原文刊登于《Scientific American》（2018.06.18）

原文赏析

① You don’t need to be a philosopher to realize the obvious problem with this idea: people have private, separate fields of experience. ② We can’t normally read your thoughts and, presumably, neither can you read ours. ③ Moreover, we are not normally aware of what’s going on across the universe and, presumably, neither are you. ④ So, for idealism to betenable, one must explain—at least in principle—how one universal consciousness gives rise to multiple, private but concurrently conscious centers of cognition, each with a distinct personality and sense of identity.

⑤ And here is where dissociation comes in. ⑥ We know empirically from DID that consciousness can give rise to many operationally distinct centers of concurrent experience, each with its own personality and sense of identity. ⑦ Therefore, if something analogous to DID happens at a universal level, the one universal consciousness could, as a result, give rise to many alters with private inner lives like yours and ours.⑧As such, we may all be alters—dissociated personalities—of universal consciousness.

单词实记

presumably 预设，假定，想来

tenable 站得住脚的

concurrently 同时地

cognition 认知

sense of identity 认同感

empirically 实证地，经验地

analogous 类似的

alter 变体，分身

as such 就其本身而言

难句剖析

1.You don’t need to be a philosopher to realize the obvious problem with this idea: people have private, separate fields of experience.

此句主干为“You don’t need to be a philosopher”，后面的“to realize the…”是目的状语；“with this idea”是定语；冒号后面的句子用来解释“problem”

2.So, for idealism to be tenable, one must explain—at least in principle—how one universal consciousness gives rise to multiple, private but concurrently conscious centers of cognition, each with a distinct personality and sense of identity.

开头的“for idealism to be tenable”是目的状语，其中to be tenable作定语修饰idealism；主句是“one must explain how…”;最后的“each with a distinct personality…”是独立主格结构，修饰前面的conscious centers。

全文翻译

不需要多么精通哲学，你就能发现这个观点的明显谬误：我们有私密的，互不相连的体验空间。我们一般没法解读你的思想，想来你也没法解读我们的思想。此外，我们一般不知道宇宙中发生了什么，想来你也不知道。所以，如果唯心主义要想成立，就必须解释，至少是在理论上解释，为什么这唯一的宇宙意识就产生了多种私密却又同时共存的有意识的认知中心，其每个中心还都具有独立的人格与认同感。

这就产生了分裂。从实证角度来讲，我们从DID中得知，意识可以产生许多可以独立运转的，具有共同经历的认知中心，每个中心都有其自己的人格与认同感。因此，如果在宇宙层面上发生于DID相似的病症，那这唯一的宇宙意识就有可能产生许多私密的内心世界，就像你我的一样。我们本质上可能都是分身，是宇宙意识的分裂人格。

作业解答

1.This view—called “cosmopsychism” in modern philosophy, although our preferred formulation of it boils down to what has classically been called “idealism”—is that there is only one, universal, consciousness.

此句主干即破折号外面的“This view is that there…”主句里that引导表语从句。破折号中间，首先是called “cosmopsychism”作定语，后面是although引导出让步状语从句，其主干是“formulation boils down to what…”；to+what从句构成介词短语，what在从句中作“been called”的宾语。