What is going on in this baby's mind? If you'd asked people this 30 years ago, most people, including psychologists, would have said that this baby was irrational, illogical, egocentric -- that he couldn't take the perspective of another person or understand cause and effect. In the last 20 years, developmental science has completely overturned that picture. So in some ways, we think that this baby's thinking is like the thinking of the most brilliant scientists.
嬰兒的腦袋內 藏什麼玄機? 若你在三十年前問這個問題, 大多數的人,包括心理專家在內, 會說,這個嬰兒愛哭鬧、 不通情理、自我中心── 他不能理解其他人的觀點 或不了解因果關係。 在過去的20年裡, 發展科學已完全顛覆了原有的見解。 就某方面而言, 我們認為,寶寶的思考 像是頂尖聰明的科學家的思考。
Let me give you just one example of this. One thing that this baby could be thinking about, that could be going on in his mind, is trying to figure out what's going on in the mind of that other baby. After all, one of the things that's hardest for all of us to do is to figure out what other people are thinking and feeling. And maybe the hardest thing of all is to figure out that what other people think and feel isn't actually exactly like what we think and feel. Anyone who's followed politics can testify to how hard that is for some people to get. We wanted to know if babies and young children could understand this really profound thing about other people. Now the question is: How could we ask them? Babies, after all, can't talk, and if you ask a three year-old to tell you what he thinks, what you'll get is a beautiful stream of consciousness monologue about ponies and birthdays and things like that. So how do we actually ask them the question?
讓我給你們舉個例子。 這寶寶可能思考的、 在他們腦內打轉的一件事, 是試著理解 其他的寶寶在想什麼。 畢竟,對我們所有人而言,超難的任務之一是 去弄清楚、摸明白別人正在想什麼和其感受。 也許所有之中最難的是 去理解別人的思維和感受 和我們自身的思考和感受是十分不同的。 對政治權術熱衷的人能證實 對某些人而這有多麼的困難。 我們想知道 若寶寶和幼兒 能理解其他人內在深層的想法。 則問題是:我們要如何問他們? 寶寶畢竟不會說話, 若你要一個三歲的幼兒 告訴你他的想法, 你會得到一串極妙的意識流獨白, 有關小馬、生日這一類的事情。 那麼我們如何來提問呢?
Well it turns out that the secret was broccoli. What we did -- Betty Rapacholi, who was one of my students, and I -- was actually to give the babies two bowls of food: one bowl of raw broccoli and one bowl of delicious goldfish crackers. Now all of the babies, even in Berkley, like the crackers and don't like the raw broccoli. (Laughter) But then what Betty did was to take a little taste of food from each bowl. And she would act as if she liked it or she didn't. So half the time, she acted as if she liked the crackers and didn't like the broccoli -- just like a baby and any other sane person. But half the time, what she would do is take a little bit of the broccoli and go, "Mmmmm, broccoli. I tasted the broccoli. Mmmmm." And then she would take a little bit of the crackers, and she'd go, "Eww, yuck, crackers. I tasted the crackers. Eww, yuck." So she'd act as if what she wanted was just the opposite of what the babies wanted. We did this with 15 and 18 month-old babies. And then she would simply put her hand out and say, "Can you give me some?"
秘密就在綠花椰。 我和貝蒂(Betty Rapacholi),貝蒂是我的一個學生, 會給寶寶兩碗食物: 一碗是生綠花椰 一碗是美味的金魚燒薄脆餅。 全部的寶寶,即使是在伯克萊, 都喜歡金魚燒薄脆餅而不喜歡生綠花椰。 (笑) 可是貝蒂接著 會嚐點每一個碗中的食物。 她會假裝喜歡或不喜歡。 大半的時候,她假裝 喜歡金魚燒餅而不喜歡生綠花椰-- 就像寶寶和其他腦袋清楚的人。 但另一半的時間, 她會品嚐一點生綠花椰, 並說:「嗯,嗯,嗯,嗯,綠花椰耶。 我嚐嚐綠花椰,嗯,嗯,嗯,嗯。」 然後她試點薄餅, 並說,「噁,難吃!薄餅。 我嚐嚐看薄餅。噁,難吃!」 所以她假裝她要的東西 正好與寶寶要的相反。 我們對15個月至18個月大的寶寶做這項測試。 接著她會直接伸出她的手並說: 「可以給我一些嗎?」
So the question is: What would the baby give her, what they liked or what she liked? And the remarkable thing was that 18 month-old babies, just barely walking and talking, would give her the crackers if she liked the crackers, but they would give her the broccoli if she liked the broccoli. On the other hand, 15 month-olds would stare at her for a long time if she acted as if she liked the broccoli, like they couldn't figure this out. But then after they stared for a long time, they would just give her the crackers, what they thought everybody must like. So there are two really remarkable things about this. The first one is that these little 18 month-old babies have already discovered this really profound fact about human nature, that we don't always want the same thing. And what's more, they felt that they should actually do things to help other people get what they wanted.
