and we are embedded in a very large cosmos,

我們生活在一個巨大的宇宙中，

and the fact is that we are not very good at understanding reality

然後實際情況是， 我們並不是真正了解這個世界

at either of those scales,

無論是大型或微型的世界，

and that's because our brains

這是因為我們的大腦

haven't evolved to understand the world at that scale.

還沒有發達到理解 這個世界有多大。

Instead, we're trapped on this very thin slice of perception

相反的， 我們被局限在這個狹小的

right in the middle.

感知範圍中。

But it gets strange, because even at that slice of reality that we call home,

但是奇怪的是， 即使像我們撥電話回家這樣的事，

we're not seeing most of the action that's going on.

這其中大部分的動作 我們都沒有看清是怎麼一回事。

So take the colors of our world.

看看我們所處世界的色彩。

This is light waves, electromagnetic radiation that bounces off objects

它是由物體反射的光波，電磁波。

and it hits specialized receptors in the back of our eyes.

射線直接擊中位於我們眼球後部 的一個專門接收部位。

But we're not seeing all the waves out there.

但是我們看不到所有的波。

In fact, what we see

事實上，我們看到的

is less than a 10 trillionth of what's out there.

不到 10 兆分之一。

So you have radio waves and microwaves

所以，你們現在正被無數的 無線電波、微波、

and X-rays and gamma rays passing through your body right now

X 光、伽馬射線穿過身體

and you're completely unaware of it,

卻渾然不知。

because you don't come with the proper biological receptors

因為人類沒有適當的生物感覺器官

for picking it up.

來感知這些波。

There are thousands of cell phone conversations

此時，數以萬計的通話訊號

passing through you right now,

正從你身邊通過，

and you're utterly blind to it.

你完全看不見這些波。

Now, it's not that these things are inherently unseeable.

這並不是因為這些波本身不可見。

Snakes include some infrared in their reality,

蛇可以看到某些紅外線，

and honeybees include ultraviolet in their view of the world,

蜜蜂可以看到紫外線，

and of course we build machines in the dashboards of our cars

我們可以在汽車儀表板內安裝裝置，

to pick up on signals in the radio frequency range,

來接收無線電波的信號，

and we built machines in hospitals to pick up on the X-ray range.

醫院裡使用相關設備來接收 X 光。

But you can't sense any of those by yourself,

我們無法以五官去感受這些波，

at least not yet,

至少在目前階段無法做到，

because you don't come equipped with the proper sensors.

因為你的身體 沒有適當的裝備來接收它們。

Now, what this means is that our experience of reality

這意味著我們對於真實世界的感知力

is constrained by our biology,

受限於我們本身的生物構造，

and that goes against the common sense notion

這有違常理，

that our eyes and our ears and our fingertips

若我們的眼睛、耳朵、指尖

are just picking up the objective reality that's out there.

只能感知到我們周圍客觀存在的資訊。

Instead, our brains are sampling just a little bit of the world.

相反地，我們的大腦 只在這其中揀取了很小一部分。

Now, across the animal kingdom,

在整個動物王國，

different animals pick up on different parts of reality.

不同的動物會感知不一樣的實況。

So in the blind and deaf world of the tick,

在蝨子黑暗無聲的世界裡，

the important signals are temperature and butyric acid;

溫度和丁酸是重要信號；

in the world of the black ghost knifefish,

在黑魔鬼刀魚的世界裡，

its sensory world is lavishly colored by electrical fields;

電磁場 構建了 其色彩斑斕的感官世界；

and for the echolocating bat,

而對於靠迴聲定位的蝙蝠，

its reality is constructed out of air compression waves.

空氣壓縮波 構建了它們的世界。

That's the slice of their ecosystem that they can pick up on,

這就是牠們生態系統構造特點 讓他們獲取片斷的信息，

and we have a word for this in science.

在科學領域有一個詞

It's called the umwelt,

叫做「客觀世界」(umwelt），

which is the German word for the surrounding world.

這是一個德語詞彙， 意指周圍的環境。

Now, presumably, every animal assumes

或許，每一種動物都假設

that its umwelt is the entire objective reality out there,

牠的「周圍環境」 就是牠的整個客觀存在的世界，

because why would you ever stop to imagine

因為動物一般都不會無端端地想

that there's something beyond what we can sense.

在我們感知範圍外， 還有其他的東西存在。

Instead, what we all do is we accept reality

相反的，我們只接受

as it's presented to us.

實際環境呈現給我們的訊息。

Let's do a consciousness-raiser on this.

