
Portuguese: 
[Applause]
Steven Pinker has ridden into the room
and requires no further introduction so
I've looked at a lot of Steven's work
again lately and I'd like to start with
your early work on irregular verbs and
it's striking to me how much in this
work you think like an economist so some
verbs are regular you conjugate them
with an e d others are irregular alright
you don't say get it you say god
now how computationally efficient is
that process the I think it taps to of
mechanisms but make intelligence
possible I mean why would I spend a good
chunk of my career spending the minutiae
I of irregular verbs
I do love language I love linguistic
detail for its own sake but I chose that
topic because I thought it shed light on
bigger issues of cognitive organization
so why do we have a hundred and sixty

English: 
[Applause]
Steven Pinker has ridden into the room
and requires no further introduction so
I've looked at a lot of Steven's work
again lately and I'd like to start with
your early work on irregular verbs and
it's striking to me how much in this
work you think like an economist so some
verbs are regular you conjugate them
with an e d others are irregular alright
you don't say get it you say god
now how computationally efficient is
that process the I think it taps to of
mechanisms but make intelligence
possible I mean why would I spend a good
chunk of my career spending the minutiae
I of irregular verbs
I do love language I love linguistic
detail for its own sake but I chose that
topic because I thought it shed light on
bigger issues of cognitive organization
so why do we have a hundred and sixty

English: 
five or so quirky exceptions like
strides strode come came sing sang go
went and so on and it just seems there
could be no rhyme or reason behind it I
think it's just a consequence of the
fact that we memorize words and that's
one of the two mechanisms behind
language we store by brute force rote
memory arbitrary pairings between a
sound and a meaning the word duck
doesn't look like a dapper walk like a
duck or quack like a duck but I can use
it to get you can sync the thought of a
duck because we and everyone in this
room has memorized a pairing between
that sound in that meaning we don't just
blurt out words but we also combine them
into phrases and sentences using rules
that allow you to predict the or compute
the meaning of a combination from the
meaning of the parts of the way that
they are arranged those are the two

Portuguese: 
five or so quirky exceptions like
strides strode come came sing sang go
went and so on and it just seems there
could be no rhyme or reason behind it I
think it's just a consequence of the
fact that we memorize words and that's
one of the two mechanisms behind
language we store by brute force rote
memory arbitrary pairings between a
sound and a meaning the word duck
doesn't look like a dapper walk like a
duck or quack like a duck but I can use
it to get you can sync the thought of a
duck because we and everyone in this
room has memorized a pairing between
that sound in that meaning we don't just
blurt out words but we also combine them
into phrases and sentences using rules
that allow you to predict the or compute
the meaning of a combination from the
meaning of the parts of the way that
they are arranged those are the two

English: 
mechanisms that make language possible
but there are some kinds of meanings
where they can compete over which system
expresses a particular concept in the
case of regularity direct irregularity
we have two different ways of conveying
the concept
and actually took place in the past or
in the case of plurals like Mouse mice
and rat rats two ways of talking about
more than one thing we can memorise a
more or less independent word to convey
the idea like struck or saying or we can
apply an algorithm to say something in
the past tense a D D to the end and then
we can walk walked and because of the
peculiarities of the history of a
language you can have that labor divided
between the rule system the algorithmic
system and the memory system and it's
the tension between those two systems
that give rise to a lot of the
quirkiness of language including English
irregular verbs so when you did this
this was one of the first things to make

Portuguese: 
mechanisms that make language possible
but there are some kinds of meanings
where they can compete over which system
expresses a particular concept in the
case of regularity direct irregularity
we have two different ways of conveying
the concept
and actually took place in the past or
in the case of plurals like Mouse mice
and rat rats two ways of talking about
more than one thing we can memorise a
more or less independent word to convey
the idea like struck or saying or we can
apply an algorithm to say something in
the past tense a D D to the end and then
we can walk walked and because of the
peculiarities of the history of a
language you can have that labor divided
between the rule system the algorithmic
system and the memory system and it's
the tension between those two systems
that give rise to a lot of the
quirkiness of language including English
irregular verbs so when you did this
this was one of the first things to make

English: 
you famous did you know in the back of
your mind this was a kind of Hayekian
argument because it seems to me the
common verbs that we use a lot those go
where regular and it's easy to remember
them because you use them all the time
but the irregular verbs so the regular
verbs are ones you don't use so often
and thus again your economizing on
information in this decentralized way
yeah I I don't know how I don't know how
well that analysis would work across a
range of zones of irregularity so in the
it is certainly true that irregular
verbs tend to be common and which is
kind of the bane of the language learner
you learn in Spanish or French and all
of the words that you use all the time
you've got to memorize the conjugations
but the and I think the reason for that
is I might even invoke Darwin more than
van Hayek namely that in the generation
to generation transmission process of an
irregular verb very regular verb has to

Portuguese: 
you famous did you know in the back of
your mind this was a kind of Hayekian
argument because it seems to me the
common verbs that we use a lot those go
where regular and it's easy to remember
them because you use them all the time
but the irregular verbs so the regular
verbs are ones you don't use so often
and thus again your economizing on
information in this decentralized way
yeah I I don't know how I don't know how
well that analysis would work across a
range of zones of irregularity so in the
it is certainly true that irregular
verbs tend to be common and which is
kind of the bane of the language learner
you learn in Spanish or French and all
of the words that you use all the time
you've got to memorize the conjugations
but the and I think the reason for that
is I might even invoke Darwin more than
van Hayek namely that in the generation
to generation transmission process of an
irregular verb very regular verb has to

English: 
be memorized because by definition there
is no rule behind it the only way you
know that the past tense of come has
came is that you hear everyone else I
use came since memory thrives on
frequency the more often you hear
something really better you remember it
if any verb declines in frequency and
verbs become more or less fashionable
for all kinds of reasons then you could
have a generation that never
successfully masters it they'll default
to the all-purpose
a DD rule and then the verb will go from
irregular and irregular for that
generation and all subsequent
generations and so you've got a
corrosion of your stock of irregular
verbs as they get filtered through the
minds of children memorizing them out
where it's the Weslie good ones that
tend to fall out of the language so
dreamt becomes dreamed for instance
dreamt is prettier it is prettier and
that's one of the reasons that irregular
verbs do stay in the language and one of
the reasons that often lyricists and
poets and novelists will prefer the

Portuguese: 
be memorized because by definition there
is no rule behind it the only way you
know that the past tense of come has
came is that you hear everyone else I
use came since memory thrives on
frequency the more often you hear
something really better you remember it
if any verb declines in frequency and
verbs become more or less fashionable
for all kinds of reasons then you could
have a generation that never
successfully masters it they'll default
to the all-purpose
a DD rule and then the verb will go from
irregular and irregular for that
generation and all subsequent
generations and so you've got a
corrosion of your stock of irregular
verbs as they get filtered through the
minds of children memorizing them out
where it's the Weslie good ones that
tend to fall out of the language so
dreamt becomes dreamed for instance
dreamt is prettier it is prettier and
that's one of the reasons that irregular
verbs do stay in the language and one of
the reasons that often lyricists and
poets and novelists will prefer the

Portuguese: 
irregular to the regular when when
they're there's a choice strided versus
strode strove versus strived whole
received is that they are they're good
words they actually fit the phonological
template for a standard word in the
language the kind of sound that you use
for a nickname or a common word they are
more euphonious because they aren't
assembled in a kludgy way from the verb
stem and this this bit of detritus
hanging on the end this II D or ask this
suffix which is serviceable it allows
you to convey a message but it makes the
the sound of the word itself a bit
clunky and then there are almost
unpronounceable regular words like
sixths or edited where because you're
sticking an extra bit on the end of a
word you're actually messing up the nice
contour of a standard word in the

English: 
irregular to the regular when when
they're there's a choice strided versus
strode strove versus strived whole
received is that they are they're good
words they actually fit the phonological
template for a standard word in the
language the kind of sound that you use
for a nickname or a common word they are
more euphonious because they aren't
assembled in a kludgy way from the verb
stem and this this bit of detritus
hanging on the end this II D or ask this
suffix which is serviceable it allows
you to convey a message but it makes the
the sound of the word itself a bit
clunky and then there are almost
unpronounceable regular words like
sixths or edited where because you're
sticking an extra bit on the end of a
word you're actually messing up the nice
contour of a standard word in the

English: 
language and that's another one of the
tensions that over the long history
course of the history of a language will
kind of shape the balance of regular and
irregular forms so that is Hayekian in
the sense that no one planned the
language to be optimal in satisfying one
criterion there are trade-offs there are
multiple tugs pushes and pulls and in a
as speakers billions of speakers make
little adjustments as they use the
language as kids learn the language the
language itself spontaneously evolves
with some balance let me now put on my
economist hat and ask you about this as
you know in George Orwell's 1984
party bands all irregular verbs it's the
kind of excess regulation but from a
social point of view are there too many
or too few irregular verbs in English I
like the irregular verbs I'd like to see
more of them but um and it is it is a

Portuguese: 
language and that's another one of the
tensions that over the long history
course of the history of a language will
kind of shape the balance of regular and
irregular forms so that is Hayekian in
the sense that no one planned the
language to be optimal in satisfying one
criterion there are trade-offs there are
multiple tugs pushes and pulls and in a
as speakers billions of speakers make
little adjustments as they use the
language as kids learn the language the
language itself spontaneously evolves
with some balance let me now put on my
economist hat and ask you about this as
you know in George Orwell's 1984
party bands all irregular verbs it's the
kind of excess regulation but from a
social point of view are there too many
or too few irregular verbs in English I
like the irregular verbs I'd like to see
more of them but um and it is it is a

English: 
sad when we lose and we occasionally a
new one gets a toehold in the language
like snuck for example is about a
hundred and twenty years old it came in
on the analogy of Dig Dug and stink
stunk and sing sang sung and strike
struck so a case what will protect a
verb against erosion when it becomes too
uncommon is similarity to other verbs I
think it's another property of human
memory one property of human memory is
you hear things a lot a stick and memory
better but another one is if it's
similar to other things that are well
memorized it can kind of parasitize the
memory strength of something nearby info
analogical space and occasionally there
will be analogies people will coin you
verbs sometimes in a jocular way like

Portuguese: 
sad when we lose and we occasionally a
new one gets a toehold in the language
like snuck for example is about a
hundred and twenty years old it came in
on the analogy of Dig Dug and stink
stunk and sing sang sung and strike
struck so a case what will protect a
verb against erosion when it becomes too
uncommon is similarity to other verbs I
think it's another property of human
memory one property of human memory is
you hear things a lot a stick and memory
better but another one is if it's
similar to other things that are well
memorized it can kind of parasitize the
memory strength of something nearby info
analogical space and occasionally there
will be analogies people will coin you
verbs sometimes in a jocular way like

English: 
you're invited to a party spice or
welcome instead of spouses it's kind of
a little a little bit a little bit
chocolate but sometimes these things can
it can catch on and that was the case
for snack where originally it was
considered kind of cutesy like spices
the plural stuffs in fact people who are
older than about 70 or 75 still think
that it is a that it's slang whereas
people younger don't see what they what
the fuss is about there are their
irregular verbs you're afraid to use
because I have this problem so think of
the word abide I'm perfectly happy to
say abide but the past tense abode is
thought of as a noun a place yes right
and then there's a bidden and then
there's the noun abidance and I won't go
near any of those and every now and then
you'll be in a sense yeah where the
notion of abide comes up and you'll just
stick with the present tense and do
whatever
from the fusion you need to avoid having
to make these other irregular rope
commitments or do you just go ahead and

Portuguese: 
you're invited to a party spice or
welcome instead of spouses it's kind of
a little a little bit a little bit
chocolate but sometimes these things can
it can catch on and that was the case
for snack where originally it was
considered kind of cutesy like spices
the plural stuffs in fact people who are
older than about 70 or 75 still think
that it is a that it's slang whereas
people younger don't see what they what
the fuss is about there are their
irregular verbs you're afraid to use
because I have this problem so think of
the word abide I'm perfectly happy to
say abide but the past tense abode is
thought of as a noun a place yes right
and then there's a bidden and then
there's the noun abidance and I won't go
near any of those and every now and then
you'll be in a sense yeah where the
notion of abide comes up and you'll just
stick with the present tense and do
whatever
from the fusion you need to avoid having
to make these other irregular rope
commitments or do you just go ahead and

English: 
say straighten steven pinker has
straighten into the room yes yeah a boat
has not been in common usage for a few
centuries so I mean if that's one of
those that said that dropped out like
kid is the past tense of child from
genome oh right yes edge it nor hold
does the past tense it's helped some of
them survive in their dialect you know
in Mapple h i in remote parts of other
british isles forms that were in use a
couple of hundred years ago may have
resisted the erosion for reasons that
are completely obscure partly capricious
but i'm but yeah like my likely the what
one distinction that is vanishing that i
think you've said is the three-way
distinction in verbs like sink sank sunk
stink stank stunk shrink shrink shrink
where the shrank and the spank are
giving way to the participle form no sir
i just think no shenanigans thank ya and
admittedly it would have been hard to

Portuguese: 
say straighten steven pinker has
straighten into the room yes yeah a boat
has not been in common usage for a few
centuries so I mean if that's one of
those that said that dropped out like
kid is the past tense of child from
genome oh right yes edge it nor hold
does the past tense it's helped some of
them survive in their dialect you know
in Mapple h i in remote parts of other
british isles forms that were in use a
couple of hundred years ago may have
resisted the erosion for reasons that
are completely obscure partly capricious
but i'm but yeah like my likely the what
one distinction that is vanishing that i
think you've said is the three-way
distinction in verbs like sink sank sunk
stink stank stunk shrink shrink shrink
where the shrank and the spank are
giving way to the participle form no sir
i just think no shenanigans thank ya and
admittedly it would have been hard to

