人的一生都将会经历巨大的变化。就生理变化而言 我们最开始都不过是50厘米高的新生儿。天真无邪 皮肤柔软 充满弹性。而也许九十年后,我们就会成为弯腰驼背 头发灰白 身患肝斑的一米八的驱壳。

　　In the intervening period, every single cell in our body will have been replaced often many times over, and would've gone through all kinds of experiences that perhaps leave almost no trace in memory.

　　期间，我们身体里几乎每一个细胞都将一次又一次地被替换，它们也将经历各种各样的几乎不会留在我们记忆中的事。

　　The twenty five-year-old won't remember most of what the five-year-old felt so strongly about, the sixty seven-year-old will only dimly recall what was on their mind as they approached 30. We carry the same name throughout our lives, and consider ourselves as a relatively stable unitary entity.

　　25岁的你只会对你5岁时的喜怒哀乐保有模糊的记忆，67岁的你也只能依稀记得奔三时的零星往事。我们一辈子只有一个名字，并认为自己是一个相对稳定的个体。

　　But is really right to think of ourselves as the same person?Once one puts it under a philosophical microscope, the issue of personal identity emerges as far trickier than it first assumed.

　　但一生中，我们是否能认为自己是"同一个人"？当我们用哲学的眼光细细研究时，"人格"这个问题远比我们想象中的更加棘手。

　　So in what ways could we be said to be continuous throughout time?What does guarantee that we can plausibly think of ourselves as the same people over a lifetime?

　　那么，我们要怎么样才能称得上是延续不变的？我们到底要在什么条件下，才能一辈子都把自己看作是同一个人？

　　Just where is personal identity located? A standard assumption is that it's out body that guarantees our personal identity. This is the theory that a key part of what makes me me, is that I'm housed in an identical body.

　　"人格"到底生于何处？通常，人们会认为我们的身体决定了人格。这个观点认为"我"之所以为"我"，主要是因为"我"附在我的躯体上。

　　But philosophers like to push this assumption around a little. Imagine if I lost all my hair. Would I still be me? Yes, sure. What if I lost a finger? Eh ... Yes. A leg? Definitely. Now, what if a malevolent demon appeared and told us that we have to lose every part of our bodies, but could keep just on bit. Which bit would it be? Few of us will pick our elbows or bellybuttons. Almost all of us would pick our brains, and that tells us something interesting.

　　而哲学家们则喜欢挑战这个设想。想象一下 如果我掉光了头发 那我还是我吗？当然是啦。那没了一根手指呢？额 . ..是一条腿呢？当然是咯。现在，有个恶魔要取走我们身体的所有部位，只留下一部分，你会选哪一部分？很少人会选手肘或者肚脐眼儿。几乎所有人都会选大脑，这点非常有趣。

　　We assume implicitly that some bits of our bodies are more "meish", closer to the core of personal identity than others, and most "meish"of all the bits are our brains.

　　我们的潜意识认为我们身体的某些部位更能代表"我"，比起其他部分，这些部位更接近我们人格的核心，而最具人格特征的部位就是大脑了。

　　Christianity runs a version of this thought experiment. It asks us to think what will happen after our death, and it imagines a separation of the body, ultimately not as significant, and the ongoing survival of a more modest precious bit that it calls the soul.

　　基督教就宣传着对这个思维实验的其中一种解读。它让我们想象自己死后会发生什么事，基督教认为，人死后会躯体分离，因为它最终是无关紧要的，而继续存在下去的则是更加精髓的部分——灵魂。

　　There's another version of this thought experiment that two lovers can play. In the early throes of love, two people who've gone to bed together might ask : what do you really like about me?

　　这个思维实验还有一个版本 适合由情侣来进行。在陷入情网的初期，事后的两人也许会问对方：你究竟喜欢我什么？

　　The wrong answer is to say you're fabulous breasts, or your amazing muscular arms. Breast and chest don't ultimately feel meish enough to be a respectable answer. It seems we want to be loved for something closer to our real self, perhaps our soul or our brain.

　　以下是错误答案：你那傲人的胸线，或你那充满力量的手臂。胸部并不代表"自我"的典型部位，因此该答案零分。人们希望听到更能代表他们真实自我的部位，例如灵魂和大脑。

　　Let's push the thought experiment further. What bit of the brain is actually most crucial to being me? Let's imagine that I have a bump to the head and lose my ability to play table tennis. Am I still myself? Most of us would say: yes,sure. What if I once spoke Latin and lose the ability, or forgot how to cook asparagus with a light mayonnaise sauce? Would I still be me ? Yes. In other words, technical capacities don't feel very close to the core of personal identity.

　　让我们来进一步研究这个思维实验。大脑中的哪个部位对于"自我"来说是最重要的呢？试想，如果我的头被砸到了，不能再打乒乓球了。我还是我吗？多数人会说：当然是。如果我会说拉丁语，突然丧失了这种能力，或者忘了怎么用低脂蛋黄酱炒芦笋？那我还是我吗？是的。也就是说技术能力和"人格"并没有很大的关系。

　　What about other kinds of memories? A big part of making me me, tends to be my store of memories. I remember that carpet in my bedroom when I was growing up, the girl I was in love with in university, or the weather over Sydney as we came into land for my first Australian book tour. But what if these memories all vanished as well? Could I still be me ?

