Stephen Pinker: Language and Consciousness (excerpt) -- Thinking Allowed DVD w/ Jeffrey Mishlove

NOTE: This is an excerpt from a special two-hour, four-part DVD featuring one of the most insightful minds we have ever encountered.
http://www.thinkingallowed.com/2spinker.html


Part I: Are our thoughts shaped by the language we use?
Part II: How We Understand Language
Part III: The Evolution of Language
Part IV:Consciousness and Cognition.

Stephen Pinker, Ph.D., is professor and director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is author of Visual Cognition and The Language Instinct.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Stephen Pinker
• Thinking Allowed
• language
• consciousness
• cognition
• thought

[Iambecome]

Man, youtube is fantastic - there's so much brilliant stuff like this available.

[weeecrap]

I just have to agree here.

That is an awesome hair!

The talking was ok too

[IIemzyII]

What an absolute mystery. 

[expressexpose]

@surroundedbysilly

Steven* but yes.I wholly agree.:)

[palebluedot4ev]

“We're fascinated by the words--but where we meet is in the silence behind them."

Ram Dass

[zadeh79]

Smart guy.

[SureBarb]

@jennherboys I was wondering the same thing...Maybe we're primed to question such a thing since we are watching a Pinker video.

[sexyloser]

@atheis3way You're confusing words with concepts. You can understand the concept of a rock without knowing that it's called a rock. I think Pinker means we think in concepts and not words. When you think of a rock, you don't think of the word 'rock.' You think of the image of a rock, it's properties, what it's made up, etc. The word that represents the rock is not part of your understanding of what a rock is.

[ihateloggingin111]

@surroundedbysilly I think he would hate that job.

[jennherboys]

was up with the red flash at 54- 55 sec in the tape. tryn to pause at the exact time 2 read or c hidden message but cant pause at right moment

[surroundedbysilly]

stephen pinker for president!

[poverlord]

@atheis3way, you are wrong about needing language for object recognition. It turns out that the brain is able to discriminate objects without the use of languages. I think the part of the brain that does this is the left temporal lobe, perhaps the anterior part of it. It is very much connected to the parietal lobe and the occipital lobe.