那麼問題來了:寶寶會給她什麼呢? 是他們自身喜歡的或是她喜歡的呢? 驚人的是,18個月大的寶寶 剛剛會走、勉強會說, 會給她薄餅,若她喜歡薄餅的話 但若她喜歡的話,他們會給她綠花椰。 另一方面, 15個月大的寶寶會盯著她一段時間 若她表現出喜歡綠花椰, 他們會無法理解。 但在他們盯了一陣子之後, 他們還是會給她薄餅, 他們認為人人必定喜歡。 所以由這可看出兩件值得注意的事: 第一個是這些18個月大的寶寶 已發現了 人性深處的事實── 我們不總是想要相同的東西。 況且,他們覺得他們確實該做些什麼 去幫其他人得到他們想要的。
Even more remarkably though, the fact that 15 month-olds didn't do this suggests that these 18 month-olds had learned this deep, profound fact about human nature in the three months from when they were 15 months old. So children both know more and learn more than we ever would have thought. And this is just one of hundreds and hundreds of studies over the last 20 years that's actually demonstrated it.
甚而更非同小可的是, 15個月大的寶寶沒這麼做的事實 暗示這些18個月大的寶寶已習得 這極深處的人性真相 在三個月內;在他們還是15個月大時。 所以孩子知道的多,也學的多, 超過我們對他們的認知。 而這只是20年來數以千百計的研究之中的一例, 能確切證實這一點。
The question you might ask though is: Why do children learn so much? And how is it possible for them to learn so much in such a short time? I mean, after all, if you look at babies superficially, they seem pretty useless. And actually in many ways, they're worse than useless, because we have to put so much time and energy into just keeping them alive. But if we turn to evolution for an answer to this puzzle of why we spend so much time taking care of useless babies, it turns out that there's actually an answer. If we look across many, many different species of animals, not just us primates, but also including other mammals, birds, even marsupials like kangaroos and wombats, it turns out that there's a relationship between how long a childhood a species has and how big their brains are compared to their bodies and how smart and flexible they are.
你也許想問的是: 為何小孩學得這麼多呢? 他們怎麼可能就在瞬間之轉 學這麼多呢? 我是指,若你單視寶寶的外表, 他們似乎相當沒用。 而且確實在很多時候,他們何止是弱不禁風, 因而我們必須投入大量的時間和精力 幫他們維持生存。 但若我們轉向演化 尋求謎題── 為何我們花這麼大量的時間 照顧這些幫不上忙的寶寶──的解答。 原來是,確有其答案。 若我們放眼各種形形色色的動物, 不只是靈長類 而是也包括其他哺乳類、鳥類, 甚至是有袋動物 像袋鼠和毛鼻袋熊 結果是關聯到 一個物種的幼兒時期有多長 和他們的腦相較其身體有多大 及他們多聰明和靈活度。
And sort of the posterbirds for this idea are the birds up there. On one side is a New Caledonian crow. And crows and other corvidae, ravens, rooks and so forth, are incredibly smart birds. They're as smart as chimpanzees in some respects. And this is a bird on the cover of science who's learned how to use a tool to get food. On the other hand, we have our friend the domestic chicken. And chickens and ducks and geese and turkeys are basically as dumb as dumps. So they're very, very good at pecking for grain, and they're not much good at doing anything else. Well it turns out that the babies, the New Caledonian crow babies, are fledglings. They depend on their moms to drop worms in their little open mouths for as long as two years, which is a really long time in the life of a bird. Whereas the chickens are actually mature within a couple of months. So childhood is the reason why the crows end up on the cover of Science and the chickens end up in the soup pot.
