Today I'm going to talk to you about the problem of other minds. 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?" That is, maybe you have a mind, and everyone else is just a really convincing robot. 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.
今天我要和大家談談心智的問題 我要談的 不是大家熟悉的哲學問題 不是"我們怎麼知道 別人有心智?" 說不定你有心智 其他人只是很像真人的機器人 這是哲學問題 而在這場演講中,我假設 這裡大部分的觀眾都有心智 我就不必費心在這個問題上了
There is a second problem that is maybe even more familiar to us as parents and teachers and spouses and novelists, which is, "Why is it so hard to know what somebody else wants or believes?" Or perhaps, more relevantly, "Why is it so hard to change what somebody else wants or believes?"
第二個問題我們可能更熟悉 身為父母、老師、丈夫妻子 還有小說家 我們想問,"為什麼我們很難 知道別人要什麼或想什麼?" 或者更貼切來說 "為什麼我們很難改變別人要的或想的?"
I think novelists put this best. Like Philip Roth, who said, "And yet, what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people? So ill equipped are we all, to envision one another's interior workings and invisible aims." So as a teacher and as a spouse, this is, of course, a problem I confront every day. 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. And that problem is, "How is it so easy to know other minds?"
我覺得小說家解釋得最好 像菲利浦羅斯說的 "而我們要如何處理「他人」 這件無比重要的大事?" 我們資質不足 難以窺見彼此內心的思慮 與無法捉摸的意向" 而身為老師、妻子 這自然也是我每天都面對的問題 但身為科學家,我感興趣的是另一個問題 也就是我今天要向大家介紹的 這個問題是,"為什麼我們這麼容易 就能了解他人的心智?"
So to start with an illustration, you need almost no information, one snapshot of a stranger, to guess what this woman is thinking, or what this man is. And put another way, the crux 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. And yet, you put them together in a particular network, and what you get is the capacity to write Romeo and Juliet. Or to say, as Alan Greenspan 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)
先看看這張照片 你幾乎不需要其他線索 隨便看一眼這個陌生人 就能猜出這個女人在想什麼 或這個男人在想什麼 換句話說,問題的關鍵 是我們用以思考別人心智的機制 也就是大腦,是由許多腦細胞組成 這些細胞和其他動物沒什麼不同,和猴子 和老鼠,甚至海參都差不多 不過,把這些細胞用特別的方式組織在一起 造出來的大腦就能寫出羅密歐與茱麗葉 或者,像葛林斯潘說的 "我知道你以為你明白你認為我所說的 不過我不確定你瞭解:你所聽到的 並非我真正的意思" (笑聲)
So, the job of my field of cognitive neuroscience is to stand with these ideas, one in each hand. And to try to understand how you can put together simple units, simple messages over space and time, in a network, and get this amazing human capacity to think about minds. So I'm going to tell you three things about this today. Obviously the whole project here is huge. And I'm going to tell you just our first few steps about the discovery of a special brain region for thinking about other people's thoughts. Some observations on the slow development of this system as we learn how to do this difficult job. And then finally, to show that some of the differences between people, in how we judge others, can be explained by differences in this brain system.
