[PLEASE PLACE ALL OFF-TOPIC COMMENTS HERE. THEY WILL NOT BE POSTED IN THIS THREAD]
We’ve talked a lot on this blog about Noam Chomsky, and also about Richard Klein, a scientist who argued that a single brain mutation about 50 kya sparked behavioral modernity (the rise of art, symbolism, and complex tools).
But what we haven’t talked about, is that Noam Chomsky essentially endorses Klein’s theory, only Chomsky is much more specific: he believes the genetic mutation was the capacity for language.
While a lot of comments in the comment section blather on about Chomsky’s political theories, these same comments are mum when it comes to Chomsky’s linguistic theories. Why? Because the latter theory is much more abstract and people lack the cognitive ability to discuss it.
Chomsky believes in part that before about 100,000 years ago, humans could only understand linear language, but because of a mutation after 100,000 years ago, we suddenly acquired an ability to arrange words in stacked triangles, and thus think hierarchically, so adverbs could modify verbs that were linearly far away in a sentence. So as Chomsky’s co-author Robert C. Berwick likes to say:
“Instinctively, birds that swim, can fly”
Instinctively refers to the ability to fly, not the ability to swim, even though linearly, the former verb is closer. So if Chomsky and Berwick are right, if we cloned someone from 100,000 years ago and raised them in the best modern schools today, they would still not be able to understand this sentence because their brains were only wired to process linear, non-hierarchical language.
Chomsky cites the complete lack of symbolism in the archeological record prior to 100,000 years ago as evidence that there was no language.
In Chomsky’s view, language mutated in the brain of a single African about 100 kya, but because he or she was the first to possess language, she had no one to talk to and just talked to herself.
But perhaps once she had kids who shared her capacity for language, the entire family could speak among themselves and plan strategies that allowed her to exploit the environment in ways their pre-language contemporaries could not, causing the language mutation to spread rapidly.
Many years ago some scientists decided to make a monkey out of Chomsky, literally. They raised a chimp as though it were human, and named the Chimp “Nim Chimpsky” and tried to teach it human language.
“The experiment was a total failure” gloated Chomsky. Apparently, the chimp could only string words together linearly, but lacked the hierarchical processing for true language.
A more recent challenge to Chomsky’s language theory is the claim that Neanderthals had language. Chomsky finds it completely unconvincing and wonders, if Neanderthals had language, why didn’t they use it? Chomsky’s analogy: It would be like a wild species bird not knowing it could fly until a bunch of biologists tossed them in the air and said “hey you guys can fly!”
For a more in depth discussion about Chomsky’s views, see this lecture by his co-author Robert Berwick:
Pumpkin Person 
While a lot of comments in the comment section blather on about Chomsky’s political theories, these same comments are mum when it comes to Chomsky’s linguistic theories. Why? Because the latter theory is much more abstract and people lack the cognitive ability to discuss it.
yet another lie by peepee. i have spoken of chomsky’s theory multiple times. his theory is wrong. unlike you peepee i know what his theory is.
i have spoken of chomsky’s theory multiple times.
Really? I must have missed it.
[redacted by pp, march 8, 2018]
a lot of commenters = 2 commenters
these same comments are mum when it comes to Chomsky’s linguistic theories = true only of 1 of those 2 commenters.
I said a lot of comments, not a lot of commenters.
chomsky’s theory is so obviously false the ONLY reason it’s still promoted is people want to believe it and chomsky is a self-promoter.
and the theory of chomsky’s you give is NOT the theory chomsky is known for.
[redacted by pp, march 8, 2018]
this most recent theory of chomsky’s is very recent. it’s just another example of how chomsky is senile. if he were younger i would explain such a theory as due to autism. he developed this ridiculous theory in order to save the theory he is known for and which made him famous.
why don’t you tell us what that theory is peepee.
You’re the Chomsky fanatic. I only got interested because you constantly mention him. But I think the theory for which he is famous is that language is hardwired into the human brain.
My article was not a criticism of the theory. I personally find it unconvincing, but fascinating nonetheless. Watch the lecture by his much younger co-author before forming an opinion. I think the co-author did most of the work, and Chomsky just gave the theory his name and prestige.
read these books and then claim to understand chomsky’s theory.
[redacted by pp, march 8, 2018]
OMG, my brain hurts, these are hard!!
It would be great if we had a high IQ Chomsky fan who could actually discuss those books instead of just post pictures of them. Unfortunately we don’t have one of those.
who’s we? i’ve read each one and understand them. i got an A in the course for which the first was the textbook.
now you do the same, and STOP lying.
You didn’t get an A in any course where the class average IQ was above 80.
