Jeg vil i dag tale om glæderne ved hverdagen. Men jeg vil begynde med en historie om en ualmindelig og forfærdelig mand. Dette er Hermann Goering. Goering var Hitlers næstkommanderende under anden verdenskrig, hans udpegede efterfølger. Og ligesom Hitler, prydede Goering sig af at være kunstsamler. Han rejste gennem Europa, gennem anden verdenskrig, stjal, afpressede og sommetider købte forskellige malerier til sin samling. Og det han virkelig gerne ville have var noget af Vermeer. Hitler havde to af dem, og han havde ikke nogen. Så han fandt endelig en kunsthandler, en hollandsk kunsthandler der hed Han van Meegeren, der solgte ham et vidundeligt Vermeer til en pris der nu ville svare til 10 millioner dollars. Og det var hans yndlingskunstværk nogensinde.
I'm going to talk today about the pleasures of everyday life. But I want to begin with a story of an unusual and terrible man. This is Hermann Goering. Goering was Hitler's second in command in World War II, his designated successor. And like Hitler, Goering fancied himself a collector of art. He went through Europe, through World War II, stealing, extorting and occasionally buying various paintings for his collection. And what he really wanted was something by Vermeer. Hitler had two of them, and he didn't have any. So he finally found an art dealer, a Dutch art dealer named Han van Meegeren, who sold him a wonderful Vermeer for the cost of what would now be 10 million dollars. And it was his favorite artwork ever.
Anden verdenskrig sluttede, og Goering blev taget til fange, og i sidste ende dømt til døden. Så gennemgik de allierede hans kunstsamling og fandt malerierne og gik efter de mennesker der havde solgt det til ham. Og på et tidspunkt kom det hollandske politi til Amsterdam og anholdte van Meegeren. Van Meegeren blev sigtet for forræderi, der i sig selv er strafbart med døden. Seks uger inde i sin fængselsstraf, tilstod van Meegeren. Men han tilstod ikke til forræderi. Han sagde, "Jeg solgte ikke et stort kunstværk til den nazist. Jeg malede det selv; jeg er falskner." Der var ingen der troede på ham. Og han sagde, "Jeg beviser det. Kom med et lærred og noget maling, og jeg vil male et Vermeer der er meget bedre end det jeg solgte til den afskyelige nazist. Jeg har også brug for alkohol og morfin, fordi det er den eneste måde jeg kan arbejde på." (Latter) Så de kom ind med ham. Han malede et smukt Vermeer. Og så blev sigtelserne om forræderi droppet. Han fik en mindre sigtelse for falskneri, fik et års fængselsstraf og døde som en helt for det hollandske folk. Der kan siges meget mere om van Meegeren, men jeg vil nu tale om Goering, der her er afbilledet som afhørt ved Nuremberg.
World War II came to an end, and Goering was captured, tried at Nuremberg and ultimately sentenced to death. Then the Allied forces went through his collections and found the paintings and went after the people who sold it to him. And at some point the Dutch police came into Amsterdam and arrested Van Meegeren. Van Meegeren was charged with the crime of treason, which is itself punishable by death. Six weeks into his prison sentence, van Meegeren confessed. But he didn't confess to treason. He said, "I did not sell a great masterpiece to that Nazi. I painted it myself; I'm a forger." Now nobody believed him. And he said, "I'll prove it. Bring me a canvas and some paint, and I will paint a Vermeer much better than I sold that disgusting Nazi. I also need alcohol and morphine, because it's the only way I can work." (Laughter) So they brought him in. He painted a beautiful Vermeer. And then the charges of treason were dropped. He had a lesser charge of forgery, got a year sentence and died a hero to the Dutch people. There's a lot more to be said about van Meegeren, but I want to turn now to Goering, who's pictured here being interrogated at Nuremberg.
Nu var Goering, efter alle udsagn, en forfærdelig mand. Selv for en nazist var han en forfærdeligt mand. Hans amerikanske forhørere beskrev ham som en fremragende psykopat. Men man kunne føle sympati for den reaktion han havde da han fik at vide at hans yndlings maleri faktisk var en forfalskning. Ifølge sin biografi, "Han så ud som om han for første gang havde opdaget, at der var ondskab i verden." (Latter) Og han begik selvmord kort derefter. Han havde fundet ud af at maleriet som han troede var dit, faktisk var dat. Det så magen til ud, men det havde forskellig oprindelse, det var et andet kunstværk.
