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Noam Chomsky AMA on UFO's, Cryptocurrencies, Nietzsche, Kurt Gödel, and Fear of Death

June 2, 2021 • 1:18:16 • undefined

Channel: Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

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[0:00] The Economist covers math, physics, philosophy, and AI in a manner that shows how different countries perceive developments and how they impact markets. They recently published a piece on China's new neutrino detector. They cover extending life via mitochondrial transplants, creating an entirely new field of medicine. But it's also not just science they analyze.

[0:20] Culture, they analyze finance, economics, business, international affairs across every region. I'm particularly liking their new insider feature. It was just launched this month. It gives you, it gives me, a front row access to The Economist's internal editorial debates.

[0:36] Where senior editors argue through the news with world leaders and policy makers in twice weekly long format shows. Basically an extremely high quality podcast. Whether it's scientific innovation or shifting global politics, The Economist provides comprehensive coverage beyond headlines. As a toe listener, you get a special discount. Head over to economist.com slash TOE to subscribe. That's economist.com slash TOE for your discount.

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[1:44] All right. Hello, Toll listeners. Kurt here.

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[3:09] Noam Chomsky needs little introduction. He's revolutionized the field of linguistics and in many ways he founded that field. Ordinarily, he's asked questions ad nauseum about politics, and I'm wholly

[3:21] Uninterested in that, this channel is geared toward answering the question of what is the theory of everything if there is one. That is, making progress toward theories of everything, theoretical physics, and consciousness. It's because of this latter topic that we chose to stay within the purview of psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science with Noam Chomsky. There are a couple sponsors to today's podcast.

[3:51] planning to avoid stock-outs, reduce returns, and inventory write-downs while reducing inventory investment. It's a supply chain AI that drives smart ROI headed by an equally bright individual by the name of Amjad Hussein who has been a huge supporter of this podcast nearly since its inception. The second sponsor is Brilliant. Brilliant illuminates the soul of math, engineering, and science through bite-sized interactive learning experiences.

[4:19] Brilliant's courses explore the laws that shape our world, elevating math and science from something to be feared to a delightful experience of guided discovery. More on them later.

[4:29] If you'd like to hear more conversations like this, then please do consider supporting at patreon.com slash Kurt Jaimungal. I've also recently opened up a crypto and a PayPal account, so feel free to donate through whichever medium you feel most comfortable with. These podcasts tend to take plenty of preparation, and I would like to do them more frequently with more intensity. For example, at the end of August, we have Joscha Bach and Donald Hoffman coming on to discuss the nature of consciousness. And actually, tomorrow we have Kevin Knuth and Jacques Vallee on UFOs. Thank you so much no matter what you choose.

[4:59] This channel may as well be called theories of gnome because of how often we've had gnome chomsky on he's now a dear friend

[5:06] And perhaps there'll be a sixth time, so if you want, feel free to leave some questions in the comments and I'll cull and collect them for later. If you also want to facilitate the understanding and perhaps the cultivation of one's own theory of everything, or our own theory of everything for this channel, then please join the Discord. There's plenty of wonderful, astute conversation happening there, and I'm constantly impressed with the level of civility and even ingenuity displayed in that Discord. Thank you so much, and enjoy.

[5:38] Okay, professor, thank you for coming. Pleasure to be with you again. We'll start with question number 41. That is Stephen Wolfram asks, is it true that we may have a description of how brains work slash process language at a microscopic level, and we still may not have a satisfactory science of linguistics? That is, that the lower level doesn't necessarily inform us about the higher level.

[6:09] Well, first of all, the idea of a description of how brains work at a microscopic level is a dream. People don't even know where to look. So for example, there's very good arguments that the computational work done by the brain, even in animals like insects, is at the

[6:37] probably at the cellular level, even internal to the cells, not at the neuronal level. But the fact of the matter is that if you had detailed information, say about cells or about atoms or whatever, would tell you very little about the way in which systems work. You could know everything about how the

[7:07] Atoms work in a car, and you wouldn't know how the car works. These are just at a different level of organization. The next question will be question number one, which is from Sebastian Campers. And he asks, is there meaning outside language? Depends what you mean by meaning. The term is very loose. It's an English word.

[7:37] doesn't translate very well into other languages. In English, the term is used very loosely. When you talk about the meaning of life, the meaning of the stars, anything. So the question has no answer unless you specify what you mean by meaning. There is a problem of meaning in language. What do the

[8:06] Okay, we'll do question number two, which is from Aaron. And he asks, or she asks, Are you more proud of your contributions to linguistics or your contributions to politics? Well, I don't think it's a question of pride. It's just if I look at objectively at the contributions,

[8:34] The ones to linguistics are far more substantive. In the domain of politics, pretty much everything you say is on the surface. There isn't much of any particular depth to say. Okay, then we'll get to question number 32, and it says, Cowaside. Cowaside asks, how can one discuss philosophy while staying non-political?

[9:04] by discussing philosophy while staying non-political. In a sense, there are human consequences to almost anything you do, but when you're discussing, for example, the problem of taking any problem of philosophy that you like, how do you

[9:34] What's the basis for deciding whether a scientific theory is the right one or not? What are the criteria for determining that question of philosophy of science? There's nothing political about it. Anyone, whatever, with any political view whatsoever, can discuss it. I mean, a lot of my own work when I was

[10:03] Some people say that you can't discuss philosophy without being political and that virtually everything we do is political somehow. Do you agree with that? I think it's

[10:33] Everything we do, there are things that have so few human consequences that to say that they're political is meaningless. Like discussing, say, with Van Quine, the first philosophy teacher, one of the first, the question of whether you can make a distinction between analytic and synthetic sentences.

[11:04] It's a mixed story. I think people who refuse to accept vaccines, I think the right response for them is not to force them to

[11:34] but rather to insist that they be isolated. If people decide, I am willing to be a danger to the community by refusing a vaccine, they should then say, well, I also have the decency to isolate myself. Okay, I don't want a vaccine, but I don't have the right to run around harming people. I'll just

[12:02] That should be a convention. Enforcing is a different question. It should be understood, and we should try to get it to be understood. If it really reaches the point where they are severely endangered people, then of course you have to do something about it. So if someone, if smallpox turns out to

[12:32] become rampant again. And some people are insisting on running around to public places where they might have smallpox. Well, you've got to do something about it. We're not at quite that situation, but it's a similar one. So I think we should first attempt to establish conventions that will be understandable by people with some

[13:01] I would really like to know how Chomsky avoids despair given all that's wrong in the world and also given the shortness and potential meaninglessness of life.

[13:31] Well, I've had 92 years, which doesn't seem short. Never thought that life was meaningless. Thought it was constantly rich in opportunities, significance, happiness, aspirations. I don't know anything that's meaningless about that. Another way to avoid despair is to recognize how much

[13:59] You can achieve if you devote yourself to it. You can look over the past record. See, I can look over, say, pretty much 85 years, say, of conscious life, conscious of what's happening in the world. And there have been enormous changes, not all to the good, but many very positive. They haven't just happened. They weren't miracles.

[14:28] happened because people did not succumb to despair and feelings of meaninglessness, but devoted themselves to improving the world. People whose names we don't know, endless numbers of them, and it's made a difference. Now it happens right to the present moment, right to the present moment. You can see it in today's newspaper. There are things that

[14:56] People are willing to say and understand and comprehend now that wouldn't have been understood at all not very long ago. So for example, you can open the New York Times today and read an article by Benjamin Applebaum, writes about social issues on how the legal system that distributes

[15:27] funds to unemployed workers, how it functions. And as he points out, it functions on pure racist grounds established in the 1930s, 1940s, because racist southern states did not want federal benefits to go to their mostly black workers.

[15:56] But at least today, it can be generally condemned, not by the Republican Party, but by others. And it can be an issue which you can try to move to change. Pick that at random, because it happens to be an article I just read. But you can pick almost random and find similar things. The world, in many ways, there are serious, significant improvements

[16:26] Thank you. We'll get to question 37.

[16:55] How do we differentiate between good science and pseudoscience?

[17:13] I would put it a little bit differently. How do we differentiate between good science

[17:43] and science that's not so good. I don't know what pseudoscience, I mean, there is pseudoscience, pretense, okay, we don't want just pretense. But within the search for understanding truth, the basic goals of science, there are many approaches. The ones that are, we find which ones are the good ones by

[18:13] Inquiry, debate, critical analysis, experimentation, discussion, free interchange, all the methods that are available to us and that over time tends to lead to selecting the scientific ideas that are the more viable ones and the better ones. It's not a yes or no. It's not a yes or no

[18:43] business. So for example, ideas that were considered very marginal, not taken seriously for a long time, even in physics, let alone other sciences, later are discovered to have a high degree of credibility and worth pursuing. You always keep them on the shelf, think about them. It's not pseudoscience, it's just ideas that don't seem to make any sense at some particular time.

[19:18] have critical, careful analysis, careful study of the data, debate and discussion about ideas and theories, experimentation when it's appropriate. And out of that mixture of options comes a general move towards better science. Doesn't happen in a day. I take Isaac Newton's theories,

[19:48] I mean, they were considered so exotic that at his own university in Cambridge, they weren't even taught for about 40 or 50 years. Well, by now, soon after that, they just became scientific common sense. That's the way science functions. We'll get to question 39.

[20:12] Well, first of all, I'm no specialist on this topic, so my opinions don't really amount to very much. But for what they're worth, I don't see any sign that Bitcoin is

[20:40] Okay, we'll get to question five from page one.

[21:08] I haven't seen any proposal to that effect, and I don't think that the problems of a democratic voting system are technical. They're not questions of how to make it work smoothly.

