#475 — The Hard Problem of Consciousness

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You're listening to Making Sense with Sam Harris.

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This is the free version of the podcast, so you'll only hear the first part of today's conversation.

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There are no ads on this show.

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It runs entirely on subscriber support.

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我今天和迈克尔·波伦在一起。

I'm here with Michael Pollan.

迈克尔，很高兴再次见到你。

Michael, it's great to see you again.

是的。

Yeah.

很高兴能回来，萨姆。

Great to be back, Sam.

或者说是第一次见到你。

Or to see you for the first time.

我们刚才在聊，上一期播客好像只有音频。

We were just talking about the fact that that the last podcast, I think, was just audio.

对吧？

Right?

那其实相当于是一通电话采访。

We were it was a phone call, effectively.

对。

Yeah.

那天的事我记得特别清楚。

It was I actually remember the day really well.

那是2018年，我在俄勒冈州波特兰的一家酒店房间里。

It was 2018, and I was in a hotel room in Portland, Oregon.

时间已经过去这么久了？

Has that much time passed?

天哪。

Jesus.

真让人感到沮丧。

That's really depressing.

是啊。

Yeah.

那时候《改变你的心智》刚出版。

It was How to Change Your Mind had just come out.

是啊。

Yeah.

真不可思议。

Wow.

我们在聊致幻剂的事。

I I And we were talking about psychedelics.

这肯定是跟年龄有关，但每次让人估算时间过去了多久，我总是估错，至少差两倍，有时候甚至差三倍。

If this is must be a function of of age, but when asked to estimate how much time has elapsed, I'm always off by a factor of at least two, if not three.

我的意思是，我每次都错，而且总是低估了时间。

I mean, I I it's always and I'm always wrong in in the direction of underestimating.

所以。

So

是的。

Yeah.

已经过去好一阵子了。

It's been a while.

对。

Yeah.

很高兴见到你。

Well, it's great to see you.

看到你出了新书，真的特别棒，不是每个人都会这么做。

It's great just to see that you have a new book, and you have you have written a not everyone does this.

你写了一本关于意识本质的畅销书，叫《世界显现：意识之旅》，这自然延续了你上一本关于迷幻剂的《改变你的心智》。

You have written a bestseller on the nature of consciousness, and the book is is A World Appears, A Journey Into Consciousness, which is an all too natural follow on from your your last book on psychedelics, how to change your mind.

在深入探讨之前，你能不能先帮我理清一下这两者之间的联系？

Before we jump into the deep end of the pool, let's just have you connect that those dots for me.

你是怎么说服自己，想要在这个方向上继续深入的？

How did you convince yourself that you wanted to go deeper in this direction?

你知道吗，这种反应在迷幻体验中其实很常见。

You know, think it's a very common response to psychedelic experience.

在我写《改变你的心智》期间，我做过一系列体验和研究之旅。

I had a series of experiences, research trips, if you will, from when I was working on how to change your mind.

迷幻剂通常会让人对意识产生一种陌生感。

And one of the things psychedelics kind of reliably do for people is defamiliarize consciousness.

你会突然更清楚地意识到它的存在。

You're suddenly made more aware of it.

我在书里把它比作擦模糊了平时看世界的挡风玻璃。

I described it in the book as like smudging the windshield through which you normally perceive reality.

然后你突然意识到：哦，原来还有块挡风玻璃。

And suddenly you realize, hey, there's a windshield.

这到底意味着什么？

What is that about?

因为大多数时候，它完全是透明的。

Because most of the time it's utterly transparent.

你可能很长一段时间都不会去想意识这回事。

You can go a long time without thinking about consciousness.

所以我就把这些疑问摆在面前，当成一连串要探索的问题。

So that was you know, so I'd put it in front of me as as a set of questions.

每写完一本书，总会留下几条没解开的线索，一些让人好奇却来不及深究的路。

And of all the thing you know, whenever you finish a book, there's always a few threads that are left, you know, untied and, you know, curious paths.

现在再回头去走，已经来不及了。

It's too late to go down.

你已经到最后一章了。

You're on the last chapter.

而意识，确实是其中之一。

And consciousness was definitely one of them.

于是我心想，幸好我有个特别棒的编辑，愿意陪我踏上这段前途未卜的旅程。

So I thought and I and I had a wonderful editor who was willing to support me on an expedition with an very uncertain destination.

因为我出发时根本不知道自己要去哪儿，要做什么，也没法预估会遇到什么。

And because I I set off on this really not knowing where I was going, what I was doing, and with no sense of what to expect.

真得感谢她。

And, you know, God bless her.

她已经去世了，名字叫戈多夫。

She's she's since passed, and Godoff is her name.

她是个非常出色的编辑。

She's a wonderful editor.

她说，好。

She said, yeah.

