难以名状的哲学概念：意识

>>  Consciousness: the most difficult of philosophic tasks

难以名状的哲学概念：意识

"Consciousness… does not appear to itself chopped up in bits… It is nothing jointed; it flows."

**  我们和威廉·詹姆斯继续探索「意识」。

**  平时，意识似乎与每个人形影不离，但当我们试图描述意识时，它又如此难以名状。

**  詹姆斯曾用“水流”来比喻意识。回想一下自己的意识体验，你或许会对「意识流」感同身受。

**  然而，对意识的感性认识不足以支撑以它为主题的哲学研究。如果说“每一个想法都是个人意识的组成部分”，那么“个人意识”和其他各种术语的准确界定就又是一个新的问题了。

**  对意识做出准确解释，就这样成为了「the most difficult of philosophic tasks」。

>>  Neural Correlates Of Consciousness

**  一.早期研究

>>  The ancient Greeks discussed the mind, but did not use the term “consciousness” or any equivalent.However, there was debate as to whether something separate from the body exists at all.

**  这个问题由来已久。从公元前4世纪，古希腊人就对「心灵」开始了初步探索。但是，他们的讨论还没有上升到意识的层面。

>>  In the 4th century BCE, Plato made a distinction between the soul and the body, but Aristotle argued that even if there is a distinction, the two cannot be separated.

**  柏拉图对灵魂和肉体进行了区分，而亚里士多德认为，即使两者之间存在分别，它们也是无法分离的。

>>  17th century:René Descartes was one of the first philosophers to attempt to describe consciousness, proposing that it resides in an immaterial domain he called “the realm of thought”, in contrast to the physical domain of material things, which he called “the realm of extension”.

**  提到心灵与肉体的分别，就少不了笛卡儿（还记得他的身心二元论吗？）。他很早就对意识有了一定认识，并认为意识坐落于一个无形的领域当中——他称之为“思想王国”。

>>  The first person accredited with the modern concept of consciousness as an ongoing passage of individual perceptions is the 17th-century English philosopher John Locke.

**  第一个为意识带来现代诠释的人则是英国哲学家约翰·洛克。他认为意识是一条持续延伸的通道，一个个独立的认知在上面穿行而过。

>>  18th century，Immanuel Kant was impressed by the way our experiences come together, noting that if we hear a noise and feel pain at the same time, we typically experience these as one event.He called this the “unity of consciousness”.

**  1781年，康德提出了“意识统一”的概念。我们常常在同一时间得到不同的体验（例如听到响声和感受到疼痛），这些体验经过整合，统一成了一个事件（被打了）。

>>  James was drawn to Locke’s idea of passing perceptions and also to the work of the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

**  洛克和康德的观点，都给威廉·詹姆斯带来了深远的影响。

**  二. 威廉·詹姆斯的研究

>>  The descriptions of consciousness

It allows us to reflect upon the past, present, and future, to plan and adapt to circumstances and so fulfil what he believed was the prime purpose of consciousness – to stay alive.

**  意识让我们有序地运转起来：思考过去、现在和未来，规划和适应不同的人生境况，实现意识存在的首要目的——活着。

>>  Separate thoughts give birth to new ideas “No-one ever had a simple sensation by itself: consciousness… is of a teeming multiplicity of objects and relations.”

**  前面说到威廉·詹姆斯认为意识就像河流，河流中是一个个独立的思想。但是，它们是如何结合在一起的呢？

>>  The idea of a plus the idea of b is not identical with the idea of (a + b)”.Two thoughts added together cannot be made into one idea.They are more likely to form an entirely new idea.

**  他认为思想的结合并非简单的加总（a+b=a+b），而会生成一个全新的思想（a+b=c）。

>>  For example, if thought a is “it’s nine o’clock”, and thought b is “the train leaves at 9:02”, thought c – “I’m going to miss my train!” – might follow.

**  例如文中的：a. 9点了；b. 火车 9:02 开；于是，a+b = c. 我得快点去车站，免得错过.

>> If consciousness is a stream of distinct thoughts, James struggled to see how these combine. James concluded that the simplest way to understand how thoughts within the stream of consciousness might combine to make sense is to suppose “that things that are known together are known in single pulses of that stream”

**  为了更好地解释以上理论的合理性，詹姆斯假设一些思想（或者感觉）是相连的，而它们汇入了意识小溪的同一股流水当中。一股股流水，有急有缓，还不时做出停顿。

**  詹姆斯由此来描述思想在大脑中的流动过程：

>>  James stated that there are even resting points, where we pause to form pictures in our minds, which can be held and contemplated at length. He called the resting places “substantive parts”.

