迈克尔·波伦的意识边缘之旅

而且作为一个曾经写过关于致幻剂的书的人，现在又在写这本书，我认为人们倾向于走向泛灵论，并不是因为‘当你麻醉植物时会发生什么’这种更狭隘的问题，而是因为人们在那里经历了一些体验，感到植物的智慧在与他们交流。

And just as somebody who's you know, one of your previous books was on psychedelics and and and doing this book that the reason I think people get pushed towards animism isn't necessarily the more narrow question of what happens when you anesthetize a plant, but people are having some kind of experience there where they feel there are plant intelligences communicating to them.

哦，是的。

Oh, yeah.

尤其是在灵魂树饮上。

Especially on ayahuasca.

尤其是在灵魂树饮上。

Especially on ayahuasca.

这是一种植物性的。

Which is a plant based.

对吧？

Right?

它由两种植物组成。

It's two plants.

它是两种植物的混合物。

It's a brew of two plants.

如果你问大多数伊奥瓦州的萨满，人们是怎么发现这个配方的？

And if you ask most Iowa Scaros, how did anyone ever figure out the recipe?

因为这两种植物一起煮才会产生这种效果，而单独使用任何一种都几乎没有效果，这实在太隐秘了。

Because it's so obscure that these two plants cooked together would have this effect, and neither by themselves has any effect or much of any effect.

他们会告诉你：是植物教我的，而且他们是认真的。

And they'll tell you, The plants taught me, and they will mean it.

从西方科学的视角来看，我们不知道该如何倾听这种说法。

And we don't know through the lens of Western science how to listen to that.

这听起来对我们来说很荒谬。

It sounds ridiculous to us.

我的意思是，如果这本书非要我表达什么立场，那就是我的思维比以前开放多了，对很多奇怪的事情都更接纳了，因为正常的东西其实并没有很好地验证过。

I mean, if I came out anywhere on this whole book, it's like my mind is much more open than it was to a lot of weird stuff just because the normal stuff hasn't really panned out that well.

那为什么是植物类致幻剂呢？

Now why would the plant based psychedelics?

我认为这跟环境和心态有关。

I think there it's set and setting.

蒂莫西·利里的伟大贡献在于解释了迷幻体验深受其发生时的物理环境以及你带入其中的心态——即心理设定的影响。

Timothy Leary's great contribution was explaining that the psychedelic experience is shaped profoundly by the physical setting in which it takes place and the mindset, the mental setting that you bring to it.

当你使用植物性迷幻剂时，我的意思是，所有的幻象都是丛林景象。

When you're using a plant based psychedelic, you I mean, the imagery is all jungle imagery.

你知道的吧？

You know?

人们会看到豹子，看到藤蔓，你有没有——

People see leopards, and they see vines, and and Do you

你觉得这是因为设定与环境，还是因为药物本身有什么——

think that's because of set and setting or because of something in the

我认为这是设定与环境的作用。

I think it's set and setting.

是的。

Yeah.

所以你不相信那些萨满说他们是从植物那里得到这些启示的说法？

So you don't buy the shamans who tell you we were told this by the plants?

不。

No.

但有那么5%的我，还是觉得好吧。

But there's, like, 5% of me that was like, okay.

也许吧。

Maybe.

嗯嗯。

Uh-huh.

我在这项研究中，已经进入了永不言绝对的阶段。

I'm kind of I've entered this never say never realm with this research.

我是罗宾，我非常兴奋地打开我的跨角色扮演应用。

I'm Robin, and I am excited to open my Crossplay app.

我正在挑战我的《纽约时报》同事约翰。

I'm challenging John, my colleague at The New York Times.

罗宾玩了单词‘grunge’，其中的g是四分。

Robin played the word grunge, has a g, which is four points.

她拿到了三倍单词分。

She got that triple word multiplier.

我要把‘facts’改成‘faxes’，拿30分。

I'm going to take facts and make it faxes for 30 points.

我可能再用一个两个字母的词，‘woah’能让我拿到23分。

I might just take another two letter word here with woah gets me at 23.

如果我的计算没错，这应该能让我重新领先。

I think this will put me back in the lead if my maths are mathing.

我更喜欢从策略角度来玩，看看怎么阻止对手获得高分。

I like to play it more from a strategic point of view and see where I can block the other player from scoring high.

我很有竞争心。

I'm pretty competitive.

击败朋友和同事，同时学到新单词，这很有趣。

It's fun to beat friends and coworkers and also get to learn new words.

Crossplay，纽约时报游戏推出的首款双人文字游戏。

Crossplay, the first two player word game from New York Times games.

今天免费下载。

Download it for free today.

我觉得他以为自己稳赢了，但我并不这么确定。

I think he thinks he has this in the bag, but I'm not so sure.

因此，主流对意识的解释是，随着生命变得越来越复杂——与植物不同，我们能够移动，为了在世界上实现目标，意识体验的复杂性也随之提升，意识是通过进化压力产生的。

So certainly the mainstream interpretation of what consciousness is is that as life becomes more complex, as unlike plants, we're moving around, that you have an escalating complexity in conscious experience in order to achieve goals in the the world, that consciousness is being created through evolutionary pressure.

这是适应性的。

It's adaptive.

这是适应性的。

It's adaptive.

是的。

Yeah.

你首先会探讨一下意识可能适应的目标有哪些。

One thing you do is go through a couple of the ideas of what it could be adaptive towards.

是的。

Yeah.

告诉我其中一些。

Tell me some of them.

所以我先退一步，来理清这个想法。

So I'm gonna back up a little bit to make sense of this idea.

一个主要的问题是，你的大脑至少90%的工作，你并没有意识到。

One of the big questions is your brain, at least 90% of what it's doing, you're not aware of.

它在默默完成所有这些工作：监控你的身体、维持内稳态、感知你环境中的事物，而你却并未有意识地察觉。

It's doing all this work, monitoring your body, maintaining homeostasis, perceiving things in your environment without you being consciously aware of it.

比如周边视觉、嗅觉、触觉，还有温度这些方面。

You know, peripheral vision, smell, touch, all these kind of things, temperature.

那么问题来了，如果这个自动机器如此擅长它的职责，为什么其中一部分会变成有意识的呢？

So the question then becomes, if this automatic machine is so good at what it does, why does any of it become conscious?

这正是意识的难题的一部分。

That's part of the hard problem of consciousness.

为什么我们不是僵尸呢？

Why aren't we just zombies?

那不是更简单吗？

Wouldn't that have been simpler?

原因有很多，某种程度上这些是进化论的叙事，但它们很有说服力，基本上你可以将事情自动化，直到达到某种复杂程度。

And the reasons, and to some extent these are evolutionary just so stories, but they're persuasive, that basically you can automate things until you get to a level of complexity.

对我们来说，就是我们的社交生活。

And for us, it's our social lives.

