哲学家史蒂芬·凯夫以一个黑暗但又引人注目的问题作为开头：你在什么时候第一次意识到自己会死亡的?更有意思的是：为什么人们总是在抗拒死亡的必然性?在这个精彩的演说中，凯夫探索了4种-横跨各个文明之间-为的是能处理我们对死亡的恐惧。下面是小编为大家收集关于TED英语演讲：你第一次意识到自己会死是什么时候，欢迎借鉴参考。

　　演说题目：The 4 stories we tell ourselves about death

　　演说者：Stephen Cave

　　演讲稿

　　I have a question: Who here remembers when they first realized they were going to die?

　　我要问大家一件事：在座的各位谁还记得当自己第一次意识到，自己有一天会死去时那一刻的感受?

　　I do. I was a young boy, and my grandfather had just died, and I remember a few days later lying in bed at night trying to make sense of what had happened. What did it mean that he was dead? Where had he gone?It was like a hole in reality had opened up and swallowed him. But then the really shocking question occurred to me: If he could die, could it happen to me too?

　　我还记得，那时我还是个小男孩，我的祖父刚刚过世了，记得几天后的一个夜晚，我躺在床上，是这回想之前所发生的一切，去世到底意味着什么?他去哪了?有点像现实中有个洞打开，把他吞了。但那时对我而言，有个震撼的问题是：如果他会死去，同样的事也会发生在我身上吗?

　　Could that hole in reality open up and swallow me? Would it open up beneath my bed and swallow me as I slept? Well, at some point, all children become aware of death. It can happen in different ways, of course, and usually comes in stages. Our idea of death develops as we grow older.

　　现实中真有个洞打开并把我吞下吗?它会在我的床底下打开，并在我睡着的时候把我吞下吗?嗯，某种程度而言，所有的孩子开始意识到死亡。当然，它会以不同的方式发生，并且通常会在某个阶段到来。随着我们年龄的增长，我们对死亡的观念逐渐形成。

　　And if you reach back into the dark corners of your memory, you might remember something like what I felt when my grandfather died and when I realized it could happen to me too, that sense that behind all of this the void is waiting.

　　并且如果你回想起，你记忆中的最黑暗的角落时，你或许会想起和我感受相同的的一些事情，在我祖父去世的时侯我意识到，同样事情也会发生在我身上，背后所有这一切的感受，是空虚的等待。

　　And this development in childhood reflects the development of our species. Just as there was a point in your development as a child when your sense of self and of time became sophisticated enough for you to realize you were mortal, so at some point in the evolution of our species, some early human's sense of self and of time became sophisticated enough for them to become the first human to realize, "I'm going to die."

　　在童年时代的这种发展，反应了人类的发展。就像你生命中的某一时刻，还是小孩的时候，对自我和时间的认知，变得十分复杂，你意识到你难逃一死，所有在人类进化的某个时刻，前人对自我和时间的认知，开始变得复杂，然后成为第一批意识到，“我终将会死去。”的人们。

　　This is, if you like, our curse. It's the price we pay for being so damn clever. We have to live in the knowledge that the worst thing that can possibly happen one day surely will, the end of all our projects, our hopes, our dreams, of our individual world. We each live in the shadow of a personal apocalypse.

　　如果你能接受，这是我们的诅咒。那是我们对料知死亡所付出的代价。我们不得不生活在，最坏的的事情将会发生的状态下，这一天当然会来，终结我们所有的计划，我们的希望，梦想，也会带走我们的一片天。我们每个人生活在自己的，末日阴影下。

　　And that's frightening. It's terrifying. And so we look for a way out. And in my case, as I was about five years old, this meant asking my mum. Now when I first started asking what happens when we die, the grown-ups around me at the time answered with a typical English mix of awkwardness and half-hearted Christianity,and the phrase I heard most often was that granddad was now "up there looking down on us," and if I should die too, which wouldn't happen of course, then I too would go up there, which made death sound a lot like an existential elevator.

　　那时很吓人，很恐怖的。所以我们试图寻找一个出路。以我为例，在我5岁左右的时候，我去问我的妈妈。现在当我开始问到，我们死亡时会发生什么，我周围的大人们那个时候，会带着尴尬的，基督教的经典语句来回答我，我最常听到的词是，祖父现在，”在天上看着我们“，并且如果我也死去，当然现在不会发生，那时我也会到天上去，让死亡听起来像，一部存在的升降电梯。

　　Now this didn't sound very plausible. I used to watch a children's news program at the time, and this was the era of space exploration. There were always rockets going up into the sky, up into space, going up there. But none of the astronauts when they came back ever mentioned having met my granddad or any other dead people. But I was scared, and the idea of taking the existential elevator to see my granddad sounded a lot better than being swallowed by the void while I slept. And so I believed it anyway, even though it didn't make much sense.

