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From: TEDtalksDirector
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  • i dont like the fack that ted gives an ad before the video. it is so annoying for a conference dedicated to education.

  • @tubiyuu BMW deserves a credit, they are one fo the sponsors to fund this project and bringing it to us.

  • What tools , including language, have humans created which do not irrevocably damage nature?

    Language is as much a trap as it is a tool. And its use as a trap is increasing as the destruction of nature intensifies.

    i am aware of some of the times i have been trapped by the manipulators of language, and i live today because i was able to escape some of those traps.

    But i also understand that this monster has infected every human mind.

    "Oh but that is not in the textbook."

  • Humans aren't the only subjects that can possess. See: "The bear's berries.", If they're the bear's, then I'm not going to take them!

    If you don't agree with this, then try: "The bears cubs.". Even killing the bear or violently removing the cubs will not stop the cubs from being of the bear.

    I love the talk anyway!

  • great sharing

  • The only sensation that trumps the human orgasm is the enlightening of the human mind.

  • I have finally found a boring TED Lecture.

    A boring TED Lecture was found by me finally.

  • Thumbs this message up is all you were thinking during this talk was "what??"

  • Cut your hair, Pinker! And turn down the volume on the intro! Even though I have a low volume on, my neighbours still wake up and my bass slams through the wall...

  • sorry ... this guy is not a good speaker .. not for me ..

  • @goodfellow67216 why not? his voice might not be soothing, but his lecture is quite interesting and stimulating.

  • can someone please analyze this for me?

    Thanks!

  • I can't focus with with that weird sound in the background

  • I think Pinker would like Japanese grammar. Because in Japanese, there's verb constructions that actually add the words "to give", "to go" and "to come" to other verbs, where in English the intent would be invisible.

    For example "She taught me" in Japanese: She gave to me that she taught me.

    Or "Bring beer!": "Bring beer while coming."

  • Steve Buscemi says he was wondering if we could take care of it right here in BRAINARD not Fargo, sheesh pinker spend more time watching movies and less time being a bad ass scientist.

  • You can proceed to watching 17th minute right away.

  • I love the info, but am I the only one who finds this guy's voice extremely monotonic. I think I've found the solution to my insomnia! Just play this, and I'll be out!

  • TED talks is brilliant...but am I the only one who finds the intro, with all the "remarkable people' and "incalculable value" just a tad pomous?

  • Pinky and the brain!

  • Language creates Juri$dictions.

  • gwokamoleee...awesum.

  • if only i had him as my english language teacher, then i wouldnt have got a D

  • @timsta88 Ahh the day were not responsible for our actions...

  • @timsta88 *Gotten a D

  • @eoineoineoin proved my point

  • intro music is epic...

  • I love listening to Pinker talk.

  • @shantih433 as much as Terence McKenna, Arthur Schopenhauer and Stirner??? Lol If you think for a while you'll see that they contradict themselves. Read Pinker and you'll see.

  • @pawsoned I never claimed they were in absolute agreement...

  • @shantih433 Is there ANY kind of agreement between them at all?

  • @pawsoned Does there have to be? I'm not a follower of gurus. I don't think any one thinker *has it all figured out*. I take ideas from here and there. I take what works, and leave the rest.

    Guess what, even the great Pinker is wrong about some things.

  • @shantih433 Ok, now we're talking <3

  • @pawsoned Oh... good. =-)

  • FAK, the interference is driving me mad

  • George Carlin is missed by me. ;)

  • @tantoedge Also missed by me! :(

  • I love this. I loved George Carlin for his profound approach to language in his humour, and listening to this guy makes me kinda misty thinking about that.

    I miss George Carlin.

  • @SSgtParmer Some of them, sure. Not this one. 

  • someone explain to me why a convention of technology nerds can't fix the fucking sound here.

  • yaaawwwnnnnn - what a dullard.

  • mike is taped on to his cheek?

  • Informative...not entertaining. Certainly good.

  • @SSgtParmer

    Time to grow up and use grown up language to describe your paranoia

  • @ILUVDUX69 Mr Pinker is just another modern day sophist and his pseudo-explanations are a whole lot of hooey that befuddle other people by constructing false data and presenting them as a scientific fact that is seemingly irrefutable. Who is he really? Not a philosopher or a scientist but only a linguistic maven who uses rhetorical gimmicks to dismiss ideas that he does not like.

  • @ILUVDUX69 So you're saying that just because there's a video of someone it automatically validates the person in question as a bona fide scientist? I think Pinker's videos are sham window-dressing and are promoting unfounded ideas that purport to scientificity.

  • this is very interesting in relation to autism

  • The metaphor stuff owes a lot to George Lakoff, whom Pinker opposed in the so-called "Grammar Wars." He probably should have given a shout-out.

