Steven Pinker Interview

[ForABetterTomorrow]

Language doesn't govern morality. Morality governs language.

[susus2222]

exactly - and as my language, and brain is not English - I absolutely hate is when they say - Can you do me a favor? when in reality they are ordering me to do something.

[aliensintheloft]

Fascinating stuff. I'd be interested to hear Pinker discuss those languages that don't distinguish transitive verbs. Got to be loads. We're pattern seeking individuals, so I can see how our sense of moral responsibility is borne out with how causative verbs are employed.

[Aphex217Twin]

OMG this guy is smart

[JoshRom]

omg this man is brilliant.  He reminds me of Aristotle's categories.

[caffeinehigh247]

Pinker, you interviewed yourself. It doesn't count.

[RaptorWizard]

holy pissnuggets this guy is crazy

[trev616]

It would be epic if Pinker told those construction workers to straight up "shut the fuck up!" so he could do an interview.

[pawsoned]

You can learn as much from Pinker's books about human nature as from Moby Dick about whaling.

[Introspective91]

14:7 Another example would be when my stupid father got drunk, got in his car, drove and killed 5 innocent people because he was so stupid and drunk! My family forgave him, but I can't. He directly killed someone but he was drunk. 

[Helena1204]

he seems sad :(

[ElSameo]

@Helena1204 I always notice that about him. How can we cheer him up? :(

[ElSameo]

@ElSameo Actually he seems cheerier in some other vids

[wrdeboise]

Obviously a punch is much less saver then say a gun shot is. So if someone was shot and then dies from an accident in the hospital, unrelated to the gun trauma, I could imagine the shooter being culpable for murder. I think it's a matter of intent in this case. If you punch someone you probably don't mean to kill them, just hurt them or defend yourself in a fight. However, you definitely have a more malicious intent using a gun.

[QMPhilosophe]

I read the Language Instinct a number of years and found it fascinating. The Blank Slate more thought-provoking - certainly one of the best books I have ever read.

[dwaynedibbly]

i like the dudes ideas but his eyes seem dead and he seems so sad internally when he speaks, makes me want to shed a tear for the poor guy.

similar with most the evo bio guys, dawkins being another offender.

[elephunt78]

@dwaynedibbly huh? ok

[BenNCM]

@dwaynedibbly you sound dead

[ElSameo]

@dwaynedibbly Lol! I wouldn't say he seems dead. Maybe you're misinterpreting his very formal and precise way of speaking as him being emotionless. I'm sure he just appreciates that that's a suitable and effective way of communicating science, but probably like the rest of us isn't so cool and refined when he has reason to be emotional. I do imagine though that a kind of mental solitude could come from thinking so analytically about human behavior all the time. So if he's sad that might be why.

[dwaynedibbly]

@ElSameo erudite points my friend and it is the latter of your exposition that I was generally thinking myself as to the cause of his malady.

[Mikeofdundee1987]

What an idiot, it is like a new cyril burt LOL

[impCaesarAvg]

Man, you are like a total ciborium! Pinker knows all about that sacrament, because he's Canadian, eh? Chalice! I know he's Jewish, but he digs the tabernacle, dude.

[McSibiss]

In my culture, almost all swear words have something to do with religion. Almost none with sex and one about shit, but it's almost not really a swear word. That's because for a long time, religion had supreme power over our lives. We are now free from it but the swear words remain. They are: Christ, hostie, tabarnak, calice, ciboire, sacrement, etc... I'm from Québec.

[PlebRule]

Steven Pinker is a true public intellectual.

[asseeninYOURDREAMS]

i feel smarter just by listening to him :D

[Obama4Prezz]

@asseeninYOURDREAMS because he's so stupid? lol jk. I really like his insights on behaviour and language.

[MochizMuM]

@asseeninYOURDREAMS I know! I am not intimidated by him at all, hes very comforting lol!

[ChukCharcoales]

Steve pwns all.

[alieales]

I recommend his books. Brilliant guy.

[JoyeuxLj]

Im reading "The Blank Slate" by this guy.. its by far one of my best reads.

[CharlestonArtist]

Pinker is a lightweight.

[baconwafer]

"lightweight" is an interesting twist of linguistic rope.

[cstubing]

Funny, isn't it? That's exactly the kind of word he spends 3 pages on in this book.

[baconwafer]

I'm not interested in knowing the name of the book. I haven't read a book by Pinker. Maybe this makes me a lightweight. I revere linguistic study, and became marginally familiar with Pinker's work and reputation. As a philospher have you encountered the practice of computational linguistics in your field?

