Have you ever wondered what animals think and feel? Let's start with a question: Does my dog really love me, or does she just want a treat? Well, it's easy to see that our dog really loves us, easy to see, right, what's going on in that fuzzy little head. What is going on? Something's going on.
你可曾想過動物在想什麼? 感受為何? 我們從這問題講起: 我的狗真的愛我? 還是她只想吃零食? 當然我們都知道 我們的狗是真的愛我們。 簡單就看得出來,對吧? 可以想像這些毛絨絨的 小腦袋裡想著什麼嗎? 所以牠們到底在想什麼? 一定有些事。
But why is the question always do they love us? Why is it always about us? Why are we such narcissists? I found a different question to ask animals. Who are you?
但是為什麼我們總是 問牠們是否愛我們? 為什麼問題總是關於我們? 為何我們如此自戀? 我想問動物另一個問題: 你是誰?
There are capacities of the human mind that we tend to think are capacities only of the human mind. But is that true? What are other beings doing with those brains? What are they thinking and feeling? Is there a way to know? I think there is a way in. I think there are several ways in. We can look at evolution, we can look at their brains and we can watch what they do.
人類的智力具有數種能力, 我們一向認為是只有人類才擁有的能力。 但是事實真是如此嗎? 其他生物跟腦有何關係? 牠們思考和感受到什麼? 能有辦法知道嗎? 我認為可以, 我認為有一些方法可以。 我們可以看看演化過程, 我們可以看看牠們的大腦, 我們也可以觀察牠們的習性。
The first thing to remember is: our brain is inherited. The first neurons came from jellyfish. Jellyfish gave rise to the first chordates. The first chordates gave rise to the first vertebrates. The vertebrates came out of the sea, and here we are. But it's still true that a neuron, a nerve cell, looks the same in a crayfish, a bird or you. What does that say about the minds of crayfish? Can we tell anything about that? Well, it turns out that if you give a crayfish a lot of little tiny electric shocks every time it tries to come out of its burrow, it will develop anxiety. If you give the crayfish the same drug used to treat anxiety disorder in humans, it relaxes and comes out and explores. How do we show how much we care about crayfish anxiety? Mostly, we boil them.
首先要記得: 我們的頭腦是演化繼承而來的。 最古老的神經元來自水母。 水母演化成早期的脊索動物, 脊索動物演化成脊椎動物, 脊椎動物走出海洋, 然後演化成我們。 然而,這仍是事實: 神經元、神經細胞看起來都一樣, 不管存在於小龍蝦、鳥, 或是你都一樣。 那這些事實又怎樣說明 小龍蝦的頭腦呢? 我們能知道什麼? 我們發現如果你給一隻小龍蝦 多次的微量電擊, 每次牠想從地洞裡出來時 都這麼做的話, 牠會變得緊張。 如果你給小龍蝦人類的藥物, 一些治療人類焦慮症的藥物, 牠會放鬆然後爬出來走一走。 那如何呈現我們 多麼在乎小龍蝦的焦慮? 我們大都把牠們烹煮了吧。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Octopuses use tools, as well as do most apes and they recognize human faces. How do we celebrate the ape-like intelligence of this invertebrate? Mostly boiled. If a grouper chases a fish into a crevice in the coral, it will sometimes go to where it knows a moray eel is sleeping and it will signal to the moray, "Follow me," and the moray will understand that signal. The moray may go into the crevice and get the fish, but the fish may bolt and the grouper may get it. This is an ancient partnership that we have just recently found out about. How do we celebrate that ancient partnership? Mostly fried. A pattern is emerging and it says a lot more about us than it does about them.
章魚也使用工具, 做得跟多數猿類一樣熟練, 牠們也會識別人臉。 我們要如何讚頌 這如猿類智力般的無脊椎動物? 我們大都把牠們烹煮了吧。 如果石斑魚將魚趕到珊瑚縫中, 牠有時候會游去 已知道有海鰻睡覺的地方, 然後對著海鰻發出 「跟我走」的信號, 海鰻可以理解牠的意思, 然後跟著游進珊瑚縫去捕獵魚, 但魚可能逃脫, 而石斑魚就可以逮到牠。 這種古老的合作關係 我們最近才發現。 我們要如何讚頌 這古老的合作關係? 我們大都把牠們炸了吧! 這些行為模式的出現 更加清楚說明了我們的行為, 並不單只是說明了牠們的。
Sea otters use tools and they take time away from what they're doing to show their babies what to do, which is called teaching. Chimpanzees don't teach. Killer whales teach and killer whales share food.
