(Audio description) A white man with glasses sits at a marble table next to a plate of sliced pears.
（音频描述）一个戴着眼镜的白人坐在一盘切成薄片的梨旁边的大理石桌旁。
Hi, I'm Andrew Leland.
你好，我是安德鲁·利兰德（AndrewLeland）。
I'm blind.
我失明了。
And this is a TED Talk about blindness, which is confusing for me and for you because just by watching me right now,
这是一个关于失明的TED演讲，你我可能都感到困惑，因为当你看着我，
you can probably tell I'm not blind.
你可能会觉得我不是盲人。
For example, I can tell that on this plate right here, there are five slices of pear arranged in a smiley face.
例如，我可以看出，在这盘子里，有五片梨摆成一张笑脸。
Or that that --
或者那个——
(AD) A framed photo hangs on the wall behind him.
（音频描述）他身后的墙上挂着一张带框的照片。
AL: Is a photograph of a very sad hippo.
安德鲁·利兰德：是一张非常悲伤的河马的照片。
So you might be wondering, if I can see all that, why am I talking about blindness?
所以你可能想知道，如果我能看出所有这些，我为什么要谈论失明？
OK, so I'm going blind.
好吧，我将要面对失明。
I don't know exactly when.
虽然我不知道确切的时间。
As a teenager, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, which is a degenerative retinal condition.
十几岁的时候，我被诊断出患有色素性视网膜炎，简称RP，这是一种视网膜退行性疾病。
In my teens and early 20s, I only noticed it at night.
在我十几岁和20多岁的时候，我只在晚上才有所察觉。
Then in my early 30s, my peripheral vision started to deteriorate.
然后在我30多岁的时候，我的周边视力开始恶化。
Right now I have central vision, but I'm seeing the world through a pretty narrow porthole.
现在我有中心视野，但我正在通过一个非常狭窄的舷窗看世界。
So even though I can see these pears and that hippo, I'm legally blind.
所以尽管我能看见这些梨和那只河马，但我从法律上讲还是失明的。
I have severe tunnel vision, but it doesn't look like a tunnel because your brain adapts really quickly to whatever you see.
我有严重的隧道视力，但它看起来不像隧道，因为你的大脑会很快适应你所看到的一切。
Like if the frame of the movie you're watching starts to shrink to a much smaller size, at first you'll be annoyed.
就像你正在看的电影画面，开始缩小到更小的尺寸一样，起初你会感到恼人，
"This sucks,"
“这太糟糕了，”
you might say to yourself, "I don't like watching this movie on this tiny screen."
你可能会对自己说，“我不喜欢在这块小屏幕上看这部电影。”
Then your complaints will soften and disappear, and your brain will adapt to the new normal.
然后，你会减少抱怨，直到视而不见，你的大脑就会适应新常态。
Like the first time you watch a movie on your cell phone, it will be annoyingly small at first, and then you just get used to it.
就像你第一次在手机上看电影一样，一开始它会很小，然后你就习惯了。
So every time I lose another chunk of vision, at first I feel super extra blind, sometimes scared or claustrophobic.
因此，每当我进一步减弱视力时，起初我都会感到非常“失明”，有时是害怕或幽闭恐惧症，
My world is shrinking.
我的世界正在萎缩。
But then a week will go by, I get used to it, I don't feel so blind anymore.
但是过了一周，我已经习惯了，我已经不觉得那么盲目了。
This experience of super gradual vision loss has given me time to think about what blindness is, which might seem like an obvious question.
这种超级渐进的、视力丧失的经历让我有时间思考什么是失明，这似乎是一个显而易见的问题。
Blindness is the absence of sight, but it's actually more complicated than that.
失明是视力的缺失，但实际上比这更复杂。
Trying to define blindness can start to feel paradoxical.
试图定义失明可能会开始让人感到矛盾。
There's a paradox that's useful in thinking about blindness.
在思考失明问题时，有一种悖论很有用。
It's called the paradox of the heap.
这叫做“堆的悖论”。
Let's say you have a heap of something, like sand or marbles or goji berries.
假设你有一堆东西，比如沙子、弹珠或者枸杞。
Now imagine I take a single little goji berry off of the heap.
