Language and the Mind Revisited - The Biolinguistic Turn with Noam Chomsky

UC Berkeley presents the The Charles M. and Martha Hitchcock Lecture series, featuring linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky examines biolinguistics - the study of relations between physiology and speech. [7/2003] [Show ID: 7412]
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[@sergiosatelite467]

Chomsky: linguistic pioneer, insightful activist, and unintentional asmr extraordinaire.

[@brianmcdonald7233]

Yes. The best

[@CarolPrice4p]

😊 I love him. How often has he been asked to read stories to the grandchildren at bedtime, i wonder...?

[@genossinwaabooz4373]

Checks out!

[@JarodJoseph]

You forgot Epstein Island visitor

[@roman14032]

it always facinates me how often chomsky says "more or less"

[@johnjepsen4243]

Chomsky is an artist of BULL FECES. HAHA

[@Antonio-cr2ix]

So on and so forth

[@hirotakakawano7212]

The concept of universal grammar not only leads to an innovative understanding of linguistics, ideas, philosophy , history and science , but also to an understanding of human nature, value of existence, and the distinction between humans and other living things.

[@fastinbulvis2223]

WTF? How could it when it says nothing about meaning and interpretation. Nothing! Chomsky is a pretentious fraud.

[@whoever79]

What about sub Saharan africans

[@PZBrooklyn]

I must have listened to dozens of Chomsky's interviews and lectures over the years--this is the first time I ever heard him laugh!

[@genossinwaabooz4373]

Check his books. One has a short bio of his early years very human.

[@leek1002]

Maybe a squirrel run up his pants...lol Absolute legend though...

[@tokotokotoko3]

I love the Q&A in the end. He's doing the verbal Bruce Lee again.

[@Saber23]

What do you mean?

[@Futbolizim.Offical]

What Dhe Fuck 12 Years😐😑🤨

[@Saber23]

@@Futbolizim.Offical what about 12 years?

[@Futbolizim.Offical]

@@Saber23 What Fuck??

[@Saber23]

@@Futbolizim.Offical why are you cussing?

[@richardspringer55]

Noam is a great man!

[@TheRamlaw]

I have a similar problem, pause the video when you need to and note key terms and statements. Then I find it becomes easier to follow.

[@polymath7]

(chuckle) It's nice to hear Chomsky actually talk about linguistics for once. :-)

[@user-wn8mc1yc1g]

This is funny

[@martyconroy3786]

Bored out of my skull

[@JoeyVol]

I blame interviewers as much as Noam himself - because why in the world would you go asking a linguistics expert what you should be asking a Ph.D. in History, or AT LEAST the Humanities about?

[@hadronoftheseus8829]

@@JoeyVol Blame for what, precisely? What on Earth are you on about?

[@z.a.hayder8482]

A great lecture of a great philosopher.

[@yeahk241]

Don't get me wrong, Chomsky is a giant figure in both linguistics & the critique of western foreign policy, but I don't think he can be counted as a philosopher in the strictest sense.

[@fastinbulvis2223]

@@yeahk241 In terns of linguistics he peaked in the mid-60's. And he didn't go nearly as far as was hoped. In terms of politics he knows no more about the world than anyone else who reads the papers. He's there to use his "celebrity" to delect attention away from the real culprits of American foreign policy. He's an overrated, hunchbacked scribbler.

[@halfcadence1417]

What's a philosopher in the strictest sense.

[@k_like_kitty]

Existence is an expression of fields and hard rules of no pass. That's what we understand as good and bad, interchangeably. As we relate things to our natural predisposition for reception of external factors we classify things as 1 or 0, and long strings of complex dependencies on these factors and laws going all the way back to how gravity work and that the sun shines

[@arati.behera]

Speech of a great man.

[@NoGuff]

I hope you're only asking what I mean by the comparison. "biolinguistics - the study of relations between physiology and speech" Newspeak is the elimination of selected words/elements for the false goal of making speech easier, quicker, less cumbersome. The idea being speech should come from the ease of the mechanics of speaking it instead of from the expression of complex ideas. The problem being the elimination of complex ideas (dissent & original thought) from mainstream discussion.

