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.
Dnes budem hovoriť o potešeniach každodenného života. Ale chcem začať príbehom nezvyčajného a strašného muža. Ide o Hermanna Goeringa. Goering bol Hitlerov zástupca v 2. svetovej vojne, jeho budúci nástupca. A podobne ako Hitler aj Goering sa považoval za zberateľa umenia. Počas 2. svetovej vojny prechádzal Európou, pričom kradol, vymáhal a občas kupoval rôzne obrazy do svojej zbierky. A skutočne túžil po niečom od Vermeera. Hitler mal dva jeho obrazy, on nemal žiadny. Takže konečne našiel obchodníka s umením, Holanďana menom Han van Meegern, ktorý mu predal nádherného Vermeera za cenu, ktorá by dnes predstavovala 10 miliónov dolárov. A bol to jeho úplne najobľúbenejší obraz.
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.
Vojna sa skončila, Goeringa zajali, súdili v Norimbergu a nakoniec odsúdili na smrť. Potom spojenecké jednotky preberali jeho zbierky, našli obrazy a vyhľadali ľudí, ktorí mu ich predali. A jedného dňa holandská polícia prišla do Amsterdamu a zatkla Van Meegerena. Obvinili ho z vlastizrady, ktorá sa trestá smrťou. Po šiestich týždňoch vo väzení sa Van Meegeren priznal. Nepriznal sa však ku vlastizrade. Povedal: „Nepredal som úžasné majstrovské dielo tomu nacistovi. Sám som ten obraz namaľoval, som falšovateľ.“ Ale nikto mu neveril. A on povedal: „Dokážem vám to. Prineste mi plátno a trochu farby, namaľujem vám oveľa lepšieho Vermeera, než čo som predal tomu nechutnému nacistovi. Okrem toho potrebujem alkohol a morfium, lebo iba tak viem pracovať.“ (smiech) Tak ho priviedli. Namaľoval krásneho Vermeera. A potom bolo obvinenie z vlastizrady zrušené. Obvinili ho iba z falšovania, dostal rok väzenia a zomrel ako holandský hrdina. O Van Meegerenovi by som toho mohol ešte veľa rozprávať, ale chcem sa vrátiť ku Goeringovi, ktorý je na tomto obrázku zachytený počas výsluchu v Norimbergu.
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.
Podľa toho, čo sa hovorí, Goering bol strašný človek. Dokonca aj na nacistu to bol strašný človek. Jeho americkí vyšetrovatelia ho opisovali ako priateľského psychopata. Ale iste by ste pocítili ľútosť nad jeho reakciou, keď mu povedali, že jeho obľúbený obraz bol v skutočnosti falzifikát. Podľa autora jeho životopisu „Vyzeral, akoby po prvý raz zistil, že na svete existuje zlo.“ (smiech) A čoskoro nato sa zabil. Zistil predsa, že obraz, o ktorom si myslel, že je tento, bol v skutočnosti tamten. Vyzeral rovnako, ale mal iný pôvod, bolo to iné umelecké dielo.
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.
A šokovaný nemal byť iba Goering. Keď už Van Meegerena postavili pred súd, spustil a nezastavil sa. A chvastal sa všetkými úžasnými veľdielami, ktoré on sám namaľoval, ale pripisovali ich iným umelcom. Konkrétne „Večera v Emauzách“, ktorá bola považovaná za Vermeerovu najkvalitnejšiu, najlepšiu prácu – ľudia z celého sveta sa na ňu prichádzali pozrieť – bola v skutočnosti napodobenina. Nebol to ten obraz, ale tamten obraz. A keď sa na to prišlo, stratil všetku svoju hodnotu a odstránili ho z múzea.
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.