你会在这上面做出些有意思的东西。

You'll do something interesting with that.

于是我便启程了。

So I was off.

你确实做到了，接下来咱们大概要花上九十来分钟，好好聊聊意识这回事。

Well, you have certainly done that, and we'll spend the next, I don't know, ninety minutes or so thinking about consciousness.

但我觉得，你最终抵达的地方，和我到过的地方是一样的。

But I I think you arrive at a place that I've arrived.

我不确定那地方是不是最终的归宿，但我好像在那里待了很久了。

I don't know if it's it's stable in the end, but I seem to have occupied this spot for quite some time.

关于意识，尤其是意识的难题，大概从九十年代中期开始，就完全占据了我所有的学术兴趣，并且一直持续了很长时间。

And thinking about consciousness and specifically the the hard problem of consciousness, which we'll talk about in a moment, is something that just utterly kinda subsumed my intellectual interests somewhere in around the mid nineties and and held them for quite some time.

但我一直

But I've

你为此写了一本特别有意思的书。

And you wrote a really interesting book on it.

我的书表面上讲的是自我，但其实讲的是意识。

I mean, was about the self, but it was really about consciousness.

对。

Yeah.

《觉醒》这本书对我影响很大。

Waking up had a big influence on me.

不错。

Nice.

我觉得，我们这一行的人，迟早都会撞得头破血流，最后不得不承认，我们根本解决不了意识的难题。

Well, but I I think, you know, many of us in this game eventually, you know, beat our heads against the wall long enough that that we we finally admit to ourselves that we're not gonna solve the hard problem of consciousness.

不过，你书里提到的很多人，还没接受这一点。

Now, there there are many people in your book who have not admitted that and

提醒一下，这期播客有个剧透。

Spoiler alert for this podcast episode.

是的。

Yeah.

我们一会儿再聊这个。

We'll talk about this.

但说到底，除了思考意识之外，还有更重要或更简单的事——那就是更细微、更深入、更持续地去成为意识本身。

But, I mean, ultimately, there is something more to do or less to do than think about consciousness, which is to say you could simply be consciousness more and more subtly and deeply and and continuously.

像冥想和致幻剂这些东西，正是从这个角度切入的。

And, you know, that's where things like meditation and psychedelics come in.

所以你的书几乎带你绕了一圈，回到了‘存在’比‘思考’更重要的问题上。

And so your book almost takes you full circle back to questions of being more than thinking.

不过思考本身确实很迷人，我们也得做，因为总得讨论它。

But the thinking is fascinating, and, you know, we need to do it because we need to talk about it.

咱们开头先把术语说清楚，你书里一开始就这么做了。

Let's just define our terms at the outset, which you do early in the book.

有几组概念我们得区分开。

We should just distinguish a few concepts.

首先是感受性。

There's sentience.

存在意识。

There is consciousness.

存在认知。

There's cognition.

存在智能。

There's an intelligence.

我的意思是，我们会谈到人工智能，而智能现在很多人都在关注，它有各种各样的表现形式。

I mean, we'll we'll talk about AI, and intelligence is is something that many people are are thinking about now and in in its various instantiations.

你该怎么界定或区分这些概念呢？

How do how do you define or or disambiguate these terms?

对。

Yeah.

所以我做了一个区分。

So I I made a distinction.

这不完全是我自己的观点，但人们并不总能把感受性和意识区分开来。

It's not mine alone, but it's not always made between sentience and consciousness.

你在整个关于人工智能的讨论中都能看到这一点。

And you see that coming up in the whole discussion about AI.

有些人用‘有感知’来形容他们认为可能具有意识的机器。

Some people use the word sentient to describe these machines that they think may be conscious.

‘感知’是一个更基础、更根本的概念。

Sentience is a is a more basic foundational term.

它指的是感知环境变化、判断好坏，并据此趋利避害的能力。

It involves ability to sense your changes in your environment, assess whether they're good or bad, and allow you to move toward one and away from the other.

这可能是生命的一种特性。

It may be a property of life.

单细胞生物，比如细菌，会有趋化性，这个没错。

Single celled creatures, you know, bacteria have chemotaxis, which Mhmm.

它们能分辨哪些分子是营养、哪些会致命，并做出相应反应。

So they can distinguish between molecules that are good food and ones that'll kill them and act accordingly.

所以，感知其实非常基础，几乎贯穿了所有生命形式。

So sentience is kind of very basic, perhaps, like, you know, permeates all of life.

这一点我不能确定。

I can't be sure about that.

意识是比感知更复杂的形式，还涉及自我觉察、情感这些东西。

Consciousness is a more elaborate form of sentience, that involves other things such as a sense of awareness, feelings.

以人类为例，不只是有觉察，还知道自己在觉察，并且层层叠加。

In the case of humans, not only awareness, but awareness we're aware, and we layer it.