水瀨會用工具, 而且他們挪出時間 示範動作給牠們的寶寶看, 這就是教學。 黑猩猩沒有教學行為。 虎鯨不但會教學, 也會分享食物。
When evolution makes something new, it uses the parts it has in stock, off the shelf, before it fabricates a new twist. And our brain has come to us through the enormity of the deep sweep of time. If you look at the human brain compared to a chimpanzee brain, what you see is we have basically a very big chimpanzee brain. It's a good thing ours is bigger, because we're also really insecure.
在演化創造新生物時, 保留原有部分的血統體系, 再分化轉變。 而我們現在所演化而成的大腦 歷經了時間的巨輪。 如果你拿人類的大腦 與黑猩猩的大腦來比較, 你看到的基本上是 我們有一顆很大的黑猩猩大腦。 我們頭腦較大是好事, 因為我們很真的很沒信心。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But, uh oh, there's a dolphin, a bigger brain with more convolutions. OK, maybe you're saying, all right, well, we see brains, but what does that have to say about minds? Well, we can see the working of the mind in the logic of behaviors. So these elephants, you can see, obviously, they are resting. They have found a patch of shade under the palm trees under which to let their babies sleep, while they doze but remain vigilant. We make perfect sense of that image just as they make perfect sense of what they're doing because under the arc of the same sun on the same plains, listening to the howls of the same dangers, they became who they are and we became who we are.
然而... 喔哦... 這是的海豚大腦。 這是更大的腦, 皺摺也更多。 好了,也許你會說: 「沒錯我們看到大腦, 但這跟心智有什麼關係呢?」 嗯,我們可以看到心智 在行為邏輯中的活動。 所以你看這些大象 很明顯正在休息。 牠們在棕梠樹下找到一方樹蔭, 作為牠們寶寶睡覺的地方, 牠們自己則在小盹中也仍維持警戒。 我們相當能理解這個景象, 就像動物完全可以理解他們正在做什麼, 因為同在一個太陽下、同一片平原上, 聆聽著相同危險的怒號聲音, 牠們演化成牠們如今的模樣, 正如我們演化成現成我們現今的模樣。
We've been neighbors for a very long time. No one would mistake these elephants as being relaxed. They're obviously very concerned about something. What are they concerned about? It turns out that if you record the voices of tourists and you play that recording from a speaker hidden in bushes, elephants will ignore it, because tourists never bother elephants. But if you record the voices of herders who carry spears and often hurt elephants in confrontations at water holes, the elephants will bunch up and run away from the hidden speaker. Not only do elephants know that there are humans, they know that there are different kinds of humans, and that some are OK and some are dangerous.
我們有很長一段時間 一直為相比為鄰。 沒人會誤以為 這些大象的情緒是鬆懈的, 牠們顯然正擔心某些事物。 牠們在擔心什麼呢? 如果你將遊客的聲音錄下來, 然後從草叢裡的擴音器播放音檔, 大象會無視錄音, 因為大象從不會操心遊客。 但如果你錄的是牧人的聲音, 牧人都攜帶長矛 且經常在水源地和大象對峙, 大象就會集結在一起跑走, 遠離隱藏的擴音器, 大象不僅知道這是人類的聲音, 他們也知道人類分為好幾種, 有些人類還是好的, 有些人類則是危險的。
They have been watching us for much longer than we have been watching them. They know us better than we know them. We have the same imperatives: take care of our babies, find food, try to stay alive. Whether we're outfitted for hiking in the hills of Africa or outfitted for diving under the sea, we are basically the same. We are kin under the skin. The elephant has the same skeleton, the killer whale has the same skeleton, as do we. We see helping where help is needed. We see curiosity in the young. We see the bonds of family connections. We recognize affection. Courtship is courtship. And then we ask, "Are they conscious?"