Portuguese: 
have a movie called Honey I Shrunk the
Kids Stefan I Shrunk the Kids but I in
my my style manual the sense of style I
recommend hanging on to them I think
they're nice nice to have that three-way
distinction this English conjugation is
already so kind of deep operate so
degenerate that it's nice to preserve
what distinction so we have now movie
chronologically through your career let
me ask you a big picture question about
language and I come to linguistics very
much as an outsider but Noam Chomsky's
idea of a universal grammar which is
somehow built into the structures of the
human mind in its early years there
seemed to be a promise of some very
definite accounting of what that
structure would be after a while it
seemed to collapse into this very
general idea of recursion which to me as
an economist seems almost tautological
and if I came away from this debate and
then I read people writing in popular
science today language is a number of
different capacities brought together
they're independent and just combined

English: 
have a movie called Honey I Shrunk the
Kids Stefan I Shrunk the Kids but I in
my my style manual the sense of style I
recommend hanging on to them I think
they're nice nice to have that three-way
distinction this English conjugation is
already so kind of deep operate so
degenerate that it's nice to preserve
what distinction so we have now movie
chronologically through your career let
me ask you a big picture question about
language and I come to linguistics very
much as an outsider but Noam Chomsky's
idea of a universal grammar which is
somehow built into the structures of the
human mind in its early years there
seemed to be a promise of some very
definite accounting of what that
structure would be after a while it
seemed to collapse into this very
general idea of recursion which to me as
an economist seems almost tautological
and if I came away from this debate and
then I read people writing in popular
science today language is a number of
different capacities brought together
they're independent and just combined

English: 
with our ability to divine meaning from
others I mean could it be the case that
Chomsky hypothesis was simply wrong
2016
I know your books but what's your take
on that today yeah it's not easy to pin
down what the hypothesis is partly
because Chomsky himself revises his
theory every decade or so kind of on a
principle of was a mouse continuous
revolution just a Vanessa never let
people settle into any kind of a
comfortable consensus so it's a moving
target also as you say it was it was
neither specified in a precise way nor
feel tested against a data set of
language variation which which I think
is unfortunate in terms of ordinary
science scientific practice linguistics
is an eccentric field in some ways

Portuguese: 
with our ability to divine meaning from
others I mean could it be the case that
Chomsky hypothesis was simply wrong
2016
I know your books but what's your take
on that today yeah it's not easy to pin
down what the hypothesis is partly
because Chomsky himself revises his
theory every decade or so kind of on a
principle of was a mouse continuous
revolution just a Vanessa never let
people settle into any kind of a
comfortable consensus so it's a moving
target also as you say it was it was
neither specified in a precise way nor
feel tested against a data set of
language variation which which I think
is unfortunate in terms of ordinary
science scientific practice linguistics
is an eccentric field in some ways

Portuguese: 
partly because it was so polarized by a
charismatic figure and his opponents
that it didn't proceed in the ordinary
direction of kind of making the theory
more precise more testable so with that
caveat I in mind I think there is such a
thing as you can call it Universal
grammar I think that in the following
sense that the child is biased to
analyze the speech that he or she hears
in particular ways those eye does not
simply record sentences verbatim I mean
that with that sort of the memory half
of the language system but the
algorithmic or computation or Wooga
govern half looks for tries to to pull
out combinatorial rules from the speech
stream but there are certain kinds of

English: 
partly because it was so polarized by a
charismatic figure and his opponents
that it didn't proceed in the ordinary
direction of kind of making the theory
more precise more testable so with that
caveat I in mind I think there is such a
thing as you can call it Universal
grammar I think that in the following
sense that the child is biased to
analyze the speech that he or she hears
in particular ways those eye does not
simply record sentences verbatim I mean
that with that sort of the memory half
of the language system but the
algorithmic or computation or Wooga
govern half looks for tries to to pull
out combinatorial rules from the speech
stream but there are certain kinds of

English: 
rules and elements of the child is key
to look for and that those that set of
abilities would be what I would call if
I use the term universal grammar and
there are commonalities across the
world's languages that come from the
fact that that language is created anew
every generation by the minds of the
children
who constructed out of big data that
they get from their parents and peers
let's turn from language to a closely
related topic theory of mind of course
you've written a lot on this we had John
hight for one of these discussions and
he is this notion that in the mind there
are these modules and are almost a bit
independent so there's an empathy module
or a being analytic module and if I
understand him correctly in our
political discourse different modules
take over and it's almost not integrated
with the rest of your brain but what's
your take on how unified cognition is to
what extent to say our political
discourse ruled by independent modules

Portuguese: 
rules and elements of the child is key
to look for and that those that set of
abilities would be what I would call if
I use the term universal grammar and
there are commonalities across the
world's languages that come from the
fact that that language is created anew
every generation by the minds of the
children
who constructed out of big data that
they get from their parents and peers
let's turn from language to a closely
related topic theory of mind of course
you've written a lot on this we had John
hight for one of these discussions and
he is this notion that in the mind there
are these modules and are almost a bit
independent so there's an empathy module
or a being analytic module and if I
understand him correctly in our
political discourse different modules
take over and it's almost not integrated
with the rest of your brain but what's
your take on how unified cognition is to
what extent to say our political
discourse ruled by independent modules

English: 
or is that not how you think about it
yeah well we the metaphor the module
comes from my former colleague Jerry
Fodor philosopher and cycle linguist and
it comes in different versions you had
Howard Gardner proposing a theory of
multiple intelligences you have
evolutionary psychologists proposing the
metaphor of the mind is a Swiss Army
knife now it's more like a smartphone
with a bunch of different apps I think
they see that I do agree these can all
be opposed to a view of the mind that we
just have a theory of everything that
there's just one principle it's all
Bayesian statistics or it's just the law
of operant conditioning about all just
one big teeming myth but no modules
well modules never quite seemed like the
best metaphor I think there is structure
or specialization I don't think the mind
is spam I don't think it's just a home I
don't think we just have a homogeneous

Portuguese: 
or is that not how you think about it
yeah well we the metaphor the module
comes from my former colleague Jerry
Fodor philosopher and cycle linguist and
it comes in different versions you had
Howard Gardner proposing a theory of
multiple intelligences you have
evolutionary psychologists proposing the
metaphor of the mind is a Swiss Army
knife now it's more like a smartphone
with a bunch of different apps I think
they see that I do agree these can all
be opposed to a view of the mind that we
just have a theory of everything that
there's just one principle it's all
Bayesian statistics or it's just the law
of operant conditioning about all just
one big teeming myth but no modules
well modules never quite seemed like the
best metaphor I think there is structure
or specialization I don't think the mind
is spam I don't think it's just a home I
don't think we just have a homogeneous

Portuguese: 
neural net organ in the skull I think
there is some organization the problem
with the module metaphor is that some of
there are snapping components that with
very limited channels of communication
between them I think that's too strong
but I think it is reasonable to say that
there are different faculties to use an
old-fashioned word to choose a different
metaphor I think it may have been
Chomsky to propose that the that the
mind is like a biological system made of
organs and tissues where in when I was a
high school I was taught for example
that the that the blood was an organ now
now the blood of course suffuses all of
our tissues you can't draw a dotted line
around it it's not like the you know the
rump roast in the flank steak it's a
supermarket cow display and likewise
that the mind can be can't have a
specialization and structure and
different components and without them

English: 
neural net organ in the skull I think
there is some organization the problem
with the module metaphor is that some of
there are snapping components that with
very limited channels of communication
between them I think that's too strong
but I think it is reasonable to say that
there are different faculties to use an
old-fashioned word to choose a different
metaphor I think it may have been
Chomsky to propose that the that the
mind is like a biological system made of
organs and tissues where in when I was a
high school I was taught for example
that the that the blood was an organ now
now the blood of course suffuses all of
our tissues you can't draw a dotted line
around it it's not like the you know the
rump roast in the flank steak it's a
supermarket cow display and likewise
that the mind can be can't have a
specialization and structure and
different components and without them

Portuguese: 
literally being independent so I think
John height I would agree with John Hyde
that there are different mindsets
they're different faculties they're
different ways in which we can analyze
the same set of events and that a lot of
political disagreement consists of what
frame of mind if you want what module
you use to to analyze a particular issue
so you've got to acknowledge the
complexity the multiplicity of the mind
even if you don't subscribe to the
strict metaphor of modules what
evolutionary purpose does a sense of
self serving human beings so could you
imagine human beings performing the same
actions but being zombies not saying to
themselves like hey I'm Tyler hey I'm
Steven Pinker we have the sense of self
however difficult it may be to describe
or study scientifically and that evolves
you're a Darwinian so where does that
come from why is it there well the
distinguished certainly the self concept

English: 
literally being independent so I think
John height I would agree with John Hyde
that there are different mindsets
they're different faculties they're
different ways in which we can analyze
the same set of events and that a lot of
political disagreement consists of what
frame of mind if you want what module
you use to to analyze a particular issue
so you've got to acknowledge the
complexity the multiplicity of the mind
even if you don't subscribe to the
strict metaphor of modules what
evolutionary purpose does a sense of
self serving human beings so could you
imagine human beings performing the same
actions but being zombies not saying to
themselves like hey I'm Tyler hey I'm
Steven Pinker we have the sense of self
however difficult it may be to describe
or study scientifically and that evolves
you're a Darwinian so where does that
come from why is it there well the
distinguished certainly the self concept

English: 
self knowledge from the issue of
subjective experience and people often
use the word consciousness to refer to
both of these phenomena namely self
consciousness or self knowledge on the
one hand and subjectivity or the
qualitative nature of consciousness and
qualia what it is like to feel something
or taste something on the other I think
if I mean the lavishes you mean the
latter right as you can sit up and feel
something taste something and say hey
I'm Steven Pinker and no introspectively
that you're saying it yourself right I
mean but those are two you could have
subjective experience of redness and
sourness and warmth and so on without
including some concept of yourself and
conversely you could imagine an
intelligent system a robot say where
there's no one home where it monitors
its own state it presents itself in
certain ways and least as far as we know
it's not actually feeling anything of
course we don't know it and that's the

Portuguese: 
self knowledge from the issue of
subjective experience and people often
use the word consciousness to refer to
both of these phenomena namely self
consciousness or self knowledge on the
one hand and subjectivity or the
qualitative nature of consciousness and
qualia what it is like to feel something
or taste something on the other I think
if I mean the lavishes you mean the
latter right as you can sit up and feel
something taste something and say hey
I'm Steven Pinker and no introspectively
that you're saying it yourself right I
mean but those are two you could have
subjective experience of redness and
sourness and warmth and so on without
including some concept of yourself and
conversely you could imagine an
intelligent system a robot say where
there's no one home where it monitors
its own state it presents itself in
certain ways and least as far as we know
it's not actually feeling anything of
course we don't know it and that's the

Portuguese: 
maybe the key the philosophical problem
of sentience or qualia or sometimes
called the hard problem of consciousness
i I think might ultimately be a quirk of
our own way of analyzing the world that
is the mind reflecting on itself is
naturally going to be puzzled by some
aspects of itself
we know from neuroscience that there is
no aspect of consciousness that does not
have some physical correlate there's no
ESP there is no life after death
there's no mysterious action at a
distance is all information processing
in neurons why it should feel like
something to me to be that network of
neurons I I don't think we have a
satisfying answer to and it may not be a
scientific puzzle at all there are some
philosophers who claimed that it just
isn't a coherent intellectual question
at all and then it'd been the most

English: 
maybe the key the philosophical problem
of sentience or qualia or sometimes
called the hard problem of consciousness
i I think might ultimately be a quirk of
our own way of analyzing the world that
is the mind reflecting on itself is
naturally going to be puzzled by some
aspects of itself
we know from neuroscience that there is
no aspect of consciousness that does not
have some physical correlate there's no
ESP there is no life after death
there's no mysterious action at a
distance is all information processing
in neurons why it should feel like
something to me to be that network of
neurons I I don't think we have a
satisfying answer to and it may not be a
scientific puzzle at all there are some
philosophers who claimed that it just
isn't a coherent intellectual question
at all and then it'd been the most

Portuguese: 
famous for some people this is a kind of
escape hatch from materialism and a way
to bring back some notion of the soul
the problem very is that you expect the
mind to have some kind of non material
powers which it does not have I came to
gravitate toward of you that sometimes
has been credited to David Hume callin
begin is the contemporary philosopher
who has kind of made it most prominent
sometimes I think mysteriously
misleadingly called mysterion ism Tom
Nagel in his seminal article what it is
what does it like to be a bat whose
title captures the essence of the
problem speculated in that article along
the lines I'm suggesting namely there
may just be some facts about the
universe that are true and
never be satisfied that we to ative li
understand them not because there's some

English: 
famous for some people this is a kind of
escape hatch from materialism and a way
to bring back some notion of the soul
the problem very is that you expect the
mind to have some kind of non material
powers which it does not have I came to
gravitate toward of you that sometimes
has been credited to David Hume callin
begin is the contemporary philosopher
who has kind of made it most prominent
sometimes I think mysteriously
misleadingly called mysterion ism Tom
Nagel in his seminal article what it is
what does it like to be a bat whose
title captures the essence of the
problem speculated in that article along
the lines I'm suggesting namely there
may just be some facts about the
universe that are true and
never be satisfied that we to ative li
understand them not because there's some

English: 
mystery in the sense of undiscovered
scientific principle but just that our
very way of grasping reality might make
certain things puzzling to us even
though we know that a more explicit
cognitive level that they're true so a
heap of neurons that registers the
environment that organizes the
information Mac sonic including the
model of itself from my point of view it
feels like something why that should be
true I don't know but then again Here I
am inside me and almost by definition
there going to be some things about the
view of me inside me that the me doing
the view is not going to be able to
articulate because the part that would
do the articulating is part of the me
trying to explain it so I don't think
there are a lot of cases where we I
think there's some cases where human
intuition hits a wall and this is one of
them the nature of time what could have
been before the Big Bang is that was the

Portuguese: 
mystery in the sense of undiscovered
scientific principle but just that our
very way of grasping reality might make
certain things puzzling to us even
though we know that a more explicit
cognitive level that they're true so a
heap of neurons that registers the
environment that organizes the
information Mac sonic including the
model of itself from my point of view it
feels like something why that should be
true I don't know but then again Here I
am inside me and almost by definition
there going to be some things about the
view of me inside me that the me doing
the view is not going to be able to
articulate because the part that would
do the articulating is part of the me
trying to explain it so I don't think
there are a lot of cases where we I
think there's some cases where human
intuition hits a wall and this is one of
them the nature of time what could have
been before the Big Bang is that was the

