返回首页

DanielTammet_2011-_感知的不同方式_
I'm a savant , or more precisely, a high-functioning autistic savant. 我是个学者 或者更准确地说, 一个高功能 自闭症学者。
savant:n.学者;专家; autistic:adj.[心理][内科]孤独症的;孤僻的;n.孤独症患者(常指儿童);
It's a rare condition. 这是一种少见的情况。
And rarer still when accompanied , as in my case, by self-awareness and a mastery of language. 更罕见的是, 我的这种状况, 还伴随自我感知意识 而且还精通语言。
accompanied:v.陪同;陪伴;与…同时发生;为…伴奏;(accompany的过去式和过去分词) self-awareness:n.自我意识; mastery:n.掌握;精通;优势;征服;统治权;
Very often when I meet someone and they learn this about me, there's a certain kind of awkwardness . 比较常见的是,当我遇到一些人 他们知道我的这些情况, 这就会有点尴尬。
awkwardness:n.尴尬;笨拙;
I can see it in their eyes. 我能从他们的眼里看出来
They want to ask me something. 他们想问我一些事情
And in the end, quite often, the urge is stronger than they are and they blurt it out: "If I give you my date of birth, can you tell me what day of the week I was born on?" 经常是到了最后 他们的强烈好奇就绷不住了 他们会脱口而问: “如果我告诉你我的生日, 你能告诉我,我是星期几出生的吗？”
blurt:v.脱口而出;
(Laughter) （笑声）
Or they mention cube roots or ask me to recite a long number or long text. 或者他们会提到立方根 又或者让我背一个很长的数字或文字。
recite:v.朗诵;(口头)列举;逐一讲述;
I hope you'll forgive me if I don't perform a kind of one-man savant show for you today. 请你们原谅我 今天我不会在这儿展示 这类似的“学者表演”
forgive:v.原谅;免除(债务,义务等); perform:v.表演;执行;履行;演出;工作,运转(好/不好); one-man:adj.个人的;仅一人的;仅供一人的;
I'm going to talk instead about something far more interesting than dates of birth or cube roots -- a little deeper and a lot closer, to my mind, than work. 今天我不谈这些 说点其它的 更有趣的话题 而不是生日和立方根之类的-- 会有一点深奥 会比我的天赋更接近我的思想。
I want to talk to you briefly about perception . 我想简单的和你们谈谈 关于感知。
briefly:adv.简要地;简短地;暂时地; perception:n.感知;知觉;看法;洞察力;
When he was writing the plays and the short stories that would make his name, 契诃夫写那些让他扬名的 剧本和小故事时,
Anton Chekhov kept a notebook in which he noted down his observations of the world around him -- little details that other people seem to miss. 他习惯随身带着笔记本, 随手记录 记录下他的观察 记录下他周围的世界 那些都是些小细节 可其他人易忽略那些细节。
observations:n.观察,观察值;观察结果;(observation的复数形式);
Every time I read Chekhov and his unique vision of human life, 每次我读契诃夫的作品 以及他对人们生活的独特见解
unique:adj.独特的,稀罕的;[数]唯一的;n.独一无二的人或物; vision:n.视力;美景;幻象;想象力;v.想象;显现;梦见;
I'm reminded of why I too became a writer. 我都认识到 为什么我也能成为一个作家。
reminded:v.提醒;使想起;(remind的过去分词和过去式)
In my books, 在我的书里,
I explore the nature of perception and how different kinds of perceiving create different kinds of knowing and understanding. 我探索了感知的本质, 以及不同的感觉 如何创造出不同的感知 和不同的理解。
explore:v.探索:探测:探险: perceiving:v.注意到;意识到;将…理解为;认为;(perceive的现在分词)
Here are three questions drawn from my work. 下面有三个问题 源于我的研究。
Rather than try to figure them out, 与其说要解决这些问题,
I'm going to ask you to consider for a moment the intuitions and the gut instincts that are going through your head and your heart as you look at them. 我更想邀请你们感受一下 那种直觉 和那种本能 那些当你看到题目时 在你的头脑和内心里出现的直觉和本能。