Prečo na tom záleží? Vy psychológovia, prečo na pôvode tak záleží? Prečo tak reagujeme na informáciu, odkiaľ niečo pochádza? Nuž, je na to odpoveď, ktorú by dali mnohí ľudia. Mnohí sociológovia ako Veblen a Wolfe by argumentovali, že pôvod berieme tak vážne, lebo sme snobi, pretože sme orientovaní na status. Okrem iného, ak chcete predviesť, akí ste bohatí alebo mocní, vždy je lepšie vlastniť originál než napodobeninu. Pretože originálov bude vždy menej než kópií. Nepochybujem, že to zohráva určitú rolu, ale dnes vás chcem presvedčiť o tom, že v hre je ešte aj niečo ďalšie. Chcem vás presvedčiť, že ľudia sú do istej miery od narodenia esencialisti. Tým chcem povedať, že na veci nereagujeme len podľa toho, ako ich vidíme, cítime či počujeme. Naša reakcia je podmienená skôr našimi presvedčeniami, ale čo skutočne sú, odkiaľ pochádzajú, z čoho sú a aká je ich skrytá povaha. Chcem naznačiť, že to platí nielen pre spôsob, akým sa o veciach zamýšľame, ale aj akým na veci reagujeme.
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.
Takže tvrdím, že potešenie je hlboké – a to neplatí len pre vyššie formy potešenia, ako je umenie, ale aj zdanlivo jednoduché radosti sú ovplyvnené našimi predstavami o skrytých podstatách. Zoberme si napríklad jedlo. Zjedli by ste toto? Dobrá odpoveď je: „Podľa toho, čo to je.“ Niektorí z vás by to zjedli, keby to bolo bravčové, ale nie hovädzie. Niektorí by to zjedli, keby to bolo hovädzie, ale nie bravčové. Len málo z vás by to zjedlo, keby išlo o potkana alebo o človeka. Niektorí z vás by to zjedli, len keby to bolo zvláštne sfarbené tofu. Na tom nie je nič prekvapujúce.
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.
Čo je však zaujímavejšie, to, ako vám to chutí, bude zásadne závisieť od toho, čo si myslíte, že jete. Jeden názorný príklad tohto bol spravený s malými deťmi. Ako prinútite deti, aby nielen jedli mrkvu a pili mlieko, ale aj sa viac tešili z jedenia mrkvy a pitia mlieka, teda aby si mysleli, že lepšie chutia? Je to jednoduché: poviete im, že sú z McDonalda. Veria, že jedlo z McDonalda je chutnejšie, takže ho aj vnímajú ako chutnejšie.
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.
Ako dosiahnete, aby si dospelí ľudia skutočne vychutnali víno? Je to veľmi jednoduché: nalejete im ho z drahej fľašky. Dnes sú celé tucty, možno aj stovky štúdií, ktoré dokazujú, že ak ste presvedčení, že pijete niečo drahé, chutí vám to viac. Nedávno robili podobný test s neurofyziologickým zameraním. Robia ľuďom vyšetrenie magnetickou rezonanciou a kým tam ležia, cez trubičku popíjajú víno. Pred sebou na obrazovke vidia informácie o danom víne. Samozrejme, všetci pijú presne také isté víno. Ale ak veríte, že pijete niečo drahé, časti vášho mozgu spojené s potešením a odmenou sa rozsvietia ako vianočný stromček. Nejde len o to, že tvrdíte, že je to príjemnejšie, že sa vám to viac páči, skutočne to prežívate inak.
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.
