Your words may predict your future mental health | Mariano Sigman

Prevoditelj: Igor Pureta Recezent: Ivan Stamenković

We have historical records that allow us to know how the ancient Greeks dressed,

Postoje povijesni zapisi koji nam pokazuju kako su se stari Grci odijevali,

how they lived,

kako su živjeli,

how they fought ...

kako su se borili...

but how did they think?

No kako su mislili?

One natural idea is that the deepest aspects of human thought --

Jedna prirodna ideja je da su najdublji aspekti ljudske misli --

our ability to imagine,

naša sposobnost da zamišljamo,

to be conscious,

da budemo svjesni,

to dream --

da sanjamo --

have always been the same.

uvijek bili isti.

Another possibility

Druga mogućnost

is that the social transformations that have shaped our culture

je da su društvene transformacije koje su oblikovale našu kulturu

may have also changed the structural columns of human thought.

možda promijenile i strukturne stupove ljudske misli.

We may all have different opinions about this.

Možemo svi imati drugačije mišljenje u vezi toga.

Actually, it's a long-standing philosophical debate.

Zapravo, to je filozofska rasprava koja već dugo traje.

But is this question even amenable to science?

No je li ovo pitanje imalo primamljivo znanosti?

Here I'd like to propose

Htio bih predložiti

that in the same way we can reconstruct how the ancient Greek cities looked

da na isti način na koji možemo rekonstruirati izgled antičkih gradova

just based on a few bricks,

samo na osnovi nekoliko cigli,

that the writings of a culture are the archaeological records,

da su zapisi kulture arheološke snimke,

the fossils, of human thought.

fosili ljudske svijesti.

And in fact,

U stvari,

doing some form of psychological analysis

radeći neku vrstu psihološke analize

of some of the most ancient books of human culture,

nekih od najstarijih knjiga ljudske kulture,

Julian Jaynes came up in the '70s with a very wild and radical hypothesis:

Julian Jaynes je u 70-ima došao do vrlo divlje i radikalne hipoteze:

that only 3,000 years ago,

da su prije samo 3.000 godina,

humans were what today we would call schizophrenics.

ljudi bili ono što bi danas nazvali shizofrenicima.

And he made this claim

Ovu tvrdnju je temeljio

based on the fact that the first humans described in these books

na činjenici da su se prvi ljudi opisani u tim knjigama

behaved consistently,

ponašali konzistentno,

in different traditions and in different places of the world,

u drugačijim tradicijama na drugačijim mjestima na svijetu,

as if they were hearing and obeying voices

kao da su čuli i slušali glasove

that they perceived as coming from the Gods,

koje su percipirali kao da dolaze od Bogova,

or from the muses ...

ili muza...

what today we would call hallucinations.

što bismo danas nazvali halucinacijama.

And only then, as time went on,

Tek tada, kako je vrijeme prolazilo,

they began to recognize that they were the creators,

počeli su prepoznavati da su oni bili stvaratelji,

the owners of these inner voices.

vlasnici tih unutarnjih glasova.

And with this, they gained introspection:

S time su dobili introspekciju:

the ability to think about their own thoughts.

sposobnost razmišljanja o vlastitim mislima.

So Jaynes's theory is that consciousness,

Jaynesova teorija je da je svjesnost,

at least in the way we perceive it today,

barem na način na koji ju percipiramo danas,

where we feel that we are the pilots of our own existence --

gdje se osjećamo kao piloti vlastitog postojanja --

is a quite recent cultural development.

poprilično svježa u kulturnom razvoju.

And this theory is quite spectacular,

Ova teorija je poprilično spektakularna,

but it has an obvious problem

no ima očiti problem

which is that it's built on just a few and very specific examples.

da je izgrađena na samo nekoliko vrlo specifičnih primjera.

So the question is whether the theory

Pitanje je može li teorija

that introspection built up in human history only about 3,000 years ago

da je introspekcija izgrađena u ljudskoj povijesti prije samo 3.000 godina

can be examined in a quantitative and objective manner.

biti promatrana na kvantitativan i objektivan način.