You’re very dumb Mug of Pee.
Your WISC scores didn’t lie.
If you want to prove you’re not as dumb as the WISC, jimmy & pincher martin say, tell me what comes next in this sequence:
1,1,1,1,2,2,2,4,1,5,3,3,9,1,?
[correct answer redacted by pp, march 10, 2018]
how would you know what my WISC scores were?
you wouldn’t. and neither would i. no one ever told me. just more lies from peepee.
i guess the BGI folks are even dumber than me.
sad!
and so are the prometheans. ’cause they’d admit me for my 1560 on the SAT.
sad!
number sequences are not part of ANY IQ test peepee-tard. they’re like the puzzles on the back of a cereal box.
You’ve given enough information about your WISC scores to make rough estimates.
I don’t speak for the BGI study or Prometheus but it’s pretty obvious that you’re not that bright.
But here’s an easier number sequence for you to redeem yourself:
3,5,8,7,4,6,10,9,5,7,12,?
And number sequences appear on IQ tests all the time
jimmy & pincher martin say,
they never said that and neither did the WISC.
STOP lying!
Don’t make me find exact quotes
My WISC is 125 age 12
but I do not know what this means I am not an IQ expert.
And I am Hoping I do not get ignored because if Mug ee Bee is above 125 it only shows that it is not his scores being low pumpkin dislikes but his attitude. My scores being low has so far not made pumpkin dislike me. It is only because his Wais sore being high that he can research better than me these terms pumpkin keeps insisting he is wrong about. I believe Mug when he says his collages tests put him at 125-130. more like 125. But the WISC may be more connected with g since my g and fsiq difference is 17 points apart. The WISC is for kids so it would be more about creativity and not raw computation the WAIS measures. Hopefully, that means 125 is a good score for me. Personality and not Mugs score is the issue I think. (unless creativity is some factor) And I still hope this is not ignored.
@Pumpkin
I can’t solve those number sequences without paper and pencil.
working memory too low.
pumpkinperson
“tell me what comes next in this sequence:
1,1,1,1,2,2,2,4,1,5,3,3,9,1,?”
?=4
“Triangles form hierarchies”
This is the self-reference I mentioned earlier.
Hierarchical self-reference is necessary for metanoia(meta-mind)
The simulator starts simulating the simulator.
Internal feedback, the mind points inward.
I agree that structure is necessary.
But not much because it could be like race.
Macro races begin with around 10,000 people I think.
Same with structure, Not 5 people Chomsky says.
The structure was common among humans at a great vast number.
It activated and Hierarchical thinking began.
back in my university days, I walked by a group of good looking women (average IQ perhaps 125) who were all getting really analytical about Chomsky’s political theory about how the media manufactures consent. The same week I walked by a group of scrawny nerds with glasses (average IQ perhaps 150) who were talking about Chomsky’s linguistic theories.
Two groups of Chomsky’s fans, separated by perhaps 25 IQ points, resulted in the smarter group obsessing over Chomsky’s abstract theory (language) and the dumber group obsessing over Chomsky’s practical theory (politics)
Grady Towers speculated that one reason why the correlation between IQ and income is not higher, is that above 150 IQ, people shift from the practical to the theoretical.
I have been a theoretical thinker from age 12 (A.I. stuff). I understood stop motion animation age 10 got the lego movie studio to play with. I understood at age 10 that atoms must be finite in size and space must be made of something to warp speed spaceships. Also discovered the logic gate age 12.
Not much I do now. (key brain spot is stuck) not much help from anyone. Helping myself develop mental clarity. Failed school because of mostlly I was not thinking of doing school I had an A.I. project. In college classes basics made you do random things and I can’t memorize. I found lectures, the oldest on the internet by date of conference about the perception-action cycle. That was my project in high school but no one knew what I was doing. the conference and my project were the same year 2007. I just di not know anyone to talk to. I dropped out college, got this spot that keeps my brain stuck. Right Frontal temporal lobes. (sometimes I need to blink really hard)
I am confused about New Mexicos Standards for Giftedness School Programs.
I have different interests than most people. abstract being paramount.
I have ideas that fold inward into other ideas.
Interconnectivity is beyond power structures, it aligns with conceptual density.
Conceptual density explains theoretical (hierarchical network) causal relations.
practicality is (the results from actions) the understanding of how to accomplish and who can accomplish power games.
So I understand the hierarchy network in my head building my own model of the world not caring about power games but about secrete scientists in 1998 inventing UFO tech in military bases I saw on cartoons. And how the first time I understood the internet was in 1999 when Digimon when in the temple and saw the wires on the globe. Age 11. And the game cube in 2001 and the Nintendo Wii in 2009.