Alebo si zoberte sex. Tu sú podnety, ktoré som použil v niekoľkých svojich výskumoch. A ak ľuďom jednoducho ukážete tieto obrázky, povedia, že sú to celkom príťažliví ľudia. Ale to, akí atraktívni sa vám zdajú a ako sexuálne alebo romanticky vás naladia, rozhodne závisí od toho, na koho si myslíte, že sa pozeráte. Pravdepodobne si myslíte, že na ľavom obrázku je muž a vpravo je žena. Ak sa toto vaše presvedčenie ukáže byť nesprávne, bude to mať význam. (smiech) Bude mať význam, ak sa ukáže, že sú oveľa mladší alebo oveľa starší, než si myslíte. Bude to mať význam, ak zistíte, že osoba, na ktorú sa žiadostivo pozeráte, je v skutočnosti zamaskovaná verzia vášho syna alebo dcéry, vašej matky alebo otca. Vedomie o tom, že niekto je váš príbuzný, zvyčajne ubíja libido. Snáď jedno z najpovzbudivejších zistení psychológie potešenia je to, že dobre vyzerať znamená viac než len samotný fyzický vzhľad. Ak máte niekoho radi, vyzerá podľa vás lepšie. Preto si ľudia v šťastných manželstvách zvyknú myslieť, že ich manžel alebo manželka vyzerá oveľa lepšie, než si myslia všetci ostatní.
(Laughter)
(smiech)
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.
Mimoriadne dramatický príklad predstavuje neurologická porucha známa ako Capgrasov syndróm. Ide o poruchu, pri ktorej máte veľmi konkrétnu halucináciu. Ľudia trpiaci Capgrasovým syndrómom veria, že ľudia, ktorých milujú najviac na svete, boli nahradení svojimi dokonalými kópiami. Dôsledok tejto poruchy býva často tragický. Ľudia zavraždili svojich milovaných v presvedčení, že vraždia podvodníka. Ale existuje aspoň jeden prípad, kedy mal Capgrasov syndróm šťastný koniec. Bol zaznamenaný v roku 1931. „Štúdia spomína ženu s Capgrasovým syndrómom, ktorá sa sťažovala na svojho nedostatočne obdareného a sexuálne neschopného milenca.“ Ale to bolo predtým, než dostala Capgrasov syndróm. Potom „s radosťou oznámila, že zistila, že jej milenec má dvojníka, ktorý je bohatý, mužný, pekný a aristokratický.“ Samozrejme, bol to ten istý muž, ale ona ho videla inak.
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.
Tretí príklad: zoberte si spotrebný tovar. Jeden z dôvodov, prečo sa vám niečo môže páčiť, je jeho využitie. Topánky si môžete obuť, s golfovými palicami si zahráte golf, požutá žuvačka vám je na nič. Ale každý z týchto troch predmetov má svoju hodnotu, ktorá siaha za hranice toho, na čo vám môže byť, a to na základe svojej histórie. Tieto golfové palice patrili Johnovi F. Kennedymu a boli vydražené za trištvrte milióna dolárov. Žuvačka, ktorú žula popová hviezda Britney Spears, sa predala za niekoľko stoviek dolárov. A v skutočnosti existuje veľmi prosperujúci trh s jedlom čiastočne zjedeným obľúbenými ľuďmi. (smiech) Topánky sú z týchto všetkých asi najcennejšie. Podľa nepotvrdenej správy ponúkol saudský milionár 10 miliónov dolárov za tento pár topánok. Boli to topánky hodené do Georgea Busha na tlačovej konferencii v Iraku pred niekoľkými rokmi.
(Applause)
(potlesk)
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.
Nuž, táto príťažlivosť predmetov nefunguje len pri predmetoch známych osobností. Každý z nás, väčšina ľudí má vo svojom živote niečo, čo je doslova nenahraditeľné, pretože to má cenu vďaka svojej histórii – môže to byť snubný prsteň alebo prvé topánky vášho dieťaťa – a keby sa to stratilo, nemohli by ste to získať späť. Mohli by ste nájsť niečo, čo by sa na to podobalo, ale nezískali by ste naspäť ten istý predmet. Moji kolegovia George Newman, Gil Diesendruck a ja sme hľadali, aké faktory a aká minulosť sú významné pre predmety, ktoré majú ľudia radi. V jednom z experimentov sme požiadali ľudí, aby uviedli meno niekoho slávneho, koho zbožňujú, meno niekoho živého.
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."