  • People think and speak as they do, dependant upon their education exposure and personal capacity. It is a natural process for each individual, limited only by the aforementioned. Beyond this, this consideration is terribly DULL.

  • @MrPhlux you both have a strong command of the english language

  • 9:35-9:39 Wealth - was that a reference to the the income tax law controversy over it's constitutional legality?

  • @Gusher & Geoffrey

    I've made a number of points and all you have are gossiping, tittle-tattling, fish wife replies. To show you how prolific you are in case you forget as the pages and pages of gossiping nothingness drift off into placetime (remember that, it's going nowhere) I'll record each reply that's mindless gossiping as a reminder (re-mind-er, consciousness is constantly refreshed in meantime, not placetime ladies) and we'll see if you can set some kind of record while I wait for a reply.

  • @naturalpreservation And not just those supposed points on views I never held or things I never said or quote mined statements did you ever manage to back up with any evidence or fact.

    Exactly like you posting that more tittle-tattle 6 times and not once with any evidence to back that OPINION of your up.

    I mean seriously doll, not exactly reaching for the scientific standard there are ya? But good for you at least trying to go for that now by "recording each reply as a reminder"

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  • @Geoffrey

    Tittle tattle (7)

  • @vinegar Though I personally find that a bit hilarious...you criticizing my spending time on youtube and stating it's all "mindless gossip" and YET...important enough for you to "record each reply".

    Sorry to say dude but your mindless drivel unfortunately does not rate that kind of importance in my life. You are merely entertainment to waste away time on my hands cup cake. :)

  • @Vinegar But like I said before...if you are going to refer to me IF you ever publish, as much as you refer to me on Youtube...I WILL be expecting royalties darlin' ! :)

  • @Gusher

    More tittle-tattle (1)

  • @Gusher

    I'm off to watch a movie, one of trillions of human designed and created artifacts. Like I said nature may well be "the struggle for existence" but culture is more "the struggle for experience", so I'm off to sit with some friends and experience a movie.

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    You enjoy tonight's unpaid shift on you tube. I'm sure if Charles Darwin were here looking at your comments he would find them very entertaining and disturbing all at the same time, a little like me Gusher.

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    Enjoy your shift.

  • @Gusher

    I obviously 'mean' enough for you and Geoffrey to stalk me on the few threads on which I comment. You have nothing to say, you haven't even countered the four cast-iron points I made about memes/genes, nothing Gusher.

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    If you were as intelligent as you'd like to think you are then you'd have no trouble debunking what I have said on those four. The reason you don't is because you can't. It's much easier to bend down, pick up and throw some mud, just like a monkey Gusher.

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    Thrown on.

  • @Gusher

    There you go projecting Gushbubble as the world, wow you really do see you tube as the extended world out there. You sad, rather pathetic little woman/man.

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    You've got nothing to say, and you're becoming a source of quiet sadness from me gusher. Don't run off and close your account now.

  • @Gusher

    It's something that the pretensious yoot Teen is keen on expressing (cultural expression) that I'm saying "God dunnit" when I'm trying to get to the material mechanisms and laws underpinning the phenomenon that is culture. You have nothing, indeed you have all kinds of nothing and openly revere Dawkins and memetics, and you've still to comment on the (online) Journal of Memetics closing down in 2005.

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    It's history, and you won't comment on that Gusher. The delusional power of dogma.

  • @Gusher

    Dogma would be trying to explain the present and future soley from the past Gusher and that is what we have with your dogmatic cut & paste, neo-Darwinian cultural creationism in memetics. I've detailed four cast-iron reasons why memes can't be thought of as like genes (read The Extended Phenotype if you can stop gushing for a time) and you'll see RD lists them himself and then goes on to acknowledge/confess that he hadn't done the reading on culture.

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    Dogma. Hadn't done the reading.

  • @Gusher

    I'm not going to ask you to stick with meaning because you are a died-in-the-wool dogmatic. Geoffrey doesn't rate memetics and neither does mainstream science across all disciplines.

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    Yeah, you stick with 'memeing' Gusher, and as Dawkins and Dennett gradually distance themselves from it (if you watch their lectures over the last 18 months there is evidence of this) you'll probably be the last one there standing, rambling and rocking back and forward chanting over your dissonance.

  • @Gusher

    Nothing to reply to there, just more tittle-tattle and a lot of punctuation. No substance, typical gusher.

  • @Gusher

    Most of that might not make any sense to you Gusher, but that's to say almost nothing about my work and all about your level of understanding. You're quite content to live in the hope that neo-Darwinian cultural creationism can cobble some kind of plausible sounding pseudo-theory of culture ("the illusion of define" I call this) but my goals for ToC are somewhat deeper

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    I'm motivated by discovery, not dogma. You can't get it while you think all people of faith are incapable of thought

  • @naturalpreservation Now cup cake, even you can't be going around lying in such a bold faced manner surely?

