Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, Jay Keyser, Hilary Putnam at MIT - SHASS 50th Anniv. Colloquium 2000

[@jayxavier6208]

36:00 The father of computational theory can't even work the most basic tech... The mind truly is modular...

[@SeanAnthony-j7f]

Their humans too

[@n.trushaev5132]

Chomsky, Pinker, and Putnam all at one event? I can't believe this actually happened. Thank goodness we have a recording.

[@maxheadrom3088]

A linguist friend of mine would, I believe, not mention Pinker.

[@johnhatchel9681]

And only 3 people watched

[@hadronoftheseus8829]

One of these things is not like the others...

[@hadronoftheseus8829]

@@johnhatchel9681 74,000?

[@n.trushaev5132]

I can definitely agree with two of the commenters pointing out that Pinker is somewhat of a pop sci figure, and I understand that criticism to a large extent. He's obviously not the kind of towering multidisciplinary figure like Chomsky or Putnam. However, he was a pretty big name for a while in the 1980s and he was a big voice in the early debates about "connectionism" and machine learning based approaches to NLP back when these sorts of methodologies were first gaining ground (and obviously long before the recent AI hype cycle of the 2020s).

[@tartanhandbag]

pinker using a laptop, putnam with the OHP (lol) and chomsky doesnt bother with props at all, love it.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

Shows you Chomsky's lack of concern for facilitating understanding. A very trammelled, tired old mind, stuck for nearly a lifetime in his smug adolescent moralism. I've never encountered a single disciple of his lacking a brittle mind and very unappetizing personality.

[@tartanhandbag]

​@@dixonpinfold2582 you're of course entitled to your opinion, but your ad hominem comment adds nothing to the conversation. not that the YT comments section is a particularly suited platform for analysis or debate, but you just sound like you're bitter/projecting your insecurities. for example, "tired old mind", is a comical description, even by the standards of most of Chomsky's eminent detractors.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

@@tartanhandbag QED. I thank you.

[@tartanhandbag]

@@dixonpinfold2582 lol, you can tart up your "i know you are but what am i?" as QED, but i'm not sure the pompous dressing makes it any less infantile. your own "concern for facilitating understanding" is, hypocritically, plain to see. i'm sorry you are so inflamed by Chomsky's academic weight. call it a stab in the dark, but i'd hedge that your own contributions to "facilitating understanding" are vanishingly small, or am i grossly mistaken?

[@dixonpinfold2582]

@@tartanhandbag You've got the Chomskyite personality, all right. Many things give away the central adolescent aspect of it, perhaps the most flagrant being that favourite expression of 13-year-olds online everywhere, "lol."

[@AnandKulkarniPlusOne]

13:35 is when the first of the non-introducer speakers starts speaking.

[@lonelycubicle]

Thank you. Every video of a lecture should include this in the description.

[@benwinstanleymusic]

thanks

[@lbdeuce]

Big ups to Anand

[@markward3981]

I love how Pinker admits that he doesn't know when answering the question.

[@maxheadrom3088]

The problem is he only does that when a guy like Putnam (who I heard for the first time and already noticed he's a giant) corrects him. He too often mentions "research" and does not qualify them.

[@edwardjones2202]

Great to see Noam and Putnam together. Ton of respect between them.

[@lizgichora6472]

Linguistics, Cognitive and behavioral Psychology. Thank you very much .

[@buddinganarchist]

This was updated by Brian Ferguson, who studied that the "savages" were not war like.

[@uvwuvw-ol3fg]

Agreed, probably depends on a specific socioecological environment (pan troglodytes proactive political games over status (Goodness Paradox), fertile females and offspring compared to pan paniscus (bonobo) society based on playful prosociality/sociosexuality for promotion of group stability regardless of age and gender). Or human society after the agricultural/pastoral revolution leading to competitive possessiveness over private property (marriage, amatonormativity), inheritance, virginity, fertility cults and maximization of birth rates regardless of ideologies such as antinatalism based on consent. Not sure about Trobrianders, Kaluli, Batek, Gebusi, !Kung San, Etoro, Sambia people, Ache, Mosuo and all the extinct undocumented more or less egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies with different effects on epigenetic expression.

[@Simonjose7258]

I comment. Therefore I am.

[@SeanAnthony-j7f]

You comment therefore you s- d

[@Dasein2005]

"Conclusions about human nature are likely to have large-scale consequences." - Chomsky

[@allenl8322]

Clearly... he is hoping to LEAD the next CULTURAL REVOLUTION for his PROLETARIAT MINIONS! Will someone please let him live in the current REVOLUTION of his choice and not PHOENIX AZ like a US loving PATRIOT would do! Him and BERNY live the same LIE EVERYDAY and no one calls them out on it!