Portuguese: 
beginning of everything how can we
happen University the finite or infinite
there's no reason to think that every
aspect of reality will be intuitive
there may be some aspects where our best
science will give us a characterization
and we'll always scratch our head as we
appreciate that it's true but it never
feels totally satisfying so how about
metaphysical determinism for the human
well cause-and-effect everything in the
mind has a physical correlate you've
told us you're a Darwinian the natural
world is ruled by something like cause
and effect and the laws of nature
haven't changed so our minds are fully
determined well they are you didn't say
yes yes well they may not be for any
practical purpose determined in the
sense that there may be processes that
are chaotic that are nonlinear where
some ions zigged instead of zagged

English: 
beginning of everything how can we
happen University the finite or infinite
there's no reason to think that every
aspect of reality will be intuitive
there may be some aspects where our best
science will give us a characterization
and we'll always scratch our head as we
appreciate that it's true but it never
feels totally satisfying so how about
metaphysical determinism for the human
well cause-and-effect everything in the
mind has a physical correlate you've
told us you're a Darwinian the natural
world is ruled by something like cause
and effect and the laws of nature
haven't changed so our minds are fully
determined well they are you didn't say
yes yes well they may not be for any
practical purpose determined in the
sense that there may be processes that
are chaotic that are nonlinear where
some ions zigged instead of zagged

English: 
because of Brownian movement or maybe
even quantum phenomenon and as a result
the whole system might behave in one way
or another that is physically determined
but for all practical purposes random it
may be so complex that it might be like
the weather taken to several higher
degrees I never in theory perhaps
Laplace is demon would be able to tell
us what this will do next but some
things that are true in theory are so
mind bogglingly complicated that enemies
will not be true in theory so yeah I
don't think there's any miracle that
goes on in the brain when we make a
decision in that sense we're determined
on the other hand there is so much
unpredictability non-linearity that for
all intents and purposes were not
determined now I've been reading through
a lot of different aspects of your work

Portuguese: 
because of Brownian movement or maybe
even quantum phenomenon and as a result
the whole system might behave in one way
or another that is physically determined
but for all practical purposes random it
may be so complex that it might be like
the weather taken to several higher
degrees I never in theory perhaps
Laplace is demon would be able to tell
us what this will do next but some
things that are true in theory are so
mind bogglingly complicated that enemies
will not be true in theory so yeah I
don't think there's any miracle that
goes on in the brain when we make a
decision in that sense we're determined
on the other hand there is so much
unpredictability non-linearity that for
all intents and purposes were not
determined now I've been reading through
a lot of different aspects of your work

Portuguese: 
a lot of your books reading or rereading
and I've been trying to figure out to
myself what's the underlying unity in
the thought and writing of Steven Pinker
from irregular verbs to world peace and
yes we'll get to that but let me try to
give you my account of what I've taken
away which I'm sure it's not the same as
yours but it's a way of prompting you to
tell us your view of the underlying
unity and all of the things you did so I
see you is very often trying to stake
out a Midway position but there are
people out there say like the blank
Cirrus the blank slate theorists who
don't see much structure to the natural
world or the social world or the
linguistic world and you reject that but
then on the other hand there are people
who postulate too much structure and at
least early Chomsky would be an example
there and you're trying to create some
kind of intermediate position where
there's room for a reason to operate but
within laws of nature so you're trying

English: 
a lot of your books reading or rereading
and I've been trying to figure out to
myself what's the underlying unity in
the thought and writing of Steven Pinker
from irregular verbs to world peace and
yes we'll get to that but let me try to
give you my account of what I've taken
away which I'm sure it's not the same as
yours but it's a way of prompting you to
tell us your view of the underlying
unity and all of the things you did so I
see you is very often trying to stake
out a Midway position but there are
people out there say like the blank
Cirrus the blank slate theorists who
don't see much structure to the natural
world or the social world or the
linguistic world and you reject that but
then on the other hand there are people
who postulate too much structure and at
least early Chomsky would be an example
there and you're trying to create some
kind of intermediate position where
there's room for a reason to operate but
within laws of nature so you're trying

Portuguese: 
to really this modern 21st and 20th
century vision of what does the
Enlightenment mean for now and how might
we apply enlightenment kinds of
reasoning across all the different areas
you've written on and then kind of
figuring out shown in all these books
what are the methodological
prerequisites for that and it's level
at which we're willing to talk of that
structure and levels at which we're not
willing to talk about structure and you
staking out this intermediate what you
might call voluntarist pro reason pro
science position and that's what I took
away from the whole corpus of steven
pinker but tell me what is your take on
that
yeah III think that's a not not too far
from where I would see myself not so
much in taking an intermediate position
that's just in I in you know find the
Goldilocks zone like oh the truth is
always halfway in between two extremes I
mean it isn't always just them on the
other hand you know I do believe in the
Enlightenment vision that I understand

English: 
to really this modern 21st and 20th
century vision of what does the
Enlightenment mean for now and how might
we apply enlightenment kinds of
reasoning across all the different areas
you've written on and then kind of
figuring out shown in all these books
what are the methodological
prerequisites for that and it's level
at which we're willing to talk of that
structure and levels at which we're not
willing to talk about structure and you
staking out this intermediate what you
might call voluntarist pro reason pro
science position and that's what I took
away from the whole corpus of steven
pinker but tell me what is your take on
that
yeah III think that's a not not too far
from where I would see myself not so
much in taking an intermediate position
that's just in I in you know find the
Goldilocks zone like oh the truth is
always halfway in between two extremes I
mean it isn't always just them on the
other hand you know I do believe in the
Enlightenment vision that I understand

English: 
in our world that we the world is
intelligible that we can understand it
that that progress in understanding and
therefore progress in rational action
are possible including pointedly
ourselves that is there is such a thing
as human nature it can be studied
scientifically the way other phenomena
are studied that it's good to understand
human nature because then we can
discount when necessary illusions that
are quirks of our own makeup that we can
understand what it is that gives humans
fulfillment and satisfaction and
pleasure what are the resources that we
have to work with in in improving a
political system and I also think that
often going back to finding a middle
ground but the middle ground isn't
finding masae the arithmetic mean

Portuguese: 
in our world that we the world is
intelligible that we can understand it
that that progress in understanding and
therefore progress in rational action
are possible including pointedly
ourselves that is there is such a thing
as human nature it can be studied
scientifically the way other phenomena
are studied that it's good to understand
human nature because then we can
discount when necessary illusions that
are quirks of our own makeup that we can
understand what it is that gives humans
fulfillment and satisfaction and
pleasure what are the resources that we
have to work with in in improving a
political system and I also think that
often going back to finding a middle
ground but the middle ground isn't
finding masae the arithmetic mean

Portuguese: 
between the two extremes but rather it's
trying to go down a level of more finer
grain causal mechanisms underneath the
phenomena and to state a position that
may not look like either of the original
extremes because it's more precise so in
the case of language for example I've
always been
kind of bored by the idea is language
innate or is it learned it's just you
know it's neither it's it's not halfway
between because that doesn't give you
any insight either but rather there is
an innate structure that does the
learning because learning is not just
happen by magic there has to be
something in place that does the
learning let's characterize the nature
of the learning mechanism in terms of
its information processing abilities
what are they what is its computational
architecture as the computer scientists

English: 
between the two extremes but rather it's
trying to go down a level of more finer
grain causal mechanisms underneath the
phenomena and to state a position that
may not look like either of the original
extremes because it's more precise so in
the case of language for example I've
always been
kind of bored by the idea is language
innate or is it learned it's just you
know it's neither it's it's not halfway
between because that doesn't give you
any insight either but rather there is
an innate structure that does the
learning because learning is not just
happen by magic there has to be
something in place that does the
learning let's characterize the nature
of the learning mechanism in terms of
its information processing abilities
what are they what is its computational
architecture as the computer scientists

Portuguese: 
say once you have that that is the
solution to the nature-nurture problem
namely what's innate is an ability to
learn but since any mechanism does
something as well and something's not so
well that gives you insight as to what
and how we learn and that that makes you
relevant to the question of is it innate
or or is it learned there is something
that is in E but it says something be
innate self allows us to learn and so
it's kind of guessed beneath the
dichotomy into something that I like to
think is more intellectually satisfying
here is one difference between us
perhaps and we discussed this earlier in
the green room I think of you is
believing more strongly in the powers of
human reason than I do so when we hit
upon these various you might call them
antinomies what does consciousness
really mean is the wheel really free how
do we think about time you're quite
willing to pull us of content or Vidkun
Stein can move and say well it all
collapses into contradiction Colin again

English: 
say once you have that that is the
solution to the nature-nurture problem
namely what's innate is an ability to
learn but since any mechanism does
something as well and something's not so
well that gives you insight as to what
and how we learn and that that makes you
relevant to the question of is it innate
or or is it learned there is something
that is in E but it says something be
innate self allows us to learn and so
it's kind of guessed beneath the
dichotomy into something that I like to
think is more intellectually satisfying
here is one difference between us
perhaps and we discussed this earlier in
the green room I think of you is
believing more strongly in the powers of
human reason than I do so when we hit
upon these various you might call them
antinomies what does consciousness
really mean is the wheel really free how
do we think about time you're quite
willing to pull us of content or Vidkun
Stein can move and say well it all
collapses into contradiction Colin again

Portuguese: 
that's knowledge forever denied to us
and then there's this other sphere in
which reason operates quite well and I
tend to think of that more as a
continuum that if we can't understand
some truly fundamental things the
problems and our thinking will bleed
into everything we try to analyze and I
tend to think of Reason as being fairly
weak maybe I'm more Hayekian in this way
than you are people being ruled by their
passions as David you might have thought
and in this sense I'm more skeptical
about the Enlightenment so what can you
say to talk me out of the skepticism and
back into
that truly pink Aryan view well what are
we doing here
if you don't believe in reason you know
why don't we have a an arm-wrestle or a
beauty clinic at Sephora after dinner
okay by the first of all by the very act
of even posing this question you're
committed to reason that that's what
we're trying to explore here so you're

English: 
that's knowledge forever denied to us
and then there's this other sphere in
which reason operates quite well and I
tend to think of that more as a
continuum that if we can't understand
some truly fundamental things the
problems and our thinking will bleed
into everything we try to analyze and I
tend to think of Reason as being fairly
weak maybe I'm more Hayekian in this way
than you are people being ruled by their
passions as David you might have thought
and in this sense I'm more skeptical
about the Enlightenment so what can you
say to talk me out of the skepticism and
back into
that truly pink Aryan view well what are
we doing here
if you don't believe in reason you know
why don't we have a an arm-wrestle or a
beauty clinic at Sephora after dinner
okay by the first of all by the very act
of even posing this question you're
committed to reason that that's what
we're trying to explore here so you're

English: 
it's kind of it's too late you've
already committed yourself that's one
number two a human though he was a very
insightful psychologist and he
emphasized that humans are subject to
all kinds of irrational passions and
biases and so on that was one of the
reasons that he did philosophy was to
expose some of those fallacies the
better that we should be able to work
around them and it's argument about
reason being a slave to the passion this
was not so much a psychological claim
that people will lose self-control and
they'll let their emotions get the
better of them he's probably making a
conceptual point that the ability to go
from A to B using reason doesn't tell
you what the B should be that there's
just a logical distinction between goals

Portuguese: 
it's kind of it's too late you've
already committed yourself that's one
number two a human though he was a very
insightful psychologist and he
emphasized that humans are subject to
all kinds of irrational passions and
biases and so on that was one of the
reasons that he did philosophy was to
expose some of those fallacies the
better that we should be able to work
around them and it's argument about
reason being a slave to the passion this
was not so much a psychological claim
that people will lose self-control and
they'll let their emotions get the
better of them he's probably making a
conceptual point that the ability to go
from A to B using reason doesn't tell
you what the B should be that there's
just a logical distinction between goals

English: 
on the one hand or desires and beliefs
and that you can't through a chain of
deduction identify what you ought to aim
for that's just a category mistake
that's different from the psychological
claim that people are are permanently
irrational people can be made more
rational i I think you would say well I
would say by and by the act of what
we're doing now that is exploring
implications of ideas by science that is
by taking your beliefs and allowing
reality to refute them or not and
historically even though it's true that
people are do all kinds of crazy things
subject all kinds of irrational
prejudices passions and so on on the
other hand some ideas really do
get dropped by bad ideas get dropped by
the wayside not necessarily quickly not
necessarily absolutely but we don't have
human sacrifice anymore you know we

Portuguese: 
on the one hand or desires and beliefs
and that you can't through a chain of
deduction identify what you ought to aim
for that's just a category mistake
that's different from the psychological
claim that people are are permanently
irrational people can be made more
rational i I think you would say well I
would say by and by the act of what
we're doing now that is exploring
implications of ideas by science that is
by taking your beliefs and allowing
reality to refute them or not and
historically even though it's true that
people are do all kinds of crazy things
subject all kinds of irrational
prejudices passions and so on on the
other hand some ideas really do
get dropped by bad ideas get dropped by
the wayside not necessarily quickly not
necessarily absolutely but we don't have
human sacrifice anymore you know we

English: 
don't throw virgins into volcanoes to
get better weather we don't have too
many hereditary monarchies anymore
we they don't don't work badly oh maybe
not but probably you're on the whole
democracy's a better idea
you could have Bourbons then you would
mark hi I mean I grew up in Canada
sherry and I drove with a picture of the
Queen in my classroom so sir yes if you
have a cure these have all the pageantry
and gossip that that you have with
having a nice juicy monarchy like that
but the Queen doesn't actually think up
the laws it's probably I'm not a bad
compromise but but the in both the
progress of science and I really do
believe there is such a thing of
scientific progress I think we received
in the fruits of technology but we also
see it just in the depth and and and
then satisfying nature of scientific

