FACT The First Axiom of Consciousness and Thought外文翻译.pdf

Chapter to appear in The Science of the Mind: The 21st Century (Robert Solso, Ed.) FACT: The First Axiom of Consciousness and Thought Endel Tulving Rotman Research Institute of Baycrest Centre, University of Toronto, and Center for Neuroscience and Department of Psychology, University of California at Davis Writing about the future is much easier than writing about the past: One need not worry about whether what one writes is true or not, or even about whether what one says is believable or plausible. But there are several ways of making absolutely sure that ones ruminations about the future will not come back to haunt one, directly or indirectly. A rather effective stratagem is to consider the future whose happenings are too far away for anyone alive today to be able to verify. Another one is to refuse at the outset to accept any responsibility for what one says. Shortly after I accepted my assignment from the Editor of the present volume, I experienced a remarkably fortunate incident: I was visited by a young person of indeterminate gender who said that it was an emissary of a committee that had become aware of my problem of writing something meaningful about the brain/mind sciences of the 21st century and that the committee had decided to send it to help me. What was remarkable was not the offer of help as such but rather the fact that the visitor said that It was visiting me from the future, from the year 2096 A.D. to be exact, and that the purpose of the visit was directly connected with my assignment. The thing explained that despite Its relative youth (It did not mention the age, but looked forty-something-ish to me) and the fact that It had not yet