What Happens When We Die?
　　我們死的時(shí)候到底發(fā)生了什么呢? 時(shí)代周刊專訪Dr. Sam Parnia ，一個(gè)專門研究死亡的。
　　A fellow at New York City's Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. The study, known as AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S. and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with Parnia about the project's origins, its skeptics and the difference between the mind and the brain.
　　Dr. Sam Parnia 已經(jīng)研究”out of body"experiences長(zhǎng)達(dá)三年了，看來確實(shí)有點(diǎn)說話的權(quán)利。
　　下面是他的訪談?dòng)涗洝?br />　　What sort of methods will this project use to try and verify people's claims of "near-death" experience?
　　怎么判斷對(duì)方是接近死亡呢。我很小就聽說過：回光返照的說法。
　　When your heart stops beating, there is no blood getting to your brain. And so what happens is that within about 10 sec., brain activity ceases —as you would imagine. Yet paradoxically, 10% or 20% of people who are then brought back to life from that period, which may be a few minutes or over an hour, will report having consciousness.當(dāng)心臟停止了，20%左右的人有可能被拉回到有意識(shí)的狀態(tài)下面，可能是幾分鐘，可能是一個(gè)小時(shí) So the key thing here is, Are these real, or is it some sort of illusion? So the only way to tell is to have pictures only visible from the ceiling and nowhere else, because they claim they can see everything from the ceiling. 唯一判斷的方式：就是他們將去世的人可以從天花板了看到所有的東西。So if we then get a series of 200 or 300 people who all were clinically dead, and yet they're able to come back and tell us what we were doing and were able see those pictures, that confirms consciousness really was continuing even though the brain wasn't functioning.
　　有點(diǎn)不是很懂。因?yàn)榇_實(shí)沒有研究過死亡，只能是從字面去理解。
　　How does this project relate to society's perception of death?
　　People commonly perceive death as being a moment — you're either dead or you're alive. And that's a social definition we have. 看來死亡不是：要么死了，要么沒有死。But the clinical definition we use is when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working, and as a consequence the brain itself stops working. When doctors shine a light into someone's pupil, it's to demonstrate that there is no reflex present. The eye reflex is mediated by the brain stem, and that's the area that keeps us alive; if that doesn't work, then that means that the brain itself isn't working. At that point, I'll call a nurse into the room so I can certify that this patient is dead. Fifty years ago, people couldn't survive after that. 如果眼睛的瞳孔沒反應(yīng)，才叫做死了。