我们本质上是社会性生物，极度依赖他人，婴儿和儿童的完全依赖期比其他物种长得多，社交生活无法被自动化。

The fact that we are fundamentally social beings, absolutely dependent on other people with a long period of complete dependence for babies and children compared to other species, social life cannot be automated.

这太复杂了。

It's just too complex.

因此，你需要能够预判我可能会说什么，一句话会带来怎样的影响。

So you need to be able to anticipate what I'm likely to say, how a remark is going to land.

我们称之为心理理论，即我们能够设身处地理解他人，这是同情心等情感的基础。

We call it theory of mind, this idea that we can imagine our way into other people, basis of compassion, and things like that.

因此，一旦我们进入这个高度复杂的领域，自动化我们的反应就不再可行了。

So once we entered this realm of great complexity, automating our responses just wasn't going to work.

那些拥有意识、能够想象他人内心想法的生物，比那些无法想象他人内心想法的人表现得更好。

And the creatures that had consciousness that could imagine what was going on in another human's head did better than people who didn't and and failed to imagine what was going on in someone else's head.

我觉得这个理论相当有说服力。

I find that a pretty persuasive theory.

我想这引出一个问题：当你观察一个婴儿或一岁的孩子时。

I guess one question it raises is you look at a baby or a one year old.

是的。

Mhmm.

他们非常、非常依赖社会关系，而且我认为他们显然正在经历一种非常强烈的意识体验，比我的更强烈。

They are very, very socially dependent, And I think they are clearly having a very intense experience of consciousness, a more intense one than I have.

我的意识更能过滤掉信息，没错。

My consciousness is much better at filtering out information Right.

比他们的更强。

Than theirs is.

你拥有聚光灯式的意识。

You have spotlight consciousness.

我有聚光灯式的意识。

I have spotlight consciousness.

所以我很好奇，想听听你谈谈这一点，因为一方面，这个观点似乎意味着意识会变得更丰富。

So I'm I'm curious to hear you you you talk a bit about that because on the one hand, it it feels like that idea would imply consciousness becomes richer Mhmm.

但当你变得更加目标导向时，我认为它显然会变得，是的。

As you become more goal directed, but I think it's quite clear that it becomes Yeah.

当你变得更加目标导向时，意识会变得更加狭窄。

Narrowed as you become more goal directed.

是的。

Yeah.

我认为你可以论证，小孩子比我们更有意识。

I think you could make a case that young children are more conscious than we are.

我觉得这几乎无可争议。

I think it's almost inarguable.

是的。

Yeah.

这是一件很有趣的事，随着我们年龄增长，我们会像修剪大脑中的其他东西一样，逐渐削减我们的意识。

And which is a kind of interesting thing that we prune consciousness down the way we're pruning so many things in the brain as we age.

但关于灯笼式意识与聚光灯式意识的这种观点，我觉得非常有力。

But this idea of lantern versus spotlight consciousness I found very powerful.

我从阿尔ison·戈普尼克那里了解到这一点，她是一位位于伯克利的儿童心理学家和发展心理学家，在我开始这项研究时，她给了我很多宝贵的建议。

I learned it from Alison Gopnik, who's a child psychologist, developmental psychologist at Berkeley, and she gave me a lot of good advice as I was embarking on this.

她首先建议我永远不要忘记，研究意识问题的人，他们的意识类型并不典型。

The first was never forget that the kinds of people working on these questions about consciousness are not typical in their consciousness.

这些人能够长时间坐在椅子上，长时间阅读书籍，深入思考问题。

These are people who can sit in a chair for a really long time, read books for a really long time, think out problems.

他们拥有极端版本的聚光灯式意识，她称之为教授式意识。

They have an extreme version of spotlight consciousness, which she calls professor consciousness.

因此，这对我非常有帮助。

So that was very helpful.

她将这种意识与儿童的意识相对比，称儿童的意识为灯笼式意识。

She contrasts this with children's consciousness, which she calls lantern consciousness.

因此，他们不是将注意力集中在某个特定对象上，而是从三百六十度全方位接收信息。

So instead of having that one degree of attention focused on some object, they're taking in information from all three sixty degrees.

这看起来非常不自律，也非常不集中。

It seems very undisciplined, very unfocused.

当孩子上学时，你会发现有些孩子能安静坐着完成任务，而很多孩子却做不到，因为他们仍在从各个方向接收信息。

You find it when kids get to school, some kids can sit there and do it, and a lot of kids can't because they're still taking in information from all these sides.

这很有趣。

It's interesting.

它使他们能够解决成年人无法解决的问题。

It allows them to solve problems that adults can't solve.

他们能够跳出框架思考。

They think outside the box.

他们具有更强的发散性思维。

They have more divergent thinking.

但随着时间推移，我们的注意力范围逐渐变窄。

And then as time goes on, we narrow our focus.

它让我们能够完成很多事情。

It allows us to get a lot done.

把

To put

我们的

on our

鞋子穿上，但效率不高

shoes in a But semi efficient

这需要戴上这些眼罩。

it involves putting these blinders on.

所以这是一种权衡。

So there's a trade off.

迷幻剂做的一件事，也是艾莉森向我指出的，就是让我们回归灯笼式的意识。

And one of the things psychedelics do, and Alison made this point to me also, is return us to lantern consciousness.

她在接受我和他人的采访时说，当她第一次尝试LSD时——那是在她六十多岁的时候——她意识到，哦，这就是孩子们的思维方式。

And she said in an interview with me and to other people, when she first tried LSD, which wasn't until I think her sixties, she realized, oh, this is how the kids are thinking.

他们一直在幻觉中。

They're tripping all the time.

她说，只要和一个四岁的孩子喝杯茶，你就会明白。

And she said, just have tea with a four year old and you'll see.

我认为这很有道理。

And there's a lot of truth to that, I think.

我想探讨另一个关于意识作用的理论。

I wanna get at another theory of what consciousness is for.

我认为书中的说法是，意识就是被感受到的不确定性。

I think the the language in the book is consciousness is felt uncertainty.

是的。

Yeah.

这难道不美吗？

Isn't that beautiful?

这真的很美。

That is very beautiful.

但在实践中，我发现这非常令人不快。

Although in practice, I find it very unpleasant.

但这意味着什么？

But what does that mean?

这个说法来自一位名叫马克·索尔姆斯的科学家，他是南非的一位神经科学家和精神分析学家。

So the phrase comes from a scientist named Mark Solms, is a neuroscientist and a psychoanalyst in South Africa.

他写了一本非常有趣的书，名为《隐藏的弹簧》。

And he's written a really interesting book called The Hidden Spring.

他的理论是，当您无法自动化某些事情时，意识就会产生。

And his theory is that consciousness arises when you can't automate things.

在这种情况下，他谈论的是您可能面临两种相互竞争的需求。

And in this case, he's talking about the fact that you might have two competing needs.

比如说，您又饿又累，必须决定优先满足哪一个，这就需要做出决策。

Let's say you're hungry and you're tired, and you have to decide which to privilege, and that takes decision making.

