Is there a real you? This might seem to you like a very odd question. Because, you might ask, how do we find the real you, how do you know what the real you is? And so forth.
是否存在一個真實的你? 你也許覺得這個問題很怪, 因為你可能會問, 我們怎麼找到真實的自己, 又要怎麼知道真實的你是怎樣的? 如此等等。
But the idea that there must be a real you, surely that's obvious. If there's anything real in the world, it's you. Well, I'm not quite sure. At least we have to understand a bit better what that means. Now certainly, I think there are lots of things in our culture around us which sort of reinforce the idea that for each one of us, we have a kind of a core, an essence. There is something about what it means to be you which defines you, and it's kind of permanent and unchanging. The most kind of crude way in which we have it, are things like horoscopes. You know, people are very wedded to these, actually. People put them on their Facebook profile as though they are meaningul, you even know your Chinese horoscope as well. There are also more scientific versions of this, all sorts of ways of profiling personality type, such as the Myers-Briggs tests, for example. I don't know if you've done those. A lot of companies use these for recruitment. You answer a lot of questions, and this is supposed to reveal something about your core personality. And of course, the popular fascination with this is enormous. In magazines like this, you'll see, in the bottom left corner, they'll advertise in virtually every issue some kind of personality thing. And if you pick up one of those magazines, it's hard to resist, isn't it? Doing the test to find what is your learning style, what is your loving style, or what is your working style? Are you this kind of person or that?
真實的你應該存在, 這個命題很明顯。 如果世界上只存在一樣 真實的事物,那就是你。 我對此並不太確定。 至少我們要深入地 理解這個命題的意思。 當然,我認為我們的文化中 存在很多我們周圍的東西 或多或少地強化了這樣一種信念。 那就是我們每個人 都有一個核心,一種實質。 有一些東西能夠定義你, 而這種東西是永恆不變的。 我們有一些很不精確的方法, 比如星座。 事實上,有很多人執著與此。 人們在臉書的個人資料上 寫著自己的星座, 好像它有多重要似的, 還有生肖也是。 有一些所謂更科學的辦法來定義你, 有許許多多定義性格類型的方法, 比如麥氏測試 (MBTI)。 不知道你們有沒有 做過這項測試。 許多公司將這個測試用於招聘。 你要回答一大堆問題, 這照理來說能揭示 你的核心人格特質。 當然這些測試的影響很普遍。 你會在這樣的雜誌上, 左下角這種雜誌的幾乎每一期, 都有各種性格測試的廣告。 你隨便拿起一本這樣的雜誌, 都很難拒絕,是吧? 做這些測試可以找到你 自己的學習方式是什麼、 戀愛方式如何、工作方式又怎樣、 你是什麼樣的人?
So I think that we have a common-sense idea that there is a kind of core or essence of ourselves to be discovered. And that this is kind of a permanent truth about ourselves, something that's the same throughout life. Well, that's the idea I want to challenge. And I have to say now, I'll say it a bit later, but I'm not challenging this just because I'm weird, the challenge actually has a very, very long and distinguished history. Here's the common-sense idea. There is you. You are the individuals you are, and you have this kind of core. Now in your life, what happens is that you, of course, accumulate different experiences and so forth. So you have memories, and these memories help to create what you are. You have desires, maybe for a cookie, maybe for something that we don't want to talk about at 11 o'clock in the morning in a school. You will have beliefs. This is a number plate from someone in America. I don't know whether this number plate, which says "messiah 1," indicates that the driver believes in the messiah, or that they are the messiah. Either way, they have beliefs about messiahs. We have knowledge. We have sensations and experiences as well. It's not just intellectual things. So this is kind of the common-sense model, I think, of what a person is. There is a person who has all the things that make up our life experiences.