大象觀察我們的時間 遠比我們觀察牠們的時間多。 牠們了解我們的程度 遠超過我們了解牠們的程度。 我們和大象有相同的生存責任: 照顧嬰兒、覓食、試著活下去。 無論是我們是穿戴旅行裝備 健走在非洲的山丘, 或是穿戴潛水裝備潛入海底, 我們基本上都是一樣的, 我們在皮囊之下是一樣的。 大象有相同的骨架, 殺人鯨有相同的骨架, 我們亦是如此。 我們能看到牠們互相幫助, 我們明白年幼者的好奇心, 我們了解家人之間的聯繫, 我們領悟愛情, 追求愛。 於是我們想問:「動物也有意識嗎?」
When you get general anesthesia, it makes you unconscious, which means you have no sensation of anything. Consciousness is simply the thing that feels like something. If you see, if you hear, if you feel, if you're aware of anything, you are conscious, and they are conscious.
如果你服用了麻醉劑, 你就會暫時失去意識, 也就是說你對任何事情 都不會有知覺。 意識簡單地說 就是感覺與比對。 如果你看見、聽見 感覺、認知到任何東西, 你就是有意識的, 而且動物也是。
Some people say well, there are certain things that make humans humans, and one of those things is empathy. Empathy is the mind's ability to match moods with your companions. It's a very useful thing. If your companions start to move quickly, you have to feel like you need to hurry up. We're all in a hurry now. The oldest form of empathy is contagious fear. If your companions suddenly startle and fly away, it does not work very well for you to say, "Jeez, I wonder why everybody just left."
有人說, 人之所以為人,有一些特點, 其中之一就是同理心。 同理心是能夠感受 同伴情緒的心靈力量。 這是有益的事情。 如果同伴開始快速動作, 你便會覺得也應該加快腳步, 我們都在急促追趕中。 同理心最古老的一種形式 就是具有傳染力的恐懼。 如果你的同伴 突然受驚嚇且全部飛走, 如果你還像這樣悠悠哉哉地說: 「老天,為何大家都飛走了!」 這對你沒有什麼幫助。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Empathy is old, but empathy, like everything else in life, comes on a sliding scale and has its elaboration. So there's basic empathy: you feel sad, it makes me sad. I see you happy, it makes me happy.
同理心雖然存在已久, 但像生活大小事一樣, 排山倒海而來,有其精密複雜。 基本的同理心是: 如果你很難過,我也會跟著難過, 我看見你高興,所以我也高興。
Then there's something that I call sympathy, a little more removed: "I'm sorry to hear that your grandmother has just passed away. I don't feel that same grief, but I get it; I know what you feel and it concerns me."
還有一種情感我稱之為同情心, 情緒稍微疏離一點: 「我很難過聽到你祖母剛過世的消息。」 雖然我沒有感到同樣的悲傷, 但我懂,我知道那感覺, 這讓我擔心。
And then if we're motivated to act on sympathy, I call that compassion.
而如果我們被觸發了 同情心因而產生行動, 我稱那為憐憫。
Far from being the thing that makes us human, human empathy is far from perfect. We round up empathic creatures, we kill them and we eat them. Now, maybe you say OK, well, those are different species. That's just predation, and humans are predators. But we don't treat our own kind too well either. People who seem to know only one thing about animal behavior know that you must never attribute human thoughts and emotions to other species. Well, I think that's silly, because attributing human thoughts and emotions to other species is the best first guess about what they're doing and how they're feeling, because their brains are basically the same as ours. They have the same structures. The same hormones that create mood and motivation in us are in those brains as well. It is not scientific to say that they are hungry when they're hunting and they're tired when their tongues are hanging out, and then say when they're playing with their children and acting joyful and happy, we have no idea if they can possibly be experiencing anything. That is not scientific.