    You are motivated by an ego sadly far outstripping your abilities.

  • @Gusher

    Going beyond narrative, beyond successful modeling towards underlying mechanisms leads on to the grail of all theory-building: mathematical representation in a short, but no less complete equation.

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    With this equation we can give culture a 'state' and with multiple measurements, a speed. If we take the present effect that 'artificial' (sorry Geoff) humankind has on the natural world it's possible, even probable that speed/growth limits can be applied to nations just like cars.

  • @Gusher

    Theoretical sociophysics fits in very well with Galileo's book of nature as geometric shapes but once you find the correct arrangement it opens up all kinds of awareness. In the understanding of nature Lewontin's 'triple helix' will almost certainly be the model that connects a potential postmodern synthesis with Lovelock's Gaia towards a general theory of nature, which is a more rounded, fuller understanding of nature much more so than gene-centrist, particulate notions.

  • @Gusher

    Information is non-corporeal, invisible even so the idea that the human informational range (meaning) is invisible isn't that revolutionary. David Hume the philosopher wrote of the secret connexions arounds, Weber talked of the webs of significance around us and understanding:

    1. the mind as virtual organ, and

    2. culture as virtual organisation

    are definitely the way to go in cracking culture. However, this is all narrative and something I wanted to go beyond.

  • @Gusher

    Meaning on the inside is mind and this is important, mind and culture are in relative concert and from this connection/circulation humans are able to generate thoughts and behaviours that extend away from the traditional Darwinian "struggle for existence" imperative into a dimension of behaviour/thought where human interests becomes imperatives in themselves. I've already used this shorthand "the struggle for experience" and there's need to understand a lot of mental ill-health out there

  • @Gusher

    Pinker himself gets all confused when he talks about culture. In one breath he says it is a series of inbuilt capacities, but when he's not towing that party line he freely speaks (like everyone) that culture is something external and all around us. He has denied that culture is some kind of autonomous force 'like gravity' and I'm saying that meaning (externally) as culture is a virtual gravitation which we can understand as like the 'societal synapse' connecting minds to society.

  • @Gusher

    So humans shape the material world around us through the design and creation of trillions of artifacts. In turn (and in constant turn/circulation) that same material world shapes what it is to be human. This is pretty undergraduate sociology stuff, but the difficulty is to go beyond narrative and I've already said that 'theoretical sociophysics' was a necessary avenue from taking the current understanding of culture as:

    1. 'way of life' to

    2. 'way, weigh, wave and weave of life/style'.

  • @Gusher

    Raymond Williams called culture "the structure of feeling" and Clifford Geertz echoed Max Weber's "webs of significance" all around us, but in 2010 we can increasingly assert that that very web is meaning. Meaning is the human informational range, it has a weight and it has such a level of causative capacity threaded through it (from human emotional and cognitive depth) that we can understand humans are the first 'wireless' species, and this is where all the 'free will' stuff comes in.

  • @Gusher

    If you are interested I'll direct you to y channel or my other posts. You're not averse to following me around so it shouldn't be too difficult.

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    Physical sciences can account for cosmic inflation and expansion. Natural sciences can account for natural evolution, and the social sciences can account for cultural expression. You seem to think that the natural sciences can 'crack' culture even though historically that's inaccurate and I would argue runs counter to scientific specialism.

  • ABC and 123

  • JESUS!! Maybe we could take care of it right here in BRAINERD...not Fargo.

    I hate it when people get movie quotes wrong.

  • "You've got billions of years of recorded history as an organic lab..."

    Has Moore's law been in force for billions of years?

    Several times you have responded to my questions about the Turing test by arguing the limitations of present computers.

    I will resume this conversation if and only if you can produce a hypothetical statement that would evince a more fundamental misunderstanding of what was being asked.

    Do this, and the conversation is back on.

    Until then you will be ignored.

  • Polly - This is not a resort to lame name calling, this is a considered crystalising of your replies so far: you're a ponce.

    It's a joke you call yourself Polymath7, more aspiration and attainment clearly. You can't accept bring yourself to acknowledge that information is non-corporeal and you try to take the conversation elsewhere. Weak, evasive and considering the meaning in your supposed name: poncey.

  • Polly-The informational range, or 'range of relevance' is located within/through the structure of what we are dealing with. It is no coincidence that early computer code (and this remains the case in large part) is termed 'commands'. Likewise, if the 'structure' for organic life is in the genes and localised environment, then the range to engage in fluid, relative communication of information will be rooted in the very structure of which we are concerned with

    With humans emerges real difference

  • Polly - Such is the sheer magnitude of human cognitive and emotional depth that our information range reflects not only this overcapacity, flexibility but the ability to generate our own imperatives and values.

