的人们能够实现联合代理，而不会放弃行为灵活性和社会责任感。”

The litheness of language enables a variety of expressions. A limited number of sounds become, by turns, ballet, waltz, bachata, bomba, Kpanlogo, corroboree. Each utterance is a movement inscribed with meaning. Each word is an artistic choice, a chance to show the audience control and skill. Each conversation is a dance where two or more move as one while still retaining their own agency, their own unique styles of expression.

语言的柔韧性可以实现多种表达方式。 数量有限的声音依次变成芭蕾舞，华尔兹，巴卡塔舞，孟买，Kpanlogo，轻舞女。 每个话语都是刻有意义的动作。 每个词都是艺术选择，是展示观众控制力和技巧的机会。 每个对话都是一种舞蹈，其中两个或两个以上的动作作为一个动作，同时仍然保持自己的作用，自己独特的表达方式。

Le Guin agrees. “Sound is dynamic. Speech is dynamic — it is action. To act is to take power, to have power, to be powerful. Mutual communication between speakers and listeners is a powerful act. The power of each speaker is amplified, augmented, by the entrainment of the listeners. The strength of a community is amplified, augmented by its mutual entrainment in speech….This is why utterance is magic. Words do have power. Names have power. Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer.”

Le Guin同意。 声音是动态的。 言语是动态的，是行动。 采取行动就是掌权，拥有权力，变得强大。 演讲者和听众之间的相互交流是一种有力的行为。 每个讲话者的力量都随着听众的参与而被放大，增强。 社区的力量因言语之间的相互夹带而得以增强……这就是言语是神奇的原因。 言语确实有力量。 名字有力量。 言语是事件，它们做事，改变事物。 他们改变了说话者和听众。”

“But, wait!” the imaginary Elon Musk in my brain pipes in, “My thing will give you power and magic, too! You’ll be able to see and experience other worlds, other people’s minds!” To which I’d respond: We already have that magic power. It’s the power of being transported through art. Ask any kid who learned incantations alongside Harry and Hermione. Ask the young girl growing up in a London housing project who became, through the alchemy of language, “Jane Eyre and Celie and Mr. Biswas and David Copperfield,” and then went on to create fictional friends of her own. Ask any true reader, anywhere, and they will tell you: Language is magic. And it’s powerful enough on its own. So please let it be.

“可是等等！” 我脑海中虚构的埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)说：“ 我的东西也将带给您力量和魔力 ！ 您将能够看到和体验其他世界，其他人的思想！” 我要回应的是：我们已经拥有了魔力。 这是被电力输送通过艺术。 问问任何与哈利和赫敏一起学过咒语的孩子。 问一个在伦敦住房项目中长大的小女孩 ，她通过语言的炼金术成为了“简·艾尔和西莉以及比斯瓦斯先生和大卫·科波菲尔”，然后继续创造了自己的虚构朋友。 随处问任何真正的读者，他们会告诉你：语言是魔术。 它本身就足够强大。 所以请顺其自然。

Or, to frame my point in language that might resonate with the real Musk: The art of language is friction. Lose friction and you lose meaningful communication.

或者，用可能与真正的麝香共鸣的语言来表达我的观点：语言的艺术是摩擦。 失去摩擦，您将失去有意义的沟通。

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry.” 诗歌合理使用最佳实践守则 ”引用。

人类为什么需要语言？ (Why do humans need language?)

Let’s end with a question I wish Musk had reflected on more deeply at the beginning of his experiment with humanity: Why? Why create a product that eliminates language?

为什么：L等与祝麝香曾在他的实验开始与人类更深刻地反映一个问题结束了吗？ 为什么要创建一种消除语言的产品？

According to Dingemanse, Musk says it’s because it “might solve the data rate issue.” Ha! Excuse me, dear Readers — I can’t help but laugh. Language didn’t have a bandwidth problem before digital technology and its spawn (like social media) came along and gave it one. The digital “communications” platforms that overwhelm us with a constant deluge of information are responsible for the “data rate issue,” not human language. This seems obvious to me, but it’s clearly worth saying aloud since some of us seem unaware of this connection. (If only I could telepath my thoughts directly into Elon Musk’s brain!)