認知神經科學的工作 就是思考這些問題 同時比較分析這些問題 並且試著了解為什麼 把簡單的細胞和訊息組織起來 人類就有驚人的能力,能思考他人心智 我今天要談三件事 這個研究計畫很龐大 我想談談計畫的頭幾個步驟 -- 我們是怎麼發現腦中有特定的區塊 負責思考其他人的想法 以及,這種能力發展緩慢 所以我們很晚才學會思考別人的想法 最後,說明道德判斷 每個人不同 這和每個人的大腦差異有關
So first, the first thing I want to tell you is that there is a brain region in the human brain, in your brains, whose job it is to think about other people's thoughts. This is a picture of it. It's called the Right Temporo-Parietal Junction. It's above and behind your right ear. And this is the brain region you used when you saw the pictures I showed you, or when you read Romeo and Juliet or when you tried to understand Alan Greenspan. And you don't use it for solving any other kinds of logical problems. So this brain region is called the Right TPJ. And this picture shows the average activation in a group of what we call typical human adults. They're MIT undergraduates. (Laughter)
首先,我想告訴各位 人類大腦有個區塊 負責思考其他人的想法 請看這張圖 這個區域叫右顳顱頂接縫區 在你右耳後面上方 你使用這個區塊,處理我剛才給你看的照片 或讀羅密歐與茱麗葉 或想辦法理解葛林斯潘在說什麼 你不會用這個區塊處理任何其他邏輯問題 好,這個區塊就叫RTPJ 而這張照片顯示一般人的反應 一群所謂普通成年人的反應 一群麻省理工大學生 (笑聲)
The second thing I want to say about this brain system is that although we human adults are really good at understanding other minds, we weren't always that way. It takes children a long time to break into the system. I'm going to show you a little bit of that long, extended process. The first thing I'm going to show you is a change between age three and five, as kids learn to understand that somebody else can have beliefs that are different from their own. So I'm going to show you a five-year-old who is getting a standard kind of puzzle that we call the false belief task.
關於大腦,我想談的第二點是 雖然成人 對了解別人心智很拿手 但這不是天生的 小孩子要很久才會使用這項能力 我稍微介紹一下這個漫長的學習過程 首先我想展現三歲和五歲小孩間的不同 看看小孩學會了解 別人的想法和自己可能不一樣 我要給各位看一個五歲的小孩 他在做一個常見的測驗 叫做"錯誤信念作業"
Rebecca Saxe (Video): This is the first pirate. His name is Ivan. And you know what pirates really like?
這個海盜叫做艾文 你知道海盜最喜歡什麼嗎? --什麼?
Child: What? RS: Pirates really like cheese sandwiches.
海盜最喜歡起士三明治
Child: Cheese? I love cheese!
起士?我最喜歡起士了!
RS: Yeah. So Ivan has this cheese sandwich, and he says, "Yum yum yum yum yum! I really love cheese sandwiches." And Ivan puts his sandwich over here, on top of the pirate chest. And Ivan says, "You know what? I need a drink with my lunch." And so Ivan goes to get a drink. And while Ivan is away the wind comes, and it blows the sandwich down onto the grass. And now, here comes the other pirate. This pirate is called Joshua. And Joshua also really loves cheese sandwiches. So Joshua has a cheese sandwich and he says, "Yum yum yum yum yum! I love cheese sandwiches." And he puts his cheese sandwich over here on top of the pirate chest.
嗯,然後艾文吃他的起士三明治 他說:"好吃、好吃、好吃 我最喜歡起士三明治了" 然後艾文把三明治放在這裡,放在海盜的箱子上 他說:我要喝點東西配午餐 然後艾文就走了,去喝飲料 艾文不在的時候 一陣風吹來,呼... 把艾文的三明治吹到草地上 然後又來了第二個海盜 這個海盜叫做約書亞 約書亞也很喜歡起士三明治 約書亞也在吃起士三明治 他說:"好吃、好吃、好吃,我最喜歡起士三明治了!" 然後把他的起士三明治放在海盜箱上
Child: So, that one is his.
所以這是他的起士三明治
RS: That one is Joshua's. That's right.
對,這是約書亞的三明治
Child: And then his went on the ground.
然後艾文的掉在地上
RS: That's exactly right.
沒錯
Child: So he won't know which one is his.
所以他不知道哪個三明治是他的
RS: Oh. So now Joshua goes off to get a drink. Ivan comes back and he says, "I want my cheese sandwich." So which one do you think Ivan is going to take?
嗯,然後約書亞也跑去拿飲料 艾文回來了,他說:我要我的起士三明治 所以你覺得他會拿哪一個?
Child: I think he is going to take that one.
