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Human evolution 人类进化史 Why music? 偏偏是音乐 Biologists are addressing one of humanity’s strangest attributes, its all-singing, all-dancing culture 生物学家正在探讨人类最耐人寻味的共性之一，缘何人类都爱好歌唱与舞蹈 Dec 18th 2008 | From The Economist print edition 译者：Wordy_Camel “IF MUSIC be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it.” And if not? Well, what exactly is it for? The production and consumption of music is a big part of the economy. The first use to which commercial recording, in the form of Edison’s phonographs, was to bring music to the living rooms and picnic tables of those who could not afford to pay live musicians. Today, people are so surrounded by other people’s music that they take it for granted, but as little as 100 years ago singsongs at home, the choir in the church and fiddlers in the pub were all that most people heard. “如果说音乐滋养着爱情，那好，继续播放吧，多多益善。”如果不是呢？那它究竟代表什么呢？对音乐的生产和消费构成了经济的重要组成部分。最早用于商业用途的录音是以爱迪生的留声机的形式出现的，它把音乐带到了那些看不起现场音乐演奏的人们的起居室中和野餐桌上。如今，人们随处都能听到音乐，对此已然司空见惯，可就在100年前，大多数人还只能从为私家献唱的歌手，教堂里的唱诗班，以及酒馆里的提琴手们那里听到音乐。 Well, that fact—that he, or she, is a teenager—supports one hypothesis about the function of music. Around 40% of the lyrics of popular songs speak of romance, sexual relationships and sexual behaviour. The Shakespearean theory, that music is at least one of the foods of love, has a strong claim to be true. The more mellifluous the singer, the more dexterous the harpist, the more mates he attracts. 有道是“哪个少女不怀春,哪个少年不钟情？”这一事实支持了对音乐的功能做出的一项假设。流行歌曲的歌词中约有40%都是以浪漫情怀，性爱关系和性行为为话题的。如此这般说来，莎士比亚的理论------ 音乐至少是滋养爱情的要素之一是真真理由确凿了。我们的阿波罗唱得越是柔情蜜意，竖琴拨得越是灵韵动人，他能吸引到的伴侣也就越多。 A second idea that is widely touted is that music binds groups of people together. The resulting solidarity, its supporters suggest, might have helped bands of early humans to thrive at the expense of those that were less musical. 第二种广为散布的理念是音乐是联结各种人群的纽带。这一理念的支持者认为，现有的团结是人类早期以同化乐感较差的群体为代价繁荣起来的。 Both of these ideas argue that musical ability evolved specifically—that it is, if you like, a virtual organ as precisely crafted to its purpose as the heart or the spleen. The third hypothesis, however, is that music is a cross between an accident and an invention. It is an accident because it is the consequence of abilities that evolved for other purposes. And it is an invention because, having thus come into existence, people have bent it to their will and made something they like from it. 以上两种理念都认为乐感是单独进化的。你大可认为它类同于一种虚拟的器官，可以简单地按照目的发育成像心脏和脾脏那样的器官。第三种假设却认为音乐是偶然性与创造性的交融。说乐感是一个意外是因为它源自发育成其它功能器官的进化能力。而说它是一种发明创造则是因为自从它存在以来，人们按照自己的意愿借助它创造出了他们喜欢的事物。 She loves you 她爱着你 Shakespeare’s famous quote was, of course, based on commonplace observation. Singing, done well, is certainly sexy. But is its sexiness the reason it exists? Charles Darwin thought so. Twelve years after he published “On the Origin of Species”, which described the idea of natural selection, a second book hit the presses. “The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex” suggested that the need to find a mate being the pressing requirement that it is, a lot of the features of any given animal have come about not to aid its survival, but to aid its courtship. The most famous example is the tail of the peacock. But Darwin suggested human features, too, might be sexually selected in this way—and one of those he lit on was music. 