The Ideas of Chomsky-BBC interview (3)

A very early and also very interesting interview with Noam Chomsky regarding his Linguistic work published at the time.
The last part contains a discussion of his political views regarding the Vietnam war and Libertarian Socialism

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Noam
• Chomsky
• Linguistics
• Generative
• Grammar
• Libertarian
• Socialism

[Cuda11]

when Chomsky dies I will loose contact with the real world and that scares me.

[Dalychomsky]

The most intersting interview I've ever seen. A brilliant mind at play.

[seekortry]

@fiddlercrab3 I think we can expand our long term & short term memory, working memory, attention, etc. Even expanding the number of attention (i.e. two bodies doing two things but one person). But there is nothing that can be rationally understood that our brains cannot understand (given time and possibly numbers). That indirectly was shown by the Church-Turing thesis. The human mind is at least as powerful as a Turing machine. Therefore it can know anything that can be computed.

[khoroshoorange]

@Cuda11

your not alone.

[fiddlercrab3]

Possible refutation of Chomsky's doubt regarding expanding our cognitive capacities: he gives the example that we study the heart not to "replace the heart by another kind of pump, which, say, might be more efficient." I think that with advances in bioengineering that this idea is not just fiction! If the analogy is potentially refutable, maybe we can expand our minds... call me idealistic. :-)

[stephenblackman2003a]

Maybe this is a reflection of how far we have moved on but I just don't find Chomsky's central ideas in linguistics controversial. In fact they strike me as trivially true - of course we are biologically pre-programmed to learn language. How could it be otherwise??? In fact, I find it more obvious/trivially true than his propaganda model (PM) of the media in democracies. PM requires more subtle distinctions and knowledge of a lot of relevant facts not to end up with a vulgar version.

[elephantinpajamas]

I find Chomsky 's humility about science impressive. when he says that we have no idea how language evolved he shows how unscientific the moderator is in his assumptions. this is true as well when he says that creativity and free choice remain as mysterious as they were in antiquity.

[lourak]

@Cuda11 Gird your loins and carry on with the confidence that any insights of real value are there for the taking. Chomsky is not necessary for you to live a coherent life. According to him - we are hard wired for the acquisition of our cognitive needs.

[RobertHartlepool]

I am often unhappy with the word, "Given," when it is used in place of the phrase, "established fact," or the word, "obvious." I find it doubly irritating when it is used by educated men.

[jerryhello100]

@TheLockon00 If I'm a fag, I implore you to suck on my knob. Sorry, though, I guess you're pretty fed up. I saw you had a tonne of comments about that right after I commented. I was trying to be funny with the rigid thing, ya know, cause, supposedly, as Chomsky says, we are rigidly programmed to learn a language. Whatever. Peace, and no ill will.

[TheLockon00]

@jerryhello100 Maybe you should capitalize the "y" at the beginning of your sentence then, fag.

[jerryhello100]

@Cuda11 your mean lose contact, not loose contact. That would not make sense. Sorry, but I'm "rigid" about language.