Jedna z odpovedí bola George Clooney. Potom sme sa ich spýtali: „Koľko by ste zaplatili za bundu Georgea Clooneyho?“ A odpoveďou bola dosť vysoká suma – viac, než by ste zaplatili za úplne novú bundu alebo bundu niekoho, koho nezbožňujete. Potom sme sa spýtali inej skupiny respondentov, ktorým sme dali iné obmedzenia a iné podmienky. Takže sme napríklad niektorým povedali: „Pozri, môžeš si tú bundu kúpiť, ale nikomu nesmieš povedať, že ju máš, a nesmieš ju ani predať niekomu inému.“ To hodnotu bundy znižuje, čo by znamenalo, že je to jeden z dôvodov, prečo sa nám páči. Ale to, čo naozaj zapôsobí, je povedať ľuďom: „Pozri, môžeš ju predať inému, môžeš sa ňou vychvaľovať, ale kým ju dostaneš do rúk, bude dôkladne vypratá.“ To spôsobí obrovský pokles hodnoty. Ako povedala moja manželka: „Vyprali ste z nej Clooneyho bacily.“
(Laughter)
(smiech)
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.
Vráťme sa teraz k umeniu. Veľmi by som chcel mať Chagalla. Milujem jeho obrazy. Keby mi niekto chcel na konci konferencie niečo venovať, mohli by ste mi kúpiť Chagalla. Ale nechcem duplikát, aj keď sám by som nepoznal rozdiel. Nie je to preto, respektíve nie je to len preto, že som snob a chcem sa vychvaľovať, že mám originál. Skôr je to preto, že chcem niečo, čo má určitú históriu. V prípade umeleckého diela je jeho história vskutku zvláštna. Filozof Denis Dutton vo svojej úžasnej knihe „The Art Instinct“ (umelecký inštinkt) tvrdí, že „Hodnota umeleckého diela tkvie v predpokladoch o ľudskom výkone skrývajúcom sa za jeho vznikom.“ A to by mohlo vysvetliť rozdiel medzi originálom a kópiou. Možno vyzerajú rovnako, ale každý má inú históriu. Originál je normálne produkt tvorivej práce, kópia nie. Myslím si, že tento prístup dokáže vysvetliť rozdiely v umeleckom vkuse rôznych ľudí.
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.
Toto je dielo Jacksona Pollocka. Kto tu má rád jeho práce? Dobre. Pre koho z vás neznamenajú vôbec nič? Jednoducho sa im nepáčia. Nebudem tu vyhlasovať, kto má pravdu, ale urobím empirické vyhlásenie o ľudskej intuícii, ktoré znie, že ak sa vám páči dielo Jacksona Pollocka, máte skôr tendenciu – na rozdiel od ľudí, ktorým sa jeho dielo nepáči – veriť, že vytvoriť tieto diela je náročné, že si to žiada množstvo času a energie a tvorivej sily. Používam Jacksona Pollocka ako príklad naschvál, pretože je jedna mladá americká umelkyňa, ktorá maľuje výrazne v štýle Jacksona Pollocka, a jej diela mali hodnotu desiatok tisíc dolárov – z veľkej časti preto, že je to veľmi mladá umelkyňa.
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.
Toto je Marla Olmstead, ktorá väčšinu svojej práce urobila vo veku troch rokov. Zaujímavé na Marle Olmstead je, že jej rodina spravila tú chybu, že do svojho domu pozvala televízny program 60 minút, aby si nafilmovali, ako maľuje. A potom im povedali, že jej otec ju učí. Keď sa to objavilo v televízii, hodnota jej umenia klesla na nulu. Fyzicky išlo o to isté umenie, ale jeho história sa zmenila.
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.
