Steven Pinker on Rationality, Psychology, Language, & More | Steven Pinker on The Origins Podcast

[@Frikzter]

I wish Pinker did more longer conversations. 1 hour just isn't enough.

[@pseudonayme7717]

Haha, yes! He has so much valuable stuff to say, an hour barely scratches the surface.

[@fs5775]

I love how excited Lawrence always gets in the midst of learning & talking about ideas. It's a delight to watch!

[@lynnej.9357]

I do too. Sometimes leads to him talking too much - but it comes from so much enthusiasm.

[@thegroove2000]

I get excited as well with thoughts and ideas. I think to lose that child like ability, wonder, awe and amazement of things then its time to jump in the coffin.

[@davidorourke3630]

Me too!😊

[@mattyy101]

@A Iron so they say.. cancel culture is real with you.

[@mattyy101]

@A Iron you're mentality is negative and part of it

[@Souljahna]

Please have Pinker on again a.s.a.p. You make excellent conversationalists and it's so much fun (and inspiring) listening to the two of you.

[@nathanconstantino7441]

Loved the interview Lawrence! As a psychologist i really like your respect for any field of science. Greetins from Brazil

[@nathanconstantino7441]

@Jet String if you're talking about grammar, my native language is not english. If you're talking about something else, i didn't get it. Either way, i don't really care, but if you're trying to be edgy or funny, i'm sure attacking people on the internet doesn't help your sad life.

[@jessytheyodellingirl]

The opening music to this podcast is so soothing...

[@existentialnotions178]

This was such a nutritious conversation, would love to see a long form discussion with Pinker.

[@existentialnotions178]

@@pmcguinness3041 My experience with the term in the form of podcasts is at least three hours or more.

[@scottsherman5262]

@@existentialnotions178 I'm glad you expounded on your comment...I agree, I love truly long form podcasts, but I guarantee that all five of my children would consider this video at just over an hour to be long form. Good day sir.

[@mohscorpion2]

two real idols of our age ,loved every second

[@hessambayanifar2987]

I wish you recommended more books. I always try to see what great thinkers read

[@lynnej.9357]

I have started reading this book. Haven't gotten very far, but it's good.

[@rayhan3654]

This was a 10/10 ... It bugs me how underrated and underviewed the origins podcast is! Nonetheless, I disagreed quite a bit; would love it if Krauss brought on David Deutsch (pioneer of quantum computation and the author of the Fabric of Reality and the Beginning of Infinity). There seems to be an epistemological chasm between both ... Would be amazing to see y'all hash it out!

[@Fiction_Beast]

A really great discussion. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche were right that rationality alone is not the answer.

[@TheAtheist22]

This podcast should have far many more subscribers. I admire Professor Krauss.

[@alottaguala9766]

Should have been 3 hours long! Can't wait for a sequel, pleaseee

[@travisfitzwater8093]

I watched the local news broadcasts from the Washington DC area and read the Washington Post every day. Therefore, I was exposed to an arguably higher level of language than what likely would have been the case if I had grown up elsewhere. Undoubtedly, this contributed to the formation of my linguistic schema.

[@truvelocity]

This is such a wonderful treat to wake up to. Thank you for this.

[@kraxmalism]

always a pleasure to see Steven Pinker to speak, even though each time I read his books I get mesmerized the way he articulates his ideas and conveys his thoughts to the reader. Rationality is a great book, enjoyed every bit of it. cheers from Azerbaijan!

[@folee_edge]

Both of these scientists are amazing 🤩

[@mbigras]

I’m a new listener and the following are two criticisms: 1. Too many interruptions. That’s distracting, and gives the already short podcast a choppy quality. 2. Continuously whinging about the limited time and quantity of topics is tiresome. Both of you have done a lot, your audience knows there are many topics. The difficulty of picking topics is implied, you don’t need to continuously say so. Just pick the topics you want and go on. But I’m still glad to hear both your voices and thoughts so thank you for that!

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

Hi Lawrence!!! Thanks for having Steven on! What a great mind! Both of you together is great mental stimulation.

[@lokeshparihar7672]

It would be helpful if you could add time stamps to these long videos.

