or more precisely,

我有學者症候群(一種認知障礙)，

a high-functioning

更確切地說

autistic savant.

我是具超智商的

It's a rare condition.

自閉症認知障礙者。

And rarer still when accompanied,

有學者症的人是很稀少的。

as in my case,

而我的情況更是罕見,

by self-awareness

因為我還具有

and a mastery of language.

自我認知和

Very often when I meet someone

能掌握語言的能力。

and they learn this about me,

常常當很多人與我初次相遇,

there's a certain kind of awkwardness.

當他們知道我的行情時,

I can see it in their eyes.

場面就會變得有些尷尬。

They want to ask me something.

我從他們的眼神中可讀到

And in the end, quite often,

他們有問題要問我。

the urge is stronger than they are

通常到最後

and they blurt it out:

他們不法再忍耐下去,

"If I give you my date of birth,

於是就會脫口而出的問到:

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

"假如我告訴你-我的出生日期，

(Laughter)

你能告訴我-我是星期幾出生的嗎？”

Or they mention cube roots

（笑）

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

或者跟我討論數學立方根，

I hope you'll forgive me

或要求我背誦很長的數字或文章。

if I don't perform

我希望你們能原諒我，

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

如果我今天沒有表演

I'm going to talk instead

這種學者症獨角戲給你們欣賞。

about something

我將要談

far more interesting

的話題是比

than dates of birth or cube roots --

出生年月日

a little deeper

或立方根更有趣-

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

帶你們更深入更接近我的內在世界;

I want to talk to you briefly

而不是只看我超智商的表面相。

about perception.

我想和你們簡短的談談

When he was writing the plays and the short stories

什麼是認知。

that would make his name,

安東契訶夫是以他寫的戲劇和

Anton Chekhov kept a notebook

短篇小說而聞名,

in which he noted down

他總是在隨身

his observations

攜帶的筆記本中

of the world around him --

記下所觀察到的

little details

周遭世界-

that other people seem to miss.

一些其他人

Every time I read Chekhov

似乎沒注意到的小細節。

and his unique vision of human life,

每次當我讀到契訶夫的書,

I'm reminded of why I too

與他的獨特眼光來品味人生，

became a writer.

就再次提醒我自己這也是

In my books,

為什麼我也成了一名作家的原因。

I explore the nature of perception

在我的書中，

and how different kinds of perceiving

我探索認知的本質，

create different kinds of knowing

經由各種不同類型的察覺

and understanding.

進而創造不同的知識

Here are three questions

和理解。

drawn from my work.

我準備了三個問題

Rather than try to figure them out,

告訴您們我的世界,

I'm going to ask you to consider for a moment

與其要你們試著去解答,

the intuitions

我要你們考慮片刻,利用你們的

and the gut instincts

立即直覺

that are going through your head and your heart

和本能的反應,

as you look at them.

就是那種當一入眼簾後,通過你的頭跟心(身體)

For example, the calculation:

之後的直覺來回答問題。

can you feel where on the number line

舉例來說,這個計算題,

the solution is likely to fall?

是否你可以大約推測出它

Or look at the foreign word and the sounds:

最可能的數字?

can you get a sense of the range of meanings

或是看到這些外國語或聽到它的發音。

that it's pointing you towards?

你能感覺到它們所要表達出

And in terms of the line of poetry,

的意義嗎?

why does the poet use the word hare

在這首詩的章節中,

rather than rabbit?

為什麼詩人用"野兔"

I'm asking you to do this

而不用"兔子"這個詞呢?

because I believe our personal perceptions, you see,

我要求你們這樣做，

are at the heart

是因為我認為我們個人對事務的認知

of how we acquire knowledge.

是我們如何獲取

Aesthetic judgments,

知識的主要方式。

rather than abstract reasoning,

用對感觀上的感受(審美觀),

guide and shape the process

取代依靠抽象推理，

by which we all come to know

引導和塑造的過程來

what we know.

認識學習知識。然後

I'm an extreme example of this.

瞭解事務。

My worlds of words and numbers

而我個人就是一個極佳的例子。

blur with color, emotion

在我的世界裡,文字和數字

and personality.