[21:38] There are very serious problems in a democratic system. To take a pretty obvious problem and simply ask the question whether under our system or any modification of it that might be given by digital technology, whether voters are represented by their own representatives. It's a pretty straightforward question.

[22:08] Fair measure of democracy, pretty easy to study. You study the attitudes and preferences of voters, compare it with the votes of their own representatives. That has been done in very sophisticated ways. The most recent study by McGuire and Delahunt uses all sorts of sophisticated deep learning and so on and so forth.

[22:38] comes out with pretty much the same results as other studies. The large majority of voters are not represented. Their own representatives act independently of what the preferences of the electors are of their voters. They're listening to other voices. And we know exactly how it works. If you're in the McGuire-Delahunt, they say maybe it's up to 90%.

[23:08] other estimates have been 70%. As you move, and of course, it's the lower part of the income spectrum, wealth spectrum. So as you get to the higher levels, yes, of course, they're represented. In fact, those are the voices that their representatives are listening to. And a lot of the reasons have

[23:44] which that enters the political system through, for example, campaign funding. So if you're elected to Congress, the first thing you do on the first day in office is start calling the mega donors, the people who have lots of money to contribute to campaigns, because you have to start preparing the funding for the next campaign.

[24:13] campaign. Electability is predictable with very high precision simply by looking at the variable of campaign funding. Thomas Ferguson's political scientist has done the main work on this very high predictability. So you're on the phone talking to the donors. Meanwhile, hordes of corporate lobbyists are

[24:40] invading your office to talk to the staff, overwhelming them with all sorts of claims, evidence, demands and so on. Staff may be very good people, but they're not going to be able to deal with this massive power. So you end up with legislation written substantially by the corporate lobbyists, the same people who

[25:09] representative is talking to on the phone to try to get funding for his next elections. It's not 100% of what happens, but it's a very substantial part of the political system. So out of that kind of arrangement comes an enormous gap between voters and their own representatives, for all but the very top of the income level.

[25:39] No technical problem is going to overcome that. It's the wrong place to look. So whether blockchain could do anything, I don't know, would have no effect on this. John Doe, the question seven. John Doe wants to know, what does Chomsky think about the latest UFO slash UAP revelations confirmed by the Pentagon? Well, I

[26:07] I think the word revelation is a little strong. I would say claims. We don't know what they mean. There are lots of possible explanations for why an airplane pilot would think he's seen something. I think UFO is one of the least likely explanations for it. So let's look at the evidence. That was an open mind, but

[26:37] Quite frankly, I don't expect anything to come of it. Okay, we'll get to question 17. This is also about aliens. If we were to make contact with aliens, what kind of language could we use to ask them questions like, where are you from? Why are you here? Etc. And this is from Patrick O'Donnell. If we... First of all, it's very unclear that there are

[27:05] intelligent aliens anywhere within the parts of the universe that are accessible to us. Remember, there are physical constraints on what parts of the universe are accessible to us. It's a huge, enormous number of planets, very similar to ours, but that doesn't mean that you're going to find intelligent life. In fact, there's some evidence that recent studies have shown that the

[27:37] probability of reaching the even cellular complexity that allows life, let alone intelligent life are quite small. So there's no reason to assume that there is intelligent life. We might literally be alone in the parts of the universe that are accessible to us. But suppose we do run into that might be the answer to the

[28:17] You look at what we call intelligent life on Earth. If by intelligent you mean something like human intelligence. My dog is intelligent, but it's not going to communicate with aliens. So if we mean the kind of intelligence that would allow this question to be raised, it's a phenomenal accident. Life has been around on Earth for

[28:46] almost four billion years until maybe a couple hundred thousand years ago this question couldn't even been asked. It's an instant of evolutionary time and it's the result of a long series of accidents which could have turned out some other way. So we don't know. But suppose there is, suppose we do make some contact. Well the first question would probably be

[29:16] How much is two plus two? The one thing that intelligent life is likely to have is arithmetic. And there are pretty good reasons for that. There's interesting studies by Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of artificial intelligence and

[29:44] Very smart guy, friend, colleague died a couple of years ago. He was one of those scientists who was very interested in the possibility of making contact with aliens. And he and one of his students back in the 60s did an interesting study. They took what are called touring machines.

[30:10] abstract computers. It doesn't matter what the physical structure is, just think of it, the way a computer functions abstractly. And they studied the simplest ones, the ones with the fewest states and the fewest symbols, and just let them kind of run free, see what they would do. It turns out that almost all of them crashed. They either ran into

[30:40] endless cycles or one or another way just crashed. Some survived. The ones that survived produced the successor function, the function one, two, three, four, which is the foundation of arithmetic. If you have the successor function, you can then move

[31:05] with a few tweaks to get addition, subtraction, multiplication, essentially arithmetic. So what Minsky concluded is that if there's intelligent life somewhere, nature will at least have found the simplest possible form of intelligence, namely successor function. And in fact, that's pretty widespread in the

[31:36] organic world. So for example, ants can count the number of their steps. If an ant is wandering in the desert and it wants to know how to get home, it counts up as a record of the number of steps it's made and takes them back. So something like successor function is pretty widespread. It's of some interest that the successor function

[32:06] and the elements of arithmetic actually are very closely related to the core computational properties of human language. If you take the very simplest possible case of a possible language, a lexicon with just one word in it, and the most simple computation, you get something like the successive one.

[32:35] So it's very likely in many grounds that if evolution ever reached this point, it would at least have that. So the first point of effort to interact with some AI and intelligence would be to see if we can at least find common ground on arithmetic, then move on from there. Questions like the ones asked, what they want. Where are you from? Why are you here?

[33:06] That's way off in the distance. First, you want to try to see if it's possible to make some contact.

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[34:38] You're watching this channel because you're interested in theoretical physics, consciousness, and the ostensible connection between the two.

[34:56] the underlying physical laws, and you may think that this is beyond you, but that's false. Brilliant provides polluted explanations of abstruse phenomenon such as quantum computing, general relativity, and even group theory. When you hear that the standard model is based on U1 cross SU2 cross SU3, that's group theory, for example. Now, this isn't just for neophytes either. For example, I have a degree in math and physics and I still found some of the intuitions given in these lessons to vastly aid my penetration

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[37:20] General questions like that. They had some interesting contributions. Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, others. Some of it we can learn from. Personally, myself, I don't get a lot from it, but I think it's worth studying. Okay, question 30. That's on page three.

[37:47] Will Wall wants to know, do you fear death? Why or why not? Well, when I was about 10 years old, maybe 12 years old, I started to think about what would happen when I die. And what concerned me was that when my consciousness ended,

[38:18] How could I know whether the world would even persist? Would there be anything else, or would that be the end of the universe? And that was a pretty frightening idea. But it took me about a year or two to get over it. I said, yeah, I think the world will persist. So, death is part of life. Enjoy life while you have it. Do what you can with it. It'll end. The world will go on.

[38:49] Okay, the question right before that, 29. Ivan Billu. Why do people have multiple personality disorders and how do you explain someone waking up and speaking a foreign language? Well, if they're speaking a foreign language, it's a language that they already knew. They're not going to speak a foreign language they never heard before. A person who's lived his whole life in

[39:18] Tucson Arizona, where I now am, is not going to wake up in the middle of the night and start speaking Swahili. As to why there are personality disorders, psychology doesn't really understand this. The human mind is a very

[39:47] Question 19, similar from Brandon from Sacramento, who asks, what are Professor Chomsky's thoughts on... What are Professor Chomsky's thoughts on glossolalia?

[40:17] Again, I've seen it in evangelical churches and it happens, but what's involved in it again is far beyond the reach of any scientific understanding. We have to recognize that science is hard,

[40:48] It's hard to explain even simple things. Take ants again, just trying to figure out how the ants in my backyard can navigate. They can navigate way better than I can. They can deal with properties of the Sun and where it is and all sorts of things that are way beyond my capacity.

[41:16] They do this with a very tiny brain, miniscule brain. Nobody knows how it works. If you can't answer questions like that, you're not going to answer questions about psychiatric disorders among humans. You can get some level of understanding, but it's not going to be at any theoretical depth. I mean, questions of

[41:44] Janice Villamengo asks, The Innocent Project is an organization that works toward exonerating the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices.

[42:13] There's...

[42:43] always a kind of conflict between those who make charges against someone and the person who is the target of the charges who wants to exonerate himself. That's what court proceedings are about. It's always a conflict. The accused, the accuser has a grievance. The accused may profess innocence.

[43:14] That's what happens in every court of law every day of the week. This is a particular case, a far-reaching case. The Innocence Project is properly trying to ask of those who are accused, is there sufficient evidence against them? The MeToo movement is saying there are plenty of people who are being abused, not listened to. We have to listen to them. Okay?

[43:44] So this is a large scale, highly significant aspect of any legal proceeding, which has an accuser and an accused. How do you deal with it? There's no algorithm. You have to deal with it by thinking carefully through the claims,

[44:15] the feelings, the attitudes on all sides, and try to adjudicate. There is a presumption of innocence. We should maintain that. We have to assume, I think it's correct to assume, the principle of innocent until shown to be guilty, proven to be guilty.

[44:44] to demonstrate guilt. Short of that, we should presume innocence. That's tough on the abused, because they may not be able to provide the evidence. But I don't think there's a way around that. We can't, even if we can assume that the abused have a strong case, unless they can

[45:09] Number 15. Realistically, would a human society where the lack of free will is the commonly accepted truth be any different than the current human society where having free will is... Sorry.

[45:39] Let me restate. Realistically, would a human society where the lack of free will is the commonly accepted truth be any different than the current human society where having free will is the commonly accepted truth? There are sub communities in our society where lack of free will is the commonly accepted truth. Large part of the scientific community believes that.

