犯錯的價值

　　導語：我們每個人都會犯錯，我們每個人都犯過錯，可是我們是否知道犯錯的價值呢，一起看看下面文章。

　　So it's 1995, I'm in college, and a friend and I go on a road trip from Providence, Rhode Island to Portland, Oregon. And you know, we're young and unemployed, so we do the whole thing on back roads through state parks and national forests -- basically the longest route we can possibly take. And somewhere in the middle of South Dakota, I turn to my friend and I ask her a question that's been bothering me for 2,000 miles. "What's up with the Chinese character I keep seeing by the side of the road?" My friend looks at me totally blankly. There's actually a gentleman in the front row who's doing a perfect imitation of her look. (Laughter) And I'm like, "You know, all the signs we keep seeing with the Chinese character on them." She just stares at me for a few moments, and then she cracks up, because she figures out what I'm talking about. And what I'm talking about is this. (Laughter) Right, the famous Chinese character for picnic area.

　　當時是95年 我在上大學 我和一個朋友開車去玩 從羅得島的普羅旺斯區(qū)出發(fā) 到奧勒岡州的波特蘭市 我們年輕，無業(yè) 于是整個旅程都在鄉(xiāng)間小道 經(jīng)過州立公園 和國家保護森林 我們盡可能繞著最長的路徑 在南達科塔州之中某處 我轉向我的朋友 問她一個 兩千英里路途上 一直煩惱我的問題 "路邊那個一直出現(xiàn)的中文字到底是什么?" 我的朋友露出疑惑的神情 正如現(xiàn)在坐在第一排的這三位男士 所露出的神情一樣 (笑聲) 我說"你知道的 我們一直看到的那個路牌 寫著中文的那個啊" 她瞪著我的臉一陣子 突然笑開了 因為她總算知道我所指為何 我說的是這個 (笑聲) 沒錯，這就是代表野餐區(qū)的那個中文字

　　(Laughter)

　　(笑聲)

　　I've spent the last five years of my life thinking about situations exactly like this -- why we sometimes misunderstand the signs around us, and how we behave when that happens, and what all of this can tell us about human nature. In other words, as you heard Chris say, I've spent the last five years thinking about being wrong. This might strike you as a strange career move, but it actually has one great advantage: no job competition. (Laughter) In fact, most of us do everything we can to avoid thinking about being wrong, or at least to avoid thinking about the possibility that we ourselves are wrong. We get it in the abstract. We all know everybody in this room makes mistakes. The human species, in general, is fallible -- okay fine.

　　過去的五年 我一直在思考 剛剛我所描述的狀況 為什么我們會對身邊的征兆 產(chǎn)生誤解 當誤解發(fā)生時我們作何反應 以及這一切所告訴我們的人性 換句話說，就像 Chris 剛才說的 過去五年的時間 我都在思考錯誤的價值 你可能覺得這是個奇異的專業(yè) 但有一項好處是不容置疑的： 沒有競爭者。 (笑聲) 事實上，我們大部分的人 都盡力不思考錯誤的價值 或至少避免想到我們 有可能犯錯。 我們都知道這個模糊的概念。 我們都知道這里的每個人都曾經(jīng)犯錯 人類本來就會犯錯 - 沒問題

　　But when it comes down to me, right now, to all the beliefs I hold, here in the present tense, suddenly all of this abstract appreciation of fallibility goes out the window -- and I can't actually think of anything I'm wrong about. And the thing is, the present tense is where we live. We go to meetings in the present tense; we go on family vacations in the present tense; we go to the polls and vote in the present tense. So effectively, we all kind of wind up traveling through life, trapped in this little bubble of feeling very right about everything.

　　一旦這個想法臨到我們自身 我們現(xiàn)在所有的 所有的信念 對人類可能犯錯的抽象概念 隨即被我們拋棄 我無法想到我有哪里出錯 但是，我們活在現(xiàn)在 我們開會，去家庭旅游 去投票 全都是現(xiàn)在式 我們就像現(xiàn)在一個小泡泡里 經(jīng)歷人生 感覺自己總是對的

　　I think this is a problem. I think it's a problem for each of us as individuals, in our personal and professional lives, and I think it's a problem for all of us collectively as a culture. So what I want to do today is, first of all, talk about why we get stuck inside this feeling of being right. And second, why it's such a problem. And finally, I want to convince you that it is possible to step outside of that feeling and that if you can do so, it is the single greatest moral, intellectual and creative leap you can make.