And the problem of how to go about this is quite obvious.

Vrlo je očito kako gledati ovaj problem .

It's not like Plato woke up one day and then he wrote,

Nije se Platon probudio jednog dana i napisao:

"Hello, I'm Plato,

"Pozdrav, ja sam Platon,

and as of today, I have a fully introspective consciousness."

i od danas imam punu introspektivnu svijest."

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

And this tells us actually what is the essence of the problem.

Ovo nam zapravo govori koja je srž problema.

We need to find the emergence of a concept that's never said.

Moramo pronaći pojavu koncepta koji nije nikada izgovoren.

The word introspection does not appear a single time

Riječ introspekcija se ne pojavljuje niti jedan jedini put

in the books we want to analyze.

u knjigama koje želimo analizirati.

So our way to solve this is to build the space of words.

Naš način da ovo riješimo je da napravimo prostor od riječi.

This is a huge space that contains all words

Ovo je ogroman prostor koji sadrži sve riječi

in such a way that the distance between any two of them

na takav način da razmak između bilo koje dvije riječi

is indicative of how closely related they are.

označava koliko su blisko povezane.

So for instance,

Na primjer,

you want the words "dog" and "cat" to be very close together,

želite da riječi "pas" i "mačka" budu vrlo blizu,

but the words "grapefruit" and "logarithm" to be very far away.

no da riječi "grejp" i "logaritam" budu jako daleko.

And this has to be true for any two words within the space.

To mora biti istinito za bilo koje dvije riječi u prostoru.

And there are different ways that we can construct the space of words.

Postoje razni načini kako da konstruiramo prostor od riječi.

One is just asking the experts,

Jedan je da samo pitamo stručnjake,

a bit like we do with dictionaries.

kao što radimo s rječnicima.

Another possibility

Druga mogućnost

is following the simple assumption that when two words are related,

je da pratimo jednostavnu pretpostavku da su dvije riječi povezane,

they tend to appear in the same sentences,

kada se pojavljuju u istim rečenicama,

in the same paragraphs,

istim odlomcima,

in the same documents,

istim dokumentima,

more often than would be expected just by pure chance.

češće nego bi se očekivalo pukim slučajem.

And this simple hypothesis,

Ova jednostavna hipoteza,

this simple method,

jednostavna metoda,

with some computational tricks

se s nekim računalnim trikovima

that have to do with the fact

koji su povezani s činjenicom

that this is a very complex and high-dimensional space,

da je ovo vrlo kompleksan i visoko dimenzionalan prostor,

turns out to be quite effective.

pokazuje poprilično uspješnom.

And just to give you a flavor of how well this works,

Dat ću vam primjer kako ovo dobro funkcionira,

this is the result we get when we analyze this for some familiar words.

Ovo je rezultat koji dobijemo kada analiziramo neke poznate riječi.

And you can see first

Kao što možete vidjeti

that words automatically organize into semantic neighborhoods.

riječi su automatski organizirane u semantička susjedstva.

So you get the fruits, the body parts,

Imate voće, dijelove tijela,

the computer parts, the scientific terms and so on.

dijelove računala, znanstvene izraze i tako dalje.

The algorithm also identifies that we organize concepts in a hierarchy.

Algoritam također identificira hijerarhijsku organizaciju koncepata.

So for instance,

Na primjer,

you can see that the scientific terms break down into two subcategories

možete vidjeti da se znanstveni termini dijele na dvije podkategorije

of the astronomic and the physics terms.

astronomskih i fizičkih termina.

And then there are very fine things.

Onda postoje vrlo fine stvari.

For instance, the word astronomy,

Na primjer, riječ astronomija,

which seems a bit bizarre where it is,

za koju se čini da je bizarna tamo gdje je,

is actually exactly where it should be,

je ustvari upravo tamo gdje bi i trebala biti,

between what it is,

između onoga što je,

an actual science,

znanost,

and between what it describes,

i onoga što opisuje,

the astronomical terms.

astronomske termine.

