Name: 來自 4 個不同領域的專家定義了意識 (Experts from 4 different fields define consciousness)
Uploaded: 2025-09-25T19:15:34.000Z
Duration: 7 min 10 s

情態副詞

How is it that a piece of matter, no matter how complex, ultimately the brain is a piece of furniture, but it can love, and it can hate, and it can fear, and it can dread?

一塊物質，無論多麼複雜，歸根結底，大腦就是一件傢俱，但它可以愛，可以恨，可以恐懼，可以害怕，這又是為什麼呢？

There's nothing in the foundational equations of physics.

物理學基礎方程式中什麼都沒有。

There's nothing quantum mechanics and relativity.

There's nothing in the periodic table of chemistry that talks about love, or hate, or dreaming, or fearing.

化學元素週期表中沒有任何關於愛、恨、夢想或恐懼的內容。

So where does conscious experience come into the world?

Consciousness is any subjective experience.

Seeing, hearing, loving, dreading, imagining.

If it feels like something, then you're conscious.

如果感覺像什麼，那麼你就有意識了。

But we don't know how consciousness arises out of the unconscious complexity of the universe.

但我們不知道意識是如何從無意識的複雜宇宙中產生的。

You have to really look hard at the question of how evolution could have gotten the mind, the human mind, consciousness, up and running.

你必須認真思考這樣一個問題：進化是如何讓人類的思維、意識開始運轉的？

What really can't be debated is that from your point of view as a being in this universe, consciousness is the one thing that can't be an illusion.

毋庸置疑的是，從你作為這個宇宙中的一個存在的角度來看，意識是唯一不可能是幻覺的東西。

It's the one thing to which you, moment to moment, are identical.

這是你每時每刻都與之相同的一件事。

The fact that it's like something to be you is what we mean by consciousness.

我們所說的 "意識"，就是 "你是你 "這一事實。

For millennia, people had it in mind that all the wonderful things they saw in the world, all the beautiful design of the animals and plants and living things must be due to a fabulously intelligent creator.

千百年來，人們一直認為，他們在世界上看到的所有奇妙事物，所有動物、植物和生物的美麗設計，都必須歸功於一個聰明絕頂的造物主。

So it was until Darwin came along and turned that upside down and realized that, in principle, there could be a process that would just inexorably grind out better and better and better designs and create the living world where there had been just lifeless matter before.

直到達爾文出現，他顛覆了這一觀點，並意識到，原則上，可以有這樣一個過程，它將不可阻擋地磨練出越來越好、越來越完美的設計，並創造出一個有生命的世界，而在此之前，這裡只有無生命的物質。

但這隻能讓我們瞭解動物的思維。

If we want to look at human minds, we have to add another source of evolutionary power, and that's cultural evolution, and what it permits is for cultural evolution to become ever less Darwinian, ever more intelligent.

如果我們想研究人類的思想，就必須增加另一種進化力量的來源，那就是文化進化，它允許文化進化變得越來越不達爾文化，越來越智能化。

Then, eventually, you get comprehension and consciousness.

From a medical point of view, consciousness is defined as awareness of self and others and arousal.

從醫學角度來看，意識被定義為對自我和他人的認知以及喚醒。

So what that means, there are basic mechanisms in my brainstem, sort of at the bottom of the brain, that are absolutely necessary for me to be conscious, but it doesn't provide any of the content of consciousness.

這意味著，在我的腦幹，也就是大腦的底部，存在著一些基本機制，這些機制對於我的意識是絕對必要的，但它並不提供意識的任何內容。

You don't love with your, or dream, or fear, or dread with your brainstem.

你不會用你的腦幹去愛、去夢想、去恐懼或害怕。

That really seems to be, in us, the outermost layer of the brain, which is the neocortex, and that's the physical substrate of our conscious experience of the world, including notions of self, who am I, my memories, my traits, my characterization.

在我們身上，這似乎就是大腦的最外層，也就是新皮質，它是我們對世界有意識體驗的物理基礎，包括自我概念、我是誰、我的記憶、我的特徵、我的性格。

All of that seems to be instantiated by the most excitable piece of active matter in the known universe, the neocortex.

