Different ways of knowing | Daniel Tammet

翻译人员: Lawrence Wang 校对人员: Angelia King

I'm a savant,

我是个学者

or more precisely,

或者更准确地说，

a high-functioning

一个高功能

autistic savant.

自闭症学者。

It's a rare condition.

这是一种少见的情况。

And rarer still when accompanied,

更罕见的是，

as in my case,

我的这种状况，

by self-awareness

还伴随自我感知意识

and a mastery of language.

而且还精通语言。

Very often when I meet someone

比较常见的是，当我遇到一些人

and they learn this about me,

他们知道我的这些情况，

there's a certain kind of awkwardness.

这就会有点尴尬。

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,

经常是到了最后

the urge is stronger than they are

他们的强烈好奇就绷不住了

and they blurt it out:

他们会脱口而问：

"If I give you my date of birth,

“如果我告诉你我的生日，

can you tell me what day of the week I was born on?"

你能告诉我，我是星期几出生的吗？”

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Or they mention cube roots

或者他们会提到立方根

or ask me to recite a long number or long text.

又或者让我背一个很长的数字或文字。

I hope you'll forgive me

请你们原谅我

if I don't perform

今天我不会在这儿展示

a kind of one-man savant show for you today.

这类似的“学者表演”

I'm going to talk instead

今天我不谈这些

about something

说点其它的

far more interesting

更有趣的话题

than dates of birth or cube roots --

而不是生日和立方根之类的--

a little deeper

会有一点深奥

and a lot closer, to my mind, than work.

会比我的天赋更接近我的思想。

I want to talk to you briefly

我想简单的和你们谈谈

about perception.

关于感知。

When he was writing the plays and the short stories

契诃夫写那些让他扬名的

that would make his name,

剧本和小故事时，

Anton Chekhov kept a notebook

他习惯随身带着笔记本，

in which he noted down

随手记录

his observations

记录下他的观察

of the world around him --

记录下他周围的世界

little details

那些都是些小细节

that other people seem to miss.

可其他人易忽略那些细节。

Every time I read Chekhov

每次我读契诃夫的作品

and his unique vision of human life,

以及他对人们生活的独特见解

I'm reminded of why I too

我都认识到

became a writer.

为什么我也能成为一个作家。

In my books,

在我的书里，

I explore the nature of perception

我探索了感知的本质，

and how different kinds of perceiving

以及不同的感觉

create different kinds of knowing

如何创造出不同的感知

and understanding.

和不同的理解。

Here are three questions

下面有三个问题

drawn from my work.

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

我更想邀请你们感受一下

the intuitions

那种直觉

and the gut instincts

和那种本能

that are going through your head and your heart

那些当你看到题目时

as you look at them.

在你的头脑和内心里出现的直觉和本能。

For example, the calculation:

例如这个计算题，

can you feel where on the number line

你能感知到那行数字

the solution is likely to fall?

答案可能是多少吗？

Or look at the foreign word and the sounds:

或者看看这个外语单词和读音

can you get a sense of the range of meanings

你能猜到大概的意思吗

that it's pointing you towards?

那种直觉给出的答案？

And in terms of the line of poetry,

这行诗，

why does the poet use the word hare

诗人为什么用hare （兔）这个词

rather than rabbit?

而不是用rabbit（兔）？

I'm asking you to do this

我请你们思考这些

because I believe our personal perceptions, you see,

因为我相信我们的个人感知

are at the heart

是我们如何获取知识的

of how we acquire knowledge.

核心

Aesthetic judgments,

感知判断，

rather than abstract reasoning,

而非抽象推理，

guide and shape the process

指导并塑造了我们了解事物的过程

by which we all come to know

由此我们都会了解到

what we know.

我们所感知的东西。

I'm an extreme example of this.

我是一个极端的例子。

My worlds of words and numbers

在我的文字和数字世界里，

blur with color, emotion

色彩，情感

and personality.

和个性都是混合在一起的。

As Juan said,

就像Juan胡安所说的，

it's the condition that scientists call synesthesia,

科学家们称这种情况是联觉，

an unusual cross-talk

一种不常见的通感

between the senses.

连结各种感觉。

Here are the numbers one to 12

这里是数字1到12

as I see them --

在我眼里

every number with its own shape and character.

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

Six is a tiny and very sad black hole.

6是微小而悲伤的黑洞

The sketches are in black and white here,

这些速写是黑白的

but in my mind they have colors.

但是在我眼里他们是有色彩的。

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

Three-dimensional shapes

呈三维形状

and the space they create in the middle

和中间形成的空间

creates a new shape,

又组成了一个新的形状，

the answer to the sum.

就是他们的总和。

What about bigger numbers?

更"大"的数字会怎么样呢？

Well you can't get much bigger than Pi,

你不能得到一个比圆周率派Pi更“大”的数字了，

the mathematical constant.

它是数学常数。

It's an infinite number --

是一个无限的数字--

literally goes on forever.

就是说它永远不会结束。

In this painting that I made

在我画的这个图里，

of the first 20 decimals of Pi,

是派Pi的前20位数字，

I take the colors

我使用颜色，

and the emotions and the textures

情感和纹理

and I pull them all together

我把这些组合到一起，

into a kind of rolling numerical landscape.

就成了一个起伏的数字风景画。

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,

对我来说，文字也一样

have colors and emotions

有颜色，情感，

and textures.

和纹理。

And this is an opening phrase

这是

from the novel "Lolita."

出自小说《洛丽塔》的开场白(Lolita, light of my life)。

And Nabokov was himself synesthetic.

