英國色盲藝術家大腦植入芯片“聽”顏色

Did you know that colors can be seen as well as heard? Well, now you do, thanks to 31-year-old Neil Harbisson, a color blind artist who spent years looking for a way of experiencing the colors of the world around him.
你知道嗎？顏色不僅可以被看見，還能被“聽見”！31歲的尼爾·哈維森是一位色盲藝術家，他花費多年時間終於找到了一種感受周圍世界色彩的方法，足以讓你大開眼界。

For the past 10 years, Neil has been wearing an external electronic eye that picks up the frequencies of the colors before him and converts them into sound vibrations that he can hear. Initially he wore the device outside his head. But later, the London-based artist convinced surgeons to implant the chip int his skull to be able to perceive More intricate colors.
在過去的10年中，尼爾一直戴着一個外置電子眼，它可以把顏色的頻率轉化成聲波，然後尼爾就可以“聽見”聲音了。最初的時候，他在大腦外部佩戴這一裝置，但後來這位倫敦藝術家說服外科醫生把芯片植入自己的頭蓋骨裏面，以便獲取更細微的顏色。

The idea for the device came about when Neil heard a cybernetics talk by computer scientist Adam Montandon at Dartington College of Arts in 2003. The pair then collaborated to create the device and Neil ended up memorizing various frequencies so he could recognize colors. So he still couldn’t see the colors, he could now hear and identify them.
這一想法源自2003年，尼爾在達林頓藝術學院聽了一場科學家亞當·蒙坦頓有關自動控制學的講座。然後這兩個人就合作創造了這一裝置，後來尼爾通過記憶不同頻率來辨識顏色。所以，儘管他還是不能看見顏色，但他可以“聽見”並辨識出來。

Neil, who was born with achromatopsia (a rare condition that allows him to see only black or wHite), said during a talk in 2012: “For me the sky is always grey, flowers are always grey and television is black and white. But since the age of 21 instead of seeing color I can hear color. I started to have favorite colors and I started to dream in color.”
尼爾是全色盲（只能看見黑色和白色），他在2012年的一次座談會上說：“對我來說，天空是灰的，花兒是灰的，電視是黑白的。但是從21歲起，我可以聽見顏色了，我開始有了自己最喜歡的顏色，並且我做的夢也有了色彩。”

At this point, Neil felt that the software and his brain had united, because in his dreams it wasn’t the software creating the electronic sounds, but his brain. So he decided to have the device implanted permanently.
這時候，尼爾感覺芯片軟件和自己的大腦已經聯爲一體，因爲在夢裏的顏色並不是電子眼產生的聲音，而是源自他自己的大腦，所以他決定永久植入這塊芯片。

The cyborg antenna, or ‘eyeborg’ that Neil now wears is like a long tube with an audio input on one end that is implanted at back of his skull. At the other end is a camera that ‘sees’ the colors before they are transformed to sound. Because every color has a different vibration, Neil is able to distinguish between different images, paintings and faces (each of them has a distinct sound).
尼爾所佩戴的機械天線“電子眼”，看上去就像一端帶有攝像頭、另一端植入頭蓋骨的長管。由於每種顏色都有一個不同的頻率，所以尼爾能夠辨別不同的圖像、畫作或臉龐（每種圖像的聲音都不同）。

In fact, he can even hear colors that the human eye cannot perceive, like infrared and ultraviolet. And the reverse is also true – he is able to make color paintings of the voices of personalities like Hitler and Martin Luther King. He doesn’t even have to actually look at the colors. The images can be sent directly from his mobile phone to a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connector inside the chip. It’s actually unbelievable – Neil is the first person in the world who can experience an image without actually looking at it.
事實上，他甚至能聽到人眼無法識別的顏色，如紅外線和紫外線。“聽聲音”的逆過程也是可以實現的，他可以根據人物聲音，比如希特勒和馬丁·路德·金的聲音，畫出彩色畫。他甚至不用看顏色，這些圖像可以通過他的手機直接發送到芯片內部的無線或藍牙。在該儀器的幫助下，尼爾成爲世界上第一個不用看就可以感覺到圖像的人。

The implantation of the chip was done in a series of surgeries that took place between December and March in Barcelona. Neil said that the eyeborg has now become such an integral part of his identity that he even convinced authorities to let him take his passport photograph with it.
芯片移植由12月至次年3月的多次外科手術完成。尼爾說電子眼現在已經成爲他整個身體的一部分，他甚至還說服官方讓自己戴着它拍護照相片。

What’s really great about the eyeborg is not what it can do, but its future potential. Just think of the possibilities – Neil is connecting with devices now, but if more people get the implant, skull-to-skull communication might just be possible. It’s too fascinating!
“電子眼”真正偉大之處不在於它的功能，而是它未來的發展潛力。讓我們思考一下未來的可能性吧：尼爾現在使用這一裝置，但如果更多的人植入芯片，就可以直接通過大腦進行交流了。簡直太迷人了！