    To recap, information is non-corporeal. The range of information is rooted within/through the species (or AI) we are dealing with. I am saying that the human 'informational' range (encompassing all experience) is meaning, is causative, carrying 'structure' within its very communication.

  • Polly - It's not really this conversation that needs to be resurrected, as far as I can see it this is a series of posts with me pointing out your shortcomings, of which there are many and core

    You claim you are the stuff of polymath and also able to distill the social world of humankind bypassing culture, sociology and economics. Stunning confession and delusion

    You won't ignore me because you can't. Your self-confessed lack of knowledge about culture doesn't seem to hold you back any

    Ponce.

  • Polly - To recap. Computers and animals can 'communicate' but this is always relative to the very structure/flexibility located in/through their capacities.

    Chimps are more communicative than say newts, no real insight there. However, such is human 'communicability' (awareness, cognition and emotional depth) that this is the range of meaning.

    Meaning is not the more restricted range(s) we can see in nature, it is relative, flexible, causative and the stuff of science, poetry, arts...of humans.

  • Polly - It's right there in this TED talk title 'The Stuff of Thought'

    What is the stuff of thought? Just more reference to information? Or does real science and critical thinking want to start distilling differences in information(s)?

    When it comes to humans evolutionary theory refers to the anomaly of "contingently true information" and in Vedral's quantum information theory to "mutual information"

    It's meaning and understanding how it works is key to understanding culture and human thought

  • @naturalpreservation I'm going to put something into perspective for you. You are so drunk on the superiority of your own pet philosophy that you police Youtube for those that would disagree and incoherently harangue them until they leave, and even after. Have you considered, in the quiet of your own mind, that you are probably autistic and should just shut the fuck up and keep your ideas to yourself instead of trying to convert/alienate one person at a time on Youtube?

    Again, that's for you.

  • @Scorpymhk

    Your first error (of several) is to say that this reply is for me, when you record it in a medium which has public availability. Why not send it in a personal message? If anyone reading this gets anything from it then it has some weight of influence and just like the weight of Newtonian mass, meaning is non-corporeal.

    So when Pinker says that culture is not like gravity he is completely wrong. Culture is a virtual gravitation that you cannot escape from douche.

  • @Scorpymhk

    Pinker can write book after book after book but all the time he denies culture is a superorganic process he (and a neo-Darwinians of his ilk) only show their lasting ignorance when it comes to understanding culture.

    Beliefs are real, like ideas yet they are non-corporeal. The social world of humankind is a creation not of nature but the human mind. Stuff has to be meaningful enough to stick around and again we're back to this meaning has a weight understanding.

  • @Scorpymhk

    So I'm not going to follow your school boy/girl mistake and say 'This is for you' because this is for anyone and everyone who ever reads it. Not only does Pinker have nothing substantial on culture, over the last 151 years we've had a series of attempts from neo-Darwinism to crack culture and they have all failed.

    Pinker has written about the biological basis for voting patterns in the past, would you agree that was the reason Barack Obama got voted in as President in Nov, 2008?

  • @Scorpymhk

    You refer to the unique human ability to consider things to oneself, or "detached cognition" as evolutionary psychology refers to. Again, this is something they can write stories about but in terms of mechanisms and laws they remain woefully short.

    Wow, now you are a clinical psychologist diagnosing me as autistic from afar. We'll add that to the list:

    1. armchair evolutionary psychologist

    2. armchair clinical psychologist

    What a sad little douche you are.

  • @naturalpreservation You wrote 3 paragraphs convincing yourself that I was not sincere just to avoid taking my words to heart? Yikes. At any rate, have you considered more effective methods of distribution for your dogma than Youtube comments? Are you aware that you are just intellectually masturbating on the playground of the lowest common denominator among men? Personally, I take it as an axiom that one should not masturbate on playgrounds. By responding you would only voice your disagreement.

  • @Scorpy

    I asked a question and you failed to answer. You are a waffling no-mark who seems to like talking about masturbating on playgrounds.

    You're welcome to it spammer.

  • @naturalpreservation You asked an utterly irrelevant question that I ignored as a courtesy to you. I did not come here to play your game, nor have I waffled in any way from what I said previously. I stick to my original thesis, namely that you are a sad, mildly psychopathic creature who seems to have some very deep seated deficiencies of character, and you have done nothing but prove me right since I said it. If you wish to continue, then answer my original question. Have you considered it yet?

  • @Scorpy

    Spare me the courtesy, I only have contempt for you as a result of your opening foray and it's been underwhelming throughout. So (yawn) I'll ask you about phenomena like 'schools of thought', 'zeitgeist' and 'political climates' that can result in sea changes of public opinion and the election of America's black President and the right wing (we can see this in the tea party movement) feeling disenfranchised

    These are cultural not genetic processes, so your views on the biology of this?