[46:07] large part of the philosophical world believes that, thinks everything is determined, that freedom of will is just an illusion. Actually, none of the people who profess this really believe it, in my opinion. They, in fact, they're trying to convince you of it. They're giving reasons. If we're all just thermostats acting

[46:37] In a totally determined profession, giving reasons is a totally pointless activity. You don't give reasons to an automaton. It behaves the way it's gonna behave. So my feeling is, intuitively, all of us believe that we can make a decision as to whether, say, to lift my little finger or not. I can decide, do I want to do that or don't I?

[47:07] I think everybody intuitively believes that there are a large number of highly sophisticated, brilliant people who think they can convince themselves that they can't make that decision. They're among us. Society functions exactly the same for them as it does for us. So the answer to the question I think is already given to us. There are great many among us.

[47:41] Question number 18. From Ideas Sleep Furiously. Who's the smartest person Chomsky ever met and does he have any cool anecdotes about that person? I'm a huge fan of Chomsky. Please don't let him just say they're all just normal people. I want juicy gossip.

[48:11] This man has met everyone from Rawls to Ed Whitten. Nobody's just a normal person. Everyone has all kinds of properties, all kinds of characteristics, abilities, talents. I mean, there are people I've met in rural communities, people who can just do anything, any technical problem you present to them.

[48:41] say my card doesn't work, or they can look at it and start to fix it. To me, I'd never have that talent. Some of the smartest people I've ever met would just say, throw it out. There's no way to deal with it. There are just different talents. There are people who are great musicians, can't do many other things. I mean, people are what they are. I've met lots of people who are

[49:09] conventionally very smart. You want to ask them a question about quantum physics, they'll explain it to you. Understand the latest ideas in category theory and mathematics, they'll give you a lecture about it. You want to know about

[49:39] Is there someone in particular who impressed you with their intellect?

[50:07] An old friend from high school was a friend until his death a couple of years ago. My only high school friend who I stayed friendly with, Hilary Putnam, brilliant philosopher, mathematician, scientist. We were pretty close most of our lives, disagreed on almost everything, but philosophical

[50:36] I mean, there are some quite amusing anecdotes, as I didn't see this myself, but a famous one has to do with Kurt Erdl, who's maybe the greatest mathematician of 20th century. I met him, a very strange guy, very brilliant, but very strange. His

[51:06] Two of his close friends, Albert Einstein and Oscar Morgenstern, decided to try to convince him to become an American citizen. He was an immigrant like all of them were. So he had to go to a place where you get tested, you know, how's the Senate elected, that sort of thing.

[51:34] So Gödel studied the Constitution in depth. When he came to Einstein one day and he said there's a problem, he found a contradiction in the Constitution. And when he goes for his test, he's going to have to tell the guy that there's a contradiction in the Constitution. So Einstein and Morgenstern tried to convince him to

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[52:20] Jokes aside, Verizon has the most ways to save on phones and plans where you can get a single line with everything you need. So bring in your bill to your local Miami Verizon store today, and we'll give you a better deal. Rankings based on root metrics, root score report data to 1H2025, your results may vary. Must provide a post-paid consumer mobile bill dated within the past 45 days. Bill must be in the same name as the person who made the deal. Additional terms apply. You said that Kurt Gödel was strange. What about him was strange? Oh, uh, yeah.

[52:49] I was appointed to the Institute for Advanced Studies back in 1958, where he was a senior research fellow. And of course, I wanted to meet Gödel. As soon as I had a chance, I made an appointment with him, went into his office. He asked me politely, what kinds of things are you working on? I said,

[53:19] wasting your time. It's all been solved by Leibniz. And it turned out, then I listened for an hour to a lecture on Leibniz. He had about every book on Leibniz from the Princeton Library in his office, and he was studying Leibniz in depth. He was convinced that Leibniz basically had the answer to everything, and he had it detected by

[53:49] studying carefully what he had to say, kind of reminded me of a person who obviously I never met, Isaac Newton, another brilliant figure who spent much of his life studying the Church Fathers. He was convinced that the Church Fathers had understood things at a level of depth and insight that

[54:14] Question 24. This is Tobia Davico.

[54:40] He or she wants to know, question for Professor Chomsky, has Jacques Lacan influenced your thinking on the nature of language in any way? Do you recall anything in particular about your encounter with them in 1975? Thank you, from Italy. Jacques Lacan was, I don't remember the year, maybe it was 75, was invited to

[55:08] MIT by my friend Roman Jacobson, a very eminent linguist, one of the great humanistic figures of the 20th century. He invited him to give a talk at MIT and nobody was much interested, but Jacobson convinced me and

[55:35] Cliff's friend, Morris Halley, who was close to Jacobson, he convinced us to try to round up an audience for him. So we managed to convince a lot of students and others to come. And Lacan gave a talk in French, which was so embarrassing that at the end of the Roman, Jacobson was the moderator

[56:04] the end of the talk, people were kind of shuffling and looking at each other and so on. It was embarrassing because it was boring or because of some other reason? Total nonsense. Total utter nonsense. At the end he asked, fortunately it was in French and plenty of people just didn't understand it. But those who did understand it were

[56:28] pretty much appalled. At the end, Jakobson turned to the audience and said, asked for questions. And nobody had any, nobody wanted to say anything. So he called on me and said, would I like to comment on it? So I had to figure out a way to say something that was not embarrassing, not stupid.

[56:57] said something or other, forget what it was. But the answer to the question is no, there's never been any influence. So the question you're trying to not be embarrassed for yourself or for him when you were trying to come up with a question. I had to say something I didn't want to embarrass him. There was nothing to talk about about the content of his talk. Somehow say something in

[57:25] that situation, which would be, you know, appropriate, not, not harsh, of course, but not supportive either. So just something to turn the discussion into some possible direction. I should say that afterwards, we all went out to Jacobson took us all out

[57:59] Okay, speaking of eating, number 28. This is from Queerdo.

[58:28] I heard that you are or were participating in an anti-aging program and that a plant-based diet was a part of it. Can you tell us how that's been going? First of all, is that even true? It's not true. I've never heard of any anti-aging program and if there was one, I wouldn't be participating in it. However, it probably is true that a plant-based diet is generally good for your health.

[58:58] aside from many other advantages like mitigating the torture of animals, the very negative effect on global warming of the industrial production and agriculture and so on. So there may be very good reasons for

[59:27] Okay, speaking on that number 22, Henry S. Is there a practice that you partake in, in particular that keeps your mental faculties as sharp as they are as you age? Do you personally think, do you personally feel as if you've slowed at all?

[59:59] particularly slow. There are things I can't do that I used to do. Like, I often forget names, for example, forget phrases. More so than before, or you always? That's a normal part of aging. But the only thing I do is what's sometimes called the bicycle theory. As long as you keep

[60:29] going fast you don't fall so what do you do on a daily basis are you writing are you reading or a lot of writing a lot of things like this this is had several talks today already uh some interviews just tons of mail just constantly working taking i can't say it or there'll be a rush to the door but i

[61:00] My animals and the canines. Well, okay. How about 26? Noah Mueller from Germany asks, Is there a connection between language and movement? Does the language I speak actually change the way I move? Does it change the movement patterns of the speaker? Well, if you look at anybody speaking, you'll find they're almost always gesturing. And the

[61:29] Gestural aspect does mirror properties of what is being said. It mirrors emphasis, focus, the prosody, the pitch contours and so on. This varies from culture to culture. There's some cultures where there's a very lot of gestural activity going along with language. There are others in which people tend to be

[61:59] Why does Chomsky think it's the case that psychedelics are illegal and still frowned upon when more dangerous drugs like alcohol are legal and even normalized?

[62:30] Well, remember that that's not always been the case. There was a time when alcohol was illegal, the whole period of prohibition. And in general, when you look at the whole history of criminalization of substances, it's usually a kind of class and race war. It's the

[63:00] populations that are being subdued and controlled, whose drugs are criminalized. So prohibition was a way to keep the immigrant communities who were going to saloons to keep them under control. Incidentally, throughout the whole period of prohibition, if you were

[63:28] a rich New Yorker living in upstate New York, nobody was going to stop you from drinking wine. But if you were an immigrant worker in downtown New York, you couldn't go to your favorite saloons. If you look at the history of not just psychedelics, but even say marijuana, at the end of Prohibition, there was a big federal apparatus.

[63:58] to implement the criminalization of alcohol. Anne Hauser was the head of it. So there was this huge bureaucracy. They had nothing to do. So they immediately tried to find something else to criminalize. What they picked was marijuana. Marijuana was commonly used among Mexicans and Blacks.

[64:26] Mexican Americans and blacks. And therefore that was picked as the target of criminalization. There were Senate hearings, all sorts of stories concocted about how marijuana makes people insane, makes them killers, you know, gotta stop it. Actually that ended after a while because

[64:57] What happened was that criminal lawyers were beginning to catch on to the fact that you could mount a criminal defense for your client by saying he'd been smoking marijuana, so therefore he was not conscious of what he was doing. Well, when it got to that point, the law started being changed, but basically it continued to be criminalization. Hear that sound?

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[66:40] The substance is being used by parts of the population who you want to

[67:02] psychedelics came later. But the questioner is certainly correct. Drugs like alcohol are far more dangerous. Tobacco is more dangerous than any of them. It's enormous. The number of people who die from tobacco is huge, but it's never been criminalized. Rich, powerful people smoke

[67:30] drug companies, the tobacco companies have enormous power. For decades, they were able to suppress even the basic information about the lethal effects of smoking. It's finally been reduced, but on a class basis. So it's now like if you go to an elite university, walk around,

[68:00] won't see students smoking, but you will see staff smoking. Go to a major hospital, the doctors won't be smoking, but the staff may well be outside because they're not allowed to smoke into them. So it's turned into a kind of a sort of a class issue. And smoking has been

[68:27] sharply reduced among more educated sectors of the population, not others. But it's never been criminalized. It was just a drug used by the wealthy and powerful and there were major capitalist institutions that just defended themselves against it. That hasn't been true for marijuana. Of course, the use of marijuana is changing slowly.