我覺得他會拿那一個
RS: Yeah, you think he's going to take that one? All right. Let's see. Oh yeah, you were right. He took that one.
喔,你覺得他會拿那個嗎?好,等一下看看 對,你說的沒錯,艾文拿那一個
So that's a five-year-old who clearly understands that other people can have false beliefs and what the consequences are for their actions. Now I'm going to show you a three-year-old who got the same puzzle.
這個五歲小還很清楚 別人可能有錯誤信念 以及行為的結果是什麼 現在我要請各位看一個三歲的小孩 他接受同一個測驗
RS: And Ivan says, "I want my cheese sandwich." Which sandwich is he going to take? Do you think he's going to take that one? Let's see what happens. Let's see what he does. Here comes Ivan. And he says, "I want my cheese sandwich." And he takes this one. Uh-oh. Why did he take that one?
然後艾文說:我要我的起士三明治 他會拿哪一個三明治呢? 你覺得他會拿那個三明治嗎?等一下我們看看 我們來看看艾文會拿哪一個,艾文來了 他說:"我要我的起士三明治" 他拿了這個三明治 喔,他為什麼拿這個三明治呢?
Child: His was on the grass.
"他的三明治掉在地上"
So the three-year-old does two things differently. First, he predicts Ivan will take the sandwich that's really his. And second, when he sees Ivan taking the sandwich where he left his, where we would say he's taking that one because he thinks it's his, the three-year-old comes up with another explanation: He's not taking his own sandwich because he doesn't want it, because now it's dirty, on the ground. So that's why he's taking the other sandwich. Now of course, development doesn't end at five. And we can see the continuation of this process of learning to think about other people's thoughts by upping the ante and asking children now, not for an action prediction, but for a moral judgment. So first I'm going to show you the three-year-old again.
所以三歲小孩的想法有兩個地方不一樣 首先,他認為艾文會拿 真正屬於他的三明治 其次,當他看到艾文拿放在他原先地方的三明治 我們覺得是因為艾文以為那是他的三明治 這個三歲的小孩卻有別的解釋 他說艾文不拿他的三明治,因為他不想要了 因為那個三明治掉在地上弄髒了 所以艾文才拿另一個三明治 當然大腦發展不會在五歲停止 我們可以看到這個過程一直持續下去 我們不停學習思考別人的心智 我們問小孩更多問題 然後,不是請他們預測行為 而是請他們下道德判斷 首先我再請各位看剛剛那個三歲小孩
RS.: So is Ivan being mean and naughty for taking Joshua's sandwich?
那艾文是不是故意調皮搗蛋,才拿約書亞的三明治?
Child: Yeah.
對
RS: Should Ivan get in trouble for taking Joshua's sandwich?
那我們是不是要處罰艾文?
Child: Yeah.
對
So it's maybe not surprising he thinks it was mean of Ivan to take Joshua's sandwich, since he thinks Ivan only took Joshua's sandwich to avoid having to eat his own dirty sandwich. But now I'm going to show you the five-year-old. Remember the five-year-old completely understood why Ivan took Joshua's sandwich.
或許我們不意外這個小朋友會認為艾文是故意 要拿約書亞的三明治 因為他覺得艾文拿約書亞的三明治 是因為不想吃他自己髒掉的三明治 不過現在我想給各位看五歲小孩的反應 記得這個五歲小孩很清楚 為什麼艾文要拿約書亞的三明治
RS: Was Ivan being mean and naughty for taking Joshua's sandwich?
艾文是不是故意調皮搗蛋 要拿約書亞的三明治?
Child: Um, yeah.
嗯,對
And so, it is not until age seven that we get what looks more like an adult response.
所以,一直要到七歲 小孩的反應才會比較像成人
RS: Should Ivan get in trouble for taking Joshua's sandwich?
我們是不是要處罰艾文,因為他拿了約書亞的三明治?
Child: No, because the wind should get in trouble.
