对于“turned down",是不是这样翻译最符合原文？

Li Jie wrote:



我们的分歧主要在“survival brain turned down”，我认为survival brain应该翻译成“患得患失”是依据以下context：

Scientists have done experiments on the standard mammalian brain and found that it is not built for happiness. It functions so that, as neurologist Melvin Konner explains, “the organism’s chronic internal state will be a vague mixture of anxiety and desire—best described by the phrase ‘I want,’ spoken with or without an object for the verb.” Surely you are familiar with that brain, having seen it up close and personal, always twitching with dissatisfaction, never at peace.

你的翻译“切身利益”，对我而言有两种解读，第一是自己的基本利益，将这种忧心静默下来并不符合佛家的思想，佛教从来没有说一个人可以不管自己的死活，只是说你不要索取太多。第二是关系到自己的好处（在基本利益以外），那么“不要时时担心关系到自己的好处有没有”算不算“患得患失”呢？所以我百思不得其解，何来延伸、何来说教。

wherestip wrote:



I'm just going along with Li Jie. In this context, 心、脑, what difference does it make, anyway?

再说"忧心", do you worry with your heart, or with your head(brain)? You've got to be kidding me with what you're focusing on.

Anyway, talk to you guys later.


[Edited at 2013-09-28 15:05 GMT]

J.H. Wang wrote:




之所以把 “brain” 翻译成“心”，是因为在我国古人看来，心才是思维的器官。而且，在中国文化中，对于思维、意识等现象，也是用与心相关的概念来表达的。

http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=5uBuI2xuaZ76gJYqOwLgrBtbSfCqCu81jWA-uGtjy1S82Mxx59hGb25TZFpU17Vq

http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=zswVUMtaELV5b0SBk00twzCXgW4wT-fy17Z6zeWYVX_NObYZXv7olvfzShPBJ4bVRX3MFyx-PQ-vTeLznk6VxIl-CgZuM6HLleqxm0uxRVyq3LOYkN7XZpxXvAI1cbey



http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=心

“古代人以心为思维器官,故后沿用为脑的代称”

原因大致如此。

Phil Hand wrote:


因为“心”是“brain”的标准译法之一。英文brain有两个基本意思：一、身体的器官之一；二、人的思想。中文一般不用同一个词表示这两种意思，分别用大脑和心。一律把英文的brain和中文的大脑当作对照词汇是一种错误。

当然，在这篇文中，大脑可以用。为了强调人的生物本质，可以用大脑；为了用通俗的语言，可以用心；或者也可以用佛学的术语来强调作者是借用东方宗教的概念。都属于可行的翻译策略。

Kemp9 wrote:

dont u get it ?

J.H. Wang wrote:

就是说，我们所说的“心”、“心理活动”指的是脑的功能、活动。二者实际上是紧密联系的。没有brain（脑），就没有mind（心）。

Li Jie wrote:



根据我查看的原文（http://site.douban.com/douban-read/widget/notes/14184535/note/296791850/），作者前面讨论了到底有没有快乐这回事、快乐是怎样的、它与其它情感的区别以及自己什么时候感到快乐后，紧接着说：

The Buddha taught that kind of happiness. He put it this way: “True happiness can only be found by eliminating the false idea of ‘I’ or ‘self.’” Only then is the survival brain turned down and the personality fever cooled. The only problem with that formulation is that once the “I” or “self ” has been eliminated, then there is no one around to enjoy the feeling of happiness.

这里独立成段，我认为既然是引用佛家的理解，用佛家的用语没什么不妥，再说以中国这样佛教渊源流长的国家，这样的句子没什么艰深之处，我觉得很直白。如果这样是“穿着晚礼服燕尾服去Rap & Hip Hop演唱会”的话，你太不了解佛教这身燕尾服长什么样了。

[修改时间: 2013-09-29 02:05 GMT]

wherestip wrote:



Li Jie,

Maybe I didn't use the right words. What I meant was the way you had it, IMO it is very hard for a Chinese reader to understand what the whole segment of the text is driving at.

Basically, what the author is saying in this segment of text, is the reason happiness is not inherently implanted into the human psyche is because it doesn't help the human survive in the evolutionary process. Instead his survival instinct does.

IMO, one has to make clear the logic of the whole segment of the text. Whether your translation could achieve that is very doubtful in my mind.

J.H. Wang wrote:

就是说，我们所说的“心”、“心理活动”指的是脑的功能、活动。二者实际上是紧密联系的。没有brain（脑），就没有mind（心）。

J.H. Wang wrote:

刚碰到一篇不错的文章，其中有些内容与我们这里讨论的相关，链接如下，供朋友们参考：


http://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2013/9/283252.shtm


其中正好也有涉及生存的内容：


“一个合理的解释是，意识存在的目的，是帮助人类更好地适应生存。”

J.H. Wang wrote:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/01/20-big-questions-in-science


发现后面还有英文的链接，简单看了一下，发现中文的翻译还是比较差一些，不如看英文的。