[@seanmoriarty3412]

@@allenl8322 What is the "LIE"? let us know so we can help either call them (or you) out on it :)

[@JFKMLKRFKGHWB]

not that you'lll be truly able to fairly analyze accurately but by events origin distortion

[@johnhatchel9681]

Yes, like mass starvation and millions of murdered people.

[@Dasein2005]

@@johnhatchel9681 Yes, but enough about capitalism.

[@stefanotittarelli4054]

Noam Chomsky is an excellent communicator,a truly great mind.

[@Misitheus]

Really...he is a Linguistic.....he should remain within his discipline....and he is a 2%ER socialist....

[@lbdeuce]

@@Misitheus that’s true. As we all know polymaths should only discuss one discipline and keep their other ignorant opinion to themselves. Good thing we have people like you who help keep those pesky exceptional thinkers their fuckin lanes.

[@lbdeuce]

Also your name is embarrassing

[@Misitheus]

@@lbdeuce Polymath...really....again...if no one told you...opinions are like assholes....and YOU can have your opinion...just not your own facts....Let all march toward utopia....blindly....Please stay on the sidewalk...

[@urulai]

@@lbdeuce Its a fair observation, Noam is frankly outdated by the standards of any person with some intelligence and internet access these days. Don't idealize intellectuals, especially ones who are frankly out of date with what gets taught in the high school curriculum of most modern countries.

[@DurdenTylerr]

I wish Chomsky and Pinker would do a debate today.

[@robertpirsig5011]

Wouldn't happen, as chomsky is in his 90s now. But he still seems quite sharp. Would love to see it though as I'm a big fan of both.

[@kelamuni]

He's already demolished Pinker.

[@rogerhoke9725]

@@kelamuni Funny that you believe that.

[@TheJonnyEnglish]

@@robertpirsig5011 he was on cylinders in his debate with bad faith podcast, I’m sure he’d do it.

[@tuliomorey]

@@rogerhoke9725 funny you think that's some sort of joke.

[@luisathought]

Thank You

[@TheJonnyEnglish]

Sam and Noam’s friendship is fucking adorable

[@dharmatycoon]

Pinker: *nods* Putnam: ????????????? Chomsky: *slowly nods*

[@manuelalonsodominguezvazqu2145]

Hahahahahaha

[@jessicarperry]

Professor Chomsky connects the language work with the political work: human nature, human rights.

[@abdeslamkhouakhi9828]

Great work

[@JonSebastianF]

35:41 Putnam struggling with projector slides and making excuses is the most human thing I have seen today... KZbin channel idea: Just videos of intellectual Gods struggling with projector slides, PowerPoint, adaptors, and WiFi like the rest of us

[@anachromancer7005]

This made burst out laughing. Thank you.

[@sensennsen]

"Well it's a dark subject." -H. Putnam

[@EuDouArteHipHopArtCulture21]

1:30:54

[@disct1597]

Chomsky intelligence, knowledge, great thinking ability, character, honesty, integrity is beautiful to watch and I always learn a lot when he talks.

[@hosseingolebostan5337]

I must thank all professors who gave me an insight to the question and opened my mind to the broad field of studies in language.

[@JohnNoZ35]

I am a huge fan of Chomsky, Pinker, and Putnam. This is a great talk.

[@casteretpollux]

Interesting. You don't think Chomsky and Pinker are opponents?

[@RobertWGreaves]

Brilliant thinkers. Pinker and Chomsky in particular. I do not always agree with them but they have always been inspiring and challenging.

[@edwardjones2202]

Dude Putnam is a mental freak. He published work on Hilbert problems in Diophantine equations in his early work, knows mathematical logic inside out, had debates with Nobel Prize winner Eugene Wigner in print on quantum physics, then went on to be one of the major analytic philosophers of the 20th century publishing on language, logic and ethics. As Chomsky said on his death: "one of the finest minds I've ever encountered"

[@havenbastion]

re Pinker: Any "what is the nature of..." question is semantic. Human nature is whatever we understand it to be, not some esoteric, a priori Platonic form. Nature as a whole is likewise defined by the boundaries we set upon it intentionally.

[@edwardjones2202]

Chomsky would beg to differ. His entire professional life is dedicated to establishing a linguistic capacity to generate a grammar based on insufficient data. His theory is falsifiable. "what is the nature of" questions are not semantic.

[@SchutzBoysband]

you're just saying humans aren't biological and therefore can't really be studied scientifically. I don't think that's what Pinker is saying.

[@nicholas6870]

Of course not, we wouldn’t be able to study nature at all

[@michaelwright8896]

You must think you're like Sherlock Holmes...