Now Goering was, by all accounts, a terrible man. Even for a Nazi, he was a terrible man. His American interrogators described him as an amicable psychopath. But you could feel sympathy for the reaction he had when he was told that his favorite painting was actually a forgery. According to his biographer, "He looked as if for the first time he had discovered there was evil in the world." (Laughter) And he killed himself soon afterwards. He had discovered after all that the painting he thought was this was actually that. It looked the same, but it had a different origin, it was a different artwork.
Det var ikke kun ham der fik sig et chok. Da van Meegeren var i retten, kunne han ikke stoppe med at tale. Og han pralede med alle de store mesterværker som han selv havde malet som var tilskrevet andre kunstnere. Især, "The Supper at Emmaus" der blev set som Vermeers bedste mesterværk, hans bedste arbejde -- mennesker kom [fra] hele verden for at se det -- faktisk var et falskneri. Det var ikke dette maleri, men det maleri. Og da det blev opdaget, mistede det al sin værdi og blev fjernet fra museet.
It wasn't just him who was in for a shock. Once van Meegeren was on trial, he couldn't stop talking. And he boasted about all the great masterpieces that he himself had painted that were attributed to other artists. In particular, "The Supper at Emmaus" which was viewed as Vermeer's finest masterpiece, his best work -- people would come [from] all over the world to see it -- was actually a forgery. It was not that painting, but that painting. And when that was discovered, it lost all its value and was taken away from the museum.
Hvorfor betyder dette noget? Jeg er psykolog -- hvorfor betyder oprindelse så meget? Hvorfor vi reagerer så meget på vores viden om hvor noget kommer fra? Jamen der er et svar som mange mennesker vil give. Mange sociologer som Veblen og Wolfe ville argumentere at grunden til at oprindelse er så vigtigt for os er fordi vi er snobber, fordi vi er fokuserede på status. Blandt andre ting, hvis man vil prale med hvor rig man er, hvor magtfuld man er, er det altid bedre at eje en original end en forfalskning fordi der vil altid være færre originaler end forfalskninger. Jeg tvivler ikke på at det spiller en rolle, men det jeg i dag vil overbevise jer om er at der sker noget andet. Jeg vil overbevise jer om at mennesker er, til en vis grad, naturligt fødte essentialister. Det jeg mener med dette er at vi ikke kun svarer på ting som vi ser dem, eller føler dem, eller hører dem. Men i stedet er vores svar en følge af vores tro, om hvad de virkelig er, hvad de kom fra, hvad de er lavet af, hvad deres skjulte natur er. Jeg vil forestille at dette er sandt, ikke kun for hvordan vi tænker over ting, men også for hvordan vi handler på ting.
Why does this matter? I'm a psychologists -- why do origins matter so much? Why do we respond so much to our knowledge of where something comes from? Well there's an answer that many people would give. Many sociologists like Veblen and Wolfe would argue that the reason why we take origins so seriously is because we're snobs, because we're focused on status. Among other things, if you want to show off how rich you are, how powerful you are, it's always better to own an original than a forgery because there's always going to be fewer originals than forgeries. I don't doubt that that plays some role, but what I want to convince you of today is that there's something else going on. I want to convince you that humans are, to some extent, natural born essentialists. What I mean by this is we don't just respond to things as we see them, or feel them, or hear them. Rather, our response is conditioned on our beliefs, about what they really are, what they came from, what they're made of, what their hidden nature is. I want to suggest that this is true, not just for how we think about things, but how we react to things.
Så jeg vil foreslå at glæde er dyb -- og at det ikke er sandt udelukkende for højere niveau glæde som kunst, men selv de mest simple glæder bliver påvirket af vores tro om skjulte essenser. Tag mad. Ville man spise dette? Jamen, et godt svar er, "Det kommer an på. Hvad er det?" Nogle af jer ville spise det hvis det er svin, men ikke oksekød. Nogle af jer ville spise det hvis det er oksekød, men ikke svin. De færreste af jer ville spise det hvis det er rotte eller et menneske. Nogle af jer ville kun spise det hvis det er et mærkelig farvet stykke tofu. Det er ikke så overraskende.
