经济学人下载:怎样死才算死？

Once again, the vegetative David was seen to have less mind than the David who had “passed away”. This was equally true, regardless of how religious a participant said he was. However, ratings of the dead David’s mind in the story in which his corpse was embalmed and buried varied with the participant’s religiosity.

这次，植物人大卫的心智活动仍然被认为少于“去世”的大卫。不论被试对自己的宗教虔诚度评价有多高，结果仍是如此。但是，被试读过描述大卫被作防腐处理并埋葬的故事后，对其心智活动作出的评价会随被试的宗教虔诚度而改变。

Irreligious participants gave the buried corpse about the same mental ratings as the vegetative patient (-1.51 and -1.64 respectively). Religious participants, however, continued to ascribe less mind to the irretrievably unconscious David than they did to his buried corpse (-1.57 and 0.59).

无宗教信仰的被试对被被埋葬的大卫的尸体和植物人大卫的评价大致相同（分别为-1.51和-1.64）。但是，有宗教信仰的被试仍然认为意识已经一去不返的植物人大卫其心智活动比死去的大卫少（分别为-1.57和0.59）。

That those who believe in an afterlife ascribe mental acuity to the dead is hardly surprising. That those who do not are inclined to do so unless heavily prompted not to is curious indeed.

相信来世的人认为死人仍有精神活动，这一点都不奇怪。但那些不相信来世的人也倾向于这样认为（除非被强烈提示避免如此），实在是相当奇怪。