而意识的作用就是开辟一个空间来解决不确定性。

And what consciousness does is open up this space to resolve uncertainty.

所以，如果世界上的一切都是可预测的，当你知道这件事发生时那件事就会发生，并且你有一个简洁的算法来应对各种突发情况，你就不需要它了。

So, if everything was predictable in the world, and you could be certain when this happens, that happens, and you had a kind of neat algorithm to deal with contingencies, you don't need it.

但生活中很多情况都给我们带来了不确定性，而正是在这些时候，意识才会出现。

But a lot of life presents us with uncertainty, and that's when consciousness arises.

我觉得我对这本书的这一部分思考得比其他任何部分都多，这可能部分是因为我的思维方式，我不确定这种想法是否具有普遍性——我的思绪总是被生活中的不确定性所吸引。

I think I've thought about this part of the book more than any other, and I think that's in part because the way my mind works, and I'm not sure how generalizable this is, my thoughts attract to uncertainty in my life.

我总是反复琢磨我最情绪上不确定的那些事情。

I just ruminate and ruminate and ruminate over whatever I am typically most emotionally uncertain about.

是的。

Mhmm.

不过，顺便说一句，不是所有不确定性都是最有用的。

Not always, by the way, the most useful forms of uncertainty.

还有一些其他未解决的问题，如果我的大脑更感兴趣去思考它们，那会更好。

There are other unsolved problems it would be better if my mind was interested in thinking about.

但是

But

我明白。

I get it.

一方面，我觉得确实有某种东西在吸引着我的注意力聚焦于不确定性，这感觉是真实的。

So on the one hand, this idea that there is something, at the very least, that is attracting the spotlight of my attention to uncertainty feels true.

但我对这一点也有一些疑问和问题。

But I also have a couple of questions and problems with it.

其中一个问题是，我们在这里讨论的似乎并不完全是意识。

One is that it doesn't seem like what we're talking here about is exactly consciousness.

我的意思是，你刚才提到的孩子或服用迷幻剂的成年人，并没有以同样的方式被不确定性吸引。

I mean, what you were just saying about the child or about the adult on psychedelics, they are not attracted to uncertainty in the same way.

迷幻意识扩展的体验，在很多方面，我认为并不是一种强烈的不确定感体验。

The the experience of, like, psychedelic consciousness expansion is, in many ways, I think, less of the experience of felt uncertainty.

这是个非常好的观点。

That's a very good point.

它更多地变成了关于体验本身。

It becomes much more about experience.

而不确定性，至少在我自己的意识中体验到的，往往是一种更受关注的嗯。

Whereas uncertainty, at least in the way I experience it in my consciousness, tends to be a much more spotlighted Mhmm.

更少关于体验。

Much less experiential.

是的。

Yeah.

它是一种对体验的干扰。

Like, it's a distraction from experience.

是的。

Yeah.

我觉得这是对的。

I think that's right.

我之前还真没怎么想过这一点。

I haven't really thought about that that much.

我的一个体会是，我们必须对意识持多元主义态度，认为意识有多种不同类型，而迷幻意识应当被算作其中之一，或者詹姆斯所谈论的神秘意识形式。

One of my takeaways is that we have to be kind of pluralists of consciousness, that there are many different kinds, and that psychedelic consciousness should be counted as one of them or the mystical forms of consciousness that James talks about.

然后还有日常意识和聚焦意识。

And then there's everyday consciousness and spotlight consciousness.

所以我认为我们每个人在某种程度上都有一套工具。

So I think we all have a toolkit to some extent.

我的意思是，作为冥想者所体验的意识，与你在工作时或写作时所体验的意识非常不同，对吧？

I mean, the kind of consciousness you experience as a meditator is very different than the kind you do at work, right, or when writing.

我的意思是，写作是一个很好的例子。

I mean writing is a great example.

这是一种非常特殊的意识形式。

That's a very peculiar form of consciousness.

我另外想到的是，意识就是一种被感受到的不确定性。

So the other thing I was thinking about with this was consciousness is felt uncertainty.

感受到哪里？

Felt where?

因为我认为我们把意识看作是发生在我们头脑中的一种东西。

Because I think we think of consciousness as a thing happening in our minds.

我认为，冥想让我意识到的一点是，身体里正在发生很多事情，而我很高兴在你的书中也看到了这么多相关内容。

Something I think actually that has come out of my meditation for me, but then I loved seeing how much of it there was in your book, is recognizing how much is happening in the body.

是的。

Yeah.

对我来说，作为一个大部分时间都活在头脑里的人，最大的发现就是：拥有身体对意识而言有多么重要。

I think that's my biggest discovery as someone who lives in his head most of the time, how important having a body is to being conscious.

我们通常更认同自己的头脑，而不是身体，对吧？

You know, we identify with our heads more than our bodies, right?

也许是因为眼睛长在那里，我不确定。

Maybe because our eyes are there, I don't know.

但意识很可能首先源于感受。

But consciousness probably arises with feelings first.

它始于饥饿、瘙痒这类感觉，随后这些感觉被过滤到大脑皮层，才演变成我们引以为傲的复杂思维。

It starts with things like hunger and itchiness And as it gets filtered into the cortex, becomes the kind of complicated thinking that we pride ourselves on.

我认为，感受最终是根植于身体的。

I think that feelings are based in the body, finally.

这是身体与大脑交流的方式。

It's how the body talks to the brain.

我们必须记住这个非常简单的事实：大脑的存在是为了维持身体的生存，而不是相反。

And we have to remember this very simple fact, which is the brain exists to keep the body alive, not the other way around.

我们不仅仅是为了支撑头上这三磅像豆腐一样的东西而存在的。

We're not just a support system for this amazing three pounds of tofu in our heads.

一旦你意识到这一点，就会明白身体传来的信息对大脑来说至关重要。

And once you realize that, you realize that the messages coming from the body are really important to the brain.

这些感受是意识体验的开端，如果没有它们，你是否真的会有意识都值得怀疑。

And these feelings are the beginning of conscious experience, and if you didn't have them, it's questionable whether you would have consciousness.

毫无疑问，我认为意识的体验是两者之间某种互动的结果。

There's no doubt, I think, that the experience of consciousness is some kind of interplay between both.

我能感觉到我的太阳神经丛里有不安。

I feel uncertainty in my solar plexus.

嗯。

Mhmm.

我会在脑子里思考那些让我感到不确定的事情。

I think about things I'm uncertain around in my brain.

没错。

Exactly.

那你在哪里感受到厌恶感，比如道德上的厌恶？

And where do you experience disgust, like moral disgust?

在你的肚子里。

It's in your belly.

你在书里提到一个很棒的实验。

You you have a great experiment in the book

关于姜？

about Ginger?

人们赠送姜。

People giving ginger.

你能描述一下这个实验吗？

Could you describe that?

是的

Yeah.