莎士比亚的名言毫无疑问是建立在对人之常情的洞察上的。歌唱得好，自然就性感咯。但唱歌的理由就是出于性意味么？查尔斯.达尔文是这么认为的。在他出版了阐明自然选择的学说的《物种起源》十二年之后，他的第二本著作《人类的由来及性别选择》也热卖起来。书中提出找寻伴侣是一种迫切的需求，列举了许多特定物种并非出于生存需要，而是为了求偶的行为特征。最著名的例子就是孔雀开屏。并且，达尔文认为人类的求偶行为，按照性别选择也是以这种方式，同时他重点强调音乐就是其中一种方式。 这本书中的学说这不似自然选择那样令世界眼前一亮,而今却在供职于新墨西哥大学,研究进化的生物学家杰佛里.米勒这里得到了复兴. 米勒博士开始了他的观察,他认为音乐是人类的共性,需要消耗大量的时间和能量得以产生,且至少从某些意义上说是由基因左右的.约 有4%的人痪有不同类别的乐盲症,而这些中的一部分已获悉是具有遗传性的.普遍性,高耗性和基因操控性都显示音乐对于生存和生育有着明显的功效,而米勒博士就将研究重点扎在了对生育的影响上. One reason for believing this is that musical productivity—at least among the recording artists who have exploited the phonograph and its successors over the past hundred years or so—seems to match the course of an individual’s reproductive life. In particular, Dr Miller studied jazz musicians. He found that their output rises rapidly after puberty, reaches its peak during young-adulthood, and then declines with age and the demands of parenthood. 之所以会相信这一论断的其中一个原因在于音乐的产量似乎与个人的生育能力相对应------这点起码体现在了那些灌唱片的艺术家身上,从留声机时代伊始,他们纵横乐坛几百年哉.米勒博士还对爵士乐的音乐家进行了特别的研究.他发现这些音乐家的生育能力在青春期过后猛增,在青壮年时期达到鼎盛,然后随着年龄的增长以及受制于为人父母的责任而下降. As is often the case with this sort of observation, it sounds unremarkable; obvious, even. But uniquely human activities associated with survival—cooking, say—do not show this pattern. People continue to cook at about the same rate from the moment that they have mastered the art until the moment they die or are too decrepit to continue. Moreover, the anecdotal evidence linking music to sexual success is strong. Dr Miller often cites the example of Jimi Hendrix, who had sex with hundreds of groupies during his brief life and, though he was legally unmarried, maintained two long-term liaisons. The words of Robert Plant, the lead singer of Led Zeppelin, are also pertinent: “I was always on my way to love. Always. Whatever road I took, the car was heading for one of the greatest sexual encounters I’ve ever had.” 这类观察听上去平淡无奇,甚至可以认为是地球人都知道的.不过你得承认,从像烹饪这类与生计相关联的人类活动之中却看不出这一规律.人们从刚学会做饭,到死亡,或者至少是垂垂老矣,无法行动时,做饭的频率都是相同的.此外,将音乐和性爱高手凑到一块儿的花边新闻是大有合理性可寻的.米勒博士再三举出Jimi Hendrix这个例子,此人短促的一生中,与上百个少女粉丝有过性关系,虽说他一生也没有按法定程序结过婚,却一直与两个情妇保持着关系. 对此, Led Zeppelin乐队的主唱Robert Plant 一席话也可谓一语中的: '我永远都在追寻爱的道路上,是的,永远.不管我把车子开上哪条路,不外乎是我所去过的最最香艳四射的路.' Another reason to believe the food-of-love hypothesis is that music fulfils the main criterion of a sexually selected feature: it is an honest signal of underlying fitness. Just as unfit peacocks cannot grow splendid tails, so unfit people cannot sing well, dance well (for singing and dancing go together, as it were, like a horse and carriage) or play music well. All of these activities require physical fitness and dexterity. Composing music requires creativity and mental agility. Put all of these things together and you have a desirable mate. 相信音乐滋养爱情这一假说的另一个理由便是音乐大体上符合性别选择的特征：它是内在健康状况的真实写照。正如病怏怏的孔雀开不起华丽的雀屏来，身体不好的人们也唱得不动情，舞得不尽兴（须知唱歌和舞蹈的关系就像马和马车一样），曼妙的音乐也演奏不出来。上述这些活动都讲求生理上的健康和灵巧。谱曲则需要创造力和敏捷的思维。将所有的这些因素糅合在一起，你就会拥有满意的伴侣。 Improve your singing… 唱得更动听些 相信这一点的第三个理由是音乐以及类似音乐的表达形式在其它物种身上也得到了进化，且似乎也是按照性别选择的原则进行的。如果说袋装和胎生鼠类动物的平行演化使它们具备了相似的生活方式，那么歌曲在鸟类，鲸类，长臂猿以及人类之中的平行演化也应使其具有类似的潜在功能。在上述物种中，雌性动物便是不易取悦的收听者。譬如，从若干种鸟类中，人们发现雌鸟喜欢从她们的求爱者那里听到更为精妙的歌声，由此给雄性造成的压力促使雄性的神经官能得到了进化，从而能酝酿并唱出这些歌声来。 