[68:53] Attitudes are changing. Walls are changing. It's different now than it was 20 or 30 years ago. These are social and cultural changes. But it is certainly true that criminalization had a very little relation to lethality, to harm, for other purposes.

[69:18] The last time we spoke, you mentioned that you were uninterested in mind-altering drugs like psychedelics and marijuana and so on. And I'm curious, is there a reason why? Is it because of the stigma or you wanted to keep your mind sharp? Just lack of any interest, no particular reason. I mean, you know, I was, especially in the 60s when I was very much involved with

[69:49] Number four, do you have any thoughts on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche? My main thought is I wish I had time to read his work more carefully.

[70:19] Did you find it provocative, interesting, false? The little I've read, which is not much, is highly intriguing and interesting. But among the myriad things that I haven't had time to study, that's one. Okay, the question right before this, three. Ravi Ray from Hong Kong wants to know, do you think that we can objectively determine that some works of art are better than others?

[70:49] Well, I think we can determine it. Actually, I have a criterion I use to decide whether something's a work of art. If I could do it, it's not a work of art. That's one objective criterion. But we know somehow. It's not easy. Changes over time. Attitudes to what understanding is to what the

[71:23] You somehow know. How do you know? It's a matter of what's the nature of our aesthetic capacities. A serious art critic can be very helpful in explaining what it is that it is about, say, a great work of art that's not true of something I would draw. But is that objective?

[71:54] There are objective criteria, but understanding of how this works is another one of those problems that's pretty well beyond comprehension, that we can gain very intriguing understanding of. When you read a serious art critic like, say, Meier Shapiro or Yech Gombrich, you learn a lot, at least I do,

[72:27] Okay, number eight. Beers Attitude wants to know, what are Chomsky's views on antinatalism? Don't really see any point to it. If you don't want to have children, fine. But if, why we should decide that other lives should not exist,

[72:54] I don't see any, do I have any right to say that? What if they say, what if they want to know, do you view having children as unethical because it contributes to environmental problems or overpopulation? Forget about mandating it or legalizing or not legalizing. It contributes to problems. It also contributes to progress. We want to have works of art, for example.

[73:23] or scientific understanding, or technical solutions to the problems around us. They're going to come from people. You don't have people, you don't have the contributions. Okay, someone from the chat, Drury wants to know, this is just from the chat, if a complex language is unique, but other species collaborate on group projects, is it possible it was a devolution? Was the innovation around

[73:53] Lying. I don't understand the question, do you? No, I don't. I don't see it on the chat either. Is it on the chat? Yeah, it's on the chat. I don't know why I'm not seeing it. Okay, we're gonna move on. Drury, if you can, you can rewrite that. Number 10. Hamad from Iran asks, what do you think of it from bit from John Wheeler?

[74:22] He's a great physicist. Met him. Impressive person. Competent physicist. Take him quite seriously. I'm not competent to judge. Actually, I am competent to judge that I'll have to leave, I'm afraid. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Before you go, the last question then, the one right before this about Steven Pinker, that one you should be competent enough to judge. Jens from Belgium asks, what do you think of Steven Pinker's words and rules theory of language?

[74:52] where regular verbs rely on rules and irregular verbs rely on lexical memory. Thanks. Well, when Pinker produced that book, it was a contribution, but it's now been superseded by much more far-reaching work, especially work by Charles Yang, a computer scientist, linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, did very exciting work on

[75:23] a lot of it's in a book called The Price of Productivity, where he developed a general method, a sophisticated method to determine the conditions under which someone acquiring a language would pick rules rather than lists. And it gives very precise answers to the course of development of children in the

[75:53] Chomsky, thank you so much. I'm humbled every time we speak. I'm a huge admirer of you. Thank you so much.

[76:22] Nice to be with you. Thank you all. I'm looking through the chat. I didn't have a chance to ask all of your questions or almost any of your questions on the chat. It's extremely difficult for me to pay attention to Chomsky, which I want to do. I don't want to keep looking down. It's rude and it takes me out of the moment. But at the same time, I do want to answer your questions. You're kind enough to watch live and interested enough to type

[76:51] It's a delicate balance. And I tend to choose the guest over the chat. Okay, well everyone, thanks so much for watching. Have a great one.

