Professor Noam Chomsky - April 8, 2011

[tarnopol]

Q&A starts at 1:10:00.

[rochha]

all you people are brainwashed that think chomsky is special, you would follow hitler if you were were around in 1930's

[borjon23]

@rochha A shrewd argument, compellingly made.

[gunnerfan87]

Chomsky is a walking encyclopedia.

[Diosukekun]

55:00 i never really got that "are eagles that fly swimming?" thing. it asks the question whether all eagles that fly in general are swimming right now. i see nothing wrong with that. stuff like "can eagles that are flying swim?" etc also seems to work fine for me.

[pneudmatic]

@Diosukekun I think that he actually misspoke and meant to say "Are eagles that fly swim". He's talking about the structural distance between the auxiliary 'are' and 'swim'. He likes to point out that language users don't have trouble keeping track of the connection between 'are' and 'swimming' even in convoluted sentences like 'Are eagles that fly over the Pacific while they hunt for fish in the... (and on and on) swimming?' This is the only way it makes sense to me.

[TheGodlessGuitarist]

If it is possible love a man without having met him, then that is what I do.

[mikecunning11]

This wins the best Q&A session award in linguistics award.

[BloodTypeRagu]

suitably interracial lol

[musicmathieu]

Thank you, much appreciated Chomsky!!

[WastedTourist]

Chomsky has been fighting two wars all his life: (1) Against tyranny and injustice in all it's forms and (2) against anti-scientific approaches to the study of human beings

[BloodTypeRagu]

@WastedTourist tru dat

[kentunreligious]

Imagine the knowledge that he could posses and pass on to others.

[lodproductions90]

O Holy Youtube! :-)

[Pianophile57]

Fucking awesome. We are privileged to hear him speak through youtube. God bless Chomsky.

[ariekanibalie]

@ehudnold9 one thing's for sure, and that's 'this jew' won't make YOU a more proficient writer. I've heard it said that, in order for the gentiles to recognize you as an 'intellectual messiah', it helps to be able to spell properly...

[jacksawild]

There are some people who need no introduction. Noam Chomsky, apparently, requires two.

[geniemist]

too bad he can't live for 1000 years....imagine the knowledge he would posses

[Lifegoesongundam]

@geniemist He'd be like academia batman.

[Incognitoification1]

@geniemist Learn from Chomsky and strive to takes his place.

We need more intellectuals who are unwilling to become regurgitating parrots for bourgeoisie and their interests, we need more radical intellectuals.

[lordennis01]

22:36 can someone remind me again why there are 3 mechanics/3 chars?

[lordennis01]

@lordennis01 cars*

[MarkoKraguljac]

@lordennis01 Number is irrelevant. Existence of proper answer shows that question is meaningful.

[lordennis01]

@MarkoKraguljac I dont quite understand.

[MarkoKraguljac]

@lordennis01 Sentence is: "He wondered whether the mechanics fixed the cars". We want to construct most straightforward question to find out how many mechanics were there (their number is irrelevant, linguistic structure of that question is what we examine). That question would be: "How many mechanics did he wonder whether fixed the cars?" Just listen to that abomination. Point is that question is meaningful but language structure gets in its way and we are unable to pose it straightforwardly.

[lordennis01]

@MarkoKraguljac I still don't understand. Why can't it be 4 cars.

[lordennis01]

@MarkoKraguljac the question seems pretty straightforward. Both of them. Or am I still misunderstanding?

[jacksawild]

@lordennis01 His point, communication possible, even when language rules broken.

You understood my thought, even though I used broken language. Therefore language, communication and personal thought are separate entities and we have to approximate one to model another. We do this automatically making it difficult to define. He is saying that scientists who expect to break the mysteries of language fail to realise this complication.

[AntonBatey]

LOL @ 1:38:00 mark....

[lordennis01]

@AntonBatey hehe

[BigMikeMcBastard]

7:18

[AntonBatey]

@BigMikeMcBastard

lol, thanks