Philosophy
Would you like to come up to my apartment and see my sketchings? Human social relationships being what they are, I'm sure you've found yourself at some point in the middle of a situation in which you asked yourself why someone else couldn't have just come out and stated some truth directly. Wouldn't that be a great way to avoid confusions of all kinds? And after all, isn't honesty a virtue?
Well, as Steven Pinker shows in the awesome animated lecture below, there is a fascinating logic to the way in which we communicate, part of which includes a theory of mind about other people, a theory of plausible deniability, a theory of shared knowledge, and an ever-so-fragile set of social hierarchies whose integrity is best preserved by certain kinds of indirect speech.
And if you want to listen to the whole lecture, including a delicious section on the role of cursing and swearing, check out this previous entry.
- Steven Pinker - Linguistics As A Window To Understand The Brain
One of the things I first enjoyed when I was introduced to philosophy was its recursive nature: we could use thought to investigate the nature, the rules, the structure and the limits of thought itself (and what that could tell us about the human mind)....
- Steven Pinker On Taboos, Political Correctness And Dissent
It's Steven Pinker... he's got things to say, and you already know that whether you agree with his views or not, he's always interesting to listen to, and he always manages to stimulate you to think about those interesting things yourself,...
- The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial Of Human Nature
"Our conceptions of human nature affect every aspect of our lives, from the way we raise our children to the political movements we embrace. Yet, just as science is bringing us into a golden age of understanding human nature, many people are hostile to...
- Richard Feynman - Cargo Cult Science
There is no denying that Richard Feynman was an eccentric genius, even by eccentric genius standards. It is just a cold fact of life that most of us will never be quite that creative or productive. Still, that doesn't mean that we couldn't train...
- Tim Minchin - Storm (animated Movie)
You may have heard this awesome beat poem before, but now it's accompanied by some awesome animation, and since I already posted it before, I'll just repeat the previous introduction. This is one of those really tough life dilemmas: totally hot...
Philosophy
Steven Pinker - The Social Role of Innuendo and Indirect Speech
Would you like to come up to my apartment and see my sketchings? Human social relationships being what they are, I'm sure you've found yourself at some point in the middle of a situation in which you asked yourself why someone else couldn't have just come out and stated some truth directly. Wouldn't that be a great way to avoid confusions of all kinds? And after all, isn't honesty a virtue?Well, as Steven Pinker shows in the awesome animated lecture below, there is a fascinating logic to the way in which we communicate, part of which includes a theory of mind about other people, a theory of plausible deniability, a theory of shared knowledge, and an ever-so-fragile set of social hierarchies whose integrity is best preserved by certain kinds of indirect speech.
And if you want to listen to the whole lecture, including a delicious section on the role of cursing and swearing, check out this previous entry.
Or check out more of these awesome RSA Animate lectures.
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- Steven Pinker - Linguistics As A Window To Understand The Brain
One of the things I first enjoyed when I was introduced to philosophy was its recursive nature: we could use thought to investigate the nature, the rules, the structure and the limits of thought itself (and what that could tell us about the human mind)....
- Steven Pinker On Taboos, Political Correctness And Dissent
It's Steven Pinker... he's got things to say, and you already know that whether you agree with his views or not, he's always interesting to listen to, and he always manages to stimulate you to think about those interesting things yourself,...
- The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial Of Human Nature
"Our conceptions of human nature affect every aspect of our lives, from the way we raise our children to the political movements we embrace. Yet, just as science is bringing us into a golden age of understanding human nature, many people are hostile to...
- Richard Feynman - Cargo Cult Science
There is no denying that Richard Feynman was an eccentric genius, even by eccentric genius standards. It is just a cold fact of life that most of us will never be quite that creative or productive. Still, that doesn't mean that we couldn't train...
- Tim Minchin - Storm (animated Movie)
You may have heard this awesome beat poem before, but now it's accompanied by some awesome animation, and since I already posted it before, I'll just repeat the previous introduction. This is one of those really tough life dilemmas: totally hot...