Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Noam Chomsky he's truly one of the great
minds of our time and is one of the most
cited scholars in the history of our
civilization
he has spent over 60 years at MIT and
recently also joined the University of
Arizona where we met for this
conversation but it was at MIT about
four and a half years ago when I first
met Noam in my first few days there
I remember getting into an elevator at
Stata Center pressing the button for
whatever floor looking up and realizing
was just me and Noam Chomsky riding the
elevator just me in one of the seminal
figures of linguistics cognitive science
philosophy and political thought in the
past century if not ever I tell that
silly story because I think life is made
up of funny little defining moments they
never forget for reasons that may be too
poetic to try and explain that was one
of mine Noam has been an inspiration to
me and millions of others it was truly
an honor for me to sit down with him in
Arizona I travelled there just for this
conversation and in a rare heartbreaking
moment after everything was set up and
tested the camera was moved and
accidentally the recording button was
pressed stopping the recording so I have
good audio of both of us but no video of
Noam just the video of me and my
sleep-deprived but excited face and I
get to keep as a reminder of my failures
most people just listen to this audio
version for the podcast as opposed to
watching it on YouTube but still it's
heartbreaking for me I hope you
understand and still enjoy this
conversation as much as I did the depth
of intellect that Noam showed and his
willingness to truly listen to me
a silly-looking Russian in the suit it
was humbling and something I'm deeply
grateful for as some of you know this
podcast is a side project for me where
my main journey and dream is to build AI
systems that do some good for the world
this latter effort takes up most of my
time but for the moment has been mostly
private
but the former the podcast is something
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Twitter Alex Friedman spelled Fri D M
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better world and now here's my
conversation with Noam Chomsky I
apologize
for the absurd philosophical question
but if an alien species were to visit
earth do you think we would be able to
find a common language or protocol of
communication with them there are
arguments to the effect that we could in
fact one of them was Marvin Minsky's
back about twenty or thirty years ago he
performed a brief experiment with a
student of his den Bob burrower they
essentially ran the simplest possible
Turing machines just free to see what
would happen and most of them crashed
either got into an infinite loop or lost
stopped the few that persisted
essentially gave something like
arithmetic and his conclusion from
though was that if some alien species
developed IR intelligence they would at
least have arithmetic they would at
least have what the simplest computer
would do and in fact the he didn't know
that at the time but the core principles
of natural language are based on
operations which yields something like
arithmetic in the limiting case and a
minimal case so it's conceivable that a
mode of communication could be
established based on the core properties
of human language and the core
properties of arithmetic which maybe are
universally shared so it's conceivable
what is the structure of that language
of language as an internal system inside
our mind versus an external system as
its expressed it's not an alternative
it's two different concepts of language
different it's a simple fact that
there's something about you a trait of
yours part of your the organism you
that determines that you're talking
English and not the Tagalog let's say so
there is an inner system its determines
the sound and meaning of the infinite
number of expressions of your language
it's localized it's not on your foot of
these leads in your brain if you look
more closely it's in specific
configurations of your variant and
that's essentially like the internal
structure of your laptop whatever
programs it has or in there now one of
the things you can do with language it's
a marginal thing in fact is use it to to
externalize what's in your head actually
most of your use of languages thought
internal thought but you can do what you
and I are now doing we can externalize
it well the set of things that we're
externalizing are an external system if
there are noises in the atmosphere and
you can call that language in some other
sense of the word but it's not a it's
not a set of alternatives these are just
different concepts so how deep do the
roots of language go in our brain our
mind is it yet another feature like
vision or is it something more
fundamental from which everything else
Springs in are in the human mind well
it's in a way it's like vision there's a
you know there's something about our
genetic endowment that determines that
we have a mammalian rather than a insect
visual system and there's something in
her genetic endowment that turned that
determines that we have a human language
faculty no other organism has anything
remotely similar so in that sense its
