TheEthanwashere
Mr. Wilson and Mr. Pinker talk about Mr. Wilson’s book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. The book argues that all human knowledge from politics to art and science is connected and derives from human biology and genetics. Mr. Pinker is the author of How the Mind Works. Both men answered audience members’ questions.
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Edward Wilson Steven Pinker Panel on Consilience
two great thinkers of our time
two of the greatest.
Wilson: Human nature = Epigenetic rules, hereditary regularities in mental development ? mmm
the old guy at 48 is quite fucked up, relax dude
I love these ideas.
These men are legends each in his own right. Thank you so much for sharing!
Amazing thinkers! Would love to see more stuff like this on YouTube
I love how Steven seriously answers to the crazy guy on minute 47!
Pinker is such a politically correct little twit. Even before he opens his mouth, the hair gives him away.
I loved Pinker's analysis of music and why it may have developed in human life. Such a shame the video cuts off as the discussion continues.
I never get why people think being politically correct is a bad thing.
@ astroboomboy: To be politically correct is to go along with views that are put forth as views that have been deemed "correct" for a person to have. What's wrong with this is that there is social pressure to have those views — enforcing conformity of thought– and that the people expressing those views are doing so not because they believe the views are true but because of their social esteem. Pinker says what he thinks he should say whereas Wilson says what he believes is true.
Perhaps consciousness began because it enables us to make choices in interactions with our environment for which reflex and instinct are inadequate. If an organism has to choose between going left or going right and there is no particular reason to go either way, nor are there any preset patterns of behaviour that will reliably yield better results from one or the other choice, consciousness is better than randomness or paralysis.
If political correctness is motivated by genuine respect, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I think Cal S is assuming that Pinker's political correctness is self-serving and hypocritical.
Frankly, I think Pinker has not shied away from expressing controversial opinions that might be seen as non-PC in many liberal circles (for example, in The Blank Slate and The Better Angels of Our Nature).
Regarding their comments that music is frivolous pleasure and not necessary for survival: "A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my SON. not a mind without a soul. " Chaim Potok (Soul here is not meant by me in a religious sense.) I think one of the fundamental precursors for survival is the desire to do so, which would be severely impaired in human beings without music, art, and literature, not to mention that they don't even consider music as one of the deepest and most complex forms of communication.
I once had a jacket like that guy at 47:00
Some religious beliefs seem to be a case of getting trapped inside the resonance of one's own consciousness.For example, sacrificial propitiation was really a way of assuaging the fears in one's own consciousness or the shared fears of a group.It was a case of mistaking the internal for the external and vice versa. For primitive peoples that had to be in tune with nature and who had little or no technology to shield them from nature,this attunement and attentiveness to nature was crucial for survival but it made for porous perceptual boundaries between inner experience and outer perception. As we increasingly built more barriers between us and the natural world and a sense of mastery and distinction became more pronounced, it was easier to draw that perceptual line . Today that line has become so rigid we are failing to feel we are still a part of the natural world and believe we can exist without it.
Wilson's views on reductionism suggest that he is completely unaware of systems thinking, complex systems science and even cybernetics. Isn't such a understanding and lens a vital tool to have as a part of an inter-relating network of tools for perceiving deeper into nature? I find it strange that Pinker mentions cybernetics, something very closely related to systems science and thinking, and then doesn't say anything about Wilson's comments on reductionism being as far as science can go.
I was just watching Pinker give a talk at The Santa Fe Institute, a research institute dedicated to the study of complex systems. Maybe he wasn't aware back then or he didn't wan't to debate it with Wilson due to his dedication to reductionism or something. You'd think someone studying the mind and it's biology would understand the limits of reductionism and the merits of complex systems science and systems thinking. Santa Fe's stated goals are to "promote a unity of knowledge and a recognition of shared responsibility that will stand in contrast to the present growing polarization of intellectual cultures." and "pursue research on a large number of highly complex and interactive systems which can be properly studied only in an interdisciplinary environment". Isn't this what Wilson is talking about? Wouldn't understanding the fundamental similarities and relations between different systems help to bind things up into clearer and more consilient models?
I also think that not logically and/or mathematically understanding the ubiquitous phenomena of emergence leads to making false separations and taking things out of context and the process being described. Emergence is obviously essential to understanding systemic behaviors and properties. Someone who believes in the existence of a soul or spirit most likely hasn't thought about emergence and other systemic phenomena much. Or maybe, and probably more likely, they just don't think very much at all. Discourse on mind never seems to involve this framework, which i think is quite easy to understand and makes mathematical and logical sense. Systemic and emergent behavior, properties and structures can be simulated on computers and even with chemicals, as seen in Martin Hanczyc's work on protocells, as he calls them.
I think people cling to reductionism as the be-all and end-all because the notion of probabilistic, nonlinear and non-deterministic dynamics is too radical a shift from reductionism or it just downright scares them or something. I think this stuff is important to discuss and think about as we begin to move into a future where more and more people are embracing this kind of thinking. Are you paying close attention?
More junk science by two of its leading practitioners.
I would urge anyone interested in Consilience to consider the work of David Deutsch and Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris as well.
Wilson mentions the renewal of the enlightenment through consilience. Rather the rebirth of scientific racism and eugenics.
#1 Take a permaculture course to help with #2. change your lifestyle. reduce energy use as much as possible. #3 is to NOT have any children! We already have 7.5billion ppl on the planet. Totally excessive and unsustainable for the rest of the earths species. #4 Plant trees anywhere and everywhere.
Truly incredible that there are people out there that will insist that human behavior can't be explained with evolution.
"Reductionism" is a slur.
What the blank slate theorist calls reductionist is, in fact, a dedication to scientific principles- such as parsimony.
These videos need to have MILLIONS of views, wish more people cared about science, it's far more fascinating than fights on a subway.
..self-defining, vertically integrated temporal superposition has the math-physics-chemistry resonance bonding of multi-phase loops of an elementary natural philosophy, structurally occurring by e-Pi-i mathematical design out of this distributed perspective that becomes a vanishing point positioning space construction, and that is this circular cause-effect connection in solid-liquid-gas-plasma… a superimposed time duration rate timing distance positioning with inherently instantaneous feedback to bio-logical evolutionary or metastable shape changing adaptations, built by this Quantum Mechanical = Quantum Operator formula.., here-now eternally.
If you don't Mind.., but what you perceive and think about with this basic function, is your own "mindful" concern, in your own symbolism and words you can understand.
I would like to see debate: Chomsky vs. Steven Pinker
Just FYI I'm reading "Consilience," by E.O. Wilson aloud in separate 15-30 minute chunks on my Youtube channel. feel free to use the playlist "Consilience"
Pinker has always been kind of a ding-dong who only deals with other peoples' ideas.