所以人类的意识，其实就是我们实现感知的方式。

And so human consciousness is just how we do sentience.

每一个有意识的生物，大概都是以自己独特的方式来实现的。

And and every creature that is conscious does it in a slightly different way, presumably.

这取决于它们的感知系统、身体结构、运作尺度等等各种因素。

Reflecting their sensorium, their body type, the scale at which they operate, all these kind of things.

智能和意识并不是一条连续谱，也不是彼此关联的。

Intelligence and consciousness are not on a spectrum or on a on a together.

它们是相互独立的，彼此之间的关系是正交的。

They're they're orthogonal, think, their relationship.

我把智能定义为解决问题的能力。

Intelligence is I define pretty much as problem solving ability.

这其实是很重要的一部分。

And so that's quite a part.

我们都知道，有些人有意识但并不聪明。

I mean, we all know people who are conscious and not intelligent.

这两者并不一定是一起的。

I mean, they they don't necessarily go together.

认知就是接收并处理来自外界的信息。

Cognition is is the taking in and processing of information from the world.

我觉得这就是我对它的理解。

I think that's kinda how I define it.

所以没错。

So that yeah.

而意识，我简单地把它定义为体验或主观体验。

And and consciousness, I define simply as experience or subjective experience.

很简单。

Pretty simple.

你不需要把自我意识或元意识这些东西算进去。

I don't you don't have to include things like self consciousness or meta consciousness in it.

那些都是人类额外加上的复杂功能。

Those are kind of bells and whistles that humans have added.

我怀疑大多数动物都没有这些。

I doubt many animals have them.

对。

Yeah.

所以意识就是灯亮着的状态。

So consciousness is the fact that the lights are on.

没错。

And and Yeah.

它和体验的存在是同一个意思。

It's synonymous with the fact of experience.

我们所有能体验到的东西加在一起。

Whatever we're experientially aware of altogether.

我想是这样，意识仍然可以被描述，我的意思是，对我和很多人来说，关键在于像生命、意识这样的东西，可以从外部用功能特征来定义。

I guess so so sentience still can be describe I mean, I I guess the crucial line for me or and for many people think about this is that things like life, things like sentience can be given a description from the outside in in terms of their functional characteristics.

它会不会繁殖？

I mean, does something reproduce?

它会不会，你知道的，进行新陈代谢？

Does it, you know, metabolize?

它会不会生长？

Does it grow?

诸如此类。

Etcetera.

这些都是生命的特征。

These are characteristics of life.

而边界条件可能比较模糊，所以很难说病毒是不是像细菌那样算作活物，等等。

And then the, you know, the boundary conditions can be somewhat diffused since so it can be hard to say whether, you know, a virus is is alive in the way that, you know, a bacterium is alive, etcetera.

但这就是我认为的意识，至少按照你给出的定义来说。

But and so it is what I think was was sentience, you know, at least under one under the definition you gave it.

但意识意味着它有一种内在的体验，用内格尔的话说就是‘如此这般’。

But consciousness is the fact that it's like something, to use Nagel's Right.

这句名言说的是，成为我们自己是什么感觉。

Now immortal phrase, to be what we are.

如果当一只蝙蝠有某种内在感受，那这就是蝙蝠的意识。

And if it's like something to be a bat, well, then that would be consciousness in the case of a bat.

这显然是他那篇《成为一只蝙蝠是什么感觉？》里的经典例子。

And that's obviously his famous example from his essay, what is it like to be a bat?

这引出了哲学家大卫·查默斯所说的意识的‘难题’，我之前提到过，但还没来得及解释。

And this disgorges what the philosopher David Chalmers has named the hard problem of consciousness, which I've already invoked without defining it.

简单来说，无论我们从外部如何描述世界，都无法解释为什么这些客观事实会伴随着一种主观的内在体验。

But it's just a simple fact that it seems that there's no there's no third person description of the way the world is that reduces the mystery that it should be like something from the first person side to be associated with any of those any collection of those facts.

有一种内在的感受。

There's an inside.

是的

Yeah.

有一种内在体验，是外部视角无法触及的。

There's an interiority that third person perspective can't penetrate.

它只能去推测。

It can speculate about.

你关于感知力及其差异的见解非常到位。

But I think that's a very good point you make about sentience and its difference.

它是我们可以从外部观察并做出判断的东西。

That it it is something we can perceive and make a judgment about from the outside.

也许能从中获得一点洞见，但总的来说，我们确实能从外部对其进行评估。

I mean, there may be some slight insight to it, but basically it's we can we can assess it from the outside.

对

Mhmm.

而意识就不行，这正是那个难题所在。

And we can't with consciousness, and that's a huge I mean, that is the hard problem.