And yet, and yet. Though Dr Miller’s arguments are convincing, they do not feel like the whole story. A man does not have to be gay to enjoy the music of an all-male orchestra, even if he particularly appreciates the soprano who comes on to sing the solos. A woman, meanwhile, can enjoy the soprano even while appreciating the orchestra on more than one level. Something else besides sex seems to be going on. 不过，怎么说呢, 纵然米勒博士的论断很有说服力，却并不能涵盖所有的问题。即使一个人不是同性恋，甚至他尤其酷爱女高音独唱，他也会欣赏清一色由男性演奏的交响乐。与此同时，一个女人也可能在欣赏女高音的同时还欣赏不同级别的交响乐。可见，还有另一些与性别无关的因素在起作用。 The second hypothesis for music’s emergence is that it had a role not just in helping humans assess their mates, but also in binding bands of people together in the evolutionary past. Certainly, it sometimes plays that role today. It may be unfashionable in Britain to stand for the national anthem, but two minutes watching the Last Night of the Proms, an annual music festival, on television will serve to dispel any doubts about the ability of certain sorts of music to instil collective purpose in a group of individuals. In this case the cost in time and energy is assumed to be repaid in some way by the advantages of being part of a successful group. 关于音乐何以萌发的第二条假设认为音乐所扮演的角色不仅在于帮助人类审度他们的伴侣，而且还在于在过去的演化史中，充当联结人与人之间的纽带。当然，音乐即使在如今也时常扮演这一角色。在英国，唱国歌也许已经不时兴了，但人们会花个两分钟去看“最后一夜”这档年度音乐电视节目。这一现象将打消对某些类型的音乐能在人群中引起共鸣这点的一切疑虑。这么一来，花费在音乐上的时间和能量按照设想，就会在成为强大的群体中一员的好处上得到偿报了。 The problem with this hypothesis is that it relies on people not cheating and taking the benefits without paying the costs. One way out of that dilemma is to invoke a phenomenon known to biologists as group selection. Biologically, this is a radical idea. It requires the benefits of solidarity to be so great that groups lacking them are often extinguished en bloc. Though theoretically possible, this is likely to be rare in practice. However, some researchers have suggested that the invention of weapons such as spears and bows and arrows made intertribal warfare among early humans so lethal that group selection did take over. It has been invoked, for example, to explain the contradictory manifestations of morality displayed in battle: tenderness towards one’s own side; ruthlessness towards the enemy. In this context the martial appeal of some sorts of music might make sense. 这一假设中存在着一个问题，即它是建立在人们不欺骗，不巧取豪夺之上的。解决这一两难的途径之一是援引被生物学家们称作群体选择(group selection)的现象。这种现象在生物学里是一种激进的理念。这一理念宣扬团结的突出优势，甚至于认为缺乏团结的种群会一并灭亡。这一套虽然从理论上说得过去，在实际中却并不多见。然而，一些研究人员认为随着诸如矛，弓和箭这些武器的发明，使早起人类部落之间的战争甚为惨烈，因而群体选择发挥起了效应。譬如，这一点被用在解释对针对战争截然不同的道德宣言上：对自己一方来说是义战，对敌方来说却是残酷无情的。在这样的情景中，某些音乐会起到呼唤武力的作用。 Robin Dunbar of Oxford University does not go quite that far, but unlike Dr Miller he thinks that the origins of music need to be sought in social benefits of group living rather than the sexual benefits of seduction. He does not deny that music has gone on to be sexually selected (indeed, one of his students, Konstantinos Kaskatis, has shown that Dr Miller’s observation about jazz musicians also applies to 19th-century classical composers and contemporary pop singers). But he does not think it started that way. 来自牛津大学的罗宾.邓巴没有在这个问题上陷得那么深，与米勒博士不同，他认为音乐的起源需要在群居的社会利益中探寻，而不是在对两性关系的诱求上。他不否认音乐受到性别选择的影响(因为事实确实如此，他的一位学生Konstantinos Kaskatis 已经在米勒博士对爵士乐音乐家进行观察的基础上，又证实了这一点在19世纪的古典作曲家和当代的流行乐歌手身上同样得到了体现。)，但他认为这不是音乐的初衷。 …and your grooming ...再来些梳理 邓巴博士的事业重心落在了努力致力于研究灵长类动物在社会性方面的发展。他相信将猴子与猿联系在一起的因素之一是梳理皮毛。从表面上看，为其它的动物梳理皮毛是出于一些功能。此举能够使皮毛保持清洁，并除去寄生虫。但这只是一种使其它动物生活得更好的付出，对自己并无益处。甚至于动物们经常将远远超过严格意义上用于保持皮毛光洁的时间用在梳理皮毛上。原则上那段时间是可以用来从事别的活动的。