符合這想法的招牌鳥就在這兒。 一面是 一隻新克里當尼亞(the New Caledonian)烏鴉。 烏鴉和其他渡鴉、兀鼻烏鴉、白嘴鴉等等 是聰明得不得了的鳥。 在方某些方面,牠們像黑猩猩一樣的聰明。 這是出現在科學雜誌封面的鳥類, 已習得使用工具來獲得食物。 在另一面 是人類的朋友,家養雞。 而雞、鴨、鵝和火雞 根本是笨到不行。 所以他們非常非常在行啄食穀物, 對其他的可就一竅不通了。 原來那些寶寶, 新克里當尼亞(the New Caledonian)幼鳥正在學飛。 牠們依賴母鳥 放入一條條的小蟲到牠們微開的嘴巴 長達兩年的時間, 在鳥的一生中,這段時間是相當長的。 而雞長大成熟其實 在數個月內長。 所以幼兒時期可作為理由 解釋為何烏鴉最後成為『科學』雜誌的封面, 而雞最終淪落到湯鍋裏。
There's something about that long childhood that seems to be connected to knowledge and learning. Well what kind of explanation could we have for this? Well some animals, like the chicken, seem to be beautifully suited to doing just one thing very well. So they seem to be beautifully suited to pecking grain in one environment. Other creatures, like the crows, aren't very good at doing anything in particular, but they're extremely good at learning about laws of different environments.
那漫長的幼兒時期有某種重要的東西 似乎是與 知識和學習有關。 對這點我們有什麼要說的呢? 嗯,某些動物,像是雞 似乎是極為適合 做某一件事且相當稱合。 所以牠們似乎是極為適合 在某種環境啄食穀物。 其他生物,像是烏鴉 不特出善於做某件事, 但牠們極為擅長 習得不同環境的法則。
And of course, we human beings are way out on the end of the distribution like the crows. We have bigger brains relative to our bodies by far than any other animal. We're smarter, we're more flexible, we can learn more, we survive in more different environments, we migrated to cover the world and even go to outer space. And our babies and children are dependent on us for much longer than the babies of any other species. My son is 23. (Laughter) And at least until they're 23, we're still popping those worms into those little open mouths.
而當然,我們人類 分配的結果,遠遠勝出烏鴉。 相對我們的身體,我們有較大的腦, 迄今比起其他任何動物而言。 我們更聰明、我們更懂得變通、 我們能學得更多、 我們可在更多各種不同的環境下存活, 我們遷徙遍佈世界各地;甚至還出走至外太空。 而我們的寶寶和孩子依賴我們 為期又更長久,相較其他的物種來說。 我的兒子23歲了 (笑) 至少到了23歲, 我們仍迅速地把一條條的蟲子 放入一張張微開的嘴巴。
All right, why would we see this correlation? Well an idea is that that strategy, that learning strategy, is an extremely powerful, great strategy for getting on in the world, but it has one big disadvantage. And that one big disadvantage is that, until you actually do all that learning, you're going to be helpless. So you don't want to have the mastodon charging at you and be saying to yourself, "A slingshot or maybe a spear might work. Which would actually be better?" You want to know all that before the mastodons actually show up. And the way the evolutions seems to have solved that problem is with a kind of division of labor. So the idea is that we have this early period when we're completely protected. We don't have to do anything. All we have to do is learn. And then as adults, we can take all those things that we learned when we were babies and children and actually put them to work to do things out there in the world.