intuitions:n.直觉;直觉力;直觉的知识; gut:n.勇气;肠道;内脏;v.损毁内部;取出…的内脏;adj.非理性的;本能的 instincts:n.本能;天性;直觉;(instinct的复数)
For example, the calculation: can you feel where on the number line the solution is likely to fall? 例如这个计算题, 你能感知到那行数字 答案可能是多少吗？
solution:n.解决方案;溶液;溶解;解答;
Or look at the foreign word and the sounds: can you get a sense of the range of meanings that it's pointing you towards? 或者看看这个外语单词和读音 你能猜到大概的意思吗 那种直觉给出的答案？
And in terms of the line of poetry , why does the poet use the word hare rather than rabbit? 这行诗, 诗人为什么用hare （兔）这个词 而不是用rabbit（兔）？
poetry:n.诗;诗意,诗情;诗歌艺术; hare:n.野兔;
I'm asking you to do this because I believe our personal perceptions , you see, are at the heart of how we acquire knowledge. 我请你们思考这些 因为我相信我们的个人感知 是我们如何获取知识的 核心
personal:adj.个人的;身体的;亲自的;n.人事消息栏;人称代名词; perceptions:n.认知;观念(perception的复数);理解; acquire:v.获得;取得;学到;捕获;
Aesthetic judgments , rather than abstract reasoning, guide and shape the process by which we all come to know what we know. 感知判断, 而非抽象推理, 指导并塑造了我们了解事物的过程 由此我们都会了解到 我们所感知的东西。
Aesthetic:adj.美的;美学的;审美的,具有审美趣味的; judgments:判断; abstract:n.摘要; adj.抽象的; vt.摘要; vi.做摘要; process:v.处理;加工;列队行进;n.过程,进行;方法,adj.经过特殊加工(或处理)的;
I'm an extreme example of this. 我是一个极端的例子。
extreme:adj.极端的;极度的;偏激的;尽头的;n.极端;末端;最大程度;极端的事物;
My worlds of words and numbers blur with color, emotion and personality . 在我的文字和数字世界里, 色彩,情感 和个性都是混合在一起的。
emotion:n.强烈的感情;激情;情感; personality:n.性格;个性;人格;魅力;气质;名人;特色;
As Juan said, it's the condition that scientists call synesthesia , an unusual cross-talk between the senses. 就像Juan胡安所说的, 科学家们称这种情况是联觉, 一种不常见的通感 连结各种感觉。
synesthesia:n.共感觉;[生理]共同感觉;副感觉(等于synaesthesia); cross-talk:n.相声;串音;
Here are the numbers one to 12 as I see them -- every number with its own shape and character. 这里是数字1到12 在我眼里 每个数字都有着自己的形状和特点。
One is a flash of white light . 1是一闪的白光
flash:n.闪光; v.闪光; adj.庞大的; white light:n.白光;
Six is a tiny and very sad black hole . 6是微小而悲伤的黑洞
black hole:n.黑洞(宇宙中包括光线在内的任何东西都无法逃逸的强引力区域);
The sketches are in black and white here, but in my mind they have colors. 这些速写是黑白的 但是在我眼里他们是有色彩的。
sketches:n.[测]草图; v.素描,写生(sketch的第三人称单数); in black and white:白纸黑字;
Three is green. 3是绿色的
Four is blue. 4是蓝色的
Five is yellow. 5是黄色的
I paint as well. 我把它们画下来
And here is one of my paintings. 这是我的一幅画。
It's a multiplication of two prime numbers. 这是两个素数的乘法
multiplication:n.[数]乘法;增加; prime:adj.主要的; v.极好地; n.初期; v.使准备好;
Three-dimensional shapes and the space they create in the middle creates a new shape, the answer to the sum. 呈三维形状 和中间形成的空间 又组成了一个新的形状, 就是他们的总和。
Three-dimensional:adj.三维的;立体的;真实的;
What about bigger numbers? 更 大 的数字会怎么样呢？
Well you can't get much bigger than Pi, the mathematical constant. 你不能得到一个比圆周率派Pi更“大”的数字了, 它是数学常数。
