经济学人365:关于意识如何作用的新想法

 　　The unconscious mind

　　潜意识

　　Hidden depths

　　藏匿在深处

　　Subliminal¹: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behaviour. By Leonard Mlodinow.

　　《潜意识：你的潜意识如何支配你的行为》；伦纳德 蒙洛迪诺著；

　　ASK someone to name a famous psychologist, and chances are they will pick Sigmund Freud (pictured), the bearded Austrian academic who came up with the idea of psychoanalysis.

　　说起著名的心理学家，人们可能会想到西格蒙德 弗洛伊德（如图），这位满脸大胡子的奥地利学者提出了精神分析的概念。

　　His ideas about the unconscious—a sort of shadowy basement of the mind that is inaccessible² to rational thought, but which nevertheless influences people's behaviour—are part of popular folklore³.

　　他关于潜意识的概念成了众相传说的一部分，颇受欢迎。他认为潜意识隐藏在意识底部，难以达到理性思维，虽则如此，但它却影响着人们的行为。

　　Although it remained popular at dinner parties, the idea of the unconscious fell out of favour among 20th-century psychologists, thanks to the rise of more scientific approaches to psychology⁴.

　　尽管人们在晚宴上依然拿潜意识的概念来消遣，但由于更加科学的心理学方法的兴起，二十世纪的心理学家已不再青睐它。

　　These focused purely⁵ on studying behaviour and refrained from theorising about the inner workings of the mind.

　　这些方法纯粹集中研究人们的行为，避免了将思维的内部运作理论化。

　　In his latest book, “Subliminal”, Leonard Mlodinow, a theoretical physicist⁶ who has been developing a nice sideline in popular science writing,

　　理论物理学家伦纳德?蒙洛迪诺兼职科普写作，一直写得很好。

　　shows how the idea of the unconscious has become respectable again over the past couple of decades.

　　在自己的最新著作《潜意识》一书中，他论证了过去几十年来潜意识的概念如何再度受到人们的尊敬。

　　This development has been helped by rigorous experimental evidence of the effects of the subconscious⁷ and, especially, by real-time brain-scanning technology that allows researchers to examine what is going on in their subjects' heads.

　　这种发展得益于对潜意识效应的严格实验证据，特别是得益于实时大脑扫描技术，该技术让研究人员能够仔细观察研究对象的头部究竟怎么了。

　　That experimental evidence suggests that, as Freud suspected, conscious reasoning makes up a comparatively small part of the activity in our brains, with most of the work taking place where we can't tap into it.

　　该实验证据表明，正如弗洛伊德所怀疑的，相对说来有意识的推理只占据了我们大脑活动的一小部分，而大部分的思维活动发生在我们无法深入了解的区域。

　　However, unlike Freud's unconscious (a hot, claustrophobic place full of repressed memories and inappropriate sexual fantasies about one's parents) the modern unconscious is a place of super-fast data processing,

　　然而，弗洛伊德的潜意识指活动强烈的幽闭区域，充满了压抑的记忆和对自己父母不适当的性幻想，不同于这点的是，现代潜意识指一种能进行超快速的数据处理、

　　useful survival mechanisms⁹ and rules of thumb about the world that have been honed by millions of years of evolution.

　　有着实用的生存机制以及对世界的经验法则的区域，它们都经历了数百万年进化的磨砺。

　　It is the unconscious, for instance, that stitches together data on colour, shape, movement and perspective to create the sight enjoyed by the conscious part of the mind.

　　例如，把颜色、形状、运动状态以及远景等数据组合在一起产生视觉，让思维有意识的部分来享受，这种行为是下意识的。

　　Experiments on people with certain specific forms of brain damage, which remove the ability to perform some of these tasks, can reveal something about what is going on underneath¹⁰.

　　患有某些特定形式脑损伤的人失去了执行这些任务的能力，对他们所进行的实验可以揭示骨子里是怎么回事。

　　People with “blindsight” can respond to some visual stimuli¹¹ even when they are not conscious of being able to see. Asked to walk down an obstacle-strewn corridor,

　　即使患有“盲视”的人看不懂，但他们也可以对某些视觉刺激产生回应。当被要求走过布满障碍的走廊时，

　　they will dodge¹² and weave and arrive at their destination unharmed because some residual¹³ data is still making its way into their brains—although at a level that is beneath the notice of their conscious minds.

　　他们会迂回地躲开障碍，安然无恙地抵达目的地，因为一些残余的数据仍然有自己的途径进入他们的大脑，不过进入的程度无法引起他们思维有意识部分的注意。

　　The modern view of the unconscious mind may be more benign¹⁴ than Freud's, but it can still generate unwelcome impulses.

　　潜意识的现代观点可能比弗洛伊德的观点更良性，但潜意识仍然可以产生不受欢迎的冲动。

　　Psychologists theorise that the well-documented tendency of humans to categorise almost every piece of information they come across is a survival mechanism⁸ that evolved to aid quick decision making.

　　心理学家推论，人类把遇到的几乎每条信息都进行分类并存档完好，这种倾向是一种生存机制，它的进化有助于快速作出决策。

　　Yet it may also lie behind the tendency for human beings to group people into races, genders¹⁵, creeds¹⁶ and the like, and then to apply certain characteristics—unjustifiably—to every member of that group.

　　然而，它也可能是人类把人按种族、性别、信仰等分群的原因，接着再据此按某些特征对该群的每个成员进行不理性地归类。

　　The insights offered by modern science into the workings of the human mind are fascinating in their own right.

