1978: Noam Chomsky on LINGUISTICS and KNOWLEDGE! | Men of Ideas | Classic Interviews | BBC Archive
Summary
TLDRThe script discusses the inherent limitations of human understanding due to our reliance on personal experiences to construct a view of the world. It explores how these limitations might apply to humanity's collective knowledge, suggesting that our cognitive abilities, while allowing for scientific progress in some areas, may prevent us from making sense of other domains. The speaker considers the possibility that increased knowledge of our cognitive faculties might not expand these abilities but could help us recognize the boundaries of our scientific understanding.
Takeaways
- 🌐 **Individual Perspectives**: Each person constructs a view of the world based on their personal experiences, leading to a potentially distorted understanding.
- 🧠 **Cognitive Limitations**: The human mind's apparatus for understanding may impose systematic limits on our comprehension of the universe.
- 🚀 **Innate Scientific Capacity**: Humans possess an inherent ability to form scientific theories, which can sometimes extend beyond available evidence.
- 📚 **History of Science**: Scientific progress often involves initial theories that are later found to be incorrect, yet they pave the way for better understanding.
- 🔍 **Selective Evidence**: In formulating theories, scientists often focus on certain evidence while disregarding other data, hoping it will be addressed later.
- 🧐 **Idealization in Science**: The process of scientific discovery involves idealization, distortion, and the creation of new theories, which are then tested and refined.
- 🧬 **Biological Givens**: Our cognitive faculties are likely biologically determined and unlikely to be significantly altered through increased knowledge of them.
- 🤔 **Limits of Understanding**: There may be certain questions or domains that are beyond our capacity to understand or for which we cannot formulate explanatory theories.
- 🌌 **Delineation of Knowledge**: It's possible to identify areas where scientific theories are intelligible and those where they are not, reflecting the properties of our science-forming capacities.
- 📈 **Progress and Stagnation**: The history of science shows varying degrees of progress in different domains, suggesting inherent limitations in how we approach and understand certain topics.
Q & A
How does the transcript suggest our individual experiences shape our understanding of the world?
-The transcript suggests that our individual experiences construct a picture of the world, which is systematically distorted because it is built upon our own narrow experiences.
What does the speaker think about the limitations of human understanding as it pertains to the cosmos?
-The speaker believes that our understanding of the cosmos is drastically limited by the nature of our cognitive apparatus for understanding, but this same limitation also provides the possibility of creating explanatory theories.
How does the history of science illustrate the human capacity for scientific discovery?
-The history of science shows that humans can make innovative leaps of imagination to create theories that explain aspects of the universe, even if these theories are sometimes wrong.
What role does evidence play in the creation of scientific theories according to the transcript?
-The transcript indicates that when new theories are created, scientists often have very limited evidence, and much of the available evidence is typically disregarded in the hope that it will be addressed later.
How does the speaker describe the process of scientific discovery?
-The speaker describes the process of scientific discovery as involving idealization, selection and distortion of evidence, creation of new theories, and their subsequent confirmation, refutation, or modification.
What does the speaker suggest about the possibility of humans expanding their cognitive faculties?
-The speaker is skeptical about the possibility of expanding our cognitive faculties, viewing them as a biological given that we cannot easily modify.
What potential insight might come from studying our language-forming capacity, according to the transcript?
-Studying our language-forming capacity might give us insight into the limits of our science-forming abilities and identify areas where we cannot construct explanatory theories.
How does the speaker compare the progress in different scientific domains?
-The speaker notes a stark contrast in progress between domains like physics, where there have been substantial advances, and others, like understanding the source of human action, where there seems to be an absolute blank wall.
What does the speaker suggest about the nature of questions that fall beyond our science-forming abilities?
-The speaker suggests that some questions may simply be beyond our capacity to construct explanatory theories, and we might be able to identify these limits through further study.
What example does the speaker provide to illustrate the limitations of human understanding?
-The speaker uses the question of how a person makes a free decision as an example of a question that we have no framework to approach scientifically.
What does the speaker imply about the potential for future scientific advancements?
