Memory Overload

语言词汇

If Lucy needed a band member’s help to get John to stop harassing her, it was important for her to remember that John had fallen out last week with Mary, who would thus be a likely and enthusiastic ally. 争吵、发生纠纷

例：The Greens may also fall out with their Social Democratic partners over arms sales to Israel.

例：This is a terrible moment for the generals to fall out with the politicians.

例：He becomes the second Premiership player to fall out with Toshack following Robbie Savage's public spat with the Wales boss.

内容

对于除了智人以外的物种来说，基因决定了它们的行为、角色和劳动分工。但对农业革命后的智人来说，决定他们角色分工的是虚构的概念。如汉谟拉比法典时代的奴隶并非生来就只会做奴隶，而是在社会规则潜移默化的教育下逐渐长成了“合格”的努力。也因此，人类社会的种种信息——阶级身份、劳动分工、财富流动——需要通过某种基因以外的媒介才能传承下去。

刚开始，智人只是以脑为介逐代传承。但是脑记有三大缺陷。一、人脑记忆容量有限；二、人死如灯灭，脑子里的记忆随着大脑的腐烂而消失，“脑脑相传”的信息也很容易缺失和歪曲；三、人脑不善于记忆和处理大量数据。这些缺陷直接限制了人类社会群体的规模和数量，直到美索不达米亚的苏美尔人用文字打破了这一诅咒。

此时的文字系统并不完美，这种不完全的文字系统虽然无法记录所有口头表达（如诗歌），但是可以用于记录口语难以表达的信息，而完整的文字系统则可以记录所有口头表达。前者的代表有数学和音乐符号系统，后者的代表有拉丁语和埃及象形文字。不过苏美尔人发明文字本就不是为了书写诗歌，而是为了记录口语难以表达的数据。不需要完整的文字，一个族群也可以过得很好。

越来越多的国家开始用文字记载历史、书写故事，尽管文字的主要用途还是储存数据信息。但是新的问题出现了：人们很难查询特定的信息。当时比较发达的文明不仅在使用文字记载信息，也在使用分类条目、字典等技术来归类信息，使他们便于查询。

百年后，阿拉伯数字的发明改变了人们记录的方式。尽管阿拉伯数字只是一个不完整的系统，但却影响了整个世界。当今世界，每个国家每个人都离不开它。从事任何职业的人都或多或少的会与数字打交道。数字也为信息技术和人工智能的出现奠定了基础，而后者极有可能成为人类生存的一大威胁。

常识

Salem witch trials

The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months. By September 1692, the hysteria had begun to abate and public opinion turned against the trials. Though the Massachusetts General Court later annulled guilty verdicts against accused witches and granted indemnities to their families, bitterness lingered in the community, and the painful legacy of the Salem witch trials would endure for centuries.

CONTEXT & ORIGINS OF THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS

Belief in the supernatural–and specifically in the devil’s practice of giving certain humans (witches) the power to harm others in return for their loyalty–had emerged in Europe as early as the 14th century, and was widespread in colonial New England. In addition, the harsh realities of life in the rural Puritan community of Salem Village (present-day Danvers,Massachusetts) at the time included the after-effects of a British war with France in the American colonies in 1689, a recent smallpox epidemic, fears of attacks from neighboring Native American tribes and a longstanding rivalry with the more affluent community of Salem Town (present-day Salem). Amid these simmering tensions, the Salem witch trials would be fueled by residents’ suspicions of and resentment toward their neighbors, as well as their fear of outsiders.

In January 1692, 9-year-old Elizabeth (Betty) Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams (the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, minister of Salem Village) began having fits, including violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. After a local doctor, William Griggs, diagnosed bewitchment, other young girls in the community began to exhibit similar symptoms, including Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Walcott and Mary Warren. In late February, arrest warrants were issued for the Parris’ Caribbean slave, Tituba, along with two other women–the homeless beggar Sarah Good and the poor, elderly Sarah Osborn–whom the girls accused of bewitching them.

SALEM WITCH TRIALS: THE HYSTERIA SPREADS

The three accused witches were brought before the magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne and questioned, even as their accusers appeared in the courtroom in a grand display of spasms, contortions, screaming and writhing. Though Good and Osborn denied their guilt, Tituba confessed. Likely seeking to save herself from certain conviction by acting as an informer, she claimed there were other witches acting alongside her in service of the devil against the Puritans. As hysteria spread through the community and beyond into the rest of Massachusetts, a number of others were accused, including Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse–both regarded as upstanding members of church and community–and the four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good.

Like Tituba, several accused “witches” confessed and named still others, and the trials soon began to overwhelm the local justice system. In May 1692, the newly appointed governor of Massachusetts, William Phips, ordered the establishment of a special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide) on witchcraft cases for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties. Presided over by judges including Hathorne, Samuel Sewall and William Stoughton, the court handed down its first conviction, against Bridget Bishop, on June 2; she was hanged eight days later on what would become known as Gallows Hill in Salem Town. Five more people were hanged that July; five in August and eight more in September. In addition, seven other accused witches died in jail, while the elderly Giles Corey (Martha’s husband) was pressed to death by stones after he refused to enter a plea at his arraignment

SALEM WITCH TRIALS: CONCLUSION AND LEGACY

Though the respected minister Cotton Mather had warned of the dubious value of spectral evidence (or testimony about dreams and visions), his concerns went largely unheeded during the Salem witch trials. Increase Mather, president of Harvard College (and Cotton’s father) later joined his son in urging that the standards of evidence for witchcraft must be equal to those for any other crime, concluding that “It would better that ten suspected witches may escape than one innocent person be condemned.” Amid waning public support for the trials, Governor Phips dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer in October and mandated that its successor disregard spectral evidence. Trials continued with dwindling intensity until early 1693, and by that May Phips had pardoned and released all those in prison on witchcraft charges.

In January 1697, the Massachusetts General Court declared a day of fasting for the tragedy of the Salem witch trials; the court later deemed the trials unlawful, and the leading justice Samuel Sewall publicly apologized for his role in the process. The damage to the community lingered, however, even after Massachusetts Colony passed legislation restoring the good names of the condemned and providing financial restitution to their heirs in 1711. Indeed, the vivid and painful legacy of the Salem witch trials endured well into the 20th century, when Arthur Miller dramatized the events of 1692 in his play “The Crucible” (1953), using them as an allegory for the anti-Communist “witch hunts” led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.