我們有這樣一種共識, 認為自己有一些核心特質 需要被發現。 有一些關於自己的永恆真相, 存在於我們的一生。 那麼,我就來挑戰一下這種認知。 我現在要講的, 待會兒也會講, 我挑戰這個認知不是因為我很怪, 而是這種挑戰實際上有 很長的一段特殊的歷史。 這是常識性的認識: 這是你。 你作為一個個人, 擁有一些核心特質。 在你的人生中, 你會積累各種不同的經驗。 你因此有記憶, 這些記憶幫助塑造了你自己。 你有渴望,也許是渴望一塊餅乾, 也許是渴望一些不可告人的東西, 起碼在上午11點的學校 講堂裡我不方便說。 你會有信仰。 這是一個美國人的車牌。 我不知道這個寫著“彌賽亞1”的車牌 是不是代表這個司機相信彌賽亞, 還是代表車主自己 就是彌賽亞(即救世主)。 不管怎麼說,他們都信彌賽亞。 我們擁有知識, 包括直覺和經驗, 而不僅僅是智力上的東西。 我認為這就是 關於「人是什麼」的常識模型。 所有這些東西組成一個人的人生經驗。
But the suggestion I want to put to you today is that there's something fundamentally wrong with this model. And I can show you what's wrong with one click. Which is there isn't actually a "you" at the heart of all these experiences. Strange thought? Well, maybe not. What is there, then? Well, clearly there are memories, desires, intentions, sensations, and so forth. But what happens is these things exist, and they're kind of all integrated, they're overlapped, they're connected in various different ways. They're connecting partly, and perhaps even mainly, because they all belong to one body and one brain. But there's also a narrative, a story we tell about ourselves, the experiences we have when we remember past things. We do things because of other things. So what we desire is partly a result of what we believe, and what we remember is also informing us what we know. And so really, there are all these things, like beliefs, desires, sensations, experiences, they're all related to each other, and that just is you. In some ways, it's a small difference from the common-sense understanding. In some ways, it's a massive one.
但我今天想給大家的建議是 這種模型存在一個基本性的錯誤。 我一下就能告訴你什麼錯了。 這就是:在這些經驗中間 並不存在所謂的「你」。 這個想法奇怪嗎? 也許並不奇怪。 那麼到底有什麼? 顯然有記憶、渴望、意圖、知覺, 等等, 但這些東西存在, 而且是完整一體的, 它們在許多方面 互相重疊、互相聯結。 它們部分相連, 也可能是絕大部分相連, 因為它們都屬於同一個身體、 同一個大腦。 但我們自己存在一種敘事, 可以講出我們自己的故事, 這就是我們憶起過去 而產生的體驗。 我們因為其他事情而做某些事情。 渴望的一部分原因在於我們的信念, 記住的東西告訴我們知道什麼。 確實,這些全部, 包括信仰、渴望、直覺、經驗, 都是互相關聯的, 而這些就是你。 從某種角度講,這個想法 跟常識沒太大不同; 但從某種角度講, 卻有非常大的不同。
It's the shift between thinking of yourself as a thing which has all the experiences of life, and thinking of yourself as simply that collection of all experiences in life. You are the sum of your parts. Now those parts are also physical parts, of course, brains, bodies and legs and things, but they aren't so important, actually. If you have a heart transplant, you're still the same person. If you have a memory transplant, are you the same person? If you have a belief transplant, would you be the same person? Now this idea, that what we are, the way to understand ourselves, is as not of some permanent being, which has experiences, but is kind of a collection of experiences, might strike you as kind of weird.
你要從把自己認為 是擁有全部這些 人生經驗的某種存在, 轉變為把自己認為 是這些人生經驗的 某種簡單集合體。 你就是你各個部分的總和。 當然各個部分是身體上的, 大腦、肢體之類; 但這其實並不那麼重要。 如果你接受了心臟移植,你還是你; 如果你接受了記憶移植, 那你還是你嗎? 如果你被移植了信仰, 你還是不是你? 這種理解自身存在的想法, 認為自己不是某種 擁有經驗的永恆存在, 而是這些經驗的集合, 可能讓你覺得有些古怪。
But actually, I don't think it should be weird. In a way, it's common sense. Because I just invite you to think about, by comparison, think about pretty much anything else in the universe, maybe apart from the very most fundamental forces or powers. Let's take something like water. Now my science isn't very good. We might say something like water has two parts hydrogen and one parts oxygen, right? We all know that. I hope no one in this room thinks that what that means is there is a thing called water, and attached to it are hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and that's what water is. Of course we don't. We understand, very easily, very straightforwardly, that water is nothing more than the hydrogen and oxygen molecules suitably arranged. Everything else in the universe is the same. There's no mystery about my watch, for example. We say the watch has a face, and hands, and a mechanism and a battery, But what we really mean is, we don't think there is a thing called the watch to which we then attach all these bits. We understand very clearly that you get the parts of the watch, you put them together, and you create a watch. Now if everything else in the universe is like this, why are we different?
但事實上,我並不認為 這種想法古怪。 從某種意義上說,這是常識。 我請大家藉由比較, 想想宇宙中任何一個事物, 除去最基本的動力。 讓我們以水為例。 我的科學素養很一般。 我們可以說水含有兩份氫、 一份氧,對嗎? 這我們都懂。 我希望這屋裡不會有人認為 水是一種 外掛氫氣和氧氣原子 的東西。 我們當然不會這麼想。 我們都能輕易又直觀的理解, 水不外乎是 氫分子和氧分子組合的產物。 宇宙中的其他物質也是如此。 譬如說,我的手錶就沒什麼神秘的。 這只手錶有表面、指針、 一套機械系統、還有一塊電池。 但我真正要說的, 是我們不會認為這些東西 是附加在手錶上面的。 我們清楚地知道, 把手錶的各個部件 組合在一起, 你就能得到一只手錶。 如果宇宙中的一切事物都是如此, 我們又為什麼會有不同?