不對,要處罰風才對
He says the wind should get in trouble for switching the sandwiches. (Laughter)
他說要處罰風才對 因為風把三明治調換了 (笑聲)
And now what we've started to do in my lab is to put children into the brain scanner and ask what's going on in their brain as they develop this ability to think about other people's thoughts. So the first thing is that in children we see this same brain region, the Right TPJ, being used while children are thinking about other people. But it's not quite like the adult brain.
目前我的實驗室在進行的實驗 是把兒童放在掃描儀器裡 觀察他們大腦的反應 看看發展思考他人心智能力的期間,大腦的狀況 首先我們看到兒童腦中同一個區塊,RTPJ 也在思考他人心志時活動 但和成人的腦有點不同
So whereas in the adults, as I told you, this brain region is almost completely specialized -- it does almost nothing else except for thinking about other people's thoughts -- in children it's much less so, when they are age five to eight, the age range of the children I just showed you. And actually if we even look at eight to 11-year-olds, getting into early adolescence, they still don't have quite an adult-like brain region. And so, what we can see is that over the course of childhood and even into adolescence, both the cognitive system, our mind's ability to think about other minds, and the brain system that supports it are continuing, slowly, to develop.
成人的腦,像我剛才說的 這個區塊幾乎完全特化 別的都不做,只用來思考別人的心智 兒童的腦則不然 兒童在五歲到八歲 也就是剛才的兒童所屬的年齡範圍 甚至在八歲到11歲 接近青春期的時候 腦中區塊的情況和成人還是不太一樣 因此,我們發現整個童年時期 甚至一直到青春期 我們的認知系統 也就是用自己的心智思考他人心志的能力 還有認知背後的大腦系統 都還在逐漸緩慢發展
But of course, as you're probably aware, even in adulthood, people differ from one another in how good they are at thinking of other minds, how often they do it and how accurately. And so what we wanted to know was, could differences among adults in how they think about other people's thoughts be explained in terms of differences in this brain region? So, the first thing that we did is we gave adults a version of the pirate problem that we gave to the kids. And I'm going to give that to you now.
但是,或許各位也注意到 即使到了成年 每個人的認知能力還是不同,每個人是否擅長思考他人心智 思考頻率 還有結果是否正確,都各不相同 我們想問,成人間的不同 在思考別人想法上的不同 是不是和每個人大腦這個區塊的差別有關 首先我們給成人 類似海盜問題的測驗 現在我也給各位看看
So Grace and her friend are on a tour of a chemical factory, and they take a break for coffee. And Grace's friend asks for some sugar in her coffee. Grace goes to make the coffee and finds by the coffee a pot containing a white powder, which is sugar. But the powder is labeled "Deadly Poison," so Grace thinks that the powder is a deadly poison. And she puts it in her friend's coffee. And her friend drinks the coffee, and is fine.
葛瑞絲和她朋友去參觀化學工廠 他們想休息一下,喝杯咖啡 葛瑞絲的朋友說她的咖啡要加糖 葛瑞絲去泡咖啡 發現咖啡旁有個罐子 裡面的白色粉末是糖粉 但罐子上寫 "劇毒" 所以葛瑞絲以為罐子裡的粉末是毒藥 然後她把粉末放到朋友的咖啡裡 她朋友喝了咖啡,但安然無恙
How many people think it was morally permissible for Grace to put the powder in the coffee? Okay. Good. (Laughter) So we ask people, how much should Grace be blamed in this case, which we call a failed attempt to harm?
有人認為葛瑞思把粉末放到朋友的咖啡杯 是合乎道德的嗎? 好,非常好 (笑聲) 接著我們問這件事葛瑞絲要付多少責任 這種情況叫做企圖傷害未遂
And we can compare that to another case, where everything in the real world is the same. The powder is still sugar, but what's different is what Grace thinks. Now she thinks the powder is sugar. And perhaps unsurprisingly, if Grace thinks the powder is sugar and puts it in her friend's coffee, people say she deserves no blame at all. Whereas if she thinks the powder was poison, even though it's really sugar, now people say she deserves a lot of blame, even though what happened in the real world was exactly the same.
