Robert Sapolsky: The biology of our best and worst selves
روبرت سابلوسكي: الأحياء التي تعبّر عن أفضل ما فينا وأسوئه
Robert Sapolsky is one of the leading neuroscientists in the world, studying stress in primates (including humans). Full bio
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السنوات القليلة الأخيرة
spent the last few years
of our language trying to explain it is.
لغاتنا تحاول شرحه.
explain some of the thinking behind it
وهو يشرح بعض الأفكار حوله
something like this.
against humanity."
version of the fantasy ends
once I allow myself.
or move or see or hear, just to feel,
الحركة أو السمع أو الرؤية، فقط الإحساس،
with something cancerous
is screaming in agony,
feels like an eternity in hell.
wicked soul in history.
شراً على مر التاريخ.
in souls or evil,
لا أؤمن بالأرواح أو الشر،
I would like to see killed,
I was at a laser tag place,
hiding in a corner shooting at people.
وإطلاق ضربات الليزر على الآخرين.
confused human when it comes to violence.
للإنسان فيما يتعلق بالعنف.
have problems with violence.
أن لدينا مشاكل مع العنف.
لنشر الغاز السام،
airplanes as weapons,
الطائرات كأسلحة،
our champions of it.
being this miserably violent species,
altruistic, compassionate one.
الأكثر إيثاراً ورحمةً.
of the biology of our best behaviors,
ambiguously in between?
the motoric aspects of the behavior.
السلوك هو الأكثر مللًا.
tells your muscles
يخبر عضلاتك
the meaning of the behavior,
pulling a trigger is an appalling act;
ضغط الزناد يعد أمراً مروعاً؛
self-sacrificial.
بطولياً للدفاع عن النفس.
one someone else's
of our behaviors,
is you're not going to get anywhere
هو أنك لن تصل لأي نتيجة
the brain region or the hormone
that explains everything.
has multiple levels of causality.
مستويات متعددة من الأسباب.
in an agitated state --
is frightened, threatening, angry --
هل هو الخوف، التهديد، الغضب...
that kind of looks like a handgun.
that thing in this person's hand
that caused this behavior?
one second before you pulled that trigger?
قبل ضغطك للزناد بثانية واحدة؟
of a brain region called the amygdala.
وهو يسمى حقل اللوزة الدماغية.
central to violence, central to fear,
مركز العنف، مركز الخوف،
in your amygdala one second before?
قبل ثانية واحدة؟
we have to step back a little bit.
seconds to minutes before
في ثوان إلى دقائق قبل ذلك
the sounds of the rioting,
a cell phone for a handgun
أن الهاتف الخلوي مسدس
is not going to work as well,
to get to the amygdala in time
الدماغية في الوقت اللازم
that's a gun there?"
at hours to days before,
the realm of hormones.
testosterone levels in your blood,
في مستوى التستوستيرون في دمك،
a face with a neutral expression
الوجه ذا التعابير الحيادية
elevated levels of stress hormones,
مستويات هرمونات التوتر المرتفعة،
is going to be more active
will be more sluggish.
weeks to months before,
can change in response to experience,
have been filled with stress and trauma,
من حياتك مليئة بالقلق والصدمات،
more excitable,
in that one second.
حدث في تلك الثانية.
إلى فترة المراهقة.
of the adolescent brain
أن الدماغ في سن المراهقة
until you're around 25.
الخامسة والعشرين.
and experience sculpt your frontal cortex
تُشكلان قشرة دماغك
as an adult in that critical moment.
شاب في تلك اللحظة الحاسمة.
to childhood and fetal life
that that could come in.
that your brain is being constructed,
هو الوقت الذي نشأ فيه عقلك.
experience during those times
فإن تجارب تلك المرحلة
epigenetic changes,
certain genes, turning off others.
of stress hormones through your mother,
وأنت جنين في رحم والدتك،
your amygdala in adulthood
دماغ في مرحلة البلوغ
elevated stress hormone levels.
was a collection of genes.
important to all of this,
determine anything,
in different environments.
مختلف في البيئات المختلفة.
to commit antisocial violence
أن ترتكب عنفًا ضد المجتمع
you were abused as a child.
before you pull that trigger
السابقة لضغطك للزناد
of those gene-environment interactions.
