TED演讲:你的用词透露了你未来的精神状态?(3)

 And with this, we could analyze 1 the history of introspection in the ancient Greek tradition,  有了这些数据，我们就可以分析古希腊传统中有关于内省的历史，

for which we have the best available written record.  因为有着最完整的文字记录。
So what we did is we took all the books, we just ordered them by time 所以，我们先把这些书按照时间排列，
for each book we take the words and we project them to the space,  然后把这些字投射到字汇空间里面
and then we ask for each word how close it is to introspection, and we just average that. 然后我们问计算机这些字与内省有多少的相关性，再把它们平均起来。
And then we ask whether, as time goes on and on,  然后，我们不断地问计算机问题，
these books get closer, and closer and closer to the concept of introspection. 这些书就会越来越接近内省的概念。
And this is exactly what happens in the ancient Greek tradition.  而这正是古希腊所发生的事。
So you can see that for the oldest books in the Homeric tradition,  各位可以看到在荷马时代最古老的书籍，
there is a small increase with books getting closer to introspection.  与内省的相关性只有一点点。
But about four centuries before Christ,  但约在公元前400年左右，
this starts ramping 2 up very rapidly to an almost five-fold increase 它快速成长了五倍，
of books getting closer, and closer and closer to the concept of introspection.  这些书与内省的概念越来越接近。
And one of the nice things about this is that now we can ask whether 最棒的是，我们可以问计算机
this is also true in a different, independent tradition. 在不同的、独立的传统文化中，是否也有一样的现象。
So we just ran this same analysis on the Judeo-Christian tradition, and we got virtually the same pattern.  所以，我们用同样的方法分析了传统犹太基督教的书籍，也得到了类似的趋势。
Again, you see a small increase for the oldest books in the Old Testament 3,  在最古老的旧约圣经中，你可以看到它缓慢地增加，
and then it increases much more rapidly in the new books of the New Testament.  之后在新约圣经中，它快速地增长
And then we get the peak of introspection in "The Confessions 4 of Saint Augustine," about four centuries after Christ.  大约公元400年，圣奥古斯丁的《忏悔录》内省达到了最高峰。
And this was very important,  这个方法相当重要
because Saint Augustine had been recognized by scholars, philologists 5, historians, as one of the founders 6 of introspection.  因为圣奥古斯丁已经被多位学者、心理学家、历史学家公认为是内省的创始人之一。
Actually, some believe him to be the father of modern psychology 7. 有些人认为他是现代心理学之父。
So our algorithm, which has the virtue 8 of being quantitative 9, of being objective, and of course of being extremely fast 所以，我们算法的优点不仅可以量化，而且客观，当然速度也相当快
it just runs in a fraction of a second 几秒就可以跑完
can capture some of the most important conclusions of this long tradition of investigation 10.  并捕捉到若使用传统方法必须费长时间调查才能抓到的一些重点。
And this is in a way one of the beauties of science,  这也是科学美好的地方，
which is that now this idea can be translated and generalized to a whole lot of different domains 11. 它可以可以解读、归纳这想法，然后广泛应用在许多不同的领域上。
So in the same way that we asked about the past of human consciousness,  我们用计算机来分析过去的自我意识发展的方法，
maybe the most challenging question we can pose to ourselves 或许是最具挑战性的问题，
is whether this can tell us something about the future of our own consciousness.  是不是也可以告诉我们自我意识的未来趋向呢？
To put it more precisely 12, whether the words we say today 更精确地说，我们现在说的话，
can tell us something of where our minds will be in a few days, in a few months or a few years from now. 是否可以告诉我们接下来的几天、几个月或几年后，我们的心智会达到什么样的情况。