沒錯,為何我們會視其有密切關係呢? 一個想法──策略,學習策略 是一個高效能、重要的策略,以便在這世界中生存下來, 但卻有一大缺失。 那一個大缺失是 在你確實地完成所有的學習之前, 你將無法照顧自己。 所以你不要等巨象(mastodon)衝向你 才對自己說: 「一副彈弓或者一把標槍也許有用。哪一個會比較好?」 你得徹底了解一切, 在巨象出現之前。 演化似乎已解決那個問題,方法是 運用一種工作分配。 可以說,這概念是人類有完全受保護的這個早期階段; 我們不必做任何事,我們所要做的是學習而已。 那麼身為成人, 我們可以採取在我們還是幼童時期所學的一切 實際付諸實行並且為這世界做點什麼。
So one way of thinking about it is that babies and young children are like the research and development division of the human species. So they're the protected blue sky guys who just have to go out and learn and have good ideas, and we're production and marketing. We have to take all those ideas that we learned when we were children and actually put them to use. Another way of thinking about it is instead of thinking of babies and children as being like defective grownups, we should think about them as being a different developmental stage of the same species -- kind of like caterpillars and butterflies -- except that they're actually the brilliant butterflies who are flitting around the garden and exploring, and we're the caterpillars who are inching along our narrow, grownup, adult path.
這麼想吧! 寶寶和幼兒 就像是人種的研發部門。 所以他們是襁褓中純真的小傢伙, 他們只是必須走出來並學習,產生好點子 而我們則是生產和行銷部門。 我們必須採用所有點子, 這些點子是我們還是小孩子時所學習的, 並確實地落實這些想法。 這麼想也行! 與其認為寶寶和孩童 像是弱勢的成人, 我們應該將他們想成 是相同物種而各不相同的發展階段── 有點像是毛毛蟲和蝴蝶 除了他們確實是閃亮的蝴蝶, 在花園裡飛來飛去和探索, 而我們是毛毛蟲, 緩緩移向狹隘的成長、成人路徑。
If this is true, if these babies are designed to learn -- and this evolutionary story would say children are for learning, that's what they're for -- we might expect that they would have really powerful learning mechanisms. And in fact, the baby's brain seems to be the most powerful learning computer on the planet. But real computers are actually getting to be a lot better. And there's been a revolution in our understanding of machine learning recently. And it all depends on the ideas of this guy, the Reverend Thomas Bayes, who was a statistician and mathematician in the 18th century. And essentially what Bayes did was to provide a mathematical way using probability theory to characterize, describe, the way that scientists find out about the world. So what scientists do is they have a hypothesis that they think might be likely to start with. They go out and test it against the evidence. The evidence makes them change that hypothesis. Then they test that new hypothesis and so on and so forth. And what Bayes showed was a mathematical way that you could do that. And that mathematics is at the core of the best machine learning programs that we have now. And some 10 years ago, I suggested that babies might be doing the same thing.
如果這是真的、如果這些寶寶是被設計來學習的── 演化的故事會說,孩子是出生來學習的 那是他們與生俱來的能力── 我們可能期待 他們會有功能十分強大的學習機制。 而實際上,寶寶的腦 就像是在這星球功能最多的 學習電腦。 而真正的電腦事實上漸漸愈來愈好。 有一個大改革近來持續的在進行, 是針對我們所知道的機械學習。 是由這個人的點子所創造出來的, 教士湯瑪士‧貝茲(Reverend Thomas Bayes), 是18世紀時的一位統計學和數學家。 基本上,貝茲(Bayes)所做的是 提出一個數學方法 使用或然率理論 以描出、描繪出 科學家所發現關於這個世界的一切。 所以科學家在做的事是 他們提出想要著手的假說。 他們進行測試假說、比對證據。 依測試的結果,他們改變假設。 接著又測試新的假設, 像這樣不斷的進行下。 Bayes讓我們看到,你能以數學的方式來完成。 數學是我們目前有的 最佳機械學習程式的核心部分。 約十年前 我提出嬰兒可能也會做這類事。
So if you want to know what's going on underneath those beautiful brown eyes, I think it actually looks something like this. This is Reverend Bayes's notebook. So I think those babies are actually making complicated calculations with conditional probabilities that they're revising to figure out how the world works. All right, now that might seem like an even taller order to actually demonstrate. Because after all, if you ask even grownups about statistics, they look extremely stupid. How could it be that children are doing statistics?
若你要知道 寶寶美麗棕色的眼內含著什麼心思, 我認為很可能就如同這一般。 這是教士貝茲的筆記。 所以我認為寶寶實際上正在作複雜的心計, 他們更正條件可能性 以明瞭世界如何運作。 沒錯,就像是有較難的順序來實際證明。 畢竟,若你問一般的大人關於統計學, 他們看來就只會賣傻。 小孩又怎麼懂統計學呢?