所有這一切似乎都是由已知宇宙中最容易興奮的活性物質--新皮質--來實現的。

For most of us, we wake up each morning and we are chased out of bed by our thoughts, and we think, think, think, think, think, until we struggle to fall asleep later that night.

And our lives are largely determined by the quality of those thoughts, the quality of the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.

而我們的生活在很大程度上取決於這些想法的品質，取決於我們告訴自己的生活故事的品質。

And these stories can be incredibly powerful, and negative stories can be profoundly innervating and dispiriting, but they're not the most fundamental layer of our experience.

這些故事可能具有難以置信的力量，負面故事可能令人深感不安和沮喪，但它們並不是我們經驗的最基本層面。

I mean, there's just something deeper to our being moment to moment than our thoughts and our reactions.

我的意思是，我們每時每刻的存在都有比我們的想法和反應更深層次的東西。

Can you let your attention fully sink into the present moment so that you can discover what is beautiful there, what is sacred there, what is self-transcending there?

你能讓自己的注意力完全沉浸在當下，從而發現那裡的美好、那裡的神聖、那裡的自我超越嗎？

Expanded consciousness, alternate consciousness, they're very different from ordinary states of consciousness.

擴展意識、交替意識，它們與普通的意識狀態截然不同。

We all live in what I call in the gravitational field of planet ego.

我們都生活在我所說的自我星球的引力場中。

We always live in this gravitational field, just like we always live in the gravitational field of the planet Earth, right?

我們始終生活在這個引力場中，就像我們始終生活在地球的引力場中一樣，對嗎？

Now, there are certain conditions when we can begin, just like an astronaut becomes weightless and floats, when we can lose a self.

現在，在某些條件下，我們可以開始失去自我，就像太空人失重漂浮一樣。

So for instance, when you go into a state of flow, for example, some people do it when they fly fish, long distance running or rowing.

是以，舉例來說，當你進入流動狀態時，有些人在飛魚、長跑或划船時就會這樣。

When you do meditation under certain types of psychedelics, we can have either reduced or maybe no self altogether.

當你在某種迷幻藥的作用下進行冥想時，我們的自我意識會減弱，甚至完全消失。

And it's a wonderful experience to expand the walls of your perception box, where you realize now suddenly I understand something about the world or I've noticed for the first time that the world is beautiful and transcendent without the self necessarily getting in the way.

擴大你的感知範圍是一種奇妙的體驗，你會意識到現在我突然理解了這個世界的一些東西，或者我第一次注意到這個世界是美麗的、超凡脫俗的，而自我不一定會妨礙它。

Self-awareness means awareness of experience through the five senses.

自我意識指的是通過五感來感知經驗。

It means awareness of mental space, thoughts, memories, sensations, images, imagination.

它意味著對精神空間、思想、記憶、感覺、影像和想象的認識。

And finally, it means awareness of relationship, of me in relationship to friends and family, to community, to society, to the earth, to the stars, to the galaxies.

最後，它意味著對關係的認識，認識到我與朋友和家人、社區、社會、地球、星星和銀河系的關係。

The more you experience this kind of self-awareness, you see that you are an activity of the total universe and that is a mystery.

你越是體驗到這種自我意識，你就會發現自己是整個宇宙的活動，而這就是一個謎。

No one knows why there's the universe and no one knows why there is existence.

沒有人知道為什麼會有宇宙，也沒有人知道為什麼會有存在。

But what it does do ultimately, it leads to what I call epistemological humility, not knowing which is actually the basis of all creativity.

但它最終所做的，就是導致我所說的認識論上的謙卑，不知道這實際上是所有創造力的基礎。

If you knew everything, there wouldn't be any creativity.

如果你什麼都知道，就不會有任何創造力。

The most satisfying way of engaging life is not to be endlessly thinking about it or in telling yourself some story about your past or future.

最令人滿意的生活方式不是無休止地思考，也不是向自己講述一些關於過去或未來的故事。

It's not in understanding yourself conceptually, but can you arrive in the present moment in such a way that you can most fully engage what it's like to be you?

這並不在於從概念上理解自己，而是在於你能否以這樣一種方式來到當下，讓自己能夠最充分地參與其中，體驗做自己的感覺？

Because if I'm not conscious, I don't exist for myself.

因為如果我沒有意識，我自己就不存在。