على مدى حياتك.
we've got to push even further back now,
يجب أن نعود للخلف أكثر،
they were nomadic pastoralists,
what's called a culture of honor
ما يسمى بثقافة الشرف
the values with which you were raised.
التي تمت تربيتك عليها.
about the evolution of genes.
for extremely low levels of aggression,
in the opposite direction,
by every measure are humans,
barely defined species
والتي بالكاد تُعرف
to go one way or the other.
لتسلك هذا الطريق أو الآخر.
a wondrous one,
what happened a second before
ما حدث في اللحظة التي تسبقه
real careful, real cautious
you know what causes a behavior,
you're judging harshly.
point about all of this
can change in different circumstances.
قد تتغير بتغير الظروف.
the Sahara was a lush grassland.
الصحاري مراعي خصبة.
people in Europe were the Swedes,
الأكثر رُعباً بين قاطني أوروبا،
military does now.
examples of human change.
لتغير الإنسان.
of slavery from the British Empire
في الإمبراطورية البريطانية
spent decades as a younger man
عقودا من شبابه
in the thing that he's most famous for,
يحتفل بالشيء الذي اشتهر به،
on the morning of December 6, 1941,
في صباح السادس من ديسمبر1941،
bombers to attack Pearl Harbor.
اليابانية المفجرة لمهاجمة بيرل هاربور.
50 years later to the day
the attack on the ground.
of Pearl Harbor survivors
الناجين من بيرل هاربور
for what he had done as a young man.
اعتذر عن ما فعله عندما كان صغيرا
could happen in just hours.
أن يحدث خلال ساعات فقط.
Christmas truce of 1914.
عيد الميلاد في عام 1914.
had negotiated a brief truce
in between the trench lines.
بين خطوط الخندق.
dig graves in the frozen ground,
القبور في الأرض المثلجة،
and exchanging gifts,
سويا وتبادلوا الهدايا،
they were playing soccer together
so they could meet after the war.
الملاقاة بعد الحرب.
until the officers had to arrive
to trying to kill each other."
a completely new category of "us,"
جديدة تماما من "نحن"،
those faceless powers behind the lines
change can occur in seconds.
التغيير خلال ثوان.
in the Vietnam War
village full of civilians
because the government denied it,
ولأن الحكومة أنكرته،
did nothing more than a slap on the wrist,
لم تفعل شيئا سوى صفعة على المعصم.
was not a singular event.
أنه لم يكن حدثا فريدا.
who stopped the My Lai Massacre.
الذي أوقف مجزرة ماي لاي.
يطلقون النار على الرضع،
his lifetime of conditioning
and American soldiers
والجنود الأمريكيين
on his fellow Americans,
على زملائه الأمريكيين،
I will mow you down."
فسوف أسحقكم"
are no more special than any of us.
الناقلات الكيميائية العصبية،
is this inevitable cliche:
are destined to repeat it."
مقدر لهم أن يعيدوه".
of extraordinary human change,
التغير غير الطبيعي للإنسان،
of what can transform us
ما يمكن أن يغيرنا
are destined not to be able
لهم أن لا يستطيعوا
magnificent moments.
a new mental model about something,
ذهني جديد عن شيء ما،
Good luck with the book.
حظاً سعيداً للكتاب.
to come here in person one year.
هنا بشخصك في سنة ما.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Robert Sapolsky - Neuroscientist, primatologist, writerRobert Sapolsky is one of the leading neuroscientists in the world, studying stress in primates (including humans).
Why you should listen
We all have some measure of stress, and Robert Sapolsky explores its causes as well as its effects on our bodies (his lab was among the first to document the damage that stress can do to our hippocampus). In his research, he follows a population of wild baboons in Kenya, who experience stress very similarly to the way humans do. By measuring hormone levels and stress-related diseases in each primate, he determines their relative stress, looking for patterns in personality and social behavior that might contribute. These exercises have given Sapolsky amazing insight into all primate social behavior, including our own.
He has been called "one of the best scientist-writers of our time" by Oliver Sacks. Sapolsky has produced, in addition to numerous scientific papers, books for broader audiences, including A Primate’s Memoir: A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: Stress Disease and Coping, and The Trouble with Testosterone.
His latest book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, examines human behavior in search of an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do?
Robert Sapolsky | Speaker | TED.com