[@brockwhite8699]

Always enjoyed the lectures and talks by Lawrence. Just stumbled across this video today while scrolling, and am now a subscriber to the podcast. Thank you!

[@TheOriginsPodcast]

thanks!

[@Robbie_jojo]

Love you DR. Lawrence kruss.. you are a jewel to us humans... Thanks for videos

[@monkerud2108]

I just had this thought that behaviorism should really be called variableism. Because as you described it it is really only a doctrine of only caring about simple behaviors you can turn into simple variables, but that isn’t limiting at all if you think about it, its just a question about where you draw the line for what a behavior is and what you ignore, there really isn’t any clear line between behavior in an external sense and fine graining until you have to consider cognition as simple behavior, and then you are just stuck with a name for a field that no longer has no such red tape so to speak. Liked the episode :)

[@Dr10Jeeps]

Two wonderful Canadian scientists having a fascinating conversation. How good is that!

[@roblewis798]

As usual, a pleasure to listen. Thanks

[@williamjmccartan8879]

Thank you both Steven and Lawrence, Lawrence I don't mean to be presumptuous, but I was wondering if you could have a talk with Dr Gregg Henriques about his utok system, he is still is relatively unknown in these circles but he is coherent with years of professional experience and would be a great foil for your style of dialog. Peace

[@MartinHaumann1]

It is disheartening that Steven and Lawrence criticize Chomsky without engaging in his arguments. For example that the sudden burst in human Intelligence and creativity arose from a sudden rewiring of the brain and not gradual evolution + his account of structure dependence and what that means for communicative efficiency. Given that Lawrence has said that Chomsky has told Lawrence numerous times that he should substantiate his claims one would have hoped that these peers and friends of the over 90 year old Chomsky would be more fair in their usage of the huge platform they have when discussing his scientific theories. But other than that it was a nice chat with some great subjects.

[@MrBILLSTANLEY]

Apparently 11 months is about the right time to go away. Thanks Steven Pinker to help ending the isolation.

[@KymHammond]

36:41 "that someone could be logical but not rational" isn't this every Kafka story or even the idea of the absurdist? Why is this such a revelation now? This was an interesting talk, from both of you. Really quite stimulating.

[@TT-un2of]

The referenced item conflates instrumental-rationality with 'saneness of ends". (The discussion was quite sloppy on Krauss's end.) Spewing out endless trivial logical truths presumably violates the latter (saneness) to most humans' lights. Logic may be necessary, but not sufficient for instrumental rationality wrt a particular end.

[@duncanwallace7760]

I would be awesome being able to read interesting books then have an hour long conversation with the authors and ask all your questions!!! I would need more than an hour for Lawrence's books though!

[@blakereneehope]

Just brilliant. Bravo

[@member3DoesStuff]

A pleasure as always.

[@Gi-Home]

Two of my favorite authors, great way to pass the time this Wednesday morning. Given these two authors mastery of their subject matter I found it a bit amusing that the example given for CO2 and global warming referred to China given that the USA has contributed a little more than 75% of the post-industrial CO2 to this planet, that the Chinese contribute roughly 50% as much CO2 per capita and that the Chinese electrification of transport is multiples of the USA's efforts, the list goes on and it is clear that China is leading the world from the abyss of climate change due to humans.

[@pseudonayme7717]

So true. China accept that it is a problem and more importantly, are trying to do something about it. Half of the US doesn't even really accept that it is a problem, whilst the US military alone contributes more CO2 than many large countries. I think I heard it is on a par with India in terms of CO2 output.🙄

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

Not saying that the US isn't really bad, but China has lied about a crap load, and is not nearly as environmentally friendly as their grossly misrepresented data says! Also: Electricity doesn't just come out of thin air, and china burns a shit load of coal and fossil fuel to get electricity, and is far behind other countries with wind and solar energy! IOW: Electricity in and of itself is meaningless, it's how you get it that counts: You are making a false equivocation fallacy!

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

@@pseudonayme7717 Cite your sources! Your "research" is worthless when it comes from sources just as clueless as you are! India is probably the largest polluter of them all, and half the time you can't even see a few miles in any rural area of India the smog is so thick! You should go there and see for yourself!

[@Gi-Home]

@@Bob-of-Zoid apparently your sources derive their information from the NED, the equivalent of Nazi Germanys propaganda machine.