[@vijaen1919]

Its so lively and informative!

[@ast453000]

Good to see Noam rockin the velcro laces!! Those things were awesome. Whatever happened to them?

[@sonnyobrien]

No one in comments actually talking about the content of the talk and how amazing it is that we barely know anything at all in the sciences

[@isaacdarche7103]

Chomsky exceeds his opponents in breadth, depth, erudition, and insight. He's funnier too.

[@nbrayali]

Chomsky seeks to heal the breach between the idea that life is messy and the fact that language seems to be perfect. He makes fun of those who take this breach to mean language is not biological: what else could it be, a miracle? Instead, he suggests we must revisit our most basic ideas of life and living systems in order to unify them with the theory of language.

[@williamweitzel2170]

Hy

[@Neilgs]

attains proficiency from caregiver/child engagement; affect gesturing somatic and facial, which then allows for a mediation if you will or hemispheric coordination between the the executive functions (prefrontal cortex, ideation, motor planning and execution) and the more primitive limbic system (e.g., amygdala, all or nothing reactions) that allows for representional ideas (symbolization) or free-standing ideas apart from fixed modalities of perception (all or nothing). At that point language

[@HoffaInExile]

Either i got lost or he repeated about 5 minutes of his speech at 38:00. Honestly I wish I was capable of following his train of thought through his sometimes detailed examples. I will have to go to the books so I can get a sense of continuity. Thanks for posting this.

[@notoglobalism3754]

KZbin's Transcript allows you to click to go back to phrases in the vidéo. Go to the vidéo's DESCRIPTION, scroll down to TRANSCRIPT and click on the time you'd like to go back to. I'd personally suggest aid yourself with personal notes.

[@notoglobalism3754]

You can also write times in the COMMENTS . 38:00

[@hirotakakawano7212]

Language, of course, has not only communication and expression of ideas, but a creative function such as「 דבר 」 which is called in Hebrew .

[@user-et3xn2jm1u]

what happens at 37:45 or so, with the video transition?

[@Neilgs]

One of the fundamental necessities in the development of the sciences, inquiry is to be, "...Puzzled by what seems so natural and obvious" but this would include also Vico's conception of imagination itself, that is not to assume that what we are observing (framing) is apart from but actually an inextricable part and parcel of the Imagination. Here imagination does not mean simply solipsistic, false or fantasy but rather keeping with or not to far a flung from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Here the poets understand something that all the creme d'la creme leagues of cognitive neuroscientists will forever humorously remain ignorant of.

[@gFS.1]

I criticize by creation, not by finding fault. - Cicero

[@ThreeMarrons]

Language is something we cannot intuitively explain but that we can descriptively explain

[@Xenu]

Why does the video repeat at :37??

[@Kegofbeer]

what did the guy in the audience say at the beginning?

[@Stupidityindex]

String tension, all atoms are connected. That is how attraction works in the real world. You describe how gravity works with real-world physics.

[@kapa1611]

16.38 'Descent ON man' would be a whole different kind of book xD

[@user-in7fm8jd4e]

Optimism,I think,has nothing to do with being in High morale.optimism is a sense which related to both inner experienced psychology and the based-on predictions. but High morale is a matter of Hormones produced to represent a functionality of biology and physics,but not the psychology which is caused and resulted.

[@nicholasdedless4881]

Chomsky references the unification of physics and chemistry in this talk and often in other talks and written works. I'm not familiar with this unification and would like to learn more. Can anyone recommend a good book, a sort of overview for someone with a good general science background but not any depth in chemistry, that describes this unification, what the issues were, how they were resolved,...?

[@chasemackey4038]

Nicholas Dedless He mentions it in chapter 3 of "On Nature and Language" and Bertrand Russell discusses it some in "Analysis of Matter", but I don't know where else to find it. Hope this helps

[@nicholasdedless4881]

That was very helpful. I thought I had read all of Chomsky's philosophy books but I don't recall On Nature and Language, damn the man is prolific, will get that and the Russell book/essay as well. I think I already have the Russell essay on my Kindle, one of those things I saw was free so loaded it but then never read it, now I will though! thanks a lot!