So I want to suggest that pleasure is deep -- and that this isn't true just for higher level pleasures like art, but even the most seemingly simple pleasures are affected by our beliefs about hidden essences. So take food. Would you eat this? Well, a good answer is, "It depends. What is it?" Some of you would eat it if it's pork, but not beef. Some of you would eat it if it's beef, but not pork. Few of you would eat it if it's a rat or a human. Some of you would eat it only if it's a strangely colored piece of tofu. That's not so surprising.
Det der er mere interessant er hvordan det smager for jer kommer meget an på hvad I tror I spiser. Så en demonstration af dette blev givet af unge børn. Hvordan får man børn til ikke kun med større sandsynlighed at spise gulerødder og drikke mælk, men til at få mere glæde af at spise gulerødder og drikke mælk -- til at tro at de smager bedre? Det er simpelt, man fortæller dem at det kommer fra McDonalds. De tror på, at maden fra McDonalds smager bedre, og det får dem til at opleve at det smager bedre.
But what's more interesting is how it tastes to you will depend critically on what you think you're eating. So one demonstration of this was done with young children. How do you make children not just be more likely to eat carrots and drink milk, but to get more pleasure from eating carrots and drinking milk -- to think they taste better? It's simple, you tell them they're from McDonald's. They believe McDonald's food is tastier, and it leads them to experience it as tastier.
Hvordan får man voksne til virkelig at nyde vin? Det er meget simpelt: hæld det fra en kostbar flaske. Der er nu dusinvis, måske hundredvis af undersøgelser der viser at hvis man tror på at man drikker dyre ting, så smager det bedre for en. Dette blev for nylig gjort med et neurovidenskabeligt twist. De lægger folk i en fMRI skanner, og mens de ligger derinde, gennem et rør, får de lov til at sippe til vinen. Foran dem på skærmen er der information om vinen. Alle, selvfølgelig, drikker præcis den samme vin. Men hvis man tror på at man drikker noget der er dyrt, lyser de dele af hjernen der er associeret med glæde og belønning op som et juletræ. Det er ikke kun det at man siger at det er mere glædeligt, man siger at man synes bedre om det, man oplever det virkeligt på en anden måde.
How do you get adults to really enjoy wine? It's very simple: pour it from an expensive bottle. There are now dozens, perhaps hundreds of studies showing that if you believe you're drinking the expensive stuff, it tastes better to you. This was recently done with a neuroscientific twist. They get people into a fMRI scanner, and while they're lying there, through a tube, they get to sip wine. In front of them on a screen is information about the wine. Everybody, of course, drinks exactly the same wine. But if you believe you're drinking expensive stuff, parts of the brain associated with pleasure and reward light up like a Christmas tree. It's not just that you say it's more pleasurable, you say you like it more, you really experience it in a different way.
Eller tag sex. Dette er små stimuli jeg har brugt i nogle af mine studier. Og hvis man bare viser disse billeder til mennesker, siger de at dette er nogenlunde attraktive mennesker. Men hvor attraktiv man synes de er, hvor seksuelt eller romantisk bevæget man er af dem, er kritisk forskelligt alt efter hvem man tror man kigger på. Man tror sikkert at billedet til venstre er mandligt, det til højre er kvindelig. Hvis den tro viser sig at være forkert, vil det gøre en forskel. (Latter) Det vil gøre en forskel hvis de viser sig at være meget yngre eller meget ældre end man tror de er. Det vil gøre en forskel hvis man skulle finde ud af at den person man kigger på med lyst faktisk er en udklædt udgave af en søn eller datter, ens mor eller far. At vide at nogen er ens slægtning dræber som regel libidoen. Måske en af de mest opmuntrende resultater fra glædens psykologi er at der er mere ved det at se godt ud, end ens fysiske fremtræden. Hvis man kan lide nogen, ser de bedre ud for en. Dette grunden til at ægtefæller i lykkelige ægteskaber har en tendens til at synes at deres mand eller kone ser meget bedre ud end alle andre synes de gør.
