TED十佳演讲之生死自知

I have a question: 我要问大家一件事：Who here remembers when they first realized 在座的各位谁还记得当自己第一次意识到they were going to die? 自己有一天会死去时那一刻的感受？I do. I was a young boy, 我还记得，那时我还是个小男孩and my grandfather had just died, 我的祖父刚刚过世了，and I remember a few days later lying in bed at night 记得几天后的一个夜晚，我躺在床上trying to make sense of what had happened. 是这回想之前所发生的一切What did it mean that he was dead? 去世到底意味着什么？Where had he gone? 他去哪了？It was like a hole in reality had opened up 有点像现实中有个洞打开and swallowed him. 把他吞了。

But then the really shocking question occurred to me: 但那时对我而言，有个震撼的问题是：If he could die, could it happen to me too? 如果他会死去，同样的事也会发生在我身上吗？Could that hole in reality open up and swallow me? 现实中真有个洞打开并把我吞下吗？Would it open up beneath my bed 它会在我的床底下打开and swallow me as I slept? 并在我睡着的时候把我吞下吗？Well, at some point, all children become aware of death. 嗯，某种程度而言，所有的孩子开始意识到死亡。

It can happen in different ways, of course, 当然，它会以不同的方式发生，and usually comes in stages. 并且通常会在某个阶段到来。

Our idea of death develops as we grow older. 随着我们年龄的增长，我们对死亡的观念逐渐形成。

And if you reach back into the dark corners 并且如果你回想起of your memory, 你记忆中的最黑暗的角落时，you might remember something like what I felt 你或许会想起和我感受相同的的一些事情when my grandfather died and when I realized 在我祖父去世的时侯我意识到it could happen to me too, 同样事情也会发生在我身上，that sense that behind all of this 背后所有这一切的感受the void is waiting. 是空虚的等待。

And this development in childhood 在童年时代的这种发展reflects the development of our species. 反应了人类的发展。

Just as there was a point in your development 就像你生命中的某一时刻as a child when your sense of self and of time 还是小孩的时候，对自我和时间的认知became sophisticated enough 变得十分复杂for you to realize you were mortal, 你意识到你难逃一死，so at some point in the evolution of our species, 所有在人类进化的某个时刻，some early human's sense of self and of time 前人对自我和时间的认知became sophisticated enough 开始变得复杂for them to become the first human to realize, 然后成为第一批意识到，"I'm going to die." “我终将会死去。

”的人们。

This is, if you like, our curse. 如果你能接受，这是我们的诅咒。

It's the price we pay for being so damn clever. 那是我们对料知死亡所付出的代价。

We have to live in the knowledge 我们不得不生活在that the worst thing that can possibly happen 最坏的的事情将会发生的状态下，one day surely will, 这一天当然会来，the end of all our projects, 终结我们所有的计划，our hopes, our dreams, of our individual world. 我们的希望，梦想，也会带走我们的一片天。

We each live in the shadow of a personal 我们每个人生活在自己的apocalypse. 末日阴影下。

And that's frightening. It's terrifying. 那时很吓人，很恐怖的。

And so we look for a way out. 所以我们试图寻找一个出路。

And in my case, as I was about five years old, 以我为例，在我5岁左右的时候，this meant asking my mum. 我去问我的妈妈。

Now when I first started asking 现在当我开始问到what happens when we die, 我们死亡时会发生什么，the grown-ups around me at the time 我周围的大人们那个时候answered with a typical English mix of awkwardness 会带着尴尬的and half-hearted Christianity, 基督教的经典语句来回答我，and the phrase I heard most often 我最常听到的词是was that granddad was now 祖父现在"up there looking down on us," ”在天上看着我们“and if I should die too, which wouldn't happen of course, 并且如果我也死去，当然现在不会发生，then I too would go up there, 那时我也会到天上去，which made death sound a lot like 让死亡听起来像an existential elevator. 一部存在的升降电梯。

Now this didn't sound very plausible. 现在听起来不在是那么的真实可信。

I used to watch a children's news program at the time, 那时候我通常会看儿童的新闻节目，and this was the era of space exploration. 那时是个太空探索的时代。

There were always rockets going up into the sky, 经常会有火箭冲向蓝天，up into space, going up there. 进入太空。

But none of the astronauts when they came back 但是没有一个从太空归来的航天员ever mentioned having met my granddad 提及我见到了我的祖父or any other dead people. 或其它死去的人。

But I was scared, 但那时我很害怕，and the idea of taking the existential elevator 乘坐可能存在的升降电梯to see my granddad 去见我的祖父sounded a lot better than being swallowed 相比在我睡梦中巨大的空间吞噬by the void while I slept. 的想法更容易接受。

And so I believed it anyway, 所以我就相信了，even though it didn't make much sense. 尽管它没有任何意义。

And this thought process that I went through 我小时候就有这种思考模式as a child, and have been through many times since, 从那时候起发生过很多次，including as a grown-up, 长大后也是，is a product of what psychologists call 这被心理学家称之为a bias. 偏误。

Now a bias is a way in which we systematically 偏误有自己的流程get things wrong, 让我们按照错误的方式思考事物ways in which we miscalculate, misjudge, 计算错误，判断错误，distort reality, or see what we want to see, 扭曲现实，或者只看到了我们想看到的东西。

And the bias I'm talking about 我这里说的偏误works like this: 是这么回事：Confront someone with the fact 某些人面对that they are going to die 他们终将会死去的现实and they will believe just about any story 他们只会相信that tells them it isn't true 告诉他们的任何故事都不会是真的and they can, instead, live forever, 他们可以永久的活着，even if it means taking the existential elevator. 即便乘坐可能存在的升降电梯。