internal now there is a long tradition
which I think is valid going back
centuries to the early Scientific
Revolution at least that holds that
language is the sort of the core of
human cognitive nature it's the source
its the mode for constructing thoughts
and expressing them that is
what forms thought and it's got
fundamental creative capacities it's
free independent unbounded and so on and
doubtedly I think the basis for creative
capacities and the other remarkable
human capacities that lead to the unique
achievements and not-so-great
achievements of the species the capacity
to think and reason do you think that's
deeply linked with language do you think
the way we the internal language system
is essentially the mechanism by which we
also reason internally it is undoubtedly
the mechanism by which we reasoned there
may also be other fact there are
undoubtedly other faculties involved in
reasoning we have a kind of scientific
faculty nobody knows what it is but
whatever it is that enables us to pursue
certain lines of endeavor and inquiry
and to decide what makes sense and
doesn't make sense and to achieve
certain degree of understanding of the
world
that's uses language but goes beyond it
just as using our capacity for
arithmetic is not the same as having the
capacity idea of capacity our biology
evolution you've talked about it
defining essentially our capacity our
limit and our scope can you try to
define what limited scope are and the
bigger question do you think it's
possible to find the limit of human
cognition
well that's an interesting question it's
it's commonly believed most scientists
believe that human intelligence can
answer any question in principle I think
that's a very strange belief if we were
biological organisms which a not angels
then we our capacities ought to have
scope and limits which are interrelated
can define the state terms well let's
take let's take a concrete example your
genetic endowment determines that you
can have a million visual system their
arms and legs and so on but it and
therefore become a rich complex organism
but if you look at that same genetic
endowment it prevents you from to have
developing in other directions there's
no kind of experience which would yield
the embryo to develop an insect visual
system or to develop wings instead of
arms so the very endowment that confers
richness and complexity also sets bounds
on what it could what can be attained
now I assume that our cognitive
capacities are part of the organic world
therefore they should have the same
properties if they had no built-in
capacity to develop a rich and complex
structure we would have understand
nothing Africa just as if your genetic
endowment did not compel you to develop
arms and legs you would just be some
kind of a random amoeboid creature with
no structure at all so I think it's
plausible to assume that there are
limits and I think we even have some
evidence as to what they are so for
example there's a classic moment in the
history of science at the time of Newton
there was a from Galileo to Newton
modern science developed on a
fundamental assumption which Newton also
accepted namely that the world is an
entire universe is a mechanical object
and by mechanical they meant something
like the kinds of artifacts that were
being developed by skilled artisans all
over Europe the gears and levers and so
on and the other their belief was well
the world is just a more complex variant
of this Newton to his astonishment and
distress proved that there are no
machines that there's interaction
without contact his contemporaries like
liveness and Huygens just dismissed this
is returning to the mysticism of the Neo
scholastics a Newton agreed as you've
said it is totally absurd no person of
any scientific intelligence could ever
accept this for a moment
in fact he spent the rest of his life
trying to get around it somehow as did
many other scientists that was the very
criterion of intelligibility for say
Galileo or Newton theory did not produce
an intelligible world unless he could
duplicate it in a machine he's heard you
can't there are no machines Annie
finally after a long struggle took a
long time scientists just accepted this
as common sense but that's a significant
moment that means they abandoned the
search for an intelligible world and the
great philosophers of the time
understood that very well so for example
David Hume in his comeon to Newton wrote
that it was the greatest thinker ever
and so on he said that he unveiled the
secret many of the secrets of nature but
by showing the imperfections of the
mechanical philosophy mechanical science
he left us with he showed that there are
mysteries which ever will remain on
science just changed its its goals it
abandoned the mysteries it can't solve
it put
sigh we only look for intelligible
theories newton's theories were
intelligible and it's just what they
described wasn't well what I feel ox
said the same thing I think they're
basically right and if so that should
something about the limits of human
cognition we cannot attain the goal of
development of understanding the world
of a finding an intelligible world this
mechanical philosophy Galileo to Newton
at this good case can be made that
that's our instinctive conception of how