Or take sex. These are stimuli I've used in some of my studies. And if you simply show people these pictures, they'll say these are fairly attractive people. But how attractive you find them, how sexually or romantically moved you are by them, rests critically on who you think you're looking at. You probably think the picture on the left is male, the one on the right is female. If that belief turns out to be mistaken, it will make a difference. (Laughter) It will make a difference if they turn out to be much younger or much older than you think they are. It will make a difference if you were to discover that the person you're looking at with lust is actually a disguised version of your son or daughter, your mother or father. Knowing somebody's your kin typically kills the libido. Maybe one of the most heartening findings from the psychology of pleasure is there's more to looking good than your physical appearance. If you like somebody, they look better to you. This is why spouses in happy marriages tend to think that their husband or wife looks much better than anyone else thinks that they do.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Et særlig dramatisk eksempel på dette kommer fra en neurologisk lidelse der hedder Capgras syndrom. Så Capgras syndrom er en lidelse hvor man har en specifik vrangforestilling. Dem der lider af Capgras syndrom mener at de mennesker de holder mest af i verden er blevet erstattet af perfekte kopier. Nu er et tilfælde af Capgras syndrom tit tragisk. Mennesker har myrdet dem de holdte af, og troet at de har myrdet en bedrager. Men der er i hvert fald en sag hvor Capgras syndrom havde en lykkelig slutning. Dette blev set i 1931. "Forskning beskrev en kvinde med Capgras syndrom der klagede over sin dårligt udrustede og seksuelt utilstrækkelige elsker." Men det var inden hun fik Capgras syndrom. Efter hun fik det, "Hun var glad for at kunne meddele at hun har fundet ud af at han havde en dobbeltgænger der var rig, viril, smuk og aristokratisk." Det var, selvfølgelig, den samme mand, men hun så ham på andre måder.
A particularly dramatic example of this comes from a neurological disorder known as Capgras syndrome. So Capgras syndrome is a disorder where you get a specific delusion. Sufferers of Capgras syndrome believe that the people they love most in the world have been replaced by perfect duplicates. Now often, a result of Capgras syndrome is tragic. People have murdered those that they loved, believing that they were murdering an imposter. But there's at least one case where Capgras syndrome had a happy ending. This was recorded in 1931. "Research described a woman with Capgras syndrome who complained about her poorly endowed and sexually inadequate lover." But that was before she got Capgras syndrome. After she got it, "She was happy to report that she has discovered that he possessed a double who was rich, virile, handsome and aristocratic." Of course, it was the same man, but she was seeing him in different ways.
Som et tredje eksempel, overvej forbrugsgoder. En af grundene til at man kan lide en ting er dens anvendelighed. Man kan putte sko på fødderne; man kan spille golf med golfkøller; og udtygget tyggegummi gør intet overhovedet for en. Men hver af disse tre objekter har en værdi ud over det det kan gøre for en baseret på dets historie. Golfkøllerne var tidligere ejet af John F. Kennedy og solgt for tre-kvart milllion dollars på en auktion. Tyggegummiet blev gennemtygget af popstjernen Britney Spears og solgt for adskillige hundrede dollars. Og faktisk, er der et blomstrende marked i den delvist spiste mad af elskede mennesker. (Latter) Skoene er måske det mest værdifulde overhovedet. Ifølge en ubekræftet rapport, tilbød en saudisk millionær 10 millioner dollars for dette par sko. Det var dem der blev kastet efter George Bush ved en irakisk pressekonference adskillige år siden.
As a third example, consider consumer products. So one reason why you might like something is its utility. You can put shoes on your feet; you can play golf with golf clubs; and chewed up bubble gum doesn't do anything at all for you. But each of these three objects has value above and beyond what it can do for you based on its history. The golf clubs were owned by John F. Kennedy and sold for three-quarters of a million dollars at auction. The bubble gum was chewed up by pop star Britney Spears and sold for several hundreds of dollars. And in fact, there's a thriving market in the partially eaten food of beloved people. (Laughter) The shoes are perhaps the most valuable of all. According to an unconfirmed report, a Saudi millionaire offered 10 million dollars for this pair of shoes. They were the ones thrown at George Bush at an Iraqi press conference several years ago.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Nu virker denne tiltrækning til objekter ikke kun for kendtes objekter. Hver af os, de fleste mennesker, har noget i vores liv der bogstavelig talt er uerstatteligt, på den måde at det har en værdi på grund af dets historie -- måske vores vielsesring, måske ens børns babysko -- så hvis det gik tabt, kunne man ikke få det tilbage. Man kunne få noget der lignede det eller føltes som det, men man kunne ikke få det samme objekt tilbage. Men mine kolleger George Newman og Gil Diesendruck, har vi set på hvilke faktorer, hvilken slags historie, gør en forskel for de objekter folk kan lide. Så i et af vores eksperimenter, bad vi mennesker om at navngive en kendt person de forgudede, en levende person de forgudede.