我觉得还得补充一点，问题在于，你怎么从物质——比如我们脑袋里这三磅重的神经元——过渡到意识呢？

I'd put it I'd add also it's I mean, it's the problem of how do you get from matter, this, you know, three pounds of neurons in our head to to mind Yeah.

也就是主观体验，假设这确实是发生的方式的话。

To to subjective experience if that is indeed the way it happens.

是的。

Yeah.

为了让大家更清楚，我要再说一遍，很多人真的很难建立起一种直觉，去理解为什么这个‘难题’难在哪儿。

And just to be clear for people, again, it's amazing how hard it is for many people to form an intuition about what makes the hard problem hard.

就连神经科学和哲学领域一些最著名的思想家，依我看，也根本没有对这个问题产生过自然的直觉。

And and some of the most celebrated thinkers in neuroscience and philosophy, you know, many of them to to my eye, have not had any kind of natural intuition for this.

结果就是，他们往往轻描淡写地跳过去，直接给出某种还原论的解释，好像自己已经解决了意识难题，其实连问题本身都没真正承认。

And so and, you know, the the symptom of that is they kinda blow past it, asserting some reductive explanation of consciousness as though they had solved the hard problem, whereas they really haven't even acknowledged it.

所以，我们或许可以点出一些这样的人。

And, you know, the so we might name some of these people.

但‘难题’这个概念其实早于查默斯，是他给它起了个名字，特别贴切，流传开了。

But the hard problem predates Chalmers, and he gave it this name that was very, sticky.

但这个问题至少可以追溯到莱布尼茨。

But it goes all the way back to Leibniz, at least.

莱布尼茨曾用过一个风车的比喻。

Leibniz invoked this image of a mill.

你想想，如果把大脑放大到风车那么大，走进去一看，无论看到哪个部分，都找不到任何能直接说明它足以产生内在主观体验的东西。

You know, if you just imagine you blow up the brain to the size of, you know, a mill and walk inside it, at no point would you encounter anything that that announced its sufficiency to produce the inner subjectivity of that organ.

还有很多哲学家也探讨过这个问题。

And there are many other philosophers who've touched this.

比如索尔·克里普克、内德·布洛克、弗兰克·杰克逊，还有约瑟夫·莱文。

Saul Kripke and Ned Block and and Frank Jackson and Joseph Levine.

我不确定你念他的名字是Levine还是Levine，但他提出了‘解释鸿沟’这个概念，其实就是另一种说法，指出了意识问题的核心。

I don't know if you pronounce it Levine or Levine, he he gave us this notion of the explanatory gap, which is just another way of saying the heart problem.

所以问题在于，不管意识究竟是怎么产生的——假设它真的能从物质中涌现出来——

So there's this the problem is that whatever the right answer for the emergence of consciousness is, if in fact it emerges.

我们总能描述一个系统的功能特征，或者神经关联的组织方式，然后说意识就是从这些机制里冒出来的。

And so, you know, there's some description of, you know, the functional characteristics of a system, or, you know, the way the neural correlates of consciousness are arranged, and consciousness emerges from that.

即使我们手上有这样的描述，从这些物理状态到意识突然出现——比如原本灯是灭的，稍微改一下电路，内在世界就冒出来了——这根本解释不了任何东西。当然，这不意味着它不对，但它就是完全无法说明白。

Even if we had that description in hand, the fact that that that is the basis of consciousness, that that first the the lights are not on, then all of a sudden you change the wiring diagram ever so slightly, and an inner world appears, that is just the you know, it doesn't mean it's not true, but it would be totally non explanatory.

这就是所谓的解释鸿沟，不管最终答案是什么，它看起来都像一个奇迹。

There's just there is this explanatory gap, and whatever the right answer is, it's still gonna look like a miracle.

是的。

Yeah.

克里斯托夫·科赫，这位现代意识科学的奠基人之一，最早是和弗朗西斯·克里克一起工作的，就是那位发现DNA双螺旋结构、破解遗传密码的科学巨匠。

Well, Christoph Koch who was involved at the very beginning of modern consciousness science started out with Francis Crick, the the great scientist who cracked inheritance when he discovered co discovered the double helix.

他们一开始想找神经关联物，以为找到就能解决问题。

You know, they went looking for the neural correlates and they thought that would solve the problem.

他们以为能锁定那一小群负责主观体验的神经元。

They would find that group of neurons responsible for subjective experience.

但才过了几年——顺便说一句，这个探索至今还在继续——科赫就意识到，就算真找到了这些神经元，也回答不了我们真正想问的问题。

And it was only a couple years into that quest, and by the way that quest goes on, that Christophe realized that, oh, even if we found the neural correlates, it really wouldn't answer the question we're trying to answer.

如果真有这么一群神经元，它们是怎么产生‘我就是我’这种感受的？

How did that group of neurons, if there was such a group, produced this feeling of being me?