我們可以拿來和另一個情況比較 其他條件都一樣 罐裡的粉末還是糖粉,唯一不同的是葛瑞絲的想法 在這第二種情況中,葛瑞絲覺得那個粉末是糖粉 當然如果葛瑞絲認為那是糖粉 而加到朋友的咖啡裡 多數人會認為葛瑞絲沒有錯 但如果葛瑞絲認為那是毒藥還把它加到朋友的咖啡裡,即使實際上那是糖粉 多數人會認為葛瑞絲該受罰 雖然最後的結果其實和前一個狀況一樣
And in fact, they say she deserves more blame in this case, the failed attempt to harm, than in another case, which we call an accident. Where Grace thought the powder was sugar, because it was labeled "sugar" and by the coffee machine, but actually the powder was poison. So even though when the powder was poison, the friend drank the coffee and died, people say Grace deserves less blame in that case, when she innocently thought it was sugar, than in the other case, where she thought it was poison and no harm occurred.
還有,多數人認為在企圖傷害未遂的情況中 葛瑞絲要負更多責任 而在另一個情況下,她不必負太多責任 這種情況叫意外 這時葛瑞絲認為罐子裡的粉末是糖粉 因為罐子上寫"糖粉",還擺在咖啡旁邊 雖然那是毒藥 所以,就算罐子裡其實是毒藥 害朋友喝完咖啡後死掉 多數人認為葛瑞絲不必付那麼大的責任 因為她毫不知情,以為那是糖粉 而在她以為是毒藥,拿給朋友喝的情況下 雖然朋友沒事,但她要負更大責任
People, though, disagree a little bit about exactly how much blame Grace should get in the accident case. Some people think she should deserve more blame, and other people less. And what I'm going to show you is what happened when we look inside the brains of people while they're making that judgment. So what I'm showing you, from left to right, is how much activity there was in this brain region, and from top to bottom, how much blame people said that Grace deserved.
不過,在意外的情況中 究竟葛瑞絲要付多少責任 大家意見不同 有些人覺得她要負很大的責任 有些人覺得她不用負什麼責任 而我要給各位看人類下道德判斷時 大腦怎麼活動 這張圖的X軸,左右方向 代表腦部RTPJ區塊活動多寡 而Y軸,上下方向, 代表人們認為葛瑞絲要付多少責任
And what you can see is, on the left when there was very little activity in this brain region, people paid little attention to her innocent belief and said she deserved a lot of blame for the accident. Whereas on the right, where there was a lot of activity, people paid a lot more attention to her innocent belief, and said she deserved a lot less blame for causing the accident.
你可以看到, 在左邊,大腦這個區域沒有什麼活動時 大家沒有注意葛瑞絲並不知情 因此認為她要為意外負責 而在右邊,區塊大量活動 大家注意到葛瑞絲事前不知情 因此認為她不用為這場意外 負太多責任
So that's good, but of course what we'd rather is have a way to interfere with function in this brain region, and see if we could change people's moral judgment. And we do have such a tool. It's called Trans-Cranial Magnetic Stimulation, or TMS. This is a tool that lets us pass a magnetic pulse through somebody's skull, into a small region of their brain, and temporarily disorganize the function of the neurons in that region.
看來很不錯 但我們更想做的 是干擾腦中這個區塊的功能 看看是否可以改變人類的道德判斷 而且我們的確有這種工具 叫做穿顱磁刺激 簡稱TMS 我們可以用這個工具傳遞磁脈衝 通過頭骨,抵達大腦一個小區塊 暫時癱瘓那個區塊的神經功能
So I'm going to show you a demo of this. First, I'm going to show you that this is a magnetic pulse. I'm going to show you what happens when you put a quarter on the machine. When you hear clicks, we're turning the machine on. So now I'm going to apply that same pulse to my brain, to the part of my brain that controls my hand. So there is no physical force, just a magnetic pulse.