Portuguese: 
don't throw virgins into volcanoes to
get better weather we don't have too
many hereditary monarchies anymore
we they don't don't work badly oh maybe
not but probably you're on the whole
democracy's a better idea
you could have Bourbons then you would
mark hi I mean I grew up in Canada
sherry and I drove with a picture of the
Queen in my classroom so sir yes if you
have a cure these have all the pageantry
and gossip that that you have with
having a nice juicy monarchy like that
but the Queen doesn't actually think up
the laws it's probably I'm not a bad
compromise but but the in both the
progress of science and I really do
believe there is such a thing of
scientific progress I think we received
in the fruits of technology but we also
see it just in the depth and and and
then satisfying nature of scientific

English: 
explanation and not linearly and not
inexorably and but but in in progress in
in so many dimensions of human life I've
documented the decline historical
declines of violence and as an economist
you know that we've gotten a lot
wealthier and life has got better in
many ways we live longer we're healthier
we have more breadth of experience and
these are all I would say fruits of the
Enlightenment despite the fact that has
products of evolution we've got a lot of
irrational quirks baked into us
fortunately and this gets us back to say
modularity or specialization we don't
only have irrational passions we do have
this big frontal cortex kind of grafted
on to a brain which now and again can
override our passions we can exert
self-control we can count to 10 we can
say for a rainy day we can hold our

Portuguese: 
explanation and not linearly and not
inexorably and but but in in progress in
in so many dimensions of human life I've
documented the decline historical
declines of violence and as an economist
you know that we've gotten a lot
wealthier and life has got better in
many ways we live longer we're healthier
we have more breadth of experience and
these are all I would say fruits of the
Enlightenment despite the fact that has
products of evolution we've got a lot of
irrational quirks baked into us
fortunately and this gets us back to say
modularity or specialization we don't
only have irrational passions we do have
this big frontal cortex kind of grafted
on to a brain which now and again can
override our passions we can exert
self-control we can count to 10 we can
say for a rainy day we can hold our

English: 
horses
not not uniformly not always reliably
but but enough that that's something
that we could we could celebrate and try
to encourage now in the middle of all of
these dialogs we have a section called
underrated overrated I'm going to name
some things from people and ask you if
you think they're overrated or
underrated and feel free to pay us on
any one of them but let's start with
wrapped music oh I I never got rad music
so I don't want to say it's overrated it
may be that I'm overrated and that is
the police might I overate myself but I
just I just know I'm a I was born I
misspoke born too soon but there's a
much younger Steven Pinker on YouTube
debating with William F Buckley and
Steven Pinker of that time is defending
black English and telling William F
Buckley he basically doesn't understand
what's special about it
and indeed Buckley doesn't so is rap
music in a sense not just a musical
extension of the black English you once
defended on firing line well it is in

Portuguese: 
horses
not not uniformly not always reliably
but but enough that that's something
that we could we could celebrate and try
to encourage now in the middle of all of
these dialogs we have a section called
underrated overrated I'm going to name
some things from people and ask you if
you think they're overrated or
underrated and feel free to pay us on
any one of them but let's start with
wrapped music oh I I never got rad music
so I don't want to say it's overrated it
may be that I'm overrated and that is
the police might I overate myself but I
just I just know I'm a I was born I
misspoke born too soon but there's a
much younger Steven Pinker on YouTube
debating with William F Buckley and
Steven Pinker of that time is defending
black English and telling William F
Buckley he basically doesn't understand
what's special about it
and indeed Buckley doesn't so is rap
music in a sense not just a musical
extension of the black English you once
defended on firing line well it is in

Portuguese: 
the sense that I would not make the
argument that there's anything that the
fact that I don't have any rap music on
my my ipod is not an argument for the
objective merit or of rap music and any
other kind of music there I'm a
relativist and likewise the grammatical
structure of African American English
from vernacular as we must call it black
English Ebonics it there's really
nothing inherently to choose between the
rules in black English vernacular and
any other English vernacular there I'm
also a relativist on the other hand when
it comes to what dialect we should use
in the informal essays in the academic
literature in the New York Times it's
good to have a standard the standard
could have been black English if history
had run differently it doesn't happen to
be it's good that we all settle on a

English: 
the sense that I would not make the
argument that there's anything that the
fact that I don't have any rap music on
my my ipod is not an argument for the
objective merit or of rap music and any
other kind of music there I'm a
relativist and likewise the grammatical
structure of African American English
from vernacular as we must call it black
English Ebonics it there's really
nothing inherently to choose between the
rules in black English vernacular and
any other English vernacular there I'm
also a relativist on the other hand when
it comes to what dialect we should use
in the informal essays in the academic
literature in the New York Times it's
good to have a standard the standard
could have been black English if history
had run differently it doesn't happen to
be it's good that we all settle on a

Portuguese: 
standard to maximize communication and
efficiency and certain aesthetic
judgments so the standardization is a
good thing but that doesn't necessarily
we mean that one standard is inherent
objectively better than another aerobic
exercise underrated or overrated
Oh i'ma write it I like it you like it I
do it for you
I hope so because I do I like to think
that I'm also accomplishing something
when I when I go jogging or cycling
behavioral economics economists planning
it psychology obviously you have a
stronger background in psychology than
the economists what do you think is
behaviorally huh I'm for it what's it
missing well I think it I do think that
it's missing I'm completely out of my
depth here but I do think that it is too
quick to dismiss classical economics - I

English: 
standard to maximize communication and
efficiency and certain aesthetic
judgments so the standardization is a
good thing but that doesn't necessarily
we mean that one standard is inherent
objectively better than another aerobic
exercise underrated or overrated
Oh i'ma write it I like it you like it I
do it for you
I hope so because I do I like to think
that I'm also accomplishing something
when I when I go jogging or cycling
behavioral economics economists planning
it psychology obviously you have a
stronger background in psychology than
the economists what do you think is
behaviorally huh I'm for it what's it
missing well I think it I do think that
it's missing I'm completely out of my
depth here but I do think that it is too
quick to dismiss classical economics - I

Portuguese: 
don't think there may be another false
dichotomy but that the idea that the
rational actor and models derived from
it are obsolete because humans make
certainly rational choices have certain
rules of thumb that can't be normatively
defended those aren't necessarily
incompatible because even though every
individual human brain might have its
quirks and be irrational it is possible
for a collective enterprise that works
by certain rules to have a kind of
rationality that none of the individual
Minds has also it's possible because we
record this the mind is many parts we
can override some of our biases and
instincts either through confrontations
with reality through education through
debate and we know that even though that
people who are experienced in market

English: 
don't think there may be another false
dichotomy but that the idea that the
rational actor and models derived from
it are obsolete because humans make
certainly rational choices have certain
rules of thumb that can't be normatively
defended those aren't necessarily
incompatible because even though every
individual human brain might have its
quirks and be irrational it is possible
for a collective enterprise that works
by certain rules to have a kind of
rationality that none of the individual
Minds has also it's possible because we
record this the mind is many parts we
can override some of our biases and
instincts either through confrontations
with reality through education through
debate and we know that even though that
people who are experienced in market

English: 
transactions for example don't fall for
the kinds of fallacies that behavior
economic behavioral economists are so
fond of pointing out you really can't
turn a person into a money pump even
though in the lab I can set up a demo
that shows that people could be
intransitive in their preferences but
you actually put a person in a situation
where there's real money at stake and
all the sudden they're not so irrational
they walk away the passive voice in
writing
it has it's underrated well he really
underrated daddy in the following sense
you open up any style manual and it one
of the first bits of advice is I don't
use the passive that's too crude
academics overuse the passive or maybe I
should say the passive voice is overused
for academics that's better better but
you know the sort as such by many people
so it is thought but it is I the cases
is overdrawn because no construction
could have survived in the language for
more than 1500 years of to preserve some

Portuguese: 
transactions for example don't fall for
the kinds of fallacies that behavior
economic behavioral economists are so
fond of pointing out you really can't
turn a person into a money pump even
though in the lab I can set up a demo
that shows that people could be
intransitive in their preferences but
you actually put a person in a situation
where there's real money at stake and
all the sudden they're not so irrational
they walk away the passive voice in
writing
it has it's underrated well he really
underrated daddy in the following sense
you open up any style manual and it one
of the first bits of advice is I don't
use the passive that's too crude
academics overuse the passive or maybe I
should say the passive voice is overused
for academics that's better better but
you know the sort as such by many people
so it is thought but it is I the cases
is overdrawn because no construction
could have survived in the language for
more than 1500 years of to preserve some

Portuguese: 
purpose and there are circumstances in
which the passive is the better choice
in particular when you have to when the
topic of the conversation the entity
that's already the in the spotlight is
the done to or acted upon another rule
of style
aside from avoiding the passive is start
the sentence with the given information
the topic in the sentence with the new
information the focus if you're already
talking about something that is done too
then that's the logical way to begin the
next sense and the passive voice makes
that possible if I'm talking about a tab
if I'm saying you look at that mine in
the park he's being pelted with zucchini
then since I've already called your
attention to the mine now I want to add
information about him if he happens to
be the brunt of an action then the
passive voice is the way to the begin
the next sentence with him as opposed to

English: 
purpose and there are circumstances in
which the passive is the better choice
in particular when you have to when the
topic of the conversation the entity
that's already the in the spotlight is
the done to or acted upon another rule
of style
aside from avoiding the passive is start
the sentence with the given information
the topic in the sentence with the new
information the focus if you're already
talking about something that is done too
then that's the logical way to begin the
next sense and the passive voice makes
that possible if I'm talking about a tab
if I'm saying you look at that mine in
the park he's being pelted with zucchini
then since I've already called your
attention to the mine now I want to add
information about him if he happens to
be the brunt of an action then the
passive voice is the way to the begin
the next sentence with him as opposed to

English: 
saying some people are throwing zucchini
at him where he gets put at the focus of
the sentence which is the best place to
introduce new information and in fact as
I point out in the sense of style the
two most famous style guides in the
English language namely Orwell's
politics in the English language and
Strunk and whites the elements of style
both accidentally use the passive in the
very sentence in which they say don't
use the passage
William Shatner Oh your fantasy in
several way our fellow Montreal Jew is
aside I have to say underrated
underrated not although maybe not a
singing here's Susan you're well known
for your photography here's Susan Sontag
writing on photography and I quote
photographing is essentially an act of
non-intervention and she also wrote it
is mainly a social write a defense

Portuguese: 
saying some people are throwing zucchini
at him where he gets put at the focus of
the sentence which is the best place to
introduce new information and in fact as
I point out in the sense of style the
two most famous style guides in the
English language namely Orwell's
politics in the English language and
Strunk and whites the elements of style
both accidentally use the passive in the
very sentence in which they say don't
use the passage
William Shatner Oh your fantasy in
several way our fellow Montreal Jew is
aside I have to say underrated
underrated not although maybe not a
singing here's Susan you're well known
for your photography here's Susan Sontag
writing on photography and I quote
photographing is essentially an act of
non-intervention and she also wrote it
is mainly a social write a defense

English: 
against anxiety and they tool of power
overrated overrated yeah Photography is
or Susan Sontag well maybe that maybe
just that passage I like like any art
form photography as many things and you
know and first and foremost it's kind of
it's a a simulacrum of perceptual
experience it's possible because visual
perception doesn't consist of of knowing
the external world directly but rather
making hypotheses about it via a
two-dimensional array of light that's
reflected from it you duplicate that
two-dimensional array of light with
pigment or LEDs and you can fool the
perceiver into thinking that using the
actual thing that is then in tension
with the fact that the photograph itself
is a splash of geometric and and colored

Portuguese: 
against anxiety and they tool of power
overrated overrated yeah Photography is
or Susan Sontag well maybe that maybe
just that passage I like like any art
form photography as many things and you
know and first and foremost it's kind of
it's a a simulacrum of perceptual
experience it's possible because visual
perception doesn't consist of of knowing
the external world directly but rather
making hypotheses about it via a
two-dimensional array of light that's
reflected from it you duplicate that
two-dimensional array of light with
pigment or LEDs and you can fool the
perceiver into thinking that using the
actual thing that is then in tension
with the fact that the photograph itself
is a splash of geometric and and colored

Portuguese: 
patches and the challenge of photography
is to both convey a sense of something
out there but also for that
two-dimensional patch to itself be an
aesthetically pleasing object and as
photographer it's I'm always cognizant
of what will that two-dimensional
patchwork of color look like and what is
it a photograph of if you think on all
the different things you've written in
various areas what do you think has been
your biggest mistake
where do I begin you know where to begin
biggest mistake I'm really I'm going to
punt on that okay that's fine what I
just say it so it's not there convey the
impression that I'd never make mistakes
if there's so many where do I begin
let's turn to the topic of World Peace
the book better angels of our nature

English: 
patches and the challenge of photography
is to both convey a sense of something
out there but also for that
two-dimensional patch to itself be an
aesthetically pleasing object and as
photographer it's I'm always cognizant
of what will that two-dimensional
patchwork of color look like and what is
it a photograph of if you think on all
the different things you've written in
various areas what do you think has been
your biggest mistake
where do I begin you know where to begin
biggest mistake I'm really I'm going to
punt on that okay that's fine what I
just say it so it's not there convey the
impression that I'd never make mistakes
if there's so many where do I begin
let's turn to the topic of World Peace
the book better angels of our nature

Portuguese: 
will be available afterwards let me ask
you a general question let us say it
were possible by spending ten thousand
dollars and devoting a few months of
your life to it that any person on earth
could blow up a significant part of a
major city they could buy something some
kind of explosive it would cost them
$10,000 how long would it take before
someone actually did this anywhere on
earth anywhere on earth seven billion
people on earth any one of them that can
come up with the 10k and have a desire
to do it which is not most people of
course price but how long would it take
before this would happen oh I have no
idea and I blow up keeping like the
tsarnaev brothers or do you mean like
Hiroshima like Hiroshima someone on
earth anywhere maybe not too long but I
don't know I could couldn't we prophecy