And we could go on and on with this.

Mogli bismo nastaviti s ovime.

Actually, if you stare at this for a while,

Zapravo, ako dovoljno dugo gledate u ovo,

and you just build random trajectories,

i gradite nasumične putanje,

you will see that it actually feels a bit like doing poetry.

vidjet ćete da je osjećaj pomalo kao da pišete poeziju.

And this is because, in a way,

Ovo je iz razloga što je, na neki način,

walking in this space is like walking in the mind.

hod u ovom prostoru kao hod u umu.

And the last thing

Zadnja stvar

is that this algorithm also identifies what are our intuitions,

je da ovaj algoritam također identificira što su naše intuicije,

of which words should lead in the neighborhood of introspection.

koje riječi vode u susjedstvo introspekcije.

So for instance,

Na primjer,

words such as "self," "guilt," "reason," "emotion,"

riječi kao "sebe", "krivnja", "razum", "osjećaj",

are very close to "introspection,"

su vrlo blizu "introspekciji",

but other words,

no ostale riječi,

such as "red," "football," "candle," "banana,"

kao što su "crvena", "nogomet", "svijeća", "banana",

are just very far away.

su stvarno jako daleko.

And so once we've built the space,

Jednom kada smo napravili prostor,

the question of the history of introspection,

pitanje povijesti introspekcije,

or of the history of any concept

ili povijesti bilo kojeg koncepta

which before could seem abstract and somehow vague,

koji bi se ranije smatrao apstraktnim i nekako maglovitim,

becomes concrete --

postaje konkretan --

becomes amenable to quantitative science.

postaje primamljiv kvantitativnoj znanosti.

All that we have to do is take the books,

Sve što trebamo napraviti je uzeti knjige,

we digitize them,

digitalizirati ih,

and we take this stream of words as a trajectory

i uzeti ovu rijeku riječi kao putanju

and project them into the space,

i projicirati ju u prostoru,

and then we ask whether this trajectory spends significant time

i onda pitati troši li ova putanja puno vremena

circling closely to the concept of introspection.

kružeći blizu koncepta introspekcije.

And with this,

S ovime,

we could analyze the history of introspection

možemo analizirati povijest introspekcije

in the ancient Greek tradition,

u tradiciji stare Grčke,

for which we have the best available written record.

za koju imamo najbolje moguće pisane izvore.

So what we did is we took all the books --

Ono što smo napravili je da smo uzeli knjige --

we just ordered them by time --

vremenski ih posložili --

for each book we take the words

iz svake knjige uzmemo riječi

and we project them to the space,

i projiciramo ih u prostor,

and then we ask for each word how close it is to introspection,

i pitamo za svaku riječ koliko je blizu introspekciji,

and we just average that.

i izračunamo prosjek.

And then we ask whether, as time goes on and on,

Tada pitamo, kako vrijeme ide sve dalje,

these books get closer, and closer and closer

približavaju li se knjige bliže i bliže

to the concept of introspection.

konceptu introspekcije.

And this is exactly what happens in the ancient Greek tradition.

Ovo je točno ono što se dogodilo u tradiciji antičke Grčke.

So you can see that for the oldest books in the Homeric tradition,

Možete vidjeti da u najstarijim knjigama homerske tradicije,

there is a small increase with books getting closer to introspection.

postoji malo pojava knjiga koje se približavaju introspekciji.

But about four centuries before Christ,

No, oko 4 stoljeća prije Krista,

this starts ramping up very rapidly to an almost five-fold increase

ovo se počinje ubrzano povećavati na čak peterostruko povećanje

of books getting closer, and closer and closer

knjigama koje dolaze bliže i bliže i bliže

to the concept of introspection.

konceptu introspekcije.

And one of the nice things about this

Jedna od lijepih stvari u vezi ovoga

is that now we can ask

je da možemo pitati

whether this is also true in a different, independent tradition.

je li ovo također istina za drugačije, nezavisne tradicije.