讓我們提高這方面的意識。

Imagine that you are a bloodhound dog.

想像你是一隻警犬。

Your whole world is about smelling.

你的整個世界是聞氣味。

You've got a long snout that has 200 million scent receptors in it,

你有一個長長的鼻腔， 裡面密布 2 億個嗅覺接收器。

and you have wet nostrils that attract and trap scent molecules,

你濕潤的鼻子 用以接收和捕捉氣味，

and your nostrils even have slits so you can take big nosefuls of air.

你的鼻孔甚至有縫隙 讓你可以大口吸氣。

Everything is about smell for you.

與你而言，一切東西都是氣味。

So one day, you stop in your tracks with a revelation.

某一天，你停下腳步，突然想到

You look at your human owner and you think,

你望著你的主人，在想：

"What is it like to have the pitiful, impoverished nose of a human?

人類擁有一個可憐又沒特點的鼻子 那會是個什麼情況啊？

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

What is it like when you take a feeble little noseful of air?

如果你微弱地嗅著空氣， 會是怎麼樣？

How can you not know that there's a cat 100 yards away,

你怎能不知道 100 碼以外有隻貓，

or that your neighbor was on this very spot six hours ago?"

或 6 小時前你的鄰居在這呆過？

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

So because we're humans,

因為我們是人，

we've never experienced that world of smell,

從來沒有感知過這樣的嗅覺世界，

so we don't miss it,

所以我們也不覺得遺憾，

because we are firmly settled into our umwelt.

因為我們堅守地生活在自己的環境。

But the question is, do we have to be stuck there?

但問題是， 我們是否必須困在此環境中？

So as a neuroscientist, I'm interested in the way that technology

身為一個神經學家， 我對運用某種科技很感興趣，

might expand our umwelt,

可以用它來拓展我們的環境，

and how that's going to change the experience of being human.

以及如何改變人類的感知和經歷。

So we already know that we can marry our technology to our biology,

我們都知道生物學 和科技可以結合在一起，

because there are hundreds of thousands of people walking around

因為已經有成千上萬的人 透過人工耳

with artificial hearing and artificial vision.

人工視覺在生活。

So the way this works is, you take a microphone and you digitize the signal,

方法是， 拿著一個麥克風，把信號數位化，

and you put an electrode strip directly into the inner ear.

將一個電極帶植入內耳。

Or, with the retinal implant, you take a camera

在視網膜植入一個攝像頭

and you digitize the signal, and then you plug an electrode grid

把信號數位化，然後插入一個電極柵

directly into the optic nerve.

直接傳導進入視神經。

And as recently as 15 years ago,

就在 15 年前，

there were a lot of scientists who thought these technologies wouldn't work.

很多科學家認為這些技術不可行。

Why? It's because these technologies speak the language of Silicon Valley,

為什麼呢？因為這些高科技 只是矽谷的方法，

and it's not exactly the same dialect as our natural biological sense organs.

它們和生物學的各個器官不完全相同。

But the fact is that it works;

但事實上這是可行的；

the brain figures out how to use the signals just fine.

只要大腦知道 怎麼運用這些信號就可以了。

Now, how do we understand that?

但是我們怎麼讀懂它們的語言呢？

Well, here's the big secret:

這裡有個秘密：

Your brain is not hearing or seeing any of this.

大腦本身其實根本就 看不見也聽不懂任何東西。

Your brain is locked in a vault of silence and darkness inside your skull.

大腦如同被你的腦殼 封閉在一個無光無聲的世界。

All it ever sees are electrochemical signals

大腦所看到的是電化學訊號

that come in along different data cables,

這些訊號來自不同的資料傳輸源。

and this is all it has to work with, and nothing more.

這就是大腦要處理的東西，別無其它。

Now, amazingly,

令人驚訝的是，

the brain is really good at taking in these signals

大腦真的很善於獲取這些訊號，

and extracting patterns and assigning meaning,

萃取其模式， 以及它們所代表的含意。

so that it takes this inner cosmos and puts together a story

將內心世界的元素 組合在一起，

of this, your subjective world.

構建了你的主觀世界。

But here's the key point:

但是這個關鍵在於：

Your brain doesn't know, and it doesn't care,

你的大腦並不知道，也不在乎

where it gets the data from.

這些訊號從何而來。

Whatever information comes in, it just figures out what to do with it.

資訊進來了，大腦就做對應的處理，

And this is a very efficient kind of machine.