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      "text": " Noam Chomsky needs little introduction. He's revolutionized the field of linguistics and in many ways he founded that field. Ordinarily, he's asked questions ad nauseum about politics, and I'm wholly"
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      "text": " Uninterested in that, this channel is geared toward answering the question of what is the theory of everything if there is one. That is, making progress toward theories of everything, theoretical physics, and consciousness. It's because of this latter topic that we chose to stay within the purview of psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science with Noam Chomsky. There are a couple sponsors to today's podcast."
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      "text": " If you'd like to hear more conversations like this, then please do consider supporting at patreon.com slash Kurt Jaimungal. I've also recently opened up a crypto and a PayPal account, so feel free to donate through whichever medium you feel most comfortable with. These podcasts tend to take plenty of preparation, and I would like to do them more frequently with more intensity. For example, at the end of August, we have Joscha Bach and Donald Hoffman coming on to discuss the nature of consciousness. And actually, tomorrow we have Kevin Knuth and Jacques Vallee on UFOs. Thank you so much no matter what you choose."
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      "text": " And perhaps there'll be a sixth time, so if you want, feel free to leave some questions in the comments and I'll cull and collect them for later. If you also want to facilitate the understanding and perhaps the cultivation of one's own theory of everything, or our own theory of everything for this channel, then please join the Discord. There's plenty of wonderful, astute conversation happening there, and I'm constantly impressed with the level of civility and even ingenuity displayed in that Discord. Thank you so much, and enjoy."
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      "text": " Okay, professor, thank you for coming. Pleasure to be with you again. We'll start with question number 41. That is Stephen Wolfram asks, is it true that we may have a description of how brains work slash process language at a microscopic level, and we still may not have a satisfactory science of linguistics? That is, that the lower level doesn't necessarily inform us about the higher level."
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      "text": " probably at the cellular level, even internal to the cells, not at the neuronal level. But the fact of the matter is that if you had detailed information, say about cells or about atoms or whatever, would tell you very little about the way in which systems work. You could know everything about how the"
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      "text": " Atoms work in a car, and you wouldn't know how the car works. These are just at a different level of organization. The next question will be question number one, which is from Sebastian Campers. And he asks, is there meaning outside language? Depends what you mean by meaning. The term is very loose. It's an English word."
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      "text": " Okay, we'll do question number two, which is from Aaron. And he asks, or she asks, Are you more proud of your contributions to linguistics or your contributions to politics? Well, I don't think it's a question of pride. It's just if I look at objectively at the contributions,"
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      "text": " The ones to linguistics are far more substantive. In the domain of politics, pretty much everything you say is on the surface. There isn't much of any particular depth to say. Okay, then we'll get to question number 32, and it says, Cowaside. Cowaside asks, how can one discuss philosophy while staying non-political?"
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      "text": " by discussing philosophy while staying non-political. In a sense, there are human consequences to almost anything you do, but when you're discussing, for example, the problem of taking any problem of philosophy that you like, how do you"
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      "text": " What's the basis for deciding whether a scientific theory is the right one or not? What are the criteria for determining that question of philosophy of science? There's nothing political about it. Anyone, whatever, with any political view whatsoever, can discuss it. I mean, a lot of my own work when I was"
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      "text": " Everything we do, there are things that have so few human consequences that to say that they're political is meaningless. Like discussing, say, with Van Quine, the first philosophy teacher, one of the first, the question of whether you can make a distinction between analytic and synthetic sentences."
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      "text": " It's a mixed story. I think people who refuse to accept vaccines, I think the right response for them is not to force them to"
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      "text": " but rather to insist that they be isolated. If people decide, I am willing to be a danger to the community by refusing a vaccine, they should then say, well, I also have the decency to isolate myself. Okay, I don't want a vaccine, but I don't have the right to run around harming people. I'll just"
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      "text": " That should be a convention. Enforcing is a different question. It should be understood, and we should try to get it to be understood. If it really reaches the point where they are severely endangered people, then of course you have to do something about it. So if someone, if smallpox turns out to"
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      "text": " become rampant again. And some people are insisting on running around to public places where they might have smallpox. Well, you've got to do something about it. We're not at quite that situation, but it's a similar one. So I think we should first attempt to establish conventions that will be understandable by people with some"
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      "text": " I would really like to know how Chomsky avoids despair given all that's wrong in the world and also given the shortness and potential meaninglessness of life."
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      "text": " Well, I've had 92 years, which doesn't seem short. Never thought that life was meaningless. Thought it was constantly rich in opportunities, significance, happiness, aspirations. I don't know anything that's meaningless about that. Another way to avoid despair is to recognize how much"
    },
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      "end_time": 868.268,
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      "text": " You can achieve if you devote yourself to it. You can look over the past record. See, I can look over, say, pretty much 85 years, say, of conscious life, conscious of what's happening in the world. And there have been enormous changes, not all to the good, but many very positive. They haven't just happened. They weren't miracles."
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      "end_time": 896.442,
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      "text": " happened because people did not succumb to despair and feelings of meaninglessness, but devoted themselves to improving the world. People whose names we don't know, endless numbers of them, and it's made a difference. Now it happens right to the present moment, right to the present moment. You can see it in today's newspaper. There are things that"
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    {
      "end_time": 926.169,
      "index": 35,
      "start_time": 896.971,
      "text": " People are willing to say and understand and comprehend now that wouldn't have been understood at all not very long ago. So for example, you can open the New York Times today and read an article by Benjamin Applebaum, writes about social issues on how the legal system that distributes"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 952.022,
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      "start_time": 927.142,
      "text": " funds to unemployed workers, how it functions. And as he points out, it functions on pure racist grounds established in the 1930s, 1940s, because racist southern states did not want federal benefits to go to their mostly black workers."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 986.305,
      "index": 37,
      "start_time": 956.886,
      "text": " But at least today, it can be generally condemned, not by the Republican Party, but by others. And it can be an issue which you can try to move to change. Pick that at random, because it happens to be an article I just read. But you can pick almost random and find similar things. The world, in many ways, there are serious, significant improvements"
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      "end_time": 1014.428,
      "index": 38,
      "start_time": 986.783,
      "text": " Thank you. We'll get to question 37."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1033.234,
      "index": 39,
      "start_time": 1015.299,
      "text": " How do we differentiate between good science and pseudoscience?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1062.961,
      "index": 40,
      "start_time": 1033.49,
      "text": " I would put it a little bit differently. How do we differentiate between good science"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1092.398,
      "index": 41,
      "start_time": 1063.422,
      "text": " and science that's not so good. I don't know what pseudoscience, I mean, there is pseudoscience, pretense, okay, we don't want just pretense. But within the search for understanding truth, the basic goals of science, there are many approaches. The ones that are, we find which ones are the good ones by"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1122.602,
      "index": 42,
      "start_time": 1093.387,
      "text": " Inquiry, debate, critical analysis, experimentation, discussion, free interchange, all the methods that are available to us and that over time tends to lead to selecting the scientific ideas that are the more viable ones and the better ones. It's not a yes or no. It's not a yes or no"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1152.756,
      "index": 43,
      "start_time": 1123.097,
      "text": " business. So for example, ideas that were considered very marginal, not taken seriously for a long time, even in physics, let alone other sciences, later are discovered to have a high degree of credibility and worth pursuing. You always keep them on the shelf, think about them. It's not pseudoscience, it's just ideas that don't seem to make any sense at some particular time."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1187.415,
      "index": 44,
      "start_time": 1158.797,
      "text": " have critical, careful analysis, careful study of the data, debate and discussion about ideas and theories, experimentation when it's appropriate. And out of that mixture of options comes a general move towards better science. Doesn't happen in a day. I take Isaac Newton's theories,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1211.169,
      "index": 45,
      "start_time": 1188.148,
      "text": " I mean, they were considered so exotic that at his own university in Cambridge, they weren't even taught for about 40 or 50 years. Well, by now, soon after that, they just became scientific common sense. That's the way science functions. We'll get to question 39."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1239.616,
      "index": 46,
      "start_time": 1212.756,
      "text": " Well, first of all, I'm no specialist on this topic, so my opinions don't really amount to very much. But for what they're worth, I don't see any sign that Bitcoin is"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1266.323,
      "index": 47,
      "start_time": 1240.247,
      "text": " Okay, we'll get to question five from page one."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1297.739,
      "index": 48,
      "start_time": 1268.234,
      "text": " I haven't seen any proposal to that effect, and I don't think that the problems of a democratic voting system are technical. They're not questions of how to make it work smoothly."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1328.046,
      "index": 49,
      "start_time": 1298.439,
      "text": " There are very serious problems in a democratic system. To take a pretty obvious problem and simply ask the question whether under our system or any modification of it that might be given by digital technology, whether voters are represented by their own representatives. It's a pretty straightforward question."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1358.268,
      "index": 50,
      "start_time": 1328.848,
      "text": " Fair measure of democracy, pretty easy to study. You study the attitudes and preferences of voters, compare it with the votes of their own representatives. That has been done in very sophisticated ways. The most recent study by McGuire and Delahunt uses all sorts of sophisticated deep learning and so on and so forth."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1387.534,
      "index": 51,
      "start_time": 1358.882,
      "text": " comes out with pretty much the same results as other studies. The large majority of voters are not represented. Their own representatives act independently of what the preferences of the electors are of their voters. They're listening to other voices. And we know exactly how it works. If you're in the McGuire-Delahunt, they say maybe it's up to 90%."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1413.2,
      "index": 52,
      "start_time": 1388.2,
      "text": " other estimates have been 70%. As you move, and of course, it's the lower part of the income spectrum, wealth spectrum. So as you get to the higher levels, yes, of course, they're represented. In fact, those are the voices that their representatives are listening to. And a lot of the reasons have"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1452.176,
      "index": 53,
      "start_time": 1424.923,
      "text": " which that enters the political system through, for example, campaign funding. So if you're elected to Congress, the first thing you do on the first day in office is start calling the mega donors, the people who have lots of money to contribute to campaigns, because you have to start preparing the funding for the next campaign."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1479.701,
      "index": 54,
      "start_time": 1453.063,
      "text": " campaign. Electability is predictable with very high precision simply by looking at the variable of campaign funding. Thomas Ferguson's political scientist has done the main work on this very high predictability. So you're on the phone talking to the donors. Meanwhile, hordes of corporate lobbyists are"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1509.121,
      "index": 55,
      "start_time": 1480.35,