[@wasdwasdedsf]

" China is leading the world from the abyss of climate change due to humans." lol, youre living in a cult... even one of your propagandised clown thinktanks, maybe the ipcc, admitted in a report how the planet would according to them heat up by about a degree in 100 years, and reduce gdp increase by 8% compared to what the supposed damage would be if there would be no climate change at that point... that is instead of a 2000% or whatever growth, there would be a 1800% growth. all these people are paid off propagandists

[@Life_42]

I love Steven Pinker!

[@AtlanticPicture]

Please consider inviting John Mearsheimer.

[@igorflexus9493]

I loved this. All the love from Norway.

[@timestimesx7535]

23:18 Chomsky said something like "A sudden change happened relatively recently which allowed us to produce complex thought." Like a change that unlocks creativity and lets us share our knowledge and understanding with each other. This makes perfect sense to me. Shouldn't the emergence of complex thoughts (representable by sounds / signs) which are worth communicating precede the invention of a complex tool for communication? Pinker's gradual evolution idea seems to be a default answer that makes less sense. Something must be produced before it gets exchanged. Plus, I'm pretty sure Pinker knows Chomsky sees language as modality + meaning rather than sound + meaning. I don't get why he says something like this: 24:13

[@AzimuthAviation]

Two of my favorite science communicators and thinking rational people...

[@leilaannebreene3013]

Thanks!

[@Flowing23]

so good, thank you.

[@BenSmit-e7s]

You guys spend 30% patting each other on the back & discussing your credentials. Get to the point of the interview. We know you are both wonderful and amazing.

[@Podolskills]

I personally think that the dilemma of being rational or not lies in the local vs. global dynamic as depicted by both scientists, but also within the self vs. multi-self concept since we're all made of an almost infinite amount of different parts that could be described mainly here by our desires and emotions (which ultimately is the result of everything that we've experienced in our lives). As well the temporal specter of our cognition : A good example of that is when you feel hungry late in the night and you have this urge to go grab a snack in the fridge, your present self is well aware that this action will probably harm your future self in the morning with a stomach ache due to overeating, but the animal drive of hunger from it is still willing to sacrifice the future pain for immediate pleasure and relief. So the animal here would be one part of you and the future awaking another. This could be applied in almost any direction possible (sexual vs. educated parts, masculine vs. feminine parts, daredevil vs. wise parts... etc.) Another example : We should definitely stop playing and work on how to plan our retirement someday, logically, but we're not better off to plan our retirement everyday relentlessly without playing and enjoying our time, because then our future self will clearly look back and deem its life waste. So in my opinion, rationality should be synonymous of equilibrium, balance and moderation. Humans find peace of mind in what feels balanced, well proportioned, moderated.

[@TT-un2of]

Various ideas are being conflated here, and key words being used very loosely and inconsistently. 1. Rationality of means vs rationality of ends. The former is called "instrumental rationality" and is what they were imprecisely and sloppily talking about. As to "rationality of ends", good luck with that. Whose ends, when, etc. Who wants what, when, for whom; who decides what, etc etc unto lovely human history. You may want pain. I may want to die. He likes to emotionally suffer. etc etc. There is no objective sense in which these are "irrational" ends. This is the main point of the Hume (approximate) quotes. The "local vs global" Krauss phrase was a loose and rather sloppy analogy, blurring and mixing a bunch of distinct things. it's spatial and size emphasis is misguided. "Individual vs Group" or "unit vs collective" are better. Prisoners Dilemma and Tragedy-of-the-Commons issues pertain to the fact that making decisions that rationally optimize individual outcome for me alone, when likewise pursued by everybody else, result in everyone doing worse than they might have if they had cooperated together instead, rather than trying to maximize their individual outcomes as if in isolation. The specific terms are cooperate vs defect. More broadly, this stuff has to do with the necessity and risks of trust, and the individual and group benefits and risks/costs of violating each-others trust. This kind of stuff illustrates that there are inevitable major logical-structural challenges to people and groups getting along and cooperating when the payoffs for defecting are favorable. And it highlights how essential trust and being deserving of trust is to humans not collectively making a mess and hell of things when could have done so much better. But trusting is a risk (as is not trusting wrt lost opportunity), and how best to encourage and incentivize trusting and how punish it's violation? There are no easy answers or definitive resolutions of these issues. One thing is clear though; that a highly competitive, extremely individualistic capitalistic culture much aggravates and amplifies these issues and much militates against the trust and cooperation requisite for maximally-collective optimization. The question of Us vs Them, who is us, what group am-I/are-we optimizing for, etc, is a major Rub, among others. Also, apropos your "the dilemma of rationality"; wrt means vs ends, humans obviously often have contradictory or incompatible ends in mind; pleasure-now pay -later, or part of me wants this now but another part doesn't etc etc. Ends in tension or conflict usually results in a morass of inconsistent or conflicting means being employed by instrumental rationality. Apropos your "So in my opinion, rationality should be synonymous of equilibrium, balance and moderation. Humans find peace of mind in what feels balanced, well proportioned, moderated": (aside from just arbitrarily redefining the word), this either ignores the distinction between 'means rationality' and some ostensible 'ends rationality', or else just arrogates and prescribes everyone particular ends that you happen to like/want etc. Not everyone wants "peace of mind" or moderation, etc. Teenagers often want excitement and intensity, not moderation, etc. Maybe you feel everybody 'should' want such. Good luck establishing that moral claim, or even defining "peace of mind" in a non question-begging way. Cheerio, Tom :-)

