【注：本文作者为一位18岁的女生，最后有她的网址。小小年纪就在不少著名杂志发表很多文章，确实了不起。我是在翻阅Nature杂志的时候，偶然看到她的这篇文章，觉得很值得一读，就转载过来。网上有一个对她的中文访谈 http://www.douban.com/group/topic/12638324/ 】 From: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7289/full/464804a.html Futures Nature 464 , 804 (1 April 2010) | :10.1038/464804a :10.1038/464804a ; Published online 31 March 2010 The balance scale A matter of life and death. Shelly Li Imagine a balance scale with all your sins on one side and your morals on the other. I'm not a Godly man, nor do I attend church or pray for my sins to be dumped like yesterday's garbage. But if I had to imagine my balance scale, I'd say that it's pretty even. That is, until five years ago: when the doctor diagnosed me with early sepsis and multiple organ failure, and challenged my morals for a cure. I guess the question I want to ask you is: where do your morals go when life and death hang in the balance ? Let me tell you how I answered this question. After my fall from the roof in 2045, I spent close to a week in a hospital bed. Annie and I had been hanging Christmas lights, and I set my weight on a loose shingle and came tumbling down. I thought I had recovered perfectly. I still felt sore, sure, but I was moving, and I wanted to go home and spend Christmas with Mum, Dad and the cousins. But Dr Pei he'd been my physician for almost 20 years insisted that he run a few more tests. Something isn't quite right, he told me. I have a feeling. And so I let him run more tests. The week after, he came into my room and delivered the news. Early sepsis, he said. I frowned, so he spoke words that I understood. Bacterial infection. Inflammatory response. An exhausted immune system. Sitting beside me, Annie started to cry. She reached out to grab my hand, her fingers shaking. But Dr Pei continued. Eventually the sepsis would lead to multiple organ failure. My lungs, liver, kidneys, heart. Consider them gone. This is serious, Dr Pei said. This is fatal. The information rammed into my gut like a cold fist, hurting me to a degree that no physical wound could. The thought of dying, lying in a casket aged 42, scared me. I leaned over and, rubbing Annie's back, told her to go and get a cup of coffee. She had heard all she needed and shouldn't have to stay. Her suffering support would hurt me more than her absence. After the door slid closed behind her, I asked Dr Pei how long I had to live. We will do all that we can to keep the toxins at bay, he said. In the best scenario, you can go on living for a few more years, but you will never be able to leave the confines of a hospital. Most likely, though, the sepsis will advance to a fatal stage in a matter of weeks. A matter of weeks. The words echoed through my head over and over, as the room began to spin. I was beginning to wonder what I would do with my remaining time when Dr Pei said a cure had been developed recently. What? You said that sepsis was fatal. Yes, but there are certain ways to, ahh, cheat death. Dr Pei paused. I felt a shiver travel down my spine. There's a human cloning company in St Louis, the doctor said. Officially, their intent is to offer homosexual or infertile couples the chance to have a genetically identical child. But I know a geneticist there, and they have done cloning to isolate and alter DNA to get rid of disease-causing genes. Combined with accelerated growth, BioClone can produce for you the organs necessary to escape the fatalities of sepsis. And with those words, silence fell over the room as I stared at Dr Pei; him at me. Did he just suggest that I clone myself and harvest the organs? I asked him what would happen to the clone, once the organs were retrieved. He told me that I already knew the answer to this question. Like I said, I'm not a religious man, and I'm pro-choice, but the thought of a creating clone, a living, breathing body identical to me, and then killing it so that I could live a long, healthy life ... it felt soulless. I will give you BioClone's number, and the name of my friend, Dr Pei finally said. Tell him that I sent you, and he will help you from there. The doctor smiled sadly as he handed me a slip of paper. The choice, however, is yours. As soon as he finished speaking, the door slid open again, and Annie's face appeared before me. Her puffy eyes were red, her mascara smeared. But the way she looked at me, that hopeless stare that I knew would haunt me to death and beyond, I realized that this choice I had to make, it would not be for me alone. Could I compromise my morals to save Annie from the pain that my death would cause? This is my story, and my existence is my answer. Since the diagnosis of sepsis, I have got quite used to life here at the hospital. The nurses are always friendly to me, and the I'm a dying man excuse never fails to get me the last cookie on the plate or the TV channel I want to watch. Outside the window, snow is floating down from the sky, melting the moment the flakes hit the ground. The sight is beautiful nevertheless. I turn and, moving the blood pressure monitor, look over at Annie, asleep on the couch. A small smile touches her lips as she adjusts her position under the blanket. I cannot tear my eyes away, and I cannot stop smiling myself. They say that death makes a man realize things he has never fathomed before. Now I know that my balance scale is not at all a battle between my sins and my morals. My balance scale is a perfect parity of death and time. Death is the limit, the end, and it is there so that I can make the most of this space of time, from the moment I am born to the moment I draw my last breath. I don't need to prolong the inevitable, for I have made my life beautiful with love. And love is a weight that nothing in this world can balance. Join the discussion of Futures in Nature at http://go.nature.com/QMAm2a This story was born thanks to the beautiful brain of Shelly's best friend. When Shelly is not picking thoughts out of others' heads, she can be found at http://www.shelly-li.com .