      "text": " invading your office to talk to the staff, overwhelming them with all sorts of claims, evidence, demands and so on. Staff may be very good people, but they're not going to be able to deal with this massive power. So you end up with legislation written substantially by the corporate lobbyists, the same people who"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1538.916,
      "index": 56,
      "start_time": 1509.48,
      "text": " representative is talking to on the phone to try to get funding for his next elections. It's not 100% of what happens, but it's a very substantial part of the political system. So out of that kind of arrangement comes an enormous gap between voters and their own representatives, for all but the very top of the income level."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1567.432,
      "index": 57,
      "start_time": 1539.377,
      "text": " No technical problem is going to overcome that. It's the wrong place to look. So whether blockchain could do anything, I don't know, would have no effect on this. John Doe, the question seven. John Doe wants to know, what does Chomsky think about the latest UFO slash UAP revelations confirmed by the Pentagon? Well, I"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1596.357,
      "index": 58,
      "start_time": 1567.756,
      "text": " I think the word revelation is a little strong. I would say claims. We don't know what they mean. There are lots of possible explanations for why an airplane pilot would think he's seen something. I think UFO is one of the least likely explanations for it. So let's look at the evidence. That was an open mind, but"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1625.52,
      "index": 59,
      "start_time": 1597.108,
      "text": " Quite frankly, I don't expect anything to come of it. Okay, we'll get to question 17. This is also about aliens. If we were to make contact with aliens, what kind of language could we use to ask them questions like, where are you from? Why are you here? Etc. And this is from Patrick O'Donnell. If we... First of all, it's very unclear that there are"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1655.896,
      "index": 60,
      "start_time": 1625.896,
      "text": " intelligent aliens anywhere within the parts of the universe that are accessible to us. Remember, there are physical constraints on what parts of the universe are accessible to us. It's a huge, enormous number of planets, very similar to ours, but that doesn't mean that you're going to find intelligent life. In fact, there's some evidence that recent studies have shown that the"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1684.753,
      "index": 61,
      "start_time": 1657.159,
      "text": " probability of reaching the even cellular complexity that allows life, let alone intelligent life are quite small. So there's no reason to assume that there is intelligent life. We might literally be alone in the parts of the universe that are accessible to us. But suppose we do run into that might be the answer to the"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1725.879,
      "index": 62,
      "start_time": 1697.824,
      "text": " You look at what we call intelligent life on Earth. If by intelligent you mean something like human intelligence. My dog is intelligent, but it's not going to communicate with aliens. So if we mean the kind of intelligence that would allow this question to be raised, it's a phenomenal accident. Life has been around on Earth for"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1755.708,
      "index": 63,
      "start_time": 1726.408,
      "text": " almost four billion years until maybe a couple hundred thousand years ago this question couldn't even been asked. It's an instant of evolutionary time and it's the result of a long series of accidents which could have turned out some other way. So we don't know. But suppose there is, suppose we do make some contact. Well the first question would probably be"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1783.302,
      "index": 64,
      "start_time": 1756.459,
      "text": " How much is two plus two? The one thing that intelligent life is likely to have is arithmetic. And there are pretty good reasons for that. There's interesting studies by Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of artificial intelligence and"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1810.009,
      "index": 65,
      "start_time": 1784.531,
      "text": " Very smart guy, friend, colleague died a couple of years ago. He was one of those scientists who was very interested in the possibility of making contact with aliens. And he and one of his students back in the 60s did an interesting study. They took what are called touring machines."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1839.258,
      "index": 66,
      "start_time": 1810.401,
      "text": " abstract computers. It doesn't matter what the physical structure is, just think of it, the way a computer functions abstractly. And they studied the simplest ones, the ones with the fewest states and the fewest symbols, and just let them kind of run free, see what they would do. It turns out that almost all of them crashed. They either ran into"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1864.36,
      "index": 67,
      "start_time": 1840.896,
      "text": " endless cycles or one or another way just crashed. Some survived. The ones that survived produced the successor function, the function one, two, three, four, which is the foundation of arithmetic. If you have the successor function, you can then move"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1895.213,
      "index": 68,
      "start_time": 1865.384,
      "text": " with a few tweaks to get addition, subtraction, multiplication, essentially arithmetic. So what Minsky concluded is that if there's intelligent life somewhere, nature will at least have found the simplest possible form of intelligence, namely successor function. And in fact, that's pretty widespread in the"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1925.896,
      "index": 69,
      "start_time": 1896.084,
      "text": " organic world. So for example, ants can count the number of their steps. If an ant is wandering in the desert and it wants to know how to get home, it counts up as a record of the number of steps it's made and takes them back. So something like successor function is pretty widespread. It's of some interest that the successor function"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1954.599,
      "index": 70,
      "start_time": 1926.869,
      "text": " and the elements of arithmetic actually are very closely related to the core computational properties of human language. If you take the very simplest possible case of a possible language, a lexicon with just one word in it, and the most simple computation, you get something like the successive one."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1984.309,
      "index": 71,
      "start_time": 1955.469,
      "text": " So it's very likely in many grounds that if evolution ever reached this point, it would at least have that. So the first point of effort to interact with some AI and intelligence would be to see if we can at least find common ground on arithmetic, then move on from there. Questions like the ones asked, what they want. Where are you from? Why are you here?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 1994.002,
      "index": 72,
      "start_time": 1986.169,
      "text": " That's way off in the distance. First, you want to try to see if it's possible to make some contact."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2021.135,
      "index": 73,
      "start_time": 1995.026,
      "text": " That's the sweet sound of success with Shopify. Shopify is the all-encompassing commerce platform that's with you from the first flicker of an idea to the moment you realize you're running a global enterprise. Whether it's handcrafted jewelry or high-tech gadgets, Shopify supports you at every point of sale, both online and in person. They streamline the process with the internet's best converting checkout, making it 36% more effective than other leading platforms."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2049.633,
      "index": 74,
      "start_time": 2021.135,
      "text": " There's also something called Shopify Magic, your AI-powered assistant that's like an all-star team member working tirelessly behind the scenes. What I find fascinating about Shopify is how it scales with your ambition. No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Join the ranks of businesses in 175 countries that have made Shopify the backbone of their commerce. Shopify, by the way,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2078.541,
      "index": 75,
      "start_time": 2049.633,
      "text": " powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge names like Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen. If you ever need help, their award-winning support is like having a mentor that's just a click away. Now, are you ready to start your own success story? Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash theories, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash theories now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2096.647,
      "index": 76,
      "start_time": 2078.746,
      "text": " You're watching this channel because you're interested in theoretical physics, consciousness, and the ostensible connection between the two."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2124.701,
      "index": 77,
      "start_time": 2096.92,
      "text": " the underlying physical laws, and you may think that this is beyond you, but that's false. Brilliant provides polluted explanations of abstruse phenomenon such as quantum computing, general relativity, and even group theory. When you hear that the standard model is based on U1 cross SU2 cross SU3, that's group theory, for example. Now, this isn't just for neophytes either. For example, I have a degree in math and physics and I still found some of the intuitions given in these lessons to vastly aid my penetration"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2146.578,
      "index": 78,
      "start_time": 2124.701,
      "text": " into these subjects, for example, electricity and magnetism. Sign up today at brilliant.org slash toe, that is T-O-E, for free. You'll also get 20% off the annual premium subscription. Try four of the lessons at least. Don't stop before four. And I think you'll be greatly surprised at the ease at which you comprehend subjects you previously had trouble grokking. Links are in the description."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2165.265,
      "index": 79,
      "start_time": 2147.466,
      "text": " Razor blades are like diving boards. The longer the board, the more the wobble, the more the wobble, the more nicks, cuts, scrapes. A bad shave isn't a blade problem, it's an extension problem. Henson is a family-owned aerospace parts manufacturer that's made parts for the International Space Station and the Mars Rover."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2193.729,
      "index": 80,
      "start_time": 2165.265,
      "text": " Now they're bringing that precision engineering to your shaving experience. By using aerospace-grade CNC machines, Henson makes razors that extend less than the thickness of a human hair. The razor also has built-in channels that evacuates hair and cream, which make clogging virtually impossible. Henson Shaving wants to produce the best razors, not the best razor business, so that means no plastics, no subscriptions, no proprietary blades, and no planned obsolescence."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2210.128,
      "index": 81,
      "start_time": 2193.729,
      "text": " It's also extremely affordable. The Henson razor works with the standard dual edge blades that give you that old school shave with the benefits of this new school tech. It's time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that'll last you a lifetime. Visit hensonshaving.com slash everything."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2239.838,
      "index": 82,
      "start_time": 2210.128,
      "text": " If you use that code, you'll get two years worth of blades for free. Just make sure to add them to the cart. Plus 100 free blades when you head to H E N S O N S H A V I N G dot com slash everything and use the code everything. OK, from the live chat, Connor MacD wants to know, what's your opinion on the Frankfurt School? It's very hard to answer."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2267.5,
      "index": 83,
      "start_time": 2240.469,
      "text": " General questions like that. They had some interesting contributions. Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, others. Some of it we can learn from. Personally, myself, I don't get a lot from it, but I think it's worth studying. Okay, question 30. That's on page three."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2297.517,
      "index": 84,
      "start_time": 2267.995,
      "text": " Will Wall wants to know, do you fear death? Why or why not? Well, when I was about 10 years old, maybe 12 years old, I started to think about what would happen when I die. And what concerned me was that when my consciousness ended,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2326.749,
      "index": 85,
      "start_time": 2298.66,
      "text": " How could I know whether the world would even persist? Would there be anything else, or would that be the end of the universe? And that was a pretty frightening idea. But it took me about a year or two to get over it. I said, yeah, I think the world will persist. So, death is part of life. Enjoy life while you have it. Do what you can with it. It'll end. The world will go on."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2357.21,
      "index": 86,
      "start_time": 2329.326,
      "text": " Okay, the question right before that, 29. Ivan Billu. Why do people have multiple personality disorders and how do you explain someone waking up and speaking a foreign language? Well, if they're speaking a foreign language, it's a language that they already knew. They're not going to speak a foreign language they never heard before. A person who's lived his whole life in"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2378.49,
      "index": 87,
      "start_time": 2358.166,
      "text": " Tucson Arizona, where I now am, is not going to wake up in the middle of the night and start speaking Swahili. As to why there are personality disorders, psychology doesn't really understand this. The human mind is a very"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2416.8,
      "index": 88,
      "start_time": 2387.841,
      "text": " Question 19, similar from Brandon from Sacramento, who asks, what are Professor Chomsky's thoughts on... What are Professor Chomsky's thoughts on glossolalia?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2447.125,
      "index": 89,
      "start_time": 2417.619,
      "text": " Again, I've seen it in evangelical churches and it happens, but what's involved in it again is far beyond the reach of any scientific understanding. We have to recognize that science is hard,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2475.452,
      "index": 90,