這根本不是人類獨特所有, 人類同理心也並非那麼完美。 我們圍捕擁有同理心的動物, 殺死牠們,把牠們吃掉。 你可能會說:好了,好吧。 牠們是不同物種嘛。 肉若強食很正常啊, 人類是肉食動物。 然而我們對待同胞也沒多好。 人們也似乎只認識一種動物行為, 就是你絕對不能 將人類的思想和情緒 套用在其他物種身上。 我覺得這是愚蠢的, 因為把人類思緒和情感 套用在其他物種身上, 是了解牠們的最佳第一步, 猜測牠們在做什麼、感覺如何, 因為牠們的大腦 基本上和我們一樣, 有相同的結構, 造就我們情緒與動力的賀爾蒙 也同樣在牠們的大腦中。 這並不是科學的說法: 牠們餓了才會獵食、 牠們舌頭垂在外面時, 就表示牠們是累了。 或者說,當牠們和孩子玩耍, 行為表現喜悅和快樂的時候, 我們無從了解是否牠們真的感受如此。 這些說法不科學。
So OK, so a reporter said to me, "Maybe, but how do you really know that other animals can think and feel?" And I started to rifle through all the hundreds of scientific references that I put in my book and I realized that the answer was right in the room with me. When my dog gets off the rug and comes over to me -- not to the couch, to me -- and she rolls over on her back and exposes her belly, she has had the thought, "I would like my belly rubbed. I know that I can go over to Carl, he will understand what I'm asking. I know I can trust him because we're family. He'll get the job done, and it will feel good."
所以,好了,有個記者跟我說: 「也許吧,但你如何真正知道 其他動物能思考與感覺?」 我開始到處搜尋 我書裡引用的所有科學參考資料, 我發現答案就在我的房間裡。 當我的狗起身離開了毯子, 來到我身邊, 沒有跑到沙發,而是跑向我, 她滾躺著露出肚子, 她所想的是:「我要肚子抓抓。 我知道我可以跑到卡爾那, 他會知道我想要什麼, 我信任他,因為我們是家人。 他會把事情做好,讓我開心。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
She has thought and she has felt, and it's really not more complicated than that.
她有思考過,而且她也感覺到了。 這真的沒有那麼複雜。
But we see other animals and we say, "Oh look, killer whales, wolves, elephants: that's not how they see it."
當我們欣賞其他動物時說: 「瞧!虎鯨、狼、大象。」 這並非牠們觀察其他動物的方式。
That tall-finned male is L41. He's 38 years old. The female right on his left side is L22. She's 44. They've known each other for decades. They know exactly who they are. They know who their friends are. They know who their rivals are. Their life follows the arc of a career. They know where they are all the time.
這隻背鰭高大的公鯨叫 L41, 38歲, 在牠左側的母鯨是 L22, 44歲。 牠們彼此認識已經幾十年了。 牠們知道自己是誰, 牠們知道誰是朋友, 牠們知道誰是敵人。 牠們也有生涯曲線。 總是知道自己身處何處。
This is an elephant named Philo. He was a young male. This is him four days later. Humans not only can feel grief, we create an awful lot of it. We want to carve their teeth. Why can't we wait for them to die? Elephants once ranged from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope. In 1980, there were vast strongholds of elephant range in Central and Eastern Africa. And now their range is shattered into little shards. This is the geography of an animal that we are driving to extinction, a fellow being, the most magnificent creature on land.
這隻叫作菲洛的大象, 是年輕的公象。 四天之後牠變成這樣。 人類不只可以感受悲傷, 我們做了很多這種駭人之舉。 我們想拔除牠們的象牙, 但為何就不能等牠們死亡後再做? 大象曾經分布在地中海的沿岸, 一路到好望角。 1980年這裡是大象的廣大分布區, 就在中非、東非。 而現在牠們散布到零星的區域。 這是我們造成大象滅絕的情況, 牠們是地表上最壯觀的動物、 也我們的同伴。
Of course, we take much better care of our wildlife in the United States. In Yellowstone National Park, we killed every single wolf. We killed every single wolf south of the Canadian border, actually. But in the park, park rangers did that in the 1920s, and then 60 years later they had to bring them back, because the elk numbers had gotten out of control. And then people came. People came by the thousands to see the wolves, the most accessibly visible wolves in the world.
