雄县玉华纸塑有限公司:怎样“死”才算“亡”

一般而言，人们很容易看出一个人是“活着”还是“死了”。但现代医学给人们提供了第三种选择，即“植物人”状态。当一个人脑部因车祸或是撞击而受到严重伤害时，他就有可能陷入这种状态。而一旦变成植物人，则很大程度上没有了恢复意识的希望。但是因为这个人脑部其他区域，比如说控制呼吸系统的区域，还在运行，所以他的生命特征在很长一段时间还能继续保持。

When, if ever, to withdraw medical support from such people, and thus let them die, is always a traumatic decision. It depends in part, though, on how the fully alive view the mental capacities of the vegetative—an area that has not been investigated much.

现在就存在这样一个艰难的抉择：能不能在什么时候停止对植物人医疗救助，而让其死亡呢？这个决定，在一定程度上可以根据植物人残存的认知能力程度来判断。而医学家们对这一领域所知甚少。

To fill that gap Kurt Gray of the University of Maryland, and Annie Knickman and Dan Wegner of Harvard University, conducted an experiment designed to ascertain just how people perceive those in a persistent vegetative state. What they found astonished them.

为了弥补这个医学上的空白，来自美国马里兰大学的库尔特·格雷、哈佛大学的安妮·尼可曼和丹·韦格纳三人组成了研究小组，他们进行了一项试验，旨在探知人类在植物人状态下的认知能力。试验的结果令他们大为吃惊。

ReprintsThey first asked 201 people stopped in public in New York and New England to answer questions after reading one of three short stories. In all three, a man called David was involved in a car accident and suffered serious injuries. In one, he recovered fully. In another, he died. In the third, his entire brain was destroyed except for one part that kept him breathing. Although he was technically alive, he would never again wake up.

他们首先在纽约和新格兰街头随机调查了201位路人。他们先让路人阅读三篇小故事中的任意一篇，然后向路人提问。三篇故事都是同一主人公，叫大卫。他遭受了一场车祸，受了重伤。在第一篇故事中，大卫完全康复了。第二篇故事中，大卫死了。而在第三篇故事中，大卫的大脑受到了严重伤害，只有维持其呼吸机能的部分没有被损坏。所以他还能呼吸，因而从技术上来说，他还活着。但其实他是再也醒不过来了。

After reading one of these stories, chosen at random, each participant was asked to rate David’s mental capacities, including whether he could influence the outcome of events, know right from wrong, remember incidents from his life, be aware of his environment, possess a personality and have emotions. Participants used a seven-point scale to make these ratings, where 3 indicated that they strongly agreed that he could do such things, 0 indicated that they neither agreed nor disagreed, and -3 indicated that they strongly disagreed.

路人随便抽取一篇故事，读完后，路人被要求评定故事中大卫的认知能力，包括大卫是否还可以做到：独立完成任何事件；判断对错；记得以前发生的事；注意到周围环境；拥有人格及情感等。每一项都有-３分到３分的选项，给３分便说明路人同意大卫还可以做这些事情。0分表明路人不确定。-３分则说明了路人认为大卫已经不能做这些事了。

The results, reported in Cognition, were that the fully recovered David rated an average of 1.77 and the dead David -0.29. That score for the dead David was surprising enough, suggesting as it did a considerable amount of mental acuity in the dead. What was extraordinary, though, was the result for the vegetative David: -1.73. In the view of the average New Yorker or New Englander, the vegetative David was more dead than the version who was dead.

在《心理》杂志上发表的调查结果显示，完全康复的大卫得到1.77的平均分，而死亡的大卫得到-0.29的平均分。死亡大卫的得分高得离谱了，姑且认为是死者灵魂干的吧。让人意外的是植物人大卫的得分，是-1.73分。这说明在大部分纽约和新英格兰人们的心目中，成了植物人的大卫比已经死了的大卫更具有“死”性。

The researchers’ first hypothesis to explain this weird observation was that participants were seeing less mind in the vegetative than in the dead because they were focusing on the inert body of the individual hooked up to a life-support system. To investigate that, they ran a follow-up experiment which had two different descriptions of the dead David. One said he had simply passed away. The other directed the participant’s attention to the corpse. It read, “After being embalmed at the morgue, he was buried in the local cemetery. David now lies in a coffin underground.” No ambiguity there. In this follow-up study participants were also asked to rate how religious they were.

研究小组对这个奇特结论的第一个假设，是参与者们注意死者较多，而不怎么关注植物人，因为他们都只看到一具要依靠生命维持系统的僵硬的身体，便不会再多加注意。为了确定调查结果，研究小组又进行了后续试验。在这次试验中，对死亡大卫进行了两种不同的描述。其中一种就仅仅交代大卫死了。而另一种描述则引导参与者将注意力集中到尸体上。故事写道：“在停尸房作好记录后，大卫被葬在公墓中。现在他已长眠于地底了。”故事交代得很清楚。在后续试验中，参与者同样要求选出他们各自的宗教。

Once again, the vegetative David was seen to have less mind than the David who had “passed away”. This was equally true, regardless of how religious a participant said he was. However, ratings of the dead David’s mind in the story in which his corpse was embalmed and buried varied with the participant’s religiosity.

但再一次，成为植物人的大卫还是比“死亡大卫”受到的关注要少，而且这还是普遍现象，和参与者们的宗教信仰无关。但是对于死了并被埋葬的大卫大脑认知能力程度的给分则因参与者的宗教虔诚程度有关。

　对于已经被埋和成为植物人的大卫的认知能力，无宗教信仰的参与者所给的分数相当（分别为-1.51和-1.64）。而宗教信仰者则认为躺着不能动弹且无法恢复知觉的植物人大卫还不如死了的大卫大脑活动剧烈。（二者得分分别为-1.57和0.59）

Irreligious participants gave the buried corpse about the same mental ratings as the vegetative patient (-1.51 and -1.64 respectively). Religious participants, however, continued to ascribe less mind to the irretrievably unconscious David than they did to his buried corpse (-1.57 and 0.59).

That those who believe in an afterlife ascribe mental acuity to the dead is hardly surprising. That those who do not are inclined to do so unless heavily prompted not to is curious indeed.

那些认为有死后生命的人会认为这个调查结果很正常，而对那些不信鬼神之说的人就算是听了解释，也还是会觉得很难接受。