「生命」とは何か [デザイン／建築]
21_21 デザインサイトで昨年行われた「セカンドネイチャー」展のカタログに寄稿した文章です。
「生命」とは何か、とは、おそらく人類が言葉を使い何かを考え始めた瞬間から、人々の前に立ち現れた永遠の命題だ。「生命」については、古来より、哲学者や宗教家や医学者といった賢人たちが、それぞれの立場で語り、思惟の断片を記してきた。答えはない。それでも人々は考える。もちろん私も考えている。「生命とは何か」。ここではもう、個人的な所見を述べるしかないので、僭越ながら、およそ十年前の記憶を遡り、私個人のある経験を書いてみたいと思う。
「当機はローマ市上空を飛行中です」。
そんな機内アナウンスからしばらく経ち、私は夜間飛行のアリタリアの窓から、漆黒のティレニア海で象られた地上の銀河を眺めていた。ナポリを訪ねるのは初めてだ。危険だとか街が汚いとか、出発前に散々な評判ばかりを吹き込まれていたけれど、実際のナポリは、ゲーテやアンデルセンが讃えた通り、心を喜ばす不思議な空気が満ちていた。雑誌の仕事でナポリに来た私は、翌朝から取材を開始した。そこで確信したのは、この街では地図が役に立たないということだった。地図とは、都市を平面に投影したものに過ぎず、道や建物の形は分かるけれど、そんな影はこの街ではほとんど意味がないことに気づいたのだ。混沌の都市で、ショッピングモールの見取り図のようにいかないことは、先刻承知の上だったのに、想像以上に都市の襞は深く、自分が目指す先が何であるかすら分からない。地図に頼ろうとしていた自分が不遜だった。
ナポリの街は分からないことだらけだ。人に尋ねると人の数だけナポリの街がある。この街は現実でもあり記憶でもある。この仕事の前に、取材で面談したイタリア人デザイナーのアンドレア・ブランジ氏が、「ナポリは素晴らしい街だが、誰に会うかが重要だ」と意味深長な助言をしてくれたことを思い出していた。あちこちに時間が堆積していて、一段下るとまったく違う時代相を現し、時には複雑な歴史の断面に出くわし、私たちを惑わせた。街の質素な女性はエピクロス哲学を語り、西のインテリはプラダの品質を語っていた。そして私は、この一筋縄ではゆかない「分からなさ」が、ナポリの生命なのだと思うようになった。
当時、巷にはコミュニケーションテクノロジーという言葉が溢れ、情報技術革新は世界の人々がすぐに分かり合える理想の社会を実現すると喧伝されていた。それは本当だろうか。すぐに分かり合えることは幸せなのだろうか。私が十年前に、あの南イタリアの空の下で実感した「生命」とは、ひと言で言えば「謎」だった。いや、生命が謎なのではなく、分からないこと、分かり合えないことに生命が宿っているのだ。他人も、恋愛も、未来も、世界も、人生も、自分自身すら謎だらけで理解ができない。でも私たちはそれを分かりたいと思う。理解したいと願う。そこに命があるのではないか。謎が解けるということは、つまり、生命が尽きるということではないだろうか。理解を放棄することも生命を放棄することではないだろうか。そして私の生命が終わる瞬間には、「ああ、あれはそういうことだったのか」と、すべての謎が瞬時に氷解して彼岸へと旅立つのだろうと思う。
ナポリで感じた生命観は、今も私を動かし続けているのは間違いない。以来、私は、編集者という仕事に就きながら、混沌を整理してキレイに並び替え、分かりやすく読者に伝えようと思わなくなった。分かりやすくしてはいけない。複雑な世界を単純化せず、複雑なまま受け入れてもらうにはどうすれば良いのか。生命を損なわずどう伝えられるか。そんなことばかり考えている。複雑な環境を知るためには、自分自身が環境と同じだけ複雑にならなければならない。こんなことを言ったのはシステム工学の黎明期を生きた『サイバネティクス序説』の著者ロス・アシュビーだった。私は、誰にも訪れる死を待つ人生の今この瞬間も、生きる実感が欲しいので、生命と同じだけ複雑になりたいと願っている。
What is life? This question is an eternal one for the human race, and probably arose when humans first began to use language and higher thought. Philosophers, theologians, doctors, and other wise people of old have left fragments of their ponderings about the nature of life. There has not been an answer. Still, people continue to think about this question and I am no exception. “What is life?” I have only my own opinions on the subject to present, and however presumptuous this may be, I wish to search through about a decade’s worth of memories on the subject and discuss my own personal experiences.