  • @Scorpy

    Your armchair evolutionary psychology and armchair clinical psychology is (I can assure you) pure waffle, you come across as a legend in your own armchair.

    So far it's juvenile taunts, name calling and some disturbing references to masturbating in playgrounds. Maybe this is how you want to spend your Friday evenings Scorpy me ole china, but not me.

    50 years from now Pinker will be a footnote, a man who has wrote a lot of books but nothing that's going to last the test of time.

  • @Scorpy

    Perhaps his most 'interesting' read is his straw man thesis 'The Blank Slate'. I'll ask a straight forward question and it relates to my point about the election of Barack Obama as the result of experience, culture and belief. Do you understand the idea of humankind starting with 'a clean slate'?

    You ponder on that and come back to me with something other than some patched together African Savannah myth-making. I won't hold my breath Scorpy.

  • @naturalpreservation Blah blah blah, you're quite the broken record. Take a minute of your time to look over my previous replies. Not once did I espouse the views of Pinker, the neodarwinists, or anyone else for that matter. Do this sound like the kind of person who is interested in getting into a heated pissing contest with a rabid ideologue like yourself? No. No it does not. Yet you piss on, rambling to yourself like a homeless man on speed. You still haven't answered my question.

  • @Scorpymhk He doesn't do "answering questions". He just moves on to the next video! ;)

  • @Geoffrey

    You remain a source of consistent chuckling Geoffrey. You remembed denying 'artificial'? Please, you are a career squirmer and I'm still waiting for an answer to this simple question on culture's relativity.

    Is it possible for the different culture over/in time and place to express God in the same way?

    Squirm on Geoff.

  • @naturalpreservation Yes dude, I remember you lying about my words...mainly because you just keep doing it. So tell me, are you going to tell us what is YOUR theory at all in this thread or is this going to be more of your cut and pasting other people's theories followed by your stamp of approval/disapproval without ever backing anything up with evidence or fact. And of course plenty of your opinions on other youtubers, preferably filled with lies and general drivel. indeed, 12-15th time now.

  • @Geoffrey

    Have you quite finished? First of all, you conveniently forget that on culture (and this is not even at the technical levels) you've been found wanting. Do you remember your reluctance to accept that 'artificial' only applied to humankind? Do you? Well I don't.

    And your reluctance to accept Dawkins and Dennett's own conversion to the awareness that humans are the only/first intelligent designers on the tree of life? I remember how thick minded you are on these core ideas Geoffrey.

  • @naturalpreservation ROFL Hon, again with the lies I see and as usual you are so full of yourself you make the silliest mistakes but I will leave it to you yourself to figure it out.

    And still nothing on YOUR theory. Hahaha

  • @naturalpreservation Here's something I remember distinctly answering though, when you asked me before whether I was "quite finished"..."just a little after you are" doll. :)

  • @Geoffrey,

    Like I've said I now realise this is what you do, you are a lifestyle spammer. I've explained fundamental parts of my theory (and this is different from YOUR theory which you've referred to in the past, you don't have one) in threads and on my channel. If you were really interested you'd go back and do some reading but I get it (more and more) that you are only interested in gossip, tittle-tattle and 'doing this thing' you do on you tube

    There are all kinds of hobbies out there Geoff

  • @naturalpreservation And doll, you might as well give it up on the youtube "life style" references. It presupposes I think that "life style" would be something to be more sneered at somehow than spending 14 years!!! of one's life developing a "theory" which consist of little more than you approving/disapproving quotes from other theories without anything but your opinion to back it up. Or any other hobby for that matter. You presupposition is incorrect cupcake. As usual! :)

  • @Geoffrey

    Reading between the lines I'd take a guess that the realisation you tube is such a part of your lifestyle (as it SO clearly is, doll) may cause you to reflect a little on your life direction. That's an issue for you Geoffrey, I'm only commenting on what seems obvious to me.

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    Check your history, Darwin worked on evolution for 20 years and while I can understand your "yesterday" internet-centred mindset can't fathom 14, or 20 years I'm working away quite nicely thanks Geoffrey.

  • @naturalpreservation And no doubt Newton worked on his alchemy his whole life. The result is the point doll, not the amount of years you work on your nonexistent "theory". Nor btw the amount of words you typed so far as you seem to think since you used that as some kind of argument re the validity of your non existent theory once too. ;D

  • @Geoffrey

    So human record in placetime which 'loads' back into meantime, where meaning is constructed and reconstructed. So we can refer to information in the abstract (placetime) but once it collapses into human consciousness (meantime) it becomes meaning (applied).

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    I know you don't rate memetics, and that is to your credit, we need to understand meaning, not memeing but your mind set that a person of faith can't realise the theory of culture is a mental hurdle you have to overcome.