things work so if they infants are
tested with things that if this moves
and then this moves they kind of invent
something that must be invisible that's
in between them that's making the
movements Noah yeah we like physical
contact something about our brain makes
makes us want a world like that just
like it wants a world that has regular
geometric figures so for example
Descartes pointed this out that if you
have a an infant who's never seen a
triangle before and you draw a triangle
the infant will see a distorted triangle
not whatever crazy figure it actually is
you know three lines not coming quite
together or one of them a little bit
curved and so on we just impose a
conception of the world in terms of
geometric
perfect geometric objects it's now been
shown that goes way beyond that that if
you show on a to kiss the scope let's
say a couple of lights shining you do it
three or four times in a row what people
actually see is a rigid object in motion
not whatever is there that's we all know
that from a television set they see so
that gives us hints of potential limits
to our cognition I think it does but
it's a very contested view if you do a
poll among scientists
impossible we can understand anything
let me ask and give me a chance with
this so I just spent a day at a company
called neural link and what they do is
try to design what's called the brain
machine brain computer interface so they
tried to do thousands readings in the
brain being able to read what the
neurons are firing and then stimulate
back so to weigh do you think their
dream is to expand the capacity of the
brain to attain information sort of
increase the bandwidth of which we can
search Google kind of thing do you think
our cognitive capacity might be expanded
our linguistic capacity our ability to
reason might be expanded by adding a
machine into the picture can be expended
in a certain sense but a sense that was
known thousands of years ago a book
expands your elegant capacity okay so
this will could expand it too but it's
not a fundamental expansion it's not
totally new things could be understood
well nothing that goes beyond our native
cognitive capacities just like you can't
turn the visual system into an insect
system well I mean the the thought is
the thought is perhaps you can't
directly but you can map so the hood but
we already we know that without this
experiment right you could map what a
bee sees and presented in the form so
that we could follow it fact every bee
scientist doesn't but you don't think
there's something greater than bees that
we can map and then all of a sudden
discover something be able to understand
a quantum world quantum mechanics be
able to start to be able to make sense
the students at MIT you study and
understand quantum mechanics but they
always reduce it to the infant the
physical I mean they don't really
understand it
oh you don't there's thing that may be
another area where there's just a limit
to understand it we understand the
theories but
world that it describes doesn't make any
sense so you know the experiment the
Schrodinger's cat for example can
understand the theory but as Ruettiger
pointed out it's an unintelligible world
one of the reasons why Einstein was
always very skeptical about quantum
theory he described himself as a
classical realist Winston in montant
eligibility he has something in common
with infants in that way so back to
linguistics if you could humor me what
are the most beautiful or fascinating
aspects of language are ideas and
linguistics or cognitive science that
you've seen in a lifetime of studying
language and studying the human mind
well I think the deepest property of
language and puzzling property that's
been discovered is what are sometimes
called structure dependence we know
understand it pretty well but was
puzzling for a long time I'll give you a
concrete example so suppose you say the
guy who fixed the car carefully packed
his tools it's ambiguous he could fix
the car carefully or carefully package
tools
I suppose you put carefully in front
carefully the guy who fixed the car
packed his tools then it's carefully
packed not carefully fixed and in fact
you do that even if it makes no sense so
suppose you say carefully the guy who
fixed the car is tall you have to
interpret it as carefully he stole even
though that doesn't make any sense and
notice that that's a very puzzling fact
because you're relating carefully not to
the linearly closest verb but to the
linear remotely more remote for a linear
approach this is a easy computation but
here you're doing a much more what looks
like a more complex copy
you're doing something that's taking you
essentially to the more remote thing
it's now understand if you look at the
actual structure of the sentence you
know where the phrases are and so on
turns out you're picking out the
structurally closest thing but the
linearly more remote thing but notice
that what's linear is a hundred percent
of what you hear
you never hear structure can't so what
you're doing is and instantly this is
universal all constructions all
languages and what we're compelled to do
is carry out what looks like the more
complex computation on material that we
never hear and we ignore a hundred