　　现在听起来不在是那么的真实可信。那时候我通常会看儿童的新闻节目，那时是个太空探索的时代。经常会有火箭冲向蓝天，进入太空。但是没有一个从太空归来的航天员，提及我见到了我的祖父，或其它死去的人。但那时我很害怕，乘坐可能存在的升降电梯，去见我的祖父，相比在我睡梦中巨大的空间吞噬，的想法更容易接受。所以我就相信了，尽管它没有任何意义。

　　And this thought process that I went through as a child, and have been through many times since, including as a grown-up, is a product of what psychologists call a bias.

　　Now a bias is a way in which we systematically get things wrong, ways in which we miscalculate, misjudge, distort reality, or see what we want to see, and the bias I'm talking about works like this: Confront someone with the fact that they are going to die and they will believe just about any story that tells them it isn't true and they can, instead, live forever, even if it means taking the existential elevator.

　　我小时候就有这种思考模式，从那时候起发生过很多次，长大后也是，这被心理学家称之为，偏误。(偏见与误解)，偏误有自己的流程，让我们按照错误的方式思考事物，计算错误，判断错误，扭曲现实，或者只看到了我们想看到的东西。我这里说的偏误，是这么回事：某些人面对，他们终将会死去的现实，他们只会相信，告诉他们的任何故事都不会是真的，他们可以永久的活着，即便乘坐可能存在的升降电梯。

　　Now we can see this as the biggest bias of all. It has been demonstrated in over 400 empirical studies. Now these studies are ingenious, but they're simple. They work like this. You take two groups of people who are similar in all relevant respects, and you remind one group that they're going to die but not the other, then you compare their behavior. So you're observing how it biases behavior when people become aware of their mortality.

　　现在我们可以将这个视为最大的偏误。它已经被400多项，实证研究证明。这些研究设计的很精巧，但非常简单。它们像这样工作。你找两组，各个方面都很相似的人，并且提醒一组人他们即将死去，而不告诉另一群人，然后比较他们的行为。你会观察到，当人们开始意识到他们大限将至，偏误行为是如何产生的。

　　And every time, you get the same result:People who are made aware of their mortality are more willing to believe stories that tell them they can escape death and live forever. So here's an example: One recent study took two groups of agnostics, that is people who are undecided in their religious beliefs. Now, one group was asked to think about being dead.

　　并且你每次都能得到相同的结论：意识到会死亡的人，更愿意相信那些，告诉他们能够摆脱死亡，并能长生不老的故事。因此有下面这个例子：找两组不可知论者，这些人没有固定，的宗教信仰。现在，其中一组被要求思考死亡。

　　The other group was asked to think about being lonely. They were then asked again about their religious beliefs. Those who had been asked to think about being dead were afterwards twice as likely to express faithin God and Jesus. Twice as likely. Even though the before they were all equally agnostic. But put the fear of death in them, and they run to Jesus.

　　而另一种则被要求思考，孤独。他们再次被问到他们的宗教信仰。那些被要求死亡的那组人，有两倍的可能性来表达，对上帝和耶稣的信仰。两倍的可能性。即使他们之前是同样的不可知论者。但对死亡的恐惧摆在他们面前，他们会向耶稣靠拢。

　　Now, this shows that reminding people of death biases them to believe, regardless of the evidence, and it works not just for religion, but for any kind of belief system that promises immortality in some form, whether it's becoming famous or having children or even nationalism, which promises you can live on as part of a greater whole. This is a bias that has shaped the course of human history.

　　这表明向人们提醒死亡，会让他们忽视证据，使他们对所相信的事物产生偏误，他不仅仅影响到宗教，如果没有所有以，许诺在某种形式下永生的任何信仰制度，无论是否有名，或有孩子，甚至带民族主义形式，承诺你能成为伟大的整体中的一员生活下去。这样的偏误塑造了，人类的历史。

　　Now, the theory behind this bias in the over 400 studies is called terror management theory, and the idea is simple. It's just this. We develop our worldviews, that is, the stories we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, in order to help us manage the terror of death. And these immortality stories have thousands of different manifestations, but I believe that behind the apparent diversity there are actually just four basic forms that these immortality stories can take.

