Steven Pinker - The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

From the book jacket: Our conceptions of human nature affect every aspect of our lives, from the way we raise our children to the political movements we embrace. Yet just as science is bringing us into a golden age of understanding human nature, many people are hostile to the very idea. They fear that a biological understanding of the mind will be used to justify inequality, subvert social change, and dissolve personal responsibility and strip life of meaning and purpose. In The Blank Slate Pinker retraces the history that led people to view human nature as dangerous, and unsnarls the moral and political debates that have entangled the idea along the way. Steven Pinker is introduced by Samuel Jay Keyser, Peter de Florez Emeritus Professor at MIT, Linguistics and Philosophy faculty.

[Kangoo]

Pinker starts talking at 10:12. (Talk organizers are often under the illusion that audiences came to listen to them, when in fact no one could care less about what they have to say.)

[frankmolnar]

Pain is inevitable. Parenting is optional.

[Trapping_ackbar]

I love how a concerned dad asks for Pinkers input on his son with no empathy and Pinker was just like "ever heard of ted bundy? your kid is probably a psychopath" 💀

[DefundTheFringes]

A 2002 actual date on this would be useful.

[frankmolnar]

These circles that you speak can contract as easily as they can expand.

[frankmolnar]

It's only a parent's vanity that makes them want to think that they have a greater influence over their kid's life than they actually do have.

[Ramkumar-ujfo]

Now I have reversed this book after 17 years


A) Noble Savage - Bharatnatyam
B) Ghost in machine - Digilocker is Soul
C) Blank Slate - It is whatever you are taught and learnt. No intellect before senses

Also violence has not reduced because there is oppression (Read snakes in ganga).

This is for my Younger daughter. Completely deny human nature for modernity 👍🌹🙏

Not reversing but as per the theory North is family and South is people (never learnt any South language formally).

[ALavin-enkr]

It is ironic that Pinker originated the expression ‘the blank slate’ now he has made a U turn and is opposed to it.

[olemanshavadoo]

Shout out Wilson high school Tacoma Washington

[javiervs]

You and me baby
We ain't nothing but mammals
So let's do it how they do it
In the discovery channel

[visigrog]

I wish I didn't have to listen to that woman's long, nonsensical, meandering question.

[mileyondrumz]

This video doesn’t upload/download. Weird

[nunuevaaa]

🧚🏾‍♂️🦋true, cant ✨deny the sides of reality, if its always ✨good its never good🦋🧚🏾‍♂️

[donaldwhittaker]

Great guy. Always a pleasure. Dispels a lot of nonsense. Genes and peer group influence are very important determiners of future behavior, beliefs, interests, etc. I think IQ is mostly inherited which accounts for my ability to appreciate Pinker, Dawkins, Dennett, and others whose ideas I find commensurate with my own. Sounds facetious but really is not. People who accept Darwin generally have a higher intelligence than those who do not. This is a testable theory.

[danmosley]

33:35 Pinker conflates noble savages. Pinker, along with others, do not recognize the distinct differences between small tribes and peaceful hunter gather groups. They view them as sociologically interchangeable.

[AndreyBogoslowskyNewYorkCity]

I’m convinced the universe is not a thing but it’s a process. It’s a continuous process. Everything you see is non-material. It’s a vibration as we know from quantum physics. If all the ancient stages convince us universe is one and God is won and one consciousness is God in that case I am inseparable from God and God is I and I am God, but only in this very millisecond of existence, mine is emptiness. The true nature of existence is a void by this definition of self is not correct because if I describe myself as I know the true nature of Andrey Bogoslowsky, this is infinity and immortality. These are only words created by linguist. In fact, they’re very complicated words from Latin language. Let’s go back to the nature of the universe for any means it’s not a thing it’s not a item it’s a process moving with the speed of light yes, ladies and gentlemen, if you know anything from Astra physics, you know the universe is moving with the speed of light and subatomic particles are moving with the speed greater than the speed of light because this is quantum universe The universe as we know it is pure consciousness no thoughts no voices no noises nothing visible nothing invisible, no desires no, no future only continuous process.
BogoslowskyArtStudio @ gmail.

[HubbardGavin-ex]

Taylor Nancy Brown George Rodriguez Melissa

[danmosley]

Amazon rain forest tribes have warriors and permanent settlements in defended territories. Hunter gathers do not defend territory and do not have warriors.

[ALavin-enkr]

In addition to my comment below, denying what is innate, which religion acknowledges is unique to each individual, our individuality, (far from being a ghost in the machine), plus the causal (ideas) plus the astral, (life force and energies) in addition to the physical (elemental) leaves Pinker’s thesis, reductive. His view is purely based on biology alone whose ability to create individuality, much less consciousness, much less intelligence is dubious and unproven. Consciousness is not understood, and has been described as the hard problem. Consciousness is not physical, owes no debt to matter, to the elemental world, therefore it is the hard problem.

The mind which emerges with quantum events is physical. The guard for human protection from Pinker’s misinformation is consciousness which is and will be immune from interference from sociobiologists, , being beyond their reach or interference. Minds can be malleable and hijacked by misinformation, or actual programming, unfortunately this is the case, so investigate, read, and analyze. Sociobiologies are backing away from the blank slate, or Skinner’s behaviorism, of the last century, because of its wrong-headedness and total awfulness, not to mention inaccuracy.

Don’t be hijacked by a personable presenter and presentation. Pinker’s definition of human nature, based on biology, and Darwinism is reductive and limited. We are much more than this. We are conscious human beings and consciousness is not accessible to interference. Whether we use the term soul or not for our unique individualities, they are ours and should be off-limits to social biologists as is, as previously noted, consciousness itself. Thankfully.

[AndreyBogoslowskyNewYorkCity]

Evolution of symbols is a gradual process and it might take years.
One thing for sure every change a.k.a. “revolution”start within.
Revolt against your own believes, and presumption.
Symbols of your expression in your artwork must come from your synthetic subconsciousness and express true statement of yourself, including your daily feelings, affairs, activities, wishes, desires, fantasies, and perhaps even hopes for humanity.
You might start your drawing from a dog, and after a few weeks (few drawings), your dog will become a dragon 🐉, months later it might become a galaxy made out of antimatter.
Abuse your imagination, cross the limits of your own “frontal lobe Geography”.
Your mind exceeds capacity of known universe. try to use some of it for the good of humanity.

#Bogoslowsky a.k.a. immortal #King 🤴 Gilgamesh