　　我認為這是個問題 我認為這是每個人私人生活 和職業(yè)生活中的問題 我認為我們身為群體，這也造成了文化問題 于是，我今天想做的是 先談談為甚么我們會 陷在這種自以為是的心態(tài)中 第二是為甚么這是個問題 最后我想說服大家 克服這種感覺 是可能的 而且一旦你做到了 這將成為你道德上 智性上和創(chuàng)意上最大的進步

　　So why do we get stuck in this feeling of being right? One reason, actually, has to do with a feeling of being wrong. So let me ask you guys something -- or actually, let me ask you guys something, because you're right here: How does it feel -- emotionally -- how does it feel to be wrong? Dreadful. Thumbs down. Embarrassing. Okay, wonderful, great. Dreadful, thumbs down, embarrassing -- thank you, these are great answers, but they're answers to a different question. You guys are answering the question: How does it feel to realize you're wrong? (Laughter) Realizing you're wrong can feel like all of that and a lot of other things, right? I mean it can be devastating, it can be revelatory, it can actually be quite funny, like my stupid Chinese character mistake. But just being wrong doesn't feel like anything.

　　為甚么我們會陷在 這種自以為是的心態(tài)中? 事實上這和犯錯的感覺有關 我想問問你們 讓我問問臺上的你們 當你意識到自己犯錯了 你感覺如何? 糟透了。很差勁。 難堪。很好，是的。 很糟糕，很差勁，很難堪。 謝謝你們提供這些答案 但這些答案沒有回答我的問題 你們回答的問題是： 當你意識到你犯錯的時候，你的感覺如何? (笑聲) 意識到你犯錯了就會有剛剛所說的這些感覺，不是嗎? 令人沮喪，暴露了一些真實 有時候甚至有些好笑 像我誤以為路牌是中文字 但犯錯本身 事實上毫無感覺

　　I'll give you an analogy. Do you remember that Loony Tunes cartoon where there's this pathetic coyote who's always chasing and never catching a roadrunner? In pretty much every episode of this cartoon, there's a moment where the coyote is chasing the roadrunner and the roadrunner runs off a cliff, which is fine -- he's a bird, he can fly. But the thing is, the coyote runs off the cliff right after him. And what's funny -- at least if you're six years old -- is that the coyote's totally fine too. He just keeps running -- right up until the moment that he looks down and realizes that he's in mid-air. That's when he falls. When we're wrong about something -- not when we realize it, but before that -- we're like that coyote after he's gone off the cliff and before he looks down. You know, we're already wrong, we're already in trouble, but we feel like we're on solid ground. So I should actually correct something I said a moment ago. It does feel like something to be wrong; it feels like being right.

　　讓我給你一個例子 你記得卡通里 那個總是在追逐 卻從未抓到獵物的土狼嗎? 幾乎在每一集里 牠的獵物 - 一只走鵑鳥 都會跳下懸崖 反正牠是鳥，牠可以飛 但土狼也會跟著牠一起跳崖 那很好笑 如果你是個六歲兒童 土狼也很好 牠就這么繼續(xù)跑 直到牠往下看 發(fā)現(xiàn)自己漫步在空中 這時候他才會往下掉 在我們犯錯時 在我們意識到我們犯錯時 我們就像那只土狼 還沒意識到自己奔出懸崖 我們已經(jīng)錯了 已經(jīng)惹上麻煩了 但仍然感覺像走在地上 我應該改變我之前的說法 犯錯的感覺就和 正確的感覺一樣

　　(Laughter)

　　(笑聲)

　　So this is one reason, a structural reason, why we get stuck inside this feeling of rightness. I call this error blindness. Most of the time, we don't have any kind of internal cue to let us know that we're wrong about something, until it's too late. But there's a second reason that we get stuck inside this feeling as well -- and this one is cultural. Think back for a moment to elementary school. You're sitting there in class, and your teacher is handing back quiz papers, and one of them looks like this. This is not mine, by the way. (Laughter) So there you are in grade school, and you know exactly what to think about the kid who got this paper. It's the dumb kid, the troublemaker, the one who never does his homework. So by the time you are nine years old, you've already learned, first of all, that people who get stuff wrong are lazy, irresponsible dimwits -- and second of all, that the way to succeed in life is to never make any mistakes.