因此，社交性质的梳理皮毛与性别选择十分相似，都是一种付出精力（并且表露无遗）的信号。就这方面而言，这种信号对一个种群而言更像是一种付出，而不仅仅是出于繁衍后代的需要。 Dr Dunbar thinks language evolved to fill the role of grooming as human tribes grew too large for everyone to be able to groom everyone else. This is a controversial hypothesis, but it is certainly plausible. The evidence suggests, however, that the need for such “remote grooming” would arise when a group exceeds about 80 individuals, whereas human language really got going when group sizes had risen to around 140. His latest idea is that the gap was bridged by music, which may thus be seen as a precursor to language. 邓巴博士认为随着人类部落的规模发展到不仅限于每个人给其他人梳理时，语言就在进化过程中，充当梳理的功能应运而生了。这是一个受到争议的假设，却又看似有几分道理。有证据显示，当一个群体的个体数目超过80，就会产生对“远距离梳理”的需求。而当群体人数大于140时，就会产生人类语言。他最新的理念认为是音乐填补了这一鸿沟，因此音乐将可能被看作是语言的先导。 The costliness of music—and of the dancing associated with it—is not in doubt, so the idea has some merit. Moreover, the idea that language evolved from wordless singing is an old one. And, crucially, both singing and dancing tend to be group activities. That does not preclude their being sexual. Indeed, showing off to the opposite sex in groups is a strategy used by many animals (it is known as lekking). But it may also have the function of using up real physiological resources in a demonstration of group solidarity. 音乐，连带配合一起的舞蹈是消耗很大的活动，这点是毫无疑问的，因此这一理念是有些道理的。再者，认为语言是由没有歌词的哼唱演化而来这一观点也历来就存在。最要紧的是，歌唱与舞蹈都是适于群体的活动。这也不能预先排除它们的性意味。在种群中的异性面前表现的的确确是许多动物使用的招数（通常被称作lekking）。但它可能还有充分使用生理机能确保种群团结的功能。 Like cheesecake, music sates an appetite that nature cannot. 就像奶酪蛋糕一样,音乐能满足的胃口是自然无法满足的. By side-stepping the genocidal explanations that underlie the classical theory of group selection, Dr Dunbar thinks he has come up with an explanation that accounts for music’s socially binding qualities without stretching the limits of evolutionary theory. Whether it will pass the mathematical scrutiny which showed that classical group selection needs genocide remains to be seen. But if music is functional, it may be that sexual selection and social selection have actually given each other a helping hand. 抛开对种族杀戮的解释这一经典群体选择理论的基础论点，邓巴博士认为他在不需进一步延伸进化理论的前提下，总结出了音乐作为联结社会关系的纽带的特质。是否这点在经过精确的数学计算后能得出经典群体选择是建立在种族灭绝之上的,还有待求证。倘若音乐是具有功能性的，那么性别选择和社会选择就有可能是相得益彰的了。 The third hypothesis, though, is that music is not functional, and also that Dr Dunbar has got things backwards. Music did not lead to language, language led to music in what has turned out to be a glorious accident—what Stephen Jay Gould called a spandrel, by analogy with the functionless spaces between the arches of cathedrals that artists then fill with paintings. This is what Steven Pinker, a language theorist at Harvard, thinks. He once described music as auditory cheesecake and suggested that if it vanished from the species little else would change. 第三种假设不承认音乐的功能性，而且邓巴博士把事情给弄反了。不是音乐派生了语言，而是语言派生了音乐-----即所谓的光辉的偶然，同时也被史蒂芬.杰伊.古德尔称作spandrel，类似于天主教堂的穹顶上不承担力学作用，布满了画作的地方。这就是哈佛大学的语言理论学家Steven Pinker的观点。他曾经将音乐描述为一种听觉上的奶酪蛋糕，同时认为一旦它从物种之中消失了,对人类也没有什么影响。 Dr Pinker’s point is that, like real cheesecake, music sates an appetite that nature cannot. Human appetites for food evolved at a time when the sugar and fat which are the main ingredients of cheesecake were scarce. In the past, no one would ever have found enough of either of these energy-rich foods to become obese, so a strong desire to eat them evolved, together with little limit beyond a full stomach to stop people eating too much. So it is with music. A brain devoted to turning sound into meaning is tickled by an oversupply of tone, melody and rhythm. Singing is auditory masturbation to satisfy this craving. Playing musical instruments is auditory pornography. Both sate an appetite that is there beyond its strict biological need. 