      "start_time": 2448.2,
      "text": " It's hard to explain even simple things. Take ants again, just trying to figure out how the ants in my backyard can navigate. They can navigate way better than I can. They can deal with properties of the Sun and where it is and all sorts of things that are way beyond my capacity."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2503.456,
      "index": 91,
      "start_time": 2476.22,
      "text": " They do this with a very tiny brain, miniscule brain. Nobody knows how it works. If you can't answer questions like that, you're not going to answer questions about psychiatric disorders among humans. You can get some level of understanding, but it's not going to be at any theoretical depth. I mean, questions of"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2532.619,
      "index": 92,
      "start_time": 2504.599,
      "text": " Janice Villamengo asks, The Innocent Project is an organization that works toward exonerating the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2563.08,
      "index": 93,
      "start_time": 2533.234,
      "text": " There's..."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2593.166,
      "index": 94,
      "start_time": 2563.592,
      "text": " always a kind of conflict between those who make charges against someone and the person who is the target of the charges who wants to exonerate himself. That's what court proceedings are about. It's always a conflict. The accused, the accuser has a grievance. The accused may profess innocence."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2623.865,
      "index": 95,
      "start_time": 2594.002,
      "text": " That's what happens in every court of law every day of the week. This is a particular case, a far-reaching case. The Innocence Project is properly trying to ask of those who are accused, is there sufficient evidence against them? The MeToo movement is saying there are plenty of people who are being abused, not listened to. We have to listen to them. Okay?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2650.043,
      "index": 96,
      "start_time": 2624.224,
      "text": " So this is a large scale, highly significant aspect of any legal proceeding, which has an accuser and an accused. How do you deal with it? There's no algorithm. You have to deal with it by thinking carefully through the claims,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2679.462,
      "index": 97,
      "start_time": 2655.845,
      "text": " the feelings, the attitudes on all sides, and try to adjudicate. There is a presumption of innocence. We should maintain that. We have to assume, I think it's correct to assume, the principle of innocent until shown to be guilty, proven to be guilty."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2708.131,
      "index": 98,
      "start_time": 2684.787,
      "text": " to demonstrate guilt. Short of that, we should presume innocence. That's tough on the abused, because they may not be able to provide the evidence. But I don't think there's a way around that. We can't, even if we can assume that the abused have a strong case, unless they can"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2738.609,
      "index": 99,
      "start_time": 2709.514,
      "text": " Number 15. Realistically, would a human society where the lack of free will is the commonly accepted truth be any different than the current human society where having free will is... Sorry."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2767.193,
      "index": 100,
      "start_time": 2739.428,
      "text": " Let me restate. Realistically, would a human society where the lack of free will is the commonly accepted truth be any different than the current human society where having free will is the commonly accepted truth? There are sub communities in our society where lack of free will is the commonly accepted truth. Large part of the scientific community believes that."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2797.022,
      "index": 101,
      "start_time": 2767.995,
      "text": " large part of the philosophical world believes that, thinks everything is determined, that freedom of will is just an illusion. Actually, none of the people who profess this really believe it, in my opinion. They, in fact, they're trying to convince you of it. They're giving reasons. If we're all just thermostats acting"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2827.517,
      "index": 102,
      "start_time": 2797.739,
      "text": " In a totally determined profession, giving reasons is a totally pointless activity. You don't give reasons to an automaton. It behaves the way it's gonna behave. So my feeling is, intuitively, all of us believe that we can make a decision as to whether, say, to lift my little finger or not. I can decide, do I want to do that or don't I?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2855.316,
      "index": 103,
      "start_time": 2827.841,
      "text": " I think everybody intuitively believes that there are a large number of highly sophisticated, brilliant people who think they can convince themselves that they can't make that decision. They're among us. Society functions exactly the same for them as it does for us. So the answer to the question I think is already given to us. There are great many among us."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2890.896,
      "index": 104,
      "start_time": 2861.852,
      "text": " Question number 18. From Ideas Sleep Furiously. Who's the smartest person Chomsky ever met and does he have any cool anecdotes about that person? I'm a huge fan of Chomsky. Please don't let him just say they're all just normal people. I want juicy gossip."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2920.657,
      "index": 105,
      "start_time": 2891.476,
      "text": " This man has met everyone from Rawls to Ed Whitten. Nobody's just a normal person. Everyone has all kinds of properties, all kinds of characteristics, abilities, talents. I mean, there are people I've met in rural communities, people who can just do anything, any technical problem you present to them."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2948.985,
      "index": 106,
      "start_time": 2921.22,
      "text": " say my card doesn't work, or they can look at it and start to fix it. To me, I'd never have that talent. Some of the smartest people I've ever met would just say, throw it out. There's no way to deal with it. There are just different talents. There are people who are great musicians, can't do many other things. I mean, people are what they are. I've met lots of people who are"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 2974.531,
      "index": 107,
      "start_time": 2949.77,
      "text": " conventionally very smart. You want to ask them a question about quantum physics, they'll explain it to you. Understand the latest ideas in category theory and mathematics, they'll give you a lecture about it. You want to know about"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3007.261,
      "index": 108,
      "start_time": 2979.138,
      "text": " Is there someone in particular who impressed you with their intellect?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3033.865,
      "index": 109,
      "start_time": 3007.688,
      "text": " An old friend from high school was a friend until his death a couple of years ago. My only high school friend who I stayed friendly with, Hilary Putnam, brilliant philosopher, mathematician, scientist. We were pretty close most of our lives, disagreed on almost everything, but philosophical"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3065.913,
      "index": 110,
      "start_time": 3036.732,
      "text": " I mean, there are some quite amusing anecdotes, as I didn't see this myself, but a famous one has to do with Kurt Erdl, who's maybe the greatest mathematician of 20th century. I met him, a very strange guy, very brilliant, but very strange. His"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3093.78,
      "index": 111,
      "start_time": 3066.834,
      "text": " Two of his close friends, Albert Einstein and Oscar Morgenstern, decided to try to convince him to become an American citizen. He was an immigrant like all of them were. So he had to go to a place where you get tested, you know, how's the Senate elected, that sort of thing."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3117.619,
      "index": 112,
      "start_time": 3094.48,
      "text": " So Gödel studied the Constitution in depth. When he came to Einstein one day and he said there's a problem, he found a contradiction in the Constitution. And when he goes for his test, he's going to have to tell the guy that there's a contradiction in the Constitution. So Einstein and Morgenstern tried to convince him to"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3139.548,
      "index": 113,
      "start_time": 3118.643,
      "text": " Think Verizon, the best 5G network is expensive? Think again. Bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. Now what to do with your unwanted bills? Ever seen an origami version of the Miami Bull?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3168.336,
      "index": 114,
      "start_time": 3140.077,
      "text": " Jokes aside, Verizon has the most ways to save on phones and plans where you can get a single line with everything you need. So bring in your bill to your local Miami Verizon store today, and we'll give you a better deal. Rankings based on root metrics, root score report data to 1H2025, your results may vary. Must provide a post-paid consumer mobile bill dated within the past 45 days. Bill must be in the same name as the person who made the deal. Additional terms apply. You said that Kurt Gödel was strange. What about him was strange? Oh, uh, yeah."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3197.142,
      "index": 115,
      "start_time": 3169.548,
      "text": " I was appointed to the Institute for Advanced Studies back in 1958, where he was a senior research fellow. And of course, I wanted to meet Gödel. As soon as I had a chance, I made an appointment with him, went into his office. He asked me politely, what kinds of things are you working on? I said,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3228.387,
      "index": 116,
      "start_time": 3199.906,
      "text": " wasting your time. It's all been solved by Leibniz. And it turned out, then I listened for an hour to a lecture on Leibniz. He had about every book on Leibniz from the Princeton Library in his office, and he was studying Leibniz in depth. He was convinced that Leibniz basically had the answer to everything, and he had it detected by"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3253.251,
      "index": 117,
      "start_time": 3229.053,
      "text": " studying carefully what he had to say, kind of reminded me of a person who obviously I never met, Isaac Newton, another brilliant figure who spent much of his life studying the Church Fathers. He was convinced that the Church Fathers had understood things at a level of depth and insight that"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3277.79,
      "index": 118,
      "start_time": 3254.002,
      "text": " Question 24. This is Tobia Davico."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3308.063,
      "index": 119,
      "start_time": 3280.111,
      "text": " He or she wants to know, question for Professor Chomsky, has Jacques Lacan influenced your thinking on the nature of language in any way? Do you recall anything in particular about your encounter with them in 1975? Thank you, from Italy. Jacques Lacan was, I don't remember the year, maybe it was 75, was invited to"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3334.411,
      "index": 120,
      "start_time": 3308.899,
      "text": " MIT by my friend Roman Jacobson, a very eminent linguist, one of the great humanistic figures of the 20th century. He invited him to give a talk at MIT and nobody was much interested, but Jacobson convinced me and"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3363.558,
      "index": 121,
      "start_time": 3335.623,
      "text": " Cliff's friend, Morris Halley, who was close to Jacobson, he convinced us to try to round up an audience for him. So we managed to convince a lot of students and others to come. And Lacan gave a talk in French, which was so embarrassing that at the end of the Roman, Jacobson was the moderator"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3387.312,
      "index": 122,
      "start_time": 3364.309,
      "text": " the end of the talk, people were kind of shuffling and looking at each other and so on. It was embarrassing because it was boring or because of some other reason? Total nonsense. Total utter nonsense. At the end he asked, fortunately it was in French and plenty of people just didn't understand it. But those who did understand it were"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3416.323,
      "index": 123,
      "start_time": 3388.865,
      "text": " pretty much appalled. At the end, Jakobson turned to the audience and said, asked for questions. And nobody had any, nobody wanted to say anything. So he called on me and said, would I like to comment on it? So I had to figure out a way to say something that was not embarrassing, not stupid."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3445.52,
      "index": 124,
      "start_time": 3417.227,
      "text": " said something or other, forget what it was. But the answer to the question is no, there's never been any influence. So the question you're trying to not be embarrassed for yourself or for him when you were trying to come up with a question. I had to say something I didn't want to embarrass him. There was nothing to talk about about the content of his talk. Somehow say something in"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3473.114,
      "index": 125,
      "start_time": 3445.947,
      "text": " that situation, which would be, you know, appropriate, not, not harsh, of course, but not supportive either. So just something to turn the discussion into some possible direction. I should say that afterwards, we all went out to Jacobson took us all out"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3508.217,
      "index": 126,
      "start_time": 3479.48,
      "text": " Okay, speaking of eating, number 28. This is from Queerdo."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3538.131,
      "index": 127,
      "start_time": 3508.933,
      "text": " I heard that you are or were participating in an anti-aging program and that a plant-based diet was a part of it. Can you tell us how that's been going? First of all, is that even true? It's not true. I've never heard of any anti-aging program and if there was one, I wouldn't be participating in it. However, it probably is true that a plant-based diet is generally good for your health."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3565.384,
      "index": 128,
      "start_time": 3538.695,
      "text": " aside from many other advantages like mitigating the torture of animals, the very negative effect on global warming of the industrial production and agriculture and so on. So there may be very good reasons for"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3597.125,
      "index": 129,
      "start_time": 3567.688,