So to test this we used a machine that we have called the Blicket Detector. This is a box that lights up and plays music when you put some things on it and not others. And using this very simple machine, my lab and others have done dozens of studies showing just how good babies are at learning about the world. Let me mention just one that we did with Tumar Kushner, my student. If I showed you this detector, you would be likely to think to begin with that the way to make the detector go would be to put a block on top of the detector. But actually, this detector works in a bit of a strange way. Because if you wave a block over the top of the detector, something you wouldn't ever think of to begin with, the detector will actually activate two out of three times. Whereas, if you do the likely thing, put the block on the detector, it will only activate two out of six times. So the unlikely hypothesis actually has stronger evidence. It looks as if the waving is a more effective strategy than the other strategy. So we did just this; we gave four year-olds this pattern of evidence, and we just asked them to make it go. And sure enough, the four year-olds used the evidence to wave the object on top of the detector.
為了測試這點,我們使用一台儀器 稱為『Blicket探測器』(Blicket Detector) 這是一台會發光及播放音樂的盒子 當放某樣東西在上面。 使用這個簡單的儀器, 我的實驗室及其他實驗室做了很多的研究, 顯示這些寶寶 學習有關這個世界的能力。 讓我舉個例子 這是我和學生吐瑪(Tumar Kushner)進行的研究。 若你們看到這個探測器, 你可能會想到的首先是, 讓這個探測器運作的方法是 放一塊積木在探測器頂端。 但實際上,這個探測器 以一種怪怪的方式運作。 因為如你在探測器的頂端揮動一塊東西, 你料想不到的事發生了, 三次有兩次這個探測器會啓動。 然而,你可能會做的事──把那東西放在探測器的頂端, 六次有兩次這個探測器會啓動。 所以這不可能的假說 確實有更強而有力的測試結果。 好像在說,揮動是 比起另一個更有效的策略。 所以我們這麼做:我們給四歲的孩子們這個測試結果的模式, 我們只要求這些孩子讓它動。 可確定的是,這四歲的孩子使用該測試結果, 在探測器頂部揮動物體。
Now there are two things that are really interesting about this. The first one is, again, remember, these are four year-olds. They're just learning how to count. But unconsciously, they're doing these quite complicated calculations that will give them a conditional probability measure. And the other interesting thing is that they're using that evidence to get to an idea, get to a hypothesis about the world, that seems very unlikely to begin with. And in studies we've just been doing in my lab, similar studies, we've show that four year-olds are actually better at finding out an unlikely hypothesis than adults are when we give them exactly the same task. So in these circumstances, the children are using statistics to find out about the world, but after all, scientists also do experiments, and we wanted to see if children are doing experiments. When children do experiments we call it "getting into everything" or else "playing."
關於這個,有兩件有趣的事。 第一件是,提醒你們,這些是四歲的孩子。 他們正學著數數。 但在無意中, 他們正進行著這種相當複雜的心計, 他們從此獲得條件可能性方法。 另一件有趣的事是 他們用那測試結果 獲得想法;獲得有關這世界的假說, 開始似乎是不大可能地發生。 我們在我的實驗室做的相似研究, 結果顯示,四歲孩子實際上很能 發現一個不大可能的假說, 比起做相同測試的成人而言。 所以在這些情況下, 孩子使用統計發現關於這世界的一切, 可是,畢竟科學家也做實驗; 我們要看看是否孩子會做實驗。 小孩子作實驗,我們稱其為『對什麼都好奇』 或者『玩耍』。
And there's been a bunch of interesting studies recently that have shown this playing around is really a kind of experimental research program. Here's one from Cristine Legare's lab. What Cristine did was use our Blicket Detectors. And what she did was show children that yellow ones made it go and red ones didn't, and then she showed them an anomaly. And what you'll see is that this little boy will go through five hypotheses in the space of two minutes.
近來有一連串有趣的實驗 已顯示,這種四處玩耍 實際是種實驗性的研究活動。 這有一項來自Cristine Legare的實驗室的研究。 Cristine使用『Blicket Detectors』來作實驗 她讓孩子看 黃色的探測器會動而紅色則不會動。 然後,她讓他們看一個不尋常的現象。 你們就要見到 這個小男孩經歷五個假設 就在短短的兩分鐘內。
(Video) Boy: How about this? Same as the other side.