現在請各位看示範 首先我要介紹磁脈衝 把硬幣放在機器上看看會發生什麼事 滴答聲響,表示機器打開 現在我要在我的大腦施加同樣的磁脈衝 讓磁脈衝進入控制手部的區塊 這不是實際的外力,只是磁脈衝
Woman (Video): Ready, Rebecca? RS: Yes.
準備好了嗎? --好了
Okay, so it causes a small involuntary contraction in my hand by putting a magnetic pulse in my brain. And we can use that same pulse, now applied to the RTPJ, to ask if we can change people's moral judgments. So these are the judgments I showed you before, people's normal moral judgments. And then we can apply TMS to the RTPJ and ask how people's judgments change. And the first thing is, people can still do this task overall.
好,所以磁脈衝 讓我的手不由自主地收縮 同樣的磁脈衝 現在施加在大腦的RTJP區塊 看看我們是否能改變人的道德判斷 這是剛才各位看的道德判斷數值 現在把TMS打到RTJP上 看看人們是否改變道德判斷 結果發現,人還是可以做判斷作業
So their judgments of the case when everything was fine remain the same. They say she deserves no blame. But in the case of a failed attempt to harm, where Grace thought that it was poison, although it was really sugar, people now say it was more okay, she deserves less blame for putting the powder in the coffee.
沒發生問題的話,判斷不變 他們認為葛瑞絲不用負責 但在企圖傷害未遂的情況下 就是葛瑞絲認為那是毒藥,但實際上是糖粉 受測者現在覺得比較沒關係 葛瑞絲不用為放粉末到咖啡裡負很大的責任
And in the case of the accident, where she thought that it was sugar, but it was really poison and so she caused a death, people say that it was less okay, she deserves more blame. So what I've told you today is that people come, actually, especially well equipped to think about other people's thoughts.
至於意外狀況,也就是葛瑞絲以為那是糖粉 但卻是毒藥,因而害死朋友 人們比較不能接受,認為她要負責 總而言之,今天我所說的就是 我們其實天生資質很好 有能力思考他人的想法
We have a special brain system that lets us think about what other people are thinking. This system takes a long time to develop, slowly throughout the course of childhood and into early adolescence. And even in adulthood, differences in this brain region can explain differences among adults in how we think about and judge other people.
我們有特別的腦部系統 讓我們思考別人在想些什麼 這個系統要花很長的時間成熟 要經過整個童年和青春期早期 而成年以後,腦部的差異 會影響成人思考 造成不同的判斷
But I want to give the last word back to the novelists, and to Philip Roth, who ended by saying, "The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living. Getting them wrong and wrong and wrong, and then on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again." Thank you. (Applause)
最後我要引用演講剛開始提到那位小說家的話 菲力普羅斯在結尾處說 "其實理解別人 根本不是生活的重心 誤解別人才是生活重心 一而再,再而三地誤解別人 然後重新仔細思考 再繼續誤解對方" 謝謝各位 (掌聲)
Chris Anderson: So, I have a question. When you start talking about using magnetic pulses to change people's moral judgments, that sounds alarming. (Laughter) Please tell me that you're not taking phone calls from the Pentagon, say.
你剛剛提到 要用磁脈衝改變人的道德判斷 那聽起來真恐怖 (笑聲) 你應該沒有接到國防部之類打來的電話吧?
RS: I'm not. I mean, they're calling, but I'm not taking the call. (Laughter)
我沒有接到 我是說,他們有打來,不過我沒接 (笑聲)
CA: They really are calling? So then seriously, you must lie awake at night sometimes wondering where this work leads. I mean, you're clearly an incredible human being, but someone could take this knowledge and in some future not-torture chamber, do acts that people here might be worried about.
