It doesn't have much of a brain, no will, no plan,

脳はちっぽけで、意志も計画も 持っていない

and yet, many ants together are smart.

が、たくさん集まれば賢い

An ant colony can construct complex structures.

アリの巣は複雑な構造だ

Some colonies keep farms of fungi, others take care of cattle. They can wage war or defend themselves.

カビや家畜を飼うものもいる 戦争をしかけたり、防衛だってできる

How is this possible?

どうすればそんなことが できるのか

How can a bunch of stupid things do smart things together?

愚かなものが集まって 賢い動きをする方法は?

This phenomenon is called emergence,

この現象は創発と呼ばれ

and it's one of the most fascinating and mysterious features of our universe.

この宇宙の、最も興味深く 謎めいた特性だ

In a nutshell, it describes small things forming bigger things that have different properties than the sum of their parts.

要するに、小さなモノが集まって より大きなモノを作り

Emergence is complexity arising from simplicity, and emergence is everywhere.

それが単なる部分の総和とは 違う性質を持つことを言う

[Intro]

創発は単純さから 生じる複雑さで、

Water has vastly different properties to the molecules that make it up, like the concept of wetness.

それはどこにでもある

Take wet fabric, If you zoom in far enough, there is no wetness.

水はそれを構成している水分子とは 非常に異なった特徴を持つ

There are just molecules sitting in the spaces between the atoms of the cloth.

湿り気とかだ

Wetness is an emerging property of water.

湿った布をいくら拡大しても 湿り気を見ることはできない

Something new only created by a lot of individual interactions between water molecules.

あるのはただ布の原子の間に 収まっている分子だけだ

And this is sort of it. Many things interact under a certain set of rules, creating something above and beyond themselves.

湿り気は水から 創発してくる特徴で

It turns out that more is different.

たくさんの水分子がかかわった時にだけ 出てくる何か新しいものだ

This different property is itself a new thing, and that new thing can couple with other new things to repeat the process.

そういうことだ

You can imagine this as layers stacked upon each other every, layer made from more complex parts.

たくさんのモノがある特定の 規則のもとで相互作用し、

Atoms form molecules.

それ自体を超えた 何かを作り

Molecules form proteins.

別のモノに変わる

Proteins make up cells.

この別の特徴は新しいモノであり

Cells make up organs.

さらにまた別のモノと組み合わさって 以下同様のプロセスが続く

Organs form individuals.

だんだんと複雑なパーツでできた層が 積み重なっているようなものだ

Individuals form societies.

原子は分子を構成し

But how can something be more than the sum of its parts?

分子がタンパクを構成し

How do ants form the sort of cloudy entity that is a colony? By following a ruleset that produces order through chaos.

タンパクは細胞を作り

For example, let's look at how an ant colony distributes jobs.

細胞は器官を

Let's assume that a colony shall have 25% workers, 25% caretakers,

器官は個人を構成し

25% soldiers and 25% gatherers.

個人は社会を構成する

Ants communicate their current job via chemicals. For example, the worker ant constantly secretes chemicals that say: "I'm a worker".

でもそれぞれがその構成要素の総和 以上のモノになれるのは何故か?

When ants meet other ants, they smell each other to gather information, telling each other their job and what they're doing.

アリがコロニーという集合的な存在を 構成するのはどのようにしてか?

Both keep track of who they met in the past.

それはカオスを通して秩序を生み出す 法則に従うことによってだ

Now, imagine an anteater kills most of the gatherers. If this isn't fixed quickly, the colony will starve.

たとえば、アリの巣が仕事を 分配する方法を見てみよう

Many worker ants need to switch jobs, but how do you tell this to thousands of them?

コロニーに25%の働きアリと 25%の介護アリ、

Simple. You don't.

25%の兵士アリと、 25%の採集アリがいるとする

Our worker ant will still meet and smell other ants, but it will encounter almost no gatherers at all.

アリは現在の仕事を 化学物質で知らせる

It counts too few gatherers, until it reaches a critical point, and then it changes its job.

たとえば、働きアリは常に 「私は働きアリ」という化学信号を出している

The worker becomes a gatherer. Other ants will do the same, until after a while there are enough gatherers again.

アリが別のアリに会うと、 匂いの情報を交換し

The balance is restored all by itself.

お互いに何をしているか 知らせあう

The actions and interactions of an individual are random. You can't plan which ant will encounter which other ant.

過去に誰と会ったかの 記録もつけている

But the simple set of rules is so elegant that a colony's many operations emerge as a consequence.