-The speaker implies that there may be a delineation between areas where scientific theories are intelligible and those where no such theory is possible, suggesting that we might gain insight into this boundary.
Outlines
🌌 Systematic Distortion in Human Perception
The speaker discusses how individuals construct a distorted view of the world based on their personal experiences, which are inherently limited. This leads to a collective human perception that is also systematically skewed. The conversation then turns to the idea that mankind's understanding of the universe is similarly distorted due to the cognitive apparatus we possess. The speaker suggests that while this apparatus may limit our understanding, it also provides the capacity for scientific innovation. Historically, science has made leaps in understanding despite limited evidence, often ignoring or idealizing data to form theories. This process is seen as a strength of human cognition, but it also implies that our theories may be far-reaching and sometimes incorrect. The speaker also touches on the idea that while we may improve our understanding of these cognitive faculties, it is unlikely that we can change or expand them due to their biological nature.
🔍 The Limits of Scientific Inquiry
In the second paragraph, the discussion continues with the idea that while we may understand the structure of the heart, we do not necessarily seek to replace it with a more efficient pump. Similarly, understanding the mental organs might help in pathological cases but not in enhancing our cognitive capacities. The speaker suggests that we might discover the limits of our science-forming abilities, recognizing that some questions may be beyond our capacity to explain. The speaker uses the history of science to illustrate how some areas of inquiry have seen substantial progress, while others, like understanding human decision-making, remain elusive. The speaker concludes by suggesting that the differences in progress reflect the inherent properties of our cognitive abilities and that we might be able to delineate the boundaries between what is comprehensible and what remains a mystery to our scientific understanding.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Systematic Distortion
💡Science-Forming Capacity
💡Idealization
💡Martian Scientist
💡Blank Wall
💡Cognitive Capacities
💡Theory Construction
💡Explanatory Theories
💡Evolutionary Constraints
💡Human Action
Highlights
Individuals construct a distorted view of the world based on personal experiences.
Mankind's understanding of the universe is limited by our cognitive apparatus.
The concept of 'limited' is questioned as it implies a negative connotation.
Science forming capacity allows for the creation of explanatory theories beyond available evidence.
Innovative leaps in science often begin with limited evidence and disregard for some available evidence.
The process of scientific discovery involves idealization, distortion, and theory confirmation or refutation.
Our cognitive capacities allow for the development of intelligible theories about the world.
The faculty of forming theories may lead us astray in domains outside our scientific progress.
The possibility of a 'martian scientist' observing our successes and errors from a higher intelligence.
The challenge of formulating concepts and categories to gain insight into certain domains.
The study of language forming capacity could increase knowledge of human cognitive faculties.
It is unlikely that increased knowledge will enable us to change or expand our cognitive faculties.
The possibility of discovering the limits of our science forming abilities.
The idea that some questions may fall beyond our capacity to construct explanatory theories.
The historical comparison of progress in physics versus the stagnation in understanding human action.
The inability to construct scientific theories about free human decision-making.
The reflection on the specific properties of our science forming capacities and their impact on scientific progress.