  • @naturalpreservation Pfff and again loads of drivel topped with a straight out lie I will just pretend sprang from your trouble with understanding written language rather than that quality so abundantly present in "persons of faith". But that's just because I am getting bored again with the never ending meaningless drivel. And yes dear, meaningless clearly to all but yourself judging by responses you get where ever you pester folks with your endless drivel. :)

  • @Geoffrey

    Again, I understand that it's more than you don't get it, it's that you can't get it with your present mind-set (and yes you can have a culture-set as well Geoffrey).

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    That being the case, my narrative will have no unfolding effect, i.e. it will be 'meaningless'. You are endorsing almost everything I'm saying with your language Geoffrey, it's all welcome reading.

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    So unless you invent a medium of communication beyond the reach of meaning you are only going to on supporting me.

  • @naturalpreservation FYI more lies about my views too. Now you stoop as deep as to imply I don't believe you can have a culture-set when it is I who have been pointing out from day 1 to you how your culture-set is influencing your mind cupcake!

    I don't just think one CAN have a culture-set. I don't think you can not have one.

  • @naturalpreservation And the displays of general immaturity in your debating aren't helping either hon. ;)

  • @Geoffrey

    I've a number of gears as most self-expressing humans have. So don't worry about me, I'm good. I'd save some concern for yourself and the amount of time that you tube is taking up in your life/style.

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    It's clear that you are not engaged in anything positive in asserting anything really other than your "just fine"hood in the current/historical shortcomings of neo-Darwinism to account for culture

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    It's just sad spamming and gossip (clearly entertaining for you) that fills your time

  • @naturalpreservation don't worry your pretty little head about my spending time on youtube doll. You can start worrying when I have spent 14 years , writing over 2 million words of meaningless drivel and insist on calling it my general theory! THAT's the time to start worrying.

  • @Geoffrey

    More tittle-tattle (3)

  • @naturalpreservation You are truly hilarious ...the way, like with most anything, you simple don't get that your attempts of " getting at" me in some way, by displays of your inadequacies and small mindedness and lack of insight into a cultural phenomena like youtube, are utter failures. :D :D :D

  • @Geoffrey

    You have real problems in getting it through your thick mind set that a person of faith can critically think through the layers towards realising ToC, so here's a question for you. In the modern age the evolution V creationism debate was focussed on Kitzmiller. The expert witness on evolution for the plaintiff was Professor of Biology Kenneth R. Miller. He is a practising Catholic and one of the world's most effective debunkers of intelligent design.

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    What do you think of Miller?

  • @naturalpreservation And still you lie about my view there hon. I never said such a thing! But hey...don't let you stop that! It hasn't so far. :)

  • @Geoffrey

    Fine Geoffrey, the success of my theory doesn't hang on whether someone who is "just fine" with current (and historical) neo-Darwinian cultural creationism, UD, "the illusion of define" doesn't get it. Like I said at this time you can't get.

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    However, in using the words use are in the 'way' that you are you are endorsing what I am saying. Stick with meaning Geoffrey, that's where the answers are.

  • @naturalpreservation And nobody ever claimed the success of your nonexistent "theory" is dependent on my person doll, it IS however completely dependent on convincing those who view it very similar to my view,which would be the majority of all scientists in fact. ;D

  • @Geoffrey

    Why would my theory be made/not by people who have similar views to yours? You are content and "just fine" with the current structural and historical shortcomings in explaining culture. I can assure you that beyond the you tubesphere bubble in which you are a near self-proclaimed addict (I still remember your buddy writing that he had to 'wean' himself off you tube) critically thought out ideas, well presented are received. Even if that means over time, ToC is a marathon not a sprint.

  • @naturalpreservation Doll, bed time for you it seems, your drivel is unfolding into gibberish!

    And of course the habitual lies about my view. :)

    As well as again a demonstration you simple fail to get a rather straight forward comment.

  • @vinegar And judging by your efforts on Youtube...nobody is "getting" your "theory".

    In my opinion an inevitable result of lacking an actual theory as well as lacking evidence to back up any of your opinions on other people's theories, the ridiculous and mostly superfluous use of words and the overwhelming evidence you do bring to the table supporting the fact that you lack any and all ability to judge culture on almost every level.

  • @Geoffrey

    Sorry pot, is the vinegar thing a sign of your maturity. You are riddled with double-standard and I'm surprised you are criticising me for finding your level. The reflective truth must hurt Geoffrey. I'm going to scan over your other word-phlegm but my expectation of anything remotely like a point becomes ever more distant.

    .

    .

    Again, with this in mind (not the restricted 'theory of mind' question) how could I take anything you express (cultural expression) seriously?

    .

    .

    Seriously.