“We’ll soon be flying over Rome.” A little while after that announcement from the cockpit of the nighttime Alitalia flight, I was gazing at what appeared to be the Milky Way in the pitch-black Tyrrhenian Sea. It was my first time to visit Naples. Before my departure, I had heard from people only dismal impressions that the city was dangerous and dirty, but when I arrived, I found it to be filled with a mysterious and delightful air, just as described by Goethe and Andersen. I was being paid by a magazine for the trip and had to begin research the following morning. Once I began, I quickly became certain of the fact that maps were utterly useless in the city. Maps are just flat projections on a piece of paper. While it was possible to decipher streets and building shapes from them, I noticed that such representations were meaningless in this city. I knew ahead of time that they wouldn’t be as helpful as the guide maps for a shopping mall in a crowded city, but I was completely unprepared for the deep folds and ruffles in which to get lost in this Naples. I could not even figure out where I wanted to go. It was arrogant of me to believe I could get around with just a map.
Everything about Naples seemed to challenge my powers of comprehension. There seemed to be a different “Naples” for every person I asked. Aside from its physical existence, a city is also a memory. I remembered the somewhat cryptic advice Italian designer Andrea Branzi had given me when I had the occasion to interview him. He said, “Naples is a great city, but who you meet is very important.” Time had “accumulated” in layers all over the city. Going down one layer meant seeing an entirely different era. Occasionally these layers of history would overlap in complex ways, and running into them was confusing. A humble-looking woman from the city would be discussing the philosophy of Epicurus, while the intelligentsia of the west Naples would be talking about the product quality of Prada. I came to believe that the erratic, complex “crypticness” was the life of Naples.
At the time, the buzz everywhere was about information technologies, and people predicted that the IT revolution would transform the world into an ideal place, one in which different peoples could quickly develop an understanding of each other. Is that the case? Does quick and easy understanding of others bring about happiness? The “life” I felt 10 years ago under the skies of southern Italy was, simply put, “mystery”. By this I do not mean that life is a mystery, but rather that life exists in what we do not comprehend, and in what we cannot learn about one another. Other people, love, the future, the world, one’s life, and even oneself: these are all things filled with impenetrable mystery. Yet we still wish to find out. We yearn to understand. That, I think, is where life resides. Solving all of these mysteries would mean life itself running out. Giving up on trying to understand is giving up on life. In my final moments on this earth, I want all of the mysteries to unravel in an instant before my eyes. I want to be able to say to myself, “Ah! So that’s what that was,” and then depart this life, taking the next step on the journey.
These are nothing more than my thoughts, and I hope readers will forgive me for my naiveté. However, there is no doubt in my mind that this view of life I developed in Naples still motivates me. Although I am employed as an editor, I have since ceased trying to apply order to chaos, rearrange things neatly, and make them easier for the reader to understand. In fact, I believe I shouldn’t make things easier to understand. Instead of simplifying the complex, I think about how to get people to accept complexity as it is. How can I convey this or that without draining the life out of it? I spend most of my time wrestling with that question. I believe that it was W. Ross Ashby, who lived during the dawn of systems engineering and authored An Introduction to Cybernetics, who said that in order to understand a complex environment, one must become at least as complex as that environment. Even as I live out my life waiting for the death that will inevitably claim me by virtue of being a human being, I still want to feel the sense that I am alive, right now at this very instant, so my ultimate wish is to become as complex as life itself.