这是一个非常有趣的实验。

This is a very cool experiment.

他们让受试者在接触某些道德上令人反感的事件、图像之前服用姜。

They gave people ginger before exposing them to some morally distasteful event or something or image.

而服用过姜的人由于胃部感觉安定，表现出较少的厌恶反应。

And the people who had the ginger were less disgusted because their stomachs were settled.

因此，我们对道德厌恶的感受是通过肠胃来传达的，这真是个奇怪的想法。

So our feeling of moral disgust is kind of channeled through our gut, which is such a weird idea.

但很可能许多情感都是如此，这对关于人工智能是否具有意识的讨论有着深远的影响。

But that's probably true of a lot of feelings, and that it has enormous implications for this discussion about AI, whether it can be conscious.

因为情感不仅仅是信号。

Because feelings are not just signals.

它们不仅仅是信息片段。

They're not just bits of information.

它们包含信息。

They contain information.

你从感觉中获取了大量信息，但那只是感觉的残留。

You're getting a lot of information from a feeling, but that's the residue of the feeling.

它带有更多的躯体性，很难想象计算机如何能达到这一点。

There's something more somatic about it, and it's very hard to imagine how computers could get to that.

如果你没有脆弱性，没有承受痛苦甚至可能死亡的能力，那么感觉就毫无分量。

And feelings have no weight if you don't have a vulnerability, if you don't have the ability to suffer and and perhaps be mortal.

否则，感觉只是更多信息，而我们知道对我们而言，感觉远不止如此。

Otherwise, a feeling is just more information, and and we know feelings are a lot more than that to us.

我想描述一下我们在做这件事时我刚刚经历的一个体验。

I wanna describe an experience I just had while we were doing that.

我给自己写了个便条，打算稍后回到对话的这一部分，也许把它剪辑出来，因为我觉得这部分特别好。

I I wrote a note to myself to come back to this part of the conversation later to maybe clip it out because I think it's particularly good.

我发现，在这些播客中，我需要非常关注自己的身体，因为那里发生的事情并不是我产生了某个想法。

One thing I find I need to do during these podcasts is pay very close attention to my body because what happened there was not that I had a thought.

这很好。

This is good.

待会儿再回来。

Come back later.

嗯哼。

Mhmm.

当时发生的是，我的皮肤变得刺刺的，我注意到一种 heightened sensitivity（敏感度提升）。

What happened there is that my skin got pricklier, and I noticed, like, a heightened sensitivity.

这向我的大脑发出了一个信号，让我开始注意。

And that was an alert to my mind to start paying attention.

那么，我到底想注意什么呢？

Well, what what is what am I trying to pay attention to?

嗯哼。

Mhmm.

我在播客中经常看到这种情况。

I see this all the time in the podcast.

我的身体会对正在发生的事情产生反应，而我的头脑则需要去解读这些反应。

My body has reactions to things that are going on, and then my mind has to interpret

对。

Right.

为什么会这样。

Why that is happening.

是的。

Yeah.

身体对事情的感知更敏锐，而我的头脑，比如我进来时带着的那份问题清单，是我自己创造的。

And the body is smarter about things and, you know, the mind, which I created the questions document I walked in here with

对。

Right.

是。

Is.

但这种体验真的很奇怪——我的胸口和双手突然有了某种感觉，告诉我我的身体认为这段对话很好，是的。

But it's such a strange experience that something just happened in, like, my chest and my hands that told me my body thinks this part of the conversation was good Yes.

然后把它们放进我的大脑里，以便我写下一个小笔记，方便以后回顾。

And to put it into my brain so I could write a little note to come back to it later.

威廉·詹姆斯对此有过论述。

So William James writes about this.

你有感觉、情绪和想法，对吧？

You have feelings, emotions, and thoughts, right?

而情绪是感觉更偏向身体层面的表现。

And emotions are more of the physical manifestation of feelings.

我能看出你的情绪。

Can tell your emotions.

但我无法知道你的感受。

I can't tell your feelings.

那些是内在的。

Those are internal.

他基本上说，它们起源于身体。

He said basically they start in the body.

愤怒始于心跳加速或类似的情况。

Anger starts with a racing heart or something like that.

然后大脑会解读：为什么心跳会加速？

And then the brain interprets, why did the heart start racing?

为什么血压会上升？

Why did blood pressure go up?

也许是恐惧，你知道的？

Maybe it's fear, you know?

因此，大脑一直在解读身体传来的各种信息。

So the brain is constantly interpreting the messages it's getting from the body.

而身体本身会独立思考、独立感受，并以无数种方式对环境做出反应。

And the body is thinking on its own, feeling on its own, reacting to its environment in a million different ways.

这彻底改变了你对意识的看法，以及自动化或数字化这种过程的潜力。

And it totally changes how you think about consciousness and and the potential of automating this or the potential of digitizing it.

如果感受是首先出现的。

If feelings are that if feelings come first.

情感在这方面更值得深思，你知道，它们从何而来？

Feelings bear more thought in that, know, where do they come from?

它们该如何被模拟？

How can they how can they be simulated?

情感和身体更值得深思。

Feelings and bodies bear more thought.

是的。

Yes.

这涉及具身性。

Is something Embodiment.

意识是一种具身现象，而大脑在缸中——那个梗，根本行不通。

That consciousness is an embodied phenomenon and that the the brain in a vat, right, meme, just no.

这根本行不通。

It just doesn't work.

同样，把意识下载到机器上，你知道的，超人类主义者的梦想。

Ditto, the downloading of consciousness onto a onto a machine, you know, the dream of the transhumanists.

你没有身体吗？

You're not gonna have a body?

那怎么行得通呢？

How's that gonna work?

我们

We

我认为，如果有人去听关于自我提升的播客，或者上学校课程之类的，他们的根本问题都是：我怎样才能变得更聪明？

I think if somebody was to go out into self improvement podcast for old or school or anything, and and and their fundamental question was, how do I get smarter?

我如何变得更聪明？

How am I more intelligent?

你基本上得到的答案都与训练你的思维、学习、多读书、早晨写日记等有关。

The answer you basically get has to do with training your mind, studying, reading more, journaling in the morning, whatever it might be.

但实际上，关于深化你的心智与身体之间的联系，却几乎没有涉及。

And there's actually very, very little about deepening the connection between your mind and your body.

随着我年龄的增长，以及我的工作变得越来越有创造性，我认为

As I have gotten older and as my work has become more creative, I think

嗯嗯。

Mhmm.

我逐渐认为这是一个巨大的错误。

I've come to think it's a huge mistake.

是的。

Yeah.

多年来，我不得不提升的很大一部分能力，就是关注我的身体，以便我的大脑能够处理这些并不总是容易解读的信号——这些信号蕴含着某种我感觉无法掌控的智慧。

That a huge amount of just what I have had to get better at over the years is paying attention to my body such that then my mind can do something with these signals that are not always easily interpretable, but have some intelligence that I don't feel like I am in control of.