　　那其他方面的记忆呢？我之所以是我，很大程度上取决于我的记忆存储。我记得小时候房间里的挂毯，在大学追过的女孩，或者第一次为了签书会而登上澳洲大陆时，悉尼的天气。但如果这些记忆都消失了呢？我还能是我吗？

　　One view is : possibly, so long as something else remained, and that thing we can call, my character. In other words, if my characteristic way of responding to situations, my sense of that is fun, wise, interesting or important remain the same, I can still, in some fundamental way, claimed to be the same person.

　　其中一个看法是：只要那种被称为"特性"的东西被保留下来，那我就有可能还是"我"。也就是说，我对某种情形的独特反应，以及我对滑稽、睿智、有趣或重要等等的理解保持一致，那么归根结底，我还能称得上是"我"。

　　My memory store of feelings and behaviors might be gone, but I could be assured of continuing to feel and behave in compatible ways in the future. Those around me would need to keep reminding me of stuff that happened, but they would still recognize me as me.

　　虽然我的对情感和行为的记忆已经消失，但我感知与行动的方式还是和从前一样。身边的人需要不断提醒我以前发生过的事，但他们还是会把失忆的"我"看作以前的"我"。

　　A fascinating idea comes into view. Personal identity seems to consist not in bodily survival, I could be put in somebody else's body or live in a jar and still be me .nor in the survival of memory, I could forget everything and still be me, bet in the survival of what we are here going to call: character.

　　由此可得出一个非常耐人寻味的观点。"人格"并不取决于躯体的是否存在，我可以附在别的躯体上，或是在一个瓶子里生活，但我还是我。"人格"也不取决于记忆是否存在，我可以完全失忆，但我还是我，"人格"取决于我们接下来要说的"特性"之中。

　　This is an idea attributed to the English philosopher John Locke, who famously wrote personal identity is made up of what he called sameness of consciousness.

　　这个观点是英国哲学家约翰·洛克提出的，他有一名句：人格是由意识的同一性构成的。

　　If a demon offered as a choice between remembering everything but feeling and valuing very differently, or feeling and valuing the same sorts of things but remembering nothing, most of us would, Lock suggests, chose the latter. So if we have to boil personal identity down to its essence, it seems to come down to values, inclinations and temperament.

　　如果一个魔鬼让你选择 A. 记得所有事，但对事物的感知和评价有巨大变化。B. 对事物感知和评价不变，但忘记所有事。洛克认为，大多数人都会选择B（价值观不变）。所以 若将 "人格"这个概念进行提炼，那剩下就只是价值观、意向和性格。

　　Let's think of death with all these in mind. The standard view of death is that it's sad because it means the end of our identity. Now it certainly does mean the end if we identify identity with the survival of our bodies or without our memories.

　　明白了这些之后，让我们来考虑一下死亡。常人认为 死亡让人悲伤，是因为它意味着人格的消亡。如果我们认为人格和躯体或记忆有关，那死亡的确就等于人格的消亡。

　　But if we think that who we are is to a large degree about our values and characteristic loves and hates, then we're in a sense, granted a kind of mortality.

　　但如果我们认为"自我"很大程度上取决于我们的价值观和个人独特的爱恨情仇，那就某种意义而言，我们是永生的。

　　Simply through the fact that these will continue to live on in our species as a whole, lodged here and there, outside of their present home. Perhaps what we have learned to call "me " was only ever a temporary resting place, for a set of ideas and proclivities that are far older, and are destined to live on far longer than our bodies. We might attempt to be less sad about death by letting go of the idea, that we are a particular constellation of physical features.You're always in a sense far longer lasting, far more trans-generational as a bundle of inclinations and ideas.

　　因为他们将一直在人类这个物种中存在，他们寄存在这人或那人身上，不局限于现在的躯体中。也许现在我们所说的"我"只是一个暂时的储存空间，寄存着一堆早就存在的想法和意向，而且远在我们的肉体消亡之后，它们还能存在下去。如果我们不再把"人格"看成是由一堆生理特征组成的话，那面对死亡，我们就能更看得开了。如果把"人格"看作一系列的意向和想法的话，那你的人格将能跨越世世代代，比你的躯体更加长寿。

　　We will continue to crop up and live, wherever those ideas that are most characteristic of us will emerge, as they must in the generations that have to come.

　　在未来的千秋万代里，哪里有着最具"我"的特性的思想，哪里就会有我们生活的踪迹。

　　Focusing in on questions of identity has the paradoxical and rather cheering effect of making us both less attached to certain bits of us, and more confident that the really important things about who we have been will survive in a way long after or bodies of return to dust and our memories have been obliterated.

　　注重"人格"有一种非常矛盾却鼓舞人心的效果，它让我们不再痴迷于自己身体的某些部位，而是让我们坚信对"我"来说最重要的东西会在我们的躯体早已归于尘土、记忆早已消逝无踪时仍然长存不朽。