根据Dingemanse的说法，马斯克说这是因为它“可能解决了数据速率问题。” 哈！ 亲爱的读者，对不起，我禁不住笑了。 语言在数字技术及其产生(如社交媒体)出现并普及之前就没有带宽问题。 不断涌入大量信息的数字“通信”平台是造成“数据速率问题”的原因，而不是人类的语言。 这对我来说似乎很明显，但是显然值得大声说出来，因为我们中有些人似乎并不了解这种联系。 (只要我能将我的思想直接传送到埃隆·马斯克的大脑中！)

Why is Musk’s proposed solution to this problem to turn human brains into computer brains? Why not just temper our expectations of what humans and human language can do? Why not create more humane digital technologies that support human language and behaviors, instead of exploiting or erasing them? Why must we lose our humanity to keep up with the demands of technology?

为什么马斯克提出的解决此问题的解决方案将人的大脑变成计算机的大脑？ 为什么不仅仅改变我们对人类和人类语言能做什么的期望？ 为什么不创造更多支持人类语言和行为的人性化数字技术，而不是加以利用或擦除呢？ 为什么我们必须失去人性来跟上技术的需求？

Neuralink represents a new iteration of an old technical conundrum: Technology creates problems that only new technologies can solve. What problems will Musk’s new techno-headache create? (I can imagine a dozen off the top of my head. Just think how many a trained ethicist could have come up with if Musk had asked one.)

Neuralink代表了旧技术难题的新迭代：技术会产生只有新技术才能解决的问题。 马斯克的新技术头痛会带来哪些问题？ (我可以想象一下，脑袋上掉了十几个。想想如果马斯克问一个，会有多少受过训练的伦理学家会提出来。)

Sorry, but I’m not buying Musk’s line of thinking. Language has been around for a long time. Longer than computers, digital networks and brain-machine interfaces. Potentially for as long as humans have been human. And likely for as long as humans have been thinking about what it means to be human (“In the beginning there was the Word”). Many scholars believe humanity is inexorably tied to language, and that language has shaped how our species has evolved. Language is not a perfect, frictionless system…and that’s precisely the point. Its imperfection enables beauty. It enables art. It enables humanity.

抱歉，但我不接受马斯克的思路。 语言已经存在很长时间了。 比计算机，数字网络和脑机接口更长。 可能只要人类一直是人类 。 只要人类一直在思考成为人类意味着什么(“一开始就有道”)。 许多学者认为人类与语言有着 不可分割的联系，语言决定 了我们物种的进化 。 语言不是一个完美的，没有摩擦的系统……这就是重点。 它的不完美使美丽。 它使艺术成为可能。 它使人性化。

One of our greatest artists of language, Toni Morrison, says: “Word work is sublime…because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference — the way in which we are like no other life. We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

我们最杰出的语言艺术家之一托尼·莫里森 ( Toni Morrison )说：“文字作品是崇高的……因为它具有生成性； 它的意义确保了我们与众不同，人与人之间的差异，即我们独有的生活方式。 我们死了 那可能就是生活的意义。 但是我们会讲语言。 那可能是我们生活的尺度。”

In a world without language, what will be the measure of our lives? How will we express what we know, feel and dream? Will our new “superhuman” abilities enrich our ability to communicate who we are? Or will they flatten it? Will our new “improved” sensory perceptions expand our sense of self? Or will we sell our souls for increased efficiency? What will we gain? What will we lose?

在一个没有语言的世界里，我们生活的尺度是什么？ 我们将如何表达我们所知道，感受到和梦想的东西？ 我们新的“超人”能力会增强我们交流自己的能力吗？ 还是会压扁它？ 我们新的“改善的”感官知觉会扩展我们的自我意识吗？ 还是我们会卖掉灵魂以提高效率？ 我们会得到什么？ 我们将失去什么？

There are no easy answers to these questions. There may be no answers at all. If there are, they are probably deeply subjective, a product of our observations, experiences and beliefs. Still, I believe we must ask the questions. If we don’t, someone else will answer them for us. For now, we can still craft our own responses — in prose or in verse.

