Mariano Sigman: Your words may predict your future mental health
Mariano Sigman: Tus palabras pueden predecir tu salud mental futura
In his provocative, mind-bending book "The Secret Life of the Mind," neuroscientist Mariano Sigman reveals his life’s work exploring the inner workings of the human brain. Full bio
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to know how the ancient Greeks dressed,
cómo se vestían los antiguos griegos,
aspects of human thought --
más profundos del pensamiento:
that have shaped our culture
que han dado forma a nuestra cultura
the structural columns of human thought.
estructurales del pensamiento humano.
opinions about this.
opiniones sobre esto.
philosophical debate.
filosófico de larga tradición.
even amenable to science?
abordable por la ciencia?
que, así como podemos
how the ancient Greek cities looked
las antiguas ciudades griegas
are the archaeological records,
son los registros arqueológicos,
de análisis psicológico
books of human culture,
de la cultura humana,
with a very wild and radical hypothesis:
una hipótesis fantástica y muy radical:
we would call schizophrenics.
llamaríamos esquizofrénicos.
humans described in these books
humanos descritos en estos libros
and in different places of the world,
y distintos lugares del mundo,
as coming from the Gods,
procedentes de los dioses,
con el transcurso del tiempo,
that they were the creators,
ellos mismos eran los creadores,
about their own thoughts.
los propios pensamientos.
dice que la conciencia,
of our own existence --
de nuestra propia existencia,
bastante reciente.
and very specific examples.
pocos ejemplos muy específicos.
history only about 3,000 years ago
historia humana hace solo unos 3000 años
and objective manner.
cuantitativa y objetiva.
to go about this is quite obvious.
es bastante obvio.
and then he wrote,
un día y escrito:
a fully introspective consciousness."
totalmente introspectiva".
what is the essence of the problem.
cuál es la esencia del problema.
of a concept that's never said.
de un concepto que nunca se dijo.
does not appear a single time
no aparece ni una sola vez
is to build the space of words.
es construyendo el espacio de palabras.
that contains all words
que contiene todas las palabras
between any two of them
entre cualquiera de ambas
closely related they are.
relacionadas que están.
to be very close together,
estén muy próximas entre sí,
to be very far away.
y "logaritmo"muy alejadas.
for any two words within the space.
par de palabras dentro del espacio.
that we can construct the space of words.
el espacio de palabras.
con los diccionarios.
that when two words are related,
cuando dos palabras se relacionan
just by pure chance.
simplemente por pura casualidad.
and high-dimensional space,
multidimensional muy complejo,
of how well this works,
de lo bien que funciona,
we analyze this for some familiar words.
analizar algunas palabras familiares.
into semantic neighborhoods.
automáticamente en campos semánticos.
los términos científicos, etc.
the scientific terms and so on.
that we organize concepts in a hierarchy.
organizamos los conceptos en jerarquías.
break down into two subcategories
se separan en dos subcategorías:
una ubicación extraña,
donde debería estar,
esto durante un tiempo,
at this for a while,
a bit like doing poetry.
un poco a hacer poesía.
is like walking in the mind.
es como caminar por la mente.
what are our intuitions,
cuáles son nuestras intuiciones,
in the neighborhood of introspection.
al campo de la introspección.
"reason," "emotion,"
"razón", "emoción",
"candle," "banana,"
hemos construido el espacio,
of introspection,
de la introspección,
and somehow vague,
y en cierta forma impreciso,
por la ciencia cuantitativa.
of words as a trajectory
como una trayectoria,
y luego preguntarnos
spends significant time
pasa un tiempo considerable
of introspection.
de introspección.
la historia de la introspección
the history of introspection
available written record.
registro escrito disponible.
cuan cercana está a la introspección,
how close it is to introspection,
as time goes on and on,
con el transcurso del tiempo,
and closer and closer
in the ancient Greek tradition.
en la tradición griega antigua.
