CHAPTER 8

1.5 Evolvingis life’s greatest accomplishment and its greatest reward.

进化是生命最伟大的成就，是最大的回报。

It is instinctually that way,which is why most of us feel the pull of it—in other words, we instinctivelywant to get better at things and have created and evolved technology to helpus. History has shown that all species will either go extinct or evolve intoother species, though with our limited time window that is hard for us to see.But we do know that what we call mankind was simply the result of DNA evolvinginto a new form about two hundred thousand years ago, and we know that mankindwill certainly either go extinct or evolve into a higher state. I personallybelieve there is a good chance man will begin to evolve at an accelerating pacewith the help of man-made technologies that can analyze vast amounts of dataand “think” faster and better than we can. I wonder how many centuries it willtake for us to evolve into a higher-level species that will be much closer toomniscience than we are now—if we don’t destroy ourselves first.

进化是一种本能，也是大多数人能感觉到进化在拉动我们—换句话说，我们总是本能的想要更好，拥有创造，发展技术去帮助我们。历史已经展示了所有的物种要么灭绝要么进化成另一个物种，尽管我们的时间太有限很难让我们看到这些。但我们的确知道我们称为的人类其实仅仅是dna进化的结果—进化成一个新形态大约在20万年前，而且我们知道人类必将灭绝或者进化成更高级状态。我个人更愿意相信人类有很大机会将开始进化进入到一个加速车道-得益于人造的计划-能分析巨量的数据并能快速思考远远超过我们人类。我好奇的是需要多少世纪才能让人类达到更高级的物种-能够接近无所不知—前提是我们没有摧毁我们自己。

One of the great marvels ofnature is how the whole system, which is full of individual organisms acting intheir own self-interest and without understanding or guiding what’s going on,can create a beautifully operating and evolving whole. While I’m not an expertat this, it seems that it’s because evolution has produced a) incentives andinteractions that lead to individuals pursuing their own interests andresulting in the advancement of the whole, b) the natural selection process,and c) rapid experimentation and adaptation.

大自然最伟大的奇迹之一就是整个系统—充满了独立组织按照自己的利己主义，无需理解或指引方向的组织，就能创造一个完美运行和进化的整体。当然我关于这些我并不专业，似乎因为进化产生了a）激励和互动导致个体顺从他们的兴趣并导致整个群体向前发展，b）自然选择进程和c）快速试验和适应。

a. The individual’sincentives must be aligned with the group’s goals.To give you a quick exampleof nature creating incentives that lead to individuals pursuing their owninterests that result in the advancement of the whole, look at sex and naturalselection. Nature gave us one hell of an incentive to have sex in the form ofthe great pleasure it provides, even though the purpose of having sex is tocontribute to the advancement of the DNA. That way, we individually get what wewant while contributing to the evolution of the whole.

A．个体的激励必须与组织的目标相一致。给你一份大自然创造个体根据自身兴趣选择进化方向的案例来看看对于整体的发展的案例，来看看性和自然选择。大自然给予我们性爱的欢愉为形式的一种激励的地狱，即使性交的初衷是为dna发展做出贡献。那样的话，我们单独个体能在得到我们想要的同时对整体的进化有所贡献。

b. Reality is optimizing for

the whole—not for you. Contribute to the whole and you will likely be rewarded.

Natural selection leads to better qualities being retained and passed along

(e.g., in better genes, better abilities to nurture others, better products,

etc.). The result is a constant cycle of improvement forthe whole.

B．真实是对整体的优化—不只是你，为整体贡献，你可能希望得到回报。自然选择也在选择更好的质量通过保留和长期筛选。结果就是为整体提升不断循环的闭环。

c. Adaptation

through rapid trial and error is invaluable.Natural selection’strial-and-error process allows improvement without anyone understanding or guidingit. The same can apply to how we learn. There are at least three kinds oflearning that foster evolution: memory-based learning (storing the informationthat comes in through one’s conscious mind so that we can recall it later);subconscious learning (the knowledge we take away from our experiences thatnever enters our conscious minds, though it affects our decision making); and“learning” that occurs without thinking at all, such as the changes in DNA thatencode a species’ adaptations. I used to think that memory-based, consciouslearning was the most powerful, but I’ve since come to understand that itproduces less rapid progress than experimentation and adaptation. To give youan example of how nature improves without thinking, just look at the strugglethat mankind (with all its thinking) has experienced in trying to outsmartviruses (which don’t even have brains). Viruses are like brilliant chessopponents. By evolving quickly (combining different genetic material acrossdifferent strains), they keep the smartest minds in the global health communitybusy thinking up countermoves to hold them off. Understanding that isespecially helpful in an era when computers can run large numbers ofsimulations replicating the evolutionary process to help us see what works andwhat doesn’t.

c．通过快速试验和出错适应是无价的。自然选择是一场试验-犯错的反复过程-只允许进步而无需任何人理解或指引他。同样的过程也存在于我们学习的过程。培育进化至少存在三种类型的学习：记忆为基础的学习（来自于人类意识的存储信息-以便我们后面能唤醒记忆）；潜意识学习（我们从实验中得到的知识-这些知识从不进入我们的意识当中，尽管他们会影响我们的决策制定）；不加思考的学习，例如dna的改变-重新编码物种的适应性。我过去认为记忆基础，意识学习是最具力量的，但我已经知道他们相比试验和适应性而言还是在快速进展上乏力。让我们来看看无需思考的自然进化的一个案例，只看人类的生存斗争（所有的思考）已经经历了尝试超越病菌（他们甚至没有大脑）。病毒就像一个卓越的象棋对手。通过快速进化（综合组合不同链条的遗传物质），他们得以维持最聪明的思想-全世界健康社区都在积极思考对策想去除他们。计算能运行巨量的模拟复制进化过程以帮助我们看看能什么，不能干什么是非常有益的。

In the next chapter Iwill describe a process that has helped me, and I believe can help you, evolvequickly. But first I want to emphasize how important your perspective is intrying to decide what is important to you and what to go after.