English: 
will be available afterwards let me ask
you a general question let us say it
were possible by spending ten thousand
dollars and devoting a few months of
your life to it that any person on earth
could blow up a significant part of a
major city they could buy something some
kind of explosive it would cost them
$10,000 how long would it take before
someone actually did this anywhere on
earth anywhere on earth seven billion
people on earth any one of them that can
come up with the 10k and have a desire
to do it which is not most people of
course price but how long would it take
before this would happen oh I have no
idea and I blow up keeping like the
tsarnaev brothers or do you mean like
Hiroshima like Hiroshima someone on
earth anywhere maybe not too long but I
don't know I could couldn't we prophecy

Portuguese: 
that but let me then work back from that
and ask you that your optimism the dead
peace is it then your belief it will
never be that cheap to blow things up
you know I I don't know my optimism
doesn't consist of prophecy in that
sense that is my optimism consists of
looking at what has happened and noting
that first of all that the pessimistic
view is actually incorrect many people
believe that we're living in unusually
violent times and we're not what how to
project that into the future is
a separate set of questions and there
are many unknowns that I just I'm not
arrogant enough to know the answer to
it's something that we could debate we
could explore them but but I am NOT an
optimist in the sense of saying well
let's just extrapolate the curves in the
future without asking questions like

English: 
that but let me then work back from that
and ask you that your optimism the dead
peace is it then your belief it will
never be that cheap to blow things up
you know I I don't know my optimism
doesn't consist of prophecy in that
sense that is my optimism consists of
looking at what has happened and noting
that first of all that the pessimistic
view is actually incorrect many people
believe that we're living in unusually
violent times and we're not what how to
project that into the future is
a separate set of questions and there
are many unknowns that I just I'm not
arrogant enough to know the answer to
it's something that we could debate we
could explore them but but I am NOT an
optimist in the sense of saying well
let's just extrapolate the curves in the
future without asking questions like

Portuguese: 
that maybe you could at least try to
talk me out of my pessimism okay what I
see is that through the course of
history societies become wealthier they
also find destructive power is cheaper
now for most people even today the
destructive power at their hands while
it can be quite terrible it's not enough
to take out an AG city or start a war
but the price of destructive power has
been falling for as long as we've had
economic growth and it's hard for me to
think of exceptions to that trend so if
I expect economic growth to continue I
expect will get in the world in some way
a bit like my $10,000 question how long
would it take and I worry that will
happen a few times and then we will
cycle into some fairly significant form
of disorder and that's my default
prediction I don't quite mean to
prophesize it but I take that to be what
one normally would expect and I'm happy
for you to talk me out of that but like

English: 
that maybe you could at least try to
talk me out of my pessimism okay what I
see is that through the course of
history societies become wealthier they
also find destructive power is cheaper
now for most people even today the
destructive power at their hands while
it can be quite terrible it's not enough
to take out an AG city or start a war
but the price of destructive power has
been falling for as long as we've had
economic growth and it's hard for me to
think of exceptions to that trend so if
I expect economic growth to continue I
expect will get in the world in some way
a bit like my $10,000 question how long
would it take and I worry that will
happen a few times and then we will
cycle into some fairly significant form
of disorder and that's my default
prediction I don't quite mean to
prophesize it but I take that to be what
one normally would expect and I'm happy
for you to talk me out of that but like

English: 
what's the weakest premise in the chain
and I've given you well I guess there
are two - one is that that every form of
physical accomplishment follows a
exponential curve of getting cheaper and
cheaper for example you know plane
travel hasn't gotten faster and faster
if you extrapolate from the Wright
brothers to say 1957 then it is totally
leveled off you know who explained any
my people moving slower for a number of
so it is not necessarily true that
there'll be a ten thousand dollar
nuclear weapon and I'm not an expert on
nuclear proliferation but my reading is
that there is if you still need the
thousands of centrifuges and so on so
that that's one at least topic to
explore again I'm not optimistic saying
Oh relax it'll never happen yeah it's
just this is but that on the other hand

Portuguese: 
what's the weakest premise in the chain
and I've given you well I guess there
are two - one is that that every form of
physical accomplishment follows a
exponential curve of getting cheaper and
cheaper for example you know plane
travel hasn't gotten faster and faster
if you extrapolate from the Wright
brothers to say 1957 then it is totally
leveled off you know who explained any
my people moving slower for a number of
so it is not necessarily true that
there'll be a ten thousand dollar
nuclear weapon and I'm not an expert on
nuclear proliferation but my reading is
that there is if you still need the
thousands of centrifuges and so on so
that that's one at least topic to
explore again I'm not optimistic saying
Oh relax it'll never happen yeah it's
just this is but that on the other hand

English: 
I think it's very easy I think it's too
easy to be a pessimist and just and to
say that I can imagine bad things
therefore they are certain which I did
gives me has been a default in a lot of
our discourse the other is how much a
desire is there for that kind of
destruction that is we could see the
rate I think the rate limiting step on a
lot on on terrorist destruction is how
many people think that it's a good idea
to cause a lot of damage for no
particular reason we could have their
complete tsarnaev brothers in this
audience and there could be a pressure
cooker that would blow up you know in
the next few minutes I don't think there
will be but clearly there's no
technological or economic impediment to
that the amount of violence that we see
is not limited by cost of technology is
limited by the number of people who
think it would be a good idea to blow a
lot of stuff up for no for no reason
other than attracting publicity and
there are certain kinds of violence that
are so pointless that just no one really

Portuguese: 
I think it's very easy I think it's too
easy to be a pessimist and just and to
say that I can imagine bad things
therefore they are certain which I did
gives me has been a default in a lot of
our discourse the other is how much a
desire is there for that kind of
destruction that is we could see the
rate I think the rate limiting step on a
lot on on terrorist destruction is how
many people think that it's a good idea
to cause a lot of damage for no
particular reason we could have their
complete tsarnaev brothers in this
audience and there could be a pressure
cooker that would blow up you know in
the next few minutes I don't think there
will be but clearly there's no
technological or economic impediment to
that the amount of violence that we see
is not limited by cost of technology is
limited by the number of people who
think it would be a good idea to blow a
lot of stuff up for no for no reason
other than attracting publicity and
there are certain kinds of violence that
are so pointless that just no one really

Portuguese: 
wants wants to do it one of the reasons
that we've gone now seventy more than 70
years without a nuclear weapon being
used in war is the purchase not terribly
useful as weapons to accomplish anything
I mean they're they're useful to deter
an existential threat an all-out
invasion that's because only why North
Korea wants them but they haven't been
used on the battlefield because leaving
a huge radioactive crater is just not a
very coherent you know war goal and the
four-day I mean you could imagine some
apocalyptic cult where destruction for
its own sake is so desirable that they
would do anything possible and we don't
know how many people like that there are
let me try it so we are gonna give away
like that there on I don't know the
answer so let me try another angle on
potential pessimism and see if you can
talk me down out of that tree I'm sure
you've thought about the Fermi paradox
there are more and more potentially
habitable planets out there and yet no
one is showing up to visit us or sending

English: 
wants wants to do it one of the reasons
that we've gone now seventy more than 70
years without a nuclear weapon being
used in war is the purchase not terribly
useful as weapons to accomplish anything
I mean they're they're useful to deter
an existential threat an all-out
invasion that's because only why North
Korea wants them but they haven't been
used on the battlefield because leaving
a huge radioactive crater is just not a
very coherent you know war goal and the
four-day I mean you could imagine some
apocalyptic cult where destruction for
its own sake is so desirable that they
would do anything possible and we don't
know how many people like that there are
let me try it so we are gonna give away
like that there on I don't know the
answer so let me try another angle on
potential pessimism and see if you can
talk me down out of that tree I'm sure
you've thought about the Fermi paradox
there are more and more potentially
habitable planets out there and yet no
one is showing up to visit us or sending

Portuguese: 
us signals or constructing glamorous
advertisements up there in the stars by
manipulating matter the universe seems
oddly quiet at least our corner of it
now that's not a surprise if you think
that civilizations tend to destroy
themselves once energy becomes cheap
enough but otherwise if one is
relatively optimistic as a default where
are they to pose families question to
you yeah I don't think there's a natural
arc toward destruction of civilizations
and in fact one could make the argument
that it's fear goes the other other
direction that has you become more
advanced civilizations develop
mechanisms that make a conflict less
likely which i think is the trajectory
we have gone on so far again I'm not
willing to prophecy that it'll continue
but you know war is a pretty stupid
thing to do
I mean you blow a lot of stuff up you
kill people and you don't end up with
anything that you couldn't gotten by

English: 
us signals or constructing glamorous
advertisements up there in the stars by
manipulating matter the universe seems
oddly quiet at least our corner of it
now that's not a surprise if you think
that civilizations tend to destroy
themselves once energy becomes cheap
enough but otherwise if one is
relatively optimistic as a default where
are they to pose families question to
you yeah I don't think there's a natural
arc toward destruction of civilizations
and in fact one could make the argument
that it's fear goes the other other
direction that has you become more
advanced civilizations develop
mechanisms that make a conflict less
likely which i think is the trajectory
we have gone on so far again I'm not
willing to prophecy that it'll continue
but you know war is a pretty stupid
thing to do
I mean you blow a lot of stuff up you
kill people and you don't end up with
anything that you couldn't gotten by

Portuguese: 
some other means as soon as you become
too belligerent you give other people an
incentive to destroy you that may not be
avoidable in a Hobbes enhancing
hierarchy but if you can have some kind
of system either of world government or
of a functional equivalent like
international norms of the United
Nations and a set of expectations then
everyone can live a lot better if you
don't if you aren't all living by the
sword it's just as plausible for me that
as civilizations advanced rather than
getting having more and more destructive
wars they could continue the trend that
we've been on since world war ii and
they eventually make war obsolete
that's another plausible subject eree
and indeed the idea that the worst
aspects of this particular primate
namely we evolved in a in such a way
that we are
too quick to anger were too quick to

English: 
some other means as soon as you become
too belligerent you give other people an
incentive to destroy you that may not be
avoidable in a Hobbes enhancing
hierarchy but if you can have some kind
of system either of world government or
of a functional equivalent like
international norms of the United
Nations and a set of expectations then
everyone can live a lot better if you
don't if you aren't all living by the
sword it's just as plausible for me that
as civilizations advanced rather than
getting having more and more destructive
wars they could continue the trend that
we've been on since world war ii and
they eventually make war obsolete
that's another plausible subject eree
and indeed the idea that the worst
aspects of this particular primate
namely we evolved in a in such a way
that we are
too quick to anger were too quick to

Portuguese: 
defend our dominance but that's the only
way for intelligence to evolve I think
is parochial it's saying that what we
see in in Homo sapiens is the only way
that they're intelligent beings can come
into existence and you know I don't have
don't think we should be constrained by
that outside of zoos and the like do you
think the other primates will go extinct
the not the other primates and I feel
pity I don't think there's a large large
of monkeys margin among large hi there
monkeys are like rats
they're you know as you go to India and
there they're everywhere great apes you
know I think it depends it just depends
on the race between poaching and habitat
destruction on the one hand and
conservation and ecotourism on the other
I don't think they have to I'm a good
but I don't think they have to if and
what do you see personally is the
greatest existential threat to high

English: 
defend our dominance but that's the only
way for intelligence to evolve I think
is parochial it's saying that what we
see in in Homo sapiens is the only way
that they're intelligent beings can come
into existence and you know I don't have
don't think we should be constrained by
that outside of zoos and the like do you
think the other primates will go extinct
the not the other primates and I feel
pity I don't think there's a large large
of monkeys margin among large hi there
monkeys are like rats
they're you know as you go to India and
there they're everywhere great apes you
know I think it depends it just depends
on the race between poaching and habitat
destruction on the one hand and
conservation and ecotourism on the other
I don't think they have to I'm a good
but I don't think they have to if and
what do you see personally is the
greatest existential threat to high

Portuguese: 
civilization how biggest worry I'll give
to climate change and nuclear war but
why climate change even if one thinks
that's very costly
is there really a scenario where it in
Civilization tent people move adjust
build table it might be a really good
yeah but it could be unrecognizable
under there would be the most extreme
scenarios of what what could happen but
you would be it'd be pretty miserable if
you imagine the number of people that
would would die in the number of and
that the decrement in prosperity so it
would be pretty bad I would say I don't
think I don't think it would extinguish
us as a species for the reasons that you
mentioned what's your favorite TV show
um you know uh let's see in all in my
entire lifetime or here now or your

English: 
civilization how biggest worry I'll give
to climate change and nuclear war but
why climate change even if one thinks
that's very costly
is there really a scenario where it in
Civilization tent people move adjust
build table it might be a really good
yeah but it could be unrecognizable
under there would be the most extreme
scenarios of what what could happen but
you would be it'd be pretty miserable if
you imagine the number of people that
would would die in the number of and
that the decrement in prosperity so it
would be pretty bad I would say I don't
think I don't think it would extinguish
us as a species for the reasons that you
mentioned what's your favorite TV show
um you know uh let's see in all in my
entire lifetime or here now or your

English: 
lifetime when you were 19
oh ah let's say I might be a Sullivan
Show
why at 11:00 well because you get it
where else could you see Italian
acrobats and then a Jewish comedian and
then the Beatles and The Supremes and
then another Jewish comedian all all in
an hour he was an early proponent of
integration on TV you probably notice a
bench aleut lee in particularly with yet
these two Supremes on what I think more
than any other any single act in an era
where America just barely December
started to desegregate so yes I like
tille Street Blues I don't even know if
that's available on streaming if I like
tears mm-hmm
those as you can see I haven't done a
lot of TV watching recently and probably
efficient unlike most academics I think
you know secretly watch TV as a guilty

Portuguese: 
lifetime when you were 19
oh ah let's say I might be a Sullivan
Show
why at 11:00 well because you get it
where else could you see Italian
acrobats and then a Jewish comedian and
then the Beatles and The Supremes and
then another Jewish comedian all all in
an hour he was an early proponent of
integration on TV you probably notice a
bench aleut lee in particularly with yet
these two Supremes on what I think more
than any other any single act in an era
where America just barely December
started to desegregate so yes I like
tille Street Blues I don't even know if
that's available on streaming if I like
tears mm-hmm
those as you can see I haven't done a
lot of TV watching recently and probably
efficient unlike most academics I think
you know secretly watch TV as a guilty