**  实体部（substantive parts）：停顿处，思想在这里逐渐生成图像，这些图像可以被保留下来进行深思；

>>  He claims that our thinking is constantly being dislodged from one substantive part towards another, propelled by the transitive parts, or current.

**  传送部（transitive parts）：奔腾不息的水流则叫“传送部”，传送部推动驻留于实体部中的思维，使它们往下一个实体部进发。

>>  We are, therefore, effectively “bumped” from one conclusion to another by the constant stream of thoughts, whose purpose is to pull us ever forwards in this way.There is no final conclusion; consciousness is not a thing but a process, which is constantly evolving.

**  实体部中的图像就是一个个结论，而使结论不断向前奔涌的水流就是连绵的思想。最终结论不曾存在，因为思维让结论永无止息地更新和演变。

>> The Eiffel Tower:Dots of pure colour make up this work by the French, Post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat.

**  法国后印象派画家乔治·修拉用一个个不同颜色的圆点组成了这幅画。圆点是互相分离的元素，但是在大脑的帮助下，我们看到了埃菲尔铁塔的画面。（见下图）

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难以名状的哲学概念：意识

>>  Thoughts are inseparable from the thinker

James also drew attention to the personal nature of consciousness, stating that thoughts do not exist independently of a thinker – they are your thoughts or mine.

**  威廉·詹姆斯还思考了意识的个人特质。

>> Stating that thoughts do not exist independently of a thinker – they are your thoughts or mine.Each one is “owned” by someone, and never “comes into direct sight of a thought in another personal consciousness than its own”.

**  1. 从属性：詹姆斯认为意识是不能独立于人而存在的——它永远「属于」某个人（Thoughts do not exist independently of a thinker）。

>> Each one never comes into direct sight of a thought in another personal consciousness than its own2.

**  私人性：一个人的思想永远仅存在于自身的个人意识当中。

>>  And it is these thoughts “connected as we feel them to be connected” that form the self.3.

**  自我的形成：思想以我们所感知到的方式与我们相连，也正是它们组成了“自我”。

>>  As thoughts cannot be divided from the self, James said that investigating this self should be the starting point of psychology.

**  由此，詹姆斯认为心理学的起点应该是对「自我」的探究。

>>  Experimental psychologists did not agree, because “the self” cannot be offered up for experimentation, but James thought it was enough to work with our understanding of a self that does certain things and feels in certain ways.

**  尽管实验心理学家认为自我是不能作为实验对象的，但是詹姆斯着眼于「经验主义自我」的概念，认为它可以通过实际的行为而外显。

**  经验主义自我

>>  He called this the “empirical self”, which manifests itself through its behaviour, and suggested that it consists of several parts – the material self, spiritual self, and social self – each of which can be studied through introspection.

**  詹姆斯称之为“经验自我”，它包含了几个部分：物质自我、精神自我和社会自我，可以由自省的方法来进行研究。

>>  James&Lange：Perception – Action – Emotion

>>  In the early stages of his research into consciousness, James realized that the emotions play an important role in our daily lives, and went on to develop, with his colleague Carl Lange, a theory about how they relate to our actions and behaviour.What was to become known as the James–Lange Theory of Emotion states that emotions arise from your conscious mind’s perception of your physiological condition.

**  詹姆斯认为情绪和意识紧密相连，由此与同事卡尔·兰格一起建立了詹姆斯-兰格情绪理论，来描述情绪和行为的关系。

>>  This contradicts what most people might think, but James’s view was that the mind’s perception of the physical effects of running – rapid breathing, increased heartbeat, and perspiring heavily – is translated into the emotion of fear.

**  其结论可能是违背你的直觉的：詹姆斯和兰格认为在一个事件中，大脑先感知到当前状况，接着，我们的身体会相应作出反应（产生行动）。最后，它们才转化成了相应的情绪。

>>  “…What is really happening is that you see the bear and run away, and the conscious feeling of fear is caused by the action of running.”You feel happy because you are conscious that you are smiling; it is not that you feel happy first, and then smile.

**  或许很多时候，身体的反应动作（呼吸、心跳、汗腺分泌、嘴角上扬……）在我们感受到之前就早已发生了。