As I explain in the introduction to the full conversation with Noam, due to an unfortunate rare mishap, this conversation is audio-only (and so is the clip). Hope you still enjoy it and find it interesting. Full episode with Noam Chomsky (Nov 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMscNuSUy0I
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Noam Chomsky is one of the greatest minds of our time and is one of the most cited scholars in history. He is a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. He has spent over 60 years at MIT and recently also joined the University of Arizona.

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So how deep do the roots of language go in our brain?

Our mind, is it yet another feature like vision or is it something more fundamental from which everything else springs in the human mind?

There's something about our genetic endowment that determines that we have a mammalian rather than an insect visual system.

And there's something in our genetic endowment that determines that we have a human language faculty.

No other organism has anything remotely similar.

Now there is a long tradition, which I think is valid, going back centuries to the early scientific revolution, at least, that holds that language is the, sort of, the core of human cognitive nature.

It's the source, it's the mode for constructing thoughts and expressing them, That is what forms thought.

And it's got fundamental creative capacities.

It's free, independent, unbounded, and so on.

And undoubtedly, I think the basis for our creative capacities and the other remarkable human capacities that lead to the unique achievements and not so great achievements of the species.

The capacity to think and reason, do you think that's deeply linked with language?

Do you think the way we, the internal language system is essentially the mechanism by which we also reason internally?

It is undoubtedly the mechanism by which we reason.

There may also be other, there are undoubtedly other faculties involved in reasoning.

We have a kind of scientific faculty, Nobody knows what it is, but whatever it is that enables us to pursue certain lines of endeavor and inquiry and to decide what makes sense and doesn't make sense and to achieve a certain degree of understanding of the world, that uses language but goes beyond it.

Just as using our capacity for arithmetic is not the same as having the capacity.


Speaker 0: So how deep do the roots of language go in our brain? Our mind, is it yet another feature like vision or is it something more fundamental from which everything else springs in the human mind?

Speaker 1: Well, in a way it's like vision. There's something about our genetic endowment that determines that we have a mammalian rather than an insect visual system. And there's something in our genetic endowment that determines that we have a human language faculty. No other organism has anything remotely similar. So in that sense, it's internal.

Now there is a long tradition, which I think is valid, going back centuries to the early scientific revolution, at least, that holds that language is the, sort of, the core of human cognitive nature. It's the source, it's the mode for constructing thoughts and expressing them, That is what forms thought. And it's got fundamental creative capacities. It's free, independent, unbounded, and so on. And undoubtedly, I think the basis for our creative capacities and the other remarkable human capacities that lead to the unique achievements and not so great achievements of the species.

Speaker 0: The capacity to think and reason, do you think that's deeply linked with language? Do you think the way we, the internal language system is essentially the mechanism by which we also reason internally?

Speaker 1: It is undoubtedly the mechanism by which we reason. There may also be other, there are undoubtedly other faculties involved in reasoning. We have a kind of scientific faculty, Nobody knows what it is, but whatever it is that enables us to pursue certain lines of endeavor and inquiry and to decide what makes sense and doesn't make sense and to achieve a certain degree of understanding of the world, that uses language but goes beyond it. Just as using our capacity for arithmetic is not the same as having the capacity.

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Noam Chomsky: Language is the Basis of Reason and Creativity