TED演讲:用玩具创造世界

 　　I've always wanted to be a cyborg.  我一直想成为一个半机械人。

　　One of my favorite shows as a kid was "The Six Million Dollar Man,"  我小时候最喜欢的电视剧之一是“无敌金刚”，它的造价是六百万美元。

　　and this is a little bit closer to the 240 dollar man or so, but --  而这玩意儿的价值挺相近的，大约是240万美元，但是——

　　At at any rate. I would normally feel very self-conscious and geeky wearing this around, 不管怎样。而且我经常会感到拘谨，感觉有点儿怪异，穿着这个走来走去，

　　but a few days ago I saw one world-renowned statistician swallowing swords on stage here,  嗯，但是呢，今天前我看见一位举世闻名的数据专家在这个舞台上吞剑，

　　so I figure it's OK amongst this group.  于是我就觉得在这群人里面我还算正常。

　　But that's not what I want to talk about today.  但是这不是我今天要谈论的话题。

　　I want to talk about toys, and the power that I see inherent in them.  我想要谈玩具，以及我从玩具中发现的天然的威力。

　　When I was a kid, I attended Montessori school up to sixth grade in Atlanta, Georgia. 当我还是个小孩的时候，我在大名鼎鼎的蒙特梭利学校读到了六年级。那是在佐治亚州亚特兰大。

　　And at the time I didn't think much about it,  那时，我并没有觉得有啥了不起。

　　but then later, I realized that that was the high point of my education.  但是后来，我发现那是我教育生涯中的制高点。

　　From that point on, everything else was pretty much downhill.  从那以后，一切都江河日下了。

　　And it wasn't until later, as I started making games, that --  等到后来，当我开始制作电脑游戏，那时我真的——

　　I really actually think of them more as toys.  我把它们当做是玩具。

　　People call me a game designer, but I really think of these things more as toys.  人们称我为游戏设计师，但是我却将（我设计的）那些东西当做玩具。

　　But I started getting very interested in Maria Montessori and her methods,  我开始对玛利亚·蒙特梭利和她的教育方法

　　and the way she went about things,  以及她的处事方式感兴趣。

　　and the way she thought it very valuable for kids to kind of discover things on their own  她很重视让孩子们自己去发现，

　　rather than being taught these things overtly¹.  而不是直接明白地向他们灌输这些知识。

　　And she would design these toys, where kids in playing with the toys  她会设计一些寓教于乐的玩具，

　　would actually come to understand these deep principles of life and nature through play. 使孩子们可以一边玩一边懂得一些有关人生和自然的深刻道理。

　　And since they discovered those things, it really stuck with them so much more,  因为这些道理是他们自己发现的，所以他们就会牢牢记住它们，

　　and also they would experience their own failures;  而且他们还会经历失败，

　　there was a failure-based aspect to learning there. It was very important.  这样他们就会经历挫折教育。这是很重要的。

　　And so, the games that I do, I think of really more as modern Montessori toys.  因此，我觉得我所创作的游戏就是蒙特梭利式的玩具的现代翻版。

　　And I really kind of want them to be presented in a way  并且我真心希望它们能够帮助小孩们

　　to where kids can kind of explore and discover their own principles.  通过自己去探索和发现这个世界的道理。

　　So a few years ago, I actually started getting very interested in the SETI program. 于是，几年前，我开始对地外文明探索工程产生了浓厚的兴趣。

　　And that's the way I work.  这是我的一种工作方式，

　　I get interested in different kinds of subjects, I dive in,  我对各种领域都有兴趣，我潜入其中，

　　I research them, and then I try to figure out how to craft a toy around that,  探索研究它，然后想办法做出一种与之相关的游戏，

　　so that other people can kind of experience the same sense of discovery 这样其他人就能体验到和我在学习这个课题时

　　as I did as I was learning that subject. 所体验过的发现的感觉。

　　And it kind of led me to astrobiology, which is the study of possible life in the universe.  于是我遇到了研究宇宙中可能存在的生命的天体生物学。

　　And then Drake's Equation, which is looking at the probability of life arising on planets, 然后是德瑞克方程式，大家知道，它关注的是行星上可能产生生命的概率，

　　how long it might last, how many planets are out there, stuff like that. 可以维持的时间，以及可能有多少行星，诸如此类

　　And I started looking at how interesting Drake's Equation was,  我开始关注这个极其有趣的方程，

　　because it spanned all these different subjects --  因为它涉及了各种不同的学科——

　　physics, chemistry, sociology, economics, astronomy.  物理、化学、社会学、经济学、天文学。

　　And another thing that really impressed me a long time ago was "Powers of Ten," Charles and Ray Eames' film. 另一个很久以来让我印象深刻的是查尔斯·伊默斯和蕾·伊默斯夫妇的影片《十的次方》

　　And I started putting those two together and wondering,  当我把这两者合起来看时，我想到

　　could I build a toy where kids would kind of trip across all these interesting principles of life, 我能不能建造一个玩具，使得小孩们可以在生命所有的这些有趣的、

　　as it exists and as it might go in the future.  经久不变的规则中穿梭？

　　Things where you might trip across things like the Copernican Principle, the Fermi Paradox,  你可能会遇到哥白尼定律、费米佯谬

　　the Anthropic Principle, the origin of life.  人择原理、生命起源。

　　And so I'm going to show you a toy today that I've been working on,  而我今天要向大家展示的是我正在创作中的一个玩具，

　　that I think of more than anything else as kind of a philosophy toy.  我觉得它绝对是一个哲学玩具。

　　In playing this toy, you kind of -- this will bring up philosophical² questions in you.  当你玩着这个玩具的时候，你就会想到一些哲学的命题。

　　This game's called "Spore³." I've been working on it for several years.  这个游戏的名字叫做“孢子”。我为这个游戏努力了好几年了。

　　It's getting pretty close to finished now.  创作已经接近尾声。

　　It occurs at all these different scales, first of all, from very, very small to very, very large. 它有不同的场景规模。从极其微小到非常宏大。

　　I'm just going to pop in at the start of the game.  我将要从最开端来进入这个游戏。

1 overtly   

ad.公开地

参考例句：

• There were some overtly erotic scenes in the film. 影片中有一些公开色情场面。
• Nietzsche rejected God's law and wrote some overtly blasphemous things. 尼采拒绝上帝的律法，并且写了一些渎神的作品。

2 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

3 spore   

n.(无花植物借以繁殖的)孢子，芽胞

参考例句：

• A spore can quickly spread and form a mould.一个孢子能迅速蔓延并形成霉。
• The cation penetrates the spore.这种阳离子能透入孢子。