我脑子里的这个声音。

This this voice in my head.

所以，这算是他一路上经历的第一次危机。

And so he was that was the first of several crises he's had along the way.

就像很多人一样，

Well, like many of

克里斯托弗在这期间也试过一些药物。

us, Christophe has done some drugs in the meantime.

这又给他带来了一次危机。

Which That's given him another crisis.

是啊。

Yeah.

对吧？

Right?

没错。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

我的意思是，致幻剂对这场对话的影响真的很引人入胜。

I mean, the influence of psychedelics on this conversation is is fascinating.

说实话，考虑到上个世纪六七十年代发生的事，这其实并不意外，但后来科学界有一段长时间的停滞，这些药物完全没法做研究。

I mean, it's not it's not surprising given what happened a generation and a half ago, but we had this hiatus in science where these these drugs could not be experimented with.

不过在深入讨论意识之前，我想先听听你的看法。

And but before we dive into consciousness, I I maybe just let's let me just ask your get your opinion on this.

我的问题是，你怎么看待现在致幻剂在科学界和文化中如此普遍的现象？

I mean, how do you view the almost the the omnipresence of psychedelics now in the discussion here scientifically, but also in the culture?

你有没有担心，我们正重蹈六十年代的覆辙——太快太随意地使用这些药物，结果引发反弹？

I mean, are are you at all worried that we're on the verge of recapitulating some of the errors of the sixties where we just we get a little too fast and loose with these drugs, and there's a we invite some kind of backlash?

那你对当前这场关于致幻剂的讨论，整体感觉怎么样？

Or how are you feeling about the psychedelic part of this conversation?

是的。

Yeah.

我的意思是，首先，回过头来看，这其实让我很意外。

I mean, well, first, to go back a little bit, it was a real surprise.

我原本只是想在书的引言里提一下迷幻剂，说它启发了我、带我走上这条路，然后就到此为止。

I thought I would mention psychedelics in the introduction of this book as something that inspired it and set me on this path, and that would be it.

书里根本不会出现迷幻剂的内容。

And there would be no psychedelics in the book.

可它们却不断冒出来，而我根本没主动提起。

But they kept popping up and it and I wasn't bringing them up.

是那些研究这个问题的科学家们，一方面因为他们卡住了，另一方面也因为他们特别开放，愿意用任何手头的工具。

It was the scientists working on the problem who are partly because they're stuck, partly because they're very open minded to using any tools at hand.

很多人不等我问，就主动跟我聊起他们自己使用迷幻剂的经历，说这些经历在很多情况下确实影响了他们。

Many of them, you know, would talk to me unbidden about their experience with psychedelics and how in many cases it it had influenced them.

他们没参与任何大学里的研究项目，但私下里确实在用，而且……是的。

They're not doing studies, they're not involved in the various university studies, but they're personally using them and and Yep.

在某些情况下，他们从中获得了觉得特别重要的洞见。

In some cases getting insights that they think are really important.

在其他情况下，他们也不太确定该怎么处理这些体验。

In other cases, not sure what exactly to do with them.

但不知不觉间，这成了书里的一个主题——科学家们主动跟我谈起他们的致幻剂经历，以及这些经历如何影响了他们的工作。

But it just kind of was this it became this motif in the book of scientists telling me about their psychedelic experiences and how it had affected their work.

我觉得这特别有意思。

So I thought that was really interesting.

你知道吗，自2018年以来，关于致幻剂的整个讨论已经发生了很大变化。

You know, the whole issue of psychedelics has changed a lot since 2018.

我的意思是，现在我们更愿意公开谈论这个话题了。

I mean, it is, first of all, more acceptable for us to have a conversation about it.

我觉得在《清醒》这本书里，你当时在谈论自己的经历时就已经走在了前面。

I think in Waking Up, you know, you were kind of ahead of the curve in your willingness to talk about your own experiences.

那时候，很多人觉得谈这个会损害声誉。

Many people regarded it as a reputational risk back then.

《清醒》是哪一年出版的？

What year was Waking Up published?

2014年。

2014.

对。

Yeah.

那时候还很早。

So that was early.

那时候约翰霍普金斯大学的这项研究还没怎么被关注，更谈不上把迷幻剂当作一种治疗手段来认真对待。

That was before this science at Johns Hopkins had gotten a lot of, you know, publicity and and and suddenly we were taking psychedelics seriously as a therapeutic modality.

我觉得我们现在所处的阶段，跟六十年代很不一样。

I think we're in a very different moment than the sixties.

那时候迷幻剂的使用太随意了。

I think there was a lot of careless use of psychedelics.

出了不少问题，迷幻剂又和反主流文化搅在一起，这成了后来反弹的一部分。

Things went wrong, and psychedelics also got really entangled in the counterculture, and that was part of the backlash.

