TED演讲:人类为何要相爱-一个哲学探讨(1)

 　　Ah, romantic love, beautiful and intoxicating 1, heartbreaking and soul-crushing, often all at the same time. 啊...浪漫的爱情啊，美好又令人痴醉，伤心又断魂，通常所有的感觉会同时汇集在一起。

　　Why do we choose to put ourselves through its emotional wringer? 我们为什么总是用它来折磨自己呢？
　　Does love make our lives meaningful, or is it an escape from our loneliness and suffering? 爱会让我们的生命有意义吗？亦或它使我们从孤寂和痛苦中解脱？
　　Is love a disguise for our sexual desire, or a trick of biology to make us procreate? 还是用来掩饰我们对性的欲望吗？还是说它是身体戏弄我们去繁衍后代的一个手段？
　　Is it all we need? Do we need it at all? 爱是一切吗？我们真的需要爱吗？
　　If romantic love has a purpose, neither science nor psychology 2 has discovered it yet. 如果说爱情是有目的，自然科学和心理学上至今却对此都没什么发展。
　　But over the course of history, some of our most respected philosophers have put forward some intriguing 3 theories. 但在历史的长河中，一些我们敬佩的哲学家曾推出过一些有趣的理论。
　　Love makes us whole, again. 爱情使我们再一次变得完整。
　　The ancient Greek philosopher Plato explored the idea that we love in order to become complete. 古希腊哲学家柏拉图探索了“爱让我们变得完整”这一理念。
　　In his "Symposium 4", he wrote about a dinner party, at which Aristophanes,  在《会饮篇》中，他描述了一个晚餐派对，派对上，
　　a comic playwright 5, regales the guests with the following story: 一位喜剧作家，阿里斯托芬，讲了如下这个故事来娱乐在场的宾客：
　　humans were once creatures with four arms, four legs, and two faces. 人类曾是拥有四个臂膀，四条腿和两张脸的生物。
　　One day, they angered the gods, and Zeus sliced them all in two. 有一天，他们惹到了众神，于是宙斯就把他们都一劈两半。
　　Since then, every person has been missing half of him or herself. 从此以后，每个人都缺失着自己的另一半。
　　Love is the longing 6 to find a soulmate who'll make us feel whole again, 爱是渴望找到一个能让我们再次感到完整的灵魂伴侣。
　　or, at least, that's what Plato believed a drunken comedian 7 would say at a party. 至少，这是柏拉图所相信的一个喝醉的喜剧演员在派对上讲的话。
　　Love tricks us into having babies. 爱哄骗着我们有了小宝宝。
　　Much, much later, German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer maintained that love based in sexual desire was a voluptuous 8 illusion. 很久很久以后，德国的哲学家亚瑟·叔本华坚称爱是基于性欲的，它是一种撩人的幻想。
　　He suggested that we love because our desires lead us to believe that another person will make us happy, but we are sorely mistaken. 他提出我们相爱是因为我们的欲望引导，我们相信另外一个人能让我们快乐，但我们其实错了。
　　Nature is tricking us into procreating, and the loving fusion 9 we seek is consummated 10 in our children. 我们的本性在诱使着我们繁衍后代，我们所寻找的爱的融合生出我们的儿女。
　　When our sexual desires are satisfied, we are thrown back into our tormented 11 existences, 当我们的性欲得到满足时，我们会重返我们痛苦焦灼的存在，
　　and we succeed only in maintaining the species and perpetuating 12 the cycle of human drudgery 13. 我们繁衍只是为了延续我们的种族，然后持续循环着这人生的痛苦。
　　Sounds like somebody needs a hug. 听着好像有人需要抱抱了呢。
　　Love is escape from our loneliness. 爱是从孤单中的解脱。
　　According to the Nobel Prize-winning British philosopher Bertrand Russell,  根据诺贝尔获奖者，英国哲学家，博特兰·罗素所言，
　　we love in order to quench 14 our physical and psychological desires. 我们用爱来慰藉我们身体和心理上的欲望。
　　Humans are designed to procreate, but without the ecstasy 15 of passionate 16 love, sex is unsatisfying. 人类生来就是为了繁衍的，但没有充满激情的爱来做迷幻剂的话，性也是无法令人满足的。
　　Our fear of the cold, cruel world tempts 17 us to build hard shells to protect and isolate 18 ourselves. 我们对冰冷又残酷的恐惧促使我们修炼出坚硬的外壳来保护并隔绝我们自己。