mathematical:adj.数学的,数学上的;精确的;
It's an infinite number -- literally goes on forever. 是一个无限的数字-- 就是说它永远不会结束。
infinite:adj.无限的,无穷的; n.无限; literally:adv.按字面:字面上:确实地:
In this painting that I made of the first 20 decimals of Pi, 在我画的这个图里, 是派Pi的前20位数字,
decimals:n.[数]小数(decimal的复数形式);位数;
I take the colors and the emotions and the textures and I pull them all together into a kind of rolling numerical landscape . 我使用颜色, 情感和纹理 我把这些组合到一起, 就成了一个起伏的数字风景画。
emotions:n.强烈的感情;激情;情感;(emotion的复数) textures:n.纹理;材质(texture的复数);v.使具有某种结构(texture的三单形式); numerical:adj.数值的;数字的;用数字表示的(等于numeric); landscape:n.景观;乡村风景画;(文件的)横向打印格式;v.对…做景观美化;美化…的环境;
But it's not only numbers that I see in colors. 在我眼里不仅数字是有颜色的,
Words too, for me, have colors and emotions and textures. 对我来说,文字也一样 有颜色,情感, 和纹理。
And this is an opening phrase from the novel "Lolita." 这是 出自小说《洛丽塔》的开场白(Lolita, light of my life)。
novel:adj.新奇的;异常的;n.小说;
And Nabokov was himself synesthetic. 作者纳博科夫本身就是有联觉的
And you can see here how my perception of the sound L helps the alliteration to jump right out. 你从这里可以看出来, 我对L这个音的感觉 使得字头押韵 能突出感觉。
alliteration:n.头韵;同音韵错误症;
Another example: a little bit more mathematical. 另一个例子 稍微有一点数学化了。
And I wonder if some of you will notice the construction of the sentence from "The Great Gatsby." 我想知道你们中的某些人是否会注意到 出自 《了不起的盖茨比》 （又译《大亨小传》）的这个句子结构。
I wonder if:我不知道是否…？; construction:n.建设;建筑物;解释;造句;
There is a procession of syllables -- wheat, one; prairies , two; lost Swede towns, three -- one, two, three. 有这么一行音节-- 谷物,一个音节; 大草原,二个音节; 丢失的瑞典人镇,三个音节-- 一,二,三。
procession:n.行列; v.排队前进; syllables:n.[语]音节;(syllable的复数) prairies:n.(美)[畜牧]大草原(prairie的复数); Swede:n.瑞典人;瑞典甘蓝;
And this effect is very pleasant on the mind, and it helps the sentence to feel right. 这种押韵的效果让人感到身心非常愉悦, 也让我们感到句子 很通畅。
Let's go back to the questions 让我们回到
I posed you a moment ago. 我之前提出的问题上来
posed:v.造成;引起;产生;提问;质询;摆好姿势;(pose的过去分词和过去式)
64 multiplied by 75. 64乘以75
multiplied:v.乘;乘以;成倍增加;(使)繁殖,增殖;(multiply的过去分词和过去式)
If some of you play chess, you'll know that 64 is a square number, and that's why chessboards, eight by eight, have 64 squares. 如果你们中有人下棋, 你会知道64 是一个平方数 这也是为什么棋盘 边长为8×8 而有了64个方格
So that gives us a form that we can picture, that we can perceive . 这样我们就得到一个表格 用来画图和感知。
perceive:v.注意到;意识到;将…理解为;认为;
What about 75? 那么如果是75呢？
Well if 100, if we think of 100 as being like a square, 75 would look like this. 假如是100 如果我们把100想成一个正方形, 75就会是这个样子。
So what we need to do now is put those two pictures together in our mind -- something like this. 那么我们现在要做的就是 把这两个图组合起 一同放入脑海中- 就是这个样子。
64 becomes 6,400. 64就成了6,400
And in the right-hand corner, you don't have to calculate anything. 在右下角 你不需要任何计算
right-hand:adj.得力的;右手的,用右手的;
Four across, four up and down -- it's 16. 4个横跨的,4个上下的-- 得到16.
