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How closely are thought and language connected? In this debate, Steven Pinker explores the relationship between the two, and demonstrates why they might not be as bindingly connected as we might first assume. Pinker is a cognitive psychologist, linguist, and bestselling author known for his work on language and... show more

Institute of Art and Ideas

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19,481 views • 6 months ago •via X (Twitter)

Anya Rossi• Live Now

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8 Comments

FJ Cuesta G6 months ago

Don't agree at all. Language is an expression of Evolution from the first known Language (DNA/RNA). The more evolved the living being, the more evolved its Language. As consequence, the final function of Language (in its different expressions) is the support for thought.

SelfishWizard6 months ago

Correct. If thought were dependent on language then animals would be unable to think. An idiotic idea. The idea that language is necessary for thought is an old argument subscribed to by only the most obtuse and wrongheaded of philosophers.

François Balogh5 months ago

Thought is only a consequence of language. It is not to be confused with what is language about. A classic error in psychology.

Phantammeron6 months ago

We are finding that some people have very advanced visual memory others do not. Some have higher levels of abstract thought, emotional intelligence, and layers of executive function others do not. We also know men’s and women’s brains have different priorities and interests, which might explain the trans phenom. Women are shown to have bigger corpus callosums than men. Gender is not just about sex but also phyisical and emotional differences. So Nature clearly has designed a variety of brains with various communication deficits or advancements woke people today refuse to admit to, things that create merit-based societies that are nobody’s fault. Brains are just different.

Julien Offray de La Mettrie5 months ago

Pinker calls for "intellectual diversity" for the system (the university, society), but not for his own digital living room (his X account).

Ana Cristina Vélez Caicedo6 months ago

Tema muy importante. Steve Pinker es brillante. No me lo pierdo

Edwin VanGorder5 months ago

body language important but also heavy origins in " tracking" and in this the comport of language relations held in a mental framework beneath mere quick recall has traditional relation to the morphology from poetry to rhetoric to math and in particular the undersanding towards Sanskrit and Pie from Joyce and Pound should be taken in to contemporary tracking....

Edwin VanGorder6 months ago

language as correlation structures cobordisms necessarily which is its impetus... therefore search not language but the language of language for the being of being as being the meaning of the meaning of the mean.. or as John Cage said if you cant find the answer change the question... who was he paraphrasing? (Wittegnstein) As an artist was interested in the Art and Language Group and following the way drawing is used in Great Britain as a bridge between dialects the relations Joyce traces to Sanskrit as universal language and Picassos similar cubism bring us to Category Theory generally in the promising Quantum age...

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