[@chasemackey4038]

I did the same with the Russell essay. It's fascinating. Analysis of Matter and Analysis of Mind are both excellent, and free I believe. On the unification of chemistry and physics Chomsky, in this talk, mentions some kind of publication on the reality of chemical bonds; so I would look for that. I missed the author because I'm listening to this at work and didn't have time to pause it and write down the name, but it's somewhere in the middle of this talk.

[@lordchristoph49]

He is talking about Linus Pauling the American Nobel Prize winner who unified chemistry and physics by creating a physical theory of chemical bonds.

[@chasemackey4038]

Christopher Lord thank you! Now we have an answer

[@kokopelli314]

Halfway through his lecture Prof. Chomsky mentions the ecological concept of "umwelt" and again alludes to it in his answer about a "language acquisition device" and talks about the differing responses to a flower that his granddaughter, a chimp and a bee might have. The implication being that different species are hard-wired toward divergent bio-semiotic cues. Please someone correct me if I'm missing something, but isn't this putting the cart before the horse? Language emerges from biology.(?)

[@waindayoungthain2147]

My sacrifice 🙏🏻, at the 11. What’s happening with my natural writing ✍️ so easily, if’s you in meds but please forgive me your in waiting for mature too long lasting 😌. How’s long time with human language for UN always supporting humanity 😊 every conflicting and calming views of confrontation behind .

[@trisix99]

good luck. he's pretty clear... his writing is much more difficult.

[@Neilgs]

spontaneously. Let us take non-typical developing children, such as autism, where the pre-verbal levels or two-way emotional signaling have not or insufficiently developed, along with ideation of symbolization, symbolic play apart from fixed representation). Only when that develops, and as developmental therapist who works with this population, will the pragmatics of expressive language usage, or syntactic pragmatically meaningful utterance become possible. Translation: It is not genes but

[@megakeenbeen]

what did the heckler say at the start ??

[@weewee2169]

“you’re good looking”

[@megakeenbeen]

@@weewee2169 😂

[@mix22magic]

Anyone know what year this event took place?

[@weewee2169]

“you’re good looking” but this was posted ten years ago so for all i know you are dead

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

Near the end of the video, this thought bubbled up: Isn't it interesting that the part of the standard investigative paradigm that says, 'focus on the details of a specimen to get a better picture of it', produces ever more fuzzy images the closer investigation gets when the specimen is holographic. Please tell me if the following train of thought "is old and goes without saying" or "is new but utterly misguided" or if it's novel, (which I feel not likely as there are so many of us) and on target (which I hope is the case because I can use it to solve the 'hard problem' of being conscious). The train: Every alphabetical symbol metaphorizes a meaningless sound that, when assembled into words, make new slightly meaningful metaphors that, when assembled into sentences make new more meaningful metaphors that, when assembled into paragraphs creates an even sharper image and so on, chapters, books, shelves, libraries... cultures, civilization. ... Thoughts, metaphors, their common essence is, they *are not* identical to what they reference, the things they are about. They *are* encoded representations of them. There is no real difference between metaphor and thought. ... When environmental energies impinge on a body's sense organ, the organ adjusts, in 'proportion' (according to particulars of the energy), the firing rate of the neuron(s) that connects the organ to the brain. That *change in rate* thereby encodes and represents some aspect of the environment and 'encoded representation' is just another way to say metaphor. If it is my 'self' that is conscious and my self is a nebulous collection of synapse mediated inter acting metaphors riding in firing-rate-encoded-form on a subset of axons in my brain... Thus 1. self is a metaphorical entity and that's why we feel aethereal & separate from our bodies 2. 3...

[@ShmoopDooper]

I have absolutely no idea what you're your saying, but it sounds fancy enough that I'm willing to agree with you.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@ShmoopDooper My six months old comment was an early and excited attempt to explain exactly how mere matter is responsible for our being conscious. The writing was obviously not clear enough to guarantee your understanding. But, prerequisite, you must have a good grasp of how sense organs, neurons, synapses, information encoding and language works before understanding has a decent chance of dawning. Walter, when you have acquired this prerequisite knowledge you will have a very good chance of experiencing the epiphany after which you will, like me, be comfortable for the rest of your life knowing exactly what you are and how the world has made you. In the mean time, I am happy to answer relevant questions. Cheers, eh!