Stuff about Stuff. Connecting it all together. That someday we would be able to enter the video game. Have almost all my files since 2006. and Youtube videos favorite since 2009. In the 2003 show Ghost in the shell, it has a scene where a character is brought back to life from information on the internet in the year 2032. I think this is plausible.
I was not raised by academic parents. I think about what it means if the connections in my head were software on a computer. I do not read what intellectuals read. I find it interesting the internet allows me to learn more. No one really helps me out. I just get by working on making my network a deeper hierarchy.
The fundamental problem of abstraction is that it’s not the end but the mean because if the reality we live is fundamentally physic so we can’t spend much time with abstractions to solve problems [paradigms, paradoxs, etc] only if you are a well paid academic worker, 😉
Abstraction is itself meta-physical.
It’s used to improve but not to really grasp certain detected new reality.
Many people [seems] think meta-physical is always about ”religion” but not so.
Indeed we even can say abstractions tend to be a less-remote/ and fixed-metaphors or analogies.
Abstraction is just like a microscop or macroscop, it used to expand our capacity to understand realities with higher or lower dimension than our immediate reality, itself a analogy is a way a observer subject to create or stablish a path/a distance between him/her and the observed phenomenon.
Abstraction is basically a distance between a observer and a observed while physical, sensorially perceived, is direct. We simulate ”GOD” when we create this ”analogical paths of remote realities” if IT would be everything inside, outside, whatever dimension…
And remember, to understand outside or even inside reality we need ”just like” put in their own clothes, space and their own reality, in other words, empathy [my expanded concept of empathy to non-related personal things…. even in the end, basically no have such thing].
or not.
If Noam Chomsky’s IQ is 158 then his global working memory (of 180 brain regions) He can hold 104 items in his head at once and handle the interactions between those 104 items as trackable. (I said I can only do 25 to 36 items)
You mentioned something like that before – is it your own theory?
When fenoopy posted the IQ questions for 115 and 145.
115 IQ tests had 27 different variables
145 IQ tests had 81 different variables
this means 130 is 27 * 2 = 54 = 6 * 9
this means 5 points = an increase in 9 items
45/5=9 and 9*9 = 81 = IQ 145
27/15 = 1.8
15 IQ points * 1.8 = 27 items
1.8 items increase per IQ point
[correct answer redacted by pp, march 10, 2018] That’s not mega material 😉
I’ve been hearing 2 conferences of Chomsky on the subject and they are quite interesting, he is really a good pedagogue, but are a bit too slow paced. I’d rather read a book. In which book does he presents his theory on language appearance ?
It’s really a simple argument to say that language is too complex, like vision or movement, for it to be learnt without any already existing ability. And as this ability only has developed into human, we are probably the only one to have it. But then I don’t see why it should necessarily entail it appeared without evolution.
Human language systems is basically the evolution of communication systems which virtually all living beings have.
Language seems a type of cognitive product of domestication, what dogs tend to do when they are trained, or even the pavlovian method.
The difference is that because dogs is considerably more instinctive than humans so they basically associate things to immediate ends [food specially] while human gratification is significantly more large and impersonal-related.
Human knowledge is due for increase the efficiency of communication to spread or shared rules within the communities and also because it’s important, at priori, in ideal conditions, to maximize survive among ”our” species.
What do you think of Pinker BS Chomsky here?
“he believes the genetic mutation was the capacity for language.”
Just so stories.
Does Chomsky have a genetic mutation in mind? The FOXP2 gene is needed in the neuromuscular pathway to make sounds. Erectus had an ancestral version which implies he could make some sounds. Though Paabo says that the human version evolved 120 kya which fits with Klein’s genetic mutation theory that supposedly occurred 50 kya.
Chomsky’s not too concerned about the FOXP2 gene cause it’s mostly involved in the motor aspects of speech, and perhaps much less involved in the cognitive aspects of language.
The genetic change Chomsky envisions would affect speech & sign language equally since it’s a thinking change.
There’s a circuit in the brain they feel is complete in humans but incomplete in all other primates
Which circuit?
See the 52:30 mark in this video (the whole video is worth watching too):
I will try to watch it. I am biking through Viêt Nam (it’s quite exhausting) and in some places there is no internet …
Chomsky is right the brain being genetically altered for language. You often see car crash victims that are brain damaged, but not absolutely brain damaged. But brain damaged in the sense they can’t make certain linguistic patterns. At least i think thats the case.
And this explain why seems only humans who are predominantly right handed, or not.
Personally think language evolved slowly and that it’s a natural step for all intelligent life. A dolphin for example would quickly develop language if humans hadn’t done so first.
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