Teraz som sa sústredil na vizuálne umenie, ale chcem ponúknuť dva príklady zo sveta hudby. Toto je Joshua Bell, veľmi slávny huslista. A reportér pre Washington Post Gene Weingarten sa rozhodol použiť ho v odvážnom experimente. Otázka znie: Ako by sa ľuďom páčil Joshua Bell a jeho hudba, keby nevedeli, že počúvajú Joshuu Bella? Takže presvedčil Joshuu Bella, aby svoje miliónové husle zobral na stanicu metra v Washingtone, D. C., postavil sa do rohu a zistil, koľko by zarobil. A tu je krátky videoklip. (husľová hudba) Za trištvrte hodiny zarobil 32 dolárov. Nie je to zlé. Ale nie je to ani dobré. Ak si chcete skutočne vychutnať hudbu Joshuu Bella, evidentne musíte vedieť, že počúvate Joshuu Bella. V skutočnosti zarobil o 20 dolárov viac, ale tie nepočítal. Pretože v jednej chvíli k nemu príde žena – vidíte to na konci videoklipu – pristúpi k nemu. Niekoľko týždňov predtým ho počula v Kongresovej knižnici na nejakom extravagantnom formálnom podujatí. Takže keď ho teraz vidí stáť na stanici metra, je úplne šokovaná. A je jej ho strašne ľúto. Siahne do kabelky a podá mu 20 dolárov.
(Laughter)
(smiech)
(Applause)
(potlesk)
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.
Druhý príklad zo sveta hudby je z modernistickej kompozície Johna Cagea s názvom „4'33"“. Ako mnohí z vás vedia, ide o skladbu, kde si klavirista sadne na lavičku, otvorí klavír a nečinne sedí štyri minúty a 33 sekúnd – to obdobie ticha. A ľudia majú na to rôzne názory. Ale to, na čo chcem upozorniť, je, že túto skladbu si môžete kúpiť na iTunes. (smiech) Za jeden dolár a 99 centov si môžete vypočuť to ticho, ktoré je iné než všetky ostatné podoby ticha.
(Laughter)
(smiech)
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.
Doteraz som rozprával o potešení, ale chcem pripomenúť, že všetko, čo som povedal, sa rovnako týka aj bolesti. A že spôsob, akým rozmýšľate o tom, čo prežívate, vaše presvedčenie o tom, čo je podstatou zážitku, má vplyv na to, ako veľmi vás to bolí. Jeden milý experiment spravili Kurt Gray a Dan Wegner. Pripojili harvardských študentov k prístroju vysielajúcemu elektrické šoky. A dali im sériu bolestivých elektrických šokov. Takže išlo o sériu piatich bolestivých šokov. Polovici povedali, že šoky im dáva niekto vo vedľajšej miestnosti, ale daná osoba nevie, že im dáva šoky. Nejde o žiadnu zlomyseľnosť, jednoducho stláča gombík. Prvý šok je zaznamenaný ako veľmi bolestivý. Druhý šok je na pocit menej bolestivý, lebo už ste si na to trochu zvykli. Tretí ešte menej, štvrtý, piaty. Bolesť sa zmenšuje. Druhej skupine povedali, že osoba vo vedľajšej miestnosti im dáva šoky naschvál – vie, že im dáva šoky. Prvý šok pekelne bolí. Druhý šok bolí presne tak isto aj tretí, aj štvrtý a piaty. Bolí to viac, keď veríte, že niekto vám spôsobuje bolesť naschvál.
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."
Najextrémnejší príklad je tu ten, že v niektorých prípadoch sa bolesť za správnych okolností môže premeniť na potešenie. Ľudia majú túto neobyčajne zaujímavú vlastnosť, že často vyhľadávajú malé dávky bolesti v kontrolovaných podmienkach a tešia sa z toho – napríklad z jedenia feferónok alebo z jazdy na horskej dráhe. Pointu pekne zhrnul básnik John Milton, ktorý napísal: „Myseľ je miesto samo o sebe a sama dokáže spraviť z pekla nebo, z neba peklo.“
And I'll end with that. Thank you.
A s tým aj skončím. Ďakujem vám.
(Applause)
(potlesk)