más antiguos en la tradición homérica,
in the Homeric tradition,
getting closer to introspection.
a la introspección.
to an almost five-fold increase
hasta casi quintuplicarse
and closer and closer
in a different, independent tradition.
tradición diferente, independiente.
on the Judeo-Christian tradition,
en la tradición judeocristiana,
el mismo patrón.
for the oldest books in the Old Testament,
del Antiguo Testamento,
del Nuevo Testamento.
el pico de la introspección
had been recognized by scholars,
reconocido por eruditos,
de la introspección.
the father of modern psychology.
es el padre de la psicología moderna.
of being quantitative,
de ser extremadamente rápido
important conclusions
conclusiones más importantes
one of the beauties of science,
una de las bellezas de la ciencia,
can be translated
se puede trasladar
of different domains.
y diferentes dominios.
about the past of human consciousness,
el pasado de la conciencia humana,
we can pose to ourselves
podemos plantearnos
about the future of our own consciousness.
el futuro de nuestra propia conciencia.
of where our minds will be in a few days,
nuestras mentes en unos días,
are now wearing sensors
ahora usamos sensores
ayudarnos a prevenir enfermedades,
help us prevent diseases,
and analyzing the words we speak,
y analizar las palabras que decimos,
something may go wrong with our minds.
puede estar mal en nuestra mente.
the recorded speech of 34 young people
of developing schizophrenia.
de desarrollar esquizofrenia.
we measured speech at day one,
propiedades del discurso podían predecir,
of the speech could predict,
information in semantics
información en la semántica
organization of the mind.
futura de la mente.
of schizophrenics and a control group,
esquizofrénicos y un grupo de control,
for the ancient texts,
con los textos antiguos,
onset of psychosis.
el inicio de la psicosis futura.
was not so much what they were saying,
no era tanto lo que decían,
neighborhoods the words were,
donde estaban las palabras
to the other one.
of speech within one semantic topic,
del discurso dentro de un tema semántico,
that for this group of 34 people,
de 34 personas,
coherence could predict,
coherencia semántica podía predecir,
y quién no lo hará.
that could not be achieved --
existing clinical measures.
medidas clínicas existentes.
while I was working on this,
mientras estaba trabajando en esto,
back in Buenos Aires,
de regreso en Buenos Aires,
he was living in New York.
because nothing was said explicitly --
porque no había algo explícito,
that something was going wrong.
and I called Polo,
through words, his feelings,
palabras, sus sentimientos,
effective way to help.
pero efectiva de ayudar.
close to understanding
that we all have,
que todos tenemos,
a very different form of mental health,
una forma muy diferente de salud mental,
and automated analysis
cuantitativo, objetivo,
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Mariano Sigman - NeuroscientistIn his provocative, mind-bending book "The Secret Life of the Mind," neuroscientist Mariano Sigman reveals his life’s work exploring the inner workings of the human brain.
Why you should listen
Mariano Sigman, a physicist by training, is a leading figure in the cognitive neuroscience of learning and decision making. Sigman was awarded a Human Frontiers Career Development Award, the National Prize of Physics, the Young Investigator Prize of "College de France," the IBM Scalable Data Analytics Award and is a scholar of the James S. McDonnell Foundation. In 2016 he was made a Laureate of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
In The Secret Life of the Mind, Sigman's ambition is to explain the mind so that we can understand ourselves and others more deeply. He shows how we form ideas during our first days of life, how we give shape to our fundamental decisions, how we dream and imagine, why we feel certain emotions, how the brain transforms and how who we are changes with it. Spanning biology, physics, mathematics, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy and medicine, as well as gastronomy, magic, music, chess, literature and art, The Secret Life of the Mind revolutionizes how neuroscience serves us in our lives, revealing how the infinity of neurons inside our brains manufacture how we perceive, reason, feel, dream and communicate.
Mariano Sigman | Speaker | TED.com