尼克松之所以打压迷幻剂，是因为他觉得这正是美国年轻人拒绝去越南打仗的原因之一。

I mean, Nixon targeted psychedelics because he thought it was one of the reasons that American boys were refusing to fight in Vietnam.

他这么说可能还真有道理。

And he may well have been right.

对。

Yeah.

我们得提到，像蒂莫西·利里这样的人，尤其是他，明确地把 psychedelics 和政治联系在了一起。

Well, we should say that people some people like Timothy Leary, perhaps most notably, made that connection that political connection explicit.

对吧？

Right?

就是说，你知道的，确实如此。

It's like, you know Yeah.

但尼克松也是这么做的。

But so did Nixon.

尼克松说过，他把利里称为头号公敌。

Nixon said, you know well, he said Leary was public enemy number one.

是的。

Yeah.

我认为他是美国最危险的人。

The most dangerous man in America, I think.

是的。

Yeah.

没错。

That's right.

美国最危险的人，这话说得可不轻。

Most dangerous man in America, which is quite a statement.

不过他也曾用这话形容过丹尼尔·埃尔斯伯格，可见他对‘最危险’的定义挺宽的。

He also said that about Daniel Ellsberg, though, so so most he had a pretty broad definition of most.

现在，致幻剂不再被贴上自由派、左翼或反文化的标签了。

Now psychedelics are not no longer coded liberal or left or counterculture.

对。

Mhmm.

我的意思是，你看，就在上周，总统还签了行政命令呢。

I mean, they're I mean, look at, you know, last week, the president issued an executive order Yeah.

据说这是为了简化审批流程，让更多人能接触到迷幻剂。

Supposedly easing the approval process and access to psychedelics.

他之所以朝这个方向推动，主要是出于对士兵和患有创伤后应激障碍的退伍军人的担忧，尤其是士兵中自杀率居高不下。

He's been driven in that direction by concern for soldiers, veterans dealing with PTSD and the high rates of suicide among soldiers.

我认为，里克·多林在MAPS组织中的举动非常有意识，他确实是推动迷幻剂研究重启的先驱之一。

And that was a very deliberate, I think, move on the part of Rick Doblin at MAPS, who was really one of the pioneers of getting research started again.

他主动接触退伍军人团体、退伍军人事务部，还有像里克·佩里这样的人。

He he made overtures to vets groups, to the VA, and to people like Rick Perry Mhmm.

他是得克萨斯州的前州长，现在是迷幻剂的坚定支持者。

Former governor of of Texas, who's a big supporter now of psychedelics.

所以我觉得，与其说支持来自左派，不如说右派的支持更广泛。

So I would say if anything, there's more support on the right than the left.

因此，我不觉得这事会重蹈过去那种政治反弹的老路。

So I don't I don't know that it's gonna fall into the same backlash politics.

当然，如果事情搞砸了，也说不定。

It may if things go terribly wrong.

现在大学里也在做大量研究，试验多得数不清。

There's also so much university research going on, so many trials.

而且，它正迅速被认可为一个正经的研究领域。

And and it's it's, you know, rapidly being accepted as a legitimate area of study.

美国国立卫生研究院已经拨款支持迷幻药物的研究。

There have been NIH grants to support psychedelic research.

所以我觉得我们还没到那一步。

So I don't I don't see us on the verge of that.

毕竟，还是有人拿迷幻药乱来，意外也时有发生。

I mean, people are still doing stupid things with psychedelics and there's still accidents happening.

不过我觉得，很多人从六十年代吸取了教训：这些物质威力很强，必须带着明确的目的使用。

And But I think we learned, or I think a lot of people learned a lesson from the sixties, which they're powerful substances, they have to be used with with intention.

现在大家更倾向于在专业指导下使用它们。

People are tending to use them more in guided guided situations Mhmm.

这样能大大降低风险。

Which really mitigates a lot of the risk.

所以吧。

So, yeah.

我并不太担心这个。

I I'm not I'm not overly concerned about that.

我觉得肯定会发生各种糟糕的事情。

I think there's gonna be, you know, all sorts of nasty things happening.

会有人趁机牟利，试图限制使用，甚至申请本不该被专利的东西。

There's gonna be profiteering and and attempts to limit access, attempts to patent things that shouldn't be patented.

那边确实乱七八糟的， hype 很高，资本蜂拥而入，然后又撤走，现在又回来了。

I mean, sorts of things are going on there, And you there's there's a tremendous hype cycle with lots of capital rushing in, and then the capital rushes out, and now it's back in.

所以这事肯定会一团糟。

So it's gonna be messy.

只要资本主义一插手这种事，准得乱成一锅粥。

You know, whenever capitalism gets a hold of something like this, it gets really messy.

对。

Yeah.

