2019-11-11L470 Self-awareness

We like to think that the human mind is special. One sign of our superiority is self-awareness, which is generally seen as the pinnacle of consciousness. Only a select group of species has passed the test of being able to recognise themselves in a mirror. Most, including elephants, apes and dolphins, are notoriously smart. But now a scrappy little fish, the cleaner wrasse, has joined their ranks (see “A species of fish has passed the mirror test for the first time”). What are we to make of this?
人类并非独一无二：很多物种也能辨认自己 我们一直认为人类思维特殊。卓尔不群的一个标志就是自省，它总被看成特有的意识。只有经挑选的物种通过镜中辨认自己的测试。包括大象，猿猴，海豚这些非常聪明的动物。现在，一种清道夫小鱼儿也加入此列，见文章一种鱼类首次通过镜像测试。我们怎么做到的呢？

Admittedly, the mirror test is a questionable way of probing the minds of other animals. But the finding does fit with an emerging idea that the ability to recognise oneself is more related to an animal’s lifestyle than to its brain size. Self-awareness is likely to occur in creatures whose survival is dependent on reading the minds of others. In fact, by this way of thinking, it is nothing more than an accidental by-product of evolution, a simulation created by the brain, or even just a hall of mirrors giving the illusion of complexity (see “Smoke and mirrors job: the mystery of self”).
坦率地说，镜子实验是否能探测其他其他动物的思想是存有疑问的。但最新的发现提出一种新观点，自我认知能力更加和动物的生活方式相关，而不是脑容量。自我认知可能发生在那些需要依靠读懂其他动物思想才能生存的动物中。实际上，按这个观点，自我认知不过是进化中的偶然出现的副产品，一种被大脑生成的假象，甚至只是穿衣镜所制造复杂幻觉(参见《烟和镜的工作：自我的秘密》)

The cleaner wrasse lives on coral reefs and provides a service by nibbling parasites off the scales of bigger fish, a delicate relationship that may require insight into the minds of its clients. Such “theory of mind” has long been seen as another cornerstone of human mental superiority. The possibility that fish possess it is not, however, the only threat to our human exceptionalism. It may not be long before computers give us a run for our money, too.
清洁工隆头鱼以珊瑚礁为生，并且为大鱼提供清理鱼鳞寄生虫的服务，这是一种需要深入了解其客户心理的微妙关系。这种思维理论曾长期被认为是人类心理先进的另一基石。这种鱼可能打破我们人类在心理方面的唯一性，并且这种可能性不是唯一的。也许用不了多久，计算机就会给我们点颜色看看。 give sb a run for sb's money 给某人一些颜色看看

Researchers have created a set of tests to look for theory of mind in artificial intelligence – and some systems are on the verge of passing (see “AIs are being tested to see how well they understand our thoughts”). We probably don’t need to worry about robots that can recognise themselves in mirrors. But we might want to be more open to the idea that human intelligence isn’t quite as special as we like to think.
研究人员创造了一套测试来寻找人工智能中的心智理论--有些系统即将通过(参见“人工智能正在测试以了解我们的想法有多好”)。我们可能不需要担心那些能在镜子里识别自己的机器人。但是我们可能想要更开放地接受这样的观点：人类的智力并不像我们想象的那么特别。