percent of what we hear and the simplest
computation but now there's even a
neural basis for this that's somewhat
understood and there's good theories but
now that explains why it's true
that's a deep insight into the
surprising nature of language with many
consequences let me ask you about a
field of machine learning deep learning
there's been a lot of progress in neural
networks based neural network based
machine learning in the recent decade of
course neural network research goes back
many decades what do you think are the
limits of deep learning of neural
network based machine learning well to
give a real answer to that you'd have to
understand the exact processes that are
taking place and those are pretty opaque
so it's pretty hard to prove a theorem
about what can be done and what can't be
done but I think it's reasonably clear
I'm inputting technicalities aside but
deep learning is doing is taking huge
numbers of examples and finding some
patterns ok that's could be interesting
in some areas it is but we have to ask
you a certain question is it engineering
or is it science
Engineering in the sense of just trying
to build something that's useful or
science in the sense that it's trying to
understand something about elements of
the world so it takes a google parser we
can ask that question is it useful you
know it's pretty useful you know I use a
google translator so on engineering
grounds it's kind of worth having like a
bulldozer does it tell you anything
about human language zero nothing and in
fact it's very striking too it's from
the very beginning it's just totally
remote from science so what does a
Google parser doing it's taking an
enormous text let's say the Wall Street
Journal corpus and asking how close can
we come to getting the right description
of every sentence in the corpus well
every sentence in the corpus is
essentially an experiment this each
sentence that you produce is the is an
experiment which is a Maya grammatical
sentence the answer is usually yes so
most of the stuff in the corpus is
grammatical sentences but now ask
yourself is there any science which
takes random experiments which are
carried out for no reason whatsoever and
tries to find out something from them
like if you're a say a chemistry PhD
student you want to get a thesis can you
say well I'm just gonna do a lot of mix
mix a lot of things together
no no purpose just and maybe I'll find
something you'd be left out of the
department science tries to find
critical experiments ones that answer
some theoretical question doesn't care
about coverage of millions of
experiments so it just begins by being
very remote from science and it
continues like that
so the usual question that's asked about
see a Google parser is how well does it
do or some parse or how well does it do
on a corpus but there's another question
that's never asked
how well does it do on something that
violates all the rules of language so
for example take the structure
defendants case that I mentioned suppose
there was a language in which he used
linear proximity that's the mode of
interpretation these deep learning had
worked very easily on that fact much
more easily than an actual language is
that a success no that's a failure from
a scientific point of view it's a
failure that it doesn't it shows that
we're not discovering the nature of the
system at all thus it does just as well
or even better on things that violate
the structure of the system and it goes
on from there it's not an argument
against doing it it is useful to have
devices like this
so yes neural networks the kind of
approximate errs that look there's
echoes of the behavioral debates right
behavioral is about more than echoes
many of the people in deep learning say
they've indicated yeah Terry Sandusky
for example in his recent book says this
vindicates Skinnerian behaviour it
doesn't have anything to do with it yes
but I think there's something actually
fundamentally different when the data
set is huge but your point is extremely
well taken but do you think we can learn
approximate that interesting complex
structure of language what neural
networks they will somehow help us
understand the science possible I mean
you find patterns that you hadn't
noticed let's say could be in fact it's
very much like a kind of linguistics
it's done what's called corpus
linguistics when you suppose you have
some language where all the speakers
have died out but you have records so
you just look at the records and see
what you can figure out from that it's
much better than it's much better to
have actual speakers where you can do
critical experiments but if they're all
dead you can't do them so you have to
try to see what you can find out from
just looking at the data that's around
you can learn things actually
paleoanthropology is very much like that
and you can't do a critical experiment
on what happened two million years ago
so you kind of forced just to take what
data's around and see what you can
figure out from it okay it's a serious
study so let me venture into another
whole body of work and philosophical
question you've said that evil and
Society arises from institutions not
inherently from our nature do you think
most human beings are good they have