[@travisfitzwater8093]

Pinker's got depth in his perception.

[@eduardoreyes1272]

Espectacular!!

[@sorsdeus]

You have the best podcast, thank you :)

[@mosaadghoneim2117]

Thanks

[@Theomatikalli]

Everytime I come to Lawrence's channel he's always letting his guests know that he is older than them, I wonder what that's about 🤣

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

He doesn't like to be treated like a kid! (

[@SteveGalliford]

Thanks for a wonderful discussion. You both paraphrased the actual Hume quote but close enough. Steven Pinker's version: "Reason must always be a slave to the passions." Apologies to Hume but would not that quote pack a heavier -- and more positive/realistic -- punch with a simple switch of two words? Change it into the question: Must reason always be a slave to the passions?

[@alanchriston6806]

Wonderful 😊

[@helenmalinowski4482]

As a Seventies student, I moved away from "pop star" Chomsky to you. First nudge was his arrogance. When I found you, I had solid ground to trust and continue.

[@maximilyen]

Great talk...

[@nblm805]

Good program

[@danielm5161]

19:12 People who work in game development and graphic design think in terms of 2.5 dimensions all the time. After Effects and Toon Boom are generally 2.5d programs while Maya, 3dsmax, Unreal Engine etc. are 3d programs. 2.5 dimensional programs are pixel graphics with a depth value. 3d graphics are voxels.

[@Gemans68]

Very interesting. We want more please

[@seanmellows1348]

Good chat, could have easily gone much longer.

[@kimberlyH1984]

great interview

[@ivannegri7724]

Fascinating, but I'm curious about Dr. Pinker's conception of visualized 2.5 d space, what about Tesla, Einstein, and Leonardo; they described their visualization in a very different way. Did Teams have a real 3d visual space? Surely Leonardo was doing something quite unusual when he would imagine vast topological regions veridically from a being on the ground walking the landscape perspective.

[@danielm5161]

excellent

[@kittykatzcenteno7160]

Biiig thank you. ...

[@musicbymark]

Just subscribed Lawrence. Why is Noam so negative toward Steven? I've only heard Steven speak respectfully if not admirably about Noam. I never understood his negativity toward Sam Harris either.

[@jerome_dangelo]

Because he's an ideologue. He's not interested in ideas contrary to his own. It's sad so many so-called intellectuals fail in this regard.

[@arcticwolf6402]

@@jerome_dangelo Your comment is extremely dishonest and an utter misrepresentation of Chomsky.

[@kenlieck7756]

Excellent 'casting! Please interview more people in the "all-around good guy" field...

[@leonardniamh]

He doesn't make it easy to like him but I can't ignore the insight of this interview

[@yanquiufo7113]

How does he make it hard to like him, he seems as inoffensive as it gets to me

[@ally11488]

"As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people." I'm sure Lawrence still stands by his words, even now Prince Andrew is paying money out to someone he's never met.

