跟读练习: What Is Life? Is Death Real? - 通过视频学习英语口语
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Life is fundamentally different from dead stuff, or is it?
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Physicist Erwin Schrödinger defined life this way.
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Living things avoid decay into disorder and equilibrium.
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What does this mean?
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Let's pretend that your download folder is the universe.
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It started orderly and got more and more chaotic over time.
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By investing energy, you can create order and clean it up.
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This is what living things do.
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But what is life?
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Every living thing on this planet is made of cells.
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Basically, a cell is a protein -based robot too small to feel or experience anything.
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It has the properties we just assigned to life.
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It has a wall that separates it from the surroundings creating order.
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It regulates itself and maintains a constant state.
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It eats stuff to stay alive, it grows and develops, it reacts to the environment, and it's subject to evolution,
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and it makes more of itself.
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But of all the stuff that makes up a cell, no part is alive.
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Stuff reacts chemically with other stuff, forming reactions that start other reactions, which start other reactions.
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In a single cell, every second, several million chemical reactions take place, forming a complex orchestra.
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A cell can build several thousand types of protein, some very simple, some complex micromachines.
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Imagine driving a car at 100 km an hour
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while constantly rebuilding every single part of it with stuff you collect from the street.
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That is what cells do.
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But no part of the cell is alive, everything is dead matter moved by the laws of the universe.
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So is life the aggregate of all these reaction processes that are taking place?
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Eventually, every living thing will die.
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The goal of the whole process is to prevent this by producing new entities.
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And by this, we mean DNA.
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Life is, in a way, just a lot of stuff that carries genetic information around.
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Every living thing is subject to evolution, and the DNA that develops the best living thing around it will stay in the game.
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So, is DNA life then?
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If you take DNA out of its hull, it certainly is a very complex molecule, but it can't do anything by itself.
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This is where viruses make everything more complicated.
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They are basically strings of RNA or DNA in a small hull and need cells to do something.
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We're not sure if they count as living or dead.
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And still, there are 225 million cubic meters of viruses on Earth.
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They don't seem to care what we think of them.
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There are even viruses that invade dead cells and reanimate them so they can be a host for them, which blurs the line even more. Or mitochondria.
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They are the power plants of most complex cells and were previously free -living bacteria that entered a partnership with bigger cells.
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They still have their own DNA and can multiply on their own, but they are not alive anymore they are dead
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so they traded their own life for the survival of their DNA
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which means living things can evolve into dead things as long as it's beneficial to their genetic code
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so maybe life is information that manages to ensure its continued existence
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but what about AI artificial intelligence by our most common definitions we are very close to creating artificial life in computers
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It's just a question of time before the technology we build gets there.
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And this is not science fiction either.
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There are a lot of smart people actively working on this.
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You could already argue that computer viruses are alive.
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Hmm, okay, so what is life then?
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Things?
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Processes?
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DNA?
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Information?
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This got confusing very fast.
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One thing is for sure, the idea that life is fundamentally different from non -living things
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because they contain some non -physical element or are governed by different principles than inanimate objects turns out to be wrong.
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Before Charles Darwin, humans drew a line between themselves and the rest of living things.
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There was something magical about us that made us special.
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Once we had to accept we are, like every living being, a product of evolution, we drew a different line.
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But the more we learn about what computers can do and how life works, the closer we get to creating the first machine that fits our description of life,
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the more our image of ourselves is in danger again.
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And this will happen sooner or later.
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and here's another question for you
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if everything in the universe is made of the same stuff does this mean everything in the universe is dead
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or that everything in the universe is alive
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that it's just a question of complexity does this mean we can never die
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because we were never alive in the first place is life
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and death an irrelevant question
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and we haven't noticed it yet is it possible we are
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much more part of the universe around us than we thought
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don't look at us we We don't have any answers for you, just questions for you to think about.
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After all, it's thinking about questions like this that makes us feel alive and gives us some comfort.
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本课的词汇与口语要点
这段视频共有 72 个句子、861 个单词可供跟读。 讲话部分时长为 5:32。 说话人语速自然，每分钟约 156 个词，接近日常对话。 86% 的单词属于英语最常用的 3,000 词，其余的词建议在练习前先学一下。
视频中的重点词汇
视频中 15 个值得学习的单词，附发音和释义：
| 单词 | 发音 | 释义 |
|---|---|---|
| virus 名词 | /ˈvaɪ.ɹəs/ | 病毒 |
| evolution 名词 | /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/ | 演變 /演变, 變遷 /变迁 |
| artificial 形容词 | /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/ | 人造的 |
| fundamentally 副词 | 根本地, 从根本上 | |
| partnership 名词 | /ˈpɑɹtnɚʃɪp/ | 合夥關係 /合伙关系, 合作關係 /合作关系 |
| complicated 形容词 | /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/ | 複雜 /复杂 |
| argue 动词 | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | 辯論 /辩论, 爭辯 /争辩 |
| element 名词 | /ˈɛləmənt/ | 要素 |
| fiction 名词 | /ˈfɪkʃən/ | 虛構文學 /虚构文学, 小說 /小说 |
| comfort 名词 | /ˈkʌm.fət/ | 舒適 /舒适 |
| string 名词 | /stɹɪŋ/ | 線 /线 |
| collect 动词 | /ˈkɑlɪkt/ | 庋藏, 收藏 |
| survival 名词 | /sɚˈvaɪ.vəl/ | 生存 |
| principle 名词 | /ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/ | 原理, 原則 /原则 |
| invest 动词 | /ɪnˈvɛst/ | 耗費 /耗费, 投資 /投资 |
视频中出现的短语动词
| 单词 | 发音 | 释义 |
|---|---|---|
| make up 动词 | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | 組成 /组成 |
需要注意的发音
说话人用了 6 次缩略和弱读形式，例如 don't, can't, haven't。请按听到的简短形式来说。
- “sh” 和 “zh” 音: evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/, artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, partnership /ˈpɑɹtnɚʃɪp/, fiction /ˈfɪkʃən/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/
- 长单词——注意重音位置: evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/, artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/, entity /ˈɛn.tə.ti/ [-tʰi], beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/
如何用这段视频练习
- 先完整听一遍视频，不要开口，记下不认识的单词。
- 先用 0.75 倍速逐句跟读，熟练之后再回到正常速度。
- 录下自己的声音并与原声对比，特别注意 virus, evolution, artificial 这类单词。
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。