[@user-et3xn2jm1u]

also, good video :)

[@rmiddlehouse]

Sick thumbnail

[@polymath7]

Oddly enough, he says, "You're good-looking!".

[@coreycox2345]

He told you that you are good looking? You must be a stunner, polymath7.

[@TheVaccineMachine]

Always a treat to hear someone speak for over an hour without saying anything

[@rmiddlehouse]

The Vaccine Machine ha yeah... his major thesis regarding language theory seems to be: just give up

[@grandmasterhiram]

I need an office manager that will not back-stab me, yet they don't like me very much... I'm thinking Ginny Whatarau. :) And I'm all good.

[@nohisocitutampoc2789]

The speech starts at 1h.... the first 60 minutes are lost.

[@kokopelli314]

@atreyu1210 Wouldn't any kind of "language acquisition device" require language, as a functional component? This would seem to be supported by the difficulty feral children have in acquiring language. It seems a bit of a chicken and egg problem in that language and it's generative functions are interdependent. At least up to a point.

[@PeeteyP]

~12:50 he goes on about how the boundaries of psychological investigations of the brain versus physiological ones are somewhat fluid ( or "convenient")- then he launches into a tangental discussion of blurring of the boundaries of physics and chemistry- one would think that giving an example of what he's talking about (psychological approaches vs. physiological ones) would have been more germane. When he's talking politics he's very lucid- what's wrong? why can't I understand one paragraph?

[@anyoneyousee7772]

I think what he is commenting on is like how the one dude was obsessed with masturbation and sexually and so everything was caused by you being attracted to your parents, or how with other people the inner journey of ones identity was so important that ancient aliens... or stuff like that.

[@sonnyobrien]

Its called an analogy

[@mmuldoor]

@danski86 YEah... I think it was an overlap of the tape. I mean it was an exact reptition of every word for like a minute. I don't think he's that robotic,

[@Neilgs]

..essentially born six months premature. Billions of neurons; a few primitive reactive circuits and primitive emotional (all or nothing responses). What is REQUIRED for this process to evolve is, yes, that little thing call nurturance. Language does not happen until the child acquires through lots of back and forth emotional dyadic signaling (engagement); vagus nerve come in here, as it is connected to the pharynx, larynx, vestibular receptors and facial gestures; It is only once the child

[@NoGuff]

@Diosibundo "I refudiate that remark!" --Don't you mean "I resemble that.. nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!" "my crib notes are runniing" --Yours and Diane Feinstein's.

[@letMeSayThatInIrish]

Chomsky was very nearly the greatest hero of the Spanish civil war!

[@iikimida]

28:50 38:29

[@xfigbearx]

Did he say his grand daughter had a pet Chimp? 9:08 I find that hard to believe.

[@NoGuff]

@cryptickripke You should be telling these dipweeds all of this, since you're essentially agreeing with me.

[@frederiquevanhoutte2942]

it,s a pitty that i,ve never met him before

[@Foneticaable]

Sorry, what's the word he said in .... 0;00;49. "And the.....has been learnt in the...

[@olddeuteranomaly5112]

...and quite a lot has been learned in the intervening years...

[@Neilgs]

@cryptickripke The pragmatic or meaningful use of language/communication, the ability to create novel sentences requires, granted lots of potential (i.e. a genetic substrate, a brain/nervous system, fully developed pharynx and larynx). But it is nurturance based practices over the course of millions of years of non-human to human primate nurturance based practices that led to "spoken language". What appears to be evolutionary predetermined faculty is quite otherwise. Human babies are....

[@danski86]

does he repeat himself around 39:08?

[@arthurgreene4567]

Can anyone explain what he means when he says Newton proved matter doesn't exist? He comes to this point in many lectures and leaves it hanging.