午后阳光斜射入房间...... 1 ． 19 世纪，苏格兰人，传教士， David Livingstone ，非洲大陆的破冰之旅，代着上帝的旨意，传递福音的真谛至野蛮之地。探明了奴隶买卖的通道 --- 政治文明的巨大成就，世界地理科学的拓展，近代医学和人类文明的的传播，更多的是，作为一个虔诚基督徒，毕生致力于阐释人性的光辉。他的旅行日记中表明，他不是为了寻找新地理，不是为了政治去反对奴隶交易，更不是为了证明自己有多么伟大，仅仅是尽到一个海外传教士的责任，时时刻刻把自己交到耶稣手中，真诚面对每天遇到的人，做每一件自己认为应该做的事。 然而，带着西方文明的信仰踏入原始蛮荒的世界，即便带着勿庸置疑的信仰和济人济世为己任的初衷，显然不能摆脱处于某种文化中去谈论多种文化间孰优孰劣的矛盾，以无意识的形式干涉了非洲大陆原始的文明进化进程。 比方，向某族人的酋长宣讲福音之时，必招其自然的忿恨和反对，因耶稣甘为世人死的原罪，人皆为其活，而受世人至上的膜拜。然而，原始状态下，由朴素的自然观逐渐形成部族制度统治力，和酋长代表天意的尊贵该置于何处。族人本已形成的根深蒂固的信仰，由 jesus 的突然降临，必将经受阵痛和恐慌，因为，以他们的文明显然不可能站在更高的文化层面上去探讨自己的精神与福音相比孰优孰劣，自己的精神世界该何去何从。 因此，客观的说， David Livingstone 传教士传奇一世的故事背后也有值得商榷的地方。但这丝毫不影响他的光辉，伟大之处在于他的毕生事迹和思想感动后世永久。 2 ．人性归处与熵增 潘多拉之盒一旦开启，罪恶肆虐人间。 西方的福音，东方的佛学，中国的国学门派以儒学为代表，仁义礼智信，真善美 想说的是 A 丑恶的状态，残暴，淫乱，贪婪，杀戮，征服，嫉妒，强占 轻而易举的掳获人心，制造邪恶的快感，加速毁灭的进程。 B 美好的状态：真善美的道德礼仪，赎罪的天堂福音，却需世人费力的理解，诵读，用全身心的温良、恭俭、谦让、宽恕、慎独、隐忍、自强来毕生实践，如何坚守？ 稍不留意，心灵即让罪恶轻飘飘的占据 推广熵的概念于思想状态中 B 的坚持，结果是维持人心和世道的秩序。 B 的保持，需要有强大的道德指引（儒，道，佛，福音，真主 ... ）和法制制约（法家和原罪下的――法律、军队、监狱），暂只考虑将地球上的人类社会假设为孤立系统，上述的思想和物质力量都用来维护状态 B 做功， B 状态是不稳定的。 而熵增会一直持续，即 A 状态中的东西总会无法阻挡的泛滥开去， B 是禁锢不住 A 的。世界会越来越乱吗？ 不愿再想了。
标签: 罪恶