这一点在当前的AI领域尤其明显。

So Well, we're that's especially obvious in AI at the moment.

我们会谈到这个。

We'll talk about Yes.

其中的种种影响。

The implications there.

我对迷幻剂对这场讨论的影响有一个担忧：从某种角度说，迷幻体验虽然可能不可或缺，但也容易误导人。

I mean, one concern I have about the the influence of psychedelics on this conversation is that there's some there's some way in which I think that the the psychedelic experience, to speak generically, can be indispensable but also misleading.

比如在冥想的目标上，关于意识本质的某些体悟确实具有解放性，值得我们关注。

I mean, it certainly can be with respect to the goal of meditation and what there is to recognize about the nature of consciousness there that is is liberative or or, you know, worth paying attention to.

人们在迷幻状态下经历的巅峰体验，虽然向他们展示了另一种生活方式的可能性，却也可能让人误以为自由就是彻底改变意识的内容，无限扩张它，并追求一种永久的状态——就像你当初在LSD、裸盖菇素、MDMA或DMT等药物作用下体验到的那样。

There's something I think I think the the experiences, the peak experiences people have on psychedelics while they advertise to them the possibility of living a very different kind of life in the world, they also can give the false impression that freedom is a matter of radically changing the contents of consciousness, radically expanding it and and achieving something some kind of permanent state that is analogous to what you enjoyed on the peak of whatever it was, you know, acid, psilocybin, MDMA, DMT, whatever your whatever your moment was.

所以我们还是会聊聊这个，因为我觉得——

And so anyway, we'll talk about that because I think the Yeah.

不对。

No.

我觉得这是对神秘体验的一种根本性误解，而人们往往就是用这种方式来评判这些体验。

And I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of of the mystical experiences, which is what you know, how people kind of assess these experiences.

如果一种神秘体验是永久持续的，那大概就接近精神分裂了。

That a mystical experience that was permanent would probably be schizophrenia.

它必须放在日常生活的语境里来看。

It's, you know, it's it's something in the context of everyday life.

那是一种超越的时刻，但不是能一直维持的状态。

It's a period of transcendence, but it's not something you sustain.

你知道，你对这段历史很熟悉，当年很多把佛教带到美国的美国人，最初也是从迷幻剂开始的，后来也得出了和你所说的相似的结论：这根本不是一种可以持续练习的东西。

And, you know, as I mean, you know this history well, but many of the Americans who brought Buddhism to America started with psychedelics and then had the the similar realization to what you're talking about, which is that it's not a practice.

它不可能日复一日地保持下去。

It's not something you can sustain day after day.

于是他们转向了冥想，因为冥想才是真正可以持续练习的途径。

And they moved into meditation, which was a place you could have a practice, obviously.

对。

Yeah.

但这些关联非常有意思，我觉得迷幻剂或许是开启冥想练习的一个很好的途径。

But the links are very interesting, and and I think psychedelics may be a very good way to start a meditation practice.

确实如此。

Yeah.

我总是注意到，大部分体验其实不是那个深刻的高潮，而是持续数小时的漫长余波——那本身就是一种冥想，而且常常是非常好的冥想，因为你完全不受干扰，能深入内心，同时仍保有对思维的掌控。

I'm always taken with the fact that most of the experience is not the, you know, profound climax, but this long tail which can go on for hours and is a meditation, and a very often a very good meditation in that you're totally undistracted and you can go really deep, but you still have some control over your mind.

所以我觉得这些关联真的很值得探讨。

So I think the links are very interesting.

而且我确实认为，迷幻剂是研究意识的科学工具，具有正当性。

And I and I do think psychedelics are a legitimate tool for the study of consciousness, the scientific study of consciousness.

没错。

Mhmm.

约翰霍普金斯大学最早的一项大型研究，是由罗兰·格里菲斯做的，研究的就是神秘体验。

You know, the first big study that was done at Johns Hopkins by Roland Griffith was was of mystical experience.

这是人类意识中一个非常有意思的角度。

That's a very interesting aspect of human consciousness.

而且我们有了一个能相当稳定地引发这种状态的工具，这带来了各种实验的可能性。

And the fact that we have a tool that can pretty reliably induce it opens up all sorts of experimental possibilities.

是的。

Yeah.

抛开那极少数对致幻剂毫无反应的人不谈，至于他们为什么没反应，是因为五羟色胺2A受体的问题吗，目前还不清楚。

I mean, the the reliability apart from the tiny percentage of people who seem impervious to psychedelics for reasons that I don't know if whether they've been explained at the level of their five HT two a receptors or not.

但据我所知，确实有人——我以前根本不信这事。

But, I mean, some people apparently I never believed this.

我是说，我承认这是事实，但实在难以想象，有人吃了五百微克的LSD，却一点感觉都没有。

I mean, I I accept it as a fact, but I just can't I can't believe that there are people who, if given, you know, five hundred micrograms of LSD, have no experience.