[@TrippyKenpachi]

I’m always happy when I see Lawrence Krauss-Steven Pinker, too. …But I’m practically a groupie for Lawrence, 😂.

[@vanHoey]

I was a bit disappointed that the topics had to be rushed though under a time constraint, even though Pinker is on sabbatical.

[@Patrick77487]

Path towards a potential balanced intelligent humanity be long, dark, winding maze. Pinker's intellectual optimistic outlook survives amid an ocean of suffering.

[@leonardniamh]

This is the first time I loved Stephen Pinker

[@ClownXmachina]

YES

[@andymaxwell2359]

Lawrence, when was this filmed? And why were you in my house?

[@nigeljohn65]

I'm more convinced by the arguments put forward by Tomasello in his book Constructing a Language. Representational inateness doesn't make sense. What's inate is the human aptitude for cultural learning, rather than any prior knowledge of grammar. If we can read intentions, we can map language onto functions. General learning processes can do the rest.

[@2toneguy]

This is interesting, you could draw a parallel in music, you don't need prior knowledge of anything in music to express intention, but as you continually expose yourself to playing, a structure starts to emerge as you remember patterns of sound or shapes at the instrument and knowing what they mean.

[@size4672]

❤

[@vast634]

The audio is not quite synchronized

[@idio-syncrasy]

No visual imagination, I have aphantasia. Hope he covered it.

[@size4672]

❤👍

[@billscannell93]

I so don't get the stuff about if 2+2=7, then pigs can fly, and Romeo and Juliet being separated by a wall. I usually can make some sort of sense out of what both of these guys say (or at least imagine I can) so I will have to watch this one again.

[@windigo000]

love it :)

[@fritsgerms3565]

First, thank you very much. I'm going to make myself unpopular by saying I wish that Lawrence should learn to reign in his ego. This continuous desire to compare himself with others is unnecessary and distracting. I'm very appreciative of this channel and I have consumed several of his books and will continue to do so. The criticism is only directed at the way the interview is done. Its just this need to compare oneself with someone else (when talking about their work) that I find annoying (and slightly disrespectful of the other). My guess is that Lawrence already knows he has a tendency to do so.

[@TT-un2of]

I agree that he here frequently inserts his Harvard credentials and such. He also often interrupts at inopportune moments, this separate from his efforts to guide the conversation according to his agenda. His spirit of friendly exploratory openness and questioning and curiosity is welcome and appealing, but his often labored, slow, iterative and mushy efforts at formulating his question or thought or response aloud becomes tedious, often results in something verbally and conceptually imprecise and hand-wavy, and actually wastes a lot of scarce conversation time. I recommend he write down ahead of time a lot of likely-relevant key-terms and phrases and distinctions for reference during conversation. Broad real-time compressed-articulateness on multiple subjects is not easy. He does get excellent people on to talk with. I liked his "...from nothing" book. He writes much better than he real-time speaks. A nice and interesting video person/persona in any event, which helps bring the many good guests.

[@hsingkao2024]

The government should be run by scientists and engineers.

[@marcusaurelius9123]

Like China 😮

[@NorthernNessa]

ID proponents do not deny that mutations occur.

[@Ronanjust8338]

You wore me up with 30 minutes of your family stories. By then I moved somewhere else.

[@grahammcrae4277]

Pinker’s one of the great thinkers. It always saddens me when Jordan Peterson, the ‘people’s intellect’ does an interview he gets a million views, and then his intellectual superior gets 25 thousand…

[@EmperorsNewWardrobe]

Jordan goes for subjectively appealing hypotheses, whereas Steven goes for objectively compelling hypotheses. Unfortunately the masses get sucked in to the former

[@grahammcrae4277]

Sunshine lollipops and his subjectivity happens to be in sync with a wayward audience.

[@TT-un2of]

PInker is not a great thinker; he is a great explainer, articulator and writer of science popularizations.

[@marcusaurelius9123]

​@@TT-un2ofhe's a thinker & communicator. That's obvious from listening to his views on language

[@credman]

Peterson has an average mind but sounds like a genius so average people feel like geniuses listening to him. Pinker sounds like a genius and is a genius so average people feel dumb listening to him. That explains it all.