  • @Geoffrey

    So Prof Miller (clearly a person of faith) is not a shoulder shrugging "God dunnit" kind of person and that is clearly shown not by him giving evidence against creationism, but by being the lead witness.

    .

    .

    Dawkins is aware of Miller and doesn't get this and yet still (STILL) says you cannot believe in evolution and be a person of faith even though it occurs in the real world beyond RD's closed one.

    .

    .

    Classic Hume's 'is' and 'ought' and one RD (and you disciples) don't get.

  • @vinegar Yes indeed dude..it's a classic alright. A classic case of hypocrisy! Hard to imagine for "people of faith" but some people have ethics and feel being a hypocrite is something you "can't be" because they cannot imagine anyone would chose to be a hypocrite. It's a bit like the way most atheist never ceased to be amazed on a deep level at the propensity of "people of faith" to lie so much.

  • @Geoffrey

    More tittle-tattle (5)

  • @naturalpreservation You being a "person of faith" who clearly has displayed both propensities naturally do no understand his use of "can't be" there. Especially since you also suffer from a poorly developed ToM.

    We understand and forgive your, probably genetic, handicap cupcake! :)

  • @Geoffrey

    For me this is a foray that has an expiry when I get nothing from it, which I have to say I can feel is on the horizon. The situation for you (and if you're honest with yourself you'll see this is the case) is quite different

    .

    .

    The mind is a virtual organ, and as it preserves awareness, the outcome of which humans express into the world around them, I could log back in a year from now to find you trolling and spamming away. I don't need to labour that point, it's pretty self-evident

  • @naturalpreservation Yes dear, and I could walk into your room a year from now and still find you "pen in hand" going for that next million words of drivel basically summed up as your stamp of approval/disapproval on other people's theories not hampered by any evidential back up.

    Like I said before dear, so what? I wasn't aware there was some kind of competition going who spends his time "better" nor that you are the judge in that competition. In the mean time...my English keeps improving, Tah!

  • @Geoffrey

    You said "In the mean time.....my English keeps improving, Tah!"

    .

    .

    Deeper level stuff time Geoffrey. All cultures are located in time and place and through ToC we can understand spacetime - meantime - placetime all related in a very specific way that applies to EVERY culture over the last 40,000 years. Before that all we had was proto-culture and culture (proper) has a propulsive character within/through it's system of motion.

  • @naturalpreservation Yes I did say that. A sentence easily understood by most English speaking individuals but one the meaning of which seems to go right over your head. If you citing it and following it up with the drivel you just did is any indication. :(

  • @naturalpreservation And again doll, you make a meaningless statement ( meaningless as in it does not convey any real information other than that you suffer from ego inspired delusions) but it says NOTHING about YOUR "theory".

  • @Geoffrey

    I can see that I am having an effect (i.e. it 'means' something to you) in that I've got you thinking more about the relation between information (abstract) and meaning (applied).

    .

    .

    It's all good Geoffrey.

  • @naturalpreservation What ever you need to believe hon.:)

  • @Geoff Don't worry, I factor all of that into my thinking when we engage. I know that because you tube is part of your thinking, part of your mind, part of this virtual organ, part of you that when you defend neo-Darwinian cultural creationism there is in part a defence of your lifestyle, this pattern you have got into over time. . . I get it. . . However, it's not biology and genes, it's meaning and there remains the potential, certainly the capacity to try new lifestyles . . Culture is diverse
  • @naturalpreservation The thing is, I don't even disagree with you. The fad of neodarwinism being applied to every field imaginable at the expense of more dynamic theories of culture is not something to which I subscribe. However, the fact remains that you as a person are so thoroughly repugnant that no one is ever going to take you seriously, and your e-crusade to rid the message boards of the world of opposing ideologies is quixotic at best. I am just wondering whether or not you realize that.

  • @Scorpy

    You commented on me here and ran off to another message board to comment on me further so you are guilty of the very thing you accuse of others, are you aware of that?

    As for Geoffrey (Red) above, her/his relationship with you tube is quite different from mine, it is interwoven into the fabric of her lifestyle. She trolls and spams through threads with her knee-jerk defence of neo-Darwiniam cultural creationism using an armoury of tittle-tattle and gossip.

    You're going down that road

  • @Scorpy

    First of all you don't know me Scorpy and your armchair clinical/evolutionary psychology only makes your pseudo-diagnosis even more remote. I take off your first impression which was arrogant to say the least and as I've said I have nothing but contempt for you unless you dial it down a little.

    I've probably commented on 12-15 videos, with culture my main focus, that's hardly an e-crusade. Like I said dial it down yoot.

  • @Scorpy

    I consider almost everything and that is as far as I'll go in indulging someone who types/talks about masturbating in playgrounds, heated pissing contests and homeless people on speed, and that's only in a couple of posts. I can only imagine reading one of your essays, eagh, not a pleasant thought.