　　目前，在这偏误背后，有超过400多项研究，被称之为恐惧管理理论，这个理论很简单，我们发展出我们的世界观。即我们告诉自己一个，关于时间和我们所在地方的故事，以便帮助我们管理，对死亡的恐惧。而这些永生的故事，有上千种不同的表现形式，但我相信在这些多样化的面目下，实际只有四种基本形式，是这些永生故事都有的。

　　And we can see them repeating themselves throughout history, just with slight variations to reflect the vocabulary of the day. Now I'm going to briefly introduce these four basic forms of immortality story, and I want to try to give you some sense of the way in which they're retold by each culture or generation using the vocabulary of their day.

　　并且我们能发现他们，在历史中不断重复，仅仅只有细微的差异，用来反应当时的语言。下面我会简要介绍这四种，永生故事的基本形式，并且我希望让你们知道，在各个文化，或在不同时代中，使用当时的语言传播的方式。

　　Now, the first story is the simplest. We want to avoid death, and the dream of doing that in this body in this world forever is the first and simplest kind of immortality story, and it might at first sound implausible, but actually, almost every culture in human history has had some myth or legend of an elixir of life or a fountain of youth or something that promises to keep us going forever.

　　第一个故事是最简单的。我们想要逃避死亡，并且梦想着这身躯，能永久留存在世上，是第一个最简单的永生故事，一开始听起来有些难以置信，但事实上，在人类历史上的每一种文化，都流传着一些神话或传说，关于长生药或者不老泉，或者能让我们一直，活下去的东西。

　　Ancient Egypt had such myths, ancient Babylon, ancient India. Throughout European history, we find them in the work of the alchemists, and of course we still believe this today, only we tell this story using the vocabulary of science. So 100 years ago,hormones had just been discovered, and people hoped that hormone treatments were going to cure aging and disease, and now instead we set our hopes on stem cells, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology.

　　古埃及有这种传说，古巴比伦，古印度。纵观这个欧洲历史，在炼金术师的工作中可以发现它，直到今天我们依旧相信它，只不过我们使用科学的语言，来讲这个故事。所以120xx年前，荷尔蒙被发现了，人们希望荷尔蒙治疗，能使我们永葆青春和治愈疾病，现在我们则是希望干细胞，基因工程，和纳米技术。

　　But the idea that science can cure death is just one more chapter in the story of the magical elixir, a story that is as old as civilization. But betting everything on the idea of finding the elixir and staying alive forever is a risky strategy. When we look back through history at all those who have sought an elixir in the past, the one thing they now have in common is that they're all dead.

　　但科学能够治愈死亡的观点，只是神奇的灵丹妙药故事的，又一个章节，和古文明一样古老的故事。但把所有的赌注都压在寻找灵丹妙药，和长生不老上面，这样风险未免太大。当我们回顾整个历史，所有那些在过去寻找灵丹妙药的人，都有个共通点，是他们都难逃一死。

　　So we need a backup plan, and exactly this kind of plan B is what the second kind of immortality story offers,and that's resurrection. And it stays with the idea that I am this body, I am this physical organism. It accepts that I'm going to have to die but says, despite that, I can rise up and I can live again. In other words, I can do what Jesus did. Jesus died, he was three days in the [tomb], and then he rose up and lived again.

　　所以我们需要个备用方案，精确讲叫B方案，也就是第二类永生的故事，那就是复活。概念是我有这个身躯，是一个有机体。我是会死去的，但不论这些，我可以再次活过来的。换句话说，我能和耶稣一样。耶稣死后，有三天在[墓里]，然后又活过来了。

　　And the idea that we can all be resurrected to live again is orthodox believe, not just for Christians but also Jews and Muslims. But our desire to believe this story is so deeply embedded that we are reinventing it again for the scientific age, for example, with the idea of cryonics. That's the idea that when you die, you can have yourself frozen, and then, at some point when technology has advanced enough, you can be thawed out and repaired and revived and so resurrected.