[@oioi9372]

He means that the concept of matter, which was understood in terms of contact mechanics between objects and parts, was demolished by postulating Universal Law of Gravitation, which shown that 'matter' had ghostlike properties, instead of what we would expect. Chomsky points out that since no one proposed a new concept of material, and physics shifted course into realm of abstractions, we gave up understanding the world itself, and instead we do science.

[@arthurgreene4567]

@@oioi9372 thank you

[@afreyesg]

Sorry, but the point goes to the following: for many decades people have fought over the possibility that the environmental input is enough to explain children competence of languaje. He is just saying that there are inherited components to it.

[@CREEDENCEjam]

What does the woman say at the end? thanks for a most ...humiliating... lecture? I don't understand quite well, someone?

[@jeewillikers]

Most stimulating lecture

[@ratnanirupama3368]

Can anyone list all the references he quoted ? Thanks

[@sonnyobrien]

Get them yourself?

[@stoprainingonme]

OMG! Chomsky's a linguist?

[@mionysus5374]

Jung's Collective Unconscious lives!

[@processpsych]

Mionysus I'm curious about what leads you to say that?

[@brendonbarratt7551]

I had the same thought about Chomsky and linguistics but can’t find any literature linking the two. Both suggest an internal system of symbols below the conscious level that is used to interpret the world, or to think or various other mental processes.

[@brendonbarratt7551]

Jovan Jovanović Jung isn’t alive so you should have said “Jung was an idiot”, idiot.

[@Neilgs]

Nurturance based practices (over millions of years or rekindled through deepening affect-based relationships) that allows the hierarchical convergence of meaning, translation and usage to happen. Self-contained imprinted modules in the brain (the bio-genetic bete machine -bio-genetic modular language faculty) is a BIG fallacy.

[@scadacontrol9049]

i partly agree with what you said but gene has memory.

[@Neilgs]

@@scadacontrol9049 You are responding to a post I wrote 11-12 yrs ago. Views have not changed. Yes, “Genes have memory.” However, genes in and of themselves do nothing. They have to be translated and transcribed by RNA. The latter having to do with the epigenetic relational mechanisms.For example, proved decades ago that animals who are artificially reared in total darkness will not turn on the genes for vision and remain blind. Similar principle. Broca and Wernicke area (receptive and expressive formal language) does not mature until 14-17 months. They (or how they properly) emerge/develop are directly dependent upon the subcortical limbic-autonomic relational or dyadic child/primary caregiver relational affective interactions. We see the latter mildly to severely compromised with children with ASD. In other words, there are certain Functional Emotional Developmental relational sequences, capacities that must express themselves prior. This why formal language simply just doesn’t turn on and off like puberty but requires certain fundamental relational epigenetic precursors for their proper emergence. Chomsky never quite got that or wasn’t his focus of interest and therefore severely either overlooks or gives at best minimal attribution to. It is actually integral, core and fundamental. Computational Cognitive faculties are dependent upon instinctual underlying relational affective capacities. Furthermore, the self is not an isolated monad but exists in a non static, dynamic collective network of biopsychosocial relations. Chomsky’s confined compartmentalized reductionism which is now entirely antiquated severely distorts the picture.

[@havefunbesafe]

I’m just curious, is Noam fluent in any other language?

[@aleksandarcelic5028]

Yes, French.

[@michaelwright8896]

Spanish, French, Hebrew and possibly other.

[@ghollisjr]

The best I can guess is she tried to say illuminating but failed.

[@Neilgs]

affect to bring it to life. There are no "mechanisms" as such defines or homonculous sitting in the center of the pineal gland winding the gears of the body.Syntax, semantics, pragmatics are separated for purposes of reductionistic theorems. In reality cannot be parsed as such (analogous the atom, atomus cannot be separated into subatomic particles). Interpenetration (Heisenberg's principle will do) NOT of parts but in part (tongue in cheek) where we enter the system for purposes of description.

[@Neilgs]

Russian, "Colurless green ideas sleep furiously" will make PERFECT SENSE, as what is required for the organizational meaningful pragmatic use which cannot be separated or teased our from function, or it can for purposes of argument, counting angels on a pin, but how utterly and pathologically distorted!