这些问题没有简单的答案。 可能根本没有答案。 如果有的话，它们可能是非常主观的，是我们观察，经验和信念的产物。 尽管如此，我相信我们必须提出问题。 如果我们不这样做，其他人会为我们回答。 目前，我们仍然可以以散文或诗歌形式做出自己的回应。

The language of logic I used to construct this essay is useful. Surely it has its function. But, personally, I’ve always found the language of art more persuasive. So, I’d like to end with language that expresses how beautiful, how powerful, how uniquely human, simple words said with care can be — with a poem from Mary Oliver.

我用来构建本文的逻辑语言很有用。 当然，它有其功能。 但是，就我个人而言，我一直觉得艺术语言更具说服力 。 因此，我想以表达玛丽·奥利弗(Mary Oliver)的一首诗的方式来结束，这种语言要表达出多么美丽，多么强大，多么独特，人性化的简单单词。

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry.” 诗歌合理使用最佳实践守则 ”引用。

[“AFTER” WORDS — Dearest readers, some context on this essay: I am not a poet. I am just a human whose existence depends on poetry in the same way that “so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens.” (Words by poet William Carlos Williams.) Nor am I a linguist. If you want a critique of brain-to-brain interfaces written by a scientist, I recommend reading Mark Dingemanse’s essay in Aeon. I am (by preference, education and soon-to-be profession) a reader.

[“后”词-亲爱的读者， 本文的一些背景： 我不是诗人。 我只是一个人，其生存方式取决于诗歌，就像“很大程度上取决于/依靠/一个红色的轮子/手推车/上着雨水/水/在白色/鸡旁边上釉”。 ( 诗人威廉·卡洛斯·威廉姆斯的话 。)我也不是语言学家。 如果您想对科学家撰写的对大脑到大脑的界面进行评论，我建议您阅读Aeon上 Mark Dingemanse的文章。 我是(按喜好，受过教育和即将成为职业)的读者。

As a reader, I’ve been shaped by the words of others. If you were to crack my brain open, I’m certain you’d find lines of Plath, Dickinson, Rich and many others written on my neurons. This essay is my attempt to metaphorically crack my brain open and share the contents with you readers. It is by no means an exhaustive or holistic look at poetry as an art form or literary genre. It is self-consciously subjective. It is deeply personal.

作为读者，我受到别人的话语的影响。 如果您想让我的大脑打开，我敢肯定，您会在我的神经元上找到Plath，Dickinson，Rich以及其他许多语言。 这篇文章是我试图隐喻地打开我的大脑并与读者分享内容的尝试。 这绝不是对诗歌作为一种艺术形式或文学体裁的详尽或整体的考察。 它是自觉的主观。 它是个人的。

I try to cite the work of others fairly, accurately and in accordance with the Center for Media & Social Impact’s “Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry.” The images of poems from my personal library are more than mere “decoration” — the poems themselves are integral to the critique. They offer a counterpoint to Musk’s argument in a language more powerful than my humble prose could render.

我尝试根据媒体与社会影响中心的“ 诗歌合理使用最佳实践守则 ”公平，准确地引用其他人的作品。 我个人图书馆中诗歌的图像不只是“装饰”，而且诗歌本身也是批评的一部分。 他们用比我谦逊的散文所能表达的语言更强大的语言来反驳马斯克的观点。

Critic L. M. Sacasas asks: “What does the critic love?” I hope my essay makes clear this critic loves language — in all its forms. I love poetry best of all. I love the poems I share here with profound reverence and gratitude. This essay explores what we lose when we lose language. But, more than that, it’s my love letter to poetry and to the people who write it. It was conceived in love and I pray it’s received in love, too. As always, happy reading. — Liz]

评论家萨卡萨斯(LM Sacasas)问： “评论家喜欢什么？” 我希望我的文章能清楚地表明这位批评家热爱语言，形式多样。 我最喜欢诗歌。 我深深地敬畏和感激我在这里分享的诗。 本文探讨了失去语言时我们会失去什么。 但是，不仅如此，这是我写给诗人和写诗人的情书。 它是在爱情中构想的，我祈祷它也是在爱情中被接受的。 一如既往的快乐阅读。 —丽兹]

翻译自: https://medium.com/curious/the-art-of-language-9589f8d867f4