(錄影片段)男孩:「這樣如何? 與另一邊一樣。」
Alison Gopnik: Okay, so his first hypothesis has just been falsified.
愛莉森:「好,他的第一個假設已剛被證明無效。」
(Laughter)
(笑)
Boy: This one lighted up, and this one nothing.
男孩:「這個會發光;這個不會。」
AG: Okay, he's got his experimental notebook out.
愛莉森:「好,他搬出他的實驗筆電。」
Boy: What's making this light up. (Laughter) I don't know.
男孩:「是什麼讓它發光啊!」 (笑) 「我不知道。」
AG: Every scientist will recognize that expression of despair.
愛莉森:「每個科學家會辨認出的絶望表情。」
(Laughter)
(笑)
Boy: Oh, it's because this needs to be like this, and this needs to be like this.
男孩:「喔!是因為這個需要就像這個; 而這個需要就像這個。」
AG: Okay, hypothesis two.
愛莉森:「好,假設二。」
Boy: That's why. Oh.
男孩:「這就是原因。 噢。」
(Laughter)
(笑)
AG: Now this is his next idea. He told the experimenter to do this, to try putting it out onto the other location. Not working either.
愛莉森:好,這是他的第三個想法。 他告訴實驗者這麼做: 試著把它放到另一個上方; 也不能運轉。
Boy: Oh, because the light goes only to here, not here. Oh, the bottom of this box has electricity in here, but this doesn't have electricity.
男孩:「哦,是因為燈只在這兒發亮。 不在這兒。 哦,這個盒子的底部 有電在這兒, 但這沒有電耶。」
AG: Okay, that's a fourth hypothesis.
愛莉森:好,這是他的第四個假說。
Boy: It's lighting up. So when you put four. So you put four on this one to make it light up and two on this one to make it light up.
男孩:「它發光了! 所以你放四個 所以你放四個在這個上面,讓它發光 而放兩個在這一個上面,它發光。」
AG: Okay,there's his fifth hypothesis.
愛莉森:好,這是他的第五個假說。
Now that is a particularly -- that is a particularly adorable and articulate little boy, but what Cristine discovered is this is actually quite typical. If you look at the way children play, when you ask them to explain something, what they really do is do a series of experiments. This is actually pretty typical of four year-olds.
這是一個特別...... 這是一個十足可愛又口齒伶俐的小男孩, 但克莉絲汀發現這其實相當典型。 若你看那些孩子玩的方式,要他們解釋, 他們其實是在做一連串的試驗。 這實際上是相當典型的四歲孩子。
Well, what's it like to be this kind of creature? What's it like to be one of these brilliant butterflies who can test five hypotheses in two minutes? Well, if you go back to those psychologists and philosophers, a lot of them have said that babies and young children were barely conscious if they were conscious at all. And I think just the opposite is true. I think babies and children are actually more conscious than we are as adults. Now here's what we know about how adult consciousness works. And adults' attention and consciousness look kind of like a spotlight. So what happens for adults is we decide that something's relevant or important, we should pay attention to it. Our consciousness of that thing that we're attending to becomes extremely bright and vivid, and everything else sort of goes dark. And we even know something about the way the brain does this.
那麼當這樣的生物會像什麼呢? 當這樣聰明的蝴蝶會是怎麼樣的呢? 而且他們能在兩分鐘內測試五個假設耶? 若是科學家或哲學家 他們很多人會說 寶寶和幼童幾乎沒有意識到 是否他們意識到。 我認為事實正好相反。 我認為寶寶和小孩事實上比大人的腦袋還清醒。 這是眾所皆知的成人意識運作模式。 成人的注意力和意識 看似有點像聚光燈。 就成人的情形而言, 我們成人決定什麼是具相關性或是重要的、 應給予特別關注。 當那項東西是我們所關注的,意識 變得極為明亮又活潑, 而其他的就略顯得灰暗。 我們還知道大腦在這種情況下的運作模式。
So what happens when we pay attention is that the prefrontal cortex, the sort of executive part of our brains, sends a signal that makes a little part of our brain much more flexible, more plastic, better at learning, and shuts down activity in all the rest of our brains. So we have a very focused, purpose-driven kind of attention. If we look at babies and young children, we see something very different. I think babies and young children seem to have more of a lantern of consciousness than a spotlight of consciousness. So babies and young children are very bad at narrowing down to just one thing. But they're very good at taking in lots of information from lots of different sources at once. And if you actually look in their brains, you see that they're flooded with these neurotransmitters that are really good at inducing learning and plasticity, and the inhibitory parts haven't come on yet. So when we say that babies and young children are bad at paying attention, what we really mean is that they're bad at not paying attention. So they're bad at getting rid of all the interesting things that could tell them something and just looking at the thing that's important. That's the kind of attention, the kind of consciousness, that we might expect from those butterflies who are designed to learn.
