Translator: Thomas Aubin Reviewer: Cristina Bufi-Pöcksteiner
I want to start by apologizing for the false advertisement
if anybody here was looking for a bearded man.
(Laughter)
Frankly, I'm just tired of being overshadowed by it,
so I shaved it off.
So, magic comes easy for children, right?
We teach them, we encourage them to believe in it.
Stories about storks and cabbage patches are much easier explanations
for the arrival of a younger sibling.
The story of Adam and Eve is a much easier tale to tell
than explaining genetics to a four-year-old.
Heaven is a nice place for the family pet
or a passed away grandma.
Now, growing up is the process
in which we exchange these stories for more mundane magics:
for example, compound interest or the metabolization of alcohol.
It's a terrible trade, but we all make it.
Now, I was a precautiously serious-minded child.
It's a terrible habit, and my mom will attest to it.
And while my peers were deciding
whether to be a fireman or a ballerina or an astronaut
and possibly the President of the United States,
I knew in my heart I wanted to go and get a philosophy degree.
(Laughter)
But despite that serious-mindedness,
I still wanted magic,
and luckily, I picked up my mom's habit of reading.
My childhood is filled with memories of her laying on the couch on the weekend
with a stack of books behind her.
Now, she prefers horror books,
and she can burn through them like a chain-smoker.
And so, possibly inappropriately, my first adult novels were horror novels,
and specifically Stephen King.
And there's one novel I still remember to this day -
one of the first ones I've read of his
was a fantasy novel called "The Eyes of the Dragon."
And it was pretty standard,
if enjoyable fare of evil wizards and dragons and magic and all that.
But what still sticks in my mind to this day -
and it was that kind of Eureka moment that this is truly what I'm interested in,
and I want to do this -
was he had a character from the point of view of a dog,
and it was just a simple conceit that the dog scented in color,
and they were following somebody's trail that was electric blue, whatever.
And I just remember being just profoundly struck by that idea.
And it's been love ever since, and wonder.
Now, I did eventually get that philosophy degree,
and like most people,
my chosen vocation was to go back to school and get another degree.
So I became a scientist, I became a computer scientist.
But I still had that love of words and communication,
and so what I focused on was mimicking the way humans interact,
the way they communicate, in software.
When people asked me what my thesis was about,
I told them I taught machines how to argue.
Now, it's a common misconception that science is the antithesis of magic,
and that's not right.
My education has only kind of further strengthened
my sense of wonder about the language we use,
the stories we tell.
So I'll give you an example:
there's something called "speech act theory."
Now, we're all very comfortable with the idea
that our physical actions affect the world, and in a profound way, right?
So, the discussion of climate change is exactly that.
We're very comfortable with the idea that humans break things,
they create things, we consume, we produce.
But speech act theory
argues that actual utterances, the things that we say,
change the world just as profoundly.
So I'll give you an extreme example:
take the act of one person killing another person, right?
That physical act profoundly changes the world, certainly for the victim,
but also for the world itself - it's one person fewer.
Now, we fast-forward to that trial
when the judge at the end, you know, pushes air out of his lungs,
over the vocal chords membranes,
shapes the words with his mouth and tongue
and says: "We find you guilty,"
and if we're in Texas, "I sentence you to death."
Now, that act of him saying that changes the world very profoundly.
First of all, we're no longer talking about an accused - he's a criminal now.
And the society itself has to now support the maintenance of this person.
A less extreme example is in a wedding ceremony.
Think how the world changes
when two individuals pronounce the words "I do" in that situation.
So if anything, you know, understanding that adds to my wonder.
And we do amazing things in software: Siri - it's a toy that we all have -
and the fact that we're talking to something no smarter than a toaster,
but yet we all complain about how, you know, poor it is
or the fact that a human child
would be even more creative and dynamic in its use of language.
So, a previous speaker talked about Hemingway's famous six-word story.
So, I think I can do one better, and in crass quantitative terms,
33% more efficiently than Papa.
(Laughter)
So, there's a book for children meant for a preverbal audience.
Think how post-modern that is.
And the title of that book is "That's Not My Pirate."
And I suggest to you that that is a complete story in four words, right?
Probably a more commercial one than the depressing baby shoe.
(Laughter)
So, let's break it down.
Pirates - we're talking about pirates - guaranteed adventure, right?
We're talking walk the planks, sharks, buried treasure, parrots.
Who doesn't like parrots?
But in that question, we already know we're on a quest:
the narrator is looking for their pirate.
But in addition to that,
that simple sentence is also suggesting that there's a selection of pirates.
And someone's offered, "Is this your pirate?"
"No, that's not my pirate."
(Laughter)
So, hopes are raised and then dashed.
This is good fiction.
And while your mind is kind of reeling about the dense narrative
that I've just kind of unpicked for you,
think about this: she owns a pirate.
(Laughter)
Lost dogs and cats - I get that, but she owns a pirate.
Are we talking slavery, or is it my best friend?
What's going on there?
And that's just a kid's book, right?
And that's just a title of a kid's book.
When you start to think about what's capable,
when you think of a novel, Gogol's "Dead Souls,"
I am separated as an American in the 21st century,
only being fluent in English.
I am separated by a vast distance to the author of that book, right -
a Russian, 200 years ago.
We are mediated through a translator.
Yet, even then, when I read "Dead Souls," it is laugh-out-loud funny,
and that is an incredible, incredible thing.
Or take poetry.
For example, I just reread "The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy.
It's basically a poem about a guy taking a walk in winter, and hears a bird.
But every time I read that book, I have to pause and ponder it again.
It's just that powerful.
Now, the curse of mortality is we get one life, one point of view
at a single point in time, at most.
If we're lucky, we know a few languages to access the world and understand it,
but writing cheats that, right?
Because we read stories, we write stories, we can experience a vast number,
and it's hard when you think about that -
that this writing, these stories we tell, isn't magic.
Now, I'll give you one further example.
Science is a very methodical task.
You build a hypothesis, you test that hypothesis,
you refine it, you test it again - it's very methodical.
You build it brick by brick, and at no point, at any step
does it not kind of necessarily follow by the previous steps.
But in writing, although it is a methodical task,
you spend a lot of time on your own, staring at the ceiling,
deleting yesterday's work.
But at a certain point, the alchemy begins.
And what you want the characters to do - if you've done your job right,
what you want the characters to do at this point in time while you're writing
doesn't matter.
What dictates their reactions, the way they talk to the other characters
is by the previous 10,000, 20,000 words.
I've only experienced this a few times, but every time I do that,
it is an absolute wonder and a magic to me.
So, it's for these reasons,
despite being a very earnest child, being trained as a scientist,
that I still believe writing is magic.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)