就如同一台高效運轉的機器。

It's essentially a general purpose computing device,

這本質上就是一台 一般用途為目標的計算設備，

and it just takes in everything

接收每一個訊息，

and figures out what it's going to do with it,

然後分析做出相對應的回應，

and that, I think, frees up Mother Nature

然後，釋放出自然的天性

to tinker around with different sorts of input channels.

修補來自不同的輸入通道。

So I call this the P.H. model of evolution,

我將之命名為「PH 演化模式」，

and I don't want to get too technical here,

我不想太著重於技術層面，

but P.H. stands for Potato Head,

PH 代表「馬鈴薯頭」 (Potato Head)，

and I use this name to emphasize that all these sensors

我採用這個名字是為了強調， 所有的感知受體

that we know and love, like our eyes and our ears and our fingertips,

像是我們所知所愛的 眼睛、耳朵、手指，

these are merely peripheral plug-and-play devices:

這些僅僅是周邊隨插即用的設備：

You stick them in, and you're good to go.

插上它們，即可使用。

The brain figures out what to do with the data that comes in.

大腦會根據進來的資訊 決定下一步做什麼。

And when you look across the animal kingdom,

當你綜覽動物的世界，

you find lots of peripheral devices.

你會看到許多這樣的周邊設備。

So snakes have heat pits with which to detect infrared,

蛇有感受熱能的小洞 用來探測紅外線

and the ghost knifefish has electroreceptors,

魔鬼刀魚有視網膜電圖，

and the star-nosed mole has this appendage

北美星鼻鼹鼠

with 22 fingers on it

擁有 22 個指頭

with which it feels around and constructs a 3D model of the world,

牠感受並建構三度空間立體世界，

and many birds have magnetite so they can orient

許多鳥類擁有磁感應 所以牠們能夠

to the magnetic field of the planet.

透過地球的磁場確定方向。

So what this means is that nature doesn't have to continually

這意味著 大自然不需持續

redesign the brain.

重新設計大腦。

Instead, with the principles of brain operation established,

相反地，大腦運作基本原理的建立，

all nature has to worry about is designing new peripherals.

大自然只需要設計新的周邊設備。

Okay. So what this means is this:

好。這意味著：

The lesson that surfaces

它所呈現的結果

is that there's nothing really special or fundamental

是關於我們所討論的生物學

about the biology that we come to the table with.

沒有牽涉到特別的東西或原理。

It's just what we have inherited

這只是我們

from a complex road of evolution.

從複雜的進化過程繼承來的。

But it's not what we have to stick with,

但這不是我們要去堅持的，

and our best proof of principle of this

最好的證明原理

comes from what's called sensory substitution.

來自所謂的感官替代。

And that refers to feeding information into the brain

透過獨特的感官通道，

via unusual sensory channels,

提供訊息給大腦，

and the brain just figures out what to do with it.

大腦就做相對應的處理。

Now, that might sound speculative,

或許聽起來頗具推測性，

but the first paper demonstrating this was published in the journal Nature in 1969.

但這是第一篇相關論證的文章， 發表於 1969 年的自然雜誌。

So a scientist named Paul Bach-y-Rita

一位叫做 保羅·巴赫·瑞塔的科學家

put blind people in a modified dental chair,

把盲人置於改裝過的牙科椅，

and he set up a video feed,

他裝設一台錄影設備，

and he put something in front of the camera,

在攝影機前放某個東西，

and then you would feel that

你可以感覺到那東西

poked into your back with a grid of solenoids.

從背後插入一個電磁開關電網。

So if you wiggle a coffee cup in front of the camera,

所以如果你在攝影機前擺動咖啡杯，

you're feeling that in your back,

你的背部可以感受到它，

and amazingly, blind people got pretty good

令人訝異的是， 盲人相當擅長於

at being able to determine what was in front of the camera

判定攝影機前的東西

just by feeling it in the small of their back.

只透過背部的一小部分 就感受它。

Now, there have been many modern incarnations of this.

現在，有許多這種現代化的概念。

The sonic glasses take a video feed right in front of you

聲波眼鏡在你眼前錄影

and turn that into a sonic landscape,

再將影像轉變為聲景，

so as things move around, and get closer and farther,

就像事物環繞， 走近，走遠，

it sounds like "Bzz, bzz, bzz."

聽起來就像「吱吱，吱吱，吱吱。」

It sounds like a cacophony,

聽起來刺耳，

but after several weeks, blind people start getting pretty good

但幾週之後， 盲人就很擅長

at understanding what's in front of them

依據他所聽到的

just based on what they're hearing.