　　事實上我們這種自以為對的感受 是有構造性的原因的 我稱之為錯誤盲點 大部份的時間里 我們身體里沒有任何機制 提醒我們錯了 直到木已成舟 但還有第二個理由 文化性的理由 回想小學時代 你坐在課堂里 你的老師發(fā)回小考考卷 像這樣的小考考卷 雖然這張不是我的 (笑聲) 你從小學時代 就知道該對拿這張考卷的同學 下甚么評語 笨蛋，搗蛋鬼 從不做功課的壞學生 你不過才九歲 你已經(jīng)懂得，首先 那些犯錯的人 都是懶惰、不負責任的傻瓜 第二 想要在人生中成功 就不要犯錯

　　We learn these really bad lessons really well. And a lot of us -- and I suspect, especially a lot of us in this room -- deal with them by just becoming perfect little A students, perfectionists, over-achievers. Right, Mr. CFO, astrophysicist, ultra-marathoner? (Laughter) You're all CFO, astrophysicists, ultra-marathoners, it turns out. Okay, so fine. Except that then we freak out at the possibility that we've gotten something wrong. Because according to this, getting something wrong means there's something wrong with us. So we just insist that we're right, because it makes us feel smart and responsible and virtuous and safe.

　　我們很早就得到這些錯誤訊息 而我們 尤其是這個大廳里的許多人 都因此成為好學生 拿全A 完美主義、永不滿意 不是嗎? 財務長、天體物理學家、超級馬拉松先生們? (笑聲) 結果是你們?nèi)�成了財務長、天體物理學家、跑超級馬拉松 那很好 但一旦我們發(fā)現(xiàn)有可能犯錯 就開始手足無措 因為依照規(guī)定 犯錯 代表我們一定也有甚么不對勁 于是我們堅持己見 因為那讓我們感覺聰明、得體 安全和可靠

　　So let me tell you a story. A couple of years ago, a woman comes into Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for a surgery. Beth Israel's in Boston. It's the teaching hospital for Harvard -- one of the best hospitals in the country. So this woman comes in and she's taken into the operating room. She's anesthetized, the surgeon does his thing -- stitches her back up, sends her out to the recovery room. Everything seems to have gone fine. And she wakes up, and she looks down at herself, and she says, "Why is the wrong side of my body in bandages?" Well the wrong side of her body is in bandages because the surgeon has performed a major operation on her left leg instead of her right one. When the vice president for health care quality at Beth Israel spoke about this incident, he said something very interesting. He said, "For whatever reason, the surgeon simply felt that he was on the correct side of the patient." (Laughter) The point of this story is that trusting too much in the feeling of being on the correct side of anything can be very dangerous.

　　讓我告訴你們一個故事 幾年前 一個女人到 Beth Israel Deaconess 診所做手術 Beth Israel 在波士頓 是哈佛大學的`教學附屬醫(yī)院 全國數(shù)一數(shù)二的醫(yī)療中心 這個女人被送進開刀房 麻醉，外科醫(yī)生做完手術 縫合，將她送進恢復室 一切看上去都很好 她醒來，往自己身上一看 說“為甚么我的左腿綁著繃帶?” 她應該接受治療的是右腿 但為他做手術的外科醫(yī)生 卻把刀開在左腿 當副院長出來為醫(yī)院的醫(yī)療質量 和這次意外做出解釋時 他說了句很有趣的話 他說“無論如何 這位外科醫(yī)生感覺 他開下的刀是在正確的一側” (笑聲) 故事的重點是 相信自己的判斷力 相信自己站在對的一邊 是非常危險的

　　This internal sense of rightness that we all experience so often is not a reliable guide to what is actually going on in the external world. And when we act like it is, and we stop entertaining the possibility that we could be wrong, well that's when we end up doing things like dumping 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, or torpedoing the global economy. So this is a huge practical problem. But it's also a huge social problem.

　　我們心中時常感覺到的 理直氣壯的感覺 在真實世界中 并不是個可靠的向導。 當我們依此行事 不再思考我們是否犯錯 我們就有可能 把兩百灣加侖的石油倒進墨西哥灣 或是顛覆世界經(jīng)濟 這是個很實際的問題 這也是個很大的社會問題

　　Think for a moment about what it means to feel right. It means that you think that your beliefs just perfectly reflect reality. And when you feel that way, you've got a problem to solve, which is, how are you going to explain all of those people who disagree with you? It turns out, most of us explain those people the same way, by resorting to a series of unfortunate assumptions. The first thing we usually do when someone disagrees with us is we just assume they're ignorant. They don't have access to the same information that we do, and when we generously share that information with them, they're going to see the light and come on over to our team. When that doesn't work, when it turns out those people have all the same facts that we do and they still disagree with us, then we move on to a second assumption, which is that they're idiots. (Laughter) They have all the right pieces of the puzzle, and they are too moronic to put them together correctly. And when that doesn't work, when it turns out that people who disagree with us have all the same facts we do and are actually pretty smart, then we move on to a third assumption: they know the truth, and they are deliberately distorting it for their own malevolent purposes. So this is a catastrophe.