　　能够复活的这个概念，不单源于东正教，也属于犹太教和穆斯林的。但我们渴望去相信这个故事，是深植在我们的内心，而到了科学时代，我们又重新将它提了出来，比如，人体冷冻。意思是当你死后，你可以把自己冷冻起来，然后，直到有一天，科技，高度发达的时候，你可以把自己解冻和修复，然后复活。

　　And so some people believe an omnipotent god will resurrect them to live again, and other people believe an omnipotent scientist will do it.

　　并且有些人相信万能的神，会人他们重新活过来，还有人则相信万能的科学。

　　But for others, the whole idea of resurrection, of climbing out of the grave, it's just too much like a bad zombie movie. They find the body too messy, too unreliable to guarantee eternal life, and so they set their hopes on the third, more spiritual immortality story, the idea that we can leave our body behind and live on as a soul.

　　但是对某些人，对复活的这个看法，从坟墓里爬出来，太像一部摆烂的僵尸电影。他们发现自己的身躯腐朽，也不大可能复活，无法拥有永恒的生命，所有他们有第三类型的故事，更偏向于精神上的永生故事，就是我们能够离开我们的身躯，但灵魂永久长存。

　　Now, the majority of people on Earth believe they have a soul, and the idea is central to many religions. But even though, in its current form, in its traditional form, the idea of the soul is still hugely popular, nonetheless we are again reinventing it for the digital age, for example with the idea that you can leave your body behind by uploading your mind, your essence, the real you, onto a computer, and so live on as an avatar in the ether.

　　目前，地球上绝大多数的人，认为他们是有灵魂的，这个观念是许多宗教的核心，即便是这样，在现有的形式下，在传统的形式下，灵魂的观念依旧受到了广泛欢迎，在当今的数字化时代，再次提起它，比如，你可以离开你的身体，你的心智，你的本质，真正的你，上传到了电脑中，以化身活在乙太的世界。

　　But of course there are skeptics who say if we look at the evidence of science, particularly neuroscience, it suggests that your mind, your essence, the real you, is very much dependent on a particular part of your body, that is, your brain. And such skeptics can find comfort in the fourth kind of immortality story, and that is legacy, the idea that you can live on through the echo you leave in the world, like the great Greek warrior Achilles, who sacrificed his life fighting at Troy so that he might win immortal fame.

　　但是当然，有人会怀疑说，如果我们察看科学的依据，特别是神经系统科学，提及你的心智，你的本质，真正的你，非常依赖你身体上一个特别的部分，也就是，你的大脑。这样的怀疑者，有着第四类型的永生的故事，那就是遗传的传说。你可以长存在世，透过你遗留在世上的事物,，就像古希腊战士阿基里斯，他在特洛伊的战斗中牺牲了自己的生命，使他赢得了不朽的名声。

　　And the pursuit of fame is as widespread and popular now as it ever was, and in our digital age, it's even easier to achieve. You don't need to be a great warrior like Achilles or a great king or hero. All you need is an Internet connection and a funny cat. (Laughter)

　　追求这样的名声从古至今，都一样流行，在当今的数字时代，它更容易实现。你不必要成为像阿基里斯这样的勇士，或者一个伟大的国王或者英雄。你只要能上网和一只有趣的猫。(笑)

　　But some people prefer to leave a more tangible, biological legacy -- children, for example. Or they like, they hope, to live on as part of some greater whole, a nation or a family or a tribe, their gene pool. But again, there are skeptics who doubt whether legacy really is immortality. Woody Allen, for example, who said, "I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen. I want to live on in my apartment."

　　但有些人希望留下后代----子孙。或是他们想要，希望，成为整个整体中的一部分活下去，一个名族，或者一个家庭或者一个部落，他们的基因库。但有人会怀疑，这些遗产是否，真的能永久流传下去。比如，伍迪，艾伦，曾说过，“我不想活在我同胞的心里。我想活在我的公寓里。“

　　So those are the four basic kinds of immortality stories, and I've tried to give just some sense of how they're retold by each generation with just slight variations to fit the fashions of the day. And the fact that they recur in this way, in such a similar form but in such different belief systems, suggests, I think, that we should be skeptical of the truth of any particular version of these stories.

　　所以那些都是四种，基本的永生的故事，我试着说明这些故事，如何一代一代流传着，但也都大同小异，以迎合当今时代的潮流。事实上这些故事不停的被传述，在不同的信仰中有着相似的形式，我觉得，我们应该对，所有这些故事的真实性要有所怀疑。

　　The fact that some people believe an omnipotent god will resurrect them to live again and others believe an omnipotent scientist will do itsuggests that neither are really believing this on the strength of the evidence. Rather, we believe these stories because we are biased to believe them, and we are biased to believe them because we are so afraid of death.