So we just ran this same analysis on the Judeo-Christian tradition,

Istu analizu smo napravili i za židovsko kršćansku tradiciju,

and we got virtually the same pattern.

i dobili smo virtualno isti uzorak.

Again, you see a small increase for the oldest books in the Old Testament,

Opet, vidite mali pomak od najstarijih knjiga u Starom zavjetu,

and then it increases much more rapidly

pa se povećava puno brže

in the new books of the New Testament.

u novim knjigama Novog zavjeta.

And then we get the peak of introspection

I onda imamo vrh introspekcije

in "The Confessions of Saint Augustine,"

u Ispovjestima Svetog Augustina,

about four centuries after Christ.

oko 4 stoljeća nakon Krista.

And this was very important,

Ovo je bilo vrlo važno,

because Saint Augustine had been recognized by scholars,

jer je Sveti Augustin prepoznat od strane učenjaka,

philologists, historians,

filologa, povjesničara,

as one of the founders of introspection.

kao jedan od osnivača introspekcije.

Actually, some believe him to be the father of modern psychology.

Zapravo, neki vjeruju kako je on otac moderne psihologije.

So our algorithm,

Dakle naš algoritam,

which has the virtue of being quantitative,

koji ima vrlinu da je kvantitativan,

of being objective,

objektivan,

and of course of being extremely fast --

i naravno, iznimno brz --

it just runs in a fraction of a second --

treba mu dijelić sekunde --

can capture some of the most important conclusions

može uhvatiti neke od najvažnijh zaključaka

of this long tradition of investigation.

ove duge tradicije istraživanja.

And this is in a way one of the beauties of science,

To je na neki način jedna od ljepota znanosti,

which is that now this idea can be translated

da se sada ova ideja može prevesti

and generalized to a whole lot of different domains.

i generalizirati na potpuno druge aspekte.

So in the same way that we asked about the past of human consciousness,

Dakle na isti način na koji smo se pitali o povijesti ljudske svijesti,

maybe the most challenging question we can pose to ourselves

možda najizazovnije pitanje koje si možemo postaviti

is whether this can tell us something about the future of our own consciousness.

je može li nam ovo reći nešto o budućnosti naše svijesti.

To put it more precisely,

Točnije,

whether the words we say today

mogu li nam riječi koje koristimo danas

can tell us something of where our minds will be in a few days,

reći nešto o našim umovima za par dana,

in a few months

mjeseci

or a few years from now.

ili za godinu.

And in the same way many of us are now wearing sensors

Na isti način na koji mnogo nas nosi senzore

that detect our heart rate,

koji prepoznaju naš rad srca,

our respiration,

naše disanje,

our genes,

naše gene,

on the hopes that this may help us prevent diseases,

u nadama da će nam to pomoći spriječiti bolesti,

we can ask whether monitoring and analyzing the words we speak,

možemo se pitati može li nam praćenje i analiza riječi koje govorimo,

we tweet, we email, we write,

tvitamo, šaljemo e-mailom, pišemo,

can tell us ahead of time whether something may go wrong with our minds.

reći unaprijed da nešto nije u redu s našim umovima.

And with Guillermo Cecchi,

S Guillermom Cecchijem,

who has been my brother in this adventure,

koji mi je bio brat u ovoj avanturi,

we took on this task.

sam se bacio na ovaj zadatak.

And we did so by analyzing the recorded speech of 34 young people

To smo učinili analizirajući snimane govore 34 mlade osobe

who were at a high risk of developing schizophrenia.

koje su bile u visokom riziku razvijanja shizofrenije.

And so what we did is, we measured speech at day one,

Napravili smo ovo, mjerili smo govore prvi dan,

and then we asked whether the properties of the speech could predict,

i pitali se mogu li značajke govora predvidjeti,

within a window of almost three years,

u okviru od skoro 3 godine,

the future development of psychosis.

budući razvoj psihoze.

But despite our hopes,

No unatoč našim nadama,

we got failure after failure.

postigli smo neuspjeh za neuspjehom.

