存在:我的意识来自哪里?

2011-08-02

原文作者：Anil Ananthaswamy

简介

人的意识来自乌有之处？乌有如何产生有？人的意识死后还能继续存在？能否窥视别人死后继续存在的意识？……

Existence: Where did my consciousness come from?

存在：我的意识来自哪里？

29 July 2011 by Anil Ananthaswamy

作者：Anil Ananthaswamy，2011年7月29日，New Scientist

(http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128221.400-existence-where-did-my-consciousness-come-from.html)

THINK for a moment about a time before you were born. Where were you? Now think ahead to a time after your death. Where will you be? The brutal answer is: nowhere. Your life is a brief foray on Earth that started one day for no reason and will inevitably end.

请先稍做个思考：你诞生之前在哪里？然后请再思考：你离世之后又会在哪里？答案很严酷：你哪里也不存在。你的人生对于无因而生且必将完结的地球来说，只是一位不速之客的短暂打扰而已。

But what a foray. Like the whole universe, your consciousness popped into existence out of nothingness and has evolved into a rich and complex entity full of wonder and mystery.

然而这个打扰却不简单。你的意识就像宇宙那样，一下就从虚无之中蹦了出来，并且最终发展成为一个丰富多彩而又复杂万分的实体，其中满是神奇与神秘。

Contemplating this leads to a host of mind-boggling questions. What are the odds of my consciousness existing at all? How can such a thing emerge from nothingness? Is there any possibility of it surviving my death? And what is consciousness anyway?

如此这般追索下去，就会引出一个令人纠结不安的问题：我的意识得以存在的几率究竟如何？怎么可能于虚无之中而生出？我死之后它还能否继续存在？而意识又究竟是什么？

Answering these questions is incredibly difficult. Philosopher Thomas Nagel once asked, "What is it like to be a bat?" Your response might be to imagine flying around in the dark, seeing the world in the echoes of high-frequency sounds. But that isn't the answer Nagel was looking for. He wanted to emphasise that there is no way of knowing what it is like for a bat to feel like a bat. That, in essence, is the conundrum of consciousness.

要回答诸如此类的问题，那是超乎想象地困难。哲人托马斯·内格尔（Thomas Nagel）曾有问曰：“做只蝙蝠的感受是怎样的？”对此，你的反应也许是想到：能在黑暗之中自由飞翔，籍由高频音波反射看清世界，如此等等。然而，这些并非托马斯·内格尔所要追寻的答案，他真正想说的是：根本没有办法得知什么样的感受才是一只蝙蝠的感受。而这才是意识之谜的实质所在。

Neuroscientists and philosophers fall into two broad camps. One thinks that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain and that once we fully understand the intricate workings of neuronal activity, consciousness will be laid bare. The other doubts it will be that simple. They agree that consciousness emerges from the brain, but argue that Nagel's question will always remain unanswered: knowing every detail of a bat's brain cannot tell us what it is like to be a bat. This is often called the "hard problem" of consciousness, and seems scientifically intractable - for now.

就此谜题，神经学家与哲学家形成了两大阵营。一方认为：意识乃是大脑的一种自然属性；一旦我们充分认识了神经活动的复杂机理，意识之谜就会大白于天下。而另一方则认为：事情没有这么简单；他们也承认意识发生于大脑，但却也指出：内格尔之问将永无答案，因为就算透彻了解了蝙蝠大脑的一切的一切，却仍然无从得知蝙蝠的感受究竟如何。此即经常所谓之意识“难题”，而且似乎难以科学地予以解释，至少现在还不行。

Meanwhile, "there are way too many so-called easy problems to worry about", says Anil Seth of the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK.

而另一方面，“我们有很多办法去探究那些所谓简单的问题”，英国布莱顿萨塞克斯大学（University of Sussex in Brighton, UK）的Anil Seth如是说。

One is to look for signatures of consciousness in brain activity, in the hope that this takes us closer to understanding what it is. Various brain areas have been found to be active when we are conscious of something and quiet when we are not. For example, Stanislas Dehaene of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Gif sur Yvette and colleagues have identified such regions in our frontal and parietal lobes (Nature Neuroscience, vol 8, p 1391).

办法之一是在大脑活动中寻找意识的印记，以期更深入了解它到底是什么。人们已经发现，我们意识到的事物不同，大脑的活动区域也不同，一些会很活跃，另一些则表现安静。例如，坐落在吉夫续尔伊凡特（Gif sur Yvette）的法国国家健康与医疗研究所（French National Institute of Health and Medical Research）的Stanislas Dehaene及其同事，就已经确认了我们大脑额叶和顶叶中的这样一些区域（Nature Neuroscience, vol 8, p 1391）。

Consciousness explained

对意识的一种解释

This is consistent with a theory of consciousness proposed by Bernard Baars of the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, California. He posited that most non-conscious experiences are processed in specialised local regions of the brain such as the visual cortex. We only become conscious of this activity when the information is broadcast to a network of neurons called the global workspace - perhaps the regions pinpointed by Dehaene.

这个解释与加州圣地亚哥神经科学院（Neuroscience Institute）Bernard Baars提出的意识理论相一致，他认为：非意识体验大多均由大脑特定部位处理，例如视觉皮质等等。只有相关信息传播到称之为全局平台的神经网络，我们才会意识到这一活动。这个平台也许就是Dehaene所确定的那些区域。

But others believe the theory is not telling the whole story. "Does global workspace theory really explain consciousness, or just the ability to report about consciousness?" asks Seth.

但是也有人认为，这一理论并不全面。Seth就质疑道：“全局平台说真的是在解释意识，还是仅在解释报告意识活动的能力？”

Even so, the idea that consciousness seems to be an emergent property of the brain can take us somewhere. For example, it makes the odds of your own consciousness existing the same as the odds of you being born at all, which is to say, very small. Just think of that next time you suffer angst about your impending return to nothingness.

即便如此，意识似乎是大脑的自然属性这一认识也能对我们有所启示。例如，这一认识就意味着你自己的意识得以存在的几率与你得以诞生的几率并无二致，也就是说，这种几率非常之小。设想一下你再次意识到自己终将回归虚无时而要饱受的内心煎熬吧。

As for whether individual consciousness can continue after death, "it is extremely unlikely that there would be any form of self-consciousness after the physical brain decays", says philosopher Thomas Metzinger of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.

至于个人的意识死后能否继续存在下去，美因茨大学（Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz）的哲学家Thomas Metzinger认为：“物质大脑死亡衰败之后是否还有任何形式的意识存在，这种可能性极其之小。”

Extremely unlikely, but not impossible. Giuilio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison argues that consciousness is the outcome of how complex matter, including the brain, integrates information. "According to Tononi's theory, if one could build a device or a system that integrated information exactly the same way as a living brain, it would generate the same conscious experiences," says Seth. Such a machine might allow your consciousness to survive death. But it would still not know what it is like to be a bat.

极其之小，但并非不可能。威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校（University of Wisconsin-Madison）的Giuilio Tononi指出：意识乃是复杂事物——包括大脑本身——如何与信息整合的产物。Seth说：“按照Tononi的理论，如果能够造出某种与活脑完全一样整合信息的装置或者系统，它就应当能够产生同样的意识体验。”这样的机器也许就能让你的意识逃脱死亡。然而，它依然还是无法知道一只蝙蝠的感受到底是什么。