那麼當我們專注時, 前額葉腦皮質,我們腦部的執行部分 送出訊號 我們大腦的一小部分便更靈活、 更可塑、狀態更佳,在學習的時候, 值此同時,停止了 腦部其他部分的活動。 所以說,我們的專注力是十分集中、以目的為導向。 若我們來看看寶寶和幼兒, 我們看到的又大大的不同了。 我認為寶寶和幼兒 又更似意識燈籠, 而較不像意識聚光燈。 所以說,寶寶和幼兒不善於 縮小範圍只專注一件事。 但他們很擅長立即接收大量 來自四面八方、五花八門的訊息。 而且若看看他們的腦內 你瞧他們腦內充斥著神經元傳導物質 能誘發學習和可塑性, 而抑制的部分則一直未啓動。 因而,當我們說寶寶和幼兒 不善於專注 我們實際上指的是他們不善於不專注。 所以說,他們是不善於拒絶 所有能引起他們興趣的有趣事物 而只關注重要的部分。 這種專注力,這種意識力 是我們能夠期待的, 從這些天賦予其學習的蝴蝶。
Well if we want to think about a way of getting a taste of that kind of baby consciousness as adults, I think the best thing is think about cases where we're put in a new situation that we've never been in before -- when we fall in love with someone new, or when we're in a new city for the first time. And what happens then is not that our consciousness contracts, it expands, so that those three days in Paris seem to be more full of consciousness and experience than all the months of being a walking, talking, faculty meeting-attending zombie back home. And by the way, that coffee, that wonderful coffee you've been drinking downstairs, actually mimics the effect of those baby neurotransmitters. So what's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had three double-espressos. (Laughter) That's a fantastic way to be, but it does tend to leave you waking up crying at three o'clock in the morning.
我們若要想個辦法 讓成人一嚐那種寶寶的意識感知, 我認為最棒的例子是 我們被放在一個我們未曾經驗的全新的情境中,像是 當我們與新對象戀愛了 或首次到一座新城市 此時我們的意識不是收縮 而是擴張, 以便在巴黎的這三天 更為充滿感官意識和經驗 而不是數個月 閒逛、談話、參加職員會議的疲憊不堪就回家了。 順便一提,咖啡, 你在樓下喝的香純咖啡 就有與寶寶的神經元傳導物質 相仿的效果。 當一個寶寶是怎樣的呢? 就像是愛戀在巴黎 於首度造訪時, 就在三杯特濃濃縮咖啡下肚後。 (笑) 那是一個妙招, 但那肯定會讓你在凌晨三點醒來哭。
(Laughter)
(笑)
Now it's good to be a grownup. I don't want to say too much about how wonderful babies are. It's good to be a grownup. We can do things like tie our shoelaces and cross the street by ourselves. And it makes sense that we put a lot of effort into making babies think like adults do. But if what we want is to be like those butterflies, to have open-mindedness, open learning, imagination, creativity, innovation, maybe at least some of the time we should be getting the adults to start thinking more like children.
當個大人是好的。 我不想說太多關於當寶寶是多麼美妙; 當個大人是好的。 我們能自己綁鞋帶、自己過馬路。 我們努力讓寶寶 像個大人一樣的思考是合情合理的。 但若我們想的是,像那些蝴蝶, 思想開放、廣泛學習 天馬行空地想像、自由創意及大膽革新, 至少有些時候 我們得讓成人 開始更像孩子般地思考。
(Applause)
(掌聲)