Now this attraction to objects doesn't just work for celebrity objects. Each one of us, most people, have something in our life that's literally irreplaceable, in that it has value because of its history -- maybe your wedding ring, maybe your child's baby shoes -- so that if it was lost, you couldn't get it back. You could get something that looked like it or felt like it, but you couldn't get the same object back. With my colleagues George Newman and Gil Diesendruck, we've looked to see what sort of factors, what sort of history, matters for the objects that people like. So in one of our experiments, we asked people to name a famous person who they adored, a living person they adored.
Et af svarene var George Clooney. Så spurgte vi dem, "Hvor meget ville du betale for George Clooneys sweater?" Og svaret er en hel del -- mere end man ville betale for en helt ny sweater eller en sweater ejet af en man ikke forguder. Så bad vi en anden gruppe testpersoner -- vi gav dem forskellige restriktioner og forskellige forhold. Så for eksempel, fortalte vi nogle mennesker, "Se, du kan købe sweateren, men du kan ikke fortælle nogen at du ejer den, og du kan ikke sælge den videre." Det får værdien af den til at falde, hvilket foreslår at det er en af grundene til at vi kan lide den. Men det der virkelig skaber en effekt er at man fortæller mennesker, "Se, du kunne sælge den videre, du kunne prale om det, men før du får den, er den vasket grundigt." Det skaber et stort fald i værdien. Som min kone siger, "Du har vasket Clooney lusene væk."
So one answer was George Clooney. Then we asked them, "How much would you pay for George Clooney's sweater?" And the answer is a fair amount -- more than you would pay for a brand new sweater or a sweater owned by somebody who you didn't adore. Then we asked other groups of subjects -- we gave them different restrictions and different conditions. So for instance, we told some people, "Look, you can buy the sweater, but you can't tell anybody you own it, and you can't resell it." That drops the value of it, suggesting that that's one reason why we like it. But what really causes an effect is you tell people, "Look, you could resell it, you could boast about it, but before it gets to you, it's thoroughly washed." That causes a huge drop in the value. As my wife put it, "You've washed away the Clooney cooties."
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Så lad os se på kunst igen. Jeg ville elske et Chagall. Jeg elsker Chagalls arbejde. Hvis mennesker vil købe noget til mig til slutningen af konferencen, kunne man købe et Chagall til mig. Men jeg vil ikke have en kopi, selv hvis jeg ikke kan se forskel. Det er ikke fordi, eller det er ikke bare fordi, jeg er snobbet og vil prale med at have en original. Men, det er fordi jeg vil have noget der har en specifik historie. I tilfældet med kunstværker, er det bestemt en speciel historie. Filosofen Denis Dutton fremfører i hans vidunderlige bog "The Art Instinct" sagen, at "Værdien af et kunstværk stammer fra formodningen om den menneskelige præstation der ligger til grund for dets skabelse." Og det kunne forklare forskellen mellem en original og en forfalskning. De ser måske ens ud, men de har en forskellig historie. Den originale er typisk produktet af en kreativ det er forfalskningen ikke. Jeg mener at denne tilgang kan forklare forskellen i menneskers smag for kunst.
So let's go back to art. I would love a Chagall. I love the work of Chagall. If people want to get me something at the end of the conference, you could buy me a Chagall. But I don't want a duplicate, even if I can't tell the difference. That's not because, or it's not simply because, I'm a snob and want to boast about having an original. Rather, it's because I want something that has a specific history. In the case of artwork, the history is special indeed. The philosopher Denis Dutton in his wonderful book "The Art Instinct" makes the case that, "The value of an artwork is rooted in assumptions about the human performance underlying its creation." And that could explain the difference between an original and a forgery. They may look alike, but they have a different history. The original is typically the product of a creative act, the forgery isn't. I think this approach can explain differences in people's taste in art.