对。

Yeah.

而且我们常常误解它们。

And we misinterpret them.

我的意思是，想想你有年幼的孩子。

I mean, think about you've got young kids.

当他们饿了的时候，会把这种感觉误解为沮丧或愤怒，而你才会意识到，哦，他们只是需要吃点东西，然后就会没事了。

When they're hungry, they will misinterpret that as frustration or anger, and and you realize, oh, they just need to eat, and then they'll be fine.

所以我们确实需要经历一个学习过程，来理解身体在向我们传递什么信息。

So we we do go through a process of learning how to interpret what our body is telling us.

但这是真的。

But it's true.

作为成年人，你去哪里学习这一点呢？

As adults, where do you go to learn that?

我的意思是，冥想可以算一点，比如做身体扫描之类的事情。

I mean, meditation a little bit, you know, doing body scans and things like that.

我知道一些冥想练习，其重点完全放在身体上，关注身体各个部位正在发生什么。

You know, I've done meditation practices where the focus is very much on the body and what's going on in every different part of the body.

但我认为，如果我们学会这样做并更仔细地关注身体，我们会更明智。

But I think we would be wiser if we learned how to do this and paid better attention to our bodies.

而且我认为，某种程度上，这正是安东尼奥·达马西奥1994年第一本书《笛卡尔的错误》所要传达的教训。

And I also think, I mean, in a way, this is the lesson of Antonio Damasio's first book in 1994, Descartes Error, it was called.

他基本上是在表明，感受和情绪应当被纳入决策过程。

And he was basically showing that feelings and emotions should be admitted into the decision making process.

他证明了那些无法体验情绪或感受的人，做出的决策比能够体验情绪的人更差，并且存在一种‘直觉判断’。

And he proved that people who couldn't experience emotion or feelings made worse decisions than people who could, and that there was a kind of a gut check.

你知道，我们有大量关于‘直觉’和‘思考’的词汇，语言深处其实蕴含着一种认知：我们的直觉对决策有着重要的提示作用。

You know, we have all these words for the gut and thought, and there's some kind of very deep in the language is this understanding that our gut has something important to tell us about a decision.

因此，他在整个大脑科学中重新确立了情绪和感受的地位。

And so he kind of rehabilitated feelings and emotions in the whole science of the brain.

但长期以来，我们一直把情绪和感受排除在对大脑的理解之外。

But basically, we've been drumming feelings and emotion out of our understanding of the brain for hundreds of years.

我不明白为什么。

And I don't know why.

我的意思是，人类意识的巅峰被认为是大脑皮层，或者从事这类研究的人，根本与自己的身体脱节。

I mean, this idea of the pinnacle of human consciousness is the cortex, or the kinds of people who do this research are just really out of touch with their bodies.

我喜欢这个说法，作为

I like that as as

一个

a

一个

a

假设。

hypothesis.

我会听到他们中的一些人说。

I'll be hearing from some of them.

哦，这很合理。

Oh, fair enough.

我想深入谈谈你刚才提到的关于顺序的问题，即感受通常先于想法。

I wanna pick up on something you said in there about the sequencing, about how feelings often precede thoughts.

你提到一项关于冥想者的研究，这些冥想者被要求记录下他们在冥想中被想法打断的时刻。

There's a great piece of research you bring up that is research done on meditators who are asked to note when they're interrupted in their meditation by a thought.

你能描述一下这项研究吗？

Can you describe that study?

这位科学家叫卡拉娜·克里斯托夫·哈杰列维亚，是一名心理学家，她的研究领域是自发性思维，我之前从未意识到这竟然是一个研究领域，它包括白日梦、走神、创造性思维和心流状态。

So this scientist, Kalina Christoff Hajelevia, psychologist, her field is spontaneous thought, which is I hadn't thought about that as a as a field, and that includes things like daydreams and mind wandering and creative thinking and flow.

为了理解这一点，她非常关注一个问题：事物是如何从我们的无意识进入意识层面的，因为我们知道在意识阈值之下有大量的活动在进行。

And to try to understand this, she's very interested in the question of how things get from our unconscious into our conscious awareness, because we know there's a lot going on below the threshold of awareness.

因此，她与受过训练的冥想者合作，这些人拥有大约一万小时的冥想经验，让他们进入功能性磁共振成像仪，并在思想侵入时按下按钮。

So she works with trained meditators, people who have like ten thousand hours experience meditating, puts them in an fMRI, gives them a button to press as soon as the thought intrudes.

因为即使你是经验丰富的冥想者，这种情况也依然会发生。

Because even if you're an experienced meditator, it's going to happen.

她说，每个人每十秒就会发生一次。

She says it happens every ten seconds for everybody.

她说，冥想最重要的启示是：思维无法被控制。

She said the great lesson of meditation is the mind cannot be controlled.

这对正在努力控制思维的人而言，是一种极大的解脱。

It's very freeing to people trying.

有趣的是，当人们按下按钮时，她会回溯当时的情况，观察何时海马体出现活动——海马体是记忆和其他功能的源头，而她将它视为思想的来源。

What was interesting about this is that when people press the button, she would look back at when something popped out, when there was activity in the hippocampus, which is the source of memories and other stuff as well, but she was watching that as a source of a thought.

从功能性磁共振成像显示海马体活动，到人们意识到这个想法，中间相隔了四秒钟。

And it took four seconds between the fMRI showing activity in the hippocampus and the person being aware of that thought.

那么，正在发生什么？

So what is happening?

在大脑时间里，四秒就像一个永恒。

Four seconds in brain time is like an eon.

一个想法从无意识转变为有意识的过程中，究竟发生了什么？为什么需要这么长时间？

What is happening for a thought to transit from the unconscious to the conscious, and why does it take so long?

她也不知道。

And she doesn't know.

对不起。

I'm sorry.

我还不了这笔钱。

I can't pay this off.

但有一种理论叫做全局神经工作空间理论，认为有各种想法在争夺进入我们有意识觉知的机会，这就像一种达尔文式的过程。

But one of the theories called global neuronal workspace theory, which is that there are thoughts competing with one another for access to our conscious awareness, and they're kind of, you know, this Darwinian process.

只有最显著的想法才能进入工作空间，然后广播到整个大脑。

And only the most salient ever gets into the workspace and then broadcast to the whole brain.

这个理论的问题在于，有很多琐碎的内容不知为何也能通过，至少在我身上是这样。

The problem with this theory is there's a lot of trivial stuff that somehow gets through, at least in my case.

我觉得有大量的信息在来回穿梭。

I think there's a lot of traffic going back and forth.

而且这不仅发生在冥想时，也发生在迷幻体验中。

And and that's something also that you happen not just during meditation, but during psychedelic experiences.

有很多无意识的内容浮现出来。

There's lots of unconscious material that comes up.