當然,在美國我們 照顧野生動物更為周到。 我們在黃石公園 獵殺每隻一隻狼, 其實我們也在加拿大的南境 獵殺每一隻狼。 在1920年代, 森林警備隊都在執行這種任務。 而60年後,他們必須增加狼群數量, 因為駝鹿的數目已經失控。 然後遊客也來了, 成千上萬的人前來觀賞狼群, 這裡是全世界最容易 看到狼群的地方。
And I went there and I watched this incredible family of wolves. A pack is a family. It has some breeding adults and the young of several generations. And I watched the most famous, most stable pack in Yellowstone National Park. And then, when they wandered just outside the border, two of their adults were killed, including the mother, which we sometimes call the alpha female. The rest of the family immediately descended into sibling rivalry. Sisters kicked out other sisters. That one on the left tried for days to rejoin her family. They wouldn't let her because they were jealous of her. She was getting too much attention from two new males, and she was the precocious one. That was too much for them. She wound up wandering outside the park and getting shot. The alpha male wound up being ejected from his own family. As winter was coming in, he lost his territory, his hunting support, the members of his family and his mate.
我也前往觀察這個 令人驚嘆的野狼家族, 這是一個狼群家族, 有成年的狼與幾代年輕的狼。 我在黃石公園觀察這個 名聲響亮、最穩定的野狼家族。 當牠們徘徊在邊境, 有兩隻成年狼被獵殺了, 其中一隻是雌狼媽媽, 我們有時候稱之為頭號母狼。 剩下的狼族立即展開了兄弟鬩牆。 狼的姊妹彼此互相驅離, 左邊的這一隻狼有好幾天想回到家族, 但其他狼不接受,因為忌妒她, 她受到另外兩隻新公狼太多的關注了。 她太早熟了, 對其它狼來說,這太麻煩。 後來,牠在公園裡徘徊, 後來被獵殺了。 頭號公狼也被逐出家族。 隨著冬季到來, 牠失去了領地、捕獵的支援, 失去了家人,也失去了同伴。
We cause so much pain to them. The mystery is, why don't they hurt us more than they do? This whale had just finished eating part of a grey whale with his companions who had killed that whale. Those people in the boat had nothing at all to fear. This whale is T20. He had just finished tearing a seal into three pieces with two companions. The seal weighed about as much as the people in the boat. They had nothing to fear. They eat seals. Why don't they eat us? Why can we trust them around our toddlers? Why is it that killer whales have returned to researchers lost in thick fog and led them miles until the fog parted and the researchers' home was right there on the shoreline? And that's happened more than one time.
我們對牠們傷害如此之重。 難解的是,為何牠們 不會更加地傷害我們? 這隻鯨剛剛吃掉了半隻灰鯨, 牠跟同伴一起殺了這隻灰鯨。 船上這群人一點都不害怕。 這隻鯨叫 T20, 牠剛剛和另外兩隻同伴 將海豹撕裂成三塊。 海豹的體重跟人類的體重差不多。 牠們沒什麼好怕的啊, 牠們吃海豹, 那為何牠們不吃我們? 為何我們能相信牠們, 讓牠靠近還在學步的孩童? 為何這些虎鯨知道研究員 在霧中迷航,而游回附近, 引領數哩,直到迷霧散去, 而研究員的家就在岸邊? 不只發生一次。
In the Bahamas, there's a woman named Denise Herzing, and she studies spotted dolphins and they know her. She knows them very well. She knows who they all are. They know her. They recognize the research boat. When she shows up, it's a big happy reunion. Except, one time showed up and they didn't want to come near the boat, and that was really strange. And they couldn't figure out what was going on until somebody came out on deck and announced that one of the people onboard had died during a nap in his bunk. How could dolphins know that one of the human hearts had just stopped? Why would they care? And why would it spook them? These mysterious things just hint at all of the things that are going on in the minds that are with us on Earth that we almost never think about at all.
在巴哈馬,有位丹妮絲女士, 她研究斑點海豚,海豚也認識她, 她跟每ㄧ隻海豚很熟, 海豚也認識她,能辨認研究船。 當她出現時,就是快樂的重逢。 只有一次例外, 她出現後,牠們不願意靠近, 這非常奇怪。 他們無法理解發生什麼事, 直到有人上了甲板, 通知說船上有人過世, 是在船上睡舖打盹時死亡的。 海豚如何能知道船上有人心跳已經停止了? 為何牠們在意? 又為何這件事嚇到了牠們? 這些神秘的事揭露出 和我們一樣共存於地球的 其它心智在想什麼, 而我們卻幾乎沒認真思考過。
At an aquarium in South Africa was a little baby bottle-nosed dolphin named Dolly. She was nursing, and one day a keeper took a cigarette break and he was looking into the window into their pool, smoking. Dolly came over and looked at him, went back to her mother, nursed for a minute or two, came back to the window and released a cloud of milk that enveloped her head like smoke. Somehow, this baby bottle-nosed dolphin got the idea of using milk to represent smoke. When human beings use one thing to represent another, we call that art.
