TED- 我们的奇思妙想来自哪里？

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零重力下起舞、极慢镜头下表演，甚至是在仓库内搭建一整套戈德堡机械——OK Go乐队歌曲MV中的这些奇特创意到底来自何处？在《一切都会过去》和《这一瞬》两首歌曲的现场表演之间，OK Go向我们展示了如何寻找奇思妙想。

https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=q0543r9fbk4&width=500&height=375&auto=0

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中英对照演讲稿

Music

Thank you, thanks very much. 

谢谢,非常感谢！[03:41] 

We are OK Go, and we've been together as a band since 1998. 

我们是 OK Go 组合, 我们的乐队组于1998年。 [03:54] 

But in the last decade, we've become known as much for the elaborate music videos, like the one we just saw, as for the songs they accompany. 

但是在过去十年里, 我们因为精心制作的 音乐视频 （MV）而被大家知晓, 就像刚才这个, 还有视频里 伴奏的这些曲子。[03:59] 

So we will play along with another one of those in a few minutes, but in the meantime, we want to address this question that we get asked all the time but we've really never come up with an adequate answer for it, and that is, how do we think of those ideas? 

我们一会儿还会再演奏一首, 但是现在, 我们希望 回答一个被经常问到的问题, 但说实在的,我们一直 也没有找到太好的答案, 这个问题就是: 我们是怎 么想出这些点子的。[04:08] 

The videos are not all Rube Goldberg machines, by the way. 

另外提一下,我们的 MV里也不全是这种戈德堡机械。

Last year we did a dance in zero gravity, and once we set up an obstacle course out of thousands of musical instruments in the desert, and then played them by stunt driving a car through them.

去年我们做了一个在零重力场景下的舞蹈MV, 还 有一次我们建了一条障碍赛道, 把成千种乐器放在 沙漠中, 用一辆特技驾驶的车来演奏他们。[04:26]

(Laughter) For one of the videos, we choreographed hundreds of people with umbrellas in an abandoned parking lot outside Tokyo, and then filmed them from a drone a half a mile in the air.

（笑声） 在其中一个 MV 中, 我们编排了上百个 带着雨伞的人, 在东京郊区某个闲置的停车场跳舞, 然后用一台无人机从800米的高空拍摄。[04:36]

So it's all of these ideas that people are curious about, and the reason we've had so much trouble describing how we think of these ideas is that it doesn't really feel like we think of them at all.

人们对我们这些创意特别好奇, 但我们却很难解释 我们是怎么想到这些点子的, 因为我们并不觉得我 们“想”到了它们。[04:48]

It feels like we find them. 

更像是我们“找”到了它们。[04:59] 

And by way of explanation — well, I have a compulsive habit. 

如果要解释的话—— 我有一点强迫症,[05:02]  

I play parallax and perspective games with my eyes pretty much all the time, and it's something I've been doing since I was a teenager. 

我的眼睛几乎总是在玩视差和透视的游戏, 从我青少年时期就开始了。[05:09] 

And I think the big contributing factor may have been that this is how I decorated my high school bedroom. 

养成这个习惯很可能是因为 我高中的寝室这样乱七八糟。[05:17] 

(Laughter) And being a teenager, what I did in there, of course,was just talk on the phone for staggering amounts of time. 

（笑声）作为一名青少年, 在房间里无非是跟人煲电话粥, 而且煲很长很长时间。[05:22] 

So I was in this visual maelstrom just pretty much usually sitting in one place, and I guess just the overload in general — my brain kind of tried to make sense of it, and I would — 

我会陷到这个视觉漩涡中, 通常是坐在一个地方盯着眼前的一堆——我的大脑会试图去理解这些图 案和规律——[05:31] 

If I could move my head off to one side a little bit, the edge of the desk would line up just perfectly with that poster on the opposite wall; or if I put my thumb out, 

比如说,如果我稍微歪一下头, 在我眼里桌子的边沿 就完美地 和对面墙上的海报对齐了; 或者如果我伸 出我的大拇指,[05:42] 

I could close first my left eye and then my right, and my thumb would bounce back and forth between Jimi Hendrix's left eye and his right. 

我可以依次闭上我的左眼,再换成右眼, 我的拇指看 上去会像是在前后跳动,就在吉米·亨得利斯海报的 左右眼之间跳动。[05:49] 

(Laughter) It was not a conscious thing, of course, this is just kind of the equivalent of doodling while you're talking, and it's still something I do all the time. 

（笑声）当然,我并不是有意识地在做这些,就像 当你讲话的时候可能会胡乱涂写,而且时至今日我 还是经常会这样做。[05:56] 

This is my wife, Kristin — 

这是我的妻子,克莉丝汀——[06:05] 

(Applause) Yeah! 