English: 
pleasure and then deny it in kind of the
other way around like I actually just
don't watch a whole lot of TV and I feel
like I ought to watch more they're
starting to use irregular verbs again so
let's take bio engineering technologies
gene editing CRISPR and the like imagine
a much more advanced version than what
stands right before us so imagine that
parents could to some extent influence
or design the children they would have
above and beyond eliminating a few
particular diseases does that worry you
or does that get you excited that we're
going to have smarter better people I
I'm skeptical of the premise as someone
who was very interested in genetically
influenced traits and was kind of
excited in the nineties at the
possibility that we find the genes in
this regime for that and there were a
number of discoveries which turned out
to be false alarms now more and more I

Portuguese: 
pleasure and then deny it in kind of the
other way around like I actually just
don't watch a whole lot of TV and I feel
like I ought to watch more they're
starting to use irregular verbs again so
let's take bio engineering technologies
gene editing CRISPR and the like imagine
a much more advanced version than what
stands right before us so imagine that
parents could to some extent influence
or design the children they would have
above and beyond eliminating a few
particular diseases does that worry you
or does that get you excited that we're
going to have smarter better people I
I'm skeptical of the premise as someone
who was very interested in genetically
influenced traits and was kind of
excited in the nineties at the
possibility that we find the genes in
this regime for that and there were a
number of discoveries which turned out
to be false alarms now more and more I

English: 
appreciate that even traits that are
that have a heavy genetic component
which most traits do the genetic
influence is distributed over thousands
and thousands of genes each of which
increment or decrement trait by a
smidgen
and many of which have a mixture of
positive and negative effects so the
idea that you'll put in the gene for
musical ability in your child just turns
out to be factually incorrect that's not
the way genes but not now saying we
apply big de the Monte Carlo methods you
only raise the chance of your kid being
a certain way by one percent but there's
that technology and let it rip for 50
generations and at the end aren't people
very very different depends on what the
trade-offs are we don't know how many
how much a boost in brain power you can
get without an increase in chances of
brain cancer or other trade-offs of a

Portuguese: 
appreciate that even traits that are
that have a heavy genetic component
which most traits do the genetic
influence is distributed over thousands
and thousands of genes each of which
increment or decrement trait by a
smidgen
and many of which have a mixture of
positive and negative effects so the
idea that you'll put in the gene for
musical ability in your child just turns
out to be factually incorrect that's not
the way genes but not now saying we
apply big de the Monte Carlo methods you
only raise the chance of your kid being
a certain way by one percent but there's
that technology and let it rip for 50
generations and at the end aren't people
very very different depends on what the
trade-offs are we don't know how many
how much a boost in brain power you can
get without an increase in chances of
brain cancer or other trade-offs of a

English: 
neural network that's to dance actually
is stupider the so I guess I'm rooted
enough in what we know about behavioral
genetics not to think that these science
fiction scenarios are there's not
particularly productive I don't think we
it's it's probably a scenario that we're
not gonna have to worry about just
because it's too complicated and we're
not going to want to especially since
every time you monkey with a gene you
are taking some chance that something
will go wrong a bit early CRISPR
Cassadine has become extraordinarily
accurate but if you're talking about
changing a thousand genes in your
offspring or 10,000 genes
we're so risk-averse in genetic
manipulation even when it comes to our
Tomatoes people won't need tomato this
genetically modified the idea that
you're going to take that kind of risk
with your children I think is
extraordinarily unlikely that we'll get

Portuguese: 
neural network that's to dance actually
is stupider the so I guess I'm rooted
enough in what we know about behavioral
genetics not to think that these science
fiction scenarios are there's not
particularly productive I don't think we
it's it's probably a scenario that we're
not gonna have to worry about just
because it's too complicated and we're
not going to want to especially since
every time you monkey with a gene you
are taking some chance that something
will go wrong a bit early CRISPR
Cassadine has become extraordinarily
accurate but if you're talking about
changing a thousand genes in your
offspring or 10,000 genes
we're so risk-averse in genetic
manipulation even when it comes to our
Tomatoes people won't need tomato this
genetically modified the idea that
you're going to take that kind of risk
with your children I think is
extraordinarily unlikely that we'll get

Portuguese: 
there from here
so you want me to speculate about the
scientific science fiction scenario in
which we do so our family that I'm a
ttle there would be a terrible thing but
I think it's kind of a idle speculation
because I just don't think it's I don't
think we have to worry about it and the
last question before we get to Q&A what
is a book we might be surprised to find
on your shelves that you've read or will
read or want to read
oh so we're not arrived to hear Jerry
Fodor and noam chomsky are on yourself
right Oh surprise us what's there that
we don't think of as a steven pinker
kind of book to read I have a big stack
of bicycling magazines and I and I am
obsessed about their difference in
weight in grams between various kinds of
derailleur and water bottle cage so it's
the aerobic exercise being underrated

English: 
there from here
so you want me to speculate about the
scientific science fiction scenario in
which we do so our family that I'm a
ttle there would be a terrible thing but
I think it's kind of a idle speculation
because I just don't think it's I don't
think we have to worry about it and the
last question before we get to Q&A what
is a book we might be surprised to find
on your shelves that you've read or will
read or want to read
oh so we're not arrived to hear Jerry
Fodor and noam chomsky are on yourself
right Oh surprise us what's there that
we don't think of as a steven pinker
kind of book to read I have a big stack
of bicycling magazines and I and I am
obsessed about their difference in
weight in grams between various kinds of
derailleur and water bottle cage so it's
the aerobic exercise being underrated

English: 
maybe anyway Steven Pinker thank you
very much - Q&A we will do from two mics
we will alternate I will call on you
this is not the time to make a statement
if you do I will cut you off you are
asking a question - steven pinker on
this side first in line preservation of
uncommon words in violence that evolved
as a result of geographic regulation
such as Appalachia and remote islands
with international effectively become
funny internet you think that we are on
track for more linguistic homogeneity we
almost certainly are and we were in the
midst of a mass extinction of languages
I don't think it will result in everyone

Portuguese: 
maybe anyway Steven Pinker thank you
very much - Q&A we will do from two mics
we will alternate I will call on you
this is not the time to make a statement
if you do I will cut you off you are
asking a question - steven pinker on
this side first in line preservation of
uncommon words in violence that evolved
as a result of geographic regulation
such as Appalachia and remote islands
with international effectively become
funny internet you think that we are on
track for more linguistic homogeneity we
almost certainly are and we were in the
midst of a mass extinction of languages
I don't think it will result in everyone

Portuguese: 
speaking in English even under the most
dire predictions say 90% of languages go
extinct that leaves 600 and no one is
going to be giving up Spanish or Hindi
or Russian or Chinese anything anytime
soon
and in fact the growth of translation
software and of national media combined
with old-fashioned national pride and
just the inertia of growing up with a
language and feeling more comfortable
and it means that we're not going to
have a
a single language try to get all the
others on this side
I appreciate the book in quite a quite
amazing thing that Bill Gates is
recommending this book so I have it do
you believe that mankind has the ability
to get prophetic dreams like Joseph in
the Bible and you believe that we can

English: 
speaking in English even under the most
dire predictions say 90% of languages go
extinct that leaves 600 and no one is
going to be giving up Spanish or Hindi
or Russian or Chinese anything anytime
soon
and in fact the growth of translation
software and of national media combined
with old-fashioned national pride and
just the inertia of growing up with a
language and feeling more comfortable
and it means that we're not going to
have a
a single language try to get all the
others on this side
I appreciate the book in quite a quite
amazing thing that Bill Gates is
recommending this book so I have it do
you believe that mankind has the ability
to get prophetic dreams like Joseph in
the Bible and you believe that we can

Portuguese: 
act on those prophetic dreams
it is psychiatry so I'm interested in
your answer from that perspective no no
no dreams are ya having jinjo kind of
screensaver they have it would it would
violate many much of what we know about
physics for agreeing to be able to
prophesy the future and our
understanding us is exciting is pretty
good it's good enough to rule out the
possibility that dreams can be prophetic
on this side you've written about the
limits of language to sort of advance
political change leaders limited
humanism treadmill and stuff like that
there seems to be modern versions of
that work you know to abolish gender
binaries we're going to abandon pronouns
and so forth and you work on University
so you're probably familiar with all of

English: 
act on those prophetic dreams
it is psychiatry so I'm interested in
your answer from that perspective no no
no dreams are ya having jinjo kind of
screensaver they have it would it would
violate many much of what we know about
physics for agreeing to be able to
prophesy the future and our
understanding us is exciting is pretty
good it's good enough to rule out the
possibility that dreams can be prophetic
on this side you've written about the
limits of language to sort of advance
political change leaders limited
humanism treadmill and stuff like that
there seems to be modern versions of
that work you know to abolish gender
binaries we're going to abandon pronouns
and so forth and you work on University
so you're probably familiar with all of

English: 
this and I'm like your opinion on some
of these strategies for advancing social
change through abandoning certain
languages and certain words and form of
the language yeah well they're they're
politically motivated campaigns to
change language can have an effect as we
see in what I called euphemism treadmill
that is the fact that we don't use the
word Negro anymore even though it was a
perfect perfectly respectful and
unexceptionable term in the to the 1970s
Martin Luther King frequently referred
to Negro he had been United Negro
College Fund and I got replaced by black
which then got replaced by
african-american and and but it's easier
to do it with what linguists call open
class okay
very items nouns and verbs then with
clothes class or grammatical items like
like pronouns and since the seventies
there have been a number of proposals to
introduce a gender-neutral pronoun into

Portuguese: 
this and I'm like your opinion on some
of these strategies for advancing social
change through abandoning certain
languages and certain words and form of
the language yeah well they're they're
politically motivated campaigns to
change language can have an effect as we
see in what I called euphemism treadmill
that is the fact that we don't use the
word Negro anymore even though it was a
perfect perfectly respectful and
unexceptionable term in the to the 1970s
Martin Luther King frequently referred
to Negro he had been United Negro
College Fund and I got replaced by black
which then got replaced by
african-american and and but it's easier
to do it with what linguists call open
class okay
very items nouns and verbs then with
clothes class or grammatical items like
like pronouns and since the seventies
there have been a number of proposals to
introduce a gender-neutral pronoun into

Portuguese: 
the English language so we would have to
say he or she or they clumsy he or she
none of them have caught on and the
language doesn't change in terms of its
it does change but not quickly and
usually not by deliberate engineering
when it comes to things like articles
pronouns past tense and plural markers
and and so on so it's a natural
resistance that they're learned early
they are highly frequent they are
distributed across millions of people
conversing with what I matter and there
so I don't think have to worry about
that changing you know too too quickly
but but sure there there are more
respectful and less respectful ways of
referring to people and we've seen those
change and they'll probably continue to
change I'm at what I call the euphemism
fed mill refers to the fact that the
reason that there often is a cycling is

English: 
the English language so we would have to
say he or she or they clumsy he or she
none of them have caught on and the
language doesn't change in terms of its
it does change but not quickly and
usually not by deliberate engineering
when it comes to things like articles
pronouns past tense and plural markers
and and so on so it's a natural
resistance that they're learned early
they are highly frequent they are
distributed across millions of people
conversing with what I matter and there
so I don't think have to worry about
that changing you know too too quickly
but but sure there there are more
respectful and less respectful ways of
referring to people and we've seen those
change and they'll probably continue to
change I'm at what I call the euphemism
fed mill refers to the fact that the
reason that there often is a cycling is

Portuguese: 
that the change in attitudes that you
want to affect by changing the language
will meet resistance in terms of all the
rest of our psychology I don't think
it's true that language determines your
attitudes and beliefs although it can
push against them and as long as there's
still some kind of negative connotation
to an entity then changing label for it
will just result in the new label
picking up the emotional aura of the
concept rather than the other way around
and as long as there is prejudice
against African Americans and very and
where the connotation is not as positive
as you'd like it to be EE the urge to
find a new label that has not yet
absorbed the taint of the existing one
now we have the african-american was I
can be took over pretty quickly in the

English: 
that the change in attitudes that you
want to affect by changing the language
will meet resistance in terms of all the
rest of our psychology I don't think
it's true that language determines your
attitudes and beliefs although it can
push against them and as long as there's
still some kind of negative connotation
to an entity then changing label for it
will just result in the new label
picking up the emotional aura of the
concept rather than the other way around
and as long as there is prejudice
against African Americans and very and
where the connotation is not as positive
as you'd like it to be EE the urge to
find a new label that has not yet
absorbed the taint of the existing one
now we have the african-american was I
can be took over pretty quickly in the

Portuguese: 
some time in the 1990s I think Jesse
Jackson was the the force behind it and
we have gone now for more than twenty
something years without a replacement of
that which might be a reflection of the
fact that that prejudice against African
Americans is declining in other cases
like Asian replacing oriental that stay
put possibly because there was less
prejudice against Asian people and there
wasn't a need to find a fresh
replacement for that if I could just
interject on this given this campaign
season and also what you can say see on
Twitter if you look for it do you think
public speech is now evolving to become
less polite is in America yeah it's
possible that I don't think that the
trumpism has shows that our attitudes
have changed that that we're becoming
more misogynistic or or racist or but um

English: 
some time in the 1990s I think Jesse
Jackson was the the force behind it and
we have gone now for more than twenty
something years without a replacement of
that which might be a reflection of the
fact that that prejudice against African
Americans is declining in other cases
like Asian replacing oriental that stay
put possibly because there was less
prejudice against Asian people and there
wasn't a need to find a fresh
replacement for that if I could just
interject on this given this campaign
season and also what you can say see on
Twitter if you look for it do you think
public speech is now evolving to become
less polite is in America yeah it's
possible that I don't think that the
trumpism has shows that our attitudes
have changed that that we're becoming
more misogynistic or or racist or but um