　　现代科学为人类思维运作提供的见解引人入胜，凭的是这些见解自身的力量。

　　But they also suggest that plenty of conventional wisdom about how humans behave may need rethinking. Mr Mlodinow notes that economic models, for instance,

　　但同时它们也表明，大量有关人类行为的传统智慧可能需要反思。例如，蒙洛迪诺指出，

　　are built “on the assumption that people make decisions…by consciously weighing the relevant factors”, whereas the psychological research suggests that, most of the time, they do no such thing.

　　经济合算的模式建立在“人们自觉地衡量相关因素再决定......这一假设之上”，而心理学研究表明，大多时侯他们不做这样的事。

　　Instead, they act on the basis of simple, unconscious rules that can sometimes produce completely irrational¹⁷ results.

　　相反，他们的行为简单地受潜意识所支配，有时这些支配可以产生完全不理性的结果。

　　Mr Mlodinow's chapters on courts and the law are disturbing, in particular on how unreliable eyewitness¹⁸ evidence can be.

　　蒙洛迪诺关于法庭和法律的章节令人不安，特别是关于目击者的证据有多么不可靠的章节更是如此。这点在别的书中也被广泛地引证过。

　　This has been widely documented elsewhere. But there is good news in the book, as well: people informed of the biases¹⁹ and pitfalls²⁰ of their unconscious brains are better at using their conscious minds to overrule them.

　　但书中也有好消息，了解大脑潜意识存在偏见和误区的人更擅长利用他们的自觉意识来对潜意识施加影响。

1 subliminal   

adj.下意识的，潜意识的；太弱或太快以至于难以觉察的

参考例句：

• Maybe they're getting it on a subliminal level.也许他们会在潜意识里这么以为。
• The soft sell approach gets to consumers in a subliminal way.软广告通过潜意识的作用来影响消费者。

2 inaccessible   

adj.达不到的，难接近的

参考例句：

• This novel seems to me among the most inaccessible.这本书对我来说是最难懂的小说之一。
• The top of Mount Everest is the most inaccessible place in the world.珠穆朗玛峰是世界上最难到达的地方。

3 folklore   

n.民间信仰，民间传说，民俗

参考例句：

• Zhuge Liang is a synonym for wisdom in folklore.诸葛亮在民间传说中成了智慧的代名词。
• In Chinese folklore the bat is an emblem of good fortune.在中国的民间传说中蝙蝠是好运的象征。

4 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

5 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

6 physicist   

n.物理学家，研究物理学的人

参考例句：

• He is a physicist of the first rank.他是一流的物理学家。
• The successful physicist never puts on airs.这位卓有成就的物理学家从不摆架子。

7 subconscious   

n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的)

参考例句：

• Nail biting is often a subconscious reaction to tension.咬指甲通常是紧张时的下意识反映。
• My answer seemed to come from the subconscious.我的回答似乎出自下意识。

8 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

9 mechanisms   

n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 )；机械装置；[生物学] 机制；机械作用

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms. 这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He explained how the two mechanisms worked. 他解释这两台机械装置是如何工作的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

11 stimuli   

n.刺激（物）

参考例句：

• It is necessary to curtail or alter normally coexisting stimuli.必需消除或改变正常时并存的刺激。
• My sweat glands also respond to emotional stimuli.我的汗腺对情绪刺激也能产生反应。

12 dodge   

v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计

参考例句：

• A dodge behind a tree kept her from being run over.她向树后一闪，才没被车从身上辗过。
• The dodge was coopered by the police.诡计被警察粉碎了。

13 residual   

adj.复播复映追加时间；存留下来的，剩余的

参考例句：

• There are still a few residual problems with the computer program.电脑程序还有一些残留问题。
• The resulting residual chromatism is known as secondary spectrum.所得到的剩余色差叫做二次光谱。

14 benign   

adj.善良的，慈祥的；良性的，无危险的

参考例句：

• The benign weather brought North America a bumper crop.温和的气候给北美带来大丰收。
• Martha is a benign old lady.玛莎是个仁慈的老妇人。

15 genders   

n.性某些语言的（阳性、阴性和中性，不同的性有不同的词尾等）( gender的名词复数 )；性别；某些语言的（名词、代词和形容词）性的区分

参考例句：

• There are three genders in German: masculine, feminine and neuter. 德语中有叁性：阳性、阴性和中性。 来自辞典例句
• Japan was fourth among the genders of foreign students. 日本在二十个留美学生输送地中列第四位。 来自互联网

16 creeds   

（尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• people of all races, colours and creeds 各种种族、肤色和宗教信仰的人
• Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds. 天主教徒对于新教教义来说，是不可知论者。

17 irrational   

adj.无理性的，失去理性的

参考例句：

• After taking the drug she became completely irrational.她在吸毒后变得完全失去了理性。
• There are also signs of irrational exuberance among some investors.在某些投资者中是存在非理性繁荣的征象的。

18 eyewitness   

n.目击者，见证人

参考例句：

• The police questioned several eyewitness to the murder.警察询问了谋杀案的几位目击者。
• He was the only eyewitness of the robbery.他是那起抢劫案的唯一目击者。

19 biases   

偏见( bias的名词复数 )； 偏爱； 特殊能力； 斜纹

参考例句：

• Stereotypes represent designer or researcher biases and assumptions, rather than factual data. 它代表设计师或者研究者的偏见和假设，而不是实际的数据。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• The net effect of biases on international comparisons is easily summarized. 偏差对国际比较的基本影响容易概括。

20 pitfalls   

（捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误

参考例句：

• the potential pitfalls of buying a house 购买房屋可能遇到的圈套
• Several pitfalls remain in the way of an agreement. 在达成协议的进程中还有几个隐藏的困难。