对我来说，冥想确实存在这个问题，因为很多冥想都涉及开放觉察，或试图不带评判地观察正在发生的事情。

I actually find this to be a problem with meditation for me, which is that there's a lot of meditation that is about open awareness or trying to watch things happen nonjudgmentally.

是的。

Yeah.

但只要有觉察，就明显在改变我大脑中的状态。

But the very act of having awareness is very clearly changing what is happening in my brain.

是的。

Yeah.

所以我觉察得越多，我的大脑或思维就越感觉被某种程度地控制；而我觉察得越少，就越会冒出这些零星的思绪。

So the more awareness I have, the more my brain feels slightly or my mind feels somewhat controlled, and the less awareness I have, the more I'm gonna get these sort of little wisps of mentation.

是的。

Yeah.

我特别喜欢一位冥想老师，他的冥想课程在YouTube上，名叫迈克尔·塔夫特。他的态度是：看吧，思维的机制总会持续运转，但你可以像放下手机一样放下它，任其自行运作。

So there's a meditation teacher I really like whose meditations are on YouTube named Michael Taft, and his attitude is like, look, the machinery of the mind is gonna go on, but just put it down the way you'd put down your phone, and just let it do its thing.

你只需忽略它，我觉得这非常有帮助。

You can just ignore it, and I find that very helpful.

我总觉得在思维的某个角落，有一种轻微的嗡嗡声在持续，而我并没有留意它。

I have this sense of a little buzzing going on in this corner of thoughts that I'm not paying attention to.

但正如卡莉娜所展示的，要控制这些内容非常困难，它们总会冒出来，而且确实很有趣。

But as Kalina shows, it's very hard to control this material, and things are gonna bubble up, and and they're interesting.

我想，关于作为一个人，我内心最深层、最基本的一个问题是：为什么我会关注我所关注的这些事物？

Well, I guess one of my deep and fundamental questions about being a human being is why I attend to what I attend to.

嗯。

Mhmm.

如果我能像现在越来越能对Claude说清楚你希望它如何行动那样，去和我脑海中的算法对话，我会改变这个算法。

If I could go and talk to the algorithm in my mind in the way that increasingly you can, you know, go tell Claude what is how it is you want Claude to act, I would change the algorithm.

是的。

Yeah.

我会更少担心生活中的 interpersonal conflict。

I would worry less about interpersonal conflict in my life.

嗯。

Mhmm.

我会花少得多的时间去思考别人是否生我的气。

I would spend a lot less time thinking about whether or not people are mad at me.

嗯。

Mhmm.

但确实存在某种过程，让我讨厌用‘全局工作空间理论’这个术语来描述大脑中的运作。

But there is some process by which I hate the term global workspace theory as a description of what is going on in the mind.

这个理论太冰冷了，而且是基于1998年的个人电脑构建的。

It's so bloodless and built on personal computers in 1998.

提高效率的想法。

Productivity ideas.

是的。

Yeah.

但那种认为事物在竞争、某种程度上，我大脑的某个部分正在运行某种过程来决定什么进入注意力焦点的想法。

But that idea that things are competing, and somehow or another, some part of my mind is running some kind of process to decide what comes into the spotlight of attention.

是的。

Yeah.

如果真的发生令人震惊的事情，比如我旁边发生了车祸，或者是是的。

And if it's really shocking, there's a car accident next to me or a Yeah.

有捷径。

There are shortcuts.

是的。

Yeah.

比如，突然间，它就会完全把我吸引过去。

Like, all of a sudden, it'll move me there entirely.

但每一刻都存在某种竞争，而浮现出来的东西，我可以觉察到它。

But moment to moment, there's some kind of competition, and what comes up, I can be aware of it.

但我对它的觉察越强，就越感觉失去控制，这是冥想带来的一项伟大而略显可怕的经验。

But the more aware I am of it, the less in control that I feel, which is one of the great and slightly terrifying lessons of meditation.

是的。

Yeah.

所以那个问题

And so that that question

无意识的问题对我来说并不轻微。

of the unconscious doesn't seem mild to me.

那正是工厂

That is the factory

产生思想的地方。

producing thoughts comes from.

然后，某种东西在决定哪些内容放在前排货架上。

And then something is deciding what to put in the front shelves.

所以你是从算法和大量数据的角度来思考它，不同的东西可能会被纳入其中。

So you're thinking about it in terms of an algorithm and a mass of data, and different things could get pulled into it.

这个比喻并不差。

That's not a bad metaphor.

我的意思是，我们并不确切知道它是如何运作的。

I mean, we don't know exactly how it works.

仍然存在这样一个问题：如果工作空间理论成立，那么我们所有的想法都应该具有某种意义。

There is still this question of if the workspace idea is true, everything we think should be of some consequence.

而我们都清楚，这并不真实。

And we all know that's not true.

那么，为什么那些完全琐碎或平庸的事物会进入我们的意识呢？

And so why do things that are completely trivial or banal enter our consciousness?

你知道，弗洛伊德会说，我们是在压抑更重要的东西。

You know, Freud would say we're suppressing more important things.

但显然，大脑会随着时间的推移学会该思考什么。

But there is clearly a way that the mind learns what to think about over time.

所以以我的孩子为例，我很清楚我的孩子们一整天都不会花时间去想他们未来要做的事情。

So so to use the the example of my kids, it is quite clear to me that my children do not spend any time during the day thinking about things they have to do in the future.

对。

Right.

他们可能会想一些他们未来想做的事情。

They might think it's about things they want to do in the future.

对。

Right.

但他们从来不会想，比如，我好久没去儿科医生那里了。

But they're never like, you know, I think it's been a while since my last pediatrician appointment.

我可能需要打些疫苗。

I might need some shots.

对吧？

Right?

是的。

Yeah.

只要让我一个人静下来太久，待办事项就会开始在脑子里冒出来。

Leave me with my mind alone for much time at all, and a to do list begins bubbling

不断涌现。

through it.

这非常、非常顽固。

It's very, very persistent.

我的做法是，冥想时在旁边放张纸，把脑子里的东西都写下来，这样就不会一直惦记着了。

I mean, I meditate with paper near me to just get things out of there and onto the paper so I don't keep thinking about them.

不知从什么时候起，我从一个活在当下、很专注的孩子，变成了这样。

Somewhere along the way, I went from being a kid who is pretty present in his life Yeah.

我以前更多地思考自己想思考的事情，但现在我的思维却偏向了效率和产出。

And thought more, I think, about things I wanted to think about or and became somebody whose mind has bent towards productivity.

是的。

Yeah.

这并不是唯一

It's not the only

这并不是我脑子里唯一发生的事，但它显然是一个偏爱的话题。

thing that happens in my mind, but it is clearly a favored topic.

对。

Yeah.

这让你取得了成功。

And it makes you successful.

我的意思是，确实有一些标准能说明这种做法是有道理的。

I mean, you know, there there are standards by which that makes sense.