さて、採集アリのほとんどが アリクイに食われてしまったとしよう

On an even more fundamental level, hundreds of millions of complicated molecules interact to maintain a robust and amazing structure.

すぐになんとかしないと コロニーは飢えてしまう

A being with vastly different properties than the sum of its dead parts emerges.

多くの働きアリが仕事を 変える必要があるが、

The smallest unit of life: a cell.

何千という働きアリに どうやって知らせる?

We still don't have a clear definition of what living things are, we just know they emerge from things that are not alive.

簡単だ 知らせなくていい

Cells combine and cooperate. They specialize and respond to one another,

働きアリは別のアリに 会い続けるが、

and over time, we develop into complex organisms with remarkable capacities.

採集アリには 全然会わないだろう

Your arms and legs and heart are an incredibly complex and complicated system made of trillions of individual stupid things...

採集アリに会う数が少なすぎることが あるところまで続くと、

...and yet we breathe, digest and watch YouTube videos.

働きアリは 仕事を変える

How do your cells know what to do?

働きアリは採集アリになり、 他のアリも以下同様で、

Think of the pacemaker cells in your heart.

それは採集アリが 充分な数になるまで続く、

Billions of them need to send out an impulse just at the right moment to collectively create a heartbeat.

そのバランスは 自動的に回復する

Our cells exchange chemical information with their neighbor cells to see what they're up to, and then decide what to do.

個々の個体の 行動はランダムで

If it's among a lot of cells that are working on the same task, it will start working on that task as well, and sync up with them.

どのアリがどのアリと会うかを 計画することは出来ない

There is no master mind giving commands. Just single units communicating with their neighbors, and acting according to the feedback they get.

でも単純なルールの 組み合わせは巧妙で、

What about our most important part? What is the thing that asks these kinds of questions?

結果的にコロニーの働きの 多くが創発されてくる

Is our consciousness then an emergent property of the cells in our brain?

もっと根本的なレベルでも、 何億という分子が相互作用して

This question is too big and important, it deserves a video of its own.

頑丈で驚くべき構造を 維持して

Some things that emerge are hard to define. You can't touch an ant colony, only its parts.

命のないパーツの総和とは 全く違った特徴をもたらしている

It has neither brain nor face, nor body.

生命の最小単位、細胞だ

And yet the colony interacts with the world.

生き物とは何かという 明確な定義はないが、

Just like colonies emerge from ants, things emerge from humans, like Nations.

それが生きていないモノから 創発して来ることは分かっている

What actually is a nation, is it its population?

細胞は集まって協働し、 専門特化して互いに反応し

Is it its institutions, its symbols like its flag, colours or anthems?

我々は徐々に、優れた能力を持つ 複雑な生物へと発展してきた

The physical things it makes like cities, the territory it occupies?

あなたの腕や脚や心臓は、 何兆という愚かなモノからなる、

All of these things are fluid.

超複雑なシステムなのだ

Populations change and are replaced.

さらに、我々は息をし、 消化をし、YouTube動画を見る

Institutions come and go, cities can be constructed and abandoned.

細胞は、何をすべきかを どうやって知るのだろう?

Borders have changed all the time for most of history, and symbols get replaced by new symbols.

心臓のペースメーカー細胞に ついて考えてみよう

A nation has no face, no brain, no body.

心拍を正しく刻むために、 何億もの細胞が、

Are nations not real, then? Of course they are, just like ant colonies, nations interact with the world.

正しい瞬間に信号を 送る必要がある

They can change landscapes, wage wars, grow or decline, and they can stop existing.

細胞は、今何をしようとしていて、 次に何をするか決めるために、

But they only exist because of a lot of humans interacting with each other.

ご近所の細胞と、化学的に 情報を交換している

But not just nations. All the complex structures that surround us emerge from us.

もし周りの細胞が ある仕事をしていたら、

Even if we don't intend to, we are constantly creating.

その細胞も周囲に 同期して同じ仕事をする

Communities, companies, cities, societies.

指令を送る中心的な場所は どこにもなく、

All of these things are entities that have fundamentally different properties and abilities than the pretty stupid apes they emerged from.

お隣と協調している 個々の単位があるだけだ

We don't know why any of this happens.

ヒトの最重要な部分に ついてはどうだろう?

We just observe it, and it seems to be a fundamental property of our universe.

ヒトの意識も脳細胞の 創発的な特性なのか?

It may be the most beautiful and wonderous property of our universe.

この疑問はあまりに重要で、 そのためにもう一本の動画が必要だ

[Outro]

ある種の創発は定義が難しい