[@user-tl6iu3ee3f]

All the languages they are like the carte of identité of the humaine kind for her prononciation or her alphabet lettres or her way spelling this languages because they have difference frome to prononce in the mouth and particulier transcription phonetic and phonologie and they are not same in the structure they are way to explain to spoke to communique to expression to write to resreve the history of the humaine because this languages we konw the humaine and the ancien language in the Earthe the language it treasr of humaine kind it leroning it give the éducation and civilisation and it way to diversité between the humaine kind forme the difference place bay this language we konw ourselves and outher Allah bless us all and give us the goodness and happiness in the difference places.

[@Neilgs]

@cryptickripke But the genetic or bio-genetic correlates imprinted and symbolically represented as universal grammar is perfectly meaningless without affect preverbal emotional signaling which has to do with millions of years of non-human and human primate Nurturance based infant/caregiver practices. Language, e.g., as the manipulation of verbal pattern recognition (symbols) that only have social prominence (meaning) in the exchanges of shared symbols of a particular culture will not emerge

[@fringeelements]

"Humans are basically identical" An IQ difference of 20 points. Evolutionarily that is an undetectable difference, caused by the most minute genetic difference. And yet, in terms of human society, that difference is profound, especially when dealing with large groups. Compare this to having the capacity for tool-making and/or speech, which may be significant on the scale of an evolutionary biologist, while 20 IQ points are not.

[@weewee2169]

an iq difference of 20 points may be obtained by the same person taking the same test twice at different times, the claim that there is a predisposition of groups to have an iq difference of say 20 points, and that this makes a difference in terms of anything is nonsense and indeed the same dna in each of my cells could culminate in an infinite number of possible lives depending on chance, the environment, and factors beyond our understanding in the formation of a complete adult human being, and so my score could be any score depending on my life’s path, regardless of the ordering of my nucleotides you say this “difference” is caused by genetics, but you have substantiate such a claim, unfounded, irrational and ahistorical as i have described above my ability to tell shapes apart hardly quantifies my “intelligence” in any meaningful way whatever that means, i have met and known fine mathematicians with no wisdom, social grace (leading to lack of understanding in the matters of politics, human motivations, and relations), or even fashion sense, so the implication the persons superior iq demonstrates a superior intelligence is baffling to me i cant see it fit that someone could in good faith promote race science past the 1850’s, it would seem to require a motivation that is feelings based rather than fact based however if you take black pigeon speaks seriously on anything then perhaps my requesting of the substantiation of your claims is obsolete

[@NoGuff]

Biolinguistics = NewSpeak

[@Iecerint]

doublelike

[@jjgfun]

He wears velcro shoes :) that is funny!!!

[@tmac2000]

He's a little more "lively" when talking politics and making comments on current affairs.

[@JoeyVol]

He's also much more out of his area of expertise when speaking on those subjects...

[@HowardSchoonover]

right at the end of the interview @1:26:56 it sounds to me as if the interviewer says "Well thank you very much for a most humiliating lecture" there is a slight awkwardness in her speech, as if she misspoke or tried to catch herself, idk for sure what she intended to say - but it certainly is the case that in talks like this Chomsky takes no prisoners, he demolishes wrong approaches and whole bodies of work with a clarity and irrefutable pragmatism that almost makes me feel sorry for the poor fools who try to do linguistics while NOT taking their cues from Chomsky.

[@Sadiq01]

she says stimulating and it's very clear.

[@HowardSchoonover]

@@Sadiq01 I listened and yeah, if you have 'stimulating' in mind it does sound clear, but without that priming when I listened a couple months ago all i could make out was an ambiguous phrase that seemed most like 'humiliating'. Both are certainly correct, humiliating as i described above and also stimulating - look at how it has stimulated our discussion now, nearly 20 years later.

[@BlindRamb0]

***** zzz again what is this white race you type of? European? last I checked Not only are their the few english speaking countries but theres also Spain and the middle east that bother you alot. Well since you didnt know skin color can be altered by the sun (or lack of) what happens if you managed to live in "White" only town and you or someone you actual care about start to develop a tan and become the darkest person there and then preceded to me made fun of and mistreated..would that make life better?