下一章我将描述一个已经在帮助我的过程，我相信也能帮助你快速进化。但是首先我想强调你的视野是多么的重要，他决定了什么事最重要的，然后才是什么。

d. Realize

that you are simultaneously everything and nothing—and decide what you want to

be.It is a great paradox that individually we are simultaneously everything andnothing. Through our own eyes, we are everything—e.g., when we die, the wholeworld disappears. So to most people (and to other species) dying is the worstthing possible, and it is of paramount importance that we have the best lifepossible. However, when we look down on ourselves through the eyes of nature weare of absolutely no significance. It is a reality that each one of us is onlyone of about seven billion of our species alive today and that our species isonly one of about ten million species on our planet. Earth is just one of about100 billion planets in our galaxy, which is just one of about two trilliongalaxies in the universe. And our lifetimes are only about 1/3,000 ofhumanity’s existence, which itself is only 1/20,000 of the Earth’s existence.In other words, we are unbelievably tiny and short-lived and no matter what weaccomplish, our impact will be insignificant. At the same time, weinstinctually want to matter and to evolve, and wecanmatter a tiny bit—and it’s all those tiny bits that add up to drive theevolution of the universe.

D．你必须意识到你是全部同时也不是—想清楚你想成为什么。这是一个伟大的悖论。尽管我们拥有眼睛，我们就是所有—例如如果我们死了，整个世界就消失了。所以对大多数人（对其他物种也是一样），死亡是最糟糕的事情，死亡时我们能有的可能的生活永恒重要的。然而当我们从整个自然的视角观察我们自己我们很明显是无意义的。很明显我们只是70亿人中的一个，我们人类也只是这个地球上数以亿计的物种中的一个。地球是银河系中上千亿星球中的一个，而宇宙中存在着大约200一个这样的河系。而我们的时代只是整个人类生存史得到1/3000 ，而人类生存史是地球存在时间的1/20000，换句话说，我们微不足道，短暂而一无所有，我们的影响毫无意义。同时我们本能的想要占有和进化，我们只有那么一点点，但就是那一点点的东东驱动了整个宇宙的进化。

The question ishowwe matter and evolve. Do we matter to others (who alsodon’t matter in the grand scope of things) or in some greater sense that wewill never actually achieve? Or does it not matter if we matter so we shouldforget about the question and just enjoy our lives while they last?

e. What

you will be will depend on the perspective you have.Where you goin life will depend on how you see things and who and what you feel connectedto (your family, your community, your country, mankind, the whole ecosystem,everything). You will have to decide to what extent you will put the interestsof others above your own, and which others you will choose to do so for. That’sbecause you will regularly encounter situations that will force you to makesuch choices.

问题是我们如何影响和进化。我们对别人来说重要（从宏观的范围来看也不重要）或者在一些伟大的意义上说我们其实从未获得过？或者因为号不重要所以我们就应该忘记这个问题去享受我们的生活而让问题继续？

E．你想成为什么取决于你的视角。你处于什么位置取决于你如何看待事物，谁和你想要联系的东西（你的家庭，你的社群，你的国家，人类，整个生态系统，任何事）。你将不得不决定你能你的兴趣放在何种地方，你会选择那些要这样做的事情。正是因为这些你可能会常遇到的情况会迫使你做出此类的选择。

While such decisionsmight seem too erudite for your taste, you will make them either consciously orsubliminally, and they will be very important.

For me personally, I nowfind it thrilling to embrace reality, to look down on myself through nature’sperspective, and to be an infinitesimally small part of the whole. Myinstinctual and intellectual goal is simply to evolve and contribute toevolution in some tiny way while I’m here and while I am what I am. At the sametime, the things I love most—my work and my relationships—are what motivate me.So, I find how reality and nature work, including how I and everything willdecompose and recompose, beautiful—though emotionally I find the separationfrom those I care about difficult to appreciate.

而此类的决定可能对你的偏好来说太广博了，你可能下意识的或者潜移默化的做出决定，而他们都非常重要。

个人化的来看，现在我发现拥抱真实非常的刺激，从自然的视角俯视我自己，作为一个整体的微不足道一份子，我本能的，心智目标就是去进化，并将这种进化以一种非常细微的方式传播-我存在，我合理。同时我最爱的事情是-我的工作和社交—时刻激励着我。所以我发现真实和自然是如何运作的，包括我和万事万物都会分解和重组，美丽-非常情绪化我发现同那些我非常在意的分离是非常难以认同的。

读后感：

坦白说这一节的内容我没完全理解，对不起不是意思不了解，是意义不理解，与作者自己的主题好像不搭嘎，没有联系，而且雷老爷子走的太远了，个人的进化放在整个地球长河中当然是及其短暂的，但却意义重大，我们从不否认。但这与我们的主题何干啊？个人的进化当然不是在自然或者生物上的进化，我们今天谈的进化我认为更多的是指思想和个人内在的，综合能力的提升，而不必或者没必要大谈特谈自然的进化。老爷子耗费大量的笔墨在谈自然和宇宙的进化，以及这种自然进化和选择对他的影响，个人觉得是偏离了。所以读者可以忽略，只要掌握每个原则的主旨即可。