[@lbdeuce]

I don’t think nature as a whole Is defined by individuals conceptions of it. That sounds a or like magic to me.

[@tnvheiseler]

Innate Ideas: 1:19:52

[@wireless849]

My brain is swooning🥰

[@willowbell3756]

I take issue with the term Judeo/Christian tradition, as, it is only recognised in Britain/America and perhaps other parts of Europe and perhaps the satellite Western economies like Australia. I'm writing at a time when America appears to be reducing their military bases in the Middle East, thus this concept of Judeo/Christianity worries me more than it did in the past. For decades America has supported a brand of Jewish Zionism that envisages Jerusalem as the capital of the new, ostensibly, European/Jewish state. An undertaking that might see the end of Damascus and those surrounding cities that continue to support the Arab Nationalist secular momentum. Will Syria be at the mercy of an ideology that has sought to bring the Arab dominated parts of the Levant to its knees? After all the world hierarchy has withdrawn patronage form the Lebanon, under the pretext of the economic strife caused by the well constructed deadly virus myth. I don't deny there is a more serious flu around but we've lived through them before. The Levantine Christians, with the exception of a proportion of the Maronites, who might yet come to regret their affiliations, do not support the concept of Judeo/Christianity at all. Neither do a lot of Eastern European countries I realise this comment is not directly linked to the video content but someone has to question, once again the intent of a European, Jewish Zionist Movement that appears to be out of control.

[@TheJonnyEnglish]

Anglo-Saxon is much better. I don’t understand how Judaism fits into it.

[@VeniVinnieVici]

Well I mean you could add Islamic to the name, but seeing how the judeao-christian nature of man gets followed up by Locke and Rouseau we seem to be talking about the European tradition. This tradition, or at least practical parts of it, has become dominant worldwide. The practical parts being democracy or secularism for example. I don’t see what zionism and Israel have to do with anything regarding the debate on human nature...

[@MarketStaller]

@@VeniVinnieVici I think the problem is is that "Judeo-Christian values" are, at best, what allowed the rise of Renaissance and Enlightenment thinking. Everything that follows - the morality, the economics - is based off Enlightenment values. Humanism, liberalism, capitalism and socialism - all of these powerful movements are based in Enlightenment thought and have little to do with Christianity or Judaism.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

@@TheJonnyEnglish Have you heard of a book called the Bible? It came out of Judaism and has influenced European civilization, the Anglo-Saxon part of it obviously included, more than any other. It baffles me how anyone could fail to be aware of that.

[@edga69]

Each sentence Putnam utters, his enthusiasm gives me hope I'll understand what he's saying, but after each sentence that hope is lost. I feel I've got the gist, but that may be wishful thinking.

[@royalordinance]

Noam Chomsky at MIT, OxiMoron.

[@keepcalmcarryon3358]

This comment section is one of the worst I’ve ever scrolled. Intelligent bitter trolls mixed with wannabe intellectuals word salad

[@bengibson9396]

1:34:00 -- "Who is my neighbour?"

[@afd5231]

Thanks a lot, I loved it Man is like the universe : very few answers, the rest is mystery. 2023: I wonder if it’s a good question for ChatGPT ?

[@evanokeroa4877]

Proves to be true even withstands fire

[@sheilamacdougal9948]

Not a particularly enlightening discussion. I've hear Chomsky do that rap about wage slavery a hundred times, and when he began, I said aloud his next sentences before he did. Yeah, it has something vaguely to do with the point of studying human nature, but the whole talk was so vague and superficial that it gave the impression of yoking a veneer of science at the beginning to being relevant and radical at the end. Putnam had one interesting point to make, which is fine, but it wasn't articulated particularly clearly. Pinker was kind of all over the place. Also, he used the statistic of war dead distributed over time and population to compare to hunting-gathering victims of killing. But one needs to add to war dead all victims of homicide and manslaughter over the same period.

[@edwardjones2202]

Thanks for all your contributions to science, philosophy and political activism.....oh....wait.....

[@dignes3446]

@@edwardjones2202 You're welcome.

[@gilbertleblanc8063]

I think the numbers did include all murder including wars.

[@grantray98]

Did this make you feel big and strong?

[@fumanpoo4725]

You must be fun at parties.

[@nancymohass4891]

Would be thoughtful as well as useful ! To put water on the table near by speakers !

[@evanokeroa4877]

Mentor who background so we know your foundation they'll follow ones go

[@evanokeroa4877]

What's proof?

[@evanokeroa4877]

Prove to be HIS NAME MEANS

[@שלמהרוזנבלום]

3 Ashkenazi Jews.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

Congratulations

[@confusedarmchairphilosopher]

Why is that important?