「生命」とは何か、とは、おそらく人類が言葉を使い何かを考え始めた瞬間から、人々の前に立ち現れた永遠の命題だ。「生命」については、古来より、哲学者や宗教家や医学者といった賢人たちが、それぞれの立場で語り、思惟の断片を記してきた。答えはない。それでも人々は考える。もちろん私も考えている。「生命とは何か」。ここではもう、個人的な所見を述べるしかないので、僭越ながら、およそ十年前の記憶を遡り、私個人のある経験を書いてみたいと思う。
「当機はローマ市上空を飛行中です」。
そんな機内アナウンスからしばらく経ち、私は夜間飛行のアリタリアの窓から、漆黒のティレニア海で象られた地上の銀河を眺めていた。ナポリを訪ねるのは初めてだ。危険だとか街が汚いとか、出発前に散々な評判ばかりを吹き込まれていたけれど、実際のナポリは、ゲーテやアンデルセンが讃えた通り、心を喜ばす不思議な空気が満ちていた。雑誌の仕事でナポリに来た私は、翌朝から取材を開始した。そこで確信したのは、この街では地図が役に立たないということだった。地図とは、都市を平面に投影したものに過ぎず、道や建物の形は分かるけれど、そんな影はこの街ではほとんど意味がないことに気づいたのだ。混沌の都市で、ショッピングモールの見取り図のようにいかないことは、先刻承知の上だったのに、想像以上に都市の襞は深く、自分が目指す先が何であるかすら分からない。地図に頼ろうとしていた自分が不遜だった。
ナポリの街は分からないことだらけだ。人に尋ねると人の数だけナポリの街がある。この街は現実でもあり記憶でもある。この仕事の前に、取材で面談したイタリア人デザイナーのアンドレア・ブランジ氏が、「ナポリは素晴らしい街だが、誰に会うかが重要だ」と意味深長な助言をしてくれたことを思い出していた。あちこちに時間が堆積していて、一段下るとまったく違う時代相を現し、時には複雑な歴史の断面に出くわし、私たちを惑わせた。街の質素な女性はエピクロス哲学を語り、西のインテリはプラダの品質を語っていた。そして私は、この一筋縄ではゆかない「分からなさ」が、ナポリの生命なのだと思うようになった。
当時、巷にはコミュニケーションテクノロジーという言葉が溢れ、情報技術革新は世界の人々がすぐに分かり合える理想の社会を実現すると喧伝されていた。それは本当だろうか。すぐに分かり合えることは幸せなのだろうか。私が十年前に、あの南イタリアの空の下で実感した「生命」とは、ひと言で言えば「謎」だった。いや、生命が謎なのではなく、分からないこと、分かり合えないことに生命が宿っているのだ。他人も、恋愛も、未来も、世界も、人生も、自分自身すら謎だらけで理解ができない。でも私たちはそれを分かりたいと思う。理解したいと願う。そこに命があるのではないか。謎が解けるということは、つまり、生命が尽きるということではないだろうか。理解を放棄することも生命を放棄することではないだろうか。そして私の生命が終わる瞬間には、「ああ、あれはそういうことだったのか」と、すべての謎が瞬時に氷解して彼岸へと旅立つのだろうと思う。
ナポリで感じた生命観は、今も私を動かし続けているのは間違いない。以来、私は、編集者という仕事に就きながら、混沌を整理してキレイに並び替え、分かりやすく読者に伝えようと思わなくなった。分かりやすくしてはいけない。複雑な世界を単純化せず、複雑なまま受け入れてもらうにはどうすれば良いのか。生命を損なわずどう伝えられるか。そんなことばかり考えている。複雑な環境を知るためには、自分自身が環境と同じだけ複雑にならなければならない。こんなことを言ったのはシステム工学の黎明期を生きた『サイバネティクス序説』の著者ロス・アシュビーだった。私は、誰にも訪れる死を待つ人生の今この瞬間も、生きる実感が欲しいので、生命と同じだけ複雑になりたいと願っている。
What is life? This question is an eternal one for the human race, and probably arose when humans first began to use language and higher thought. Philosophers, theologians, doctors, and other wise people of old have left fragments of their ponderings about the nature of life. There has not been an answer. Still, people continue to think about this question and I am no exception. “What is life?” I have only my own opinions on the subject to present, and however presumptuous this may be, I wish to search through about a decade’s worth of memories on the subject and discuss my own personal experiences.