所以，你，你认为它应该怎么

So you you How should it

所以关于这一点，我想说的是你

So what I I'd say about that is you

刚才提到一件事，你说这个理论的问题在于，为什么会有这么多琐事

brought up something a minute ago where you said, well, the problem this theory is that why does so much triviality

对。

Yeah.

浮现。

Emerge.

但我的意思是，你难道不能说，这只是规则被过度应用了吗？

But, I mean, couldn't you just say, well, it is overapplied rules.

我对自己大脑最大的抱怨是，我总是过多地思考人际关系带来的压力。

Like, my biggest complaint about my mind is I think too much about relational stress.

嗯。

Mhmm.

但你会长大。

But you grow up.

你会组建家庭。

You have a family.

你会非常依赖照顾者。

You're very dependent on caregivers.

很容易想象，一个人的思维会如何倾向于真正地如此。

It's very easy to imagine how a mind would bend towards really yeah.

我当时

I was

在学校被欺负。

bullied in school.

对吧？

Right?

就是，你知道的，被排挤

The the you know, being out

脱离群体和关系真的会伤害你。

of joint and relationships can really harm you.

当然。

Sure.

所以，我并不奇怪我的大脑为什么会过度习得这条规则：时刻扫描人际关系中的威胁。

So it's not unclear to me how my mind might have overlearned the rule, scan for relational threat at all times.

对。

Right.

所以我对这种学习过程很好奇。

And so I'm curious about that that learning.

比如，随着时间推移，每个人身上发生的事情并不相同。

Like, something is happening over time that is not the same in all people.

这取决于个人的生活经历。

It's dependent on life experience.

那些在饥荒年代长大的人，年老后往往会储存更多食物。

People You who grew up in times of famine tend to store more food when they're older.

对吧？

Right?

那里确实发生着某种变化。

There's something happening there.

而且，这种愉悦感并不是推动这一行为的原因。

And also, and that pleasure is not driving this.

对吧？

Right?

我的意思是，这是一种成功。

I mean, it's it's success.

你正在学习一些算法，如果我们用计算机这个比喻的话，这些算法虽然并不让人感觉愉快，但却在促进那些能解决问题、让所有人感到开心、维持和平之类的行为。

You are learning algorithms, if we're gonna use that computer metaphor, that are, even though it doesn't feel good, are promoting the kind of behavior that's going to solve problems and keep everybody happy, maintain the peace, all these kind of things.

所以，我们的大脑更关注的是成功，而不是愉悦。

So our minds are invested in our success, not our pleasure.

我谈了很多关于迷幻剂如何启发了这本书，但冥想也同样如此。

I talked a lot about how psychedelics inspired this book, but meditation did too.

因为一旦你开始审视自己内心正在发生什么——很多人并不这么做，但现在有数千万人确实在做，尤其是疫情以来，冥想者比以前多得多——你会惊讶于我们的大脑有多么奇特，以及我们的意志力有多么微弱；我们以为作为有意识的人类在掌控一切，但实际上，在很大程度上我们并没有。

Because as soon as you stop to examine what's going on in your mind, which many people don't do, but now tens of millions of people do do, especially since the pandemic, there are a lot more meditators than there were, is how strange our minds are and how little volition is involved, and that we think we're calling the shots as conscious human beings, but to a remarkable extent, we're not.

至于这些内容从何而来，我们可以称之为无意识，但我们其实并不清楚，它只是变得陌生了。

And where that material is coming from, we can call it the unconscious, we don't really know, but it's just defamiliarized.

对吧？

Right?

我的意思是，你与自己的心理过程产生了疏离，而这种伟大的冥想练习，你知道，就是去你的大脑里寻找是谁在产生这些想法、是谁在感受这些情绪，结果你根本找不到任何人。

I mean, you're just estranged from your own mental processes, and this whole idea that that great meditation exercise, you know, will look in your brain for who's thinking those thoughts, who's feeling those feelings, and you won't find anybody.

谈谈我们对话中已经短暂提到的一种心理状态，我认为它介于无意识和目标导向之间，那就是走神。

Talk to me about a state of mind that has come up briefly in our conversation already that I think is between unconscious and goal directed, which is the wandering mind.

嗯。

Mhmm.

我认为我们并没有意识到它的重要性。

And I think it's something we don't I think we have come to diminish its role.

是的。

Oh, yeah.

我觉得是这样。

I think so.

我所以

I So

那它究竟是什么？我们对它了解多少？

what is it, what do we know about it?

走神其实就是你感到无聊时发生的事情。

Well, the wandering mind is just what's happening when you're bored.

这在某种程度上是漫游思维的前提。

That's the precondition in a way for a wandering mind.

就像是，我没什么事可做。

It's like, I've got nothing to do.

这里没有任务。

There's no task here.

我只是在打发时间。

I'm just killing time.

突然间，我们就开始做白日梦或心神游荡。

And suddenly, we're off and daydreaming or mind wandering.

它们是非常相似的东西。

They're very similar things.

我忘了卡莉娜是怎么区分它们的，但她确实有区分。

I forget how Kalina distinguishes them, but she does.

她认为这是生活中非常重要的一部分，而我们却忽视了它，因为它看起来没有生产力，而心理学的所有研究都集中在有生产力的思维领域。

She thinks it's a really important part of life that we haven't studied because it's not productive and that all the work in psychology goes into productive areas of thought.

我觉得现在这种情况正在改变。

I think that's changing now.

有人开始研究敬畏感和那些不一定具有生产力的情绪，但敬畏感非常有用。

You have people studying awe and emotions that are not necessarily productive, but awe is very useful.

所以她认为这是一种创造力的空间，许多创造性思维都源于走神和白日梦。

So she just thinks this is a space of creativity and that a lot of creative thinking comes out of mind wandering and daydreaming.

小说家们经常这么做。

It's something novelists do all the time.

对吧？

Right?

我的意思是，他们非常擅长白日梦。

I mean, they get pretty good at daydreaming.

她说我们已经失去了这种能力。

And she says we've lost this.

你知道，由于各种干扰——尤其是科技带来的干扰，我们内心世界中这种思考的空间正在缩小。

You know, the the space of our interiority for this kind of thinking is diminished because of our distractions, our technological distractions.

我想挑战一下这个观点，不是说她相信这个，而是认为这是一种非生产性的思维方式。

I wanna challenge, not that she believes this, but this idea that it's a nonproductive form of thought.

我觉得它

I think it

哦，我觉得这非常有成效。

Oh, I think it is very productive.

但你是怎么定义生产力的呢？

It just how are how are you defining productivity?

对我而言，生产力的最大障碍——真正的生产力，即在不增加资源的情况下做得更好——是我不够花时间让思绪漫游。

I I would say the biggest barrier for me in productivity, true productivity, which is the ability to do better with the same amount of resources that you already have Mhmm.

我没有足够的时间让自己的思绪飘散。

Is that I don't spend enough time with my mind wandering.

是的。

Yeah.