是混雜帶有顏色,有情感

As Juan said,

和個性的。

it's the condition that scientists call synesthesia,

就像關(Juan)所說的

an unusual cross-talk

是科學家們稱之的"聯覺"症狀,

between the senses.

也就是一種感覺和另一種感覺之間

Here are the numbers one to 12

不尋常的交際。

as I see them --

這是數字1至12的圖，

every number with its own shape and character.

但我看它們是-

One is a flash of white light.

每一個數字有專屬的形狀和特色。

Six is a tiny and very sad black hole.

1是閃爍的白光。

The sketches are in black and white here,

6是一個憂傷微小的黑洞。

but in my mind they have colors.

呈現你們眼前的這圖只有黑色和白色，

Three is green.

但在我心中，他們有顏色。

Four is blue.

3是綠色。

Five is yellow.

4是藍色的。

I paint as well.

5是黃色的。

And here is one of my paintings.

我也畫畫。

It's a multiplication of two prime numbers.

這是我的其中一個作品。

Three-dimensional shapes

顯示兩個質數的乘法。

and the space they create in the middle

呈三次空間的形狀,

creates a new shape,

而在兩個質數中間的空間中有

the answer to the sum.

另一個新的形狀，

What about bigger numbers?

也就是解答。

Well you can't get much bigger than Pi,

那麼如果是較大的數字呢?

the mathematical constant.

沒有任何數字比Pi(π,圓周率)更無限，

It's an infinite number --

π是數學常數。

literally goes on forever.

是一個無限的數字-

In this painting that I made

理論上是永無止境的延伸。

of the first 20 decimals of Pi,

在此畫中我畫出的π是

I take the colors

直到小數點後的第20位為止，

and the emotions and the textures

我用了許多色彩,

and I pull them all together

情緒和質感

into a kind of rolling numerical landscape.

一同來顯現出一種

But it's not only numbers that I see in colors.

滾動的數字景觀。

Words too, for me,

對我而言,不是只有數字具有顏色。

have colors and emotions

對我來說，字也一樣

and textures.

有顏色,情感

And this is an opening phrase

和質感紋路.

from the novel "Lolita."

納博科夫知名小說

And Nabokov was himself synesthetic.

"洛麗塔"的開場白。

And you can see here

大量利用聯感詞(用某種感覺的字眼表達另一種感覺)。

how my perception of the sound L

你可以看到,

helps the alliteration

在這裡因我對 L發音的感覺

to jump right out.

有助於我瞭解

Another example:

句中的字頭押韻，

a little bit more mathematical.

另一例子:

And I wonder if some of you will notice

牽扯到一點數學。

the construction of the sentence

我很好奇想知道是否在此有些人

from "The Great Gatsby."

會注意到"大亨小傳"

There is a procession of syllables --

中句法的結構?

wheat, one;

一連串有組織的音節--

prairies, two;

麥，1個音節;

lost Swede towns, three --

草原，2個音節;

one, two, three.

失城記(消失的瑞典城鎮),3個音節-

And this effect is very pleasant on the mind,

1，2，3。

and it helps the sentence

很有節奏,讀起來心情非常愉快，

to feel right.

所以句子

Let's go back to the questions

很通暢恰好。

I posed you a moment ago.

讓我們回到我

64 multiplied by 75.

剛才提出的問題上。

If some of you play chess,

64乘以75。

you'll know that 64

如果你下國際象棋，

is a square number,

你就會知道，

and that's why chessboards,

64是一個平方數，

eight by eight,

這就是為什麼棋盤，

have 64 squares.

八乘八，

So that gives us a form

有64個方格。

that we can picture, that we can perceive.

這給了我們一個

What about 75?

們可以想像的模型，

Well if 100,

那75呢?

if we think of 100 as being like a square,

就用100來想像，

75 would look like this.

如果我們認為100是廣場，

So what we need to do now

75就是這樣的的大小。

is put those two pictures

所以我們現在

together in our mind --

只要把那兩張照片

something like this.

在我們的腦海中併在一起 -

64 becomes 6,400.

像這樣。

And in the right-hand corner,

64變為6400。

you don't have to calculate anything.