在南非的水族館, 有一隻瓶鼻海豚名叫多莉。 她還在哺乳期,有天館員休息時抽菸, 他透過窗對著池子抽菸。 多莉游了過來看著他, 再游回了母親身邊,哺乳一兩分鐘, 然後游回窗前, 吐出的奶散開成一朵雲 環繞著她的頭部。 看來,這隻瓶鼻海豚 想到用奶來呈現煙霧。 當人類用其它方式來呈現另一事物時, 我們稱之為藝術。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
The things that make us human are not the things that we think make us human. What makes us human is that, of all these things that our minds and their minds have, we are the most extreme. We are the most compassionate, most violent, most creative and most destructive animal that has ever been on this planet, and we are all of those things all jumbled up together. But love is not the thing that makes us human. It's not special to us. We are not the only ones who care about our mates. We are not the only ones who care about our children.
我們之所以是人類的原因, 跟我們所想的其實不盡相同。 讓我們之所以為人類的是, 我們和動物都擁有的心智活動, 但我們卻是最極端的。 我們是地球上最有憐憫心、 最暴力、最有創意, 也是最有破壞力的動物。 我們是這些特徵混合在一起的結果。 但愛並不是我們之所以為人的主要因素, 愛不是只有人類有。 我們並不是唯一關心同伴的動物, 也不是唯一關心孩子的動物。
Albatrosses frequently fly six, sometimes ten thousand miles over several weeks to deliver one meal, one big meal, to their chick who is waiting for them. They nest on the most remote islands in the oceans of the world, and this is what it looks like. Passing life from one generation to the next is the chain of being. If that stops, it all goes away. If anything is sacred, that is, and into that sacred relationship comes our plastic trash. All of these birds have plastic in them now. This is an albatross six months old, ready to fledge -- died, packed with red cigarette lighters.
信天翁常常飛了 6000 哩, 有時候萬哩, 飛了幾個星期, 只為了帶一頓大餐 回來餵食等待牠們回來的幼雛。 牠們築巢在遙遠的海上島嶼, 看起來像這樣。 一代傳一代是生命的連結, 假如停止了,就消失了。 如果有哪件事很神聖, 那就是世代傳承了。 但這種神聖關係中, 跑出了塑膠垃圾。 這些鳥現在身體裡都有塑膠。 這隻信天翁六個月大, 開始準備生長羽翼, 因為腹中滿是紅色打火機而死去。
This is not the relationship we are supposed to have with the rest of the world. But we, who have named ourselves after our brains, never think about the consequences. When we welcome new human life into the world, we welcome our babies into the company of other creatures. We paint animals on the walls. We don't paint cell phones. We don't paint work cubicles. We paint animals to show them that we are not alone. We have company. And every one of those animals in every painting of Noah's ark, deemed worthy of salvation is in mortal danger now, and their flood is us.
這並非我們與世界 其他生命該有的關係。 我們以聰明的大腦自居, 從未想過後果。 當我們迎接新的生命來到世上, 我們讓寶寶與其他生物作伴。 我們繪製動物於牆壁, 我們不會畫手機、 我們不會畫辦公室的隔間, 我們繪製動物圖像, 告訴孩子我們並不是唯一生命, 我們還有陪伴。 而每一幅諾亞方舟畫裡的每隻動物, 值得拯救的牠們, 現在處於死亡的危險中, 而人類就是牠們的洪水。
So we started with a question: Do they love us? We're going to ask another question. Are we capable of using what we have to care enough to simply let them continue?
所以我們首先這樣問: 牠們愛我們嗎? 我們再繼續追問: 我們是否有足夠的能力, 利用我們擁有的一切 照顧牠們,讓牠們的生命延續下去?
Thank you very much.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)