（掌声） 耶！[06:06] 

Woo! 哇奥！[06:09] 

And it's not uncommon that we are out at dinner, and in the middle of a great conversation she'll just stop mid-sentence, and when she stops is when I realize that I'm the one who's acting weird because I'm like bobbing and weaving. 

我们经常出去吃饭, 正聊得热火朝天的时候,她突然 就安静了, 而当她停下来的时候,我就会 意识到我 肯定又干了什么奇怪的事情, 因为发现我整个身体 正在不安分地扭动。[06:09] 

And what I'm trying to do is get that ficus back there to stick out of her head like a ponytail. 

事实上,我正在努力 把她背后那棵树跟她对齐, 让它像一根马尾辫一样从她后脑勺伸出来。[06:23] 

(Laughter) The point of telling you all this is that — for me this is what it feels like to have an idea. 

（笑声）我告诉大家这些的原因是——对我来说, 这就是找到新点子的感觉。[06:27] 

It's like they're made of these disparate parts, these 

它就好像是由零碎的部件组成, 而这些零碎部件很

It's like they're made of these disparate parts, these disparate chunks sort of floating out there. 

随机地浮现在周围。[06:36] 

And if you're receptive and you're observant, and crucially, if you're in exactly the right place, you can get them to just line up. 

当你具有足够的感应及观察能力, 更关键的是,当你 处于观察的最佳位置, 你就能让它们刚好对齐。 [06:41] 

So if you get used to — if it's your job to think of ideas this way, they'll start beckoning to you the way that Jimi's eyes beckoned from that poster, or the ficus beckons from behind Kristin's head. 

所以,如果你习惯于—— 如果你在工作中 运用这样 的思考模式的话, 那么这些点子就会召唤你, 就像 来自海报上吉米的眼睛的召唤, 或者是克莉丝汀脑 后 探出的榕树的召唤。[06:49] 

Writing music feels like that process just over and over again, like you've got a bunch of sounds or a groove or a chord progression and you're just looking for that thing on the other side, that little chunk over there,that puzzle piece that clicks right in. 

写歌就像是不停地重复这个过程, 就像是你得到了 一系列声音, 一段节奏或者一个和弦, 而你还需要 寻找另一样东西, 寻找另外一小块恰恰般配的拼 图。[07:00] 

And when it does click, it doesn't feel like you thought up that puzzle piece, it feels like you found it — like it was a set of relationships that you unlocked. 

当拼图刚好合上的时候, 那种感觉并非是你“想 出”了那块拼图, 而是感觉你“找到”它了, 就好 像解锁了一组联系物。[07:15] 

But with the videos in particular, we're usually looking for this specific feeling which is wonder. 

但是对于那些 MV 的制作, 我们常常在寻找一种特 别的感觉, 这种感觉叫做“神奇”。[07:24] 

And there's always a component of surprise to wonder, so we're not just looking for good ideas, we're looking for good ideas that surprise us in some way. 

这种“神奇”中往往带有惊喜的成分, 所以我们不 仅是在寻找好点子, 我们找的好点子需要以某种方式让我们感到惊喜。[07:31] 

And this causes something of a problem, because ... 

于是问题就来了, 因为……[07:39] 

the process that we all use to make stuff, it actually has a very strong bias against surprising ideas. 

我们用来制作这些东西的过程, 其实对这些奇思妙 想是非常不友好的。[07:44] 

The process I'm talking about is the one you all know — we all do it all the time. 

我现在所讲的过程 其实大家都很熟悉——我们每时每刻都在用。[07:51] 

You think of an idea. 

你想到了一个点子。[07:54] 

You just sit and think of your brilliant idea and then you come up with a plan for how you're going to make that idea happen. 

然后你就坐在那儿 思考着这个绝佳的点子, 接着你制定了一个计划,来实现这个想法。[07:56] 

And then with that plan in mind, you go back and doublecheck your original idea and maybe revise it, and then bouncing back and forth between the idea and the plan, the plan and the idea, eventually you come up with a truly great plan. 

然后在你的脑海里 你不断来回思考你的初始想法, 或许会加以修正, 接着继续来回思考你的想法和计 划, 徘徊其中, 直到你终于想出了一个极好的计 划。[08:01] 

And then once you have that, and only then,do you go out and you execute. 

而只有当个计划最终确定时, 你才动手开始实施计 划。[08:13] this is sort of a flawless system in terms of maximizing your resources, because this — super cheap. 

