14.为编码点赞／IN PRAISE OF CODE

［14］为编码点赞／IN PRAISE OF CODE

“编码”一直通用于法律、法理及医药学。

“Code” is a term (codex) that has always been used in law and jurisprudence, as well as in medicine and pharmaceutics.

今天，生物化学、术开始用这个术语，它因此得以在知识和行动中普及。 Today, biochemistry, information theory, and the new technologies have taken up the word, and thereby generalized it to knowledge and action in general.

过去，大部分人对司法准则或用药准则知之甚少。 In the past, most people knew little about juridical codes or the codes of medication.

无论开放或闭合（对应前文），法律和医学作品尽管是公开和公共的，也只有博学之人才能阅读。 Both open and closed, the writings of law and medicine, though published and public, could be read only by the learned.

一个编码就像双面硬币，拥有对立的两面：可存取的，但是加密的。A code resembled a coin with two sides, heads and tails, which were contradictory: both accessible and secret.

不久之前我们才开始在一个存取（张诗瑶：计算机-信息？）的文明中生活。对应到文化上，其语言和认知元素就是编码——它许可或禁止存取。Only recently have we begun to live in a civilization of access. The corresponding linguistic and cognitive element of our culture is the code—that which permits or prohibits access.

密码在两种需要彼此翻译的系统间建立起对应，它拥有的双面性是我们在不限流的流通中所需要的，我刚刚描述过其新颖之处。 Since the code establishes a set of correspondences between two systems that must be translated into each other,it possesses the two faces we need for the free circulation of flows, whose novelty I have been describing.

编码在允许自由存取时，确保了匿名。 Coding preserves anonymity, while permitting free access.

编码是一种奇特的、活生生的存在。编码是具体的人。 Now, the code is a singular, living being; the code is a concrete human being.

作为独一的，又是类属的个体,我是谁？一个不定、可破译而又不可破译的密码，既开放又闭合，合群又谨慎，可接近而又不可接近，既公共又私人，私密又保密。 As an individual who is unique but also generic, who am I? An indefinite, decipherable, andundecipherable cipher, open and closed, social and discreet, accessible-inaccessible, public and private, intimate and secretive.

有时我对自己感到陌生，同时又是一览无余。我存在，因而我是一串编码。我是可计算同时又不可计算的，似金针落稻海，藏其烁辉。 I am sometimes unknown to myself and on display at one and the same time. I exist, therefore I am a code. I am calculable and incalculable, like a golden needle, plus the haystack in which, buried, its brightness lies hidden.

例如我的 DNA 是同时开放又闭合的，它以密码构建了我的肉身，既是私密的又是公开的，好比圣奥古斯丁的《忏悔录》，其中有多少符号？《蒙娜丽莎》中有多少像素？福莱的《安魂曲》有多少位字节？

My DNA, for example, is both open and closed; its cipher has constructed my body, which is both intimate and public, like St. Augustine’sConfessions. How many signs are there in theConfessions? How many pixels in theMona Lisa? How many bytes in Faure’sRequiem?

人为编码的观点长期维持着医学和法律。 Medicine and law have long been sustained by this idea of the human being as a code.

今天，知行通过程序和算法确认了这一观点, 编码产生了一个新的“自我”。 Today, this has been confirmed by both knowledge and practice, whose methods make use ofproceduresandalgorithms. The code gives rise to a new ego.

个人的，私密的，保密的？是的。类属，公共，公布的？是的。更妙的是，两者兼具：如同假名一般的复身。 Personal, intimate, secret? Yes. Generic, public, publishable? Yes. Better, both at once; double, like the pseudonym.

张诗瑶：前文所提，无名下的我是没有“名字”的，隐匿于云端和群体中，在医学和科学中，图式早已说明，而大而薄的数据天网，让我们置身其中即可看出个人的图式不仅限于外在的病理或法理。大量浏览百合网——就可以很快为自己在婚恋市场上完成一个拼贴，但它永远又无法全然完成“我”。我们是很妙的，因为我们在被名字的钩子钩在微博和朋友圈上的时候，我们又是一个幽灵——我们贡献了数据和标签，但它无法穷尽我。当不想被读取——那就被动上传好了。