So what the sum is actually asking you to do is 16, 16, 16. 那么你需要做的就是 加总和16, 16, 16。
That's a lot easier than the way that the school taught you to do math, I'm sure. 这简单多了 我相信比学校教给你的方法简单。
It's 16, 16, 16, 48, 4,800 -- 4,800, the answer to the sum. 16,16,16, 得到48. 那么就是4,800-- 4,800 这就是最后答案。
Easy when you know how. 当你知道怎么做,问题就容易了。
(Laughter) （笑声）
The second question was an Icelandic word. 第二个问题是一个冰岛单词。
Icelandic:adj.冰岛的;冰岛人的;冰岛语的;n.冰岛语;
I'm assuming there are not many people here who speak Icelandic. 我相信在座的没有几个人 会说冰岛语的。
assuming:conj.假设…为真; adj.傲慢的; v.假定; (assume的现在分词)
So let me narrow the choices down to two. 那么我把问题缩减成两个。
narrow:adj.狭窄的; v.使窄小; n.峡谷; (场所,物品等的)狭窄部分;
Hnugginn: is it a happy word, or a sad word? Hnugginn: 这单词是指快乐的意思 还是指悲伤的？
What do you say ? 你怎么认为？
What do you say:你说…怎么样？;
Okay. 好的。
Some people say it's happy. 有人说是快乐的,
Most people, a majority of people, say sad. 但是大多数人 说是悲伤的。
majority:n.大部分:大多数:多数票:成年人:
And it actually means sad. 这个词实际意思是悲伤的。
(Laughter) （笑声）
Why do, statistically , a majority of people say that a word is sad, in this case, heavy in other cases? 为什么统计下来 在此,大多数人认为 这个词是悲伤的, 而在另一个情景里,是痛苦的意思？
statistically:adv.统计地;统计学上;
In my theory, language evolves in such a way that sounds match, correspond with , the subjective , with the personal, intuitive experience of the listener. 根据我的理论,语言的发展经历了这样的过程 匹配声音 对应主题 同时伴随着 听者个人 的直观经验来发展。
evolves:v.进化,进展(evolve的第三人称单数形式); correspond with:符合,一致;与…通信; subjective:adj.主观的;个人的;自觉的; intuitive:adj.直觉的;凭直觉获知的;
Let's have a look at the third question. 让我们看看第三个问题。
have a look at:看一看,看一眼;
It's a line from a poem by John Keats . 这是约翰·济慈的诗里的一句。
Keats:n.济慈(英国诗人);
Words, like numbers, express fundamental relationships between objects and events and forces that constitute our world. 文字像数字, 能够表达本质关系 由外物 事件和力量 组成我们的世界。
express:v.表达; adj.特快的; n.特快列车; v.使用快速服务; fundamental:n.基础; adj.十分重大的; constitute:v.组成;构成;(合法或正式地)成立,设立;
It stands to reason that we, existing in this world, should in the course of our lives absorb intuitively those relationships. 显然,我们生存在这个世界上 应该在我们的有生之年 直观地汲取这些关系。
stands to reason:合乎道理;我们来论理; in the course of:在…过程中;在…期间; absorb:v.吸收;使并入;吞并;同化;理解;吸收;耗费;承受; intuitively:adv.直观地;直觉地;
And poets, like other artists, play with those intuitive understandings. 诗人就像其他艺术家一样, 演绎着那些直观的理解。
In the case of hare, it's an ambiguous sound in English. 兔子的那个问题, hare在英语里是一个有点含糊的词
ambiguous:adj.模糊不清的;引起歧义的;
It can also mean the fibers that grow from a head. 这个词也可以是头上的毛发的意思。
fibers:n.纤维(fiber的复数);
And if we think of that -- let me put the picture up -- the fibers represent vulnerability . 如果我们考虑到这个-- 让我把这个图拿上来-- 毛发代表着脆弱
represent:v.代表;表现;描绘;回忆;再赠送; vulnerability:n.易损性;弱点;
They yield to the slightest movement or motion or emotion. 他们让步于最轻微的运动 或手势,或情感。
yield:n.产量;产出;利润;v.屈服;让步;放弃;提供; slightest:adj.极不重要的,最少的;
So what you have is an atmosphere of vulnerability and tension . 所以你就得到一种 脆弱紧张的感觉气氛。
atmosphere:n.大气;气氛;气压;风格; tension:n.张力;拉伸;矛盾;紧张局势(或关系,状况);v.绷紧;
The hare itself, the animal -- not a cat, not a dog, a hare -- why a hare? 那个兔子,一个动物- 不是猫,不是狗,而是一只兔子-- 为什么是一只兔子？
Because think of the picture -- not the word, the picture. 因为联想到这副图, 不是这句话,而是这个图。
The overlong ears, the overlarge feet, helps us to picture, to feel intuitively, what it means to limp and to tremble . 超长的耳朵 超大的脚 帮助我们描绘、去凭直觉感知 跛脚的感觉 和颤抖的感觉。
overlong:adj.太长的; limp:adj.柔软的,无力的;软弱的;vi.跛行,一拐一拐地走;缓慢费力地前进;n.跛行; tremble:v.颤抖;极担心;焦虑;恐惧;n.颤抖;战栗;哆嗦;
So in these few minutes, 在这几分钟里,
I hope I've been able to share a little bit of my vision of things and to show you that words can have colors and emotions, numbers, shapes and personalities . 我希望我能够分享 一些我的视角 并向你们展现 文字也有颜色,情感 数字,形状和性格。
personalities:n.性格;个性;人格;气质;名人;(personality的复数)
The world is richer, vaster than it too often seems to be. 这世界 比它看起来会更丰富, 更广阔。
I hope that I've given you the desire to learn to see the world with new eyes. 希望我给你们带来一种渴望 从新视角来看待这个世界。
Thank you. 谢谢。
(Applause) （掌声）