[Politicimo]

I don't know much about the man, but why would you say that?

[Sherwulff]

So profanity serves as a way of reinforcing a communal sense of disgust towards bodily functions which could potentially kill us, thus it is a mechanism of defense againt disease. Interesting spin.

[joebloggsgogglebox]

Aha, now that's an interesting idea (though not stated explicitely by Pinker).

You are suggesting that swearing about shit, piss etc. helps us to remember to avoid these things and hence avoid disease right?

However to convince me that it's true I need more than just speculation, you'd have to show me some correlation between level of swearing and level of hygiene across different societies.

[Sherwulff]

in order to bend your mind in the direction of the inference I walked away with from this video admittedly would require a colossal amount of research and yet we both would agree that "proof" will always ultimately collapse upon itself as nothing is ever inpenetrably failsafe. so i'll have to concede that i haven't the energy, time or wherewithal to convince you of what was but a mere adumbration to myself that flickered for a brief moment in time. However, if i were a younger man ...

[joebloggsgogglebox]

Well.. I don't think it would be too hard to conduct a survey of students of different nationalities, ask a few questions about hygiene level, amount of swearing, types of swear words, level of swearing in home country, perceived rudeness of swear words etc. It would be a start at least.

It would be a good idea for a Masters dissertation.

Any social psychology students reading this?

[cstubing]

Well, in the book he focuses on language over time and how things have come to be the way they are. He explicitly mentions that our modern societies keep us separated from our effluence (shit, piss, blood, etc), but that our swearing comes from a past where disease was rampant due to unclean living standards. Our modern technologies quickly separate us from our shit, piss, and blood, thanks to plumbing and garbage removal. You only have to look at Hurricane Katrina's or the Tsunami's...

[cstubing]

immediate aftermaths. Diseases that are absolutely not common in our modern western societies quickly spread to dangerous levels.

He's really offering a framework for how these body wastes could have developed into taboos and curse words. He's not saying, and I don't believe, that they are super flexible. Sure, they change over time, but the overall themes of body waste and copulation remain most prevalent in curse words across cultures.

[Zeldovich]

That's ridiculous. Human waste is an unconditioned aversive stimulus. The reason human waste comes up so readily at times has to do with supply and demand. Because the use of these words is often seen as inappropriate

[McDaring]

But the shit smells bad to us because we have evolved to avoid odors of materials that make us sick. Did you "learn" your general preference for salty, fresh foods and "learn" your repulsion to rotten milk? Get out of here with that pure behaviorism.

[Zeldovich]

I used the word "unconditioned" above. Try reading next time.

[McDaring]

pwned.

[comokate]

I just love Steven Pinker's interesting observations about human behavior and I have purchased and read many of his books. I did notice in this video that on several occasions Mr. Pinker seems to struggle to get a word out, almost as though there is something physically wrong ( illness, sore throat, ???) . Does anyone know how Mr. Pinker's health is? ( I hope he is doing well!).

[DrakeMagnum]

I was worried about that too actually.

I think I would love that book for my birthday...anyone?

[Iambecome]

Nah - I'd say he's fine, I think he was just looking for exact precision, or it's an idiosyncrasy.

[comokate]

I hope you are correct; I have seen many of his interviews and lectures and have never seen him "pause" before ( I provide health care to the head and neck region of humans and I am *very* observant of slight changes in speech patterns...). I adore this man and hope all is well with him!

[notsobad]

Steven Pinker is a wonderful person and a great science promoter.

[joebloggsgogglebox]

Why do academics use the word 'trivial' instead of 'easy', why when writing a paper do they say 'we' instead of 'I' even when the paper has only one author? I am an academic myself but I am often amused at the attitude and pretense of some of my co-workers.

[robertjoellewis]

Maybe they are in a different discipline from you? It could be because the word "trivial" doesn't mean the same as "easy." Maybe it's because the paper has more than one author, and even if it doesn't there's no need to assume their work isn't part of a particular literature with other authors working with the same theoretical core.

[joebloggsgogglebox]

Maybe, or maybe also to a certain extent academic language usage evolves, just as it does amongst different socio-economic classes, as a means of group identification, and self-importance. Sometimes clever people use clever words to make themselves sound cleverer than they actually are. I realize I am probably being a bit harsh, and I don't want to lay this accusation on Steven Pinker without having read any of his other work, but that was my impression after watching this video.

[Jacnas]

What purpose was there in asking the question when you've already made up your mind what the answer is?