    I asked you a point about the biology of political voting and the idea of 'clean slate' which I am arguing is a purely human phenomenon, like so many others. I've answered, over to you now.

  • PM7 - So while AI can create (through human intelligent design) a machine that can defeat the best human chess player, that same machine doesn't know about the history of chess, or even what a broken bishop was whereas you and I could.

    If we look at the machinery and the system of communication it deals in/with the 'name' of the human system is the dimension of meaning, an informational range no other life engages in.

    Sperber refers to 'range of relevance'.

  • Look, if you're some Walter Mitty auto mechanic or something, I genuinely apologize for being so blunt.

    But if you really are a professor at any accredited university -even in an intellectually barren field like sociology- I find that profoundly frightening.

  • @polymath7 Again, no offence taken if you think that sociology is a barren field then (as I've said before) no more offence than I'd take from a child. I'll use a behavioural software example for you. Windows 95 doesn't know what XP 'means' (in a human sense/reading) but XP can know what Windows 95 means. Michael Gazzaniga wrote the difference between chimps and humans cognitively was light years, so humans (in this example) would be Windows 7 million light years, or the range of meaning.
  • @polymath7

    Okay I'll ask a question. Clearly there are words

    on the screen you are reading, often referred to

    as information.

    Is information corporeal?

  • *grin*

    Answer my question first.

    Are you Steve Fuller?

  • @polymath7 Wow, I must be off my game today if that is your best guess. Afraid not, I don't legitimise intelligent design in the way he does. No computers are not conscious, I've replied to your Turing point, even giving a behavioural software example of the kind of difference I'm trying to highlight, so over to you. Try not to drift into reism, it's not needed. Is information corporeal? If you could answer soon I have cars waiting to service here.
  • @polymath7

    If you are struggling with that wee question

    mono, key in 'Information' into you tube and

    watch the video made by MAYA, it'll give you

    a clue.

  • Polly - There was a time you couldn't keep quiet, and when I asked you if information was invisible you clamed up, and even with a reminder you have still failed to answer the question.

    Evolutionary psychology refers to "contingently true information" when it comes to humans, and quantum theorist Vlatko Vedral writes of "mutual information".

    The human condition and expression deals with an information range, relative, causative and value laden: meaning.

    So slippery "is information invisible?"

  • Yes, well, post hoc, ergo...

    I imagine a moment's observation of a birdbath might induce you to conclude that drinking from it will enable you to fly.

    You are invited to test this hypothesis on the Dover cliffs.

    I simply don't respect you. I have far too low an opinion of your intelligence to consider this conversation worthy of any more of my time.

    If you have differing ideas of what is worthy of my time, you are welcome to them.

  • PM7 - How do I know? I deal in the world of the real, and to date whereas humans have constructed and designed trillions and trillions of artifacts (with artificial intelligence and science just a couple) which stands in sharp contrast with all other 100s of millions of species.

    You've got billions of years of recorded history as an organic lab to find me a single species other than our own who can understand (using my example) emotive, complex poetry.

    And that includes computers as well.

  • Oh, Jesus Harold Christ in a tutu..

    No,no no, we're done.

    I'll let you think you've won.

    Don't expect anyone to share this perception.

  • @polymath7

    You asked a few questions there and yet when

    ask one question you are nowhere to be seen.

    You are not letting me think I've won if

    have expressed that thought externally for me

    to see, you've not thought that through.

    Like so much of what you have expoused

    so far.

  • 1/2

    I'm going to be very frank with you.

    If the gibberish you are spouting really is the product of fourteen years rumination, you have hugely wasted your efforts and ought to return full time to whatever it is actually earns you your bread.

    Your ideas, as you have inchoately, incoherently expressed them, are completely worthless, have not the thinnest chance of garnering any serious recognition, and the faintest ambition to the contrary fully rises to the level of grandiose delusion.

  • 2/2

    Know that if you continue this conversation, you do so solely to save face in the eyes of some anonymous third party, for it is perfectly clear to me that you are impostor with nothing of value to say, and your chances of dissuading me from this conclusion are I would say exactly the same as your bluffing a room full of Finns into thinking you speak Finnish.

    Now, if you do not believe the *accuracy* of the preceding analysis, please at least believe its *sincerity*.

  • @polymath7 Qualitatively, it's far more than 14 years really. Free of teaching obligations it could be as much as 30 academic years. I would no more feel you calling my words gibberish than I would a small child. Thank you again for mentioning value, it's an important character of the human range of relevance, thanks. It's in keeping with your pomposity that you read compliment from criticism. You confuse wordcraft (your brand of thesaurusology) with wisdom monomath.
  • Good day.