Why think of ourselves as somehow not just being a collection of all our parts, but somehow being a separate, permanent entity which has those parts? Now this view is not particularly new, actually. It has quite a long lineage. You find it in Buddhism, you find it in 17th, 18th-century philosophy going through to the current day, people like Locke and Hume. But interestingly, it's also a view increasingly being heard reinforced by neuroscience. This is Paul Broks, he's a clinical neuropsychologist, and he says this: "We have a deep intuition that there is a core, an essence there, and it's hard to shake off, probably impossible to shake off, I suspect. But it's true that neuroscience shows that there is no centre in the brain where things do all come together." So when you look at the brain, and you look at how the brain makes possible a sense of self, you find that there isn't a central control spot in the brain. There is no kind of center where everything happens. There are lots of different processes in the brain, all of which operate, in a way, quite independently. But it's because of the way that they relate that we get this sense of self. The term I use in the book, I call it the ego trick. It's like a mechanical trick. It's not that we don't exist, it's just that the trick is to make us feel that inside of us is something more unified than is really there.
為什麼我們不能把自己想成 所有部分的集合體, 而要把自己想成擁有這些組成部分的 某種分離、永恆的存在? 這種觀念並不新。 它有著自己漫長的傳承。 在佛教中有, 在十七、十八世紀的哲學中有, 當代的洛克、休謨這些人的著述中也有。 但有趣的是,這種觀點 不斷地被神經科學所支持。 這是保羅‧布洛克斯, 他是一位臨床神經科學家, 他說過: 「我們有一種根深蒂固的直覺, 認為人有一種核心特質, 這種核心特質輕易不會改變, 我甚至懷疑是絕對不可能改變。 但神經科學顯示人的大腦中 不存在一個中心, 讓所有的東西集合在一起。」 當你觀察大腦, 探求大腦如何理解自我, 你會發現大腦不存在中心控制點。 沒有中控區域。 大腦存在非常多的流程, 基本上都是獨立運作的。 不過,由於它們是互相聯繫的, 我們才有了自我的感覺。 我在書裡用的術語 叫做自我戲法。 這有點像機械戲法。 這不是說我們不存在, 這種「戲法」能讓我們的內心 感覺更為統一。
Now you might think this is a worrying idea. You might think that if it's true, that for each one of us there is no abiding core of self, no permanent essence, does that mean that really, the self is an illusion? Does it mean that we really don't exist? There is no real you. Well, a lot of people actually do use this talk of illusion and so forth. These are three psychologists, Thomas Metzinger, Bruce Hood, Susan Blackmore, a lot of these people do talk the language of illusion, the self is an illusion, it's a fiction. But I don't think this is a very helpful way of looking at it. Go back to the watch. The watch isn't an illusion, because there is nothing to the watch other than a collection of its parts. In the same way, we're not illusions either. The fact that we are, in some ways, just this very, very complex collection, ordered collection of things, does not mean we're not real. I can give you a very sort of rough metaphor for this. Let's take something like a waterfall. These are the Iguazu Falls, in Argentina. Now if you take something like this, you can appreciate the fact that in lots of ways, there's nothing permanent about this. For one thing, it's always changing. The waters are always carving new channels. with changes and tides and the weather, some things dry up, new things are created. Of course the water that flows through the waterfall is different every single instance. But it doesn't mean that the Iguazu Falls are an illusion. It doesn't mean it's not real. What it means is we have to understand what it is as something which has a history, has certain things that keep it together, but it's a process, it's fluid, it's forever changing.