[joebloggsgogglebox]

it was a rhetorical question, but actually my mind is not completely made up

[Iambecome]

Wow - you have got to be kidding. Pinker is the last person you could accuse of this. He works incredibly hard to make his subject matter as transparent as possible. His writing is a model of clarity. (As for this clip - did "causality" and "pathogen" scare you?)

[joebloggsgogglebox]

Its not so much the particular words he uses, it's the fact that he uses so many of them to say nothing. It's a tautology. When I say someone 'dimmed the lights' of course I know that the causation is direct, that is why I chose those words. All he is doing is re-explaining the meaning of some words (in a rather long way), whose meaning I already know.

[teemuruskeepaa]

He is my collegue

[DrakeMagnum]

woohoo!

Give him a high-five for me. He sounds very bright.

[teemuruskeepaa]

Well, all we sociologists are very different from the rest

[Iambecome]

Give him a high-five for me too.

[anarchyclayman]

'how the mind works' was a good read.

[biologyprodigy]

This guy's better than Chomsky.

[shaolindreams]

bloody well explained

[McSoustenfrugal]

Pinker is the shit!

[Kergillian]

Oh! I'm going to need to read this book!

[CousinoMacul]

Pinker is always interesting.

[joebloggsgogglebox]

More interesting for me is the way that academics often use complicated arguments and language to project an air of intellect (and sell a book) when often they aren't really saying anything at all. Well hey, I guess it pays the bills

[McSoustenfrugal]

I don't think he posed any arguments, he just made observations about humans that other humans who are interested in humans find fascinating:)

[SAsgarters]

I find that accusations like that say a lot more about the listener and that person's inability to 1. understand the language, 2. understand the argument and 3. understand what that person is actually saying. However, people who claim that academics aren't saying anything usually just don't understand. We use big words to get across a concept that would otherwise take an hour to describe. And you have to assume that the listener knows something at least, or you'd sound pretty damn patronizing.

[joebloggsgogglebox]

I completely understand the argument and it seems to be to be a vacuous one. Sure, words tell us about how we think, because we use words to express our thoughts. I don't need to read a book to tell me this. Maybe there are more interesting things in his book, but the examples he gives do not tell me anything I do not already know. The accusation was not aimed at all academics, but I have read many papers that dress up a simple (or fallacious) argument with intellectual pomp.

[Fishsticks19]

its actually really interesting stuff. Pinker's book is a good one, but you might like a book called 'metaphors we live by' by Johnson and Lakoff. Pinker is a bit pretentious but he means well. Certainly less of an ass than Chomsky. His work on this however is at least in large part is reproduction of work by other people (Lakoff, Johnson, Sapir, et al.) Its really more complicated than Pinker lets on, which is unfortunate considering he is still speaking as if no one will understand him

[Iambecome]

Pinker is not pretentious at all. That's simply entirely untrue. Have you read any of his books?

[Fishsticks19]

Did you read my post or just see the word pretentious and feel like you had to respond in defense of your intellectual hero? Yes I've read a number of them. I've also read countless other books in the same vein, book that Pinker used for at the very least inspiration. I agree with joeblogs here, and that was what I was trying to say. He sounds pretentious here because he is telling us something that is obvious using language which he would normally be using to explain something more complex.

[Iambecome]

I saw the word "pretentious" and my cognitive dissonance reduction explosively kicked in - I started rabidly drooling and shaking and dribbling as I furiously scribbed a tear-stained rebut. How can you say such a thing!! It's just not truuueeeee!!!

*Weeps*

[Iambecome]

Check out Judith Butler for an great example of what you're talking about, joebloggsgogglebox.

[AnthraxMuffin]

What... teh... shiz?

[QuantumEnigmi]

This was great! I just love the way Pinker speaks! The words just flow so naturally w/him.

[DamienZshadow]

Hah, I kind of liked his explaination of swear words. Though they cause no harm and I hear them all the time, I purposely try to do my best to avoid using them for some reason or another...though it tends to slip out in intense amazing, painful, and funny moments. ^^;

[t0kt0k]

Yeah, I don't buy that "dim the lights --> cause the patient's death" example.

Yes, we only ascribe causation to things when it happens directly, or at least seems to ahppen directly between one agent and one subject. And yes, our language reflects that. But what have you shown when you point that out? It's a tautology. Neither one is necessarily a "window" into the other; they're both aspects of the same thing: humans' common sense perception and judgment of causality

[t0kt0k]

I hate Steven Pinker, but I still end up buying all of his damned books. And watching his interviews on youtube.

[Iambecome]

Hmmm. Maybe you have secret a crush on Pinker? The truth will set you free.

[t0kt0k]

Nooooooo!

My therapist wouldn't tell me. I had to hear it from Youtube :(