Dette er et værk af Jackson Pollock. Hvem her kan lide værket af Jackson Pollock? Okay. Hvem her, det gør ikke noget for dem? De kan bare ikke lide det. Jeg vil ikke komme med nogle påstande om hvem der har ret, men jeg vil lave en empirisk påstand om menneskers intuitioner, som er, hvis man kan lide Jackson Pollock værker, er der en større tendens til, end ved mennesker der ikke kan lide det, at tro på at disse værker er svære at skabe, at de kræver meget tid og energi og kreativ energi. Jeg bruger med vilje Jackson Pollock som eksempel fordi der er en ung amerikansk kunstner der maler meget lig Jackson Pollocks stil, og hendes arbejde var måske mange tusinde dollars værd -- for en stor del fordi hun er en meget ung kunstner.
This is a work by Jackson Pollock. Who here likes the work of Jackson Pollock? Okay. Who here, it does nothing for them? They just don't like it. I'm not going to make a claim about who's right, but I will make an empirical claim about people's intuitions, which is that, if you like the work of Jackson Pollock, you'll tend more so than the people who don't like it to believe that these works are difficult to create, that they require a lot of time and energy and creative energy. I use Jackson Pollock on purpose as an example because there's a young American artist who paints very much in the style of Jackson Pollock, and her work was worth many tens of thousands of dollars -- in large part because she's a very young artist.
Dette er Maria Olmstead der lavede mange af hendes værker da hun var tre år gammel. Det interessante ved Maria Olmstead er at hendes familie begik den fejl at invitere fjernsynsprogrammet 60 Minutes ind i deres hjem til at filme hende mens hun maler. Og de rapporterer så at hendes far trænede hende. Da dette kom ud i tv, faldt værdien af hendes kunst til ingenting. Det var den samme kunst, fysisk, men historien havde ændret sig.
This is Marla Olmstead who did most of her work when she was three years old. The interesting thing about Marla Olmstead is her family made the mistake of inviting the television program 60 Minutes II into their house to film her painting. And they then reported that her father was coaching her. When this came out on television, the value of her art dropped to nothing. It was the same art, physically, but the history had changed.
Jeg har nu fokuseret på visuel kunst, men jeg vil give jer to eksempler fra musik. Dette er Joshua Bell, en meget berømt violinist. Og Washington Post journalisten Gene Weingarten besluttede sig for at tilmelde ham til et dristigt eksperiment. Spørgsmålet er: Hvor meget ville mennesker kunne lide Joshua Bell, Joshua Bells musik, hvis de ikke vidste at de lyttede til Joshua Bell? Så han fik Joshua Bell til at tage sin violin til en million dollars med til Washinton D.C. undergrundsbanen og stå i et hjørne og se hvor mange penge han kunne tjene. Og her er et kort klip af det. (Violin musik) Efter ar have været der i tre kvarter, havde han tjent 32 dollars. Ikke dårligt. Det er heller ikke godt. For virkelig at nyde Joshua Bells musik, skal man åbenbart vide at man lytter til Joshua Bell. Han tjente faktisk 20 dollars mere end det, men han talte det ikke. Fordi der kom en kvinde hen til ham -- man ser det i slutningen af videoen -- hun kommer hen. Hun havde hørt ham ved Library of Congress et par uger inden ved denne ekstravagante fest. Så hun er målløs over at han står i undergrundsbanen. Så hun rammes af medlidenhed. Hun tager hånden ned i hendes pung og giver ham 20.