來理解他面前的事物。

And it doesn't have to be through the ears:

而且不必透過耳朵：

this system uses an electrotactile grid on the forehead,

這個系統使用前額上的電網格，

so whatever's in front of the video feed, you're feeling it on your forehead.

不管前面拍攝到什麼影像， 你的前額可以感應到。

Why the forehead? Because you're not using it for much else.

為什麼用前額？ 因為你很少使用前額做其他事。

The most modern incarnation is called the brainport,

最為現代的儀器稱為 「腦端口」(brainport)，

and this is a little electrogrid that sits on your tongue,

這是一個小的電網格 安裝在舌頭上，

and the video feed gets turned into these little electrotactile signals,

將影像轉變成小的電觸覺訊號，

and blind people get so good at using this that they can throw a ball into a basket,

盲人很擅長使用這個設備 能將球投進籃子，

or they can navigate complex obstacle courses.

或是可以在複雜的 障礙賽跑訓練場行走。

They can come to see through their tongue.

他們透過舌頭看見東西。

Now, that sounds completely insane, right?

這聽起來相當瘋狂，對吧？

But remember, all vision ever is

但是記住，所有看見的東西

is electrochemical signals coursing around in your brain.

是流過大腦的電化學訊號。

Your brain doesn't know where the signals come from.

你的大腦不知道訊號來自何處。

It just figures out what to do with them.

大腦只做相對應的處理。

So my interest in my lab is sensory substitution for the deaf,

我在實驗室為聾人 做感官替代的研究，

and this is a project I've undertaken

這是我和一位研究生

with a graduate student in my lab, Scott Novich,

史考特.諾維奇所做的專案，

who is spearheading this for his thesis.

他的論文在這方面有領先的成果。

And here is what we wanted to do:

以下是我們想要做的：

we wanted to make it so that sound from the world gets converted

我們要讓來自外界的聲音 以某種方式進行轉變

in some way so that a deaf person can understand what is being said.

讓聾人可以聽懂他人說的話。

And we wanted to do this, given the power and ubiquity of portable computing,

為提供普遍性高的可擕式設備 我們想要這麼做，

we wanted to make sure that this would run on cell phones and tablets,

要確定這些功能可以在 手機和平板電腦上執行，

and also we wanted to make this a wearable,

我們也想把它做成 穿戴式電子裝置，

something that you could wear under your clothing.

一件可以穿在裡面的裝置。

So here's the concept.

就是這個概念。

So as I'm speaking, my sound is getting captured by the tablet,

如我所說的， 平板電腦接收到我的聲音，

and then it's getting mapped onto a vest that's covered in vibratory motors,

然後對映對到有振動馬達的背心，

just like the motors in your cell phone.

就如你手機的馬達。

So as I'm speaking,

當我講話時，

the sound is getting translated to a pattern of vibration on the vest.

聲音被轉換為背心上的震動模式

Now, this is not just conceptual:

這不只一種概念：

this tablet is transmitting Bluetooth, and I'm wearing the vest right now.

平板傳送藍牙訊號 而且我正穿著這件背心。

So as I'm speaking -- (Applause) --

當我講話時 -- （掌聲）--

the sound is getting translated into dynamic patterns of vibration.

聲音被轉變成震動的動能模式。

I'm feeling the sonic world around me.

我感覺到周圍的有聲世界。

So, we've been testing this with deaf people now,

我們正和聾人做這樣的測試，

and it turns out that after just a little bit of time,

結果在很短的時間之後，

people can start feeling, they can start understanding

聾人開始感覺，開始理解

the language of the vest.

背心的語言。

So this is Jonathan. He's 37 years old. He has a master's degree.

這是強納生，37 歲， 擁有碩士學位。

He was born profoundly deaf,

他天生全聾，

which means that there's a part of his umwelt that's unavailable to him.

那表示有一部分的環境他無法感受到，

So we had Jonathan train with the vest for four days, two hours a day,

所以我們讓強納生穿上背心 訓練 4 天，每天 2 小時。

and here he is on the fifth day.

這是第 5 天.

Scott Novich: You.

史考特·諾維奇：你。

David Eagleman: So Scott says a word, Jonathan feels it on the vest,

大衛.伊葛門：史考特說一個字， 強納生透過背心感受到了，

and he writes it on the board.

他把它寫在板子上。

SN: Where. Where.

史考特：那裡。那裡。

DE: Jonathan is able to translate this complicated pattern of vibrations

大衛：強納生能夠將 複雜的震動模式

into an understanding of what's being said.

翻譯成能理解的語言。