史蒂芬.平克博士的观点是对音乐就像对奶酪蛋糕一样，能够满足人类的胃口，而大自然则不能。当人类对食物的胃口开始进化时,糖和脂肪作为奶酪蛋糕的主要配方,其产量还很低。在过去，还没有人发现将这两种物质中的任何一种摄取过量会导致肥胖，因此就演化出了想要大量食用这些的胃口，整个胃中都没有限制人们将这些吃得太多的指令。对音乐也是如此，大脑吸收了过多的音调，旋律而节奏，乐此不疲地将声音转化为含义。歌唱便是满足这一听觉渴求的自慰。演奏乐器则是一种听觉上的调情。这二者都严格以生物原理上的需要为基础，有各自的胃口。 Of course, it is a little more complicated than that. People do not have to be taught to like cheesecake or sexy pictures (which, in a telling use of the language, are sometimes also referred to as “cheesecake”). They do, however, have to be taught music in a way that they do not have to be taught language. 当然，真实情况要比这更为复杂一些。人们在没有教的情况下就会喜欢奶酪蛋糕和性感图片（在很多口头用语中，经常是用奶酪蛋糕表示后者的）。不过对音乐，人们还是需要教才能掌握的，这可不像语言不教也能掌握。 Words and music 音乐与文字 Aniruddh Patel, of the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, compares music to writing, another widespread cultural phenomenon connected with language. True language—the spoken languages used by most people and the gestural languages used by the deaf—does not have to be taught in special classes. The whole of a baby’s world is its classroom. It is true that parents make a special effort to talk to their children, but this is as instinctive as a young child’s ability (lost in his early teens) to absorb the stuff and work out its rules without ever being told them explicitly. 来自圣地亚哥神经科学学会的Aniruddh Patel 将音乐与另一种广为传播，且与语言息息相关的文化现象-----写作联系在了一起。真正的语言-----大多数人所使用的口头表达，耳聋者所使用的手语是无须通过特定的课程教授的。对一个婴孩来说，课堂就是它的整个世界。诚然，父母会做出特别的努力与他们的孩子展开对话，但幼儿与生俱来的本能（在少年早期丧失）使他们在没有受到明确指导的情况下就已经能够吸收信息，总结规律。 Learning to write, by contrast, is a long-winded struggle that many fail to master even if given the opportunity. Dyslexia, in other words, is common. Moreover, reading and writing must actively be taught, usually by specialists, and evidence for a youthful critical period when this is easier than otherwise is lacking. Both, however, transform an individual’s perception of the world, and for this reason Dr Patel refers to them as “transformative technologies”. 相比之下，学习书写就显得任重而道远了，甚至于许多人即使拥有机会也未能掌握得很好。换言之，阅读障碍是很常见的现象。此外，必须对阅读和写作实施主动性的教育，并且通常是请专业人士担任教育者，没有证据显示，在青年时期实施严格教育要比不在这个时期要容易些。不过这两种情况都是对个人世界观的改变。基于这个理由，Patel 博士将这类教育称之为“具有改造性的技术”。 In difficulty of learning, music lies somewhere in between speaking and writing. Most people have some musical ability, but it varies far more than their ability to speak. Dr Patel sees this as evidence to support his idea that music is not an adaptation in the way that language is, but is, instead, a transformative technology. However, that observation also supports the idea that sexual selection is involved, since the whole point is that not everyone will be equally able to perform, or even to learn how to do so. 论掌握的难度，音乐介于说与写之间。绝大多数人多少有点音乐方面的能力，只不过论及能力的差异，这方面因人而异的程度要远大于说话的能力。Patel博士将其看做是对他理念的一种支持，他认为音乐不像语言那样是一种适应能力。而相反，它是一种具有改造性的技术。不过，既然整个观点都是在说并非人人在表演方面的能力甚至在学习表演上的能力都是相同的，这一观点也同样适用于性别选择。 Do they know it’s Christmas? 他们知道现在是圣诞节么？ What all of these hypotheses have in common is the ability of music to manipulate the emotions, and this is the most mysterious part of all. That some sounds lead to sadness and others to joy is the nub of all three hypotheses. The singing lover is not merely demonstrating his prowess; he also seeks to change his beloved’s emotions. Partly, that is done by the song’s words, but pure melody can also tug at the heart-strings. The chords of martial music stir different sentiments. A recital of the Monteverdi Vespers or a Vivaldi concerto in St Mark’s cathedral in Venice, the building that inspired Gould to think of the non-role of spandrels, generates emotion pure and simple, disconnected from human striving. 所有的假设都是建立在一个共同点之上的，即认为音乐具有操控情感的能力，这是它在整个体系种最具有神秘色彩的一部分。一些声音使人伤感，而另一些又使人愉悦，这乃是这三个假说的核心部分。爱唱歌的人表现出来的不仅有他的演唱功力，同时他还力求改变心上人的思想感情。歌曲的歌词能够起一部分作用，但纯粹的旋律亦能动人心弦。一曲军乐能激起人的各种情怀；而在威尼斯的圣马克大教堂听蒙泰威尔第作品独奏会，或是维瓦尔第的协奏曲时，则会抒发出纯净，简朴的情感，而且是毫无人为矫饰的，这一建筑还曾激起古德尔想出the non-role of spandrels. This is an area that is only beginning to be investigated. Among the pioneers are Patrik Juslin, of Uppsala University, and Daniel Vastfjall, of Gothenburg University, both in Sweden. They believe they have identified six ways that music affects emotion, from triggering reflexes in the brain stem to triggering visual images in the cerebral cortex. 对这一领域的探寻才刚刚开始。其中先锋人物包括有来自乌普萨拉大学的Patrik Juslin和哥特堡大学的Daniel Vastfjall，这两人都是瑞典人。他们坚信他们已经确定了音乐影响情感的六种方式，从触发脑干产生条件反射到触发大脑皮层对视图的反映。 Such a multiplicity of effects suggests music may be an emergent property of the brain, cobbled together from bits of pre-existing machinery and then, as it were, fine-tuned. So, ironically, everyone may be right—or, at least partly right. Dr Pinker may be right that music was originally an accident and Dr Patel may be right that it transforms people’s perceptions of the world without necessarily being a proper biological phenomenon. But Dr Miller and Dr Dunbar may be right that even if it originally was an accident, it has subsequently been exploited by evolution and made functional. 如此复杂的效应表明，音乐有可能是大脑中意外累积生成的一种产物，原本就存在的体系中因子汇聚在一起，终以谓之协调。因此，讽刺的是，大家也许都是对的------ 或者至少算是各执牛耳。平克可能是对的，因为音乐的原本就是偶然而生；Patel 也可能是对的，因为音乐着实在未被定义为相应的生物学现象的前提下改变了人们的世界观。但是米勒博士和邓巴博士同样可能是对的-----即便音乐本身就是出自偶然，起码尔后它在进化中得以大力发展并行使着功能。 Part of that accident may be the fact that many natural sounds evoke emotion for perfectly good reasons (fear at the howl of a wolf, pleasure at the sound of gently running water, irritation and mother-love at the crying of a child). Sexually selected features commonly rely on such pre-existing perceptual biases. It is probably no coincidence, for instance, that peacocks’ tails have eyespots; animal brains are good at recognising eyes because eyes are found only on other animals. It is pure speculation, but music may be built on emotions originally evolved to respond to important natural sounds, but which have blossomed a hundred-fold. 构成这一偶然的一部分内容在于许多天然的声音以完美的理由唤起了人们的感情（听到狼嚎会产生恐惧，听到细水长流会心旷神怡，听到孩子的哭声会心烦意乱或者母性大发）。性别选择的特性就是基于这些先入为主的感性认识而产生的。这也许并不是巧合，比如，孔雀的尾巴上有眼睛一样的花纹，动物的大脑擅于识别眼睛是因为它们只能在其它动物身上发现眼睛。虽然纯属猜测，但也许音乐产生的基础，正是人类最初进化出来应对重要的自然声响的感情，然而后来却绽放成满树繁花。 The truth, of course, is that nobody yet knows why people respond to music. But, when the carol singers come calling, whether the emotion they induce is joy or pain, you may rest assured that science is trying to work out why. 不用说，事实是现在尚无人知晓缘何人类会对音乐产生反应。当颂歌响彻耳际，不论它将人们引入快乐还是悲伤，你可以确信的是科学正在尽力弄清这一原委。 |
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