英语PK台 第513期:万物有灵且美—动物真的有心智,有感觉吗?

 　　Have you ever wondered what animals think and feel? There are capacities of the human mind that we tend to think are capacities only of the human mind. But is that true?

　　你是否疑惑过，动物们在想些什么，它们能感觉到什么？我们认为这些能力是人脑独有的。但真是这样吗？

　　The first thing to remember is that a neuron, a nerve cell, looks the same in a crayfish, a bird or you. If you give a crayfish a lot of little tiny electric shocks every time it tries to come out of its burrow¹, it will develop anxiety. If you give the crayfish the same drug used to treat anxiety disorder² in humans, it relaxes and comes out and explores. How do we show how much we care about crayfish anxiety? Mostly, we boil them. Octopuses³ use tools, as well as do most apes and they recognize human faces. How do we celebrate the ape-like intelligence of this invertebrate⁴? Mostly boiled.

　　我们要记住的第一件事是：（人类的大脑是继承来的。）可是不管是鸟类，小龙虾，还是你，你们都有着一样的神经元和神经细胞。事实证明，如果一只小龙虾每当它想从地洞里爬出来的时候你就给它一个小的电击，可以导致它产生焦虑症。而如果你给这只小龙虾吃药，吃给人类焦虑症患者一样的药，小龙虾也会放松起来，然后继续出地洞探索。而我们是怎么判断的小龙虾是否焦虑呢？大多数情况下，我们把它们煮了吃。

　　Sea otters⁵ use tools and they take time away from what they're doing to show their babies what to do, which is called teaching. We have the same imperatives⁶: take care of our babies, find food, try to stay alive. We are basically the same. We are kin⁷ under the skin.

　　海獭会使用工具，它们花时间给宝宝展示它们正在做什么好让宝宝也可以跟着它们做，这就是教学。我们跟它们都有同样的需求：照顾孩子，寻找食物，尽力活下去。我们本质上是一样的。皮囊之下我们都是相同的。

　　This is an elephant named Philo. He was a young male. This is him four days later. Humans not only can feel grief, we create an awful lot of it. We want to carve their teeth. Why can't we wait for them to die?

　　这是一头叫Philo的大象。他是头年轻的公象。这是四天后的他。人类不仅能感到悲痛，我们还常常制造很多的痛苦。我们总想拔掉它们的牙。难道我们就真的等不到它们死去后再说吗？

　　We cause so much pain to them. The mystery is, why don't they hurt us more than they do? Why don't they eat us? Why is it that killer⁸ whales have returned to researchers lost in thick fog and led them miles until the fog parted? How could dolphins know that one of the human hearts had just stopped? Why would they care? And why would it spook them? These mysterious things just hint at all of the things that are going on in the minds that are with us on Earth that we almost never think about at all.

　　我们对它们造成太多的伤害了。可问题是，为什么它们不会那样伤害我们呢？可为什么它们不吃我们呢？为什么虎鲸在大雾天会到海上研究员那里指引他们一直到数英里以外浓雾散去到达那些研究员的家所在的海岸边？海豚是怎么知道那其中的一个人心脏停止了跳动呢？为什么它们会关心这个呢？为什么这把它们吓住了呢？这些奇妙的事情就是在这个地球上和我们一起生存的生物的大脑中时时刻刻在发生着的，而我们对这些却根本毫不关心。

　　At an aquarium⁹ in South Africa was a little baby bottle-nosed dolphin named Dolly. And one day a keeper took a cigarette break, smoking. Dolly came over and looked at him, and released a cloud of milk that enveloped¹⁰ her head like smoke. When human beings use one thing to represent another, we call that art.

　　在南非的一个水族馆里，有一只叫Dolly的小宽吻海豚。有一天，一个饲养员在抽烟休息。 他一边抽着烟，Dolly过去看了一下他，吐出了一口奶，那些“奶烟”笼罩在它的头上，就像人们抽烟一样。当人类用一个事物去代表另一样事物，我们便称之为艺术。

　　The things that make us human are not the things that we think make us human. What makes us human is that, of all these things that our minds and their minds have, we are the most extreme. We are the most compassionate¹¹, most violent, most creative and most destructive animal that has ever been on this planet, and we are all of those things all jumbled¹² up together. But love is not the thing that makes us human. It's not special to us. Passing life from one generation to the next is the chain of being. If that stops, it all goes away.