There was just not enough information in semantics

Nema dovoljno informacija u semantici

to predict the future organization of the mind.

da se predvidi budućnost organizacije uma.

It was good enough

Bilo je dovoljno dobro

to distinguish between a group of schizophrenics and a control group,

da bi se vidjela razlika između grupe shizofrenika i kontrolne grupe,

a bit like we had done for the ancient texts,

otprilike kao i za antičke tekstove,

but not to predict the future onset of psychosis.

no ne i za predviđanje buduće psihoze.

But then we realized

No, onda smo shvatili

that maybe the most important thing was not so much what they were saying,

da možda najvažnija stvar nije toliko što su govorili

but how they were saying it.

nego kako su to govorili.

More specifically,

Specifičnije,

it was not in which semantic neighborhoods the words were,

ne radi se o tome u kojem semantičkom susjedstvu se nalaze riječi,

but how far and fast they jumped

već koliko daleko i brzo su skočile

from one semantic neighborhood to the other one.

iz jednog semantičkog susjedstva u drugi.

And so we came up with this measure,

Smislili smo mjeru,

which we termed semantic coherence,

koju smo nazvali semantička povezanost,

which essentially measures the persistence of speech within one semantic topic,

koja suštinski mjeri dosljednost govora unutar jedne semantičke teme,

within one semantic category.

jedne semantičke kategorije.

And it turned out to be that for this group of 34 people,

Pokazalo se da je za ovu grupu od 34 osobe,

the algorithm based on semantic coherence could predict,

algoritam mogao, na temelju semantičke povezanosti, predvidjeti

with 100 percent accuracy,

sa 100% preciznošću,

who developed psychosis and who will not.

tko će razviti psihozu, a tko ne.

And this was something that could not be achieved --

To je nešto što nije moglo biti ostvareno --

not even close --

ni blizu --

with all the other existing clinical measures.

sa svim drugim postojećim kliničkim mjerama.

And I remember vividly, while I was working on this,

Sjećam se živo dok sam radio na tome,

I was sitting at my computer

sjedio sam za računalom

and I saw a bunch of tweets by Polo --

i vidio puno Polovih tvitova --

Polo had been my first student back in Buenos Aires,

Polo je bio moj prvi učenik u Buenos Airesu,

and at the time he was living in New York.

i u to vrijeme je živio u New Yorku.

And there was something in this tweets --

Bilo je nešto u njegovim tvitovima --

I could not tell exactly what because nothing was said explicitly --

nisam točno mogao razaznati što, jer nije bilo ničega eksplicitnog --

but I got this strong hunch,

no dobio sam snažan osjećaj,

this strong intuition, that something was going wrong.

snažan predosjećaj, da je nešto pogrešno.

So I picked up the phone, and I called Polo,

Uzeo sam telefon i nazvao Pola,

and in fact he was not feeling well.

i ustvari se nije osjećao dobro.

And this simple fact,

Ova jednostavna činjenica,

that reading in between the lines,

to čitanje između redova,

I could sense, through words, his feelings,

mogao sam osjetiti kroz riječi, njegove emocije,

was a simple, but very effective way to help.

je bio jednostavan, ali vrlo efektivan način za pomoć.

What I tell you today

Ono što vam kažem danas,

is that we're getting close to understanding

je da se približavamo razumijevanju

how we can convert this intuition that we all have,

kako možemo pretvoriti intuiciju koju svi imamo,

that we all share,

koju svi dijelimo,

into an algorithm.

u algoritam.

And in doing so,

Radeći to,

we may be seeing in the future a very different form of mental health,

možemo vidjeti u budućnosti vrlo drugačiji oblik mentalnog zdravlja,

based on objective, quantitative and automated analysis

baziranog na objektivnim, kvantitativnim i automatskim analizama

of the words we write,

riječi koje pišemo,

of the words we say.

i koje govorimo.

Gracias.

Hvala.

(Applause)

(Pljesak)