那些大师们。

The gurus.

关于大师们的说法。

The gurus stories.

对。

Yes.

不是。

No.

我不是在说他们。

I'm not I'm not talking about them.

我说的是那些普通人，他们想尝试迷幻剂的体验，在有引导者在场，或者服用了五克蘑菇的情况下。

I'm talking about just people who are ordinary people who are seeking to have an experience on psychedelics, and they in the presence of a guide or, you know, administering whatever five grams of mushrooms.

我认识这样的人。

I mean, I know people like this.

我至少认识两个，吃了大剂量迷幻剂，结果啥感觉都没有。

I know at least two people who have taken whopping doses of psychedelics, and literally nothing has happened.

确实有些人，不知道为什么，就是不具备相应的神经反应，好坏不论。

So there there are people who just, you know, just for whatever reason don't have the right neurons for better or worse.

我刚才想的是那些传说故事。

I was thinking more of the, you know, the stories.

拉姆·达斯讲过一个故事

Ram Dass tells the story

关于梅姆·库罗利巴巴的事。

of Meme Kuroli Baba.

导师。

Guru.

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

结果一味加量，加到六七百微克，还是什么反应都没有。

And just upping the dose, upping the dose, getting up to six or seven hundred micrograms, and nothing happens.

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

然后就开始怀疑，他是不是根本就没吃药，只是假装吞下去了。

And then being in doubt as to whether or not he, you know, had just palmed the the the medication and didn't take it.

然后他回去之后，又试了一次，结果还是跟之前一样——要么有效，要么没效。

And then so then when he went back, he he he did it again, and it worked the same way or didn't work.

意识就是，作为我们，那种‘有某种体验’的感觉，就是灯亮着的那个状态。

So consciousness is the fact that it's like something to be us, the fact that the lights are on.

在生物学里，至少有一种根深蒂固的直觉、信条或期待，认为这种现象的解释，必然跟进化有关。

And there is a deep intuition or or dogma or expectation in biology at least that the explanation for this must be evolutionary in some sense.

对吧？

Right?

就像意识可能是为了某种原因进化出来的，因为某些对我们来说至关重要、不可或缺的能力，只有在有意识的状态下才能实现；或者，它也可能只是个副产物——这个观点听起来确实挺反直觉的，但我一直觉得它很有道理。

A bit like consciousness must have either evolved for some reason because certain things that are adaptive and and indispensable for us can only occur in the light of consciousness, or I guess it could be an epiphenomenon, which I'm a view which sounds really counterintuitive to people, but which I've always thought had a lot going for it.

著名的T.

Famously, T.

H.

H.

赫胥黎，当年达尔文理论的坚定支持者，曾说意识就像火车上的汽笛。

Huxley, who's was a great defender of Darwin's theory back in the day, said that consciousness was like the steam whistle on a train.

对吧？

Right?

这就像火车运行中一个特别显眼的特征，但跟实际运作根本没关系。

It's this this super salient feature of the train's operation, but not at all integral to anything that's happening.

他好像没用过‘副现象’这个词，但意思就是，这是一种伴随在你关心的现象旁边的东西。

It's he didn't don't think he used the word epiphenomenon, the concept of this is a phenomenon that rides alongside the thing you're interested in.

它看起来像是其中一部分，但实际上什么作用都没有。

It seems to be part of it, but it's really doing absolutely nothing.

当你问别人关于意识的进化作用时，他们一般怎么说？

Tell me what you're what you encountered when you when you asked people about the the evolutionary role?

这确实是我一直想弄清楚的问题。

Well, was a real question I had.

你知道的，大脑的大部分活动，我们根本意识不到。

I mean, as as you know, the brain most of what the brain does, we're not aware of.

它一直在处理信息，持续接收感官数据，做出调整，维持体内平衡，比如保持体温、血液气体平衡等等。

It's processing information, taking in sensory data all the time, and making changes, running, you know, homeostasis, you know, keeping your body in the right temperature and blood gases and all this kind of stuff.

那为什么这些东西非得要有意识呢？

So why should any of it be conscious?

为什么我们不把所有事情都自动化呢？

Why don't we automate everything?

为什么我们不是僵尸？

Why aren't we zombies?

我觉得这其实是那个难题的一个子集。

I think that's a kind of subset of a hard problem.

你可以编出一个合理的进化故事，来解释它为什么会有用。

And you can construct a good evolutionary story that would explain why it would be useful.

我听过最好的解释来自卡尔·弗里斯顿，一位英国神经科学家。

And the best one I heard was from Carl Friston, who's a English neuroscientist.

我问他这个问题：意识到底有什么用？

And I put this question to him, why why what good is it?

意识到底有什么好处？

What good is consciousness?