“We’ll soon be flying over Rome.” A little while after that announcement from the cockpit of the nighttime Alitalia flight, I was gazing at what appeared to be the Milky Way in the pitch-black Tyrrhenian Sea. It was my first time to visit Naples. Before my departure, I had heard from people only dismal impressions that the city was dangerous and dirty, but when I arrived, I found it to be filled with a mysterious and delightful air, just as described by Goethe and Andersen. I was being paid by a magazine for the trip and had to begin research the following morning. Once I began, I quickly became certain of the fact that maps were utterly useless in the city. Maps are just flat projections on a piece of paper. While it was possible to decipher streets and building shapes from them, I noticed that such representations were meaningless in this city. I knew ahead of time that they wouldn’t be as helpful as the guide maps for a shopping mall in a crowded city, but I was completely unprepared for the deep folds and ruffles in which to get lost in this Naples. I could not even figure out where I wanted to go. It was arrogant of me to believe I could get around with just a map.
Everything about Naples seemed to challenge my powers of comprehension. There seemed to be a different “Naples” for every person I asked. Aside from its physical existence, a city is also a memory. I remembered the somewhat cryptic advice Italian designer Andrea Branzi had given me when I had the occasion to interview him. He said, “Naples is a great city, but who you meet is very important.” Time had “accumulated” in layers all over the city. Going down one layer meant seeing an entirely different era. Occasionally these layers of history would overlap in complex ways, and running into them was confusing. A humble-looking woman from the city would be discussing the philosophy of Epicurus, while the intelligentsia of the west Naples would be talking about the product quality of Prada. I came to believe that the erratic, complex “crypticness” was the life of Naples.
At the time, the buzz everywhere was about information technologies, and people predicted that the IT revolution would transform the world into an ideal place, one in which different peoples could quickly develop an understanding of each other. Is that the case? Does quick and easy understanding of others bring about happiness? The “life” I felt 10 years ago under the skies of southern Italy was, simply put, “mystery”. By this I do not mean that life is a mystery, but rather that life exists in what we do not comprehend, and in what we cannot learn about one another. Other people, love, the future, the world, one’s life, and even oneself: these are all things filled with impenetrable mystery. Yet we still wish to find out. We yearn to understand. That, I think, is where life resides. Solving all of these mysteries would mean life itself running out. Giving up on trying to understand is giving up on life. In my final moments on this earth, I want all of the mysteries to unravel in an instant before my eyes. I want to be able to say to myself, “Ah! So that’s what that was,” and then depart this life, taking the next step on the journey.
These are nothing more than my thoughts, and I hope readers will forgive me for my naiveté. However, there is no doubt in my mind that this view of life I developed in Naples still motivates me. Although I am employed as an editor, I have since ceased trying to apply order to chaos, rearrange things neatly, and make them easier for the reader to understand. In fact, I believe I shouldn’t make things easier to understand. Instead of simplifying the complex, I think about how to get people to accept complexity as it is. How can I convey this or that without draining the life out of it? I spend most of my time wrestling with that question. I believe that it was W. Ross Ashby, who lived during the dawn of systems engineering and authored An Introduction to Cybernetics, who said that in order to understand a complex environment, one must become at least as complex as that environment. Even as I live out my life waiting for the death that will inevitably claim me by virtue of being a human being, I still want to feel the sense that I am alive, right now at this very instant, so my ultimate wish is to become as complex as life itself.
- 作者: 吉岡 徳仁
- 出版社/メーカー: 求龍堂
- 発売日: 2008/10
- メディア: 単行本
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