我最富有创造力的时刻，往往是我以为自己在休息的时候，这已经成为一种常态。

And it is routine that the absolutely most creatively important times I will spend, I thought I was taking a break.

是的。

Yeah.

我以为我在做别的事。

I thought I was doing something else.

不是散步。

Wasn't a walk.

我不是只是在开车。

I wasn't just driving

对。

Right.

我的思绪更深地陷入其中，当我已经太累而无法吸收信息时，还在翻看网页。

My mind further into the ground, flicking through web pages when I was already too tired to absorb information.

对。

Right.

然后突然间，我会获得灵感。

Then all of a sudden, I'll have the insider.

我会突然意识到该给这个人打电话，我不知道这种想法从何而来，但就是那些富有洞察力、顿悟且创意上契合的瞬间会浮现在我脑海中。

I'll realize where I should call this person or and I don't know where it comes from, but it's those moments of insight epiphany creatively aligned that comes into my head.

聚光灯。

Spotlight.

嗯。

Mhmm.

聚光灯会因为这些视野局限而造成干扰。

That the spotlight gets in the way because of those blinders.

我认为当你在做白日梦或思绪飘散时，这些视野局限会逐渐打开，你会从更多地方吸收信息。

And I think when you're daydreaming or mind wandering, the blinders are kinda opened up, and you're you're taking in information from more places.

她认为，这仅仅是因为人们认为这种思考是无用的，因为没人希望员工整天走神。

She argues that it's just the belief that this is unproductive thought, because nobody wants mind wandering workers.

对吧？

Right?

资本家希望我们保持聚光灯式的专注状态。

The capitalists want us to be spotlight consciousness.

她举的例子是，现在我的工作是批改蓝皮书考试卷，这确实是我要做的事，但我的真正人生目标是理解自己的人生并拥有充实的生活，而我如果去散步或放空思绪，反而会更好。

The example she gave is, right now, my job is to grade Blue Book exams, and that's what I should be doing, but my real life project is making sense of my life and having a fulfilling life, and I would be better off taking a walk or mind wandering.

所以这里存在一种张力。

So there's a tension.

这种张力存在于经济所认为的高效思维，与情感上真正高效或富有创造力的思维之间。

There's a tension there between what the economy considers productive thought and what emotionally is productive thought or creativity.

或者，如果经济更聪明一点，它应该把什么视为高效思维。

Or what the economy should consider productive thought if it were smarter.

你无法在每小时的层面上量化它。

It just it you can't quantify it on the hour to hour level.

对我来说，最有趣的一种思维状态，就是当我手捧纸质材料阅读、周围没有屏幕干扰时的状态。

One of the most interesting mind states for me is a mind state I functionally only have when I am reading something on paper without screen distractions around me

嗯。

Mhmm.

在这种状态下，我的思维会变得高度联想化。

Which is it becomes my mind becomes highly associational.

我会在读书时抬头，然后冒出一些想法。

And I'll be reading, and then I'll look up, and I'll have ideas.

这些想法通常根本和书的内容无关。

They're often not about the book at all.

书本身就像一种特定注意力的脚手架，但我保持清醒和觉察，因此会注意到其他事情。

It's like the book itself is a scaffolding of a certain kind of attention, but I'm aware and I'm awake, and so I'm noticing other things.

这无疑是我最有创造力的状态。

It is by far my most creative state.

你手里拿着铅笔或钢笔吗？

Do you have a pencil or pen in

拿着呢。

your hand?

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

而在飞机上比任何地方都更容易达到这种状态，因为那时你真的没有任何干扰。

And it is achieved more easily on airplanes than anywhere else because then you really don't have distractions.

但在咖啡馆里也可能发生，只要我不看屏幕。

But it can happen at a coffee shop, but it won't happen if I'm looking at a screen.

没错。

Right.

因此，这让我开始思考，如果我们希望人类更高效、更有创造力，那么我们对这一点的许多固有观念其实都是错误的。

And so it it's made me think about how if we wanted humans to be more productive, more creative, more I think a lot of our received beliefs about this are really wrong.

我们应该让人们更多地与自己的身体建立联系。

We'd want to put people more in touch with their bodies.

我们应该教他们如何进入开放联想和思绪漫游的状态，要更频繁地让自己置身于灵感可能降临的环境中，因为灵感并不像我们希望的那样可以被控制。

We'd want to teach them how to find states of open association and and mind wandering, wanna put yourself in the way of inspiration more often because it's not controllable in the way we wish it were.

完全同意。

Completely agree.

卡莉娜编辑了这本书《牛津自发思维指南》，书中梳理了关于自发思维的历史，探讨了那些极具创造力的人——作曲家、小说家——他们是如何度过每一天的。

Kalina edited this book, The Oxford Companion to Spontaneous Thought, and there is a history of spontaneous thought that looked at how incredibly creative people, composers, novelists, how they spent their days.

他们每天只工作四到五个小时。

And they only worked like four or five hours.

他们花大量时间进行无结构的散步和漫游。

They spent a lot of time in unstructured wandering, walking.

我们都清楚，创造性思维与散步之间存在联系。

And we all know there's a connection between creative thinking and walking.

如果你在写作或其他事情上陷入困境，站起来散步比一味纠结于问题更容易突破灵感。

It's much more likely to break through if you're stuck in your writing or whatever else you're doing if you get up from the desk and take a walk instead of just worrying that problem.

所以，是的，我们可以以某种方式重新安排我们的生活。

So, yeah, we could reorganize our lives in a way.

但我们唯一确定的是，我们的手机和社交媒体正在削弱这种视角，让我们无法抬头，无法建立联想，因为根本没有时间进行联想。

But the one thing we do know is how our phones, our social media are are bringing down that that viewpoint, keeping us from looking up, keeping us from making associations, because there's no time for associations.

你只是不停地刷屏，新的内容不断涌入，你不断获得微小的刺激。

You're just scrolling, and something else comes in, and you're getting another little hit.

因此，我们压缩了这种空间。

So we've shrunken that space.

这是一个充满创造力的空间，我们完全没有理由不能重新夺回它，但我们在这样做时遇到了很多困难，因为这些算法非常先进，它们非常了解我们的思维模式。

It is a space of creativity, and there's no reason we can't reclaim it, but we have a lot of trouble doing it because these algorithms are really sophisticated, and they know how our minds work.

你什么时候最有创造力？

When are you most creative?

走路的时候，我会这么说。

Walking, I would say.

我经常走路的地方。

Where I walk a lot.

我在伯克利山丘上散步。

I walk in the Berkeley Hills.

但即便如此，我也得说，有一半的时间我都在填满自己的大脑，因为我戴着AirPods。

And, although even then, I have to say, half the time I fill my head, I have my AirPods on.

我在听小说或播客，听你讲话，而我本可以

I'm listening to a novel or a podcast, listening to you when I could be

我们不要急于贬低信息输入的重要性。

Let let's not be too hasty in in diminishing the importance of informational input here.