STEVEN PINKER: Seven Wonders of the World

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Author: Christopher Sykes

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From the BBC TV series 'Seven Wonders of the World' (1995). Steven Pinker (b. 1954) is a Canadian-born experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author. He is now a professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and is best known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. He is the author of six books for a general audience: The Language Instinct (1994), How the Mind Works (1997), Words and Rules (2000), The Blank Slate (2002), The Stuff of Thought (2007), and The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011).

Comments

I've heard "behave" get reformed into "since I was being very have"

Pinker is the total package and that's from a females point.

It's hard to think that his ideas were controversial then, they are pretty much mainstream now.

steve pinker gives my brain a boner

Let me know it if you came to watch this! This is a great video.
Oh, here's your egg:

                    ooo OOO ooo
               oOO                      OOo
           oOO                               OOo
        oOO                                     OOo
      oOO                                         OOo
    oOO                                             OOo
   oOO                                               OOo
oOO                                                 OOo
oOO                                                   OOo
oOO                                                   OOo
oOO                                                   OOo
oOO                                                   OOo
oOO                                                   OOo
oOO                                                OOo
   oOO                                               OOo
    oOO                                             OOo
      oOO                                         OOo
        oOO                                    OOo
           oOO                               OOo
               oOO                       OOo
                    ooo   OOO   ooo

Is language an evolutionary invention of our consciousness? it would seem so. We create word representations of what we see, hear, feel, etc., and Pinker's most interesting comment is that "language" does not describe all of our reality! Are those realities we have not deigned to describe in words real or important?

Infants subjected to unanesthetized circumcision are traumatized by the experience. We now know that infants and children feel pain more intensely than adults. Yet the practice of unmedicated circumcision continues.
I'll bet the worm is pretty uncomfortable too.

Music is infinite but not in the way described here. Music, like any expression of consciousness, needs memorable aspects and salient variety. Generally speaking, recursive structures similar to those used in language are used to create these aspects. Without them you pretty much just have noise. My theory is that this sort of sneaking up on infinity is largely what makes music inherently (cross-culturally) attractive.

I love how Pinker looks at the world. Its a pleasure to see through his eye, albeit briefly and imperfectly. He is a delight.

I remember hearing a 5 year old child say "Yesterday, I brung my toys to the basement." It was interesting to me because 'brung' isn't a word adults use, but he understood that a song performed in the past was 'sung', a picture was hung on the wall, and so on, so therefore, he must have reasoned, brung was the past tense of bring. Totally reasonable, but owing to the weirdness that is grammar, he was corrected and, sure enough, he very quickly adopted the new word; 'brought'. So his reasoning was almost as amazing as his flexibility to absorb a brand new, counter-intuitive word.

ass

I love Pinker's approach to questions and above all his communicative skill.

Excellent. Very deep questions right at the end !, .. also, I've also pondered that question about whether the lobster feels any pain when dropped into a pan of boiling water.

Good points, Mr. Pinker. Even though it doesn't change the point, there are only 7 notes in music (not counting the alterations).

Pinker is an unusual famous person. He wrote back promptly on two different occasions when I wrote him.

The "dis it appear" story was fascinating. One related thing that puzzles me in the way that people go the other way, making language pronunciations and grammar LESS regular. Why do people make up special non-phonetic, non-logical, ad hoc pronunciation for words and grammar? To my ear, they are not any easier to pronounce.

2:34 The bicycle 5:39 Combinatorial systems 10:00 The language instinct 18:05 The camera 20:41 The eye 22:07 Stereo vision 25:58 The mystery of consciousness The times mark the beginning of the title screens. Each title screen is preceded by an introduction to the subject.

Round-off error in the powers of 8 at 6:46.

Would you care to make an actual argument for why people shouldn't listen to Steven Pinker? Rational people do not have "faith" in anything. We listen to the arguments and check them against the evidence. You may think that Pinker is sucking the life out of art by 'unweaving the rainbow', as Dawkins put it, but I sincerely think that the world becomes more beautiful when you know more about how it works.

If anyone ever finds where the footage of the robot having his face removed comes from (during the consciousness segment), please tell me.