      "text": " Okay, speaking on that number 22, Henry S. Is there a practice that you partake in, in particular that keeps your mental faculties as sharp as they are as you age? Do you personally think, do you personally feel as if you've slowed at all?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3628.865,
      "index": 130,
      "start_time": 3599.821,
      "text": " particularly slow. There are things I can't do that I used to do. Like, I often forget names, for example, forget phrases. More so than before, or you always? That's a normal part of aging. But the only thing I do is what's sometimes called the bicycle theory. As long as you keep"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3657.517,
      "index": 131,
      "start_time": 3629.292,
      "text": " going fast you don't fall so what do you do on a daily basis are you writing are you reading or a lot of writing a lot of things like this this is had several talks today already uh some interviews just tons of mail just constantly working taking i can't say it or there'll be a rush to the door but i"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3688.933,
      "index": 132,
      "start_time": 3660.589,
      "text": " My animals and the canines. Well, okay. How about 26? Noah Mueller from Germany asks, Is there a connection between language and movement? Does the language I speak actually change the way I move? Does it change the movement patterns of the speaker? Well, if you look at anybody speaking, you'll find they're almost always gesturing. And the"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3718.507,
      "index": 133,
      "start_time": 3689.633,
      "text": " Gestural aspect does mirror properties of what is being said. It mirrors emphasis, focus, the prosody, the pitch contours and so on. This varies from culture to culture. There's some cultures where there's a very lot of gestural activity going along with language. There are others in which people tend to be"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3748.695,
      "index": 134,
      "start_time": 3719.036,
      "text": " Why does Chomsky think it's the case that psychedelics are illegal and still frowned upon when more dangerous drugs like alcohol are legal and even normalized?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3779.224,
      "index": 135,
      "start_time": 3750.759,
      "text": " Well, remember that that's not always been the case. There was a time when alcohol was illegal, the whole period of prohibition. And in general, when you look at the whole history of criminalization of substances, it's usually a kind of class and race war. It's the"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3807.398,
      "index": 136,
      "start_time": 3780.196,
      "text": " populations that are being subdued and controlled, whose drugs are criminalized. So prohibition was a way to keep the immigrant communities who were going to saloons to keep them under control. Incidentally, throughout the whole period of prohibition, if you were"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3838.148,
      "index": 137,
      "start_time": 3808.183,
      "text": " a rich New Yorker living in upstate New York, nobody was going to stop you from drinking wine. But if you were an immigrant worker in downtown New York, you couldn't go to your favorite saloons. If you look at the history of not just psychedelics, but even say marijuana, at the end of Prohibition, there was a big federal apparatus."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3866.271,
      "index": 138,
      "start_time": 3838.78,
      "text": " to implement the criminalization of alcohol. Anne Hauser was the head of it. So there was this huge bureaucracy. They had nothing to do. So they immediately tried to find something else to criminalize. What they picked was marijuana. Marijuana was commonly used among Mexicans and Blacks."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3896.493,
      "index": 139,
      "start_time": 3866.783,
      "text": " Mexican Americans and blacks. And therefore that was picked as the target of criminalization. There were Senate hearings, all sorts of stories concocted about how marijuana makes people insane, makes them killers, you know, gotta stop it. Actually that ended after a while because"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3923.524,
      "index": 140,
      "start_time": 3897.039,
      "text": " What happened was that criminal lawyers were beginning to catch on to the fact that you could mount a criminal defense for your client by saying he'd been smoking marijuana, so therefore he was not conscious of what he was doing. Well, when it got to that point, the law started being changed, but basically it continued to be criminalization. Hear that sound?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3950.623,
      "index": 141,
      "start_time": 3924.497,
      "text": " That's the sweet sound of success with Shopify. Shopify is the all-encompassing commerce platform that's with you from the first flicker of an idea to the moment you realize you're running a global enterprise. Whether it's handcrafted jewelry or high-tech gadgets, Shopify supports you at every point of sale, both online and in person. They streamline the process with the internet's best converting checkout, making it 36% more effective than other leading platforms."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 3976.698,
      "index": 142,
      "start_time": 3950.623,
      "text": " There's also something called Shopify Magic, your AI-powered assistant that's like an all-star team member working tirelessly behind the scenes. What I find fascinating about Shopify is how it scales with your ambition. No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Join the ranks of businesses in 175 countries that have made Shopify the backbone"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4000.06,
      "index": 143,
      "start_time": 3976.698,
      "text": " of their commerce. Shopify, by the way, powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge names like Allbirds, Rothies, and Brooklynin. If you ever need help, their award-winning support is like having a mentor that's just a click away. Now, are you ready to start your own success story? Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4018.712,
      "index": 144,
      "start_time": 4000.06,
      "text": " The substance is being used by parts of the population who you want to"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4049.753,
      "index": 145,
      "start_time": 4022.449,
      "text": " psychedelics came later. But the questioner is certainly correct. Drugs like alcohol are far more dangerous. Tobacco is more dangerous than any of them. It's enormous. The number of people who die from tobacco is huge, but it's never been criminalized. Rich, powerful people smoke"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4079.923,
      "index": 146,
      "start_time": 4050.606,
      "text": " drug companies, the tobacco companies have enormous power. For decades, they were able to suppress even the basic information about the lethal effects of smoking. It's finally been reduced, but on a class basis. So it's now like if you go to an elite university, walk around,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4106.971,
      "index": 147,
      "start_time": 4080.503,
      "text": " won't see students smoking, but you will see staff smoking. Go to a major hospital, the doctors won't be smoking, but the staff may well be outside because they're not allowed to smoke into them. So it's turned into a kind of a sort of a class issue. And smoking has been"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4132.858,
      "index": 148,
      "start_time": 4107.346,
      "text": " sharply reduced among more educated sectors of the population, not others. But it's never been criminalized. It was just a drug used by the wealthy and powerful and there were major capitalist institutions that just defended themselves against it. That hasn't been true for marijuana. Of course, the use of marijuana is changing slowly."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4157.5,
      "index": 149,
      "start_time": 4133.524,
      "text": " Attitudes are changing. Walls are changing. It's different now than it was 20 or 30 years ago. These are social and cultural changes. But it is certainly true that criminalization had a very little relation to lethality, to harm, for other purposes."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4188.422,
      "index": 150,
      "start_time": 4158.575,
      "text": " The last time we spoke, you mentioned that you were uninterested in mind-altering drugs like psychedelics and marijuana and so on. And I'm curious, is there a reason why? Is it because of the stigma or you wanted to keep your mind sharp? Just lack of any interest, no particular reason. I mean, you know, I was, especially in the 60s when I was very much involved with"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4217.381,
      "index": 151,
      "start_time": 4189.48,
      "text": " Number four, do you have any thoughts on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche? My main thought is I wish I had time to read his work more carefully."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4247.739,
      "index": 152,
      "start_time": 4219.462,
      "text": " Did you find it provocative, interesting, false? The little I've read, which is not much, is highly intriguing and interesting. But among the myriad things that I haven't had time to study, that's one. Okay, the question right before this, three. Ravi Ray from Hong Kong wants to know, do you think that we can objectively determine that some works of art are better than others?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4277.654,
      "index": 153,
      "start_time": 4249.991,
      "text": " Well, I think we can determine it. Actually, I have a criterion I use to decide whether something's a work of art. If I could do it, it's not a work of art. That's one objective criterion. But we know somehow. It's not easy. Changes over time. Attitudes to what understanding is to what the"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4312.927,
      "index": 154,
      "start_time": 4283.2,
      "text": " You somehow know. How do you know? It's a matter of what's the nature of our aesthetic capacities. A serious art critic can be very helpful in explaining what it is that it is about, say, a great work of art that's not true of something I would draw. But is that objective?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4343.046,
      "index": 155,
      "start_time": 4314.36,
      "text": " There are objective criteria, but understanding of how this works is another one of those problems that's pretty well beyond comprehension, that we can gain very intriguing understanding of. When you read a serious art critic like, say, Meier Shapiro or Yech Gombrich, you learn a lot, at least I do,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4372.602,
      "index": 156,
      "start_time": 4347.312,
      "text": " Okay, number eight. Beers Attitude wants to know, what are Chomsky's views on antinatalism? Don't really see any point to it. If you don't want to have children, fine. But if, why we should decide that other lives should not exist,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4402.91,
      "index": 157,
      "start_time": 4374.684,
      "text": " I don't see any, do I have any right to say that? What if they say, what if they want to know, do you view having children as unethical because it contributes to environmental problems or overpopulation? Forget about mandating it or legalizing or not legalizing. It contributes to problems. It also contributes to progress. We want to have works of art, for example."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4432.671,
      "index": 158,
      "start_time": 4403.507,
      "text": " or scientific understanding, or technical solutions to the problems around us. They're going to come from people. You don't have people, you don't have the contributions. Okay, someone from the chat, Drury wants to know, this is just from the chat, if a complex language is unique, but other species collaborate on group projects, is it possible it was a devolution? Was the innovation around"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4459.087,
      "index": 159,
      "start_time": 4433.234,
      "text": " Lying. I don't understand the question, do you? No, I don't. I don't see it on the chat either. Is it on the chat? Yeah, it's on the chat. I don't know why I'm not seeing it. Okay, we're gonna move on. Drury, if you can, you can rewrite that. Number 10. Hamad from Iran asks, what do you think of it from bit from John Wheeler?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4492.329,
      "index": 160,
      "start_time": 4462.381,
      "text": " He's a great physicist. Met him. Impressive person. Competent physicist. Take him quite seriously. I'm not competent to judge. Actually, I am competent to judge that I'll have to leave, I'm afraid. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Before you go, the last question then, the one right before this about Steven Pinker, that one you should be competent enough to judge. Jens from Belgium asks, what do you think of Steven Pinker's words and rules theory of language?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4522.244,
      "index": 161,
      "start_time": 4492.91,
      "text": " where regular verbs rely on rules and irregular verbs rely on lexical memory. Thanks. Well, when Pinker produced that book, it was a contribution, but it's now been superseded by much more far-reaching work, especially work by Charles Yang, a computer scientist, linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, did very exciting work on"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4552.125,
      "index": 162,
      "start_time": 4523.575,
      "text": " a lot of it's in a book called The Price of Productivity, where he developed a general method, a sophisticated method to determine the conditions under which someone acquiring a language would pick rules rather than lists. And it gives very precise answers to the course of development of children in the"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4581.732,
      "index": 163,
      "start_time": 4553.046,
      "text": " Chomsky, thank you so much. I'm humbled every time we speak. I'm a huge admirer of you. Thank you so much."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4610.452,
      "index": 164,
      "start_time": 4582.483,
      "text": " Nice to be with you. Thank you all. I'm looking through the chat. I didn't have a chance to ask all of your questions or almost any of your questions on the chat. It's extremely difficult for me to pay attention to Chomsky, which I want to do. I don't want to keep looking down. It's rude and it takes me out of the moment. But at the same time, I do want to answer your questions. You're kind enough to watch live and interested enough to type"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 4624.94,
      "index": 165,
      "start_time": 4611.459,
      "text": " It's a delicate balance. And I tend to choose the guest over the chat. Okay, well everyone, thanks so much for watching. Have a great one."
    }
  ]
}

No transcript available.