Enlightenment Now | Robert Wright & Steven Pinker [The Wright Show]

26 thoughts on “Enlightenment Now | Robert Wright & Steven Pinker [The Wright Show]”

1. I don't think many academicians are aware of the fact that the soul has been traditionally framed in terms of information processing.

2. Bob, I think you should take more of a pantheistic position than a theistic one in order to argue for a teleological worldview. So, instead of looking at the evolutionary algorithm as having been designed by a (divine) creative intelligence, you can look at the evolutionary algorithm as the way creative intelligence operates in the world (whether human or divine or otherwise). Susan Blackmore (in her book "The Meme Machine") actually provides the key to this view (albeit unwittingly). She argued in her book (not explicitly, but in an around about way) how memetic selection can explain the APPARENT design of artifacts like pocket watches in the same way that genetic selection can explain the APPARENT design of organs like eyeballs. And as you have already noted in your video, the evolutionary algorithm can be employed to explain the APPARENT design of the universe of as whole (a.k.a. the anthropic principle).

3. Please let your thoughtful (and very polite) guest speak. Thank you!

4. Robert demonstrates in his speech everything I find wrong with academic papers- his points are a mess of circular, poorly phrased word salad. Most of his statements could be whittled down to just a few sentences; talking for a longer period of time doesn't mean you are presenting more information. His points might have some merit if he could be more succinct.

5. I think Wright is on to something. The fact that it is like something to be lends credence to the idea that natural selection and/or the mechanisms that set it into motion have motives besides simple reproduction.

6. Didn't know Roberts' "Non-Zero" was "in part an inspiration" (Steven at about 1:12:31) for Better Angels.

7. This week on "Robert Wright brings an interesting guest on only to defend himself". Jesus Christ, Robert. I'm not sure if I can finish your book after watching some of these interviews.

8. I was really hoping to hear what Pinker had to say, but that proved to be nearly impossible given Wright's constant interruptions. Apparently Wright's idea of an interview is just to introduce a speaker and then spend the majority of his time simply talking over him.

9. I heard Robert Wright mention this being available on a podcast. I am thinking I may well like to hear him doing a one, though I was unable to find any Robert Wright podcast. Does anyone know what this podcast is called ?

10. Wright was VERY tiresome, especially about the retweet/NY Times piece. Shut up Bob.

11. The comments section seems to have suffered the 'Joe Rogan' effect…e.g irrational tribalism and feudalism over actually making a goddam interesting or nuanced point!

12. In case either Steve or Robert are reading these essays, this is what i do when i wake up as a means of studying without having to drum up motivation, i have arguments with talking heads ( I don't mean puppets just listening to the discussion and argument from outside). I'm really drawn to argument and constantly critical so everything is inspired by contention though i think we share the majority of the scaffolding of our thoughts as common ground

13. This is all in response to something somebody said in this video, chronologically. I hope it's easy enough to see what parts i'm responding to in each comment

    I think that the debiasing techniques Steven refers to are something like techniques or practices which allow a person to make good decisions regardless of their biases while meditation has the possibility of reducing the actual power of the cognitive underpinnings. Closer to debiasing as opposed to rebiasing

    *The consequences of meditation on Behavioral Economics is not being explored the way it should be in my opinion. I asked Dilip Soman whether meditation frees up cognitive resources by for instance easing deactivation of the Default Mode Network and he replied that he was unaware of research on the subject, more or less. I think there is so much room to go about showing various effects of meditation on bias that it's astounding i haven't seen anything come of it. It's difficult with the impossibility of publishing negative results to even know whether it's been brought up.

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    Noam chomsky has highlighted the importance of this tribalism as a source of bias pretty consistently for decades but he does it in a way that activates tribalism in academics so of course they're pretty biased against seeing this as the case.

    These tribalism biases are especially interesting and significant because they can be programmed easily by propaganda

    Of course Noam is somehow controversial. If it weren't for the fact that he keeps his public discourse to highly robust effects and that he has such credibility within the scientific community for his less important work he would have been successfully put to the fringe. As it is he's controversial and there's this sort of norm for a cool rationality the academic tribes tend to equate with a watered down critique of US aggression and imperialism, which leads to ridiculous biases like the widespread acceptance of the drastically underestimated morbidity rates from US action

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    think for reducing bias generally mindfulness especially taken to an extreme (changing default module) will have a very significant effect on many biases but for tribalism type biases the type of meditations most effective at reducing social anxiety would have more of an effect, such as compassion meditation and non judgemental conversations on aversive events and emotions as well as opinions

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    The sense of shame for being irrational will actually ironically likely increase tribal biases XD and in a particularly pernicious way where the norms and beliefs of the group, those that are most intertwined with tribal biases become seen as rationality and stepping outside of that becomes seen as being irrational. The exact opposite will have the intended effect, that is non judgemental extrapolation of aversive differences of opinion wherein the difference of opinion is reoriented as acceptable and no longer a source of social/existential dread.