Portuguese: 
and and you can do some Google searches
that are kind of quicker than Gallup or
pupils to track some of these changes
that Steven said Davidowitz has shown
that for example if you google for
various racist or sexist terms that are
used in jokes you get a pretty good
barometer of racism that people may not
be willing to admit to in public and if
you if you do that you don't see a
sudden you term you turn in the
popularity of racist jokes in the last
say six months so I think it is more a
question of people who kind of kept
their attitudes to themselves now
feeling that there is that they're
allowed to get away with it that some of
the temples have been broken whether
they will reassert themselves with the
with the decline of of Trump
we don't know I serve I kind of hope so
I think that it there is a benign taboo

English: 
and and you can do some Google searches
that are kind of quicker than Gallup or
pupils to track some of these changes
that Steven said Davidowitz has shown
that for example if you google for
various racist or sexist terms that are
used in jokes you get a pretty good
barometer of racism that people may not
be willing to admit to in public and if
you if you do that you don't see a
sudden you term you turn in the
popularity of racist jokes in the last
say six months so I think it is more a
question of people who kind of kept
their attitudes to themselves now
feeling that there is that they're
allowed to get away with it that some of
the temples have been broken whether
they will reassert themselves with the
with the decline of of Trump
we don't know I serve I kind of hope so
I think that it there is a benign taboo

English: 
against over the racist and misogynistic
and homophobic language that there are
ugly attitudes that
then there always will be that there is
a benevolent hypocrisy in taboo where
there are certain things that you just
don't say in public because that does
kind of legitimate them they can be
threatened we saw that with taboo words
for sexuality starting in the 60s that
words mean you just could not say in
print or on on the airwaves are now
common that could happen with free
system and homophobic terms you know I
hope not and we need to tell next
question thanks to both of you for
inviting us to an intelligent literate
conversation I like to imagine you
always have that over almost every meal
I'd like to you speak about just how
central languages to being human I'm
thinking of Jay Lofton John Searle on
each acts in a social construct evolved
to I think for the war hypothesis that

Portuguese: 
against over the racist and misogynistic
and homophobic language that there are
ugly attitudes that
then there always will be that there is
a benevolent hypocrisy in taboo where
there are certain things that you just
don't say in public because that does
kind of legitimate them they can be
threatened we saw that with taboo words
for sexuality starting in the 60s that
words mean you just could not say in
print or on on the airwaves are now
common that could happen with free
system and homophobic terms you know I
hope not and we need to tell next
question thanks to both of you for
inviting us to an intelligent literate
conversation I like to imagine you
always have that over almost every meal
I'd like to you speak about just how
central languages to being human I'm
thinking of Jay Lofton John Searle on
each acts in a social construct evolved
to I think for the war hypothesis that

Portuguese: 
the language we use limits what we can
experience and do yeah I think it's I
think language is central to everything
else that's human I think that it was
very much figured in our evolution by
making social cooperation that much
easier namely with language for example
you can make a an agreement to do a
favor for someone now in exchange for a
very different kind of payback or a
payback very far in the future something
you can't do when you're just bartering
physical goods I think that since we our
species lives on information information
is the ultimate trade good because it is
a non rival good you can share it with
someone else without being deprived of
it yourself so it can be multiplied and
that makes it the ideal medium of

English: 
the language we use limits what we can
experience and do yeah I think it's I
think language is central to everything
else that's human I think that it was
very much figured in our evolution by
making social cooperation that much
easier namely with language for example
you can make a an agreement to do a
favor for someone now in exchange for a
very different kind of payback or a
payback very far in the future something
you can't do when you're just bartering
physical goods I think that since we our
species lives on information information
is the ultimate trade good because it is
a non rival good you can share it with
someone else without being deprived of
it yourself so it can be multiplied and
that makes it the ideal medium of

Portuguese: 
communicative of a reciprocity
conferring a large benefit to someone
else at a small cost to oneself so it we
broke eights the kind of cooperation
that is hyper developed in humans if
also I think tied in with the fact that
we're a technological species that we
live by our wits by our know-how that
with language if you make a discovery
you can spare other people from having
to remake that discovery you can pool
innovations that are invented across a
huge catchment area
I don't though endorse a version of
linguistic determinism associated with
Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir
according to which we can only think
thoughts for which there are words in
our language if that were true then
you'd have to ask how did language
originate in the first place it wasn't
kind of given to us by Martians it was
we developed language because we had

English: 
communicative of a reciprocity
conferring a large benefit to someone
else at a small cost to oneself so it we
broke eights the kind of cooperation
that is hyper developed in humans if
also I think tied in with the fact that
we're a technological species that we
live by our wits by our know-how that
with language if you make a discovery
you can spare other people from having
to remake that discovery you can pool
innovations that are invented across a
huge catchment area
I don't though endorse a version of
linguistic determinism associated with
Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir
according to which we can only think
thoughts for which there are words in
our language if that were true then
you'd have to ask how did language
originate in the first place it wasn't
kind of given to us by Martians it was
we developed language because we had

Portuguese: 
ideas that existed prior to our being
able to articulate them for which we
coined words language is always changing
again this gets back to high Hayek's
notion of spontaneous order and
distributed intelligence that that even
though language is this any given
language is a an exquisite system for
conveying complex thoughts it was never
designed by a committee it emerged
because millions of people had ideas
that they struggled to express they
would coin a bit of jargon they would
invent a circumlocution it would go
viral it would become entrenched as part
of the language and that therefore and
languages of course are always
continuing that cycle our language is
different from the language of the
founders which is different from the
language of Shakespeare so the fact that
the that we're always adding to the
language we're losing bits of the
language as I talked about in the case

English: 
ideas that existed prior to our being
able to articulate them for which we
coined words language is always changing
again this gets back to high Hayek's
notion of spontaneous order and
distributed intelligence that that even
though language is this any given
language is a an exquisite system for
conveying complex thoughts it was never
designed by a committee it emerged
because millions of people had ideas
that they struggled to express they
would coin a bit of jargon they would
invent a circumlocution it would go
viral it would become entrenched as part
of the language and that therefore and
languages of course are always
continuing that cycle our language is
different from the language of the
founders which is different from the
language of Shakespeare so the fact that
the that we're always adding to the
language we're losing bits of the
language as I talked about in the case

Portuguese: 
of you're making the verbs so that it
isn't itself the medium of thought and
you can always invent a circumlocution
if your language doesn't have a have a
pre-existing word and a lot of the brain
is devoted to forms of thinking that are
not just trading in words not just
assembling words so I think Wharf went
too far but there's no doubt that
language is an inherent part of what
makes us unusual as a species
yeah I would say I would say unique
other language other species communicate
but grammatical language in which the
meaning of the combination depends on
the arrangement of the meaning of the
parts and moreover that the number of
such combinations is unlimited
goes back to the idea of recursion which
is nowadays often associated with with
Noam Chomsky is something that without

English: 
of you're making the verbs so that it
isn't itself the medium of thought and
you can always invent a circumlocution
if your language doesn't have a have a
pre-existing word and a lot of the brain
is devoted to forms of thinking that are
not just trading in words not just
assembling words so I think Wharf went
too far but there's no doubt that
language is an inherent part of what
makes us unusual as a species
yeah I would say I would say unique
other language other species communicate
but grammatical language in which the
meaning of the combination depends on
the arrangement of the meaning of the
parts and moreover that the number of
such combinations is unlimited
goes back to the idea of recursion which
is nowadays often associated with with
Noam Chomsky is something that without

English: 
doing kind of procrustean stretching I
don't think you see in other other
species there's some aspects of birdsong
that are better combinatorial but
birdsong has no semantics that is they
the calls don't mean anything you can
have some kinds of primate calls where
maybe if you have two of them where one
order versus not the other they're
different circumstances in which the
primates out of them I think it's
different enough from human grammatical
language to say that that it really is
unique next question all right thank you
dr. Pinker for passing the discussion
while we're going to this thinking about
language society culture and your answer
your response to Tyler's question on a
likelihood of a catastrophic event
someone being willing to go out and take
such extreme measures it seems like all
this discussion is leading to us
thinking that there's a group effect or
a culture effect on the individual

Portuguese: 
doing kind of procrustean stretching I
don't think you see in other other
species there's some aspects of birdsong
that are better combinatorial but
birdsong has no semantics that is they
the calls don't mean anything you can
have some kinds of primate calls where
maybe if you have two of them where one
order versus not the other they're
different circumstances in which the
primates out of them I think it's
different enough from human grammatical
language to say that that it really is
unique next question all right thank you
dr. Pinker for passing the discussion
while we're going to this thinking about
language society culture and your answer
your response to Tyler's question on a
likelihood of a catastrophic event
someone being willing to go out and take
such extreme measures it seems like all
this discussion is leading to us
thinking that there's a group effect or
a culture effect on the individual

Portuguese: 
through evolution much more less
aggressive than my ancestors from tens
of thousands of years ago work do you
agree with the theory of group selection
India Wilson or Johnson height and do
you think that's a correct response to
wait yeah we're talking about well there
are two ideas that that I could approach
here one of them is groups is a unit of
analysis in evolution and natural
selection and then if you google false
allure of group selection or Pinker
group selection you'll see that I have I
have pretty strong opinions on it I
think that the idea of group selection
is a is a big blunder
so now I don't think that there
think that there is a Darwinian process
of differential survival of replicators
that applies to groups in the way that
applies to genes I think it's a bad
analogy the question of whether we but
you you referred specifically to the
case of violence a frequently asked

English: 
through evolution much more less
aggressive than my ancestors from tens
of thousands of years ago work do you
agree with the theory of group selection
India Wilson or Johnson height and do
you think that's a correct response to
wait yeah we're talking about well there
are two ideas that that I could approach
here one of them is groups is a unit of
analysis in evolution and natural
selection and then if you google false
allure of group selection or Pinker
group selection you'll see that I have I
have pretty strong opinions on it I
think that the idea of group selection
is a is a big blunder
so now I don't think that there
think that there is a Darwinian process
of differential survival of replicators
that applies to groups in the way that
applies to genes I think it's a bad
analogy the question of whether we but
you you referred specifically to the
case of violence a frequently asked

English: 
question that I get is how are we
literally evolving to become less
violent in the biologists sense that
genes that encourage violence are
becoming less common in the gene pool I
I doubt it but I can't move it out in
the fellow economist Gregory Clark
argued that in Europe between the Middle
Ages and the present in a process that I
actually wrote about in terms of the
quite spectacular declines in rates of
violence he speculated might have it
helped along by a genetic change I'm a
little more skeptical but I can't move
it the reason I'm skeptical is that
thinking you can see similar to you can
see declines of violence that take place
on timescales that couldn't possibly be
due to Darwinian natural selection for
example the fact that Germany went from
the world's most militaristic culture to
the world's most pacifist culture in
pretty much a generation or that the

Portuguese: 
question that I get is how are we
literally evolving to become less
violent in the biologists sense that
genes that encourage violence are
becoming less common in the gene pool I
I doubt it but I can't move it out in
the fellow economist Gregory Clark
argued that in Europe between the Middle
Ages and the present in a process that I
actually wrote about in terms of the
quite spectacular declines in rates of
violence he speculated might have it
helped along by a genetic change I'm a
little more skeptical but I can't move
it the reason I'm skeptical is that
thinking you can see similar to you can
see declines of violence that take place
on timescales that couldn't possibly be
due to Darwinian natural selection for
example the fact that Germany went from
the world's most militaristic culture to
the world's most pacifist culture in
pretty much a generation or that the

English: 
American homicide rate fell in half in
eight years there you didn't have a
turnover of generations that occurred
long enough for it to be a genetic
change so we know that the overt violent
behavior can change really really
quickly
that just means that we don't need to
need to invoke a genetic change for
similar reductions of similar magnitude
that we see in history next question I
was very few any thoughts on the
evolution fashion is ink like language
have much stronger network effects than
fashion does it easier to mix and match
parts of fashion from different cultures
and so as we go forward and closer
continues to conjoin across different
continents are we heading towards a
global super fashion or are the cultural
meanings of fashion to embody the
maintained differently circled exactly
so yeah it is uh it is it is a

Portuguese: 
American homicide rate fell in half in
eight years there you didn't have a
turnover of generations that occurred
long enough for it to be a genetic
change so we know that the overt violent
behavior can change really really
quickly
that just means that we don't need to
need to invoke a genetic change for
similar reductions of similar magnitude
that we see in history next question I
was very few any thoughts on the
evolution fashion is ink like language
have much stronger network effects than
fashion does it easier to mix and match
parts of fashion from different cultures
and so as we go forward and closer
continues to conjoin across different
continents are we heading towards a
global super fashion or are the cultural
meanings of fashion to embody the
maintained differently circled exactly
so yeah it is uh it is it is a

Portuguese: 
fascinating question and I think we are
seeing a kind of globalization of a
fashion combined with a kind of
globalization of youth culture that you
can go to an awful lot of parts of the
world and see similar baggy shorts and
eras when baggy shorts are in fashion or
for that matter in a weak fashion as
well it's actually quite astonishing
what percentage of male elites wear
neckties and jackets not too different
from this and I don't know
and it is surprising why there is such a
reduction in diversity of a fashion at
the same time as that you have this
globalization there's also a turning
over time and there is an interesting
theory with an analogy from biology
biological evolution of frequency
dependent selection mainly when and this
goes back to the art historian Quentin
Bell who in turn was influenced by

English: 
fascinating question and I think we are
seeing a kind of globalization of a
fashion combined with a kind of
globalization of youth culture that you
can go to an awful lot of parts of the
world and see similar baggy shorts and
eras when baggy shorts are in fashion or
for that matter in a weak fashion as
well it's actually quite astonishing
what percentage of male elites wear
neckties and jackets not too different
from this and I don't know
and it is surprising why there is such a
reduction in diversity of a fashion at
the same time as that you have this
globalization there's also a turning
over time and there is an interesting
theory with an analogy from biology
biological evolution of frequency
dependent selection mainly when and this
goes back to the art historian Quentin
Bell who in turn was influenced by

English: 
Thorstein Veblen but in the competition
for status in differentiating yourself
as an elite from both the hoi polloi or
the Ravel you want to look that's
different enough that distinguishes you
in Valens day that took the form of some
porosity that is fine fabrics and
tailored suits that were unthinkable
enough that you were broadcasting the
information that I can afford things
that you can't and you can't fake them
with advances in clothing manufacture
and everything manufactured with the
everything becoming cheaper you can't
differentiate yourself through some
suave City and riches also through
because of democratization and in
formalization it's kind of tacky to look
like a you belong in a Donald Trump
hotel that kind of flashy ostentation