[@ratnanirupama3368]

Seems he's just quoting many works

[@JamesBrown-hr5qs]

He's citing his sources.

[@thefoolonthehill8394]

that's in part how academy works

[@RobertSantos-rw8dy]

My Linguistics instructor was the same. Brilliant but a poor speaker.. monotone and put you to sleep.

[@Kegofbeer]

@tryanjohnson as he should be. chomsky is a sex icon

[@johnbrown9439]

Chomsky always worries me by the things he does not mention, like the Hidden Markov Model of speech (a very misleading name) and how this relates to the question of context and top-down-influence that Cognitive Psychology has documented so well (eg. "he's got a shoe" vs. "he's going to shoot"). In another talk he failed to make any reference to the axioms of set theory where these would have supported the point he was making. He never mentions machine learning or co-variance in general, and seems to stick by his original idea of "poverty of stimulus", despite the book by Adele Goldberg showing how her children applied co-variance to learning aspects of language, by making phonological generalisations between rather different phoneme sequences. For example, eatEN has a deal of resemblance to kissED . This idea of "how can a child possibly learn language from the buzz of confused noises around it" seems ridiculous. Babies are very short-sighted and can recognize only their mother's face. Her lips move and she makes sounds. Clearly all mammals have to learn the noises that their particular mother makes, or they can end up starving. How else would a penguin chick re-unite with its mother after she has spent months at sea. So the baby will apply co-variance and generalisation initially only to what mother says, and she speaks in a restricted subset of language that linguists call "motherese", so his hypotheses are more often correct, compared to hearing speech on TV, for example. What the human appears to do, and chimpanzees don't, is to learn that different sequences of phonemes form labels for entities and actions. Here the work of people like Baddeley on short term memory and the "phonological loop" probably becomes important. I would suggest that we have a longer loop than other primates, but although I don't know, my argument would lead to experiments that might decide the matter. We generate different phonemes by pressing the tongue against different parts of the roof of the mouth, changing the shape of the tongue, and making different sounds with our vocal chords. If a chimpanzee is unable to do these sorts of things, he can never relate the internal state of his vocal organs to the words that he hears, either from himself or from another. And analogies between phonemes cannot form the basis of his co-variance calculations. T)EN and ED have great similarity if you concentrate on the position of your tongue, and are tuned to recognise mirror-images. Chomsky seems to inhabit a different world, totally unrelated to the disciplines that would allow him to further refine and filter his theories. Pinker seems to me to be in contact with that world.

[@adambird-ridnell6415]

+Jesse u have said it all here

[@brendonbarratt7551]

You are confusing the way children learn the sounds of language as opposed to inheriting symbols or atoms of meaning which are subsequently linked to those sounds. The meaning of a word is very significantly more complex than simply the sound, something that a songbird can learn, which is not language.

[@jones1351]

John Brown - The difference between Chomsky and what’s reflected in your jargon thick comment is simplicity. Not of concepts and thought, but of communication. When Prof. Chomsky talks of, as you call it, ‘HIS original idea of poverty of stimulus’, I get what he’s talking about. It makes sense. The light switches on, as it were. With you, it’s like WTF??!! I’m a firm believer in Einstein’s aphorism, ‘if you can’t explain it simply, then you don’t understand it yourself.’ As for what he ‘left out’, are you suggesting that he doesn’t know about it? Or, that he’s somehow threatened by it? Or, that not talking about it detracts from his point? Because, I’m as laymen as they come, but I get what he’s saying. Whereas your comment is exhausting.