作者纳博科夫本身就是有联觉的

And you can see here

你从这里可以看出来，

how my perception of the sound L

我对L这个音的感觉

helps the alliteration

使得字头押韵

to jump right out.

能突出感觉。

Another example:

另一个例子

a little bit more mathematical.

稍微有一点数学化了。

And I wonder if some of you will notice

我想知道你们中的某些人是否会注意到

the construction of the sentence

出自

from "The Great Gatsby."

《了不起的盖茨比》 （又译《大亨小传》）的这个句子结构。

There is a procession of syllables --

有这么一行音节--

wheat, one;

谷物，一个音节；

prairies, two;

大草原，二个音节；

lost Swede towns, three --

丢失的瑞典人镇，三个音节--

one, two, three.

一，二，三。

And this effect is very pleasant on the mind,

这种押韵的效果让人感到身心非常愉悦，

and it helps the sentence

也让我们感到句子

to feel right.

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

64 multiplied by 75.

64乘以75

If some of you play chess,

如果你们中有人下棋，

you'll know that 64

你会知道64

is a square number,

是一个平方数

and that's why chessboards,

这也是为什么棋盘

eight by eight,

边长为8×8

have 64 squares.

而有了64个方格

So that gives us a form

这样我们就得到一个表格

that we can picture, that we can perceive.

用来画图和感知。

What about 75?

那么如果是75呢？

Well if 100,

假如是100

if we think of 100 as being like a square,

如果我们把100想成一个正方形，

75 would look like this.

75就会是这个样子。

So what we need to do now

那么我们现在要做的就是

is put those two pictures

把这两个图组合起

together in our mind --

一同放入脑海中-

something like this.

就是这个样子。

64 becomes 6,400.

64就成了6,400

And in the right-hand corner,

在右下角

you don't have to calculate anything.

你不需要任何计算

Four across, four up and down --

4个横跨的，4个上下的--

it's 16.

得到16.

So what the sum is actually asking you to do

那么你需要做的就是

is 16,

加总和16，

16, 16.

16， 16。

That's a lot easier

这简单多了

than the way that the school taught you to do math, I'm sure.

我相信比学校教给你的方法简单。

It's 16, 16, 16, 48,

16，16，16， 得到48.

4,800 --

那么就是4,800--

4,800,

4,800

the answer to the sum.

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。

I'm assuming there are not many people here

我相信在座的没有几个人

who speak Icelandic.

会说冰岛语的。

So let me narrow the choices down to two.

那么我把问题缩减成两个。

Hnugginn:

Hnugginn:

is it a happy word,

这单词是指快乐的意思

or a sad word?

还是指悲伤的？

What do you say?

你怎么认为？

Okay.

好的。

Some people say it's happy.

有人说是快乐的，

Most people, a majority of people,

但是大多数人

say sad.

说是悲伤的。

And it actually means sad.

这个词实际意思是悲伤的。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Why do, statistically,

为什么统计下来

a majority of people

在此，大多数人认为

say that a word is sad, in this case,

这个词是悲伤的，

heavy in other cases?

而在另一个情景里，是痛苦的意思？

In my theory, language evolves in such a way

根据我的理论，语言的发展经历了这样的过程

that sounds match,

匹配声音

correspond with, the subjective,

对应主题

with the personal,

同时伴随着

intuitive experience

听者个人

of the listener.

的直观经验来发展。

Let's have a look at the third question.

让我们看看第三个问题。

It's a line from a poem by John Keats.

这是约翰·济慈的诗里的一句。

Words, like numbers,

文字像数字，

express fundamental relationships

能够表达本质关系

between objects

由外物

and events and forces

事件和力量

that constitute our world.

组成我们的世界。

It stands to reason that we, existing in this world,

显然，我们生存在这个世界上

should in the course of our lives

应该在我们的有生之年

absorb intuitively those relationships.

直观地汲取这些关系。

And poets, like other artists,

诗人就像其他艺术家一样，

play with those intuitive understandings.

演绎着那些直观的理解。

In the case of hare,

兔子的那个问题，

it's an ambiguous sound in English.

hare在英语里是一个有点含糊的词

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。

And if we think of that --

如果我们考虑到这个--

let me put the picture up --

让我把这个图拿上来--

the fibers represent vulnerability.

毛发代表着脆弱

They yield to the slightest movement

他们让步于最轻微的运动

or motion or emotion.

或手势，或情感。

So what you have is an atmosphere

所以你就得到一种

of vulnerability and tension.

脆弱紧张的感觉气氛。

The hare itself, the animal --

那个兔子，一个动物-

not a cat, not a dog, a hare --

不是猫，不是狗，而是一只兔子--

why a hare?

为什么是一只兔子？

Because think of the picture --

因为联想到这副图，

not the word, the picture.

不是这句话，而是这个图。

The overlong ears,

超长的耳朵

the overlarge feet,

超大的脚

helps us to picture, to feel intuitively,

帮助我们描绘、去凭直觉感知

what it means to limp

跛脚的感觉

and to tremble.

和颤抖的感觉。

So in these few minutes,

在这几分钟里，

I hope I've been able to share

我希望我能够分享

a little bit of my vision of things

一些我的视角

and to show you

并向你们展现

that words can have colors and emotions,

文字也有颜色，情感

numbers, shapes and personalities.

数字，形状和性格。

The world is richer,

这世界

vaster

比它看起来会更丰富，

than it too often seems to be.

更广阔。

I hope that I've given you the desire

希望我给你们带来一种渴望

to learn to see the world with new eyes.

从新视角来看待这个世界。

Thank you.

谢谢。

(Applause)

（掌声）