The spectacular Ramachandran

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paolo Terni on June 8, 2008 at 14:35

TED talks are so cool...
check out also Dennett and Pinker!!
Paolo

Permalink Reply by Michael Hjerth on June 8, 2008 at 16:28

Dennett and Pinker, yes I've seen them too. Also heroes of mine. I just joined the Brights movement, with Dennett, Pinker, and Dawkings as prominent members.

Permalink Reply by Mark McKergow on June 9, 2008 at 17:29

Ramachandran is a really top-notch speaker, isn't he? Jenny and I saw him at the Tucson Science of Consciousness conference in 1996, and he was excellent there too.

We just had the pleasure of the Cheltenham Science Festival at the weekend - went to two presentations involving Stephen Pinker, one about his new book in conversation with AC Grayling, the other a discussion about IQ and where it currently sits entitled 'What makes a brilliant mind'.

There were other talks too, including one from brain scientist Shitij Kapoor where he showed comparative results between brains from schizophrenic patients _while they were hallucinating voices_ and 'normal' people. The schizophrenics showed activation in the language areas of the brain, where the others did not. This was interesting, but I was not entirely sure what to make of it - they way they are hearing voices, and their appear to act as if they were hearing voices. But what if this had not been the case - would they have been lying? ;-) He also used the words brain and mind interchangeably, which was perturbing.

Permalink Reply by Michael Hjerth on June 9, 2008 at 19:04

I love Pinker, he positions himself radically center in an inspiring way. Perfectly reasonable. I just read "the blank state", which make mince-meat of radical social constructionists, radical behaviourists, and people-are-naturally-good people at the same time. "The stuff of thought" is also a good book. Some very interesting observations about verb use, a kind of moderate Chomsky. Several really interesting chapters on things like swear words.

Brain and mind: It is quite easy, to slip between languages, it is the same with systems thinkers.

Michael

Permalink Reply by Anton Stellamans on June 16, 2008 at 10:08

Hi Michael,

I'm unfamiliar with his work. Which of Pinker's books would you recommend?

Anton

Permalink Reply by Michael Hjerth on June 16, 2008 at 13:27

Pinker is a cognitive linguist, but also a towering intelectuall in the same way as Dawkins and Dennett. He is also a fabulous writer. I loved "the Blank Slate" since it is such a clear argument for the fact that there is a human nature, and travels thin, but perfectly reasonable line between nature and nurture.

The stuff of thought, is also a good book. But here the focus is Pinkers home turf, cognitive semantics. The general idea is that the structure of language allows us to peek into some of the functioning of the human mind. Interestingly, it seems that Kant was onto something. The way verbs are constructed seems to indicate that some sort of ideas of causation, etc are inbuild into our cognitive function.

Another really intersting article by Pinker is about the dramtic decrease of violence since the beginnings of recorded history. Human beings are not becoming more violent, which is the impression you get from the media. We are getting less violent, day by day. This becomes clear if you look at statistics. I'll post the article and some video in another thread.

Permalink Reply by Agneta Castenberg on June 10, 2008 at 9:38

Thank´s for sharing Ramachandran great to listen to. What a nice place you are living at Mark and Jenny I can imagine you like it.
Agneta