可以说是一种完美的体系, 能最大限度地利用你的资源, 因为这个东西——它非常便宜。[08:19] Thinking usually costs very little, but this is really expensive most of the time, so by the time you get there, you want to make sure you're super prepared and you can squeeze every last drop out of what you've got. 

思考常常花费甚少, 但实施过程往往是十分昂贵的, 所以开始行动前, 你要确定你真的准备妥当了, 并 且能把你的想法都 毫无遗留地榨取出来。[08:27] 

But there are problems with this, and math will help us reveal the biggest one. 

然而这个过程存在很多问题, 而数学能告诉我们最 大的问题是什么。[08:37] 

Go back to that video that we just showed you. 

让我们回到刚才展示的 MV。[08:42] 

That Rube Goldberg machine, it had about 130 interactions in it. 

那个戈德堡机械, 它大概有130个互动关节,[08:45] 

That was 130 things that we had to have go according to our plan. 

也就是说按照计划 我们需要这130个东西正常运作。[08:49] 

So let's assume that we want to make a new video now, similarly complex — 130 moving parts. 

那么假设我们现在想录一段新的 MV, 跟之前同样复杂——有130个活动部件。[08:54] 

If we're really good planners in that system, it seems like maybe we could be good enough to get every part of that system to be 90 percent reliable.

如果我们制订了相当好的计划, 那么我们也许能够 达到 这个系统每个部件90%的可靠性。[09:01]

90 percent sounds good, right? 

90%听起来还不错吧？[09:12] 

Well, it's not. 

然而并非如此。[09:14] 

It's terrible actually. 

它其实烂透了。[09:16] 

The numbers say so. 

数据是这么显示的。[09:17] 

The chance of getting all 130 things to not fail at the same time is .9 for 90 percent to the 130th power. 

在同一时间所有130个部件不失败的几率, 是0.9的 130次方,[09:18] 

So calculate that out and you get ... 

所以计算结果出来了:[09:26] 

(Ding) .000001, which is one ten-thousandth of one percent, so your chance for success is literally one in a million. 

（叮）0.000001,也就是1%的万分之一, 也就是 说,成功几率是百万分之一。[09:28] 

(Whistle)（哨声）[09:42] 

(Laughter) I mean that's not a gamble I want to take, so let's ratchet up that reliability to 99 percent. 

（笑声）这样的赌局我是一定不会参加的, 那我们试试看提高这个可靠性,提到99%。[09:42] 

0.99 to the 130th power is ... 

0.99的130次方等于:[09:51] 

(Ding) Significantly less daunting — like this might even be usable. 

（叮）明显没那么吓人了——看上去好像行得通。[09:54]  

But really think about that. 

但你仔细想想。[10:00] 

How many parts of your lives are 99 percent reliable? 

你生活中有多少事情是99%可靠的呢？[10:01] 

And could you really get 130 of them all in one place at once? 

你真的能让130个部件都在同一时间成功吗？ [10:05] 

And if you really could, doesn't it seem like you deserve to succeed? 

而如果你确实做到了, 你难道不觉得成功也是应该的吗？[10:10] 

that thing is going to work, right? 

它必须得成功的,对吧？[10:17] 

But no, it actually fails three times more often than it succeeds. 

但并没有,它失败的次数其实是成功次数的三倍。[10:19] 

So the upshot of all this is that if your project is pretty complex — like, you know,every ambitious project is — if you've got a lot of moving parts, you're basically constrained to just reshuffling ideas that have already demonstrably proven that they're 100 percent reliable. 

所以我想说的是, 如果你的项目比较复杂——你懂的,所有伟大的项目都很复杂,如果有许多活动部 件,你能做的可能只是把 现成的,已经被证明100% 可靠的那些点子 翻来覆去地推敲。[10:22] 

So now go back to me sitting with my thumb in the air trying to line up something surprising. 

那么让我们回到之前的场景,我举起大拇指尝试组成某个神奇的东西。[10:40] 

If the only things I'm allowed to consider in the f 54 39192 54 21202 0 0 1346 0 0:00:29 0:00:15 0:00:14 3838 54 39192 54 21202 0 0 1266 0 0:00:30 0:00:16 0:00:14 3838 54 39192 54 21202 0 0 1194 0 0:00:32 0:00:17 0:00:15 3838irst place are ideas that have already been done over and over and over again, 

如果我唯一所能考虑的仅仅是那些被翻来覆去用烂掉的点子的话,[10:45]  

I am screwed. 

我就完蛋了。[10:52] 

However, there are ways around this, because we all know that there are tons of untried ideas still out there, and plenty of them will turn out to be every bit as reliable as we need, it's just that we don't yet know they are reliable when we are at this planning phase. 

