来源：《新科学家》
原文刊登日期：2022年1月12日
Have you ever become angry about something that had more to do with the fact that you were having a bad day? Most of us have had moments like this, where we let our emotions get the better of us or allow them to influence our decisions. We often assume that the involvement of emotions – intended or otherwise – is always harmful to our ability to make good choices.
你是否曾经因为某件事而生气，而这件事与你今天过得很糟糕有关？我们大多数人都有过这样的时刻，我们让自己的情绪占据了上风，或者让情绪影响了我们的决定。我们常常认为，情绪的介入——有意或无意的——总是有害于我们做出正确选择的能力。
Not so, says physicist Leonard Mlodinow in his book Emotional: The new thinking about feelings. He argues that while it might seem like getting emotional is a bad idea, our feelings actually play an essential role in shaping our thoughts and decisions, helping us to react flexibly to situations and motivating us to pursue our goals.
物理学家伦纳德·米洛迪诺在他的《情绪：对情感的新思考》一书中说，事实并非如此。他认为，虽然情绪化似乎不是一个好主意，但我们的情感实际上在塑造我们的想法和决定方面发挥着重要作用，帮助我们灵活应对各种情况，并激励我们追求目标。
Drawing on the latest research, Mlodinow guides us through the ways in which neuroscientists are changing their understanding of human feelings – what he calls “the emotion revolution”.
根据最新的研究成果，米洛迪诺引导我们了解神经科学家改变对人类情感理解的方式——他称之为“情感革命”。
One of the breakthroughs in the science of emotion is the finding that rational thought alone isn’t enough to process the masses of information that we are exposed to in our environment. To think effectively, we also need to feel. “Emotion is not at war with rational thought but rather a tool of it,” writes Mlodinow.
情感科学的一个突破是发现，仅凭理性思考不足以处理我们在环境中接触到的大量信息。为了有效地思考，我们也需要感觉。“情感不是与理性思维的战争，而是理性思维的工具，”米洛迪诺写道。
This challenges two well-worn assumptions laid out long ago by some of history’s greatest thinkers, such as Plato: that the human mind can be split into rational and non-rational parts, reason and emotion, and that harnessing the former while taming the latter holds the key to success and making good decisions.
这挑战了一些历史上最伟大的思想家（如柏拉图）很久以前提出的两个老生常谈的假设：人类的思维可以分为理性和非理性两部分，理性和情感，而驾驭前者同时驯服后者是成功和做出正确决策的关键。
But now that we have the technology to probe the human brain more deeply than ever before, modern science is uncovering the complex neural dynamics that are involved in generating our emotions, and in turn reshaping our knowledge of their importance.
但是，现在我们有了比以往任何时候都更深入地探索人类大脑的技术，现代科学正在揭示与产生我们的情绪有关的复杂的神经动力学，进而重塑我们对情绪重要性的认识。
Mlodinow explores how and why feelings evolved in the first place, arising initially from purely reflexive behaviours to environmental stimuli before the “upgrade” of emotion occurred, which provided a more flexible and effective way for organisms to react to the challenges they encountered.
米洛迪诺探索了情感最初是如何以及为什么进化的，在情感“升级”之前，情感最初是由对环境刺激的纯粹反射行为产生的，这为生物体提供了一个更灵活和有效的方式来应对它们遇到的挑战。
Towards the end of the book, readers are given the chance to determine and reflect on their own emotional profile, using various questionnaires that were developed for research into specific feelings like happiness and anxiety. This is one of the more provocative elements of the book: the idea that we can gain power over our emotions by learning to understand and navigate them better. It is a tempting concept that Mlodinow backs up with numerous studies and anecdotes. He also gives advice on how we can better manage our own emotions and gain more control over our lives.
在书的最后，读者有机会通过各种问卷调查来确定和反思自己的情绪状况，这些问卷调查是为研究幸福和焦虑等特定感受而设计的。这是这本书中最具煽动性的元素之一:我们可以通过学习更好地理解和驾驭情绪来获得控制情绪的力量。这是一个诱人的概念，米洛迪诺用大量的研究和轶事来支持。他还就我们如何更好地管理自己的情绪和更好地控制自己的生活提出了建议。
Though the message of controlling your feelings to ultimately improve your well-being is an important one, it did get repetitive at times. What’s more, regular readers of popular neuroscience in general may find the research and the solutions Mlodinow offers, such as meditation and exercise, to be a little predictable.
虽然控制你的情感最终改善你的幸福是一个重要的信息，它确实有时会显得重复乏味。更重要的是，一般来说，经常阅读流行神经科学的读者可能会发现，米洛迪诺提供的研究和解决方案，比如冥想和锻炼，有一点儿老套乏味。