　　真正使我们成为人类的东西其实并不是那些我们认为的使我们成为人类的东西。真正让我们成为人类的东西其实是那些我们和动物们都有的心智活动，但我们却是最极端的。在这个星球上我们是最有同情心也最暴力最有创造力也最具破坏性的动物，我们是所有这些特征的结合体。并不是爱让人得以为人。爱不是我们特有的。生命一代一代向下相传，铸成了生命的联结。如果这停止了，一切就消失了。

　　When we welcome new human life into the world, we welcome our babies into the company of other creatures. We paint animals on the walls. We don't paint cell phones. We don't paint work cubicles¹³. We paint animals to show them that we are not alone. We have company. And every one of those animals in every painting of Noah's ark, deemed worthy¹⁴ of salvation¹⁵ is in mortal danger now, and their flood is us. We're going to ask another question. Are we capable of using what we have to care enough to simply let them continue?

　　当我们欢迎来到这个世界上的新生命时，我们常常让我们的宝宝与其他的生物作伴。我们把动物的图案涂绘在墙上。我们不会画手机。我们不会画工作间。我们画动物给宝宝们看，让他们知道我们并不孤单。我们还有它们陪伴。在每一幅诺亚方舟画上的每一种动物，那些应该被拯救的动物现在都处于灭绝的危险中。而我们就是他们的灭顶之灾。而现在我们要问另外一个问题。我们有没有竭尽所能地去在乎他们的未来？

1 burrow   

vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞

参考例句：

• Earthworms burrow deep into the subsoil.蚯蚓深深地钻进底土。
• The dog had chased a rabbit into its burrow.狗把兔子追进了洞穴。

2 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

3 octopuses   

章鱼( octopus的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Snails and octopuses are molluscs. 蜗牛和章鱼是软体动物。
• Limpets, snails and octopuses are mollusks. 帽贝、蜗牛和章鱼都是软体动物。

4 invertebrate   

n.无脊椎动物

参考例句：

• Half of all invertebrate species live in tropical rain forests.一半的无脊椎动物物种生活在热带雨林中。
• Worms are an example of invertebrate animals.蠕虫是无脊椎动物的一个例子。

5 otters   

n.（水）獭( otter的名词复数 )；獭皮

参考例句：

• An attempt is being made to entice otters back to the river. 人们正试图把水獭引诱回河里去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Otters are believed to have been on Earth for 90 million years. 水獭被认为存活在地球上已经9千多万年。 来自互联网

6 imperatives   

n.必要的事( imperative的名词复数 )；祈使语气；必须履行的责任

参考例句：

• Nixon, however, had other imperatives. 但尼克松另有需要。 来自辞典例句
• There could be some cultural imperatives in there somewhere! 在公共传播那里，在某些方面，可能有更迫切的文化需要！ 来自互联网

7 kin   

n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的

参考例句：

• He comes of good kin.他出身好。
• She has gone to live with her husband's kin.她住到丈夫的亲戚家里去了。

8 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

9 aquarium   

n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸

参考例句：

• The first time I saw seals was in an aquarium.我第一次看见海豹是在水族馆里。
• I'm going to the aquarium with my parents this Sunday.这个星期天，我要和父母一起到水族馆去。

10 enveloped   

v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She was enveloped in a huge white towel. 她裹在一条白色大毛巾里。
• Smoke from the burning house enveloped the whole street. 燃烧着的房子冒出的浓烟笼罩了整条街。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 compassionate   

adj.有同情心的，表示同情的

参考例句：

• She is a compassionate person.她是一个有同情心的人。
• The compassionate judge gave the young offender a light sentence.慈悲的法官从轻判处了那个年轻罪犯。

12 jumbled   

adj.混乱的；杂乱的

参考例句：

• Books, shoes and clothes were jumbled together on the floor. 书、鞋子和衣服胡乱堆放在地板上。
• The details of the accident were all jumbled together in his mind. 他把事故细节记得颠三倒四。

13 cubicles   

n.小卧室，斗室( cubicle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Security guards, operating inside bullet-proof glass cubicles, and speaking through microphones, scrutinized every arrival and departure. 警卫们在装有防弹玻璃的小室里值勤，通过麦克风细致盘问每一个进出的人。 来自辞典例句
• I guess they thought me content to stay in cubicles. 我猜他们认为我愿意呆在小房间里。 来自互联网

14 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

15 salvation   

n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困

参考例句：

• Salvation lay in political reform.解救办法在于政治改革。
• Christians hope and pray for salvation.基督教徒希望并祈祷灵魂得救。