幸好还是有办法的,因为我们都知道,还有那么多点子仍未被尝试、未被发掘, 而其中不少点子也会如 我们所需要的一样可靠,只是在做计划的这个阶段, 我们还不知道它们很可靠而已。[10:54] 

So what we do is we try to identify some place where there might just be a ton of those untried ideas. 

那么我们需要做的就是, 找到这个可能有许多 未被 尝试的点子的地方。[11:09] 

We try to find a sandbox and then we gamble a whole bunch of our resources on getting in that sandbox and playing. 

我们去找到这样一个沙盘, 然后我们赌上一大堆资源, 把我们扔进沙盘里各种折腾。[11:17] (Laughter) Because we have to trust that it's the process in the sandbox that will reveal to us which ideas are not only surprising, but surprisingly reliable. 

（笑声）因为我们必须坚信这个折腾沙盘的过程能够告诉我们哪些点子不但非常惊人, 而且也出乎 意料地可靠。[11:24] 

So some of the sandboxes that we've started videos with. 

这是我们最早开始做MV时的一些沙盘演练。[11:34] 

Let's play with optical illusions. 

来倒腾视觉错觉效果吧。[11:38] 

Let's try to dance on moving surfaces.

在移动的平面上跳舞吧。[11:41] 

Let's try to make toast with a laser cutter. 

来试试用激光切割机烤面包呗。[11:44] 

Or let's do something in one of those zero-gravity airplanes. 

或者在零重力飞机里倒腾点什么呗。[11:47] 

But then instead of actually trying to sit there and think out what that something is, we spent a full third of our budget getting in an actual Vomit Comet and bouncing off the walls for a week. 

当然我们不是坐在那儿发呆, 苦思冥想着到底要倒 腾些什么, 而是花了整整三分之一的预算, 跑 57 39192 57 22650 0 0 1219 0 0:00:32 0:00:18 0:00:14 4235一 架“呕吐彗星”（减重力飞机）里,疯狂弹跳了一个礼拜。[11:53] 

So this may seem to you like testing, but it really isn't, because at this point we don't yet know what our idea is, we don't have a plan to be testing. 

在你们看来,这像是某种测试, 但真的不是。 因为这时候我们甚至不知道点子在哪里,我们并没有任 何要测试的计划。[12:03] 

we're just playing, we're just trying everything we can think of, because we need to get this idea space filled up with a chaos like the one in my high school bedroom. 

我们只是在玩, 在尝试我们能想到的所有, 因为我们要让思维的空间堆满乱七八糟的东西, 就像我高 中时期的卧室一样。[12:16] 

Because then, if we can do the bob and weave thing, if we can put our thumbs up and get just a few things to line up — 

因为只有这样,如果我们做那种上下左右挪动的动作,然后当我们竖起大拇指,让这些东西对齐—— [12:26] 

(Ding) chances are no one else has ever made those same things line up before. 

（叮）我们就很可能发现一些其他人从未尝试的 事情。[12:33] 

And when we're done with that project, people will ask us again how we thought of that idea, and we'll be stumped,because from our perspective, it doesn't feel like we thought of it at all, it just feels like we found it. 

而当我们完成了整个项目之后, 其他人又问我们怎样想出这些点子的, 我们就会很懵,因为在我们看来 根本不是我们“想出”了它, 而是我们“找到”了 它。[12:37] 

So we'll play another video for you now and the song along with it. 

现在我们为大家播放另一段MV,以及伴奏歌曲。[12:48] 

This is for the song "The One Moment," 

歌曲名称是《这一瞬》。[12:52] 

and for this one, the sandbox was ballistics and math. 

这个MV的沙盘主题就是 弹道学和数学。[12:55] 

So I spent a full month putting together a giant spreadsheet for this. 

我花了一整个月的时间 整理出了一大份电子表格。[12:58] 

It was like my playspace was 400 lines long and 25 columns wide — which I presume that if anybody is going to understand that, it's this crowd. 

我的工作区好像有400行那么长, 还有25列那么宽 —— 我猜如果有人能听懂的话, 估计都在这屋子里 了。[13:04] 

(Laughter) Nothing is better than a giant spreadsheet, right? 

（笑声）乱七八糟的表格什么的最棒了,对吧？ [13:14] 

(Laughter) Well, thank you everyone, very much. 

（笑声）谢谢大家倾听,非常感谢。[13:17] 

We are OK Go, and this is called "The One Moment." 

我们是 OK Go, 《这一瞬》献给大家。[13:21]

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