最难识的是人心,最难懂的是人性。最近在学英语,以下为笔记。
Today I’m going to talk to you about the problem of other minds.
今天我要和你们聊聊“人心”的问题。
And the problem I’m going to talk about is not the familiar one from philosophy, which is, “How can we know whether other people have minds?”
我将要讨论的问题不是哲学中常见的问题,即“我们如何知道别人是否有意识?”
That is, maybe you have a mind, and everyone else is just a really convincing robot(以假乱真的机器人).
也就是说,也许你确实有自己的想法,而其他人只是一个以假乱真的机器人.
So that’s a problem in philosophy, but for today’s purposes I’m going to assume that many people in this audience have a mind, and that I don’t have to worry about this.
这是哲学上的一个问题,但出于今天的目的,我将假设在座的许多人都有意识,我不必担心这一点。
There is a second problem that is maybe even more familiar to us as parents and teachers and spouses and novelists,
还有第二个问题,作为父母、教师、配偶和小说家,我们可能更为熟悉
which is, “Why is it so hard to know what somebody else wants or believes?”
也就是说,“为什么很难知道别人想要什么或相信什么?”
Or perhaps, more relevantly, “Why is it so hard to change what somebody else wants or believes?”
或更贴切的问题是,“为什么改变别人的需求或信念是如此困难?”
I think novelists put this best.
我想小说家们最精通此道。
Like Philip Roth (菲利普 罗斯,美国作家,曾多次提名诺贝尔文学奖), who said, “And yet, what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people?
就像菲利普·罗斯(Philip Roth)所说的那样,“然而,我们如何识别和读懂他人深沉的内心呢?”
So ill equipped(装备不足) are we all, to envision (想象,预见,展望) one another’s interior workings and invisible aims(内部运作和无形目标).”
我们所有人与生俱来都不完美,无法想象彼此的内心活动和隐藏的目标。
So as a teacher and as a spouse, this is, of course, a problem I confront every day.
所以,这是我作为一名教师和配偶,每天都要面对的问题。
But as a scientist, I’m interested in a different problem of other minds, and that is the one I’m going to introduce to you today.
但作为一名科学家,我对另外的问题更感兴趣,这就是我今天要和大家聊的话题。
And that problem is, “How is it so easy to know other minds?”
这就是,“如何才能轻易地读懂人心?”
So to start with an illustration, you need almost no information, one snapshot(快照) of a stranger, to guess what this woman is thinking, or what this man is.
那我们从一个例子开始吧,我们几乎不需要任何信息,只需要一张陌生人的照片,就可以猜到这个女人在想什么,或者这个男人是干什么的。
And put another way, the crux(n. 关键) of the problem is the machine that we use for thinking about other minds, our brain, is made up of pieces, brain cells, that we share with all other animals, with monkeys and mice and even sea slugs(海参).
换言之,问题的关键在于我们用来识别人心的“机器”是我们的大脑,我们的大脑是由脑细胞组成,这与所有其他动物,猴子、老鼠甚至海参的并没有差别.
And yet, you put them together in a particular network, and what you get is the capacity to write Romeo and Juliet.
然而,如果你把这些细胞放在一个特定的网络中,你将有能力写出《罗密欧与朱丽叶》。
Or to say, as Alan Greenspan (艾伦·格林斯潘,美国犹太人,美国第十三任联邦储备委员会主席主席) did, “I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” (Laughter)
或者像艾伦·格林斯潘那样说,“我知道你认为你理解我所说的话,但我不确定你是否意识到你听到的并不是我说的那个意思。”







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