你也許覺得這種想法讓人擔憂。 也許覺得,如果這是真的, 我們每個人都沒有 永固的核心自我, 沒有什麽核心特質, 這是否意味著 自我只是一種假象? 這是否意味著我們其實不存在? 沒有什麽真正的你。 確實有許多人採取這種假象說。 有三位心理學家: 湯瑪斯·梅辛革、布魯斯·胡德、 蘇珊‧布萊克摩爾, 這些人皆持假象說, 認為自我是一種假象,是虛構的。 但我不認為這種想法有多少建設性。 讓我們再來看看這只手錶, 這只手錶並不是假象, 因為它在各部件組合之外 不存在其他東西。 同理,我們也不是假象。 事實是,從某種角度說, 我們只不過是一種複雜的集合體, 包含有序排列的各種事物, 這不是說我們就不是真實的。 我想提出一個粗劣的隱喻。 讓我們談談瀑布。 這是阿根廷的伊瓜蘇瀑布。 如果你仔細想想, 就能意識到, 從很多角度來看, 都沒有永恆這回事。 一樣事物永遠在變化。 水永遠在製造新的水路, 通過潮水和天氣的變化, 一些地方乾涸了,新事物出現, 當然瀑布流過的水, 每一刻都是不同的。 但這並不表示伊瓜蘇瀑布是個假象, 並不代表它不是真實的。 這意味著,我們要去理解 這種事物擁有歷史, 是一些特定事物的集合, 但它是一個過程, 是流動的,永遠在變化。
Now that, I think, is a model for understanding ourselves, and I think it's a liberating model. Because if you think that you have this fixed, permanent essence, which is always the same, throughout your life, no matter what, in a sense you're kind of trapped. You're born with an essence, that's what you are until you die, if you believe in an afterlife, maybe you continue. But if you think of yourself as being, in a way, not a thing as such, but a kind of a process, something that is changing, then I think that's quite liberating. Because unlike the the waterfalls, we actually have the capacity to channel the direction of our development for ourselves to a certain degree. Now we've got to be careful here, right? If you watch the X-Factor too much, you might buy into this idea that we can all be whatever we want to be. That's not true. I've heard some fantastic musicians this morning, and I am very confident that I could in no way be as good as them. I could practice hard and maybe be good, but I don't have that really natural ability. There are limits to what we can achieve. There are limits to what we can make of ourselves. But nevertheless, we do have this capacity to, in a sense, shape ourselves. The true self, as it were then, is not something that is just there for you to discover, you don't sort of look into your soul and find your true self, What you are partly doing, at least, is actually creating your true self. And this, I think, is very, very significant, particularly at this stage of life you're at. You'll be aware of the fact how much of you changed over recent years. If you have any videos of yourself, three or four years ago, you probably feel embarrassed because you don't recognize yourself.
我認為這個模型 可以用來理解我們自身, 這是一個自由的模型。 因為,如果你認為自己有什麽 固定的永恆特質, 終其一生、無論如何都不會改變, 那你可以說是進入了死胡同。 你出生即帶有某種特質, 這種特質定義你的一生, 如果你相信有死後的世界, 這種特質甚至能在死後繼續。 但如果你換種方式理解自己, 不是一樣「事物」, 而是一種過程, 處在不斷變化之中, 我認為這是一種解放。 因為與瀑布不同的是, 我們其實擁有一種能力, 某種程度上可以規劃自己發展的方向。 現在我們要小心了,對嗎? 如果你看太多《X音素》節目, 你可能會深信, 我們能成為任何想成為的人。 但這不對。 我今天早上聽了幾位 超棒音樂家的表演, 我堅信自己絕不可能 演奏得像他們一樣出色。 如果勤學苦練, 我也許能有不錯的水準, 但我真的不具備 那種與生俱來的天賦。 我們能達到的成就是有限的。 我們自我實現的程度是有限的。 但不管怎樣,我們確實有一種能力, 在一定程度上塑造自己。 「真我」這種東西, 並不是隱藏著需要你去發現的, 你無需內視自己的靈魂來找尋真我, 你至少可以部份地 創造真我。 我認為這很重要, 特別是在你們現今的人生階段。 你會認識到 自己在過去幾年改變了多少。 如果你有自己三、四年前的影片, 看著就會覺得不好意思, 你都快不認識自己了。
So I want to get that message over, that what we need to do is think about ourselves as things that we can shape, and channel and change. This is the Buddha, again: "Well-makers lead the water, fletchers bend the arrow, carpenters bend a log of wood, wise people fashion themselves." And that's the idea I want to leave you with, that your true self is not something that you will have to go searching for, as a mystery, and maybe never ever find. To the extent you have a true self, it's something that you in part discover, but in part create. and that, I think, is a liberating and exciting prospect. Thank you very much.
我希望能傳遞這個訊息, 我們需要做的就是相信我們能夠 塑造自己,決定人生軌跡,並做出改變。 佛祖曰: 「水人調船, 弓工調角, 材匠調木, 智者調身。」(摘自《法句經》) 我希望大家記住這點, 你無須去尋找自我, 那這是個謎,也許你永遠無法找到。 如果你有真我, 那也是一種你一半能發現, 而另一半能去創造的東西。 我認為這觀點是一種解放, 著實令人興奮。 謝謝大家。