Transcripts
what you say though about the
limitations that this imposes on us
prompts in me that the following thought
we're all very used I think to the idea
that in social life each one of us as
individuals tends to construct a picture
of the world around his own experience
and indeed we it's difficult to see how
we could do anything else we're bound to
do that we've got no alternative but it
does mean that each one of us forms a
systematically distorted view of the
world because it's in it because it's
all uh built up on what accidentally
happens to be the particular and really
rather narrow experience of the
individual who does it now do you think
that something of that kind applies to
man as a whole
because of the reasons implicit in your
theory that is to say that the the whole
picture that mankind has formed of the
cosmos of the universe of the world
to be systematically distorted and
what's more drastically Limited
by the nature of the particular
apparatus for understanding that he
happens to have
well I think that is undoubtedly the
case but again I would question the use
of the word limited which carries
unfortunate suggestions that is I assume
that
one of our faculties one of our mental
organs if you like is let's call it a
science forming capacity capacity to
create intelligible explanatory theories
in some domain and if we look at the
history of science we discover that time
after time when particular questions
were posed at a particular level of
understanding it was possible to make a
very Innovative
leaps of the imagination to Rich
explanatory theories that
presented an intelligible picture of
that subdomain of the universe often
wrong theories as we later discovered
but there's a course that's followed and
this gives this could have been the case
only because we do have and we in fact
share across the species a kind of a
science forming capacity that is that
limits us as you say but at the same in
the Same by the same token provides the
possibility of creating explanatory
theories that extend so vastly far
beyond any evidence that's available I
mean it's very important to realize that
should be
obvious say but it's worth saying that
when when is when a new theory is
created and I don't necessarily mean
Newton I mean even a small Theory what
the scientist is typically doing
uh first of all he has very limited
evidence the theory goes far far beyond
the evidence secondly much of the
evidence that's available is typically
disregarded that is it's put to the side
in the hope that somebody else will take
care of it someday and we can forget
about it so at every stage in the
history of science there's uh even
normal science not you know coonian
revolutions there's a high degree of
idealization that goes on so this
selection of evidence Distortion of
evidence creation of new Theory uh
confirmation or refutation or
modification of that theory further
idealization these are all very curious
steps now we're capable of nevertheless
we can often make them and make them in
a way which is intelligible to others it
doesn't look like some random act of the
imagination and where that's possible we
can we can develop intelligible theories
we can gain some comprehension of the
nature of this aspect of the world now
this is Possible only because we are
rigidly pre-programmed again because we
have somehow
developed through Evolution or however
the specific faculty of forming very
particular theories of course it follows
it once or at least follow it's
reasonable to assume that this very
faculty which enables us to construct
extremely rich and successful theories
in some domain
may lead us very far astray in some
other domain for example there may be
some you know again a martian scientist
looking at us and observing our
successes and errors from a higher
intelligence let's say might be bemused
to discover that whereas in some domains
we seem to be able to make scientific
progress in other domains we always seem
to be running up against a blank wall
because our minds are so constructive
that we just can't
make the intellectual leap that's
required we can't formulate the concepts
we don't have the categories that are
required to gain insight into that
domain
our study of our language forming
capacity and hence our cognitive
capacities as you call them our
abilities to know and understand and
learn
if these studies that you're pioneering
result in an enormously amount of
increased knowledge of all these human
faculties do you think it's at all
likely that that increased knowledge
will will enable us to change and indeed
expand the faculties
that I think is extremely unlikely
because I think the faculties are a
biological given we may study the
structure of the heart but we don't do
so because we think it's possible to
replace the Heart by another kind of
pump say which might be more efficient
uh
similarly here I think if if we ever did
gain a real comprehension of the mental
organs
we would not we might that might help us
in cases of pathology
uh marginal cases in other words but I
wouldn't see how that could have anyway
at least with our present science of our
you know plausible science of modifying
these capacities what we might do
however is gains I mean at least it's in
theory imaginable that we might discover
something about the limits of our
science forming abilities we might
discover for example that some kinds of
questions simply fall beyond the area
where we are capable of constructing
explanatory theories and I think we even
maybe now have some glimmerings of
insight into where this delineation
might be between intelligible theories
that fall within our comprehension and
areas where no such theory is possible
well the case that we discussed before
may be one take take the question of
if you go back to the you know take go
back to the early histories of Science
History of Science early origins of
science speculation and people were
raising questions about say the heavenly
bodies uh and about the sources of Human
Action
well we're asking exactly the same
questions now about the source of human
action there's been no progress we have
no idea how to approach this question
within the framework of science we can
write novels about it but we can't
construct even false scientific theories
about it we simply have nothing to say
when we ask uh the question how does a
person make a decision
in a certain Manner and not some other
manner when it's a free decision that we
just have no way of dealing with that
issue on the other hand the history of
physics let's say has had substantial
advances and uh very it's very likely I
think that that
massive difference in progress in one
domain and an absolute blank wall and
another reflects the specific properties
of our science forming capacities we
might even be able to show that someday
if it's true
[Music]
thank you
[Music]
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