　　事实上有些人民相信，一个万能的神能让他们复活，还有一些人相信万能的科学能使他们复活，这说明人们在确凿的证据面前，并不相信永生这回事儿，我们相信这些故事，只是因为偏见，我们偏误去相信这些故事，因为我们恐惧死亡。

　　So the question is, are we doomed to lead the one life we have in a way that is shaped by fear and denial, or can we overcome this bias? Well the Greek philosopher Epicurus thought we could. He argued that the fear of death is natural, but it is not rational. "Death," he said, "is nothing to us, because when we are here, death is not, and when death is here, we are gone."

　　所以问题是，是否我们的人生注定生活在，对恐惧的抗拒和支配，还是我们能够克服偏误?，古希腊哲学家伊比鸠鲁，认为我们可以克服。他主张我们对死亡的恐惧是天生的，但不是理性的。他说，”死亡对我们来说不算什么，因为但我们在的时候，死亡不在，而当死亡在这里的时候，我们不在了。“

　　Now this is often quoted, but it's difficult to really grasp, to really internalize, because exactly this idea of being gone is so difficult to imagine. So 2,000 years later, another philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, put it like this: "Death is not an event in life: We do not live to experience death. And so," he added, "in this sense, life has no end."

　　这句话常被引用，但很难，抓住精髓和真正的内在化，因为所谓的(不存在)，是很难想象的。所以两千年之后，另一位哲学家，路德维格，维根斯坦，这样说：“死亡并非人生中的大事：我们活着不是为了经历死亡，所以”他补充到，“从这个角度来看，生命是没有终点的。“

　　So it was natural for me as a child to fear being swallowed by the void, but it wasn't rational, because being swallowed by the void is not something that any of us will ever live to experience.

　　当我还小的时候，很自然的对在空虚中被吞噬产生恐惧，但这并非理性，因为在空虚中被吞噬，不是任何人，会活着能够经历到的事情。

　　Now, overcoming this bias is not easy because the fear of death is so deeply embedded in us, yet when we see that the fear itself is not rational, and when we bring out into the open the ways in which it can unconsciously bias us, then we can at least start to try to minimize the influence it has on our lives.

　　目前，克服偏误不是那么容易的因为，对死亡的恐惧已经在我们心底生根发芽，但当我们了解这些恐惧是不理性的，当我们可以在台面上提出来，这恐惧会无意识的让我们偏误，那么至少我们已经开始，尝试去减小它，对我们生活的影响。

　　Now, I find it helps to see life as being like a book: Just as a book is bounded by its covers, by beginning and end, so our lives are bounded by birth and death, and even though a book is limited by beginning and end, it can encompass distant landscapes, exotic figures, fantastic adventures.

　　目前，我发现可以将生命，视为一本书：书的开头和结尾，都被书皮包裹着，所以我们的生命被出生和死亡所固定，即便这本书受到开头和结尾的限制，它能带我们去遥远的地方，异国的风情，奇异的冒险。

　　And even though a book is limited by beginning and end, the characters within it know no horizons. They only know the moments that make up their story, even when the book is closed. And so the characters of a book are not afraid of reaching the last page. Long John Silver is not afraid of you finishing your copy of "Treasure Island."

　　即便这本书受到开头和结尾的限制，书里面的人物，是不会被限制的，它们当下活出他们的故事，即便这本书被合上。书中的人物，不会害怕走到最后一页。约翰，西弗不会害怕，你读完《金银岛》。

　　And so it should be with us. Imagine the book of your life, its covers, its beginning and end, and your birth and your death. You can only know the moments in between, the moments that make up your life. It makes no sense for you to fearwhat is outside of those covers, whether before your birth or after your death. And you needn't worry how long the book is, or whether it's a comic strip or an epic. The only thing that matters is that you make it a good story.

　　所以我们也应当如此。想象关于你生命的一本书，它的书皮，开头和结局和出生和死亡。而你只知道生死之间，活出你生命的时刻。这不会让你，对书皮之外的事产生恐惧，无论是你出生之前，还是，死亡之后。你不必担心这本书有多厚，无论它是本连环画还是部史诗。唯一重要的，是你活得精彩!

　　Thank you.(Applause)

　　谢谢。(掌声)