    Compassion will work better than Vipassana will work better than shame for irrationality (which will have the opposite effect). Pride in rationality would work

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    Teleological bias makes no sense in physics but the misapplication of the bias was at the heart of the problem of the critique of non behaviorist psychology.

    The way that experts draw conclusions by extended analogy looks very similar to how people will take information from various loosely connected subjects to find support of their pet opinions.

    It's easy to see how from a self serving perspective a difficult theory from an expert that relies on an assumed internal state and intentionality as well as complex and highly abstract analogies will be seen as flawed for relying on teleological biases and overly reaching for evidence that supports their opinion when it is against our/our tribes internalized beliefs

    As an example of how teaching biases and such only leads to their being used only as tools to attack perceived opposition and clumsily and never for our own surgery in developing our worldviews

    I think in a person that had lots of meditation understanding these things will be most helpful because they will be helpful only when we can see them in ourselves

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    We do have to undo industrial capitalism, but we have to undo industrial capitalism because we need to rapidly advance in technology, undoing industrial capitalism and returning to low tech are not synonymous in fact to the opposite of returning to low tech (rapid technological advancement) is in contention with continuing industrial capitalism. What is necessary is democratic decision making in production, pursuit of technological advancement and resource management. We also have to create the conditions in which democratic societies make more intelligent decisions and (as is implied by the word democracy) remove the ability for any individuals to alter the discourse in their own interests, especially via scientific mass propaganda

14. Can you do a crowd fund for me to go on a retreat please 😁😁😁

15. People in the comments thread can have a go at Robert Wright. The unwillingness of Steven Pinker however to think seriously about close examination of his own mind says much about Western academics and the bubble in which they live.

16. For someone who practices mindfulness, the interviewer seems totally distracted with his fidgeting, unfocused body language, inability to listen and haphazard rantings. Would like to have heard more from Steve who was composed and rational.

17. Not a intellectual but logarithms in there very nature are polarising opinion. Maybe instead of believing social media's we should converse more over coffee wine or beer. Aussie Jeff

18. Again wouldn't the environment in which you live in after the retreat drag you into the world that you perceive. Buy the way I like Buddhism but do not get the chance to meditate but in my day I look at what day has to offer. More of a working mans meditation. Aussie Jeff

19. It’s always painful to listen to Robert Wright doing interviews but he has such great guests they I have to listen past Roberts incessant self bias

20. https://www.thenation.com/article/waiting-for-steven-pinkers-enlightenment/

21. Mr. Pinker will now think twice about getting a root canal w/o medication or spending an hour+ with Robbie; As an additional task, Mrs. X,7th grade English teacher, will hand pick 2 of Mr. Wright's sentences' for diagramming.Poor kids.

22. I think the reason natural selection has installed us with Frontal Cortex which's function is creating consciousness is the realization of this mechanism that it takes too long for it to form anti-epidemic installations into it's speciestherefore by incorporating such a incredible device, these certain species may develop it themselves. And, also the reason might be that our subconscious natural impulses or reactions were not very helpful when it comes to our survival without the aid of a consciousness.

23. So many holes in Pinker's statements but the biggest is 57:52, how can he make such an ignorant statement that Darwin answered the question of how complex life arose. We have NO IDEA to this day how the simplest of life forms (much less) complex life arose. And he keeps bringing up "natural selection" as the answer to seemingly everything.

24. I think that if Wright gave some thought to the Fermi paradox it would cure him of the strange idea that evolution necessitates the intelligent life to exist.

25. My tribe may be functionally extinct.

26. I like Wright and respect him…but i feel that for an "agnostic" he is as of late constantly making every effort to insert a god of the gaps in any cranny of scientific ambiguity (ie quantum free will/intelligent design even though he claims ad nauseum that he doesn't believe in it)

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