Portuguese: 
Thorstein Veblen but in the competition
for status in differentiating yourself
as an elite from both the hoi polloi or
the Ravel you want to look that's
different enough that distinguishes you
in Valens day that took the form of some
porosity that is fine fabrics and
tailored suits that were unthinkable
enough that you were broadcasting the
information that I can afford things
that you can't and you can't fake them
with advances in clothing manufacture
and everything manufactured with the
everything becoming cheaper you can't
differentiate yourself through some
suave City and riches also through
because of democratization and in
formalization it's kind of tacky to look
like a you belong in a Donald Trump
hotel that kind of flashy ostentation

Portuguese: 
has kind of lost
status lost value as a status symbol
instead there's a value placed in in
simply being out of the mainstream
enough that there's something special
about you combined with enough of an
aura of confidence that it's not just
that you are hopelessly unhip rather
you're seen as setting the next trend
and then eventually so whenever one has
long hair you show up with a crew-cut
or vice versa when everyone has fat
lapels you have skinny lapels or a long
long skirt length of short skirt length
the people who have some claim to
already being in the elite will then
reinforce it with an unusual look which
then trickles down when it starts to be
sold in target then the elite have to
jump to yet another look and so you get
a kind of churning this is unlike
language and that it may not have a

English: 
has kind of lost
status lost value as a status symbol
instead there's a value placed in in
simply being out of the mainstream
enough that there's something special
about you combined with enough of an
aura of confidence that it's not just
that you are hopelessly unhip rather
you're seen as setting the next trend
and then eventually so whenever one has
long hair you show up with a crew-cut
or vice versa when everyone has fat
lapels you have skinny lapels or a long
long skirt length of short skirt length
the people who have some claim to
already being in the elite will then
reinforce it with an unusual look which
then trickles down when it starts to be
sold in target then the elite have to
jump to yet another look and so you get
a kind of churning this is unlike
language and that it may not have a

Portuguese: 
semiotic s-- in the sense that there's a
lot of commentary on fashion on what are
you trying to communicate by you know
your long hair your short care your fat
repels your skinny motels and the answer
may be nothing that is all your
communicating is it's different from
what you're wearing and I'm getting away
with it
and so it's similar to cases of
evolution often in parasite hosts
coevolution where simply being rare is
an advantage when being rare is an
advantage paradoxically it starts to
become more common meaning that you then
have to look to something completely
different that's rare again and that was
Belle's analysis of fashion and I think
that hold will continue to more
questions one contains thank you very
much for fascinating talk collect ask
you very quickly of language acquisition
and instance there's language learning
and adults slamming the implications
neurological development or
deterioration first off but in China
generally expect ignorant infants long

English: 
semiotic s-- in the sense that there's a
lot of commentary on fashion on what are
you trying to communicate by you know
your long hair your short care your fat
repels your skinny motels and the answer
may be nothing that is all your
communicating is it's different from
what you're wearing and I'm getting away
with it
and so it's similar to cases of
evolution often in parasite hosts
coevolution where simply being rare is
an advantage when being rare is an
advantage paradoxically it starts to
become more common meaning that you then
have to look to something completely
different that's rare again and that was
Belle's analysis of fashion and I think
that hold will continue to more
questions one contains thank you very
much for fascinating talk collect ask
you very quickly of language acquisition
and instance there's language learning
and adults slamming the implications
neurological development or
deterioration first off but in China
generally expect ignorant infants long

English: 
before they could do
fricatives and do ba or ma they get the
tone compress features pathologists
generally in China four five and six
seven year olds they correct for the BA
and B consonant for the vowels very very
swollen groans never for the tones
paradoxes in the US government of State
Department and the intelligence agencies
sent a tremendous amount of money
between people through two-year
intensive programs in Chinese and the
thing that maybe one person in a
thousand gets for the tongues the thing
that every Chinese infant automatically
gets and never forgets is in innocent
encoded indelibly do you think that in
sense at some point there I think at
five or six or seven there is a module
or capability at neurological capability
to hear members reproduce but in a sense
gets shut off in some way around the age
of sixteen twenty and so the State
Department of the intelligence agencies

Portuguese: 
before they could do
fricatives and do ba or ma they get the
tone compress features pathologists
generally in China four five and six
seven year olds they correct for the BA
and B consonant for the vowels very very
swollen groans never for the tones
paradoxes in the US government of State
Department and the intelligence agencies
sent a tremendous amount of money
between people through two-year
intensive programs in Chinese and the
thing that maybe one person in a
thousand gets for the tongues the thing
that every Chinese infant automatically
gets and never forgets is in innocent
encoded indelibly do you think that in
sense at some point there I think at
five or six or seven there is a module
or capability at neurological capability
to hear members reproduce but in a sense
gets shut off in some way around the age
of sixteen twenty and so the State
Department of the intelligence agencies

English: 
of median age from getting Chinese
that's three five a thirty six sonic
engine is a leader yes there is a there
is evidence for at least probably
several critical periods or least
sensitive periods in language
acquisition there is in particular
phonology that is the sound pattern of
the language the accent including in the
case of of Chinese tones although that's
not that also blends into the morphology
that is the distinctions among words but
that's the most sensitive that often
people who are perfectly articulate in
fluent in a second language will give
themselves away by their accent because
the mastery of the accent seems to be
more dependent on being of tender age
when you acquire it then say syntax or
vocabulary and at the end for that
matter for vocabulary there is no
critical period we learn new words all

Portuguese: 
of median age from getting Chinese
that's three five a thirty six sonic
engine is a leader yes there is a there
is evidence for at least probably
several critical periods or least
sensitive periods in language
acquisition there is in particular
phonology that is the sound pattern of
the language the accent including in the
case of of Chinese tones although that's
not that also blends into the morphology
that is the distinctions among words but
that's the most sensitive that often
people who are perfectly articulate in
fluent in a second language will give
themselves away by their accent because
the mastery of the accent seems to be
more dependent on being of tender age
when you acquire it then say syntax or
vocabulary and at the end for that
matter for vocabulary there is no
critical period we learn new words all

Portuguese: 
our lives including means for people and
places syntax may be somewhere in
between in fact I have a paper that's in
one of these interminable cycles of
revision and review
you doing kind of plea bargaining with
general referees to please publish our
paper which suggests as you speculate
that when it comes to grammar syntax and
vocabulary probably the beginning of the
of the end for mastery comes in the
teenage years that something happens
starting around the age of 15 or so that
makes it harder to achieve native
mastery if that's when you begin to
learn a language so in general the
younger is better of course if you there
are 6,000 languages you don't
necessarily know when you have a child
if they're going to grow up to be a
Chinese diplomat or do business in China
so you don't know if it's Chinese that
you should start with early or some

English: 
our lives including means for people and
places syntax may be somewhere in
between in fact I have a paper that's in
one of these interminable cycles of
revision and review
you doing kind of plea bargaining with
general referees to please publish our
paper which suggests as you speculate
that when it comes to grammar syntax and
vocabulary probably the beginning of the
of the end for mastery comes in the
teenage years that something happens
starting around the age of 15 or so that
makes it harder to achieve native
mastery if that's when you begin to
learn a language so in general the
younger is better of course if you there
are 6,000 languages you don't
necessarily know when you have a child
if they're going to grow up to be a
Chinese diplomat or do business in China
so you don't know if it's Chinese that
you should start with early or some

English: 
other language and that of course might
change but in general there is a benefit
to starting early we don't know for sure
no one has identified a particular
change in the plasticity of the brain
that explains it that probably is one
but but we're just ignorant of what gene
what if anything changes in the brain
that makes it harder to learn a language
to lead of levels of mastery if you
begin too late
last question is from Brian Kaplan and
Stephen at the end of your answer please
conclude everything by telling us what
your next book will be about after
answering Brian noting that we must
conclude by 5:00 p.m. Brian when Tyler
argues on how reason usually ignore view
but when I was doing this front row
looking at his house your books I was
really thinking about the blank slate it
seems like the entire book about how
really smart people are really wrong
about something and many of your other
books I think also could be described in
that way the smartest people in the
world can think about the subjects the
Mosers deeply misguided so one thing is

Portuguese: 
other language and that of course might
change but in general there is a benefit
to starting early we don't know for sure
no one has identified a particular
change in the plasticity of the brain
that explains it that probably is one
but but we're just ignorant of what gene
what if anything changes in the brain
that makes it harder to learn a language
to lead of levels of mastery if you
begin too late
last question is from Brian Kaplan and
Stephen at the end of your answer please
conclude everything by telling us what
your next book will be about after
answering Brian noting that we must
conclude by 5:00 p.m. Brian when Tyler
argues on how reason usually ignore view
but when I was doing this front row
looking at his house your books I was
really thinking about the blank slate it
seems like the entire book about how
really smart people are really wrong
about something and many of your other
books I think also could be described in
that way the smartest people in the
world can think about the subjects the
Mosers deeply misguided so one thing is

English: 
going wrong there and more generally so
what is it wrong about what is wrong
with that convenient there are so few
Stephen thinkers out there
but I want to talk the last question
we're not no service
yeah I I think that the there is a
intellectual equivalent of tribalism
I've drawn Hite writes about it
written about it that we tend to think
of intellectual disagreements like the
Red Sox versus Yankees there there are
it's deeply pleasurable to read
arguments that support a view that you
already hold it's really annoying to
read something that calls one of the
interventions question what are your
beliefs into question there I doing what
we want is an arena in which the rules
of the game make it so that no matter
how emotionally tied you are to your
beliefs if it's wrong it'll be shown to
be wrong and it'll just be too

Portuguese: 
going wrong there and more generally so
what is it wrong about what is wrong
with that convenient there are so few
Stephen thinkers out there
but I want to talk the last question
we're not no service
yeah I I think that the there is a
intellectual equivalent of tribalism
I've drawn Hite writes about it
written about it that we tend to think
of intellectual disagreements like the
Red Sox versus Yankees there there are
it's deeply pleasurable to read
arguments that support a view that you
already hold it's really annoying to
read something that calls one of the
interventions question what are your
beliefs into question there I doing what
we want is an arena in which the rules
of the game make it so that no matter
how emotionally tied you are to your
beliefs if it's wrong it'll be shown to
be wrong and it'll just be too

Portuguese: 
embarrassing to hold on to it or lose
for other people to hold on to it
indefinitely that's what I consider to
be the ideal of what science is all
about and intellectual discourse in
general when it works how to make it
work better are really good questions
certainly there are disturbing signs
that of the process in some ways is
getting worse I fear a Greek iron office
here and the director of foundation for
individual rights and education which is
does a brilliant job in combatting some
of the restrictions on free speech that
we're seeing in university campuses
which would be a paradigm case of going
in the wrong direction in terms of
setting up rules that allow the truths
come out in the long term so I'm hoping
for that naming and shaming and an
arguments will make free speech give
free speech a greater foothold in
academia the fact that academia is not
the only arena in which debates are held

English: 
embarrassing to hold on to it or lose
for other people to hold on to it
indefinitely that's what I consider to
be the ideal of what science is all
about and intellectual discourse in
general when it works how to make it
work better are really good questions
certainly there are disturbing signs
that of the process in some ways is
getting worse I fear a Greek iron office
here and the director of foundation for
individual rights and education which is
does a brilliant job in combatting some
of the restrictions on free speech that
we're seeing in university campuses
which would be a paradigm case of going
in the wrong direction in terms of
setting up rules that allow the truths
come out in the long term so I'm hoping
for that naming and shaming and an
arguments will make free speech give
free speech a greater foothold in
academia the fact that academia is not
the only arena in which debates are held

Portuguese: 
that we also have think tanks and we
also have a press we also have the
internet how we could set up the rules
so that despite all of the quirks of
human nature such as intellectual
tribalism or overcome in our collective
we have discourse is I think an absolute
vital question and
I just don't know the answer because
we're seeing at the same time is there
was the hope 20 years ago that the
internet would break down the
institutional barriers to the best ideas
emerging it hasn't worked out that way
so far because we have the festering of
conspiracy theories and all kinds of
kooky beliefs that so now the Internet
has not driven out but if anything of
Crete has created space for how we as a
broader culture can tilt the rules or
the norms or the expectations so that if
you believe something that's false
eventually you'll be embarrassed about
it I wish I knew but that's that's

English: 
that we also have think tanks and we
also have a press we also have the
internet how we could set up the rules
so that despite all of the quirks of
human nature such as intellectual
tribalism or overcome in our collective
we have discourse is I think an absolute
vital question and
I just don't know the answer because
we're seeing at the same time is there
was the hope 20 years ago that the
internet would break down the
institutional barriers to the best ideas
emerging it hasn't worked out that way
so far because we have the festering of
conspiracy theories and all kinds of
kooky beliefs that so now the Internet
has not driven out but if anything of
Crete has created space for how we as a
broader culture can tilt the rules or
the norms or the expectations so that if
you believe something that's false
eventually you'll be embarrassed about
it I wish I knew but that's that's

English: 
obviously what we ought to be striving
for and your next book I'm writing a
book whose tentative title is the new
enlightenment a manifesto for science
reason humanism and progress and where I
argue that the enlightenment
philosophers got a lot of stuff right
that a lot of their dreams are starting
to come true that that a lot of
dimensions of human well-being
when quantified as I try to do in
veterans of our nature turn out to be
going in a good direction a lot of
aspects of human life are improving
Steven thank you for saying about it
thank you
you

Portuguese: 
obviously what we ought to be striving
for and your next book I'm writing a
book whose tentative title is the new
enlightenment a manifesto for science
reason humanism and progress and where I
argue that the enlightenment
philosophers got a lot of stuff right
that a lot of their dreams are starting
to come true that that a lot of
dimensions of human well-being
when quantified as I try to do in
veterans of our nature turn out to be
going in a good direction a lot of
aspects of human life are improving
Steven thank you for saying about it
thank you
you