他們真的有打啊? 好了,說真的 你一定曾經半夜睡不著 想著這種研究會對未來造什麼影響 我是說,你非常了不起 但有些人可能利用這種知識 在未來某一天做某些事 當然不至於是酷刑虐待 但可能是某些令我們擔憂的事
RS: Yeah, we worry about this. So, there's a couple of things to say about TMS. One is that you can't be TMSed without knowing it. So it's not a surreptitious technology. It's quite hard, actually, to get those very small changes. The changes I showed you are impressive to me because of what they tell us about the function of the brain, but they're small on the scale of the moral judgments that we actually make.
沒錯,我們也很擔心 關於TMS有幾點要說明 首先你接受TMS時,自己一定會知道 這不是什麼暗中進行的神祕科技 還有,想稍微改變判斷其實不容易 我給你們看的改變對我而言很了不起 因為我們知道大腦的功能 但其實改變幅度很小 我們沒有讓道德判斷產生多大改變
And what we changed was not people's moral judgments when they're deciding what to do, when they're making action choices. We changed their ability to judge other people's actions. And so, I think of what I'm doing not so much as studying the defendant in a criminal trial, but studying the jury.
而且我們不是真的讓人改變主意 改變他們的決定 改變他們的行為 我們改變的只是他們判斷其他人行為的能力 所以我覺得 我們比較不像在研究刑事案件裡的被告 比較像在研究陪審團
CA: Is your work going to lead to any recommendations in education, to perhaps bring up a generation of kids able to make fairer moral judgments?
你的研究可以帶來教育方面的建議嗎? 像是讓小孩長大以後 能做更公正的判斷?
RS: That's one of the idealistic hopes. The whole research program here of studying the distinctive parts of the human brain is brand new. Until recently, what we knew about the brain were the things that any other animal's brain could do too, so we could study it in animal models. We knew how brains see, and how they control the body and how they hear and sense. And the whole project of understanding how brains do the uniquely human things -- learn language and abstract concepts, and thinking about other people's thoughts -- that's brand new. And we don't know yet what the implications will be of understanding it.
有可能,那很不錯 這整個研究計畫 研究人類大腦獨特之處,是全新的概念 直到最近我們對腦的認識 還是侷限在其他動物也有的功能 所以我們才能從動物研究推測人腦功能 我們知道大腦的視覺功能,怎麼控制身體 還有聽覺與觸覺功能 而這整個計畫 了解大腦如何進行人類獨特功能 例如語言學習、抽象思考 還有思考他人的想法,是全新的研究領域 因此目前我們還不清楚 了解這些會帶來什麼衝擊
CA: So I've got one last question. There is this thing called the hard problem of consciousness, that puzzles a lot of people. The notion that you can understand why a brain works, perhaps. But why does anyone have to feel anything? Why does it seem to require these beings who sense things for us to operate? You're a brilliant young neuroscientist. I mean, what chances do you think there are that at some time in your career, someone, you or someone else, is going to come up with some paradigm shift in understanding what seems an impossible problem?
最後一個問題 意識的困難問題 困擾許多人 它是說你可以了解大腦怎麼運作 讓你產生主觀感受,大致是這樣 但是為什麼我們要有主觀感受? 為什麼我們要感受事物 才能當一個"人"? 你是年輕有為的認知神經學者 你覺得有沒有可能 在你職業生涯某一天 某個人,你或其他人 能轉移典範,提出劃時代的觀點 讓我們了解這個看來無解的問題?
RS: I hope they do. And I think they probably won't.
我希望他們做得到,但我覺得他們大概沒辦法
CA: Why?
為什麼?
RS: It's not called the hard problem of consciousness for nothing. (Laughter)
就是因為這樣所以才叫困難問題 (笑聲)
CA: That's a great answer. Rebecca Saxe, thank you very much. That was fantastic. (Applause)
答得好,蕾貝嘉薩克斯,謝謝妳,說得太好了 (掌聲)