而在右下角，

Four across, four up and down --

你不須要計算。

it's 16.

4個格子,上下四個格子-

So what the sum is actually asking you to do

所以是16。

is 16,

那麼真正須要計算的總和

16, 16.

是16，

That's a lot easier

16，16(3個16)。

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

很簡單吧!

It's 16, 16, 16, 48,

我相信比學校教的計算方法容易多了。

4,800 --

那16，16，16，48(3個16)，

4,800,

4800(48x100)

the answer to the sum.

- 4800，

Easy when you know how.

就是正確答案。

(Laughter)

當你知道方法就很簡單!

The second question was an Icelandic word.

（笑）

I'm assuming there are not many people here

第二個問題是有關冰島文字。

who speak Icelandic.

我推測在座沒有多少人

So let me narrow the choices down to two.

會說冰島話。

Hnugginn:

因此，讓我縮小你們的選擇範圍到兩個。

is it a happy word,

Hnugginn：

or a sad word?

這是一個表示高興的字，

What do you say?

或悲傷的字？

Okay.

你怎麼想？

Some people say it's happy.

好!

Most people, a majority of people,

有人說是快樂的字。

say sad.

但很多人，大多數的人說是

And it actually means sad.

悲傷的詞字。

(Laughter)

它實際上意味著悲哀。

Why do, statistically,

（笑）

a majority of people

在統計學上為什麼

say that a word is sad, in this case,

大多數人說這一個字

heavy in other cases?

,在此例,是悲傷的意思,

In my theory, language evolves in such a way

別的例子可能指強勢?

that sounds match,

我的理論是:語言的發展是

correspond with, the subjective,

與聲音相襯的方式進行，

with the personal,

加上相對應的主觀感覺，

intuitive experience

及聽者個人的

of the listener.

直覺經驗

Let's have a look at the third question.

來演化。

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

讓我們來看第三個問題。

Words, like numbers,

這是約翰濟慈詩中的一句。

express fundamental relationships

文字就像數字一樣,

between objects

呈現對於目標,事件之間

and events and forces

的根本互動關係,

that constitute our world.

驅動組成

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

我們的世界。

should in the course of our lives

這也為什麼生存在這世界的我們,

absorb intuitively those relationships.

理所當然的會在此過程中

And poets, like other artists,

直覺地承接這些關係。

play with those intuitive understandings.

詩人們，像其他的藝術家一樣，

In the case of hare,

細細把玩著對直覺的理解。

it's an ambiguous sound in English.

像這例子為什麼用野兔這詞，

It can also mean the fibers that grow from a head.

野兔在英語的用法有另一個含糊不清的意義。

And if we think of that --

也可指長在頭上的毫毛。

let me put the picture up --

那麼如果我們想像一下-

the fibers represent vulnerability.

-讓我用圖像來告訴您們-

They yield to the slightest movement

毫毛代表脆弱。

or motion or emotion.

它們會被任何輕微的風吹草動

So what you have is an atmosphere

或情緒所影響。

of vulnerability and tension.

所以可以創造出

The hare itself, the animal --

脆弱和緊張氣氛。

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

野兔本身-

why a hare?

不是貓，不是狗，而是野兔 -

Because think of the picture --

為什麼用野兔這個詞？

not the word, the picture.

想像 這個情景的圖片

The overlong ears,

而不是字，想像圖片。

the overlarge feet,

過長的耳朵，

helps us to picture, to feel intuitively,

超大的腳，

what it means to limp

幫助我們去想像，直觀地去感受，

and to tremble.

這意味著什麼:

So in these few minutes,

跛腳，顫抖。

I hope I've been able to share

我希望在這幾分鐘裡

a little bit of my vision of things

我已經跟您們分享

and to show you

一些些我視野中的世界,

that words can have colors and emotions,

並且讓你們知道

numbers, shapes and personalities.

文字有色彩和情感，

The world is richer,

數字，形狀和個性。

vaster

這世界是比我們

than it too often seems to be.

常以為的

I hope that I've given you the desire

更富麗的，更遼闊的。

to learn to see the world with new eyes.

我希望我已經挑起你們

Thank you.

用新的眼光學習看世界的動機。

(Applause)

謝謝。