[@erikwong9456]

A great video.

[@dkrz123]

When I compose, I think in music…

[@AFROJOE2323]

Amazing when two great minds come together. The seperation between rationality and logic was well put by Steven. Being rational but being enslaved by a global rationale/passion in my opinion isn't always logical If a global rationale is accepted as rational by the common man, if each tribal rationale is based on the version of truth widely accepted then it seems the only logic known to this "common society" is the rationale amplified by the strongest "coalition". I feel like this plays out a-lot today in politics, marketing campaigns, religion etc... I love this podcast. Thanks for making it happen Lawrence.

[@TedApelt]

The best way to deal with "the tragedy of the carbon" is with a carbon tax with all of the proceeds going equally to all adult residents. If you use more carbon from average, you will pay more in higher prices (which must happen in order for it to work) than you get from the distribution payment. If you use less carbon from average, you will pay less in higher prices than you get from the distribution payment. The same thing could be done with all "tragedy of the commons" problems. Have policies that reward people for doing the things that benefit all of us and penalize people for doing the things that harm all of us. I really don't see why this is a hard thing to understand.

[@alecmisra4964]

What is it to be completely rational? Is our view of rationality not artificially constricted, since the time of Aristotle?

[@Tintunabulation]

When Steven coughed, my brain flashed/ said ‘COVID’ automatically and involuntarily. Obviously I am well programmed.

[@monkerud2108]

Maybe its a more general form of a fallacy of only accepting realities or possibilities that are easy to check. because that line will always be a practical one and not in any sense some truth about science, just maybe how hard it is to build models. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@kelseystrate2035]

Are all Canadians as nice as these two? Their demeanor only seems to change when they are on skates, carrying a stick, chasing a puck.

[@SylviabombsmithUjhy75bd34]

40:26 for Pinker hair fluff...

[@VladyslavKL]

🕊

[@TheAtheistRealist]

Pinker>Krauss. Big time.

[@thegroove2000]

Pinker always looks bright eyed and bushie tailed.

[@VaughanMcCue]

@Self-Law Pinker always looks bright eyed and bushie -tailed-. Awsome speaker too

[@monkerud2108]

Does economists run mit or something?

[@stevestrickland8019]

"We" don't think in compete sentences? Oh, crap, no wonder I'm screwed up. FWIW, local maxima/minima are issues in all optimization problems, especially machine learning. Yet another example where physics and information theory seem to be highly related.

[@ready1fire1aim1]

Nag Hammadi Codices or Codexes or whatever.

[@The_Bear_Adventures]

Visual and audio is out of sync

[@pseudonayme7717]

I'm 50 mins in and everything is still in sync. Perhaps your computer or internet is acting up in some small way?🤔

[@The_Bear_Adventures]

@@pseudonayme7717 I think it was just the intro in retrospect, not the whole thing. Thanks for your input :)

[@clifover]

Absolutely, to me, language informs both thought and communication, as an organizational matrix for both. A baby born into a situation where language was kept from the child would have an extremely difficult path to organized thought and its expression. Please disavow me of this uneducated position.

[@NicollDancer]

Dr. Krauss, I love you. I think you are wonderful. In my opinion… You should lose the goatee. Either cut it off or grow in the rest. I don’t think it’s doing you any favors.

[@defenderofwisdom]

If rationality is how you get what you want, and people have historically used irrational means to get what they want - such as using religious justifications to colonize foreign lands or by having a shared faith in religion to bind communities you want to have - then how are these behaviours both rational and irrational? Because this includes the set of "know nuclear physics to get nuclear power" situations too. "Know religious ideas to get religious community."

[@He.knows.nothing]

Religious motiffs themselves might contain various ideas inconsistent with rationale, but the way people use religion as a means to get what they want has generally been entirely rational. It unites people on a more fundamental framework than civic duty, it justifies hierarchies, and can amplify xenophobia. People can easily use reason to manipulate that into something successful/efficient. On another note, I think it is rational to assume that humans will act irrationally

I have 3 identical normal size plastic balls. If I fill one with air, one with water and one with Helium then drop them from an altitude, do they all reach the ground at the same time? Needless to say that they all experience the same air friction and displace the same volume of air.