　　“感覺對”究竟是什么意思 這代表著你認為你的信念 和真實是一致的 當你有這種感覺的時候 你的問題就大了 因為如果你是對的 為甚么還有人和你持不同意見? 于是我們往往用同一種 思考方式去解釋這些異議 第一是當他人不同意我們的說法 我們便覺得他們無知 他們不像我們懂得這么多 當我們慷慨地和他們分享我們的知識 他們便會理解，并加入我們的行列 如果不是這樣 如果這些人和我們獲得的信息一樣多 卻仍然不認同我們 我們便有了下一個定論 那就是他們是白癡 (笑聲) 他們已經(jīng)有了所有的信息 卻笨到無法拼湊出正確的圖像 一旦第二個定論也不成立 當這些反對我們的人 和我們有一樣的信息 又聰明 我們便有了第三個結論 他們知道事實是甚么 但卻為了自己的好處 故意曲解真實。 這真是個大災難

　　This attachment to our own rightness keeps us from preventing mistakes when we absolutely need to and causes us to treat each other terribly. But to me, what's most baffling and most tragic about this is that it misses the whole point of being human. It's like we want to imagine that our minds are just these perfectly translucent windows and we just gaze out of them and describe the world as it unfolds. And we want everybody else to gaze out of the same window and see the exact same thing. That is not true, and if it were, life would be incredibly boring. The miracle of your mind isn't that you can see the world as it is. It's that you can see the world as it isn't. We can remember the past, and we can think about the future, and we can imagine what it's like to be some other person in some other place. And we all do this a little differently, which is why we can all look up at the same night sky and see this and also this and also this. And yeah, it is also why we get things wrong.

　　我們的自以為是 讓我們在最需要的時候 無法預防犯錯 更讓我們互相仇視 對我來說 最大的悲劇是 它讓我們錯失了身為人的珍貴意義 那就像是想象 我們的心靈之窗完全透明 我們向外觀看 描述在我們之前展開的世界 我們想要每個人和我們有一樣的窗子 對世界做出一樣的觀察 那不是真的 如果是，人生將會多么無聊 心靈的神奇之處 不在你懂得這個世界是甚么樣子 而是去理解那些你不懂的地方 我們記得過去 思考未來 我們想象 自己成為他人，在他方 我們的想象都有些不同 于是當我們抬頭看同一個夜空 我們看到這個 這個 和這個 這也是我們搞錯事情的原因

　　1,200 years before Descartes said his famous thing about "I think therefore I am," this guy, St. Augustine, sat down and wrote "Fallor ergo sum" -- "I err therefore I am." Augustine understood that our capacity to screw up, it's not some kind of embarrassing defect in the human system, something we can eradicate or overcome. It's totally fundamental to who we are. Because, unlike God, we don't really know what's going on out there. And unlike all of the other animals, we are obsessed with trying to figure it out. To me, this obsession is the source and root of all of our productivity and creativity.

　　在笛卡兒說出那句有名的”我思故我在“ 的一千兩百年前 圣奧古斯丁，坐下來 寫下"Fallor ergo sum" "我錯故我在" 奧古斯丁懂得 我們犯錯的能力 這并不是人性中 一個令人難堪的缺陷 不是我們可以克服或消滅的 這是我們的本質 因為我們不是上帝 我們不知道我們之外究竟發(fā)生了甚么 而不同于其它動物的是 我們都瘋狂地想找出解答 對我來說 這種尋找的沖動 就是我們生產(chǎn)力和創(chuàng)造力的來源

　　Last year, for various reasons, I found myself listening to a lot of episodes of the Public Radio show This American Life. And so I'm listening and I'm listening, and at some point, I start feeling like all the stories are about being wrong. And my first thought was, "I've lost it. I've become the crazy wrongness lady. I just imagined it everywhere," which has happened. But a couple of months later, I actually had a chance to interview Ira Glass, who's the host of the show. And I mentioned this to him, and he was like, "No actually, that's true. In fact," he says, "as a staff, we joke that every single episode of our show has the same crypto-theme. And the crypto-theme is: 'I thought this one thing was going to happen and something else happened instead.' And the thing is," says Ira Glass, "we need this. We need these moments of surprise and reversal and wrongness to make these stories work." And for the rest of us, audience members, as listeners, as readers, we eat this stuff up. We love things like plot twists and red herrings and surprise endings. When it comes to our stories, we love being wrong.

