耶鲁大学开放课程—哲学：死亡19OpenYalecourse—Philosophy：.doc

耶鲁大学开放课程—哲学：死亡19OpenYalecourse—Philosophy：.txt男人的话就像老太太的牙齿，有多少是真的？！问：你喜欢我哪一点？答：我喜欢你离我远一点！执子之手，方知子丑，泪流满面，子不走我走。诸葛亮出山前，也没带过兵！凭啥我就要工作经验？我们一直在讨论 Weve been talking about the question as to whether 永远不死是否值得期待 or not it would be desirable to live forever, 永生是不是件好事 whether immortality would actually be a good thing, 是像我们大家一般认为的那样 as most of us normally presume, 还是像伯纳德·威廉姆斯所说的那样 or whether in fact, as Bernard Williams argues, 它并不值得期待 it would be undesirable. 我们要研究的问题是 The question we turned to was, 尽可能打开你的思路 just let your imagination run free. 不去考虑苟延残喘地延长 Instead of asking what would it be like to continue living a longer 现实生活中那种每况愈下的生活 kind of trajectory that humans have in the real world 你会生病 where you just get sicker 衰老 有气无力 and more and more frail and incapacitated, 不去考虑那样的永生是否有价值 ask yourself not whether immortality of that sort would be valuable, 而是去考虑是否能描述一种 but is it even so much as possible to describe a life 你想永远过下去的生活 that you would want to live forever? 这是我上节课留给你们的问题 Thats the question I left you with last time. 我想我已经表明了我的态度 I think I already tipped my cards on this matter. 我倾向于认同威廉姆斯的观点 Im inclined to agree with Williams. 我认为不管我们如何定义这种生活 I think that no matter how we try to fill in the blank, 那会是个很长的定义 its a very long blank. 这里关键的一点就是 永生的意思 The crucial point here for us is that immortality means 并不是活很长时间 not just living a very long time 也不是活特别长时间 or even an extraordinarily long time, 而是永远地活下去 but literally living forever. 我觉得这很难 I think its very difficult, 实际上我觉得根本就不可能 indeed I think its impossible, 有你希望永远做下去的事情 to think of anything youd want to do forever. 我有位朋友 I have a friend who once 有一次跟我说他希望永远活着 claimed to me that he wanted to live forever 这样他可以每天吃泰国菜 so that he could have Thai food every day for the rest of, 直到永远 well, the rest of eternity. 我也蛮喜欢泰国菜的 I like Thai food just fine, 但是一想到要 but the prospect of having 日复一日地吃泰国菜 Thai food day after day after day after day 吃上几千 几万 几亿 几兆年 for thousands, millions, billions, trillions of years 就没那么吸引人了 no longer