good intent or do most have the capacity
for intentional evil that depends on
they're bringing depends on their
environment on context I wouldn't say
that they don't arise from our nature
anything we do arises from our nature
and the fact that we have certain
institutions and not others is one mode
in which human nature has expressed
itself but as far as we know human
nature could yield many different kinds
of institutions the particular ones that
have developed have to do with
historical contingency the who conquered
whom and that sort of thing then they're
not rooted they're not rooted in our
nature in the senses they were central
to our nature so it's commonly argued
that these days that something like
market systems is just part of our
nature but we know from a huge amount of
evidence that that's not true there's
all kinds of other structures it's a
particular packet of modern history
others have argued that the roots of
classical liberalism actually argue that
that what's called sometimes an instinct
for freedom too interesting to be free
of domination by illegitimate Authority
is the core of our nature that would be
the officer to this and we don't know we
just know that human nature can
accommodate both kinds if you look back
at your life
is there a moment in your intellectual
life or life in general that jumps from
memory that brought you happiness
that you would love to relive again sure
falling in love having children what
about so you have put forward into the
world a lot of incredible ideas in
linguistics in cognitive science in
terms of ideas that just excites you
when it first came to you you would love
to relive those moments well I mean when
you make a discovery about something
that's exciting
like say it's true even the observation
of structure dependence and on from that
the explanation for it but the major
things just seem like common sense so if
you go back to take your question about
external and internal language you go
back to say the 1950s almost entirely
language is regarded an external object
something outside the mine it just
seemed obvious as that can't be true
like I said there's something about you
that says determines your told me
English not Swahili or something and but
that's not really discovery that's just
an observation with transparent you
might say it's kind of like the 17th
century the beginnings of modern science
17th century they they came from being
willing to be puzzled about things that
seemed obvious so it seems obvious that
a heavy ball of little for faster than a
light pole of lead but Galileo was not
impressed by the fact that it seemed
obvious so he wanted to know if it's
true that he carried out experiments
actually thought experiments never
actually carried them out which I can't
be true you know and out of
you know things like that observations
of that kind you know what white is a a
ball fall to the ground instead of
rising let's name it seemed seems
obvious do you start thinking about it
because why does it white esteem Ryan's
name and I think the beginnings of
modern linguistics roughly in the
fifties they're kind of like that just
being willing to be puzzled about the
phenomena that looked from some point of
view obvious and for example a kind of
doctrine most official doctrine of
structural linguistics in the 50s was
that languages can differ from one
another in arbitrary ways and each one
has to be studied on its own without any
presuppositions in fact they were
similar views among biologists about the
nature of organisms that each one's are
so different when you look at them that
almost anything you could be almost
anything well in both domains it's been
learned that that's very far from true
they're very narrow constraints on what
could be an organism or what could be a
language but these are you know that's
just the nature of inquiry science in
general yet inquiry so one of the
peculiar things about us human beings is
our mortality Ernest Becker explored it
in general do you ponder the value of
mortality do you think about your own
mortality I used to when I was about 12
years old I wondered I didn't care much
about my own mortality but I was worried
about the fact that if my consciousness
disappeared with the entire universe
disappear that was frightening did you
ever find an answer to that question no
nobody's ever found an answer but I
stopped being bothered by it it's kind
of like Woody Allen and one of his films
you may recall he starts he goes to a
shrink when he's a child and shrink yes
and what's your problem he says I just
learned that
the universe is expanding I can't handle
that
and in another absurd
question is what do you think is the
meaning of our existence here are the
life on Earth now briefly at a moment in
time think we answered by our own
activities there's no general answer we
determined what the meaning of it is the
action determining meaning meaning in
the sense of significance not meaning in
the sense that chair means this you know
but the significance of your life is
something you create No thank you so
much for talking today was a huge honor
thank you so much thanks for listening
to this conversation with Noam Chomsky
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you