23. Language

[bundawartini]

Your Video Is Very Useful Sharing Professor Robert Sapolsky gives a lecture on language. He describes the similarities and differences between different human and animal languages

[ChequeSquad]

I'm so high.....And I'm so lost in his words, that I'm not.

[dreznik]

I love when he says (23:00): you guys come down here and i will get up there and check my emails

[andrewc2768]

Stanford, could you please forward this message to Professor Robert Sapolsky, I'd be willing to get him really high and listen to him for hours. I mean, indica or sativa, whatever his taste(he seems like a sativa guy to me, but maybe thats just my preference) I'd be willing to keep the bongloads going as long as he could talk, any subject or just freestyle.

[TheFifthGreatApe]

The 'biology of religion'? You have to post that one!!

[vickprint]

i am OBSESSED with this amazing mans lectures... thank you stanford for allowing these to be online. youre changing/educating lives/minds and thank you for that.

[stalkingcat123]

@vickprint Was he a source in Zietgeist Moving Forward? I can't remember the guy's name from it.

[fractalres]

A chimp did generative grammar.

Grounds: Cocoa's specific lies to researchers signified unique ideas.

I bet Terrace was an ambitious behaviorist.

[grunder20]

Very intellectual man.

[agapitoflores001]

Another well discussed lesson. Very clear and precise.

[huixera]

acquire knowledge by any means, the main thing that it could benefit

[ex0rdium]

Thank you Stanford!

[hakobriganyan]

English for politics, Russian for war, Italian for Singing, Spanish for talk, French for love, Armenian for preying.

[KenMacMillan]

Donald committed suicide at age 40.

[ShahrozS]

Can someone tell me how a finite number of words can have an infinite number of combinations? Sounds like a logic error to me.

[wordsandcolor]

@ShahrozS no it's like in mathematics, you can use a finite number of digits, like 0-9, but you can have an infinite number of combinations... mainly infinity itself can be thought of as being composed out of these digits.

[ShahrozS]

@wordsandcolor It's not like mathematics though, in mathematics individual numbers 0-9 are altered to make different reflections of the original digit, and can be combined to form completely new digits. In language, individual letters CANNOT be altered to form new letters, and word combinations can only be placed in sensible combinations in sentence form.

Like take these four words,

APPLE, YOU, ATE, THE.

Now tell me how many different possible combinations can be made from those four words.

[wordsandcolor]

@ShahrozS I'm not sure if i understand this correctly, but... you see with the example he gave: with any given sentence, you can always add on just a few new words to make a new sentence. We will call the original sentence X. Then you could tack on 'Steve said that' X. And furthermore you could tack on: Sandy said that Steve said that X... & so on forever.

So with the 4 words you gave, you can still have an infinite number of possible combinations if you don't assume it must be a given length

[wordsandcolor]

@ShahrozS of course, the qualification of 'sensibility' puts in in a whole different ballpark. I'm not sure if we want to get into that or not, as I think it might be beyond what we were originally discussing.

[chrismca]

@ShahrozS It seems weird at first, but here's the deal. If you start with a simple sentence like YOU ATE THE APPLE, according to the rules of grammar, you can simply add an infinite number of phrases to it. For example I KNOW YOU ATE THE APPLE, and then BILL SAID "I KNOW YOU ATE THE APPLE" Now, of course, after a while you don't really have a sentence that a human could understand, but the principle still holds that you can add at the front, the end, or embed in the middle. Make sense?

[pointyhead1]

@ShahrozS

"Can someone tell me how a finite number of words can have an infinite number of combinations? Sounds like a logic error to me."

By using the recursive nature of the language.

"script" "post script" " post post script"

."grandfather" "great grandfather" "great great grandfather"

[KenMacMillan]

Are 24 & 25 the last two lectures, or are there a 26 & 27 that didn't get taped?

[MikeTrance666]

kids start to comprehend language before they produce it, because wernicke's area becomes myelinated before brocas area? I think that is weak basis for such a conclusion, but it might be true.

[lvwarren]

I feel like I'm watching a new Darwin. I can count on one hand the number of lecturers who are so engaging!

[Drabkikker]

@lvwarren It's the beard.

[Saktoth]

Related links: Stanford, Stanford, Stanford, Stanford, Ke$ha - TiK ToK. :S

[lordennis01]

@Saktoth yah, its wierd, most new videos have that. I wonder how youtube computes the "relatedness." probably it tracks the viewers and then checks which video they look at next or something.

[sckchui]

@Saktoth

Well, he was talking about chimps and gorillas towards the end.

[lcominghome]

I think the idea of body postures as relating to a language is linked to culture as in where you come from. What do you think?

[andrewzot]

great upload! thank you

[AnimatedOP]

I love this guy : D