[@havenbastion]

The duty to oneself is not ethics, but it is morality. Ethics deals with your formalized interactions with others, even strangers. Morality is internal/immediate/local, in which sense your duty to yourself is to be your Best self, regardless of how it effects others, with the selfish understanding that only the best You can have the best life for you, and that the good of your immediate surroundings is directly related to your own. There is a selfish reason to do any good thing and a gregarious one to do any evil thing.

[@quantumfineartsandfossils2152]

Putnam is the star here chomsky & pinker make no points are just talking abbot their opinions

[@gonx9906]

Young pinker, same haircut lol

[@waindayoungthain2147]

Do we live with none adapting ways of Imperialism🧐🌎?

[@waindayoungthain2147]

Since the imperialism justify your brutal for fighting of Orwell farming 🤔?

[@lourak613]

Pinker's arrogance knows no bounds. He matter-of-factly declares traditional religions to be obsolete. What wisdom he must possess to be able to intone such an idea.

[@maxheadrom3088]

Chomsky does laugh! So nice!

[@dixonpinfold2582]

"The merriment of parsons is mighty offensive." -Samuel Johnson

[@clariona]

Keyser has nothing to say; he reads and he makes a few euphemisms in an attempt to endear himself to us. What's all the hubbub, bub? Long Live Senior House, say thousands of alums.

[@waindayoungthain2147]

Do we live without any problems for material comfort then we bored and find independence for infinite ♾ needs 😏🤣.?

[@JFKMLKRFKGHWB]

History memory which one is real , second, first JFKMLKRFKillers, ask, their benfiCIAries ?

[@srokazlodziejka]

[@Philosophie21]

I prefer Pinker to Chomsky anyway because he has an attitude that aims more at improvement and harmony between people while Chomsky seeks more conflict.

[@everetthamby5005]

I don’t think you’ve read enough Chomsky if that is what you believe.

[@Philosophie21]

@@everetthamby5005 No need to read Chomsky anymore, his merit lies in having shown that a universal grammar was possible and that language is strongly determined by genes. These political works have ideological revivals: the bad capitalists against the good thinkers. I think the analysis needs to be more refined.

[@Philosophie21]

@@everetthamby5005 Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

[@ally11488]

When your politics has been marginalised by a media dominated by neoliberalism, it's understandable you would see Chomsky as irascible. I just think he points out uncomfortable truths.

[@philonico]

@@ally11488 The main thing is to find solutions to reduce poverty and wherever they come from the good solutions are those which do not condemn a group of all the ills of society.

[@waindayoungthain2147]

For promising and warriors justify. Do we in luxury capital destruction on material needs 🧐? And sanctions against our life hunger for making 😊🙏🏻.

[@keepcalmcarryon3358]

Whoa, word soup anyone?

[@zero_nova2849]

Michel Foucault couldn't make it.

[@waindayoungthain2147]

Will you leave your head in destroying yourself of good styling for yourself celebrating and paying till you get yourself good ghost outsides? In your never mind your democratic attitude has never thought about your life and family prosperity 🤔?

[@TheJonnyEnglish]

Bro I have no idea what you’re saying

[@fercaism]

the real question is how is a MAN named hilary.

[@casteretpollux]

Listening to Epstein buddies Pinker and Chomsky spout about morality is nauseating.

[@waindayoungthain2147]

🙏🏻, I believe in human beings living without harmful by nature or it’s rawness with the stimulation for having when the attacking family famine. I believe it’s the education can compromise the rudeness and moral reasoning when we learn to be in mature ways, but it’s the democratic warriors freedom members make it for the names for warriors attacking that’s no one deserves to live if’s it’s their advantage 🇺🇸.

[@teebeedahbow]

Pinker says Judaeo-Christian like it designates anything, outside cheap newspapers' prose style...

[@lbdeuce]

ore like steven stinker!!!!!!

[@abringering2164]

Chomsky should to linguistics. Nothing he says is based on facts or analytical data. We are supposed to take everything he says as truth. Laughable and absurd…

[@KongSunWu]

Chomsky was and I assume still is a big supporter of Pol Pot

[@confusedarmchairphilosopher]

Never was

[@dixonpinfold2582]

Be suspicious of a man who lays out a position with seeming care and earnestness and then says "I'm probably misinterpreting." Insincerity in life is bad. In intellectual matters it's poison gas.

[@GroovismOrg]

We Must follow our musical instinct!! Billions of us entrained with The One Groove broadcast by www.groovism.org will cause the foreseen epiphany!

[@kerloz9253]

The penitent hardhat parenthetically point because motion realistically warm after a special hourglass. woebegone, satisfying brian