现在想象一下我从堆里拿走一粒小枸杞，
Is it still a heap?
它还是一堆吗？
OK, what if I remove a second tiny little goji berry from the heap?
好吧，如果我从堆里取出第二粒小枸杞会怎么样？
Obviously that is still a heap also.
显然，这仍然是一堆东西。
But, the ancient Greek philosopher wondered, at what point is it no longer a heap?
但是，这位古希腊哲学家想知道，在什么时候它不再是一堆东西？
How many goji berries do I have to remove?
我必须拿走多少枸杞？
Is it still a heap when there's only ten left?
只剩下十粒的时候还是一堆吗？
Five?
五粒？
Vision works this way too.
视觉也是同理。
How much vision do I need to lose before I can legitimately call myself blind?
我需要失去多少视力才能合法地称自己为盲人？
I saw this photo online the other day.
前几天我在网上看到了这张照片。
(AD) In the photo, a Black woman holds a white cane and looks at a cell phone.
(音频描述)在照片中，一名黑人妇女拿着一根白手杖，看着手机。
AL: The image circulated with a caption, "If you can see what's wrong, say 'I see it.'"
安德鲁·利兰德：这张图片在网上流传，配文：“如果你能看出问题所在，那就说‘我看见了。’”
Can you see what's wrong with this photo?
你能看出这张照片有什么问题吗？
The answer that the people sharing the photo had is that the woman can't be blind.
分享照片的人的答案是，那个女人不可能失明。
If she is, why is she looking at her phone?
如果是的话，她为什么要看手机？
Blind people don't look at things.
盲人是不看东西的。
The caption wants you to remember: blind people don't see.
配文想让你记住：盲人看不见。
And if she can see, what's she doing with that long white cane that signals to the world that she's blind?
而且，如果她能看见，她为什么还要用那根向全世界昭告她是失明人士的白色长拐杖？
Maybe she's trying to get sympathy that she doesn't deserve or trying to trick us somehow.
也许她想得到她不配得到的同情，或者想以某种方式欺骗我们。
So how blind you have to be to be blind?
那么，你必须有多盲才能算失明？
How much vision do you have to remove from the heap of sight before it becomes blindness?
在视力变成失明之前，你必须从视力堆中移除多少视力？
People love binaries, especially people on the internet, which is a place that's not always very friendly to ambiguity.
人们喜欢非黑即白，尤其是互联网上的人，这个地方对模棱两可的事物并不总是很友好。
This photo was shared more than 33,000 times, and I think it went viral exactly because of its ambiguity.
这张照片被分享了超过三万三千次，我认为它之所以风靡一时，正是因为它的模棱两可。
It illuminates a weird, paradoxical truth about blindness.
它阐明了一个关于失明的奇怪而矛盾的真相，
Blind people can see.
盲人也能看得见。
I don't mean this in the way that people mean it when they talk about Daniel Kish.
我的意思不是人们谈论丹尼尔·基什（DanielKish）时的意思。
Kish makes clicking sounds with his mouth that he uses to navigate his environment the way a bat uses sonar.
基什用嘴发出咔嗒声，他用嘴巴像蝙蝠使用声纳一样在环境中导航。
Brain scans show that when Kish navigates his environment this way, using his DIY sonar, his visual cortex lights up.
脑部扫描显示，当基什使用DIY声纳，以这种方式探索环境时，他的视觉皮层会亮起来。
That's amazing.
太神奇了。
But the point I'm making is much simpler.
但是我要说的要简单得多。
On the one hand, blindness is a binary.
一方面，失明是二元的，
You're either blind or you're not.
你要么失明，要么不失明。
But on the other hand, blindness is a spectrum.
另一方面，失明是一个频谱。
There are different degrees of blindness and different styles.
失明程度不同，风格也不同。
Some people have the inverse of what I've got.
有些人的情况与我所面临的恰恰相反。
They only see through their peripheral vision with nothing in the center.
他们只能透视周围的视野，中间没有任何东西。
Other blind people see the world as though their glasses have been smeared with Vaseline or their head's been wrapped several times in saran wrap or like they're looking through a thick, broken fishbowl.