　　因為一些緣故 去年我在廣播上 聽了很多集的"我們的美國人生" 我聽著聽著 突然發(fā)現(xiàn) 這些故事全和犯錯有關 我的第一個念頭是 “我完了 我寫書寫瘋了 四處都看到有關犯錯的幻覺” 說真的是這樣 但幾個月后 我訪問了那個廣播節(jié)目的主持人 Ira Glass 我向他提到這件事 他回答我“事實上 你是對的”他說 “我們這些工作人員總是 開玩笑說每集節(jié)目之中的 秘密主題都是一樣的 這個秘密主題就是 "我以為這件事會這樣發(fā)生 結果其它事情發(fā)生了" 他說"但是，這就是我們需要的 我們需要這些意外 這些顛倒和錯誤 這些故事才能成立。" 而我們身為觀眾 聽眾、讀者 我們吸收這些故事 我們喜歡故事轉折 令人驚訝的結局 我們喜歡在故事里 看到犯錯

　　But, you know, our stories are like this because our lives are like this. We think this one thing is going to happen and something else happens instead. George Bush thought he was going to invade Iraq, find a bunch of weapons of mass destruction, liberate the people and bring democracy to the Middle East. And something else happened instead. And Hosni Mubarak thought he was going to be the dictator of Egypt for the rest of his life, until he got too old or too sick and could pass the reigns of power onto his son. And something else happened instead. And maybe you thought you were going to grow up and marry your high school sweetheart and move back to your hometown and raise a bunch of kids together. And something else happened instead. And I have to tell you that I thought I was writing an incredibly nerdy book about a subject everybody hates for an audience that would never materialize. And something else happened instead.

　　但，故事會這樣寫 是因為人生就是這樣 我們以為某些事情會這樣發(fā)生 發(fā)生的卻是其它事 小布什以為他入侵伊拉克 會找到大規(guī)模毀滅性武器 解放中東百姓，為他們帶來民主自由 但卻不是這樣 穆巴拉克以為 他到死都會是埃及的獨裁者 一直到他年老或臥病 再把他的權力交給下一代 但卻不是這樣 或許你想過 你會長大、嫁給你的初戀情人 搬回老家，生一群孩子 但卻不是這樣 我必須說 我以為我寫的是一本很冷僻的書 有關一個人人討厭的主題 為一些從不存在的讀者 但卻不是這樣

　　(Laughter)

　　(笑聲)

　　I mean, this is life. For good and for ill, we generate these incredible stories about the world around us, and then the world turns around and astonishes us. No offense, but this entire conference is an unbelievable monument to our capacity to get stuff wrong. We just spent an entire week talking about innovations and advancements and improvements, but you know why we need all of those innovations and advancements and improvements? Because half the stuff that's the most mind-boggling and world-altering -- TED 1998 -- eh. (Laughter) Didn't really work out that way, did it? (Laughter) Where's my jet pack, Chris?

　　我們的人生 無論好壞 我們創(chuàng)造了啦 那包圍我們的世界 而世界轉過頭來，令我們大吃一驚 說真的，這整個會議 充斥著這樣難以置信的時刻 我們一次又一次地意識到自己的錯誤 我們花了整整一周 討論創(chuàng)新，進步 和改善 你知道我們?yōu)樯趺葱枰�這些創(chuàng)新 進步和改善嗎? 因為其中有一半 來自最應該改變世界的 98年的TED 呃 (笑聲) 真是出人意料之外啊，不是嗎 (笑聲) 我的逃生火箭在哪，Chris?

　　(Laughter)

　　(笑聲)

　　(Applause)

　　(掌聲)

　　So here we are again. And that's how it goes. We come up with another idea. We tell another story. We hold another conference. The theme of this one, as you guys have now heard seven million times, is the rediscovery of wonder. And to me, if you really want to rediscover wonder, you need to step outside of that tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other and look out at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe and be able to say, "Wow, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong."

　　于是我們又在這里 事情就是這樣 我們重新想出其它點子 我們有了新的故事 我們開了另一個會議 這次的主題是 如果你還沒有聽到耳朵出油的話 是重新找到想象的力量 對我來說 如果你真的想重新找到想象的力量 你需要離開 那個小小的、自我感覺良好的小圈圈 看看彼此 看看宇宙的 廣大無垠 復雜神秘 然后真正地說 “哇，我不知道 或許我錯了。”

　　Thank you.

　　謝謝各位

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