[@johnbrown9439]

@@brendonbarratt7551The border collie called "Chaser" (now unfortunately deceased, but there are lots of videos on her) could recognise 1200 nouns and 5 verbs, and so would obey commands like "Chaser, fetch Elephant" or "Chaser, paw Elephant". Now, did Chaser understand the "meanings of those words", or not? She certainly modified her actions in a way that suggested she understood. But of course she lacked the vocal organs that would allow her to speak. Observe mother and child. C. "nana"; M "oh you want a banana". Read Adele Goldberg and you will start to get the idea. The symbol "linked" to "banana" is probably very complex, involving yellowness, taste in the mouth, and a feeling of fullness in the stomach. It is certainly not inherited, and is something that the child learns by experimentation with its environment. Switch to Piaget and his followers to understand such experimentation. Children have the vocal organs that allow such experimentation to be done, not limited to physical sensations, but in the abstract world of the language that mother and child pass between them. All this learning is dependent on co-variance, as it is in machine learning in Computing. Turing's concept of the "Chinese room" is interesting, since it suggests that we can never know if someone we are interacting with "really knows the meaning" of what they are saying. As regards the phonetic questions, you might it useful to watch the videos by Professor Kuhl. All based on real experimental data.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

​@@johnbrown9439 I have been exploring the meaning of the word 'conscious' (in the sense that modern people mean it) for a long time and have been driven to believe that language/culture plays a key role in its coming into being (both historically and individually) . (I've only recently begun exploring Dr. Chomsky's lectures and so, still struggling to remain conscious, I'm pretty sure I really don't know clouds at all). If you don't mind, what do you think of this (possibly novel, ha!) idea... (which I strongly suspect is derived from the influence that high school physics, chemistry, biology and Hofstadter's, "Godel, Escher, Bach" and Jaynes', "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" has had on my thinking). When environmental energies impinge on a body's sense organ, the organ adjusts, 'in proportion', the firing rate of the neuron(s) that connect the organ to the brain. *That change in rate thereby encodes and represents some aspect of the environment.* In what follows take the word 'metaphor' to mean 'encoded representation' as realized by neural discharge rate. It's the rate that is important, all else being merely supportive. (Nota bene, rate is a purely abstract notion). Upon entry to the brain that sense 'metaphor' encounters a vast ocean of previously acquired/synthesized metaphors being maintained in discharge-frequency-encoded-form on the axons of some hundred billion neurons. It is some subset of that vast, complex, nebulous network of metaphors that we refer to as the 'self'. That sense organ metaphor propagates thru the brain in a complex synapse mediated fashion. Wherever this propagation sufficiently modulates some subset of the metaphors that constitute the self, it's then that we can say the self is conscious (of some aspect of the environment (seeding the idea that metaphors affect metaphors thereby gestalting the mind into being)). (Synaptic logic among the neurons that are the material substrate of the metaphors that constitute the self then modulate (or not) the metaphors of the neurons that control the muscles of the body that complete the feedback loops that constitute the truths essential to survival)! Thus the sense of immateriality that accompanies being conscious arises from the fact that we are metaphoric entities. Being conscious makes it possible to navigate the complexities of civilization which would be impossible to accomplish on instinct only. THE POINT I have been so inarticulately struggling towards: Given the profoundly metaphoric nature of brain operation, is it any wonder that language should find itself at home there and constituting the glue that makes civilization possible (with overtones of the chicken and egg problem resonating)? Cheers, eh!

[@dim12trav]

Chomsky may be brilliant but he is a poor speaker does he not know how to use his voice to keep people awake?

[@MontyCantsin5]

"I'm a boring speaker and I like it that way...I doubt that people are attracted to whatever the persona is...People are interested in the issues, and they're interested in the issues because they are important.'' - Chomsky.

[@JoeyVol]

Noam Chomsky just talks too much shit about other areas of academia in which he's not an expert in; Yet never-the-less speaks authoritatively. Sad, but true /shrug I blame interviewers as much as Noam himself - because why in the world would you go asking a linguistics expert what you should be asking a Ph.D. in History, or AT LEAST the Humanities about?

[@sonnyobrien]

What the fuck are you talking about. History is not a hard science.

[@clifftrewin1505]

brilliant man but he did a biden around 39:08 read the same thing over

[@jameshegel1324]

It’s the video editing that’s at fault

[@johnjepsen4243]

So MUCH bull feces. Lollollollollol. Verbiage to the EXTREME. REPEATS himself in all his tomes. A super salesman who keeps selling himself. Mercy. Amen.

[@sonnyobrien]

Do you even know who David Hume is?