I've been focusing now on the visual arts, but I want to give two examples from music. This is Joshua Bell, a very famous violinist. And the Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten decided to enlist him for an audacious experiment. The question is: How much would people like Joshua Bell, the music of Joshua Bell, if they didn't know they were listening to Joshua Bell? So he got Joshua Bell to take his million dollar violin down to a Washington D.C. subway station and stand in the corner and see how much money he would make. And here's a brief clip of this. (Violin music) After being there for three-quarters of an hour, he made 32 dollars. Not bad. It's also not good. Apparently to really enjoy the music of Joshua Bell, you have to know you're listening to Joshua Bell. He actually made 20 dollars more than that, but he didn't count it. Because this woman comes up -- you see at the end of the video -- she comes up. She had heard him at the Library of Congress a few weeks before at this extravagant black-tie affair. So she's stunned that he's standing in a subway station. So she's struck with pity. She reaches into her purse and hands him a 20.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Det andet eksempel fra musik er fra John Cages modernistiske partitur "4'33"." Som mange af jer ved, er dette partituren hvor pianisten sidder på bænken, åbner klaveret og sidder og gør ingenting i fire minutter og 33 sekunder -- perioden med stilhed. Og mennesker har forskellige syn på dette. Men det jeg vil pointere er at man kan købe dette i iTunes. (Latter) for en dollar og 99 cent, kan man lytte til den stilhed, som er forskellig fra andre former for stilhed.
The second example from music is from John Cage's modernist composition, "4'33"." As many of you know, this is the composition where the pianist sits at a bench, opens up the piano and sits and does nothing for four minutes and 33 seconds -- that period of silence. And people have different views on this. But what I want to point out is you can buy this from iTunes. (Laughter) For a dollar 99, you can listen to that silence, which is different than other forms of silence.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Nu har jeg indtil videre talt om glæde, men det jeg vil foreslå er at alt jeg har sagt også gælder for smerte. Og hvordan man tænker over det man oplever, ens tro om essensen ved det, påvirker hvordan det gør ondt. Et dejligt eksperiment blev udført af Kurt Gray og Dan Wegner. Det de gjorde var, at de satte nogle Harvard til en elektrisk shock maskine. Og de gav dem en række smertefulde elektriske chok. Det var en serie af fem smertefulde chok. Halvdelen af dem bliver fortalt at de bliver givet chok af nogen i et andet lokale, men personen i det andet lokale ved ikke at de giver dem chok. Der er ikke nogen ondskab, de trykker bare på en knap. De første chok bliver opgivet som meget smertefuldt. Det andet chok føles mindre smertefuldt, fordi man bliver lidt van til det. Det tredje falder, det fjerde, det femte. Smerten mindskes. I den anden form, bliver de fortalt at personen i det andet lokale giver dem chok med vilje -- ved at de giver dem chok. Det første chok gør fandens ondt. Det andet chok gør lige så ondt, og det tredje og det fjerde og det femte. Det gør mere ondt hvis man tror at nogen gør det ved en med vilje.
Now I've been talking so far about pleasure, but what I want to suggest is that everything I've said applies as well to pain. And how you think about what you're experiencing, your beliefs about the essence of it, affect how it hurts. One lovely experiment was done by Kurt Gray and Dan Wegner. What they did was they hooked up Harvard undergraduates to an electric shock machine. And they gave them a series of painful electric shocks. So it was a series of five painful shocks. Half of them are told that they're being given the shocks by somebody in another room, but the person in the other room doesn't know they're giving them shocks. There's no malevolence, they're just pressing a button. The first shock is recorded as very painful. The second shock feels less painful, because you get a bit used to it. The third drops, the fourth, the fifth. The pain gets less. In the other condition, they're told that the person in the next room is shocking them on purpose -- knows they're shocking them. The first shock hurts like hell. The second shock hurts just as much, and the third and the fourth and the fifth. It hurts more if you believe somebody is doing it to you on purpose.
Det mest ekstreme eksempel på dette er at i nogle tilfælde kan smerte under de rigtige forhold forvandle sig til glæde. Mennesker har denne ekstraordinært interessant egenskab der ofte vil søge lave doser af smerte i kontrollerede forhold og tage glæde af det -- ligesom at spise stærk chili peber og rutsjebane ture. Pointen blev fint opsummeret af poeten John Milton der skrev, "Sindet er dets eget sted, og i sig selv kan lave himmel af helvede, og helvede af himmel."
The most extreme example of this is that in some cases, pain under the right circumstances can transform into pleasure. Humans have this extraordinarily interesting property that will often seek out low-level doses of pain in controlled circumstances and take pleasure from it -- as in the eating of hot chili peppers and roller coaster rides. The point was nicely summarized by the poet John Milton who wrote, "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
Og jeg vil slutte med det. Tak.
And I'll end with that. Thank you.
(Bifald)
(Applause)